#shrivenham

[princessanisharosnah]

30 November 2024 | Princess Anisha and Prince Mateen attended the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom's annual International Day for the Advanced Command and Staff Course's participants and their families in Shrivenham, UK.

[camillasgirl]

Queen Camilla’s Patronages

Wilts and Berks Canal Trust (Patron from 19.04.2006)

You may not have heard of the Wilts & Berks Canal as it has been derelict for nearly a century. There are ambitious plans to bring the waterway back to life. Its called the Wilts & Berks because it is said that a lazy draughtsman could not be bothered to write in full the county names! Swindon is mid point of the waterway which linked the Thames at Abingdon with the Kennet & Avon Canal near Melksham. A further link was made from Swindon to the Thames & Severn Canal at Cricklade (The North Wilts Canal). There were also branches to Chippenham, Calne, Longcot (near Shrivenham) and Wantage. The waterway now is located in Wiltshire Swindon and Oxfordshire since Local Government boundary changes in the 1970’s. The Wilts & Berks Trust is committed to returning this historic waterway to a navigable state. The canal will restore an important link in the national waterways network, but the project will be part of the green infrastructure of the region, creating connections between existing wildlife habitats and creating aquatic and wetland habitats for endangered species.

[rmsqueenmaryonthisday]

Back

From the “City News and Notes” section of the Eugene Register-Guard of Eugene, Oregon, on this day in 1946: Back on campus after several months spent teaching at the army university study center in Shrivenham, England, is Dr. Theodore Kratt, head of the University of Oregon school of music. Dr. Kratt arrived Monday by plane from New York City after a trip from England on the Queen Mary with the…

[ramzoozi]

® Presents ⠀ UNLIMITED BRITAIN ® 📸 @lensereflection 📍 Shrivenham Oxfordshire SELECTED BY | @ramseyselim FOLLOW US l @unlimitedbritain TAG US l #unlimitedbritain #greatbritain ____________________________________________ FAMILY HUBS @unlimitedhubs 🌎 ____________________________________________ AMBASSADORS 🎖 for some of the best traveller footage of Great Britain and the UK 🇬🇧 @laura_oey 🌟 @sabphotos69 🌟 @sarahjd_12_ 🌟 @stephenwardlaw 🌟 ____________________________________________ Become an ambassador @unlimitedambassadors 🎖 Link in bio ____________________________________________ ADMIN | @ramseyselim ____________________________________________ #shrivenham #oxfordshire #igersoxfordshire #photosofbritain #photosofengland #ukshots #houses_phototrip #housesofinstagram #cottagestyle #europestyle_ #alluring_villages #divine_villages #weloveengland #lovegreatbritain #visitengland #instabritain #gloriousbritain #capturingbritain #igeurope #livingeurope #livingdestinations #placesintheuk #passionpassport #traveldrops #map_of_europe #map_of_unitedkingdom #earthfocus #kings_village 🇬🇧 ☥ (at Shrivenham) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9BwrOJjwe3/?igshid=37a7jq8fbx7

[radio-atlantis]

Sizzling trainline

[tornadoyoungiron]

✨Blue Tornado Best Tornado ✨

This is correct.

Photo credit:

[thewomenofwindsor]

Shrivenham Station welcomed HRH The Countess of Wessex yesterday as she opened the new Royal Army Chaplains’ Museum. The Countess was shown an exhibit dedicated to her great uncle, Noel Mellish, who was awarded the Victoria cross as a Padre in WW1.

[silvaris]

Shrivenham📍Oxfordshire 📍 by  AJ Photography @lensereflection Shrivenham is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire.

[airmanisr]

Jagdpanther Command vehicle ’01 black’ – IWM Duxford by Alan Wilson Via Flickr: German WW2 era Tank Destroyer. Official designation:- Sd.Kfz.173 Built 1944 to 1945 with a total production of 415. Main armament:- 88mm Pak 43/3 L/71. The Jagdpanther combined the long-barrelled 88mm gun from the Tiger II with the Panther chassis, giving it a good power-to-weight ratio. This early production example was later converted to a command vehicle with additional radio equipment and an extra star antenna. Some ten or eleven Jagdpanthers survive, of which this is the only command vehicle. It was built by Mühlenbau-Industrie AG (MIAG) in Braunschweig during July 1944 and is believed to have had the chassis No 300054. It was evidently knocked out by four 75mm or 76mm shells, one in the engine compartment and three in the fighting compartment, the holes for which can still be seen towards the rear of the hull. Where and when it was knocked out, however, has been much debated and details are given below. What is known is that it joined the Imperial War Museum collection from the Royal Military College of Science (RMCS) at Shrivenham in 1969. It seen on display in the Land Warfare Hall at Duxford Airfield, Cambridgeshire, UK. 23rd May 2021 The following comments on the history of this Jagdpanther are from the IWM website:- “Service history unverified - vehicle identity unknown with accuracy. The vehicle production number was on the piece of armour plate removed and disposed of by the Army when the vehicle was in the care of RCMS Shrivenham (no records kept). However, the Department of Tank Design report on the vehicle (M.6815A/8 No 1) states it is 300054 - an early 1944 production number. On at least two occasions the vehicle has been claimed as the one destroyed by Lieutenant Hugh Griffiths (later Lord Griffiths) 2nd Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion Welsh Guards, Hechtel, 1944. Indeed the IWM caption currently with the vehicle states this. This is a dubious claim. The identification is based purely on the location of the three shot grouping which knocked out the vehicle. A Mr Spielberger, a veteran of Panzergruppe Lex, part of 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, makes a more convincing case that the vehicle was from his unit and was abandoned in northern Germany, near Gifhorn in April 1945 after an engine fire (there is evidence of such a fire). Two photographs (possibly taken by US Signal Corps photographers) in a book published by Spielberger called 'Sturmartillerie' definitely show the vehicle after abandonment. However, another correspondent (C S Layton) points out that the number of early production details on the vehicle mitigates against this claim (because Spielberger claims vehicle came to the unit in March 1945 straight off the production line).”

[cotswoldhearing-blog]

Contact us today to book your consultation - call 08006696084, local independent advice - make sure your loved ones get the right hearing aid and the right advice. #hearingaids #hearing #swindon #cirencester #marlborough #stowonthewold #shrivenham #woodstock #chooselocal (at Cotswold hearing)

[imjustthemechanic]

Natalie Jones and the Golden Ship

Part 1/? - A Meeting at the Palace Part 2/? - Curry Talk Part 3/? - Princess Sitamun

Operation Move the Mummy gets underway, and Natasha meets a rather intriguing man on the train.

It was nearly a month later, towards the end of October with the weather unseasonably cold, when the CAAP gathered again at Folkestone.  They arrived in time to see the coffin of Sitamun loaded onto the train to go through the Chunnel.

There wasn’t very much to see.  When Nat and Allen had gone to the museum, the coffin had been on display inside a temperature-controlled glass case with guards on either side of it.  It was one of the most precious things in the entire collection, some thirty-five hundred years old and carved from a single enormous block of alabaster.  The hieroglyphics that decorated the outside were gilded and inlaid with semi-precious stones, and even in the dim lighting and surrounded by other priceless artefacts, it was breathtaking.

The mummy inside hadn’t fared as well as its container.  Princess Sitamun had been unwrapped at a Victorian party, and her various custodians over the years had kept her in attics, garden sheds, and even a smoking lounge before the museum finally got charge of her.  Rather than being black and leathery, like mummies were supposed to, she was grayish-brown and covered with frayed cracks, like fake leather that had been left out in the elements.  Conservators in Egypt were eager to have a look at her, hoping that their expertise and their country’s dry climate could stop her deteriorating any further.

None of this was visible from the train station in Folkestone, though.  Sitamun and her magnificent sarcophagus had been carefully packed up in an enormous crate that was now being lifted, very slowly and gently, by a crane.  A few reporters were taking pictures while more men waited nervously on the platform to guide the load into the cargo car.

“I wouldn’t like to be any of those guys,” Clint observed as they stood on a balcony to watch.  “The Post said the mummy’s insured for sixty million pounds.  No pressure, huh?”

“Does the insurance cover curses?” asked Sam.  “Or is that just how the company’s planning to get out of paying if anything happens?”

Sharon, always ready to look things up, was reading something on her phone.  “It better,” she said, “because according to Wikipedia this particular mummy is extremely cursed.”

“Really?”  Sam leaned to look over her shoulder.

“Yeah.  They’ve got a whole list of victims here,” Sharon said, her thumb flicking as she scrolled down.  “Okay, so after it was stolen from Egypt by Napoleon’s troops in 1799, the mummy was brought to England in the 1840’s by a guy called Nicolas Desrosiers.  He suddenly died a week later, and the mummy disappeared, but it turned up again in 1865 in the collection of a guy named Sir Richard Hart.  He announced he would be putting it on display, then fell from a horse and broke his neck the very next day.”

“It didn’t kill anybody in the twenty years in between,” Sam observed.

“Yeah, but then it made up for lost time,” said Sharon.  “Hart left the mummy to his daughter Evelyn, who died in childbirth the next year, along with her infant son.  It then belonged to her husband, who’s supposed to have choked to death on a grape.  He left it to his brother, who had a heart attack at the funeral, and his widow was so scared of it she immediately sold it to another collector, who developed a gambling addiction, bet the mummy and lost, and hanged himself.  The guy who won it from him supposedly had his house burn down and the coffin was the only thing that survived the fire.  By 1900 it was supposed to have killed over twenty people and its last owner donated it to the museum.  It didn’t do him any good, since he was mugged and shot the day after.”

“Yikes,” said Allen.

“How much of that is true?” Natasha asked.  Wikipedia, after all, was something anyone could edit.

“I have no idea,” said Sharon.  “A lot of these people have their own articles so they must have really existed, and it looks like none of them after Hart owned the mummy longer than ten years before something awful happened.”

“Life was short and dangerous back then,” Nat pointed out.

“It was indeed,” Sir Stephen agreed.  “Particularly for women.  The Abbess at Rogsey told me once that for a woman to bear a child required more courage than for a knight to go into battle, for the risk to her life was greater.”  Nobody else was looking in the right direction, but Natasha saw him put a hand on Sharon’s back.

“What about the museum?” asked Nat.  “It’s had her more than a century.  Did anything happen there?”

“Looks like no,” said Sharon.  “The list ends there.  So if there’s a curse, I guess it’s only invoked when the mummy is privately owned.”

“I guess I wouldn’t want anyone showing off my corpse, either,” said Sam.

Very slowly, the crane set the crate containing the coffin down on the train car.  Men moved in to strap it down.  The guy who’d been running the crane stepped down out of the cab, tottering as if he were about to fall over.  A co-worker clapped him on the back, shook his hand, and handed him a bottle of beer.

That was the CAAP’s cue to leave their vantage point and board the passenger cars.  They grabbed their coats and carry-ons, and headed down the stairs.

“Even if the mummy does decide to get up and cause trouble, it’ll have a hard time getting out of its coffin with all those crates and straps around it,” Sam observed as they descended.

“In movies mummies don’t tend to care about those things,” said Nat.  “I’d be more worried that if she tries she’ll just disintegrate.  She looked in pretty bad shape when Allen and I saw her.”

On the platform, the group split in two to board the train.  Sir Stephen, Sharon, and Sam went on the car behind the mummy, while Nat, Clint, and Allen were on the one in front.  Other than them, the cars were almost empty.  No commuters or vacation-goers were allowed on this train, just the mummy and a variety of specialists, guards, and conservators who were there to look after it, and a few reporters who’d gotten special permission from the museums in both London and Cairo to cover the move.

People weren’t normally allowed weapons of any sort on the Chunnel trains, but the guards had guns, and Sharon’s police revolver was in its holster under her jacket.  Clint had also brought his archery equipment, having upgraded from Robin Hood’s medieval longbow to a modern Hoyt Buffalo.  He settled down in a window seat, and put the bow and quiver next to him.

“New arrows,” Allen realized, pointing to them.  Clint used several different types all identifiable to the touch by the texture of the fletching.  Today there were several unfamiliar types.

“Yeah, I hit up those kids at Shrivenham for some more of the trick ones,” Clint said.  “At first I figured exploding arrows would take care of a mummy, no trouble, but then I remembered we’re gonna be in a tunnel under the ocean.  You don’t want a fire in there.  So instead, I got these.”  He pulled one out and held it up, showing a capsule of something in place of a head.  “Liquid nitrogen.  It’ll freeze the mummy solid, and we can just smash it.”

“Smart,” said Natasha, nodding.  “Although the Egyptians will never forgive us.”  She and Allen sat down in the row behind Clint.

“They’ll still get their coffin back,” said Clint.  “That’s the expensive part.  I also got this, for the boat ride.”  The mummy, train car and all, would be loaded on a cargo ship for the journey from Istanbul to Cairo.  Clint showed them an arrow with a fishhook tip.

“What’s that?” Nat asked.

“A fishing arrow, obviously!” said Clint.  “You fire it into the water, and when something bites, it’s got a line to reel it back in!”

Natasha laughed.  “You really think you’re gonna use that?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s damn cool,” Clint replied, sliding it back into his quiver.

A couple more people got on board, including one man who came and took a seat right across the aisle from Natasha and Allen.  He was in his thirties, with blue eyes and short brown hair, and a bit of beard stubble.  He was wearing a blue jacket and carrying a sports bag, and he put both of them into the overhead compartment before sitting down and leaning across the aisle to talk to Natasha.

“You’re Dr. Jones, right?” he asked.  His accent was American.

“Yes, that’s me,” said Nat.

The man offered a hand.  “I’m Jim Barnes from the New York Times.  I’m covering the story.”

“Nice to meet you,” Natasha said guardedly.  Internally she was bracing herself.  Reporters who talked to her were interested in one of two things – either her past as a spy, or, in the last week or so, the story of Sitamun’s curse.

“They’re talking about this all the way to New York?” asked Allen.

“They sure are,” said Barnes.  “We’ve got a lot of Egyptian stuff in the Museum of Natural History and in the Met, and people are worried we’ll be expected to do the same kind of ‘gesture’ for Egypt as the Brits are.  The Bugle had a headline demanding to know if we’ll have to send back Cleopatra’s Needle next.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Natasha said.  “I’m an archaeologist, not a politician.”

“Mm-hm.”  Barnes pulled out a digital recorder.  “Well, would you mind telling me, as an archaeologist, who was Princess Sitamun and how she ended up in England?  I figure that’s a way more interesting and education angle on this than any of the curse stuff or the politics.”

Nat relaxed a little.  “Sure,” she said.   “Although I’m not an Egyptologist, so this is just what I’ve managed to learn from textbooks and the people at the V&A.”

“That’s all right,” said Barnes.  “Tell me.”

As the train pulled out of the station and headed into the yawning mouth of the Chunnel, Nat decided to begin at the beginning.  “Well,” she said, “Sitamun was the daughter of a pharaoh of the seventeenth dynasty, around 1580 BCE.  We don’t know very much about her.  She married her brother Ahmose, who was supposed to be next in line for the throne, but she died before he was crowned…”

Barnes seemed honestly interested in what she was telling him, asking questions and nodding along – but halfway through her impromptu lecture, she heard snoring, and looked over to see that Clint had fallen asleep.

“Am I that dull?” asked Nat.

“No, you’re not.”  Barnes touched her arm and smiled at her.  “Not at all.  Keep talking.”

As they rumbled along in the dark, Nat found herself wondering what Sir Stephen, Sharon, and Sam were doing or talking about in the car ahead.  Sir Stephen would probably be interested in the Chunnel – among the first things he’d commented on about the future was what ingenious engineers the people here were.  The idea of a tunnel under the English Channel was one he’d probably find both impressive and terrifying, since it theoretically left the islands open to invasion from the mainland.  That had been one of the main objections to building it, since the idea was first proposed in the nineteenth century.

“So if you don’t believe in mummy curses,” Barnes said, “what are you doing here?  Because that’s what all the tabloids are talking about – the UK government is so scared of the mummy’s curse they sent along the people who defeated Totenkopf.”

Nat sighed.  “We’re a precaution,” she said.  “They’re just trying to plan for everything.”

“Are you going all the way to Egypt?” Jim asked next.

“We’re planning to,” she said.  “All the way to meet Dr. Mostafa in Cairo.”

Barnes nodded.  “I’ve been to Cairo before, actually,” he said, giving her a cockeyed smile.  “I know a couple of places there.  Maybe once we arrive and you’re done with your mummy-sitting and I’m done with my article-writing, you could come and have a drink with me?”

[charlesonwuemene]

How cultivating has changed the existences of youthful medically introverted laborers

How cultivating has changed the existences of youthful medically introverted laborers

How cultivating has changed the existences of youthful medically introverted laborers A gathering of medically introverted youthful ranch laborers say the occupation has saved them from a possible existence of seclusion and weariness. Pennyhooks Farm, close to Shrivenham in Oxfordshire, is a completely functional meat ranch that only connects with individuals on the chemical imbalance range to…

[radio-atlantis]

Fleeting passengers 

[airmanisr]

Saro Skeeter AOP.12 ‘XL770’ by Alan Wilson Via Flickr: c/n S2/5086 Built 1958. Served with 654 and 652 Squadrons of the Army Air Corps and then with the 15th/19th Hussars, a cavalry regiment. Retired in May 1968 and to the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham in April 1969 with the maintenance serial 8046M. She later joined the Museum of Army flying at Middle Wallop and was loaned to what was then called the Southampton Hall of Aviation during 1987, where she remains on display. Solent Sky, Southampton, Hampshire, UK 21st August 2020

[imjustthemechanic]

Natalie Jones and the Golden Ship

Part 1/? - A Meeting at the Palace Part 2/? - Curry Talk Part 3/? - Princess Sitamun Part 4/? - Not At Rest Part 5/? - Dead Men Tell no Tales Part 6/? - Sitamun Rises Again Part 7/? - The Curse of Madame Desrosiers Part 8/? - Sabotage at Guedelon

The group track down the elusive Madame Desrosiers.  She is not cooperative.

Guedelon Castle was just a few minutes outside Triegny – they pulled up into an entirely modern car park, separated from the building site by a row of trees.  A path led around to the other side of those, and there, very intentionally like something out of another time was the castle itself.  Construction had been going on for some fifteen years now and was expected to take ten more, with all the work being done in the same way as it would have been in the thirteenth century – right down to the workers dressing in period-appropriate clothing.  The only concession to modernity was the hard hats and steel-toed boots required by the safety laws, and a couple of cars and trailers that must have belonged to employees, parked a short distance away.

Natasha had been looking forward to seeing how Sir Stephen would react to the place, and how close he thought it was to the fantasy middle ages he came from. It was, however, Clint whose eyes lit up eagerly as they approached the building site.

“I… I remember seeing repairs being made to the castle in Nottingham!” he said, referring to his other life as Robin Hood.  “It was just like this, with the treadwheel crane and the mason’s lodge… I recognize all of this!”  He laughed. “It’s weird how this stuff pops up so strongly when something reminds me.  Like a childhood memory I’ve almost forgotten, and then it comes back!”

His delight was infectious – Natasha smiled back at him.  “Are you still working on your book?” she asked.

“Uh… not really.  Not since I got back,” Clint admitted.  “It would feel like cheating now, like the whole story is already written for me.”

“You’re still the one who came up with it,” Nat told him.

Sir Stephen looked up at the crane, powered by two men in what looked like a giant wooden hamster wheel, hauling blocks of sandstone up to the top of one of the towers.  He nodded, as if he approved, then lowered his eyes to look at the woman who was coming up to greet them.  She was small and plump, dressed in a shapeless forest-green dress and a wimple.

“Can I help you?” she asked in French, a little sharply.  “We’re closed to visitors!”

It was almost six-thirty – they would probably be stopping work for the night soon.  Nat wondered if she and the others should have waited for tomorrow, but Sir Stephen bowed to the woman as if she were a great lady, and then took out his CAAP badge. “I am Sir Stephen of Rogsey,” he replied, in perfect French, “of the Committee for the Appraisal of Archaeological Peril in London.  My colleagues and I are looking for Madame Helene Desrosiers.”

“Oh,” said the woman, a bit startled by his behaviour.  “I’m Sylvia Lefevre, the site director. What do you want with Madame Desrosiers?”

“We have some questions for her about the stolen Egyptian mummy.  We understand she had a family interest in it,” Sir Stephen explained.

Lefevre looked worried now.  “Madame Desrosiers said she would be leaving tonight. You might still catch her at her trailer.”

They looked towards the small cluster of employees’ vehicles – and at that moment, they heard an engine start.  At the end of the row was a particularly large and expensive-looking RV, which was now humming as it prepared to drive away.

Nat grabbed Sir Stephen’s hand.  “Quick!” she said.

They ran back to the car park, where they were in time to see a woman lugging what must have been a very heavy suitcase up the steps to the RV door with her teeth gritted.  To Nat’s surprise, she was not European but East Asian, with fair skin and shiny black hair in a neat bun at the back of her head.  She remembered Wainfleet mentioning that she’d taken over the attempt to reclaim the mummy from her mother-in-law, and wondered what Monsieur Desrosiers thought about the whole thing… or indeed, whether his opinion mattered.

“Madame Desrosiers!” Natasha called out.

The woman looked up.  “I am in a hurry!” she said.  Her accent was French, meaning she’d probably grown up in the country – most likely in Paris or its suburbs.  “I cannot talk!”

“Going to visit your Mummy?” asked Sam.

Helene Desrosiers paused a moment, as if what he’d said had surprised her, but then she shook her head.  “I am going to see Monsieur Wainfleet in England!” she snarled.  “To give him a piece of my mind about his little stunt!  That sarcophagus belongs to me!”

Nat came closer.  “So nobody’s told you they found it?” she asked.

That made Desrosiers stop cold.  She searched Nat’s face for a moment, looking perhaps for a sign that she was lying.  “Where?” she demanded.

“At the side of the road, smashed,” said Nat.  She hadn’t had time to look at a newspaper that day, but was guessing the Gendarmerie hadn’t told the press.  Possibly because they hoped to keep the information private in order to test any tips or confessions they received, but just as likely because they wanted to avoid embarrassment.

Desrosiers stared a moment longer, then hissed something through her teeth. Nat couldn’t quite make out what she’d said, but it sounded like German.

“What did you say?” asked Nat.

“I know who did it,” Desrosiers declared, “and I will deal with him.  You foreigners,” she added, “your job was to protect the sarcophagus and you have clearly failed at that, so you are no longer needed.”  She hauled her suitcase up the last step.  “Laurent!” she called to somebody else.  “Allons-y!”

“Oui, Madame!” came a reply from up front.

Desrosiers was about to shut the door, but Sir Stephen put his hand in it to stop her.  “Wait!” he said.  “Who are the men who look like Buckeye?”

“The men who… who?” she asked, blinking at him in confusion.

“The identical men!” Sir Stephen insisted.  “There were two of them in the party that robbed the train, and they turned to ash when their faces were shown!”

Nat saw recognition flit across Desrosiers’ face, settling a moment later into annoyance. “Of course there were!” the woman snarled.  “That is not your business, either.”  She slammed the door on Sir Stephen’s fingers, forcing him to yank his hand back. It would take a lot more than that to stop him, though – still shaking his fingers to get rid of the sting, he ran to stand in front of the vehicle as it passed along the dirt track between the mason’s lodge and the castle moat.  The driver, a man in his early twenties with the sides of his head shaved, looked nervous for a moment but then revved up the engine, and Sir Stephen was forced to hurry aside.

“She knows!” Sir Stephen said, pointing a furious finger at the RV.  “She knows and she will not tell!”

“She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to,” Natasha pointed out.  “We don’t actually have any authority in France.”

“We cannot go home without answers!” Sir Stephen declared.  “I will not allow it!”

The rest of the group had caught up with him now, and were gathering around to try to calm him down – but then Clint’s eyes suddenly went wide.  “Hey!” he shouted, taking off to chase the RV.  “Wait!  Stop!”

Whatever he’d seen, he was too late to stop it.  There was a crack from high up on top of the half-finished tower, and the immense wooden crane broke.  Its arm swung down to fall into the moat, which fortunately was only a ditch, not yet filled with water, and the load of stones it had been lifting came crashing down on the front of Desrosiers’ RV.

There was no hesitation on the part of any CAAP member – they rushed forward. Sir Stephen ripped the RV door off its hinges to get at the crushed driver’s seat.  The young man named Laurent was lying there, covered in glass from the shattered windshield and with his legs trapped under the collapsed dashboard.  Sharon shot the lock off the passenger door and she and Natasha climbed in.  Madame Desrosiers was sitting on the floor just inside the doorway between the cab and the living space, clutching some crumpled paper to her chest and staring in horror at what was in front of her.  Had she been a foot further forward, she would have been killed.

“Come with us,” said Sharon.  She and Natasha took Desrosiers’ arms and escorted her out of the vehicle.

Outside, people were gathering from all over the castle grounds to see what had happened.  Allen was comforting Madame Lefevre with one arm around her shoulder, while she buried her face in this stranger’s shirt so she wouldn’t have to look at the accident. With his other hand he was trying to dial his phone.

“Nine-nine-nine doesn’t work!” he told Natasha.

“It’s one-one-two on the continent,” she said.

Sam had pushed Sir Stephen out of the way to get a look at Laurent. Natasha caught his eye, and saw him shake his head.

“This one’s dead,” Sam said.  “How’s Madame Desrosiers?”

“I’m perfectly all right,” Desrosiers replied stiffly, though she was trembling.  “I have to leave.  I’m going to miss my flight.”

“We’ll get you out,” Sam promised.  “Sir Steve?”  This got no response, and Sam looked around.  “Sir Steve?” he repeated.”

“He went with Clint,” said Allen, briefly waving his phone in the direction of the castle before putting it to his ear.  “Hello?” he asked whoever had answered.  “Hi, do you speak English?”

Nat turned towards the stone walls.  Clint was halfway up the scaffolding, with his bow and arrows on his back, but had paused to look down.  Sir Stephen was at first nowhere to be seen, but a moment later there was a fuss halfway along the outer wall.  A man jumped down to land in a heap and roll down into the moat, with Sir Stephen right behind him.

The first man started to get up, but Clint clung to the scaffold with his legs while he fired an arrow, and hit the man in the back of the shoulder.  This was not a sharp arrow, though, but one of the taser ones the young scientists at Shrivenham had made – the victim went stiff, and then fell to the ground all over again.  Clint began climbing back down.

Sir Stephen had landed on his feet a couple of metres away.  He slid down the side of the moat to grab the fallen man by the shoulders and drag him to his feet.  It turned out, however, that the man either recovered quickly or had only been faking being stunned – he rolled over, kicked Sir Stephen in the face, and got up to confront Clint, who was now coming at him from the other side.  Clint pulled out a second stun arrow and made to jab at him with it physically, perhaps with the idea that he hadn’t hit the right spot the first time.  The man responded by parrying the arrow with one arm, while the other pulled a hunting knife out of his belt and stabbed Clint in the side with it.

“Shit!” Nat exclaimed.  She left Madame Desrosiers in Sharon’s care, and dashed towards the fight.

“Shit!” Sam agreed, and went with her.

Clint had collapsed, clutching his wound.  The man who’d jumped from the wall was dressed, like the other workers, in a medieval tunic, hose, and hood, with a leather vest that had perhaps blocked the shock from the stun arrow.  A yellow hard hat and a pair of safety goggles made it difficult to see his face.  While Sam and Nat were still on their way, Sir Stephen managed to knock the knife out of the man’s hand and then ripped the hat and goggles off in him in a single motion.