Flashman in the Great Game. George Fraser MacDonald

I croaked.

      ‘Have I been misinformed? Or have I misunderstood your charming wife? When I had the happiness to pay my respects to her this morning, I understood her to say – but there, I may have been mistaken. When one encounters a lady of such exceptional beauty, I fear one tends to look rather than to listen.’ He smiled – something I’d never seen him do before: it reminded me of a frozen river breaking up. ‘But I think his royal highness is calling you, Colonel.’

      ‘Flash-mann!’ I tore myself away from the hypnotic stare of that split eye; there was Albert waving at me impatiently. ‘Will you take the lead on the right flank? Come, sir, we are losing time – it will be dark before we can come up to the beasts!’

      If I’d had any sense I’d have bolted, or gone into a swoon, or claimed a sprained ankle – but I didn’t have time to think. The royal nincompoop was gesticulating at me to be off, my loader was already ploughing into the trees just ahead, one or two of the others had turned to look, and Ignatieff was smiling coldly at my evident confusion. I hesitated, and then started after the loader; as I entered the trees, I took one quick glance back; Ignatieff was standing beside the brake, lighting a cigarette, waiting for Albert to set him on his way. I gulped, and plunged into the trees.

      The ghillie was waiting for me under the branches; he was one of your grinning, freckled, red-haired Highlanders, called MacLehose, or something equally unpronounceable. I’d had him before, and he was a damned good shikari – they all are, of course. Well, I was going to stick to him like glue this trip, I told myself, and the farther we got away from our Russian sportsmen in quick time, the better. As I strode through the fir wood, ducking to avoid the whippy branches, I heard Albert’s voice faintly behind us, and pressed on even harder.

      At the far side of the wood I paused, staring up at the hillside ahead of us. What the devil was I getting in such a stew for? – my heart racing like a trip-hammer, and the sweat running down me, in spite of the chill. This wasn’t Russia; it was a civilised shooting-party in Scotland. Ignatieff wouldn’t dare to try any devilment here – it had just been the surprise of his sudden appearance at the last minute that had unmanned me … wouldn’t he, though? By God, he’d try anything, that one – and he knew about my going to India, thanks to that blathering idiot I’d married in an evil hour. Shooters had been hit before, up on the crags, in bad light … it could be made to look like an accident … mistaken for a stag … heavy mist … tragic error … never forgive himself …

      ‘Come on!’ I yammered, and stumbled over the rocks for a gully that opened to our left – there was another one straight ahead, but I wasn’t having that. The ghillie protested that if we went left we might run into the nearest shooters; that was all right with me, and I ignored him and clambered over the rubble at the gully foot, plunging up to the knee in a boggy patch and almost dropping my gun. I stole a glance back, but there was no sign of anyone emerging from the wood; I sprang into the gully and scrambled upwards.

      It was a gruelling climb, through the huge heather-bushes that flanked the stream, and then it was bracken, six feet high, with a beaten rabbit-path that I went up at a run. At the top the gully opened out into another great mass of firs, and not until we were well underneath them did I pause, heaving like a bellows, and the ghillie padded up beside me, not even breathing hard, and grinning surprise on his face.

      ‘Crackey good gracious,’ says he, ‘you’re eager to be at the peasties the day. What’s the great running, whatever?’

      ‘Is this piece loaded?’ says I, and held it out.

      ‘What for would it be?’ says the clown. ‘We’ll no’ be near a deer for half an hour yet. There’s no occasion.’

      ‘Load the dam’ thing,’ says I.

      ‘And have you plowing your pluidy head off, the haste you’re in? She’ll look well then, right enuff.’

      ‘Damn you, do as you’re told!’ says I, so he shrugged and spat and looked his disgust as he put in the charge.

      ‘Mind, there’s two great pullets in there now,’ says he as he handed it back. ‘If you’ve as much sense as a whaup’s neb you’ll keep the caps in your pooch until we sight the deer.’ They’ve no respect, those people.

      I snatched it from him and made off through the wood, and for ten minutes we pushed on, always upwards, through another long gully, and along a rocky ledge over a deep stream, where the mist hung in swirls among the rowan trees, and the foam drifted slowly by on the brown pools. It was as dark as dusk, although it was still early afternoon; there was no sound of another living soul, and nothing moving on the low cliffs above us.

      By this time I was asking myself again if I hadn’t been over-anxious – and at the same time wondering if it wouldn’t be safest to lie up here till dark, and buy the ghillie’s silence with a sovereign, or keep moving to our left to reach the other guns. And then he gave a sudden exclamation and stopped, frowning, and putting a hand on his belly. He gave a little barking cough, and his ruddy face was pale as he turned to me.

      ‘Oh!’ says he. ‘What’s this? All of a sudden, my pudden’s is pad.’

      ‘What is it?’ says I, impatiently, and he sat down on a rock, holding himself and making strained noises.

      ‘I – I don’t know. It’s my belly – there’s some mischief in herself – owf!’

      ‘Are you ill?’

      ‘Oh, goad – I don’t know.’ His face was green. ‘What do these foreign puggers tak’ to drink? It’s – it must be the spirits yon great hairy fella gave me before we cam’ up – oh, mither, isn’t it hellish? Oh, stop you, till I vomit!’

      But he couldn’t, try as he would, but leaned against the rock, in obvious pain, rubbing at himself and groaning. And I watched him, in horror, for there was no doubt what had happened – Ignatieff’s man had drugged or poisoned him, so that I’d be alone on the hill. The sheer ruthlessness of it, the hellish calculation, had me trembling to my boots – they would come on me alone, and – but wait, whatever he’d been given, it couldn’t be fatal: two corpses on one shoot would be too much to explain away, and one of them poisoned, at that. No, it must just be a drug, to render him helpless, and of course I would turn back down the hill to get help, and they’d be there …

      ‘Stay where you are – I’ll get help,’ says I, and lit out along the ledge, but not in the direction we’d come; it was up and over the hills for Flashy, and my groaning ghillie could be taken care of when time served. I scudded round the corner of rock at the ledge’s end, and through a forest of bracken, out into a clear space, and then into another fir wood, where I paused to get my bearings. If I bore off left – but which way was left? We’d taken so many turnings, among the confounded bogs and gullies, I couldn’t be sure, and there was no sun to help. Suppose I went the wrong way, and ran into them? God knows, in this maze of hills and heather it would be easy enough. Should I go back to the stricken ghillie, and wait with him? I’d be safer, in his company – but they might be up with him by now, lurking on the gully-side, waiting. I stood clutching my gun, sweating.

      It was silent as death under the fir-trees, close as a tomb, and dim. I could see out one side, where there was bracken – that would be the place to lie up, so I stole forward on tiptoe, making no noise on the carpet of mould and needles. Near the wood’s edge I waited, listening: no sound, except my own breathing. I turned to enter the bracken – and stood frozen, biting back a yelp of fear. Behind me, on the far side of the wood, a twig had snapped.

      For an instant I was paralysed, and then I was across the open space of turf and burrowing into the bracken for dear life. I went a few yards, and then writhed round to look back; through the stems and fronds I could see the trees I’d just left, gloomy and silent. But I was deep in cover; if I lay still, not to shake the bracken above me, no one could hope to spot me unless he trod on me. I burrowed down in the sodden grass, panting, and waited, with my ears straining.

      For five minutes nothing happened; there was only the dripping of the fronds, and my own