Nor were the restrengthened defenses lacking firearms and artillery wherein to use the new plentitude of gunpowder, for immediately old Geoffrey Musgrave found himself in command of a score of experienced fighters rather than the scratch force of servants and farmhands with which he had so stoutly defended the wing of the hall, he had ridden forth with Sir David’s head impaled on his lance point, gathering more fighters as he rode. His raiders, by purest chance, came upon the baggage-and-booty train of the late Sir David, ambushed it, coldly butchered the guards and drivers, and brought it in triumph back to Whyffler Hall.
As for the unlamented Sir David’s main force of nearly two thousand border Scots, other foreigners, and assorted outlaws and broken men from both sides of the border, Foster still laughed when he thought of that rout. A night attack, led by the Jeep pickup—its muffler removed, its lights glaring, and its hornbutton taped down—expertly driven by Carey Carr with Foster literally “riding shotgun,” the jouncing bed containing Bill Collier, Buddy Webster, Pete Fairley, Dave Atkins, and Henry Turnbull and his eldest son (these being the only two contemporary men other than Geoff Musgrave, who was needed to lead the main force, with the courage to undertake a ride in this devilish contrivance) and every firearm in Foster’s modest collection.
Terror-stricken, the highly superstitious marauders had fled the roaring, hlaring, fire-spitting demon without any hint of a stand. Only the rare foeman remained long enough to snatch up more than his filthy breacan-feile—the “belted tartan” which was dress during the day and blanket at night—and fewer still stopped by the picket line. Most left barefoot and unarmed, and headed north for the border, as fast as their hairy shanks would carry them. Hundreds were ridden down to be lanced, shot, hacked, or simply trampled before Musgrave could recall his small troop and point out to them the dangers of a night pursuit. He had not needed to add that, afoot and weaponless, few would make it back to Scotland, not through the countryside they themselves had ravaged so short a time agone.
Just outside the gate stood the emptied trailer trucks. After the superhuman labor of getting them to Whyffler Hall, it had been discovered that they were too high to pass through the gate, so they had been emptied, stripped of everything that looked usable, and were presently being used to house some of the villager refugees.
It was the load of one of the trucks that had impelled Sir Francis to ride and seek the sovereign. Careful experiments on the parts of Professor Collier, Foster, Pete Fairley, and Musgrave had determined that a superior gunpowder could be fabricated through substitution of the chemical fertilizer the truck had borne for raw niter. Now several tons of this powder reposed in a newly dug powderhouse, but supplies of charcoal and sulfur had been expended, while nearly eighty tons of fertilizer remained.
Too, there was the immense horse herd that their military actions had amassed. There was little enough grain to feed the folk, much less several hundred animals. The canny Musgrave had chosen the best of the unclaimed stock to add to Sir Francis’ stable and to mount the troop of lances he was recruiting, but the large remainder could only be turned out to find their own forage in park and lea.
Sir Francis set a fast pace, cross-country, but straight as an arrow was his route. Shortly before dusk, they forded the Rede and, just as the moon was arising, reined up at the challenge of a knot of well-armed riders. When Sir Francis answered in a dear, ringing voice, a squat, broad man on a tall, powerful destrier separated from the group and kneed his mount forward.
“Be it truly ye, Francis? We’d heard the thrice-domned Scots had slain ye an’ young Cuthbert an’ razed y’r hall. Ye got away, did ye, then?”
Chuckling, Sir Francis signaled Foster and Collier to follow and rode to meet the speaker, saying, “Better than that, Johnny, far better than that. Well tell an’ that, soon. But we’ve rode hard, this day, we’re drier nor Satan’s backside and of a hunger to boil up our boots. Where be y’r famous hospitality, John Heron?”