Pax Britannia: Human Nature

by Jonathan Green

  Ulysses did not need his uncanny sixth sense to warn him when the beast was about to strike, as it finally caught up with them. He could hear its slavering, panting snarls, smell its rank breath and the stinking filth of its blood-matted fur.

  As the Barghest pounced, Ulysses dropped. He, and the young woman in his arms, had their landing cushioned by a blanket of heather.

  A springing ambush that should have knocked the two of them flat on the ground, the dog-beast crushing Ulysses with its massive bulk as it sank its knife-like talons into his spine, instead sent the beast flying over their heads, to land on the uneven ground beyond.

  Ulysses' action had been a hastily calculated risk, and it wasn't going to give them much time but hopefully it would be enough.

  Snarling in impotent rage, the animal skidded to a halt, arresting its momentum by unsheathing its claws, gouging muddy ruts in the earth as it turned to face them.

  The Barghest bared its horribly distended jaws and barked ferociously, only a few feet from them now.

  Ulysses' gun barked twice, silencing the monster. He was right; it had been enough time.

  But then another, forbidding guttural growl rumbled up from deep inside the dog's ribcage and it was clawing the ground again to gain purchase.

  "But I hit it!" Ulysses gasped in dismay and disbelief. "I know I was using my left hand, but I hit it; twice, in the head, from only five feet away. That should have floored it."

  Too shocked and stunned to do anything other than stare at the resolutely still standing monster he did not think to raise his gun and try again. Recovering itself, the Barghest began to pace towards them, more warily now, perhaps, but nonetheless its savage bloodlust still driving it towards its goal of their bloody demise.

  "Ulysses!" the stricken young woman screamed, as she struggled onto her hands and knees in a futile, yet determined, effort to escape her inevitable end, tears of terror streaming down her cheeks. "Ulysses! Move! We have to get away! Shoot it again!"

  Her plaintive, desperate, quavering cry was enough to shake Ulysses from his reverie. As the beast closed the gap between them, he took aim and fired. Although not enough to halt the monster in its tracks, it was enough to enrage it. The animal leapt again. This time Ulysses was ready for it.

  Tugging at the tied lace at his throat with shaking, pain-numbed fingers, Ulysses pulled the cape free and swung it at the Barghest's muzzle, using it like a matador's cloak. The creature baulked, giving Ulysses enough time to scramble to his feet again.

  Slowly, backing away from the beast, watching as it worried at the cape - the cloth becoming more and more tangled around its fangs - breathing deeply, trying to slow his racing heartbeat, Ulysses took careful aim once more. He was beginning to doubt that his gun could stop the monster - Nimrod's hadn't, nor had the shots he had loosed into the beast so far - but he had little else he could try. His sword-cane was still there, tucked into his belt, but he hadn't even had a chance to draw.

  Ulysses knew the rapidly disintegrating cape would only be a temporary distraction, but with every second that passed, Jennifer was able to get a little further away from the savage creature.

  One eye still on the enraged monster, the other on Jennifer as she continued to crawl out of reach of the Barghest, Ulysses began to wonder about what had actually happened to his loyal manservant. Was he dead? Was he alive, but terribly injured? Had he somehow managed to escape his encounter with the brute?

  And where was Jennifer's terrier, Ambrose?

  Ulysses took his eyes from the hulking devil dog and the damsel for only a moment, shooting desperate glances around him at the darkening moor, eyes straining against the failing light. He saw the faint flicker of movement - the white cuff of a shirt waving in the gathering gloom - as his ears picked up the cry of: "Over here, sir!"

  Ulysses looked again, not entirely sure he could trust what he had seen the first time. It looked like half of his manservant was missing. Ulysses couldn't see Nimrod's legs. It looked like he was half buried in the ground, only visible from the waist up. For a split second he wondered if the monster had managed to tear Nimrod in half, but then, if that had been the case, he wouldn't have been in any position to sit up and wave, whilst calling out to his master.

  "Quickly, sir. I have an idea."

  With one more glance at the Barghest - which was still struggling to free itself from the snare of the cape - Ulysses made a snap decision.

  "Nimrod, old chap! I can't tell you how happy I am to see you're still alive!" Ulysses declared, arriving at his companion's side.

  "The feeling is mutual, sir. But with all due respect, the pleasantries can wait. I would be most grateful, however, if you could pull me out of this hole."

  "Hole?" Ulysses repeated, bewildered, as he offered his manservant his left hand. Nimrod took it gladly and Ulysses heaved him up. As he did so, he saw the mouldering planks half hidden by the growth of unruly grasses.

  "Yes, sir. It would appear that in my efforts to escape imminent death at the claws of the beast, I have inadvertently discovered the boarded up entrance to an old mineshaft."

  "Have you now?" Ulysses said, a smile creeping across his face in the darkness.

  And then, suddenly, there was a way out of their impossible predicament - a faint glimmer of light, no more than a candle-flicker, in the encroaching darkness.

  "Are you thinking what I'm thinking."

  "I'm way ahead of you, sir."

  "Excellent, then let's make some noise."

  The two men began hollering and whooping; anything to get the beast's attention.

  "Hey! Over here!" Ulysses shouted, waving his hands in the air.

  The dog-monster pulled the last shredded remnant of Ulysses' cape from its muzzle - the flesh there criss-crossed with a myriad bloody scratches - and bared its teeth, issuing another menacing challenge, sounding like an angry wolf. The beast looked at Ulysses directly with blood and fury in its eyes.

  And yet despite the obvious rage it held in its black heart, just when Ulysses was certain the beast had taken the bait, it turned away from him and, seeing Jennifer still struggling to get away on her hands and knees, for a moment looked like it might take its fury out on her.

  "Bad dog!" Ulysses shouted, took aim and fired. A chunk of meat flew from the bunching shoulders of the beast in a welter of black blood.

  With a snarl the Barghest turned.

  "There, that's got your attention again!"

  And suddenly it was a bounding blur of darkness as it bore down on Ulysses. There was no way the beast was going to stop now, not until it had torn him limb from limb and left his body as something that was indistinguishable from the offal found at the end of the day on an abattoir floor.

  When there was almost no more ground between them, Ulysses saw the creature's muscles bunch as it readied itself to leap, and tensed himself. When it leapt, he dropped.

  Only this time the hellhound had learnt from the last time it had been caught out that way. In that split second Ulysses pulled the trigger again. The chamber returned empty.

  And then the firearm was knocked from his hand as the beast landed on top of him, the heavy swipe of a paw sending the weapon flying while Ulysses was thrown back onto the ground, the full weight of the creature on top of him forcing the wind from his lungs, the nauseous dead-meat stink of the devil dog's rank breath washing over his face in intolerable waves.

  But, even as the monster sent him tumbling backwards, short of the pit shaft, Ulysses boldly grabbed great handfuls of its matted fur, nearly hard enough to pull great clumps of it from the creature's hide.

  As he rolled onto his back, with the beast on top of him, those terrible snapping jaws mere inches from his suddenly vulnerable face, he kicked upwards with his feet with all the strength he could muster, even as the breath was violently forced from his lungs.

  For a moment something like surprise appeared in the creature's soulless eyes. And then, using its own mass and the momentum of his own
fall against it, Ulysses bodily hurled the Barghest over his head. It hit what remained of the boarded-up pit cover and smashed through it as if it were nothing more than plywood.

  And then it was gone. All that remained were angry howls and pained yelps, receding into the darkness, accompanied by the occasional scrape of claws, skittering showers of stone and dull thuds.

  Ulysses lay where he had fallen, his head hanging over the edge of the pit-shaft, his deerstalker having gone the way of the devil dog - Nimrod on the other side - gasping for breath as he listened to the creature's descent.

  And then there was only silence. When at last he felt able to move, broken fingers throbbing with pain, his shoulder feeling nearly as bad, Ulysses cautiously sat up.

  "Ulysses!" It was Jennifer, the pale features of her worried face peering at him, ghost-like out of the encroaching dusk. "You're all right. I thought there, for a moment, that..." But she couldn't bring herself to put her imagined horrors into words.

  "Yeah, me too," he said, his half-smile turned to a grimace of pain.

  "Sir, I would suggest we keep on to Miss Haniver's home, as originally planned. Both of you have injuries that need to be attended to."

  "And you, Nimrod?"

  Ulysses saw his manservant's usually so rigid aquiline features soften in the presence of an unaccustomed smile at hearing of his master's concern. "There's nothing wrong with me sir that a good cup of Earl Grey wouldn't put right."

  "Glad to hear it, old boy. Glad to hear it."

  Suddenly something bounded into Ulysses' lap, yapping furiously.

  "I see you're all right then," he said.

  "Ambrose!" Jennifer shrieked in delight. "Come here, you naughty boy. Come here at once!"

  Nimrod coughed politely. "I'm sure we don't want to be caught out in the open by the beast again, do we, sir?" he pointed out ominously, Ulysses' body tensing again at the unwelcome thought that the monster might have survived its fall and was even now making its way back to the surface to exact its revenge. "Best to keep moving, just in case."

  "Just in case." The echo of Nimrod's words sounded hollow, as the anxiety Ulysses had felt himself, in the face of the monster's attack, returned. "Come on then. You help Miss Haniver and I'll -" He winced again in pain. "I'll do my best to keep up."

  It was so dark now, dusk leading inexorably into night, that the three survivors were nothing more than black paper cut-outs against the horizon-wide blanket of clouds.

  He had caught up with them at the same time as the beast. It had been pure luck that the prevailing wind had meant that the creature picked up the scent of the dandy before it had sniffed him out, otherwise he wouldn't have been alive now.

  He had wanted to do more to help, dearly wished that there was something he could have done, but he was impotent. He was unarmed and he did not have the obvious physical skills that the other - who had previously been wearing the deerstalker - had. But there had been a moment then, when the monster looked like it was going to turn on the lady, the one he had admired from afar for so many months now, that he had been about to fling himself between the beauty and the beast, ready to sacrifice himself so that she might live. But, thanks to the actions of the other, in the end it hadn't come to that.

  At that thought he offered up a prayer to his Lord. Surely it wasn't a sin to sacrifice one's own life for that of another, even if it did mean taking on what was effectively a suicide mission.

  But then, of course, it hadn't come to that.

  And so he followed them as they continued on their way towards the sanctuary of the house on the crest of the rise, always keeping a respectful distance so that he wouldn't be seen or heard. It wouldn't pay to be seen by them after all. No, not at all.

  Making his way onwards, picking his way carefully between hidden sink holes and peaty morasses, he followed them, into the embrace of the forgiving darkness.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Naturalist

  The sturdy front door to the lodge house opened with a groan of protesting hinges and a pale grey, skeletal face appeared out of the semi-darkness of the candle-lit hallway beyond. The old man was completely bald but had apparently tried to make up for his extreme hair loss by growing a bushy white beard on his chin instead.

  "Who is it?" the crotchety face demanded. "What do you wan- Oh my god, Jenny!" he suddenly exclaimed, coming to horrified life as his eyes moved from Ulysses' haggard face and that of his weary manservant to the young woman they were supporting between them.

  He hurried out, his walking stick clattering to the black and white diamond check tiles of the hall as he crossed the threshold.

  "What happened?" he demanded of her, taking her faces in his hands, his own visage as white as a sheet. "It's already dark. What have you been doing?"

  "I was searching for the beast, Father."

  "But out on these moors, with that monster on the loose?"

  "That's exactly why, Daddy. That's precisely why I had to go out."

  "Sunset came and I began worrying about where you had got to." His tone was chiding, precisely that of a parent punishing a child purely as a result of their own feelings of fear, panic and love.

  "I sprained my ankle," Jennifer admitted.

  "Where's the dog?" the old man suddenly asked, his over-wrought mind flitting from one thought to the next. "Where's Ambrose?"

  At the merest mention of its name, the terrier darted between Ulysses' legs, past the old man and into the warmth of the house.

  Ulysses cleared his throat loudly; they needed to get Jennifer inside so that they might examine her ankle more closely. And besides, he felt like he could do with a sit down and a glass of cognac. "Excuse me, sir," he began, "but might we -"

  "What are you doing just standing there?" the old man suddenly snapped. "Bring her inside. We need to take a look at that ankle."

  With an exasperated harrumph, Ulysses helped Jennifer over the doorstep and into the antler-festooned hallway beyond. He noticed that Nimrod wiped his feet on the stiff brush doormat before entering; ever mindful of his place within the social hierarchy.

  "Bring her through to the drawing room," the old man instructed, leading them inside the house, one hand on the wall to steady himself. "Make her comfortable. Get her foot up. I'll get some ice from the pantry."

  "Your stick, sir," Nimrod said, proffering the handle towards the old man. He took it, barely giving Nimrod a second look.

  "Now come on. Chop chop!" he ordered, stopping at the entrance to a corridor.

  "Welcome to Hunter's Lodge, gentlemen," Jennifer offered somewhat belatedly, as they entered the warm embrace of the house.

  Ulysses followed the old man's pointed directions, passing a dining room to his left, then on through the hall, with the staircase leading to the first floor on the right and a door marked 'LIBRARY' to the left, and finally, through the last door on the left. This lead into the drawing room itself, while the old man disappeared along a corridor opposite the dining room his stick tap-tap-tapping on the tiles as he went on his way.

  On entering the drawing room, Ulysses helped Jennifer onto a sofa facing a roaring fire - a number of logs blazing away within the grate, filling the room with heat and flickering orange light - and made her comfortable. He plumped up a pair of cushions for her to lie against whilst he used another to help him prop up her swollen ankle.

  There were two other chairs in the room. The one closest to the fire had a table next to it on which lay a pile of dusty-looking books. The tome on the top of the pile looked to be about botany. Discarded on the rug in front of the chair was a tartan-patterned woollen blanket.

  "Your father feels the cold," Ulysses said, as he helped Jennifer remove her walking boots.

  "Yes. He's not a well man, hasn't been for a long time."

  "I'm sorry to hear that."

  He unrolled the long, knee-length sock - revealing the supple, well-toned calf beneath - and Jennifer winced as he pulled it over the bruised and swollen joint. "Y
up, it's definitely sprained," he said. "Sorry. Plenty of rest - that's what you need. So, what's the matter with him? Your father, I mean."

  "It's not what's the matter," Jennifer tried to explain, "so much as what happened to him."

  "Oh?"

  Jennifer looked like she was about to say something more but at that moment the old man returned, a bucket of ice and a tea towel in his free hand.

  "Here, get that on there. Wrap it up nice and tight too, mind," the girl's father instructed, pointing at his daughter's ankle with his stick.

  "Yes, sir," Ulysses replied, unable to negate the sarcastic sneer that entered his voice. He never had responded well to authority, especially when it resulted in someone treating him like an idiot.

  Ulysses took the bucket and immediately grimaced in pain as his damaged fingers took the weight. He let go again quickly, the tin bucket dropping to the floor with a clang.

  "Can you see to Miss Haniver's leg?" he winced, addressing his manservant. "It's just that I appear to be somewhat incapacitated."

  "Of course, sir. You should take a seat yourself. You look like you could do with a rest."

  Ulysses regarded his manservant with unashamed admiration. He had been through just as much as the rest of them as they had fled from the predations of the Ghestdale beast and yet here he was, taking the strain and helping out, carrying on as he would with his usual duties, as if nothing were amiss.

  Nimrod was, Ulysses decided, really something else. And he had always been the same, such as when Hercules Quicksilver, Ulysses' father, had been alive.

  Not needing to be told twice to take the weight off his feet, Ulysses gratefully collapsed into a chair by the fire. His deerstalker and cape were gone, lost to the moors and the Barghest, but at least that was all that had been taken. Things could have been so much worse..

  "So, Jennifer tells me you're a naturalist," Ulysses said, by way of making light conversation.