Durante The Dog

I was right. At the lowest part of the sand bar the water was only ankle deep. As I approached the hard I looked carefully. There was no sign of life in the hut and Jem's boat was still thirty yards above the low tide. I went to the boat and looked inside. I put the rifle down carefully on the side away from the hut. There was no obvious drain plug around the inboard engine. Never mind. I raised Emma's axe and chopped at the bottom of the hull. It was solid wood. I had started a couple of planks and had made a foot wide hole when I heard a shout from the hut.

"Leave that boat alone!"

Jem had come out of the hut pulling a blanket bundled Emma with him. He had a revolver in his right hand. Unfortunately his dog had followed him. Durante saw the other dog and took off at speed.

"Call the dog off!" Jem shouted. He raised his revolver and fired into the air.

I couldn't call Durante back. He wouldn't hear me at that distance. I rested the rifle on the boat's gunwale and sighted a couple of feet above the hut's stovepipe chimney. I fired. A hole appeared in the chimney pipe before it clattered down behind the hut. I ducked down and adjusted the sight. When I looked again Durante and Jem's dog were rushing around each other with their tails wagging furiously. Durante was obviously no threat.

"Let Emma go!" I shouted. "The Police are on their way. You aren't going anywhere. Kidnapping is out of your league, Jem."

His shoulders slumped.

"I'll kill her if you come closer," he shouted back.

"You won't and I don't need to," I retorted. You are in range. I'm not. I could shoot you and riddle the hut without moving. Let Emma go and throw away the gun."

Jem threw the revolver about six feet away. It landed under a bounding Durante. He unknotted the pillowcase hooding Emma's head before pushing her in my direction. Encumbered as she was by the blanket and ropes around her she tottered slowly towards me. I kept my rifle covering Jem, moving so that Emma wasn't between me and him. Jem sat down on the hut's step, his head in his hands.

When Emma reached me I pulled her down behind Jem's boat. I cut off her gag first. She tried to speak but her mouth was too dry. I cut the ropes holding the blanket around her. Under the blanket her wrists and elbows were tightly tied. I cut those bonds too.

"It hurts," she croaked.

"Sorry, Emma," I said. "I can't do anything about that. If you rub your wrists it might get better."

I was still watching Jem closely, my rifle raised but not aimed directly at him. I didn't want to fire again. My first shot would have landed in empty marshland but if the Police were on their way, they would be approaching from that direction.

Emma kissed me on the cheek, being careful not to block my view of Jem.

"Jem is stupid," she whispered. "He is out of his depth. Stealing things is about all he is fit for. He and his brother were really worried once they had got me to the hut. They were arguing. They couldn't get me out to the Smiths' boat for hours and they didn't know when you would find Mum. They asked me. They'd gagged me so effectively that I couldn't tell them even if I wanted to. I thought you were coming at three, not this morning."

"I was. But I was walking Durante and he dashed into your bungalow."

"Good for Durante."

She looked across at the two dogs. Durante was jumping over and over Jem's dog that was cowering on the ground. Emma snuggled next to me.

A few minutes later we heard a truck engine. It stopped behind the sea wall. A line of soldiers' heads appeared, their rifles pointing at the hut.

"Jem!" I shouted. "The Army's here. You and your brother should surrender!"

Jem's brother came out of the hut slowly. Jem stood up. They both walked towards the sea wall with their hands in the air. Two policemen came forward and handcuffed them.

I took the clip out of the rifle and checked that the chamber was empty. I put it into Jem's holed boat before Emma and I walked towards the crowd of soldiers and policemen.

+++

In the next few hours Emma, Mrs Simkin and I spent most of our time in Constable Arkwright's living room being interviewed by senior policemen.

Mrs Simkin and I were forcefully reminded that we should not have had nor used an unlicensed rifle which was confiscated.

We were told that a Royal Navy minesweeper had intercepted the Smiths' boat which was hard aground on a sandbank. Fred Smith had tried to throw a small attaché case into the nearby channel. He had failed. It landed on the sand to be picked up by a sailor.

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It took months and the weeks of the court case before we found out what the Smiths were doing. Apparently they were associates of a Dutch criminal gang and smuggling raw diamonds into the UK by air. They were taking them by sea to a corrupt diamond cutter in Amsterdam. They brought some of the cut diamonds back into the UK for sale around London. But they were worried that the Dutch police were on to them. The Dutch police were close.

What the Smiths wanted to do was move the diamond cutter and his equipment to the Harbour Master's bungalow. Apart from it being isolated the major attraction was the post office equipment in the basement. During the war the Dutch resistance had been able to communicate by telephone without the Nazis knowing. It was something to do with the modern equipment in use in Holland. A telephone cable from Holland to England came ashore into the bungalow's basement. If the Smiths had access to that they could talk to their associates in Holland without anyone knowing. That wouldn't work anywhere else in the whole United Kingdom.

The police decided not to charge the Ansons with possession and use of the revolver in exchange for not dealing with Mrs Simkin and I for the rifle.

The Smiths' associates in Holland had caught the Ansons trying to steal some illegal diamonds in Amsterdam. They had enough evidence to get the Ansons convicted but decided that the Ansons would be useful assistants. They also didn't want more police attention to their diamond activities.

The Dutch and English police, along with the Customs and Excise and Coastguard, had been monitoring the Smiths' crossings to and from Amsterdam but hadn't got enough information to act until the Ansons abducted Emma. The low tide had been awkward but useful. The case thrown by Fred Smith had a fortune in newly cut diamonds.

The two Anson brothers were given five years in jail. The village turned on the whole Anson family. Tying up Mrs Simkin and kidnapping Emma was more than the village could stand. The rest of the Ansons left the village even before the court case ended.

The Smiths were sentenced to terms from fifteen to twenty-five years. There were several associated prosecutions in Holland.

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Mrs Simkin agreed to move into the Almshouse bungalow when it was finished. The plans were amended to give her a workroom/shop facing the street. Her customers and friends could drop in at any time. She could watch passers-by in the village's main street.

Emma and I used to walk Durante together as often as we could. Jem Anson's dog had been adopted by Don and his mother. Don was very proud of having his own dog.

I decided that we would make a start on making reasonable access to the bungalow even before Mrs Simkin moved to her new home. Dad and I agreed a route that made the best use of the existing concrete tracks. As a temporary measure we linked them with laid gravel carried and spread by Don who had work for months.

+++

Emma and I had wanted to get married on Valentine's Day. That was impossible. The court case was continuing then. Mrs Simkin wouldn't have a new home until early May. The wedding date was set for the first Saturday in June.

But we did celebrate Valentine's Day. We walked along the seawall to the end of the estuary. We turned on to the beach and walked side by side holding hands. We had left Durante with Mr Jefferies. As we walked, we kissed, stopped walking, kissed harder, and walked again.

That evening Emma and I hosted a party in The Wildfowler public house. Without the Ansons it was again a place for village people to meet. Almost all the village seemed to be there and delighted that Emma and I were to be married. The occasion seemed to have turned the villagers into lovers. Married people were kissing each other and swapping partners for more kisses. Those who weren't married were exploring the possibilities. Poor Don was used for practice by some of the village maidens. If a girl kissed Don it was meant to be a hint to her potential partner that kisses were available. Don didn't know that. He just enjoyed being kissed.

By the time of our wedding Don was engaged too. Rachel, one of the village women, had decided that Don was nicer than the man who had been mistreating her. He was, and is. Rachel will look after him, and Don will love her -- perhaps even more than he loves his dog and maybe as much as Don loves Durante.

Don's dog, formerly Jem's dog, produced four puppy versions of Durante, all with prominent noses. Don has promised one of them to us when we are married.

Durante the dog will live on.