‘Quiet!’ Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood called for silence. The hunters were gathered in a perplexed knot where the two ditches met. ‘Sergeant Lynch?’
‘Sir!’
‘You’re sure it was here?’
‘Certain, sir.’
Girdwood sent the eight dismounted sergeants westward. ‘Form a line there! We’ll drive him towards you. Gentlemen!’ He beckoned at his horsemen. ‘Five yards apart! Go slowly!’
It took a few moments for Girdwood to be satisfied with the alignment of his men, then, dropping his sabre as if he gave a signal on a battlefield, he walked his horsemen forward. ‘Search every shadow!’
Captain Finch was the southernmost horseman, the one closest to the camp, and the man whose advance would bring him directly to Harper’s hiding place. Finch held his carbine with the reins in his left hand and the sword in his right. He probed with the long blade into every deep shadow and fingered the carbine’s trigger in case his sword should roust the fugitive out of hiding.
Harper, when the hunters had gathered to hear Girdwood’s orders, had slid a few feet further down the ditch. He waited now, knowing that the line was coming towards him, and knowing, too, that the swords and sabres that stabbed down were his danger. Thirty yards behind Harper, muskets loaded and primed, the sergeants waited.
Captain Finch spurred over a bare patch of grass and sliced his sword down into a shadow. As he did it, the shadow seemed to flicker and disappear, a new light challenged the moon, and he looked southwards and saw, to his horror, that the stables were exploding into flame. ‘Fire!’
Sergeant Bennet almost obeyed, his finger tightening convulsively on the trigger before he saw that the horsemen were staring at the camp and at the roiling smoke that billowed up from the burning wooden stables.
Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, whose evening pleasure was already nightmarish enough, was trapped between his need to find the Irishman and his desperation to extinguish the sudden fire before it spread to the other buildings of his command. ‘Stay here, Finch! Come with me, Sergeant Major!’
Finch stared, appalled. He saw a horseman come out of the camp and trot towards the hunters, then the Colonel and Brightwell passed Finch, goading their horses into a canter on the treacherous ground. Finch, at the very edge of a small ditch that his sword would explore next, turned to shout orders to the remaining huntsmen when, inexplicably, his horse reared.
Finch leaned forward to soothe the horse, but still it rose, screaming in terror, then lurched sideways. The captain caught a glimpse of a man, black as the night, dripping and huge, who had erupted from the ditch to seize one of the horse’s forelegs and now, with massive strength, was tipping the beast over. Finch tried to hit the man with his carbine, but his hand was seized and he was pulled with dreadful force to fall at his attacker’s feet, while his frightened horse, released by Harper, skittered away.
‘Don’t move!’ Harper, stinking and filthy from the ditch, shouted at the sergeants. ‘I’ll kill him!’ They froze. The huge Irishman, dripping wet, had pulled the sword from Finch’s right hand and now held it at the officer’s throat.
Harper stripped the carbine from Finch, then pulled the ammunition pouch from the officer’s belt, breaking it free with a massive tug as if the two leather loops that held it were no stronger than rotted cotton. He looked up at the sergeants. ‘Step back! Step back!’ Then, from behind him, came the shout he had waited for.
‘Patrick! Patrick!’
Harper dropped the sword and dragged Finch backwards. He stumbled over the ditch, still watching the sergeants who, in turn, stared appalled as their prey, who had appeared from nowhere like an embodied shadow, dragged his hostage towards the lone horseman who came over the marsh.
Girdwood checked and turned his horse. He saw the Irishman dragging Finch backwards. He saw, too, the horseman who approached Harper’s rear and the Colonel supposed that the rider must be one of his own men. ‘Kill him! Kill him!’ But instead the rider dismounted beside the huge Irishman and Girdwood, frozen in indecision between the calamities on either hand, called out to his sergeants. ‘Kill them!’