Forsyth, Phipps, Hartwell, Wilhelm and the rest of the expeditionary force returned to Fort McMurray with a handful of prisoners, two dozen "silent Winchesters" and the bodies of their fallen.
Forsyth interrogated the prisoners and was rewarded with the information that the Shatapsh militaryu were being equipped by Cairo Munitions. Clearly Shastapsh was preparing for a renewal of hostilities with The Crown Colony.
The hour being late, everyone thought they might retire with a sense of a job well-done, but a war kite bearing the colors of Shatapsh overflew the fort, turned, dropped to about 500 feet and made a bombing run that inflicted quite a bit of damage on the main building, the one that housed the officers' quarters, the infirmary and Miss Carter-Lloyd's prison. Forsyth's residence on the top floor was also damaged, but fortunately all the garrison personnel suffered were minor cuts and bruises, and a patch of angry complaining at the lack of a ship capable of carrying the fight to them.
After dusting themselves off, the officers and men of Fort McMurray settled back down for the rest of the night.
The next day dawned on a scene of carnage.
The guards outside Miss Carter-Lloyd's room were missing, the door was unlocked and open and the girl was gone. Phipps searched the room and found the bodies of the guards stuffed into the wardrobe with their throats slit. All miss Carter-Lloyd's clothes and effects were missing with the exception of a pair of shoes, one of which was missing a heel.
Forsyth sent men to question the guards on the North and South gates with a view to finding out if they had seen the fleeing woman, but the officer send to the South gate returned in a state of agitation to report that the guard had been killed, throat slit, and the gate was unbarred and ajar.
While Phipps conducted a hurried examination of the bodies of Miss Carter-Lloyd's guards, Forsyth and Hartwell hurried to the South Gate where they tried to ascertain from the tracks what had happened. Two laden gashants had been ridden away from the fort, in the direction of Moerus Lacus.
The bodies of the guards had been killed by someone right-handed, with a straight-edge blade, like a dagger, in Phipps opinion. They also had small puncture wounds on the backs of their necks, so he surmised they had been drugged, then killed. As for the means of escape, there were no signs of a picked lock, but one guard still had the key to the room's door in his pocket.
Phipps speculated on the nature of the missing heel. He theorized that it might have had a secret compartment containing drugs, lockpicks.
While walking back to the administration building, now the scene of busy activity as the company carpenter assessed the damage, Forysth was summoned to the heliograph tower, where the two duty signalmen had been murdered, throats slit, and the heliograph smashed to scrap lumber. There was blood everywhere.
Phipps joined the others and observed that the men here had been used to cover the whole tower in blood, in a show of deliberate brutality. A statement of some sort. Hartwell spotted a sledgehammer that had been dropped over the side of the tower, and the heel of a shoe wedged in the wreckage.
It was a match to the missing heel from the shoe, but to Phipps' consternation the nails were still in place and were too short to have been used as either lockpicks or murder weapons. Nor were there any secret compartments in it.
It had no blood on it either.
Nor was there any blood on the crumpled copy of the scurrilous heliograph message Miss Carter-Lloyd was attempting to send yesterday, the one containing such uncomplimentary accounts of life in Fort McMurray. But the heel and the paper were suggestive of murderous treachery on the part of Miss Carter-Lloyd.
Proceeding to the stables, two gashants were found to be missing, along with their tack.
Forsyth determined to retrieve miss Carter-Lloyd and immediately assembled a search party of a dozen men, plus our three heroes, and set out along the track left by the fugitive.
Around three hours later the tracks of the two gashants diverged, one continuing South-West toward Moerus Lacus, the other turning west toward the southern edge of the Isidis Desert and Syrtis Major.
Forsyth had a discussion with Phpps and Hartwell and decided to split the party. He would take most of the men and Hartwell and follow the tracks heading West. Phipps would take command of a small team of five men, including Corporal Jones1 and head South-West after the other gashant.
Forsyth's party put on all speed to intercept what the tracks suggested was a skilled rider pushing their mount, but after a couple of hours of hard riding they were ambushed by a band of Hill Martian bandits and a pitched gunfight took place. The action was tense, and the soldiers were outnumbered, but the bandits were indifferent shots.
Bad shots, maybe, but their valour could not be questioned and they pressed their attack aggressively. Before the soldiers could put them to flight the bandits had taken down three of their comrades. Private Harris succombed to his wounds, as did private Woshoakeloo, but private Arkwright was declared "walking wounded" and was able to continue the chase with his comrades.
Phipps' team rode South-West for a couple of hours, then halted when ghey heard the distincive sound of Martian black powder long-arm fire. A small band of Hill Martians were stalking miss Carter-Lloyd, now kneeling among some rocks next to her dead gashant and returning fire with a "silent Winchester" - obviously stolen from the cache recovered from the Shatapsh incursion force.
Approaching stealthily, the small band of soldiers was able to put the "silent Winchesters" to good use, taking down three of the attackers before their own position was revealed by an unlucky miss and loud riccochet. The action after that was intense. These Hill Martians were capable fighters, and well-motivated when their prize looked to be stolen from under their noses.
Eventually Phipps' team was able to kill all the Hill Martians, and Phipps took charge of miss Carter-Lloyd. He had lost two men of his five man squad. Their bodies were wrapped and tied accross a gashant.
Phipps demanded miss Carter-Lloyd remove her (stolen) cavalry boots, which he searched for weapons, drugs or anything else the wretched woman might have hidden in them. He questioned her as to the events of the escape and her flight across the steppe.
Miss Carter-Lloyd insisted she had been rescued from durance vile by a mysterious veiled woman who had obtained the supplies, weapons and mounts and led the way for the first few hours, then, despite her pleas, the mysterious woman had departed, leaving miss Carter-Lloyd on her own.
Phipps snorted, had her restrained and put on a gashant.
He had heard enough of her tall tales.
