Turncoat (34 page)

Marc took a step forward. “I won't hurt you,” he started to say, just before a volley of explosions from below rocked him. He had to grab a nearby branch to stop himself from tumbling back down the slope. The sting of cordite filled his nostrils and stung his eyes. What had happened? Had he been shot at? Hit? For several seconds he sat on his haunches beside a bramble bush, in shock.

“Are you all right, sir?” Hilliard was beside him, and Willoughby and the others were staggering past him towards the cabin. There was no one in the doorway.

“I'm fine, Ensign,” Marc said through the ringing in his ears. “But why did you shoot? I ordered you to hold your fire.”

Hilliard gasped. “We heard you call out ‘Fire!'”

Marc stood up and brushed past him, joining his men, who were crowded around the figure on the ground in front of the doorway.

The old man was dead, with half a dozen bullets in him. Willoughby was turned away from the corpse. He spoke to Marc without looking at him. “I take full responsibility for this,” he said in a trembling voice.

“But you were the only one who didn't fire,” Hilliard said.

“That's because I wasn't sure what you had ordered,” Willoughby said to Marc with some emotion. “It sounded like ‘Fire,' but I couldn't be sure because your back was turned. But with that gun pointing right at you, I gave the signal and the men fired.”

“And saved your life, if I may say so, sir,” Hilliard said.

Marc sighed. “You may be right,” he said. He turned to Willoughby. “It is my responsibility to give unequivocal orders. If I had turned away from the gunman long enough to face you and give the order clearly, this wouldn't have happened. In the circumstances, Colin, your reading of my command was the correct one. Even so, while I was still upright, you had no authority to interpret it either way, and no cause to give independent orders of your own.”

Willoughby looked chastened but also visibly relieved. One of the ensigns, not quite as young as Parker, went over to the nearest bush and retched.

“Perhaps we saved the crown the bother of a trial and the cost of a gibbet,” another offered, keeping his gaze well away from the body.

Finally Willoughby glanced down at the corpse. The face had been smashed by one of the bullets, and several others had ripped through the torso and abdomen, which were now an indistinguishable mass of blood and innards. Wherever the man's eyes were, they no longer gleamed.

Willoughby sat down suddenly and put his forehead on his knees.

“Remember, Colin,” Hilliard said consolingly, “this fellow here put a bullet through Mr. Moncreiff, an innocent gentleman who wouldn't've harmed a mite if it was biting him.”

Marc was bent over the body, trying with some difficulty to pry the gun out of the old man's death-grip. He stood up with the offending weapon in his hand. The look on his face was grim. “And this man may be as innocent as Moncreiff himself.”

“What do you mean?” Willoughby asked.

“This gun has not been fired,” Marc said. “Not today and, by the look of the barrel, not in my lifetime.”