Stonemouth

All the shouting they’d heard involved a false alarm; some of us had spotted the mud-smeared Callum and mistaken him for Wee Malky. When we did see him, finally, it was a good quarter of an hour later, and there had been some mobile phoning to coordinate the hunt — supposedly banned, and not easy with the patchy reception on the estate, but sort of tolerated when somebody was proving particularly elusive, and also technically more effective where we were by now, high up on the wooded hillside that looked down on the main gardens.

‘There he is!’ Josh yelled.

About half the chasing pack had got together at the north side of the upper reservoir, near the furthest western extent of the house gardens before they gave out on to the rest of the estate and the grouse moors and plantation forests beyond. The upper reservoir was there to feed the ornamental lake and other water features below; it was a simple, slim, delta shape, a dammed miniature glen surrounded by woods with a grass-covered dam wall forming its eastern limit and a long, steeply sloped, stone-lined overflow at the far, south edge.

Josh had spotted Wee Malky running along the top of the dam wall, sprinting like a hare for the far side, where the overflow was.

A few of us had been up here already, before we’d been allowed in legally. The overflow had no bridge over it; if you wanted to cross it you’d have to walk along the submerged top lip of the thing: about seven metres of round-topped, weed-slicked stone under an amount of overflowing water that varied according to season and recent weather. There was deep, brown-black peaty water to one side — and reputedly some sort of undertow that meant you’d never surface again if you fell in — and that steep, twenty-metre-long slope of slimy-surfaced overflow on the other, pitched at about thirty-five or forty degrees and with stumpy stone pillars at the foot you wouldn’t want to encounter at the sort of speeds implied if you started sliding down from the top.

Callum claimed he had made this perilous crossing, as did a few older boys, but nobody we trusted had witnessed anybody doing it. Wee Malky was making straight for this scary, bravery-testing obstacle and the track on the far side, ignoring the steep grass slope of the dam wall dropping away to his left. There was a track at its foot that led back to the house, but that one constituted good going; he’d be overtaken by a faster runner. The way up the far side of the shallow stream that ran from the bottom of the overflow was covered with brambles and nettles, and looked almost impassable. If he crossed the overflow and we didn’t follow him, we’d lose him.

We were twenty-five minutes into the chase by this point, even not allowing for Callum’s early start, plus we were out of paintball range — a high, lucky shot might just hit Wee Malky, but it wouldn’t splat — so Malky crossing the overflow without pursuit would mean he’d win, we’d lose.

We all started yelling, and raced along the shore track after him, hoping to put him off just with the sheer amount of noise we were making. Hugo appeared, running from the other direction, joining us at the top of the dam summit.

‘Anybody seen George?’ he asked breathlessly. I don’t think many of us heard him; nobody answered, just streamed past him, turning along the top of the dam. Hugo jogged after us. ‘Look, have any of you seen—’

Wee Malky was at the overflow. We saw him step down carefully onto the round-topped, water-covered stones. The waves spilling over the top came up to his ankles. He started walking along, arms outstretched, the flowing water splashing out around his trainers. He wasn’t taking it slowly, either; he knew he needed to get to the other side fast and be in cover to get back out of paintball range.

He was halfway across and our sprint after him was starting to tell on our legs when somebody at the front of the pack suddenly pulled up, coming to a stop and causing somebody else behind to slam into him, making them both stumble and producing a mini pile-up behind them. They were looking down at the foot of the overflow.

‘Look,’ Hugo said, jogging up from behind, ‘have any of you guys seen …’

‘…George?’ somebody said.

Wee Malky had stopped in the centre of the overflow. We were coming to a straggled halt on the top of the dam.

Down at the bottom of the grassy slope, stepping down the halfmetre into the concrete channel and then wading upstream to the foot of the overflow slope, was George, holding, in both hands, a sword almost as big as he was.

‘Where’d that fucking come from?’ Phelpie breathed beside me. My throat didn’t seem to be working properly. ‘House,’ I managed to say, gulping, remembering the circles and fans of weapons arrayed across its walls.