Fieldcraft and silent feet were all I had to put against his speed and desperation. Savarin must have had as much battle experience as any long-lived infantry platoon sergeant, while I myself, though I had been under fire, had no experience of attack. His other overwhelming advantage was that he did not care whether he died or not so long as I did. The game was up for him. Too many people had seen him with me. The most he could ever hope for was the life of a fugitive if he were able to get out of England before my body was found.
The obvious first move was to get into the thick belt of trees around the barn and let the other fellow do the attacking: in fact, to hold the interior lines. St. Sabas would not see any objection, for he knew nothing whatever of my history. Right up to that evening he had assumed that I was just a discreditable member of the Dennim family; there were plenty to choose from, especially among the Bavarian branch, and some of them had been Nazis. So he had no reason to suspect that under the trees I was likely to be his master.
Very well. I could reckon on his riding hard and straight for the windbreak and then lying up in cover, rather than taking advantage of his well-trained mare and attacking me in the open.
Far away across the empty plateau I saw the torch winking at me. I mounted Nur Jehan and answered. St. Sabas charged into sight along the line I expected, and I, instead of racing him for the trees and getting the whole width of the cover between us, galloped off on a tangent to the right of the windbreak. The range closed to a hundred yards as he held his course, but the light was more deceptive than I anticipated. I dropped to the ground, fired and grazed — for the shadowy figure raised a hand to his neck or ear —fired again and missed. Horse and man vanished into the trees.
That was that. At the cost of some slight loss of blood he had won the interior lines, and my plan of dropping him clean in the open had landed me in the worst possible position. It was unlikely that I would ever have another chance to use my longer range and greater accuracy unless St. Sabas were caught on the move by the sudden appearance of the moon. It was up, showing faintly through the drifting clouds and occasionally unobscured.
I was out of the effective range of his .45 automatic. It was a better weapon than mine, however, for hand-to-hand fighting in semidarkness, and I now had to close with it. The only safe move was to crawl away quickly until I was part of the hillside and then enter the windbreak wherever shadows and ground permitted approach. He could not guard all his perimeter.
But couldn’t he? I reckoned that I could guard the perimeter very easily when I myself chose for my night’s lodging the isolated copse. I did not fancy stalking that inscrutable wall of twilight from any direction whatever. The ground sloped gently away from the trees and was bare turf.
Though I had been telling myself again and again that I must not let him break contact, I should have been very glad at the moment if some belated shepherd or gamekeeper had come up the hill and frightened him off. But there was little chance of that. The nearest cottages were half a mile away and sheltered from direct sound by the contours of the hill. Even if the two cracks of the Mauser were carried sharply on the wind they need not necessarily attract attention. Somewhere to the east on lower ground, perhaps belonging to the lady with the dogs, three or four guns had been out after wood pigeon coming in to roost. There were also cherry orchards, well down on the Worcestershire side, banging away all night with their bird alarms. Those damned charges had once made me dive for cover near Chipping Marton, when fortunately Benita was not with me. Farmers set them to go off at intervals during the twenty-four hours and had —or said they had —no means of putting them out of action after dark.
I heard St. Sabas cantering on through the windbreak. He was now presumably tying his mare to a tree. I had nothing to which I could tether Nur Jehan. He stayed close, but was thoroughly uneasy and restless. He was not grazing. At any rate — and that was a blessing — he was not in the affectionate mood to follow his rider about.
There was probably time to run boldly for the trees, but I had learned to take no gambles in a hurry against Savarin. I remained cuddling the butt of the Mauser and thinking out the end game of this blind chess which we had played for the last three weeks. As soon as he was at the edge of the windbreak — and he might well have turned his mare loose and be there already — he should be able to see Nur Jehan close to the point where I had flung myself off and fired. He would not expect me, too, still to be close. But I would be. The ground helped.
A slight fold led obliquely to the clump of trees. It was hardly visible as a depression at all, but on the rim were nine-inch stems of seeding grass, just tall enough in that light to be a screen rather than a guide to my movements. I rolled over into it.
Hoping that he was now straining his eyes in the wrong direction, I slowly followed the fold closer and closer to the trees. When I had reached a point fifteen yards out, there was nothing for it but to rush the rest across the open. But I was not much afraid of that. Thick cloud was blowing.
I started to leave my cover. I had already drawn a leg under me ready for the spring and raised my head when I was fairly caught by the erratic moon. I lay still, praying that St. Sabas was not on my side of the trees at all and well aware that, if he was, the dark blotch of my body could be made out. His shot — a carefully aimed shot to judge by the infernal delay — plunged into the turf alongside my ribs. I cried out, kicked myself straight and rolled back into the fold of ground I had just left.
His years as Savarin had probably taught him the difference of sound between a bullet in turf and a bullet in flesh. But at that range I doubted if he could have heard the strike at all; the report would cover it. There was a good chance, if my cry had been convincing enough, that he would come up cautiously to administer the coup de grace.
Silence went on and on for what seemed all of half an hour. I did not dare stir. At last I heard him on the move. He was somewhere in the middle of the trees near the barn. That indicated a doubt in his mind. He was not going to leave cover opposite my body; he was going to approach from some unexpected angle. I still felt, however, that he could approach from any angle he liked. If he meant to fire a last shot into the corpse I had him.
St. Sabas mounted his mare. I heard the creak of leather and the jingle of the bit. Was he so convinced of the effect of his shot that he intended to ride off? But that was out of character. So I decided that he was bluffing. If he could persuade me he had gone, I should get pretty tired of lying still to no purpose and soon show whether I was alive or not.
Distances were short and it was all very quick. He seemed to be cantering round the windbreak towards me. I assumed that he meant to come into sight just out of easy range and ride away. He came closer still, now just inside the trees offering a possible shot; but I had had enough of moving targets in the dusk and it was not worthwhile to raise my head and look at him. There would be time enough for action when the sound of the hooves stopped or passed on.
They did neither. Man and horse burst out of the copse and charged me, St. Sabas leaning low over the mane. I had not a hope. I was cringing to my tiny fold of ground as if I had been flattened into it by a roller. There was no chance to fire. By the time I had changed position and begun to elevate the barrel they were on me.
Shot on the ground or trampled into it. I chose the latter. But the good mare of course put her feet where I was not. And that was all the more to her credit since St. Sabas must have been already reining her in. When I was half up he had already wheeled her round and was on me again.