Land of Hope and Glory by Geoffrey Wilson Page A

stumbled across to the other side of the gully. His heart pulsed in his ears. He couldn’t see much through the smoke, but he could hear shouts and the crackle of muskets. He started up the tree-shrouded slope – he didn’t know why. Did he want to see if William was there? Did he think there was something he could do to save his friend?
    The smoke coiled thick within the forest and he couldn’t see more than a few feet before him. He had to cling to branches and bushes as he clambered up the steep incline. He slipped at one point and slid down a short distance on his knees before he got up and carried on. His chest was taut and the smoke was bitter in his throat. He could hear his own breathing, loud and ragged.
    He passed the edge of the smouldering crater left by the explosion. Trees lay dashed to the ground, their charred limbs stretching up like the masts of a shipwreck. Flames crackled and slithered about the perimeter.
    His wound quivered. He remembered the sattva-fire striking him in the chest and he hesitated for a second. Was he afraid?
    Then he heard shouting and shooting further up the scarp, and he took a breath and pressed on. A memory wasn’t going to stop him.
    A bullet smacked into a tree trunk next to him, ripping a hole in the bark. He dived behind some brambles and waited for a moment, listening. Nothing. Shocks of pain coursed across his chest. Darkness welled before his eyes and he fought to stop himself from passing out.
    Damn his injury.
    He coughed violently, wiped the dribble away from his mouth. He had to pull himself together.
    After a few minutes he climbed to his feet and peered over the brambles. The smoke had cleared a little and he could see the shifting lace of the undergrowth spread out across the forest floor. He waited for a minute more, and when nothing happened he stood up straight.
    There was a crunch nearby, a step on fallen leaves. He froze. Barely thirty feet away stood a man with a musket pointed straight at him. His heart juddered. The man wasn’t a Frenchman or a Rajthanan – no uniform.
    Jack prepared to jump for cover. But then – like a punch in the chest – he recognised the figure.
    It was William. A little older, of course, and with his head shaved, but unmistakeable.
    William’s face creased as he stared along the musket’s sights. Then he frowned and lowered the weapon. Puzzlement snaked across his forehead. He went to call out something, but was interrupted by a couple of pistol shots that sent bullets whistling through the woods to the left. He slid behind a tree.
    More pistol shots. Jack saw two Frenchmen leaping over shrubbery as they ran across the slope towards him.
    William stepped back further, looked at Jack, frowned again, then slipped into a patch of dense bushes and vines. In a second he’d vanished.
    ‘Where’d he go?’ one of the Frenchmen shouted.
    ‘That way.’ Jack pointed up the slope in a different direction from the one William had taken – he didn’t know why. It was instinctive. He couldn’t help but try to protect his friend, even as he was betraying him.
    As the French charged off in the wrong direction, Jack scrambled over to where William had disappeared. He spotted a set of broken twigs. Just beyond them was a footprint in the damp ground and then the obvious sign of brambles pushed aside. He started along the trail. Maybe if he could talk to William and explain, then . . .
    Then what?
    The firing stopped and the quiet was strange after the sound of the battle. Birds started chirping again high in the trees. He jogged along, keeping an eye out for signs and trying to make as little sound as possible. He could have called out to his friend, but then that would have alerted the French.
    William’s trail was clear – he’d been moving quickly, with no time to cover his tracks. Jack recognised the telltale inward turn of his friend’s right foot. The smoke had largely faded now and Jack scanned the trees ahead. But he saw