Where the Action Is

Chapter 8 - The Battle of Fort Madeleine

After a week went by on the fort and nothing extraordinary happened, everyone stopped looking out for their enemies so much. The crew still kept vigil, but not with as much caution as before. And so, when a small boat set out from the bay under Grey House, it was not noticed. It was late evening on the eighth day since Jack, Juliett, Max and Impie had arrived on the fort, and Dirk Harvey was on the air. Everyone else was in the mess, except one member of the crew, who was on watch, and two engineers, who were in the transmitter room.

Jack, Juliett and Adrian Leslie were discussing records. Max was talking to the Captain, and Impie and Alan Love were deep in conversation. After a while, Adrian, Jack and Juliett wandered out of the fort onto the gangway around it. The sky was getting darker, the stars were coming out. The sea air was fresh and clear. They wandered across the catwalk to the central tower, and then over to the Shore-facing Tower. There they stood gazing out over the sea towards St Felix Bay and the Abbey Isle with the ruined towers standing up on it, darker than the surrounding gloom, against the sea, which was vaguely luminous. Then they saw it, Jack saw it first, a smallish boat, coming fast towards them over the waters. It showed no lights, so they had not noticed it before. One thought sprang up in their minds at once, the smugglers had found out, and were coming, bent on revenge.

They dashed into Shore Tower. Adrian was ahead of eceryone else, and he was in the tower first. He grabbed for the switch of the intercom, newly fitted up by the engineers.

‘Boat arriving! Stand by to repel boarders!’ he shouted into the mouthpiece, and then again; ‘Boarders! Stand by to do battle!! All hands on deck!’

And then he rushed out of the door again. He saw the boat was much closer. Grabbing Jack and Juliett he rushed them through the door, across the catwalk, round the Central Tower, and across a catwork to the tower which housed the kitchens and mess. Everyone had heard his message and was galvanised into action. Rick the steward had grabbed a toasting-fork, Johann the cook had a frying pan full of sausages.

There was a quick conference. It was decided to guard the Shore Tower most, they were bound to try to land there first. Jacky, Marty and Chuck, the engineers, rushed off to batten down the hatches. They decided that Dirk Harvey should carry on with his programme, but that he should tell the shore that they were about to be invaded, so as to alert everyone. Alan Love was sent off to the Central Tower to tell Dirk what to do. The Captain went off to Shore Tower to call the shore on the short-wave radio. In a few minutes, there was someone on each tower, armed with some strange weapon. Two of the crew members, Jacky, Marty and the Captain were on Shore Tower, Adrian and one of the crew members were on the Central Tower, Rick and Sean Perry was on the South Towres, Norman Clive, Yale Ross and Johann the cook were on the East Towers, and Alan Love was guarding the lonely North Tower. Jack Juliett, Max and Impie were told to hide in the transmitter room, so that the crooks would not find them easily, if they managed to get aboard the forts.

They kept a good look-out now. The intercom was kept open at all times. From the top of Shore Tower, Jacky and Marty watched as the motor-boat drew closer and closer. They could see that there were about five men in the boat. They could not see whether they were armed or not. Marty went down to the Captain at the intercom. The rest of the fort was told that there were five of them. Captain Jan Nielson warned everyone to grab the nearest weapon and stand by.

Up on the top of the Central Tower, by the mast, stood Adrian Leslie, armed with a native spear, which Yale Ross had brought back from a holiday in Mombasa. Marc de Ver, the crew member who was also guarding the tower with him, came and told him the news of how they had seen five men on the boat, and that they would arrive any time. Then Marc went back to his post at the door to the tower, with a box of broken valves and records to throw at the enemy. And even as he got to his post, Max and Impie came running up, followed by Jack and Juliett.

‘It’s not fair that we should hide, and let you risk your lives for us. We want to help!’ said Max.

‘No, said Marc. ‘They’d shoot you as soon as look at you! If you want to help, stay inside, and guard the studio, in case they do get that far. Grab any weapon that’s lying around, so long as it’s nothing important.’

So they went inside the tower. In the anteroom to the studio, they found a length of cable. Max went out again and over to the East towers and got some brooms and a mop out of a cupboard in the kitchen. He was only a few minutes, but when he returned with his weapons, the boarders’ boat had already arrived, and everyone was in action.

A few yards from the foot of Shore Tower, the boat stopped. One of the five men in the boat had a special gun to shoot a grappling hook up over the deck-rails of the fort. The hook had a thick, long, very tough rope attached to it for the boarders to swarm up. The hook was fired up. It held strongly against the rails. The boarders drove their boat up to the foot of the tower, so as to have their rope at right angles, and safer. But Marty the engineer saw their hook, and knocked it off into the sea. It did not sink very far, because of the rope attached to it.

Undaunted, the crooks fished it out and fired it up again. The rope was like a ladder with footholds on it, and the crooks sent one of their number up as quickly as possible. Marty found that the man’s weight made it harder to remove the grapple. The man was climbing higher, higher, when Jon Konrad, the strong Negro member of the crew, came to Marty’s aid, followed by Jacky and Orson, the others who were guarding Short Tower. Jon had the cook’s large knife, very sharp, and he leant over the railing and with one slack of the knife with his powerful arm, he severed the rope, and boarder and rope splashed into the cold, dark sea. Orson knocked off the grappling hook, and it sank like a stone into the sea far below. The men gave up trying to board that tower, seeing how well-guarded it was, and so they moved off to the Central Tower by a roundabout route, so that it would seem that they were leaving.

Jon went into the tower and reported the events on the intercom.

‘They have left this tower, but I don’t think that they’ve given up, so look out for them,’ he said.

In the Central Tower, Jack, Juliett, Max and Impie listened to what Jon said, then they went out to tell Marc that their enemies had gone away from Shore Tower. Marc climbed the steps at the side of the doorway to tell Adrian up on the roof.

Meanwhile the boarding party was reconsidering what to do next. One of their members now was soaking wet, from when he had fallen in the North Sea after Jon had cut his rope. After a conference it was decided to try to board the Central Tower, get up to the roof, and put the mast out of action. Then they would overpower the guards who were left, and take over. They had one grappling hook left, and they decided to send up one man first, who would climb up to the roof, overpower any guards, and short-circuit the mast with special wires, then, when his work was discovered, and chaos resulted, he would get into the fort, undo the hatch and let the others in. They decided further details of their plan, and then turned their boat around towards the Central Tower, now dark against a dark sky.

Marc de Ver wa now parading around the deck of the tower. Jack, Juliett and Impie were in the main passageway, guarding the hatch, and max was at the studio door with a mop, to try to stop any intruder entering. Adrian was looking out from the roof of the tower, in a forest of stays for the mast. But the smugglers were so quiet, and the night was so dark, that no-one saw the small boat move up to the legs on which the tower stood. They fitted the grapple to a length of thick rope, put the grapple into their gun, aimed it and fired. The grapple caught on the railing around the fort, and held firm. By a stroke of fate, Marc de Ver had been on the other side of the fort, so he did not see the hook arrive.

The boarding party sent up their second-in-command, with an automatic pistol and some wire to fuse the mast. He had a large wire-cutter as well, and if he spent some time on it, he could sever vital wires. He had a signal torch also, to signal when he was ready for the others. When he signalled, another would come up the rope, and together they would open the hatch in the floor of the tower, having overpowered any guards. Then the rest of the party would come up.

With his plans clear in his mind, the boarder climbed the rope. As he reached the top of the rope, he saw Marc de Ver walk past. He hung in space, waiting for Marc to go. Then he climbed aboard the tower, unsen. He now had to get up on the roof of the tower. Hiding in the deep shadows, he crept around to the door. Marc de Ver had his back to him. He saw that the steps to the roof were just where the door had been built so as to jut out from the rest of the fort. Silently he crept up to the steps. Marc de Ver had gone around the corner and so the intruder reached the roof in safety. Then he saw Adrian, outlined in black against the sky, with the spear in his hand. The uninvited guest gained the roof, and took the pistol from his pocket. With hardly a sound he crept up on Adrian.

It seemed as though Adrian was doomed. The pistol had a silencer. No-one would know until it was too late. However, Adrian’s senses were sharp, and alert. At bay, he turned round with the spear at the ready. Even as he turned, the moon came out from behind a cloud, illuminating all in a silvery glow. Adrian saw the glint of the pistol in his adversary’s hand, and knew that he must act at once. Before the boarder knew what was happening, Adrian’s spear lashed out, caught the gun and knocked it over to the other side of the tower. Startled, the man hesitated for a moment, then leapt at Adrian. Adrian held him back with the shaft of his spear. His enemy tried to wrest it from his grasp, but he could not. He tried to advance towards the mast, but Adrian forced him back again. He held the spear shaft in both hands and forced the man back with it. But, the man recovered his strength, and he began to force Adrian back. He tried to get the wire-cutter from his pocket to attack his young enemy with it. Adrian seemed so slight, he was sure that if he disarmed him, he would easily beat him. Holding back Adrian with one hand for a moment, he tried to get the cutter from his pocket. Adrian was wise to him, and he pressed down his spear against his opponent. He brought the point of it against the villain’s arm, and for a moment the man was still, trying to put Adrian off-guard. He succeeded. Suddenly he threw himself up at Adrian, startled him, and he loosened his grip on the spear. Then Adrian was on his back, and his enemy’s hands were at his throat. Adrian dropped his spear, but with all the strength he had left he brought his knees into his adversary’s chest. The man fell back for a minute. Then the fight was with fists. The enemy saw his gun lying on the other side of the mast, and he tried to reach it.

Then, the people on Shore Tower saw the battle, and realised that Adrian needed help. Marty called Marc de Ver on the intercom, and Jon and Orson ran over to the Central Tower. While they were getting there, Adrian had broken out of the other’s grip, and had grabbed the spear again. He ran to where the gun was, and, as the man leapt at him, he flicked the gun with the spear point. It flew through the air, over the edge of the tower, and fell with a faint splash into the sea. Now Adrian was forcing the other away from the mast. But the enemy was furious now. He took the wire-cutter out of his pocket, and tried to hit Adrian on the head with it. There was another fight, to and fro, as Jon, Marc and Orson arrived. Adrian and the man were fighting at the very edge of the tower. The man had Adrian by the shoulder, and all Adrian’s efforts to hole him back were useless. The spear was no longer in Adrian’s hand. The man had knocked it from his grasp. Now he stood at the very edge of the tower, and raised the cutter. But as he brought it down on Adrian, the others arrived. Startled, he did not look what he was doing. He managed to his poor Adrian, true, but, as Adrian fell, the other lost his balance, and pitched over the railing and into the sea far below, because the edge of the roof was slippery.

Jon rushed to where Adrian lay, followed by Orson and Marc. They bent over him, and Orson laid a hand on his chest.

‘He’s still alive. I think he’s only stunned. If it hadn’t been for him, goodness knows what would have happened,’ he said.

‘I think we had better take him away and put him somewhere quiet,' said Jon.

There was a trapdoor in the roof which opened onto some steps inside the tower. They decided it would be safer to take Adrian down through there. They found it had not been locked, so Marc opened it, and Jon took Adrian in his arms, because he was very strong, and, with Orson going first to make sure the way was clear, he carried him down to the ante-room of the studio. Max was there, and he wanted to know what happened. Marc told him briefly, and Jon went on, carrying Adrian. When they reached the passageway where Jack, Juliett and Impie were, they told them briefly what had happened, and asked them if they would help Jon put him on the bed in his room in the South Tower. They agreed. Orson and Marc went back to their posts, while Jon took Adrian over the catwalk to the other forts.

Meanwhile the Captain had called up the rest of the fort and told them to keep constant watch now. Jacky and Marty went along the catwalk to the Central Tower to see if there was any sign of the boat. However, the boarding party was busy fishing its member out of the water. When they had rescued him, they decided to try once more if the grapple was till there. They drove the boat to where the grapple was, but as they got there, Jacky, who was systematically searching everywhere, now saw it, and saw the length of rope hanging from it. Now Jacky did not like wastage, so he hauled up the rope just as the frustrated boarders came beneath it. They realised that it was no use trying again yet, the ‘pirates’ were aware of them and were twice as alert. Besides, two of them were very wet. So they turned their boat around and moved off into the darkness. Jacky watched them until he was sure they had gone, then he called Shoe Tower on the intercom and told the Captain.

The Captain decided that there should now be someone on duty at all times, but he set most of the people to clearing up and putting things back where they found them. For a while, the forts were peaceful again. The battle was over, and Radio Madeleine was still on the air. Dirk Harvey had carried on his sown in spite of everything. Rick the steward went in to see how Adrian was. Poor Adrian was the only casualty, but he was not badly hurt. Jack was bathing a cut on his forehead, and Rick got gome antiseptic for her to put on it. Soon, under Jack and Juliett’s tender care, he came back to consciousness. So this raid had not been successful.