In the end, we didn’t get time to continue our search the following morning, well not for very long anyway. A messenger arrived from Captain Walker informing me that while we were dealing with the bandit camp its former residents had attacked the Manor House and captured Walter Haute and his sister Margaret to hold them hostage. The attack had occurred just after midday the day before and by the time Young and his advanced party of five scouts arrived on site, they had already fled with their hostages.
Young had sent one of the scouts to report to the captain and immediately began to track them down using himself and his four remaining men. The task was complicated by the fact that the bandits had split up into three groups shortly after they had left the scene of the attack and then two of these groups had again split up in the proceeding hours.
Tracking the five different groups of bandits was a challenging task as it forced the scouts to also split up, first into three different groups made up of Young by himself and two groups containing two of the remaining four scouts each. Thankfully the two bandit groups that had further split weren’t the largest of the three original groups and thus weren’t the one that was being tracked by Young. This meant there were enough scouts to simultaneously track the five groups of bandits.
Unfortunately, they weren’t all as good at their job as Sergeant Young and one of them had lost track of the group they were following. This turned into a blessing in disguise for the scout in question as the other four had been ambushed by the bandits they were following. Somehow they had all managed to get away from their attackers but Young was the only one of them who had done so without being injured and he alone was able to continue his pursuit, though of course now more cautiously. The rest had been forced to return to the Manor House for much-needed medical help.
By the time the rest of the company arrived on site, the attackers had a three-hour head start. The scout Young had sent back to report the situation to the captain had done so about half an hour beforehand and afterwards had been sent with the remaining six scouts to follow in Young's footsteps. On arrival, Walker had secured the Manor House and awaited word from both of the scouting parties.
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It was just over two hours later that the scout who had lost his prey returned and he was soon joined by the other three who had been ambushed and forced to return. On their way back they had all met up with members of the second party of scouts who had followed in their footsteps and had appraised them of the situation.
Shortly after their return Sir Malcolm Haute had also arrived on scene and was horrified to hear what had happened to his children. He as you can imagine wasn’t at all happy with the performance of the Company so far but once he calmed down realised we had done the best we could with the information we had on hand at the time and was willing to retain our services.
By the time darkness had fallen neither Young nor any member of the second scouting expedition had reported back and it wasn’t until shortly before the messenger had departed the Manor to carry his message to Ryder the following morning that this state of affairs had changed.
The seven scouts that had followed after the original five hadn’t met up with the four returning ones before discovering the first split in the bandit ranks and had themselves split into three groups. The two groups that followed after the two parties of bandits that later split up again encountered their returning comrades before the split had occurred. Upon learning of the ambushes from their comrades, both scouting groups still continued on but did so more warily and had decided how to split up once they came upon where the bandits had done so.
The group of bandits that one of the scouts from earlier had lost track of was this time followed by the better of the two scouts tracking the bandit party they split off from and this time while it took longer than he would have liked he succeeded where his predecessor had failed. Knowing of the earlier ambushes Private Henry Downes was very wary but unlike the other parties they either hadn’t planned to ambush anyone who might be following them or after waiting for some time without any sign of being followed they had given up.
Either way, before nightfall he was able to track them to a temporary campsite where they met up with the other groups that had split up earlier. Other than the one that Young and the three that followed him later were tracking that is, which was the one that likely included the hostages. While scouting out the campsite he discovered three of his fellow scouts doing the same thing.
When the four of them met up to decide what to do next it was decided that he would report back to Captain Walker while the rest of them keep an eye on the bandits.