Chapter 3

Something was tickling my nose. I tried to brush it away, but it came back. I swiped at it again. And then I remembered that tentacle.

“Aaaagh!” I screamed, jumping off the bed. I ended up on the floor, face to face with the Duck. He was clutching a large wooden box to his chest.

“Get off me,” he said, clambering to his feet. He brushed himself down and opened the box to check the contents. “You could have damaged ’em, you idiot.”

“Don’t creep around,” I warned him, jabbing my finger in his face.

He produced a long barrelled gun from the case.

I leapt away from him. “What the hell’s that?”

“A genuine Wogdon duelling pistol. Here, stick this plaster over your nail and you can get a feel.”

I wrapped the modern plaster round my finger, without taking my eyes off the beautiful long-barrelled pistol.

“There, what do you think?” he said, passing it to me, handle first. “Try that for weight.”

I grabbed it and got the feel of it, pretended to shoot things around the room.

“Don’t wave it about,” said the Duck.

“Is it loaded?”

“Oh, yeah,” said the Duck sarcastically.

I pulled the trigger and the big hammer thing sprang down on the other bit with a dull clunk.

“Watch it!” exclaimed the Duck, ducking out of the way. “Here, give me that!”

He tried to snatch it out of my hand. I hung on to it and we wrestled.

“Naff off!” I said.

“Give me that bloody gun!” he quacked.

We struggled some more and then I let him have it.

The Duck cleaned it off on the gold embroidered sleeve of his black silk frock coat and carefully replaced it in its box.

“That’s an antique,” he grumbled. “Worth a lot of money.”

“Put a bullet in it for me then—you said I needed a bit of practice,” I said, quite fancying a go.

“It’s a muzzle-loader,” he said. “You don’t use bullets, you use a ball. You ignoramus.”

“I just want to make sure it works,” I said. “I don’t trust you.”

“It’ll work. He’s the one with the problem,” nodded the Duck.

“So, what do I do when his blows up in his face then?” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull my boots on.

“Let him have it,” said the Duck, making his hand into a gun and miming what I should do. “Make my day.”

“Seems a bit unfair,” I said.

“Unfair? It’s him or you, mate!” cried the Duck. “Blow that sucker away!”

“Yeah, I know, but, all the same, it’s a bit one-sided,” I said. “I mean, I might, you know, hurt him badly without really meaning to.”

“You mean kill him,” said the Duck.

“Well. We’re not playing tiddlywinks.”

“Don’t worry—you won’t hit him—you’ll be fifty feet away. You couldn’t hit the side of a bus with one of these things from that range,” said the Duck.

“I might.”

“No way,” said the Duck. “No. All you do when he goes down is raise your pistol in the air, like this, say: no contest, Monsieur, and empty the barrel in the sky.”

“So why are we bothering to practise?” I asked.

“That’s what we’ll be practising,” said the Duck. “I want to make sure you don’t hit anybody. Me, for example. Come on—the sun’s nearly up.”

I smiled. “I like the sound of this. I’m going to come across as a right hero when I discharge my pistol in the air.” I put on a French accent. “No contest, Monsieur—blam!”

“And this sort of thing spreads through the Gloucestershire set like a dose of the clap. The Duckworth family name will be solid gold round here, mate. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get invited to a few top drawer balls,” said the Duck. “Never know—might get you married off.”

“Behave. I’m spoken for. Will Emma be watching?”

“Sorry, no women allowed on a field of honour. It’s bad luck.”

“Well, it’s always bad luck for one of ’em, isn’t it?”

“You just want to show off—it’s not allowed! But don’t worry, I’ll make sure she hears about what a hero you were.”

I straightened my cravat. “Just make sure she never finds out what really occurred.”

“No worries. Just go out there and enjoy yourself, my son. It’s your day.”

I slapped his shoulder. “Thanks, Duck,” I said. “You know, I had my reservations about this, but now I see what you were up to.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. All you’re interested in is making a name for yourself with your new neighbours.”

“Guilty,” smiled the Duck. “You got it in one.”

“Don’t worry, it’s cool,” I said. “I know what you’re like, but I do see you’ve worked this so we both get what we want for a change.”

“You get your brains from your father,” he grinned.

* * *

We walked down the main staircase, side by side, two resolute figures, determined to uphold the family honour—whatever the cost to Monsieur De Quipp! There’s something ennobling about walking to a field of honour at the crack of dawn, with your second, even when you know the duel has been fixed and you can’t lose.

We crossed the elegant black and white chequered hall and entered the long gallery, passing all the paintings and household antiques my father had acquired recently. I wondered who all the noble figures in the portraits were. Okay, they were not ancestors, I know, but I felt sure they would have been proud of what I was doing, as long as you left out the bit about the cheating.

“Who’s the guy in the ermine robe?” I asked, as we walked under a huge oil painting of a curly wigged Restoration-type with rosy cheeks.

“Dunno,” replied the Duck.

“What about her?” I said, pointing at the full-length portrait of an equine-nosed young lady in a blue silk ball gown, leaning against a Palladian pillar.

“I think she’s German,” replied the Duck.

“Don’t we have any real ancestor paintings?” I said.

“I’m going to get a few done—you, me, Emily and Emma—the kids—might even make up a few,” he said.

“You could get Turner to do them,” I said.

“No. He’s too expensive. I know this bloke in Soho. You just send him some Polaroids, slip him a few quid, and he’ll knock off as many as you want, all in period costume.”

“That’s right,” I said, “do it properly.”

“When do I have time to sit? I’m a hunted man. Besides, there’s no money in portraits—nobody buys ’em.”

The English aristocracy say that if you have to buy your own furniture, you are not a true aristocrat. Well, my old man bought his as a job lot, but at least he knew the makers personally.

We reached the end that backed onto the east terrace. Bentley was waiting for us with two glasses of Dutch courage on a silver tray.

“Cheers, Benters,” said the Duck. He passed me mine. “There you go, Son, get that down you. Jamaican rum, from my plantation. That’ll put hairs on your vest.”

“I hope you’re not a slaver,” I said.

“Do me a favour,” said the Duck. “I only bought it as an investment. I’ve never even been out there.”

“Well, I don’t suppose it matters,” I said. “They’ll be banning slavery in 1807, anyway.”

Bentley raised an eyebrow.

“Probably,” I added.

Bentley took our empty glasses.

“Thanks, Bentley,” I said.

“May one be permitted to wish you good luck, sir?” he inquired.

“You may,” said the Duck.

“The very best of luck, sir,” said Bentley. “I hope you win.”

“Thanks, Bentley.”

“He won’t need any luck, Benters,” said the Duck. “His opponent’s only a Frenchman.”

“To be sure, sir,” said Bentley.

“And no match for a Duckworth,” I added, getting into the swing of the thing.

“I hope not, sir. I’m offering very good odds for you,” said Bentley. He set off on the long walk back up the gallery.

“Odds?” I called.

“Just a harmless flutter, sir.”

“On my life? How long?”

“Two hundred to one, sir,” replied Bentley.

“I’m not that confident, Bentley.”

“Against, sir.”

“Against?” I turned to the Duck. “Does he know about the you know what?” I whispered.

“Er…”

“You said you wouldn’t tell anyone!”

“I only told Benters—he’s just taking a few side bets for me. At odds of two-hundred to one against—the punters are ripping his arm off!”

“You’re running a book on your son’s life? Haven’t you got any scruples?”

“I couldn’t resist it. Anyway, we can’t lose.” He tapped his box of pistols. “We’ve got an edge.”

“Edge? That’s a bloody cliff! It’s cheating.”

“I prefer the term creative certainty.”

“This is all a tissue of lies, isn’t it?” I said. “This whole set-up—the house, the title. What are you doing back here in this snobby society? You’ll never fit in round here. You’ve only got one principle—get in first and do unto others before they do unto you. You’d be better off hobnobbing with the mob in twentieth century Las Vegas.”

“I’ve got a condo in Vegas,” said the Duck.

“Well, why don’t you go and live in it?”

He opened the tall terrace doors for me.

“I’m sick of all this pretence.”

“I’m an antiques dealer. This is where all the best stuff is,” said the Duck.

We both stepped outside into the chill March air. The morning mists were still hanging in the trees and there was a muffled stillness everywhere.

“Give me that gun,” I said.

The Duck opened the case as we walked to the terrace parapet and handed me a pistol.

“Sure this is the right one?” I said. “That’s a point—how am I going to know which one’s mine? They both look the same.”

“Not a problem,” said the Duck.

“Not for you maybe. You’ll be hiding behind a tree.”

“As the challenged,” he said, patiently, “it is your privilege to have first dibs. Now, I will hold the case open towards you like this.” He demonstrated.

“Right.”

“No, left,” said the Duck. “You choose the pistol with its butt on the left—the one you’re holding. Got that—the left?”

“The left? Right.”

“No—the left!”

“Yeah, all right, I know which side’s my left,” I said. “Here, hang on—your left or my left?”

“We’d better make up something, so you don’t forget,” he said. “I know—left—that’s ‘L’ for loaded. Got that?”

“And ‘R’ for reject—I reject the right one,” I said.

“No, the right one is on the left,” said the Duck.

“Oh, shut up. Just point to the bloody thing!”

I aimed down at bushes and statues in the formal garden below us, and pretended to blow them away, with sound effects. Blam! Blam-blam! Pow!

“Give me that!” said the Duck.

I held it out of his reach and made him jump for it, till he gave up trying to take it off me.

“All right,” he said. “Show me how you’re going to shoot into the air after De Quipp goes down.”

I pointed directly up into the air and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, of course, because it wasn’t loaded, so I did the sound effect. Blam! And the echo. Bla-blam!

“No,” said the Duck.

“Yeah, well, I’ll just do it my way,” I said, tired of all his fussing.

“If you fire it straight up like that, you could have your eye out!”

“How?” I said sceptically.

“Give it here, I’ll show you.”

I reluctantly handed over the gun.

He demonstrated. “If you hold it right up above your head, like you had it, you’ll have bits of hot lead and powder sparks falling straight down in your eyes. Hold it out like this—he held his arm out and bent it at the elbow—and discharge it away from your body, but directly up in the air. Got it?”

“Yeah. Give it here then.”

“No, it’s going away now, till we get there.”

“Call that a practice? I haven’t even fired the bloody thing yet!”

“Ammunition costs money.” He put the gun carefully back in its brown baize lined case and shut it. “Come on, this way.”

He dashed off down some steps on the eastern side of the house, leading to the formal garden. I followed on his heels. And caught him up.

“How far is it?”

“Not far. See those beech trees?”

There was a line of beech trees running parallel, but far to the left of the main avenue of trees—which, I think, were limes—and the Duck had indicated these. They seemed to border a level path going to a small bridge over a stream. It being early spring, they were not yet in leaf, but there were rookeries in the high branches, and the residents were stirring and drying their feathers in the sun, which was just beginning to break through. They let out a few piercing cackles as we approached.

You know that feeling you get sometimes when something just doesn’t feel right? Well, I was getting it in spades.

We had traversed the garden, with its topiary and symmetrical hedging, and were just going down the verdant slope to the stream. It should have been a walk in the park, but it felt more like a walk in the dark.

“Wait,” I said.

The Duck stopped and turned about. “What is it now?”

“I don’t see De Quipp,” I said.

“He’ll be here,” said the Duck.

I looked back at the house. It seemed impossibly large, sitting there in the perfect green landscape, with its neo-classical arches and pillars, and sheer walls, streaked with grime—like an illusion.

“There’s something wrong. I can feel it.”

“Your senses are working overtime. The old adrenalin’s pumping.”

“Is that what it is?” I gazed around me. “Everything just feels different.”

“It’s just nerves,” said the Duck. “Come on. We’ll be late.”

I took my time, looked back at the house again, around at the terraces and trees and gardens, and then up into the empty grey sky. I thought I heard something. And if I listened very hard, I could just make out a roaring sound coming from beyond the clouds.

“What’s that?” I said.

“What?”

“That noise. It sounds like the red-eye from New York!”

“It’s just the wind,” said the Duck.

“And the house!” I said. “It’s aged, the stone’s got dark patches—you scheming little rat! This isn’t 1803! We’re back in the third millennium!”

“Calm down,” said the Duck.

I grabbed his arm and started swinging his scrawny body around and round. Though he tried to clutch it to his pigeon chest, the pistol case flew out of his other arm and skittered across the grass.

“You’ve brought me back! Why? Where’s Emma? Oh my God, what have you done?”

I was whirling him around faster and faster. Both his feet left the ground and he was screaming at me to stop.

“Let me go! Let me go! Steve! I-can-ex-plain-ev-er-y-thing!”

I let go and the centrifugal force slingshotted him at least ten feet through the air and sent him skidding on his backside down the grassy slope. I ran after him and grabbed him by his stupid hippie ponytail before he could scramble to his feet. I wrenched his head back and stuck my nose right up against his.

“Start at the beginning and tell me everything, you devious little bastard!”

“All right, all right! The truth!” he cried.

“I knew there was something fishy going on and I knew you were behind it. Tell me!”

“Let go of my hair first.”

I gave his head one last yank and released him. He immediately scampered away to fetch the box. I ran after him. He picked clods of earth off it and rubbed it clean with his sleeve.

“You maniac! Have you any idea how much a boxed set of Wogdons is worth?”

I gave him a shove. “I don’t care,” I said. “What are we doing here?”

“It was a safety measure.” He straightened his glasses. “I’ve got a helicopter standing by on the other side of the house, if any of the combatants sustain a serious wound, I could have him in Bristol A and E in five minutes.”

“You’ll have to do better than that, unless you want to go there,” I smiled. “Now, the real reason.”

“That’s the truth. I swear,” he said. “I didn’t want to take any chances with… with my son’s life.”

He held the gun case close to his heart and gazed off across the immaculate parkland, with a wistfully tragic expression on his face.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you, Son. Honest I don’t.”

“Yeah, very moving,” I said. “Now tell me the rest.”

He looked round at me, aghast. “That’s all there is!” he quacked. “Don’t you believe I have feelings?”

“Let me see,” I started counting on my fingers, “there’s greed, lust, selfishness, pride—”

“—What a low opinion you have of your father,” he said, sadly.

But I wasn’t buying any of it. “So, Bentley’s in on it. Who else?”

“Just Bentley.”

“Well, that’s a lie for a start,” I said. “How did you get De Quipp here?”

“De Quipp doesn’t know anything—he still thinks he’s in 1803,” said the Duck.

“Where is he then?” I said, looking round.

“He’s out riding.”

I leaned forward to make a point of peering through Duckworth’s thick-lensed glasses. “On his own? What if he rides straight into a motorway?”

“My, er, brother-in-law’s chaperoning him,” replied the Duck. “Now, can we get on, they’ll be back in a minute.”

“Which brother-in-law?” I said. “You must have dozens—you’ve got a wife in every century!”

“Rufus.”

“Rufus who?”

“It’s Aleman,” said the Duck.

“Aleman the Blacksmith—from the Middle Ages?” I exclaimed. “You brought Aleman here? He only has two brain cells—and they’re both illiterate!”

“Stupidity has its uses,” said the Duck.

“Yeah, he does everything you tell him.”

“He speaks Norman French,” said the Duck.

“Wait a minute—Aleman’s playing Captain Walrus—De Quipp’s second—I thought I recognized that moustache!” I once wrestled Aleman the Smithy for the hand of the Duck’s sister-in-law, an Anglo-Saxon wench named Betha. I threw the fight, but that’s another story.

Suddenly, two riders appeared on the horizon, one silhouette riding tall and elegant in the saddle, the other short and fat, bouncing along beside him.

“They’re coming!” said the Duck, seizing my arm.

We watched them ride down the hill into the avenue of limes and then cut across towards the bridge.

“What a farce,” I said. “Okay, let’s do it.”

The Duck stopped and waved to them. I walked past him and headed for the line of beeches.

We met on the path. I put my hands in my pockets and posed. De Quipp was still astride his horse at one end—his second holding it steady—the Duck joined me at the other. My opponent dismounted in one smooth movement and started striding purposefully towards me. I set off immediately to meet him before he got to the middle, because I thought it would be bad form to allow him to come to me. Our seconds hurried along behind us, Aleman leading the two horses and the Duck carrying his box of guns. We were now both roughly in the middle of the little avenue of beeches, with the stream gurgling away down the bank, on my left.

“Get those horses out of here,” I said.

Aleman hesitated and then, after a jerk of the head from De Quipp, led them to the other side of the break of trees, on the far side from the stream.

“So, Baron Duckworth,” said De Quipp, strutting around me, hands on hips, looking me up and down, “you dare to teurn up.”

I stood my ground and looked bored while he circled me.

“Have you come to talk or to fight?” I said.

“I yam a chevalier, a Knight of France,” he said. “You insult mee, Baron Duckworth. Now I geeve you the chaunce to take hit back.”

“No,” I yawned.

“Vary well!” he snapped. “Then you geeve mee no choice—I must keel you.”

“Pick a gun and let’s get on with it then,” I said.

We both turned to the Duck, who was shaking his head vigorously at me. I had no idea what he meant. He flipped open the catches on the gun case and offered them to us.

De Quipp went to inspect the pistols more closely, but did not touch them. He nodded approvingly at the Duck. Then he turned to me.

“You ask mee to choose?”

It suddenly dawned on me why the Duck had been shaking his head. I was just panicking and wondering what to do next, when De Quipp said:

“You insult mee, Baron! It was I who challaunge you—you must choose!”

I smiled.

Aleman, who had wound the reins of the horses around a low-hanging branch, rejoined us. We exchanged glances, but neither of us gave away any sign that we knew each other.

“You would like me to choose,” said De Quipp, pointing his finger at my nose, “because you sink I yam the loweur one, but hin France an English Baronet his not so high as a chevalier.”

“Whatever,” I said.

“Ahem, I think you’ll find you’re about the same rank socially, Monsieur De Quipp, according to Debrett’s,” said the Duck, smiling with his teeth.

De Quipp shrugged. “Vary well, hif you say so, Sir Julianne. I will not quipple.” He turned to me again and gestured to the case with a flourish of his hand. “Choose your weapon, Baron Duckworth.”

I peered into the case and pretended to be making up my mind, because I didn’t want to make it look too obvious that I was only going to go for one particular pistol. I put my finger to my lips. The Duck’s right index finger moved along the edge of the box, and was clearly indicating the left hand pistol, as he held it open. I picked it up and weighed it in my hand.

“Good balance,” I nodded. I looked along the barrel, with one eye closed and curled my lip. “Sight’s a bit out.” I made an effort to bend it straight, although there was nothing really wrong with it, not that I would have known even if there were.

The Duck scowled at me.

De Quipp quickly took the remaining pistol and expertly turned it over in his hands, checking that every moving part was in working order and the barrel was clean. And then he helped himself to more things from the case—a small flask, a lead ball, some little cloth wads, flint. Then, holding the flask in his teeth, he removed a rod thing from his pistol, which was slotted in under the barrel, directly in line with it. Mine had one, too, so I pulled it out and showed it to the Duck. The Duck shook his head. I shrugged.

“Ahem, Monsieur De Quipp?” said the Duck.

“Oui?”

“In England it is considered proper etiquette to let the combatants’ seconds load the guns.”

“Not so hin France,” said De Quipp, briskly pouring gunpowder down the muzzle of his pistol.

I was trying to watch and copy him at the same time, but dropped my flask and bent my ramrod thingy when I went to pick it up.

“Well, this isn’t France, is it?” said the Duck. “I must insist you abide by English rules.”

“I hallways load my own pistol,” said De Quipp, rapidly plunging his ramrod in and out to pack his powder down firmly.

Aleman, moving clumsily in his ill-fitting French cavalry sergeant’s uniform, which was at least two sizes too small for him, came to my aid and straightened my rod for me. Well, the guy was a blacksmith in his own time, so he knew a thing or two about working metal.

Meanwhile, De Quipp had put the flint in the pan under the hammer and was pouring a little black powder in from the flask. I copied him.

“I insist, sir!” cried the Duck, still trying to get his hands on De Quipp’s pistol, presumably because he hadn’t had a chance to nobble it yet.

“Thees his most irreguleur!” cried De Quipp. “No shootist hin hall France would permit thees!”

“This is not bloody France!” cried the Duck. “Give me back my pistol!” And he attempted to take it by force.

“Non!” exclaimed De Quipp, struggling with the Duck.

“It’s my pistol—I say who loads it!”

“I load hit myself!”

“Let it go—or I won’t let you borrow it!”

“Thees his outrageeus!”

“Votre manteau, chevalier?” inquired the not so stodgy-witted as I had thought Aleman.

This had the effect of stopping the quarrel between the Duck and De Quipp, because De Quipp made a point of handing his primed gun to his second, so that he could take off his jacket.

The Duck came to take mine. Remembering the rules stated I should be attired in similar fashion to my opponent, I started to take it off. But then it occurred to me that it might give me an unfair advantage, by providing a few extra layers of protection between my skin and any pistol balls that might come flying towards me, so I quickly pulled it back on again.

“I’m keeping mine on, mate,” I said, elbowing him away from me.

The Duck’s attention switched to Aleman, who still had De Quipp’s pistol, and now his coat as well.

“Give me his coat,” he ordered, and took it, but snatched De Quipp’s gun out of Aleman’s other hand at the same time. And ran off with it.

“Sir Julianne!” exclaimed De Quipp, who had been rolling up the right sleeve of his shirt. “Geeve hit back!”

De Quipp gave chase. The Duck pretended to bump into me—and now we had a frock coat and two pistols in our fumbling hands.

“Switch it, switch it!” hissed the Duck.

I tried to grab De Quipp’s coat.

“Not the coat, you pratt—the gun!”

I got the message and took the one he was trying to force into my hands, while letting him grab mine from me. We managed to effect this exchange under cover of the coat, so the Frenchman was none the wiser when he caught up with the Duck and snatched back what he assumed to be his own pistol. But, of course, he had mine. And I wasn’t sure whether I had loaded it properly or not, because I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and couldn’t remember if I had put a ball down the muzzle.

The Duck sidled up to me and spoke to me out of the corner of his mouth, while De Quipp did some impressive stretching exercises.

“Did you load it?” he said.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I put one of those balls in,” I said.

“Yes you did—I counted ’em and there’s two missing—shit—you must have loaded it. What order did you put the powder, shot and wadding in in?”

“In in? Um?”

“Think!” quacked the Duck, speaking through his nose, in that irritating way he had.

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“I yam ready,” said De Quipp, tossing his head back haughtily and looking down his nose at me.

“Fingers crossed,” said the Duck. “Let’s hope you cocked it up.”

“Get that helicopter revved up,” I said, and did some running on the spot to practise my back-up plan.

“Gentlemen!” cried the Duck. “To your positions!”

I headed for the nearest tree.

Aleman tugged my sleeve as I passed him and turned me round.

“Monsieur, Monsieur!” he said, in a voice so deep and bass-toned it sounded as if it was emanating from somewhere down in the bowels, the bowels of the Earth. “Hit is zat way, Monsieur,” he growled.

“You’d make a great lead singer for a heavy metal band,” I said, having a private joke.

De Quipp was standing in the middle of the path, with his back to me, his pistol held aloft, alongside his head, like that famous poster of James Bond. The Duck was just staring at me with a crooked grin on his face, and pointing.

“Out there?” I said. “I’ll be a sitting duck—there’s no cover!”

“You will stand back to back with Monsieur De Quipp, sir,” commanded the Duck.

“Old friends, bookends…” I sang, as I passed him. “Get me out of this!”

“Take up your positions, gentlemen,” said the blank-faced Duck

I reversed into place, shoulder blade to shoulder blade and backside to backside with my adversary, only my backside must have bumped a little too firmly against his, because he instantly responded by giving mine an even bigger bump right back. I, of course, being at the seat of the Duckworths, so to speak, and thinking of the family honour, responded doublefold. The bum bumping escalated from there really and soon we were smacking backsides with huge exaggerated thrusts, neither of us prepared to give an inch, although, I’m sure De Quipp would have insisted on using centimetres.

“Stop it! Stop that! Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” flapped the Duck.

But De Quipp and I were well out of control, taking run ups and locking bums—like two confused stags—and then De Quipp lost it and turned on me, sticking the barrel of his Wogdon right up my nose.

“You try my payshaunce, Monsieur!” he snarled.

Aleman grabbed me from behind and dragged me out of harm’s way, while the Duck tried to placate the mega-passionate Frenchman.

The Duck quickly arranged a compromise and got us to stand back to back, one pace apart, like two naughty schoolboys.

“Now, gentlemen,” he quacked, “on my command, you will take six paces, stop, turn and fire at will. Remember, if you should discharge your weapon and miss, you must remain where you are on the field of honour until your opponent has discharged his weapon.”

I turned my head towards him and mouthed the words: “Do something.”

He merely blinked complacently. “Are you ready, gentlemen?”

“Oui.”

“Nope.”

“I am going to count to three, on three, you will slowly commence walking to your firing positions,” continued the Duck, in a monotone voice he had adopted, because he probably thought it made him sound important and dramatic. It just made him sound like a pompous ass.

“Get on with it,” I said.

“One…two…three,” said the Duck, thus making the only contribution to the whole sorry proceedings he hadn’t messed up.

I set off along the path, swinging my gun down by my ankles and looking around me at the purling stream, and up into the beeches and the green hills and the house beyond, wondering if these scenes were really the last I would ever see. I totally forgot to count! So, I just turned. De Quipp was already facing me, some fifty feet away, his arm outstretched, aiming directly at me.

“Oh, shit!” I exclaimed, got my gun up as far as my hip and it went off.

I felt the dull percussion reverberate through my hand and all the way up my arm to my skull. There was a blinding flash, followed by a shower of sparks and a very loud resounding bang. I was immediately enveloped in a pall of thick grey, choking smoke. I tried to stagger out of it, clutching my throat and coughing, my ears ringing with the deafening explosion, which I was so sure I could still hear, I thought De Quipp must be firing at me. I tried to dodge imaginary bullets by stooping low and weaving my head from side to side, as though I were doing some funky new dance. And then my ears popped and I could hear the horses snorting and the rooks shrieking from the trees like a coven of witches.

“Stand your ground, sir!” cried my father, who had retreated behind a tree on the brook side of the path.

“I can’t bloody breathe!” I spluttered. The smoke was slowly dispersing in the wind, but somehow the pungent gunpowder smell was still hanging in the air.

Suddenly, Aleman ran up to me and started slapping my arm.

“Monsieur, Monsieur!” he snorted.

“Did I win?” I said.

“Non—you are hon fireur!”

He was right! The whole of my right arm was alight. I leapt up and down and blew at the flames, which only made matters worse. The sparks had clearly sprayed over my sleeve and burnt through to the lining, and now the fire was spreading—inside the garment! Aleman was pummelling me so madly I had to push him off before he broke my arm.

“I’ll take it off!” I shouted—pulling my left shoulder and arm out and letting Aleman wrench the whole coat off my back.

He ran with it down the bank, dragging it behind him like a wacky firework display, and flung it into the stream.

I rolled my billowy white shirtsleeve up and rubbed my scorched arm, and checked for any blood on the rest of me. I was okay. I looked over at the Duck, who was leaning against a tree, with his arms folded, shaking his head.

“You could have told me,” I said.

The Duck pointed up the path.

I turned round to find De Quipp still standing, side-on to me, in the classic duellist pose, with his arm fully extended, aiming his pistol straight at my heart.

“When you planned all this,” I said to the Duck, “tell me, was this the worst case scenario, or did you think of anything else that could go wrong?”

“Don’t worry,” said the Duck. “I’ll have you in Bristol Frenchay Hospital in under five minutes.”

“Can you make that five seconds?” I said, closing my eyes.

There was a loud report and something punched me in the left arm, just above the elbow, and spun me round in a complete circle, only my feet stayed put and I tripped over them and fell to my knees. I opened my eyes and saw De Quipp running towards me through a swirling cloud of grey smoke. But stronger arms reached and held me first, before I pitched forward and smacked my nose into the dirt.

“Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur!” snuffled a gruff voice.

“Mon Dieu!” cried another voice. “I neveur miss! Such braveury, Monsieur!”

“Is he dead?” said the Duck.

Aleman was sitting on the path with me, cradling me in his arms. De Quipp took one look at me, dropped to his knees, and hung his head, uttering a prayer under his breath. Next, the Duck’s big red spectacled face loomed into close view.

“Oh, Christ!” he exclaimed.

“It’s just my arm,” I said, trying to point.

“Shh. Don’t move, Monsieur,” croaked Aleman.

“It’s more than that!” quacked the Duck. He reached inside his frock coat and whipped out a tiny mobile phone. “Get that bloody helicopter down here quick!” he quacked. “Yeah, to Frenchay!”

“Vite! Vite!” urged Aleman.

I looked down at my shirt. Aleman’s hands were clasped around my chest, soaked in blood. I passed out.