war-torn land.
Some of the bodies Robert recognised, though they were in terrible condition. These were his men, all right: what was left of Green Five. My God! Mark… he thought, scanning the ground to see if he could spot him, but hoping against hope he wouldn't.
What he did see was Saddler. The man had made it several metres from the truck, crawling, leaving a streak of blood behind him. He had given up when he came to a grass verge and simply collapsed onto it.
Bill covered him as Robert crouched down to feel Saddler's neck. There was nothing. He shook his head and caught the look in Bill's eye.
They noticed movement across the street and both Robert and Bill swung their weapons in its direction.
The figure coming towards them had its hands in the air and was shouting: 'Don't shoot, please don't shoot.'
Robert could see now that it was a young girl of about fifteen. Where her face wasn't covered in freckles it was dirty, the pale yellow dress that she was wearing was ripped in places.
'Who are you?' shouted Bill.
'My name's Sophie,' she told him. 'I live…' She looked around at the devastation. 'I live here. He's… he's The Hooded Man, isn't he? Like in the stories…'
There were more people emerging from the damaged houses. They ranged in ages from the elderly to some as young as Sophie.
'What happened here?' asked Robert. 'What happened to my men?'
'The Sheriff,' she said.
'Your people were in the middle of giving us food and blankets,' a man with a shock of white hair told them, 'when the attack came. They didn't stand a chance.'
'How long ago?' Bill asked him.
'Not long. Two, three hours. They took quite a few of our people with them. Kidnapped them, bundled them into the backs of their trucks. They said that unless you surrender yourself to-'
'Yes,' Robert broke in. 'Yes, I know what they want. What happened to the boy?'
The old man looked confused.
'About this high. Mop of dirty blond hair, wearing a tracksuit. Always carries a backpack.'
'Mark!' said Sophie. 'You're talking about Mark.'
'That's right. You know him?'
'Only a little,' Sophie said. 'The men were going to take me away, but he gave himself up instead, told them to take him. He protected me, even when they tried to…' Sophie swallowed hard. 'We were in the house back there when they came, you see. I was fixing him a glass of fresh apple juice – they grow not far away in the orchard…'
'Hold on, so the Sheriff's blokes didn't know the lad was one of us then?' said Bill.
'I… I don't think so,' Sophie replied. 'I didn't tell them, anyway.'
Bill turned to Robert. 'That's summat at least. If he's just another villager to them, it might keep 'im alive.'
'For now,' Robert reminded him.
Mary joined them. She went over to check if anybody had wounds, if they needed help. Robert watched her for a moment or two, then limped across to sit on a wooden bench.
Moments later, Sophie followed. She stood in front of him. 'I've heard about the things you can do. You're going to save him, now, aren't you? You're going to bring everyone back? Rescue them?'
Mary came up behind and put her hands on Sophie's shoulders. 'Come on, let's get you cleaned up,' she told the girl, ushering her away before Robert could answer.
Sophie looked back over her shoulder as if still waiting for him to shout his reply. Robert let his head drop, the words still echoing in his ears, tinged with the naivety of youth.
You're going to save him, aren't you?
Aren't you?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They'd been waiting in the truck now for about twenty minutes.
Mark especially. Waiting, tensed, picking at the material of his empty backpack.
He looked round at the faces in here, each one the same tangle of anguish. Every prisoner asking the same thing. Were they going to get out of this alive? All of them had been bound at the wrists with plastic ties, so tight they cut into the skin. The people who'd been collected in this particular truck had been bundled in any which way, face down, sitting, on their knees: manhandled by the Sheriff's men on their rounds amassing hostages.
That's why they were standing now, engine idling, as the men with machine guns ravaged yet another village known to have been accepting help from The Hooded Man. Mark shut his eyes, but then the memories of the attack rushed back. He'd been helping unload goods and distribute them. Jacob, one of the guys who'd been shanghaied into the Sheriff's army, and was now glad to be out of it, had nudged Mark and pointed across at a local girl staring at them. She was wearing a yellow dress and had freckles on her cheeks.
'Think she likes you. She's been gaping over all the time we've been here.' Jacob grinned.
'Get out of it,' Mark had replied.
Jacob had made a kissing gesture then and Mark hit him on the arm. 'Hey, I was only playing with you – should count yourself lucky if she does. Pretty girl, that.'
She was. Though he still considered himself too young for all that kind of nonsense, Mark had done quite a bit of growing up in the last couple of years. Had been forced to. So while he was still a kid in many respects, he was more mature than many thirteen year olds. And he had begun, finally, to notice the opposite sex. Maybe Jacob had a point in his own clumsy way, and you could never have too many friends. So, he'd nervously met her eye a few times as Tony Saddler continued organising the drop. Mark had been sad when he looked up at the end and found the girl gone.
'Good work, guys,' Tony told them, 'take a breather.'
Mark looked around for the girl again, but it had been her who found him, tapping him on the shoulder and saying hello. She introduced herself as Sophie and asked if he wanted a drink after all that hard work.
Mark nodded shyly, then followed her into the house where he assumed she lived. 'It's not mine, of course, but I chose it when I came here.' He remembered thinking that maybe he wasn't the only one who'd had to mature quickly; at just fourteen Sophie was running her own little household by the looks of things. She'd originally come from West Bridgford, she told him, just the other side of Nottingham: a small place that had been taken over by gangs and thugs believing they owned the joint. They had driven her out, and she'd begun the journey further north, hoping to find somewhere quieter; somewhere safer. On the road she'd hooked up with a group of men and women doing the same, and fell in with them. Then they'd settled here.
'It was peaceful for a while,' she told Mark as she fixed him his drink. 'We got on with our lives, made plans, began to imagine the future might be different. But then the Sheriff's men came.'
'Sounds familiar,' he told her.
She shrugged. 'We got off lightly compared to some I've heard about. They just took things, not people. So,' Sophie had said as she offered him a seat, 'what's he like?'
'Who?'
She laughed. 'The Hooded Man, silly.'
'Oh,' said Mark, deflating somewhat. 'He's… well, he's pretty cool, really.'
'Is it true he once took on fifty of the Sheriff's men single handed?'
Mark stared hard at her. 'Erm…'
'That he's seven foot tall with a square chin and broad shoulders?'
Mark squirmed in the chair; he hadn't been expecting to be fielding questions about her crush on Robert. 'He's quite old,' Mark informed her. 'Old enough to be my… well, your dad too, really.'
She seemed a little disappointed by that. 'Really? I heard he was about nineteen, twenty.'
