The Flood by John Creasey Read Free Book Online Page A

few years ago, Sir Gabriel Davos had bought it.
    It was the talk of the Western Highlands; one of the first things he’d been told about. Davos, the Castle, and his zoo! Up here, remote from the world, another millionaire owner had brought animals from all over the world; it was the largest private zoo in Britain, perhaps in Europe.
    Woburn drove round and round the bends, often at a crawl. The fall on the left was very steep; and his nerves weren’t good. For the first time since he had carried Eve Davos up the hill, he began to sweat.
    He turned a corner.
    Just round it lay a boulder that stood as high as the front of the car. It sat squarely in the middle of the road, and he hadn’t a chance to squeeze through on either side, hadn’t a chance to stop before he hit it. He didn’t think, except of the dread danger of crashing down that hillside, perhaps bursting into flames, but his reflexes worked like lightning. Foot stabbing on brake, hand at hand-brake handle, shoulders back and body tense to stand the shock and save himself from smacking his head on the windscreen.
    Crash.
    He felt the jolt, savagely. It pulled the wheel out of his grasp but didn’t fling him forward enough to do harm. Would he go over? There could only be inches between him and the drop; and it would be a drop to death. He heard the rending sound as the radiator was stove in, but he’d stopped. He’d stopped. He sat quite still, staring at the boulder, at the crumpled radiator, and the hissing steam from the escaping water. He was stuck here. He couldn’t hope for help without walking back for it, and—
    What was the boulder doing there, anyhow?
    There was the rocky hillside above; there were warnings about falling rocks, but – this looked as if it had been placed there.
    He saw a man scrambling over the rocks on the right, about twenty yards ahead of him; and he saw another, crouching below the road and peering over the edge on the left. The scrambling man held a cudgel in his right hand.
    Woburn sat there – until the man jumped down. He saw the face clearly; he had seen men look like it often enough before: Japs in Burma, Chinese in Malaya, for instance, and you didn’t live long if you failed to recognise it. This was an ambush and he was the victim; the only difference between this and one in Malaya was the colour of the skin of the man rushing at him.
    The man shouted: “ Get behind him!”
    There was the man on the left.
    In a closed car, Woburn wouldn’t have had a chance. In the open M.G., there was a slim one. Two to one, and the two armed with cudgels, made odds he could not fight and win. So it was fight or run.
    He sprang over the side of the car, on the right. The man in that hedge was scrambling through now, and they were almost level with each other; the fatal thing would be to allow the other to get behind him. The first man, only ten feet away, was rushing along with the upraised cudgel.
    Woburn had no weapon.
    There was loose gravel at the side of the road.
    He stooped down and snatched a handful and flung it into the nearer man’s face; flung a second at the man with the cudgel. He heard the gasp as the gravel struck the first man, and then turned and ran.
    He heard the men scrambling, then footsteps on the road.
    He heard a shout: “ Get him!”
    He turned his head, and saw both of them, this side of the M.G. now, and one of them held not a cudgel but a gun. That couldn’t be mistaken. The narrow road was an aid to shooting, and the man could hardly miss; he was only thirty feet away.
    There was a gap in the rocks which rose above Woburn, and inside the gap he might find cover.
    Woburn leapt towards the gap, as he heard the crack of the shot. Nothing touched him. Now rocks hid him; and he had won back hope. The gap was an old quarry, with a path leading back to the road a hundred yards farther on. Big rocks dotted it. He didn’t pause to think, didn’t even wonder what this was all about; he just had to save his