The Devil's Surrogate (26 page)

'I know,' he
said, his voice muffled by leaves. 'That's why I'm taking my time.
I can't see a damned thing up here, so I'm having to do it by
feel.'

'Now where
have I heard that before?' Hannah chuckled to herself, and slowly
bent over to pick up the coil of rope from which James had taken
one end. Carefully, so as not to jerk at the hanging length, she
began to pay it out across the grass and onto the road, peering
towards the village as she did so and then looking up at the night
sky. As long as the cloud cover remained, they had a chance of
making this work, but if the moon broke through and Crawley saw the
rope, he would guess something was up and probably rein in before
reaching the appropriate spot. 'Have you done up there yet?' she
called.

There was a
muffled thump, followed by a whispered curse, and James emerged
from the shadows. 'It's done,' he confirmed, 'just as you said.' He
too now looked down the road in the direction from which Crawley
would be coming. The high trees on either side meant the hard mud
trail was visible for only about thirty yards before it merged with
the overall blackness on either side.

'Now we move
back,' Hannah instructed. 'Mind you, don't foul the rope, and we'll
have to check and make sure we have it paid out straight before
they get here. Have you got a kerchief, or something, preferably a
light-coloured one?'

'I've got
this,' James said, pulling a square of pale linen from his jacket
pocket. 'What do you want me to do with it?'

'Lay it right
here, in the middle of the road,' Hannah instructed. 'We'll be able
to see it even in this poor light, so we'll know when that
black-hearted bastard is level with the right spot.'

'Very clever,'
James grunted. 'But what about Matilda? That thing could hit her
too.'

'It like as
not will,' Hannah agreed, 'but it's a chance we have to take. A
broken bone or two will mend in time and at least she'll be
alive... I hope,' she added beneath her breath as she began to walk
backwards up the centre of the road, the rope trailing from her
hands.

'This is a
little trick I saw used by one of Charlie boy's lads outside of
Bath,' Paddy explained. 'We caught the bugger alive just
afterwards, and later he showed us how it was done. It's all quite
simple really, and it's not likely to do much harm, but the flash
is quite something, and if anyone's standing too close they'll be
more interested in knocking the sparks off their clothes than in
anything we'll be doing.' He held up the crudely shaped bottle into
which he had been carefully pouring the lamp oil from the pitcher
they found in one of the other rooms inside the barn. Now he began
forcing a piece of sackcloth into the neck he had also doused in
the liquid. 'We light the fuse,' he continued, 'and then throw the
bugger. The glass breaks and the oil catches fire as it spreads
across the ground. But this is the best bit,' he added, taking up
the square of linen he had torn from his shirt. 'We'll pour about
an ounce of black powder into this and bind it to the bottle with a
bit of twine.

'And when the
burning oil catches it, it goes off with a big bang?' Sean
surmised.

Paddy grinned.
'Actually, Sean me boy, there's not much of a bang, it's more of a
big flash which scatters the burning oil in all directions. And in
the darkness, I reckon the flash itself will do as much for us as
any bang. If those bastards at the gate aren't expecting it,
they'll be dazzled and shitting themselves. By the time they
realise what's going on we can have them sorted out, and be through
the gate and well on our way. Now those other two pistols you found
in that end room, are they loaded yet?'

Perched ahead
of Crawley, Harriet was the first to see the two figures standing
in the middle of the road ahead. They were still too far away to be
recognisable in the gloom, but Crawley, spotting them a moment
later, hailed them regardless, confident of their identities.

'You've
brought the gold, old woman?' he called out.

Harriet
recognised Hannah Pennywise's crackling voice immediately. 'I've
brought the half as I said in the note, Master Crawley,' she called
back. 'You get the other half when I've got my granddaughter back.
You have my word on that.'

'The word of a
murderess and a witch?' Crawley said disdainfully. 'You expect me
to accept that?'

'Take it or
leave it, Jacob Crawley,' Hannah retorted. 'Besides, even if I were
a murderess, it'd make me no worse than you, and probably a whole
deal better.'

'Bold words,
old woman.' Crawley wound an arm around Harriet's neck, and she
heard the sound of a pistol being cocked behind her. 'You see well
enough in this darkness, I hope, well enough to see that I have the
slut Matilda right here before me?'

'Aye, I see
well enough, Jacob Crawley,' Hannah responded. 'Just like your kind
to hide behind a woman.'

'But not
behind her skirts this time. Step forward, and show me the
gold.'

'Let the girl
down first.' This time it was James Calthorpe's voice.

Crawley
laughed. 'You take me for a fool, do you?'

'A fool, no,'
James replied.

'Then step
forward with the gold.'

'Why don't
you
come forward?' Hannah suggested. 'You've got Matilda there to
hide behind and your man is carrying a pistol, as well as the one I
can see in your hand.'

'And I'm sure
your own hands are empty beneath that shawl, Mother Pennywise,'
Crawley said. 'However, even though I think the lad is also hiding
a weapon behind his back, I doubt that either of you would risk
hitting this bitch. Even a trained shot wouldn't chance that.'

'Then come and
see your gold, Crawley,' Hannah urged. There was a blur as
something arced through the air to fall with a dull chinking sound
on the roadway a little ahead of Crawley's horse. Peering towards
it, Harriet could see something pale lying there, but it did not
look like a bag or a purse.

'We'll step
back a pace, Master Crawley,' Hannah's voice came again. 'I
wouldn't want you thinking we was breathing down your neck while
you counted your evil gains, now would I?'

Paddy counted
four figures as the little wagon steadily approached the main gate,
two standing against one of the pillars and the other two squatting
alongside a small fire over which a dark kettle pot had been hung
from a crude spit. If they had been proper soldiers, he reflected
critically, the two by the fire would have been immediately on the
alert even though the slow progress of the vehicle would cause them
little alarm. He glanced at the other side of the gate where the
small timbered gatehouse stood, its door ajar, a light burning
inside. There might be other guards within, and then again there
might not, but it was best to assume the worst. 'I count four,
Sean,' he whispered over his shoulder.

Behind him,
crouched in the confines of the seriously overcrowded wagon, Sean
held a lantern shielded by a thick piece of sacking, the flickering
taper within it a more reliable source of igniting the fuse of
their homemade bomb than any flint.

'There's also
a gatehouse, not much more than a shed, I'd say, with a light
inside. Could be there's more of them in there, but I can't tell.
You see the fire?'

Sean leaned
against Paddy's shoulder, taking care not to expose himself too
much. 'Aye,' he confirmed, 'I see it, and I see the two by it, but
I don't see the other two.'

'They're away
by the left side of the gate. No, don't bother looking. I can take
the pair of them easy enough once you throw that bottle towards
them.'

'Not at the
fire?'

'No,' Paddy
said firmly. 'Those two are sitting in its light, so the flash
won't affect them like it would if they were sitting in darkness.
When I give the word, you lob that thing towards the gate and then
put a shot into the nearest one by the fire. I'll take the second
one, and then we'll see about the others. You've got three shots
back there and I've got two, let's make them all count and we'll
have one spare.'

'Unless
there's more of the buggers in the hut,' Sean pointed out.

'Aye,' Paddy
agreed, 'unless there's more of the buggers in the hut. In which
case, I spy a couple of muskets propped against what I'd say is a
water keg just this side of the fire there. I'll keep this nag
going and you make a dive for them.'

'What if
they're not loaded?'

'They ought to
be.'

'But what if
they're not?'

'If they're
not, and there are more of the sods inside, then we're in a pile of
shit, Sean Kelly, so you'd better start praying right now!'

Hannah's booby trap plan might well have worked out perfectly,
however, as she remarked years later when once again telling the
story of that night, if you expect the unexpected, then it no
longer
is
the
unexpected, and the truly unexpected when it happens will thwart
the best laid plans.

It began well
enough... Crawley advanced slowly, his man staying just behind him
so Matilda - as Hannah and James still believed Harriet to be -
remained in any line of fire the old woman and the miller's son
might have. The small kerchief seemed to glow brightly in the
darkness and Hannah felt certain Crawley must realise it was not
the purse she had tossed towards him. But his mind was clearly on
how he intended to retrieve the gold without exposing himself to a
clear shot, and the only way he could achieve that end was to move
past the purse while continuing to use the girl as a shield.
Meanwhile, Silas Grout would dismount to collect the money. The
only doubt in Hannah's mind was whether or not Crawley's greed
would extend to the remaining gold, or whether once he had the half
of it in his hands, along with the initial payment she had sent to
the graveyard, he might decide to settle for that. If he did, both
she and James would be utterly exposed.

'Are you
ready?' she whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

'Ready,' came
the hoarse reply, James's tremulous voice betraying his
anxiety.

Hannah hoped
his hand would be steadier when the moment came. Her own knuckles
closed even more tightly over the stock of the miniature
blunderbuss, and she prayed the old weapon would fire the first
time. She peered to her right, afraid Crawley must at any moment
see the rope trailing off to the side of the road. Another two
yards... another yard...

Crawley seemed
to sense something. She saw him pull back on the rein with the one
arm, the hand in which he also clasped his pistol, his other arm
still around his hostage's neck.

'Now!' she
shouted.

Behind her,
James pulled up the rope and jerked on it with all his might. It
drew taut and up in the tree a knot slipped undone, loosing its
grip on the short length of cord that held back the old stump. The
branch, suspended from a second rope attached to an even higher
treetop on the opposite side of the trail, swung downwards and
across, gaining momentum as it went and striking the side of
Crawley's horse, hitting both its leg and the girl's and knocking
everything sideways.

The startled
steed reared up, whinnying noisily and tipping both occupants out
of the saddle. In the same moment Crawley's pistol discharged
skywards with a loud report, and Hannah, stumbling forward, raised
the muzzle of her father's pistol as she pulled back on the
trigger. There was an even louder report and a flash of powder,
followed almost immediately by a scream of pain from Silas Grout,
all but drowned out by a louder shriek from his horse as the spray
of small lead balls seared through both man and animal.

James was now
running past Hannah, his young legs overtaking her in a few
strides, and raising his own weapon towards the black figure of
Crawley who was even now pulling himself upright. One good shot and
it would be over, but even as James was steadying himself another
silhouette suddenly came streaking out from between the trees. The
figure crashed into him and sent him sprawling facedown on the
road. His weapon discharged as he hit the ground, the ball hissing
off into the nearby branches, and then complete pandemonium broke
loose. James and the furiously spitting newcomer rolled around in
the dust, horses whinnied and screamed, and Hannah stumbled and
fell to her knees, a searing pain tearing across her ankle and
instep. Dimly, the old woman saw the naked girl rise to her feet,
tottering uncertainly with her arms still bound to her sides. Then
she saw Crawley grabbing for her again as he drew a second pistol
from beneath his cape and for a moment Hannah felt certain he meant
to use it on the girl.

'No!' she
screeched, trying to hobble forward again, but Crawley was more
interested in dealing with any further threat to himself. The naked
and bound prisoner was no danger to him, whereas Hannah and James
might still be. He swung the weapon around, ignoring the struggle
on the ground, and aimed at Hannah.

She saw the
flash, the bright orange ball emerging from the barrel, and quickly
fell sideways. She felt the air from the ball as it passed inches
from her head just a second before she hit the ground, knocking the
breath out of her old lungs, and slipped into unconsciousness.

As is
inevitable with stories told over and over again through the years,
the account passed down to the great grandchildren of two Irish
troopers of the 7th Regiment, Southern Mounted Fusiliers, made much
of the fire fight that took place that night at the gate of the
Grayling estate.

In reality,
the skirmish was over almost before it began. Paddy's homemade bomb
ignited in front of the two guards by the gate itself with a
spectacular loud whoosh of flames and sparks, and landed near
enough to catch the clothing of both men in a wave of fire. In the
end, it was said neither man suffered fatal injuries, but for the
next few minutes they were preoccupied with rolling around on the
ground in an effort to extinguish themselves. When the first man by
the fire fell with a pistol ball through his shoulder, his
companion was already on his feet and running into the trees,
ignoring the muskets that, in any case, proved unnecessary to Paddy
and Sean's cause.