A hundred yards from his starting point, he heard, from somewhere far ahead, the unmistakable bass bellow of Sir Francis’ aurochs horn, calling his officers to him: At almost the same instant, he spotted familiar trappings on a fallen horse.
The big, black mare was dead and Foster first thought the rider dead as well, until he noticed the shaking of the man’s shoulders, the tight clasp of the arms about that stiffening neck—until he heard the gut-wrenching sobs.
Leaving Prideful where the gelding stood, he leaned over and gently shook the man, sucking enough blood from his tooth-torn lip to prime his throat for speech. “Guy, Guy, are you wounded? It’s me, Bass, Bass Foster.”
After a moment, the long-bodied man humped up his flat buttocks, got his short, slightly bowed legs under him, and came to his knees. He had thrown off his helmet, and the wind-driven spray had quickly plastered his dull hair to his dirty nape. Black blood was crusted over and beneath a shallow cut under one bleary, teary brown eye.
Gulping back a sob, he answered, “Nae, Bass, I be wi’oot wound. But m’ puir, baw Bess be dead.” Fresh tears trickled down his black-stubbled cheeks, his gaze wandering back to the dead warhorse, from the flank of which the spray and persistent drizzle were slowly laving away the wide streaks of foam.
Grabbing the shoulder of the buffcoat, Foster shook the man again, harder. “I’m sorry about your mare, Guy, but she’s not the only dead thing on this beach; there’s more dead horses, and dead or dying men, too. You’re the first officer I’ve come across. You have to take command of our troop, rally them. And see if anyone has some powder; the scrub brush back yonder could be hiding a hundred Irishmen. I have to report to Sir Francis, immediately.”
If the grieving man heard him, he gave no indication of the fact. Tenderly brushing grains of sand from off the glazing eye of the carcass, he sobbed, “Puir, gude beastie, faithful tae the last, y’ were. Y run y’r noble hairt oot, y did. An’ a’ for me. Fie, braw lassie, ne’er wi’ it be ane other like tae ya.”
As the grief-stricken man’s body inclined forward again, Foster took firm hold of the other shoulder as well and hauled him back onto his knees.
“Goddammitall, Squire Guy Dodd, you’ve got to take over command until I get back! Snap out of it, man. D’you hear me? I said, snap out of it!”
Still getting no reaction, Foster drew back his gauntleted right hand and dealt Dodd’s gashed left cheek a stinging slap, followed by a backhand buffet to the right one, then again, with back and palm, and yet again. His Mows reopened the clotted cut and fresh, bright-red blood poured over the old to drip from the square chin.
Then the brown eyes sparked with rage and, powered with a rush of adrenaline, the Northumbrian lieutenant stumbled to his feet, his hand fumbling for the hilt of his broadsword.
“Y’ whoreson! Ill hae oot y’r wormy lights!”
Stepping over the outstretched neck of the dead mare, Foster again grabbed both the wide-spreading shoulders and shook the stocky little man, while lifting him from off his feet with a strength he would have doubted he could summon up.
“Now damn you, Guy, listen to me! I’m called to Sir Francis, to the south, there. The men have got to be rallied and you’ve got to do it; we could be attacked by hidden stragglers any minute. There’s not another officer or sergeant in sight, so you’re volunteered. Take over, now!”
Continuing up the beach, toward the sound of the rally-horn, Foster took the time to cursorily examine each corpse he came across, seeking potable water and gunpowder. That was how he happened upon the strange body.
It was the unusual pair of boots that first drew his attention to the particular corpse, lying well above the surf line among a huddle of other dead Irishmen, apparently a group that had made a suicidal stand, perhaps to allow some high-ranking notables to gain the safety of the sea.
Dazed with exhaustion, thirst, and hunger as he was, it took him a minute or so to comprehend just what was so odd about the boots on that one man. Then it came to him: in this world, every pair of indigenously fashioned boots or bro-gans he had seen were straight-sided; that is, each boot would fit either right or left foot . . . but not those of this dead man; like Foster’s own, they were properly curved—one for only right, one for only left.