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.
Harper waited, scarcely breathing, his head tucked low so that his nostrils were almost touching the foul water. He wished the bastards would move further east, but instead, uncertain and beginning to panic, they clung stubbornly to the place where they were certain he had disappeared. Then, to Harper's annoyance, he heard Girdwood's voice and the chink of curb chains and the thump of hooves. He was undetected, but all the hunters were close, and he stayed still, utterly still, eyes closed, ears alert to the smallest night sound of the marsh, and prayed that Sharpe would strike soon.
Sharpe had waited till he could hear no footsteps of the men who patrolled the tent lines against Girdwood's fear of mutiny. He had waited, too, until the canvas of the tent was as dark as it would become, yet still it was treacherously light. Then he moved.
'What are you doing, Dick? It was Charlie Weller.
'You stay here! Jenkinson growled the words, fearing punishment if one man of the squad broke the rules, but Sharpe ignored him, went to the back of the tent and pulled the canvas up from its small pegs. He was staring west, across twenty yards of open ground towards the closest drainage ditch.
'Dick? Weller asked again.
'Quiet. All of you! He rolled under the canvas, the tent throwing a shadow over him, and he stared north and south, seeing no one, then stood carefully between the taut guy ropes of the tent.
He waited. He could hear no patrols, yet he knew that if one was close then they would be hidden by the tent's bulk. He listened, ignoring the snores and the sound of the wind on the silvered grass, then ran.
He dropped at the drainage ditch, rolling himself in the mud to fall into the water. Like Harper, he was seeking to hide in the mud with the help of the mud. He paused when he had fallen, feeling the ripples beat back from the ditch's side against his body, and listened.
No one called out, no patrol ran towards him.
He worked his way northwards, hidden by the ditch that stank because it drained the officers' latrines. Its smell haunted the tents each night, but now, as he crawled north towards the buildings of the camp's administration, it was thickly foul in his face.
He saw a group of men standing on the embanked road. They stared further northwards, towards the empty marsh, and he thought nothing of it except to be grateful that they did not look back towards the ditch where, ten yards from the kitchens, he climbed into the moonlight and, like a great predator, slipped into the
