He stopped dead in his tracks and thrust his face nearer, then suddenly he cried: 'Blow me if this 'ere chap ain't one o'they hisself!'
'What's that!' snapped Cattermole and in a second a score of figures had crowded round them.
'E's one of they,' declared the farmer angrily, 'him an' his khaki boys took a dozen hins an' a pig off me three weeks ago I'll swear to he and no mistake.'
A growling murmur ran through the hollow eyed throng as they pressed nearer, and when a rasping voice cried:
'Hang 'un then,' the cry was repeated from a dozen throats: 'Yes, hang 'un hang 'un!'
Too late Kenyon realised his crass stupidity in not having forced a passage in the road. Gregory would have done so, even at the price of killing half a dozen of these poor devils but, like a fool, he'd stopped to parley and now it looked as if his reluctance to shoot down unarmed men was likely to cost him his life.
Even now it was Ann who urged him into action as she clutched his arm and whispered fiercely: 'Shoot, Kenyon! Shoot! It's your only chance!'
'Run for it then I’ll follow if I can.' He thrust her from him and pressed the trigger of his gun.
Rush had caught her words and flung himself on her as she spoke, and with a sudden wrench she twisted from his grip and, ducking under the arm of another man, fled up the slope.
The man in front of Kenyon gave a gasp and, clasping his hands to his stomach, sank to his knees. The revolver cracked again and another livid spurt of flame lit the darkness. The red faced farmer let out a howl of pain and, tumbling into the heather, clutched at a shattered knee cap, but the others were upon him before he could fire again.
A heavy cudgel caught him on the shoulder, a piece of wood with a nail driven through the end descended on his upper arm, and as he stepped back, bashing sideways at a nearby face with the butt of his pistol, another cudgel came down upon his head.
His weapon was wrested from him and with the blood streaming into his eyes he fell half fainting to the ground. Someone kicked him savagely in the ribs, and a second blow on the head as he lay gasping in the heather made him see a horrid succession of bright stars and circles'" until blackness supervened and he lost consciousness.
Only the efforts of the gaitered Cattermole saved him from being kicked to death there and then, but he stood over Kenyon's prostrate body and drove off his followers with an angry snarl.
'Stop it, you fools,' he shouted, 'He'll be more use to us alive than dead and you can always hang him later.'
With surly looks they reluctantly gave up the lynching, and instead tied Kenyon's hands and feet, then left him.
By that time he was beginning to come round. Vague thoughts of Ann in Gloucester Road and the Mid Suffolk Election came to him, but as he struggled feebly to sit up the full realisation of his wretched position flooded his mind.
He lay very still then, reasoning that no crowd, however maddened by fear and hunger, ever hanged an unconscious man. To be a really sporting event the victim should be dragged screaming to the gallows, or at least be sufficiently conscious to kick lustily as he is hauled off the ground, and Kenyon meant to postpone his threatened execution to the last possible minute.
Inch by inch, with the most desperate care not to attract attention, he shifted his position slightly so that he could see what was going on, and found that he was lying a little outside the circle of light upon the rim of the small natural amphitheatre. He searched the crowd swiftly for signs of Ann, but she was nowhere to be seen and he gave a sigh of relief at the thought that she must have got away, only a moment later realising with a new wave of distress that she, like himself, might quite possibly be trussed and lying hidden in the heather.
Cattermole stood near the blaze, his arms akimbo and his hat perched well upon the back of his semi bald head. He was addressing the gathering in short sharp sentences, and as Kenyon listened, he caught both the trend of the speech and the reason for the crowd's violent hostility to himself. The last rousing sentences came clearly on the night air.
'Didn't they?' he cried with a challenging note. 'And what right have they to do that? None say I! Not under law or reason, soldiers as they may be. Property is property and if a man's no right to keep the hins what he's bred what rights has he got I'd like to know? It's every man for himself these days, not to mention the wife and kid's he's got to fend for. So, if you're game to back me up I'll lead the crowd of you down to Shingle Street and we'll teach these thieving soldiers a thing or two. There's not many of them but there's a lot of us, and if we stick together we'll be having a square meal that we've a right to before the morning.'
Loud shouts of approbation greeted the conclusion of Cattermole’s impassioned oratory, and Kenyon let his aching head sink back in the heather while a host of new thoughts struggled with the pain for supremacy in his mind.
These were wretched people whose homes they had robbed and looted, now banded together and planning a bloody revenge. He must warn Gregory! But how could he? His own skin needed saving first and of that there seemed little enough hope. The cords which bound him were cutting into his flesh already and he knew from his first efforts to free himself when still half conscious that his bonds had been tied with savage tightness. His friends at Shingle Street would be surprised and massacred but no, it was far more likely that Gregory's sentries would rouse the garrison, and this unwieldy crowd, surging forward in the darkness, be mown down by the blast of the machine guns, or caught as they fled in the treacherous pits and nets.
Both alternatives were horrible to visualise but Kenyon had little time for further speculation. A burst of cheering came from the dell and two men running up the bank seized him and pulled him to his feet.
He kept his eyes fast shut and tried to make himself a dead weight, but someone flung a pannikin of water in his face and his eyes flickered open at the shock. It was useless to pretend any longer that he was still knocked out.
His feet were untied and with his arms still bound behind him he was pushed roughly into the centre of the crowd.
'We're going to Shingle Street,' said Cattermole briefly ‘they’ve got arms there haven't they?'
'Yes,' said Kenyon, 'plenty. So unless you all want to get killed, you'd better keep away.'
'That's my business how about sentries?'
'Yes, they've got sentries too. You'll never take them by surprise. For God's sake be warned in time.'
'You can keep your warnings. What's the password?'
'There isn't one.
'Naturally you'd say that, you thieving, murdering swine, but I'll unloose your tongue. Bring me a faggot, Rush.'
Rush pulled a long branch from the blazing pile and Cattermole took it from him: 'Now, are you going to talk?'
'I can't,' protested Kenyon, 'there is no password.
You'll be met by the ordinary challenge that's all.'
'Hold him, chaps.' As Kenyon's arms were seized from behind, Cattermole thrust the lighted end of the faggot against his chest. He flung back his head in quick recoil, choking as the stench of burning clothing filled his nostrils.
'I can't,' he gasped again, struggling violently with his captors as the sharp pain seared his chest. 'If I said “stale fish” you might believe me, but there is no password.'
Cattermole removed the brand and nodded with slow understanding. 'All right,' he muttered, 'I reckon that's the truth, but what's the most likely spot to get through the sentries, eh?' He advanced the red hot piece of wood again threateningly.
Kenyon, the water starting from his eyes, sought wildly for some sympathetic face among the crowd, but their famished features showed only grim approval of their leader's tactics and a hard, gloating amusement.
'Don't be a fool,' he protested, 'if I tell you, what guarantee have you got that I'm not lying; and they'll shoot you down whichever way you try to rush them.'