To Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood, an officer of a country that still denied public office to Catholics, the crucifix added a patriotic spice to the night's events. He looked at the symbol, sneered, and tossed it into the ditch beside the road. He urged his horse forward and Harper, in the brilliant moonlight that was silvering the marsh, could see every detail of the Colonel's uniform and weapons. Girdwood looked down on the Irishman.
'I'm giving you a sporting chance. More than you deserve. You see that post? He pointed to a stake that was thrust into the far side of the marsh. 'You have twenty minutes to reach its safety. If you do it successfully I shall overlook your mutiny of today. If not? I shall punish you. You have two minutes lead over us and I wish you good luck. The mounted men smiled at the lie. Girdwood snapped the watch-lid open. 'Go!
For a second Harper did not move, so astonished was he by the turn the night had taken. He had expected a formal charge, a military court, and then, almost certainly, a beating. Instead he was to be hunted in the wetland. Then, knowing that every second counted, he ran northwards.
Girdwood watched him. 'Going straight for the mark. They always do. He spoke to Captain Finch, the second Captain at Foulness, who was Girdwood's partner for the hunt. Captain Smith, as officer of the day, was not with the hunters. This was not a sport Smith relished, though to protest was to open himself to Girdwood's scorn or worse.
Corporals stood on the embanked road that was raised two feet above the lowland. Their job was to cut off the southwards escape of the fugitive as well as to watch his every movement. Harper was dressed in a white shirt and light grey trousers which, though filthy, showed easily in the bright moonlight.
'One minute! Girdwood called out. Next to him Captain Finch drew his sword, the steel scraping on the scabbard's throat with a soft, sinister hiss.
In the marsh Harper ran desperately, stumbling on the soft patches, tripping on tussocks, going towards the tall pole that was his mark. He had counted sixteen hunters, could see, far off on the island's northern rim, the shapes of more men, but already, as a good Rifleman should, he was planning his battle. He ran as fast as he could, needing space in which to manoeuvre, but watching the ditches and tussocks like a hawk. He jumped the water clumsily, stumbled on a soft patch, then looked behind to see if his pursuers yet moved.
Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood laughed when the big man stumbled. 'He won't put up much of a fight, Finch.
'We can hope, sir. Finch, of an age with Girdwood, had the face of a drunkard. There was rum on his breath, but most of the men who would hunt the marsh this night carried liquor in their canteens.
'No. Girdwood was in high spirits. 'I know the Irish, Finch. They're cowards. They're happy to brawl, but they can't fight. Girdwood looked at his watch, snapped the lid shut, and thrust it into a pocket. 'Time, gentlemen! Good hunting! The horsemen whooped and spurred forward, while the Sergeants on foot, muskets loaded, went in a line to the west of the marsh. The hunt had started.
Harper heard the cries of the hunters and broke to his left. He knew he would not be friendless this night, but he knew, too, that his survival did not depend on Sharpe. Nor did Harper believe that, if he should reach the stake in the marsh, his life would be spared. These men smelt of death, but he grinned as he thought that they fought a Rifleman from Donegal. The bastards would suffer.
He saw the horsemen making a line to the east, the sergeants on foot going west, and he saw how they would make a great rectangle in the marsh, its other two sides formed by the guards to north and south. He turned abruptly back, aiming at a place he had spotted a moment before, and, reaching it, he fell flat.
'Mark him! Girdwood shouted. The big Irishman, three hundred yards from his nearest pursuers, had disappeared in the deep, moon-cast shadows. 'Watch that place! Drive him! Drive him!
The shout was to the sergeants who, on foot, must now flush the fugitive from his hiding place towards the horsemen. The sergeants stared at the place where Harper had disappeared, hurried to flank it, then, in pairs for protection and with their muskets held ready, they cautiously advanced.
'It was near here. Sergeant Bennet spoke to Lynch as both men stepped over one of the smaller ditches.
'Careful now. He's a big bugger.
Two larger ditches met here, forming a V in the wetland that almost, but not quite, pierced to the smaller ditch and was separated from it by a gleaming patch of bare mud on which the two sergeants now stood. The water of the angled ditches was slickly silvered beneath the high grasses at their banks. The sergeants stared at the ground inch by inch, knowing that it was just yards beyond the V's apex that the big man had gone to cover, but they could see no sign of him.
'Come on! Hurry! Girdwood's petulant voice carried far over the flatland.
Lynch, in charge of the beaters this night, licked his lips. Extraordinarily he could see no sign of the big man. The marsh, lit silver and black by the moon in the cloudless night, seemed empty and innocent.
'You have him? Girdwood shouted impatiently.
'Bugger's gone! Bennet said.
'Charlie! John! Flush him out! Lynch shouted. 'You too, Bill.
Sergeant Bennet, like the other two sergeants, aimed his musket into a patch of shadow. He fired. Normally such a volley would startle a man from his paltry cover even though the bullets went nowhere near him, but this time the shots died into silence and the smoke drifted over a marsh that still revealed no fugitive. 'He's bloody gone!
'Don't be a fool! Lynch snarled, but, unbidden and unwelcome, he was remembering his mother's stories of the magicians and ghosts of Ireland's great bogs. He even had an instinct to cross himself that he fiercely thrust back. 'Forward now! Gently! He probed with his bayonet-tipped musket at a patch of shadow then, keeping to the higher tussocks, went slowly forward. He saw nothing. Behind him Bennet reloaded the musket.
'Sergeant Major? Girdwood said impatiently. 'See what they're doing.
'Sir! Brightwell spurred forward. A horseman's greater height gave him an advantage in this bleak landscape of low tangled shadows, yet when, minutes later, he reached the line of sergeants, he could see no sign of the Irishman. 'Jesus Christ! Brightwell, suddenly fearing the worst, looked westward. 'The bastard's gone!
'He can't! Lynch protested.
'Then find him! Brightwell snarled and turned his horse. 'Sir? He stood in his saddle to shout. 'Bastard's gone, sir!
Girdwood heard and did not believe, but he had been schooled well in one thing by Sir Henry, and that was to apprehend any man who might escape from the island. He could not credit that the huge prisoner had truly evaded the searchers, but he would take no chances. He swore. 'Lieutenant Mattingley!
'Sir?
'Alert the bridge! And Sir Henry's household! Tell Captain Prior!
'Sir! Mattingley spurred towards the road. What Girdwood had done was put into motion the elaborate, careful procedure that would trap a deserter. The only dry way from the island was by the bridge, which was now alert to the danger, while Captain Prior's militia cavalry, billeted on the mainland, would guard the banks of the waterways. The precautions, Girdwood reflected, were almost certainly unnecessary, but essential and, the order given, he spurred forward. 'Come on! Hunt him! Find him!
Harper, just yards to the west of the line of sergeants, listened. He had dropped into one of the larger ditches, knowing that he had two or three precious minutes before the hunters reached the place where he had disappeared and, once in the shadow of the tall grasses of the banks, he had, like a berserk child, smeared himself in the slime of the ditch bed, covering his face, hands, shirt and trousers with the slippery, slick mud that was dark as night. He had stuffed handfuls of uprooted marsh grass into his waist and collar, hiding his shape, doing the things that any Rifleman, isolated in a skirmish line and closer to the French than to his own lines, would have done. Then, keeping low, and like some massive, dark, killing beast of the wetlands, he had slithered west. The danger, he had known, was the patch of mud between the larger and smaller ditches, but his trained eye had seen that it was inches lower than the land about it, and with his clothes now the colour of the marsh he pulled himself over it, head low so that his nose scraped in the mud, slithering by pulling with his hands so that, undetected, he slid, head first, into the stinking slime of the smaller ditch. Then, completely hidden again, and twelve yards from the place he had dropped out of sight, he pulled himself through the smaller ditch, gaining yet more precious yards, not freezing into immobility until he heard the first squelching footsteps come close. Then he had drawn himself into a tight ball and hunched his body against the ditch's side. The sergeants did not look at him once. They began their search to the east of him, not guessing for a second that their prey was already beyond their cordon, a prey that crouched in a wet, stinking ditch and listened to them.