Land of Hope and Glory

by Geoffrey Wilson

  The moat and the shattered wall were close now. Teams of scalers rushed forward with wooden ramps more than 100 feet long. They leapt into the moat and swam across, floating the ramps beside them. The water boiled with bullets and blood. Soon corpses bobbed everywhere.

  Jack reached the edge of the moat. Four ramps had already been laid across, leading to the bank of rubble that had previously been the wall. Soldiers were charging across, spattered by musket fire. Many were hit and tumbled off into the moat. A section of one ramp had caught fire and the flames glinted on the choppy water.

  Jack paused for breath, but bullets scythed past him, one tugging at his sleeve. Soldiers were elbowing him out of the way in their rush to get across the moat. He slipped on the muddy bank, struggled back to his feet and joined the mob rushing across one of the ramps.

  His feet battered the wooden boards and the storm of bullets shrieked around him and the air burnt his throat. He glanced up and saw the rebels across the top of the broken wall, blasting with their muskets through a mist of rain and smoke. He had to get over that wall, get out of the line of fire. That was the single thought that occupied his mind.

  He reached the far side of the ramp and clambered up. The broken stonework was slick from the rain and he slipped numerous times, scraping his knees and hands until they were bleeding. Bullets screamed on the stones about him. The rain pounded down.

  The first wave of the attackers was nearing the summit, but the rebels had set up their remaining guns on unbroken sections of wall and now fired grape down the slope. The muzzles flamed, jolted and disgorged hails of balls and metal fragments that flayed the stone. Soldiers fell in groups, as if dropping to their knees in worship before the retching beasts. Jack saw one man race straight at a gun as it fired – his body flew apart in a puff of red.

  But the attackers poured on to the summit and hand-to-hand fighting broke out. Men scrambled up to the guns and spiked them, jamming their ramrods into the vents and snapping them off to prevent the weapons being fired.

  The rebels were pushed back. As Jack reached the top of the bank, there was no one to oppose him. The attackers were now scuttling down the far side of the shattered wall, where they swarmed up the grassy incline towards the collection of walls and buildings about the White Tower. Puffs of musket smoke revealed that the rebels had regrouped and were defending themselves.

  Jack was out of breath and his chest bloomed with pain. He stopped running but a soldier slammed into him and knocked him to his knees. More soldiers bumped into him as they ran past – he was going to be crushed.

  He managed to get up again and staggered down the rubble slope. He slipped on the wet stone, fell on his back, slid down a few feet and struck a corpse. Someone trod on his hand and pain shot up his arm.

  He got up again and stumbled down the remainder of the rubble, reaching the muddy grass. Instead of running straight up the slope, he managed to dodge his way to the right to where there were fewer soldiers and the wall was less damaged. He got out of the way of the main mass of men and tried to make it over to a stand of trees beside the wall. He felt he was going to pass out and he needed cover. Pools of blackness spread before his eyes. He slipped on the mud, fell and hit his head on one of the tree trunks.

  He lay on the ground just within the trees. He was too weak to stand. He heard shouting and the crackle of muskets around him, but it was distant, as if echoing from the far end of a long tunnel. Pain jolted his chest, then flickered down his left arm. He grimaced, gritted his teeth.

  Then it got worse. A shaft of fire slammed into his body.

  He tried to move and found he couldn’t.

  Everything went silent.

  He realised he’d stopped breathing. He was floating in darkness, drifting away.

  He fought for air but no air would come. He tried to shout for help but he couldn’t make a sound.

  Katelin appeared before him, lying on her deathbed, covered in sweat, looking at him with glazed eyes. She reached up to touch him and her fingers on his cheek were like a wisp of smoke . . .

  The darkness thickened.

  ‘This world is an illusion.’ Jhala’s words. ‘Let go of your will and you’ll break through the illusion and then you’ll see that you are, have always been, free.’

  Perhaps if he let go now he could slip over completely to the spirit realm and be free. He’d been hovering between the spirit and material worlds for so many years. On the trail in Dorsetshire he’d momentarily been whisked outside himself several times, his whole ‘self’ vanishing for a while.

  Perhaps now it was time to give up and vanish completely.

  But he couldn’t do that. He had to hold on. Elizabeth was depending on him.

  He tried to prise open his lungs, but nothing happened. He tried again. The struggle seemed to go on for hours. He was teetering on the edge of a pit of darkness. Just holding on.

  But it was no good. He couldn’t hold on. He was slipping down. For some reason, he thought of the yantra he’d stolen from Jhala’s office. It quivered and circled and glowed on a black background. It would be the last thing he ever saw . . .

  Then it flared brilliant white, blinding him.

  And warmth suddenly flooded his chest.

  He stopped slipping down.

  He took a deep, ragged gasp and air plunged into his lungs, so cold it seemed to burn inside him. He took another breath, and then another.

  He was alive.

  He sat up with a start, rasping and coughing. The vice constricting his lungs eased and the pain slipped back from his arm, although it still bubbled and churned in his chest. The sound of the battle grew louder and sharper. He lay back, opened his eyes and stared up at the shifting leaves of the trees.

  He knew instantly what had happened.

  The stolen yantra had worked – finally – and the power was holding back the sattva-fire injury.

  He flexed his fingers as if feeling them for the first time. He now knew everything about the power – the information appeared in his head as if it had always been there. Although he felt far stronger than before, he understood that the power hadn’t completely cured him and he would have to keep reusing it to stay alive. The sattva-fire would remain in his chest, and would always weaken him to a degree, but at least he had something to fight it with now.

  But something else gnawed at the back of his mind. Some sort of question. It was as though he were trying to solve a puzzle without even knowing what it was.

  Memories tumbled through his head . . .

  Jhala had said he’d used a power to save his own life, which was why he was unable to learn new yantras. He’d never said what that power was, though.

  Another time, Jhala had said he’d been badly injured in battle, although he’d never said what the injury was.

  And now Jack remembered finding Jhala collapsed in his office. Jhala’s skin had been like ice, even though he was supposedly suffering from fever. After that, Jack had found the yantra under a cushion – the yantra he now knew healed sattva-fire injuries.

  The pieces all came together in his head.

  Jhala had never suffered from fever. He’d made that up. His illness was from a sattva-fire wound, which he’d tried to keep secret, perhaps out of shame. He’d had to use the yantra to save his life, and he’d had to keep on using that yantra to stay alive. He must have been using it for decades. He must still be using it.

  Jack blinked. Perhaps he should have seen all this before. But how could he have? He’d never known what the power of the stolen yantra was.

  And now, a further realisation filtered into his head.

  Jhala had told him Europeans couldn’t learn the higher powers. He’d also said that once you used a power you could never learn another. And yet Jack was living proof that neither of these were true.

  Had Jhala lied to him about all of this?

  A bullet shredded the leaves above him, snatching him back to the present. Musket fire. Screams. Shouts. The scent of
sulphur and woodsmoke.

  He sat up, wincing at the ache that still rolled across his chest. His limbs felt stiff, as if he hadn’t used them in days. The world around him was blurry at first, but then, as he rubbed his eyes, it became clearer.

  Through the trees he could see up the gradual incline to the main keep, the White Tower, which was now surrounded by attackers. The rebels fired down from loophole windows and from the tops of the surrounding walls, their muskets spluttering and popping. A wooden building away to the left had been set on fire and the flames roared despite the rain.

  No one seemed to have noticed him lying near the wall.

  He grasped a tree, dragged himself upright and stood leaning against the trunk. He had to find William. And quickly. But how was he going to do that in the chaos, amongst the thousands of men fighting? His friend could be anywhere, might already be dead. He rubbed his face with his hand. There had to be a way.

  He spotted the body of an officer lying nearby, green turban stained red. The man’s hand still clutched a spyglass. He ran across to the corpse, picked up the glass, then slipped back to the cover of the trees. The attackers still surged up the slope and no one paid him the slightest attention.

  He gazed at the battle again. Even with the glass, it would be impossible to spot William amidst the fighting. He would have to use his power . . . his power. He was so accustomed to thinking he had just one.

  He took a deep breath. He was a siddha now. A proper siddha. As far as he knew the first European to ever learn this much. So he would have to use his sattva-tracking power. The first power he’d learnt.

  Of course, he couldn’t actually track William about the Tower, but going into the trance would at least sharpen his eyesight and hopefully reveal details that he might otherwise miss. He had to try.

  He closed his eyes and tried to block out the sound of fighting. After a few minutes he sensed the sattva about him – he was in a weak stream. He concentrated on the yantra and, as usual, it glimmered white on black.

  Nothing happened.

  It had been strangely easy to meditate as he’d lain dying. Perhaps any distractions had been blotted out.

  He tried again, and this time his thoughts skipped and jumped. He saw Elizabeth in the cell at Poole, Jhala sitting in his office and waving the pardon before putting it in the top drawer of his desk, William bursting out of the smoke at the Battle of Ragusa.

  He tried to break free of these memories, but they kept building in his mind, as if he were rushing through a dense passage of recollections and images and flashes of sensation.

  Finally, he held the yantra still and it blasted him with light. A cool, liquid sensation enveloped him. He was in.

  He opened his eyes and everything looked sharp and clear. He could see every leaf on the trees about him, every drop of rain as it hurtled down, each soldier charging up the slope.

  He thought about William, recalling his friend’s size and shape and the way he moved. Then he stood, raised the glass and began his search. The pale stone and the four turrets of the White Tower leapt before him. Smoke puffed from the windows and dust danced on the walls as they were struck by musket fire.

  To the left of the keep lay open ground, across which attackers streamed as they searched for an entrance to the building. To the right stood a wall studded with a pair of bastion towers. Ladders had been raised against the wall and the rebels fought the enemy along the battlements.

  He surveyed the first bastion and made out the rebels on the roof firing at their assailants on the wall below. He then followed the wall, where further men fought with knife-muskets and fists, and reached the second bastion. A small group of rebels on the roof shot and hurled rocks down at attackers hidden on the other side of the perimeter wall.

  Jack paused and concentrated on the group of rebels. There was a tall man with a shaven head amongst them. Jack watched closely. The man fired down with a musket, reloaded, peered over the battlements, then fired again. Could it be . . . ?

  Distantly, Jack was aware that his wound was flaring again. His new healing power had given him only a temporary reprieve and the sattva-fire in his chest would burn brighter the longer he stayed in the trance. His breathing was thin and once again the pain crackled down his left arm. He couldn’t hold on for much longer.

  He concentrated harder on the tall man in the tower, the figure becoming brighter and clearer, as though viewed through an increasingly powerful glass. The man turned for a moment and Jack made out the face.

  It was William.

  Jack threw himself out of the trance and the force of the pain knocked him back against the tree. His head hit the trunk and he slid down as darkness roiled at the bottom of his vision. He swallowed down air, fought to stay conscious. As the darkness solidified, he scrabbled with his mind to recall the healing yantra. He saw one part of it, then another, then finally the whole design.

  He held the yantra still and immediately his breathing eased. He lay on the ground for a moment, panting. This healing power was going to be useful.

  As soon as he was strong enough, he climbed back to his feet, leant against the tree and squinted up at the bastion tower through the glass. Despite no longer being in the trance, he could still see William, although not with the same degree of clarity.

  He picked up the musket. The weapon was wet from the rain – the wood and steel shiny – but that wasn’t a problem for a percussion firearm. The old flintlocks had needed protecting from moisture – in the rain you had to keep the lock covered with a piece of leather, or hold the weapon under your armpit – but these new firearms were much less vulnerable.

  He hung the musket across his shoulder and took a deep breath. This was it. He was going to get close to William and then do what he had to do.

  He looked up at the bastion tower again. Somehow, he had to get in there, but he also had to avoid the fighting. The perimeter wall, which bounded the lawns and the keep, ran nearby to the right, and a set of stairs led up to the battlements. If he could get up there, then he could follow the wall to the tower.

  He glanced around. There was no one else in this corner of the grounds and no one between him and the steps. He left the trees and ran up the slope, keeping close to the wall. His chest still hurt and he couldn’t go much faster than a jog. The spyglass slapped against his chest and the musket bounced on his shoulder.

  Breathing heavily, he reached the steps and looked around. No one seemed to have noticed him, but he would be more exposed once he was up on the walkway.

  He charged up and crouched beside the battlements. On the far side of the wall was a cobbled street, followed by a further wall, towers, and beyond these the grey expanse of the Thames. About a hundred attackers had made it into the street and were firing up at William and his men in the tower.

  Jack ran along the wall, staying hunched. He would be clearly visible to William and the rebels if they looked in his direction. He noticed a small entrance where the tower met the perimeter wall, and he raced towards this, hoping to get inside before he was spotted.

  On the far side of the tower, the attackers on the wall had overpowered the rebels and were now trying to batter down a door. Seeing this, William and the others rushed over to that side of the roof and fired down at their assailants. Their muskets clattered and burst and smoke welled around the top of the tower. But the attackers soon had the door open and flooded into the building.

  William and his men disappeared from the roof, presumably rushing downstairs to meet the enemy.

  Jack reached the archway, breath fiery, dark spots dancing before him, the ground far below reeling and spinning. Should he use the healing power again? No – there was no time.

  He paused for a second to clear his head, then peered through the arch. Just inside was a small, empty room. At one end was a stairway, leading down, and at the other end an archway giving access to a dark corridor. He heard the sound of a fight in the depths of the corridor – shouts, cries, chimes of steel.
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  He slipped the musket from his shoulder, released the knife catch and held the weapon before him as he crept down the corridor. The noise of the fight grew louder. A couple of shots rang out. Footsteps. And then he heard William’s voice shouting something he couldn’t make out.

  He ran to the end of the hall, pressed himself against the wall and looked around the corner. Before him was a long chamber with a high-vaulted ceiling. Pale light spilt in through the windows along one wall and a ghostly lace of rain fell outside. William stood in the centre of the room. About him lay several bodies, both rebels and attackers. A soldier, who appeared to be a Frenchman with his thick beard and shaved head, knelt in front of William, clutching a ripening wound in his belly.

  William held a knife that was stained with blood.

  The Frenchman tried to stand, but couldn’t. He looked up at William and spat. William wiped the spittle from his cheek, then grabbed the Frenchman by the hair and slit his neck as quickly and expertly as a butcher. A line of blood shot out and splattered on the stone floor. The Frenchman gripped his neck and fell to the ground, where he squirmed and moaned.

  William now rushed to one of the windows and looked out.

  Jack heard the blasts and cries of the battle outside. He raised the musket. His heart battered in his chest and the darkness collected like frost at the rims of his eyes and he was sure he was going to pass out at any moment. But he couldn’t let himself pass out, because this was it now. He had a clear shot. He had to do it. Elizabeth was relying on him to pull that trigger.

  Only he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t shoot his friend in the back.

  He took a step into the chamber, still with the musket raised.

  William spun round and his head jerked back as though he’d been slapped in the face. His eyes narrowed and his grip tightened on the knife for a moment, but then his features warmed into a smile. ‘Jack. This is a surprise.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What? Are you going to shoot me?’

  ‘I have to get you back to Poole . . . my daughter.’

  ‘Yes. I remember. Don’t be crazy. Put the musket down. We’ll fight these bastards, then we’ll ride on Poole.’