Mrs. Brown

EXT. THE GROUNDS OF WINDSOR CASTLE, FOREST - NIGHT Begin on black.The sound of rain driving into trees. Something wipes frame and we are suddenly hurtling through a forest on the shoulders of a wild-eyed, kilted JOHN BROWN.Drenched hair streaming, head swivelling left and right, as he searches the lightening-dark.A crack to his left.He spins round, raises his pistol, smacks past saplings and plunges on. EXT. THE GROUNDS OF WINDSOR CASTLE, FOREST - NIGHT Close-up on BROWN as he bangs against a tree and heaves for air.A face in its fifties, mad-fierce eyes, handsome, bruised lips, liverish.He goes on searching the dark. Stops.Listens through the rain.A beat.Thinking he hears a faint thump in the distance, he swings round and races on. EXT. THE GROUNDS OF WINDSOR CASTLE, FOREST - NIGHT BROWN tears through the trees, pistol raised at full arm's length, breath coming harder and harder.But even now there's a ghost grace, a born hunter's grace.He leaps fallen branches, swerves through turns in the path, eyes forward, never stumbling once. EXT. THE GROUNDS OF WINDSOR CASTLE, FOREST - NIGHT BROWN bursts into a clearing, breaks to the centre and stops.With his pistol raised, he turns one full slow circle.His eyes take in every swerve and kick of the wildly swaying trees. There's a crack and a branch snaps behind him.He spins round, bellows deep from his heart: BROWN God save the Queen!! And fires. Nothing happens.