“Down, down!” yelled Flannigan, up on his horse, petticoat streaming, the hooves prancing. “Down, down, my daughters, work like demons, every second counts. Splinter it, carve it. Up beacons! Who the hell has the tinder? Fire, man, fire!”
And the tinderman knelt and the torch came up, circling in the darkness before the wreckage. caught alight. But I was looking past him to the road through the town where a single horseman in shrouds was coming headlong, hooves sparking, shouting, waving.
“Leave the tollhouse!” yelled Flannigan. “A few minutes are left – who says we try for Tom Rhayader? Who says we free the old Rebecca? He must be somewhere in the town!” Bellows and cheers at this with Toby Maudlin doing an Irish jig on the cobbles with the flames leaping up behind him and the men going mad with thoughts of Rhayader.
“No time!” I yelled at Flannigan, and dragged at his stirrup. “Look, the sentry!” Justin Slaughterer it was, coming straight at us like a man possessed, full gallop, and the daughters parted to let him through. Waving a scarf was justin, bawling his head off, skidding to a stop.
“Out of it, Flannigan. Everybody out of it. Dragoons!”
We went like saints after satans, scrambling on horses, slipping, cursing, with hooves clattering and skidding on the cobbles, turbans coming off, axes dropping. Made a dive at Randy and went clean over him and he gave me a look to kill as I snatched at his rein to steady him. The men on foot were going helterskelter, running for the cover of the woods, crashing through undergrowth, hanging on to stirrups, belly-flopping over the hedgerows head first, yelling dragoons. Bastards these dragoons if they got you cornered; sabres out, slashing, thrusting – dead men first, prisoners after, it was said – up in front of the magistrates at first light, down to Carmarthen gaol by breakfast and in Botany Bay for dinner. Trained men, these. We didn’t stand a chance with them and they knew it. Spreadeagled on Randy I was fighting for a stirrup as they came down the street of the town. Heard the windows coming up now, saw white faces popping out in the blaze of the tollgate. Reckon I was the last one left then, for as I wheeled Randy away I saw them clearly, no more than a hundred yards off, coming four abreast, sabres out and flashing in the red light; heard their hoarse shouts as I got my heels into Randy and went like the wind towards Laugharne. I knew I was the wrong side of the estuary but I had no option. The woods and open fields were my only chance. Give it to Randy. Perhaps he expected to die under torture at the hooves of the dragoon stallions, for he set down his flanks and went like a whippet with me hanging on. Leaping a hedge we took to the fields now, hooves thumping dully on the rich red earth, but I reined him at the edge of a wood and we stood in the shadows, watching, listening. Evil is the feel of eyes when you are hunted; every twig stirring to snap the head round, every tree whispering. Strange was that rest, lonely as the grave, with Randy standing there sweating and shining in the sudden, cursed moonlight and breathing for something to be heard ten miles. He snorted as I wheeled him and took him into the wood. God knows where the others had got to, never been so lonely before. The wood was eerie, shafting moonlight, with the overhanging branches snatching to bring me off. Thicker now, so I got off and walked, gripping Randy’s head, hushing him quiet. Had to get east of the town, I knew it – would have to swim the river somewhere, but Randy liked a swim to cool him down. South first to get clear of the town, then east before the river got too broad. On, on, standing square to the swinging smack of branches, plunging knee deep in peaty places, scrambling out on all fours with Randy making the worst of it, wallowing and rearing and rolling his eyes at me for the outrage. Lost, I checked him and looked through the pattern of branches above. Brilliant were the stars though the moon was hiding, thank God, and the billowing clouds were going like hammer for the rim of the sky. The wind rose, buffeting and whining in the wood, sweeping up leaves in clouds and scraping his violins in the high rook tops that waved demented. Never been alone in such woods before, and now the panic of the dragoons had died dryness came with the cooling sweat. Things on legs I do not fear, upright or crawling; but horror comes to me in the face in the tree that smiles, the grotesque branches that clutch and hold too long, the whispers of things that should be dead. Through the wood now and I mounted and galloped towards Whitehill, with Randy taking the hedges in his stride, dying for his head and the barn at Cae White. Reaching the road just short of the Taf I reined him, approaching slowly for fear of a patrol, but the road was deserted. Crossing it at a canter, we went into the undergrowth again and down to the bank of the river, and, as if awaiting me,
