Spirit of the Highway

by Deborah Swift

  ‘Fire!’

  The artillery sergeant’s order came, but I wasn’t ready. It was all happening too fast. My musket was un-primed, useless. The fire from our side was sparse and erratic. The horses kept on coming. My fingers wouldn’t stop trembling. I couldn’t get the powder into the barrel. Ahead of me a tall long-nosed cavalier on a chestnut horse cut down two of our company with a single swift blow. Frantically I jammed in the powder and shot. If I did not hurry, I would be next.

  ‘Fool!’ A yell in my ear. ‘Fall back!’ Cutch put his arm round my throat, dragged me away back towards the brake of bushes where we had been hiding. He shoved me bodily behind a hawthorn tree and rolled over, already re-loading.

  ‘That was Edward Copthorne. Vicious devil. Don’t mess with him.’

  ‘Why? What’s —’

  ‘Prime your musket,’ he said. ‘You’ll need it. We’ll all need more cover to cross that pontoon. Talk about sitting ducks. Best stay here a while till it quietens off.’

  The sounds of battle hung thick in my ears; Scots curses, men’s screams, terrified squeals of horses amid gunfire and the clash of metal. I thought I did not care, but fear for my father welled up suddenly, like a spring gushes water.

  ‘No. I’m going in again,’ I said, ‘my father’s down there with those pikes.’

  Cutch grabbed me by the arm. ‘He wants you to stay out of it.’

  ‘What do you know about it?’ I tried to shake him off, but he clung on.

  ‘I’m to watch you. He’s paying me to mind you. Keep you out of trouble.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He doesn’t want you killed.’

  ‘Leave go, damn you! I can look after myself.’

  ‘Everyone needs friends in war.’

  I broke away from him, started to run back down to the field where the last remaining pikemen had gathered in a knot, pikes facing outwards as they retreated before us up the bank.

  As I got closer I heard my father’s voice, ‘Keep tight, lads!’ A note of panic in his throat churned my stomach. I’d thought I didn’t care any more, but my heart knew better.

  Father was on foot. There was no sign of his horse. The cavalry was re-grouping for another charge. About forty horsemen, maybe more. I counted the pikes. Twelve. The rest lay broken in the dust. Oh God. My mouth turned dry as tinder.

  My gun was ready, but I knew I must use it wisely. I pulled the well-oiled trigger back on, felt for the burning match-cord hanging down. Yesterday I hated my father, now the thought of him facing those charging hooves spurred me into action. I threw myself off to one side, knelt so that another rank of musketeers could come behind me if need be.

  A movement at my shoulder and I turned to see Cutch. He exchanged a grim smile with me and settled by my side. More men lined up behind us.

  A shout and the horses hung momentarily still, hooves pawing the air. Then in a single tidal bore, they charged, straight towards us. The pikemen lowered their pikes into a bristling barrier of needles.

  I twitched, about to pull the trigger, but Cutch yelled, ‘Not yet! Wait for the second wave!’

  My father gripped his pike, jamming it into the ground at an angle to the approaching horses. A roar of hooves. The knot of men turned into a whirlwind of dust and screaming horseflesh. My finger hovered over the trigger, but Cutch was right, the King’s man dropped his flag again and the second wave of cavalry pounded towards the straggling band of pikemen.

  ‘Now!’ Cutch yelled.

  I fired, but nothing happened. Shit. I’d measured wrong. The match-cord didn’t reach the pan. In a panic, I fumbled to get it to the right length. Cutch’s went off with a blast, and judging from the smoke and noise so did the rest. I was too late. The pikemen were running back towards us, my father stumbling amongst them, but the men on horseback cut them down, swiping their blades as they ran. I saw my father glance behind, then redouble his effort as a heavy black hunter gained on him. Unthinking I shouldered my musket and started to run.

  I sprinted till I thought my lungs would burst. The black horse was almost on top of him.

  I skidded to a stop. Took aim. Pulled the trigger with all my might.

  It exploded with an almighty thump and the man on the hunter flew up from the saddle, thudded face down in the dust.

  I ran towards Father, legs struggling like underwater. From the corner of my eye I saw another chestnut horse racing straight at us; the man Cutch called Copthorne, the long-nosed cavalier. Father saw him, tripped, and in his panic had to half-crawl, half-stagger over the tussocks.

  No time to re-load, but still I ran. I sensed the movement of air as the horse galloped past, clods of earth spurted up in my face as it wheeled. Copthorne’s sword caught the light with a blinding arc as it swept towards my father’s head.

  I knew before I looked that my father would be dead.

  *

  My legs would not work. I panted for breath and swayed in the dust and smoke which hung in the sudden silence.

  When the air cleared, I took a few steps forward to see the field was strewn with corpses. There seemed to be only two of us left. Copthorne and I.

  Copthorne threw himself off his horse and loped over to where Father lay, motionless in the dirt, and spat in his face. Then he paused over the body, lower lip trembling, until with sudden venom he stabbed his sword down into Father’s chest. Another stab. And more, over and over.

  ‘Stop!’ I could not believe what I saw.

  My legs were quaking so much I could barely run. As I arrived, Copthorne kicked at the body with his boot. I heard the crack of ribs. He stepped back, satisfied.

  ‘Stop.’ I hardly had a voice, but it was enough to alert him. He looked up, his eyes challenging me.

  Father was lying face up. He could have been sleeping, except for the dark gash in his neck, and the fact that his chest was a mass of wounds. His eyes were closed as if he could not look his enemy in the face. I stared at him a moment. Somehow it surprised me that he didn’t get up to bluster and fight back.

  I turned. Copthorne had strolled away and was kneeling, not more than seven or eight yards from me. ‘Philip,’ he called, shaking the man I’d shot, over and over as if to wake him, but the body flopped back like a fish out of water. When he stood up again up his hands were smeared with blood. He walked towards me legs as unsteady as mine, but I drew my sword, eyes fixed on his.

  ‘Did you shoot that man?’ he asked. His voice was too restrained, conversational, with a cut-glass edge.

  I swallowed. ‘Yes. He was going to cut down my father.’

  ‘Is that your father?’ He pointed with a long leather clad finger. ‘George Chaplin?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Bastard. He deserved it. A thug, like all of Cromwell’s vermin.’ His sword hissed from its scabbard but I swung back at him before I had time to think. He was crazy. I knew that now.

  ‘Say your prayers, then.’ His blade flashed before me missing my face by a whisper. He was taller than I, long-boned and sinewy, but I was more muscled. His sword was a long river of a blade unlike my stubby weapon. I dared not look away.

  Whoosh. The air vibrated as the sharp edge whistled past my ear. I fell back, fearful to be in range. I waited for him to lift his arm high again and then rushed in underneath. With a grunt he brought his own sword down, I closed my eyes but the blow did not come. When I opened them, Cutch was fighting beside me, and his slashing blade had forced the other man back.

  Another Scot came up at my shoulder, and the thick of the battle closed round us. I fought for my life, all eyes, blade whirling in front and behind. I was tiring. My arm was heavy as lead. A blast of trumpets sounded, and more thundering commotion. I faltered. Another attack from the Scots would finish me.

  ‘It’s Cromwell!’ The shout was like a shot of wine fizzing through our veins.

  I hacked with renewed vigour.

  Cutch grabbed me by the back of my coat. ‘Fall back!’ he yelled, ‘Make room!’

  C
romwell’s cavalry stormed onto the field, forcing their way through in ever greater numbers, pressing the enemy to retreat behind the city walls. Somewhere in the distance a church bell pealed, calling the faithful to prayer. Its clang sounded doleful and empty. I should pray, I thought. Father’s soul needed all the prayers I could muster. But I was too exhausted to do anything but sit, panting, nauseous, head hanging dizzily between my knees.

  *

  After a while I looked up. The darkening field was strewn with mounds of colour against the green grass. Cavaliers and Roundheads side by side. Black flies hovered in clouds around each corpse.

  A shout — the order to follow, but I couldn’t move. The sudden quiet was eerie. I hung back. So did Cutch. I wondered if, like me, he could not bear to leave my father lying there amidst all the broken pikes, and even more broken men. I kept glancing over to where he lay, imagining my mother and Abigail, what I could tell them.

  But what could I do? There was no time to bury any of our men now. I looked for Cutch, and saw him walk over to my father’s body, feel in his pockets.

  ‘Oy!’ I shouted, but he ignored me.

  I stood up. Cutch was pulling father’s signet ring off his finger. He slipped it into the pouch which hung at his belt. I was about to go over, but then he left Father, went to the body of Copthorne’s brother, rolled him over. He shoved something else in his pocket, started to unbuckle his scabbard.

  Cutch was scavenging, and somehow this hurt more than anything else. Tears began to flow. My eyes blurred.

  Cutch swaggered over, held something out on the flat of his palm. ‘Look. Your father’s seal.’

  ‘Piss off. I don’t want it.’

  Cutch shrugged, put it in his pocket. ‘I’ll keep it for you. Better you should have it than anyone else. You’ve got to be quick to beat the professionals.’

  ‘It feels wrong. They’re not even cold yet, and you must rob them.’

  ‘Suit yourself. But I took this for you.’ He drew out a fine chased sword from the new scabbard buckled to his belt. ‘From that man you shot down. You did well. He’s Philip Copthorne, of Copthorne Castle. Or rather was. That’s his crest.’

  I ignored Cutch’s pointing finger.

  ‘Shame you didn’t get his older brother too.’ He stroked the chased hilt with his thumb, then held it out. ‘Beautiful craftsmanship.’

  I didn’t want to look at it.

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Cutch spat on the ground. ‘Your loss. It’ll be better than the one I’ve got. Something nice about killing the bastard aristocrats with their own weapons, wouldn’t you say?’

  But I had no time to answer as a blast of cannon fire from the city walls gouged a deep hole in the field only ten yards from us. Earth spattered over our shoulders like hail.

  ‘Run!’ Cutch yelled.

  I followed him, stumbling, back to the brake of trees. My eyes wouldn’t stop watering, washing themselves, as if they wanted to un-see what I had seen. From behind the thorn, dotted with autumn haws like beads of scarlet, I mourned the loss of my England. My father’s death was unreal still, but the loss of that peaceful green field, the nature that had been sullied by such savagery; that pierced me to the bone.

  3 - MERCY AND VENGEANCE

  We crouched behind the cold grit parapet of Fort Royal above the Sidbury gate to the city. My shoulder was bruised and numb from the retort of my musket which I still had not the knack of using properly, and my left hand was blistered from an explosion in the pan when I’d lit the fuse, and in my panic, forgot to fire.

  Now I was here, I just wanted to go home. I wanted it to be over, and to be back at home fishing in the lazy river, or pushing a plough. Probably that was all the Royalists wanted too. Our insistent blast of shot had sent them scurrying behind the city walls. Our men had taken the Friars Gate, and now our restless ranks of helmeted cavalry stood by. They were well-drilled, packed together, a hundred iron-clad hooves under the clank of steel and sword.

  ‘Makes you proud, doesn’t it?’ Cutch said, as if to read my mind.

  There was something unrelenting about the machine that was the New Model Army. I pitied those inside the city gates, the women and children dreading their order to charge. I prayed our men would be merciful, but then I’d seen what they did at Markyate Manor. My thoughts turned again to Kate. Even here she was always with me, like a burning brand in the back of my mind. I longed for her soft womanliness, to rest my head on her shoulder, inhale her scent of cinnamon and roses.

  ‘Penny for them?’ Cutch said.

  ‘Nothing, just thinking of home.’

  ‘Then in God’s name stop. If we’re going in behind those walls, there’ll be nowhere to run. Keep your wits about you and watch your back.’

  ‘I wish it was over.’

  ‘I wished that every day for five years,’ Cutch said. ‘Now I dread it.’

  ‘Why?’

  But there was no time for him to answer because the trumpet sounded and the cavalry charged forward. In their wake, Cromwell’s battle cry echoed round the fortress, ‘The Lord of Hosts!’ but almost immediately it was followed by our sergeant’s instructions, ‘Spare no souls!’ he yelled.

  This was it, our final push. I pelted down the narrow stone stairs, the barrel of my musket scraping on the wall, and followed the long ragged line of infantry into the city. Even from outside the walls I could hear the cathedral bells ringing their ear-splitting warning, over the screams of those within. My blood seemed to freeze in my bones. Our line slowed as we got to the gate.

  Cutch glanced at me, ‘All right?’ he asked.

  There was no answer to that.

  *

  We could not even walk down the streets. The wounded had been trampled by hooves or cut down where they stood. Whether they were our men or theirs, there was no telling. They lay crumpled like litter where only a few weeks before they had been shopping for gloves, or buying the family dinner.

  A group of six cavaliers were advancing towards us, their swords brandished before them. They were clearing the road of bodies, kicking or hauling them out of the way. A woman wept, rocked back and forth in the dirt, eyes glazed in terror, hanging on to her injured husband. With a jolt I recognised her – the woman with yellow hair, the one I’d shared a crust with. She was crouching over one of our men. He was groaning, holding onto his belly where his buff coat bled, wet and red. Stomach wounds were the worst. He was a goner.

  The enemy were grouping together, they’d seen us.

  ‘Don’t fire! Wait for reinforcements,’ Cutch hissed. We were outnumbered.

  I looked over my shoulder, but there was nobody there to help us.

  When I turned back I recognised Copthorne as one of the men. He seized the woman by her yellow hair and yanked her to upright. She pressed her hands together to her chest in supplication, but he ignored the gesture and pushed his blade up under her chin.

  ‘Please, Sir,’ she gasped.

  ‘Say “Sir” again,’ he said.

  ‘Sir, have mercy.’

  Copthorne saw me coming. He held the woman there an instant longer, then swiftly thrust the point of his blade through her chest, let her sag and fall.

  He was about to go for me, when one of his cavalier companions caught him by the sleeve, ‘Leave it!’ he yelled. ‘Clear the streets, those were our orders!’

  A trumpet call, and Copthorne turned abruptly away from us, loped away back down the street beckoning to his men. His friends rolled the bodies of the soldier and his wife to the side of the gutter, as if they were hauling carcases at an abattoir, then continued their grisly business of clearing the rest of the road.

  I ran to the woman. She was alive, but the wound was fatal.

  ‘Please,’ she said, begging me with her eyes, ‘your gun.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. What she was asking was too much.

  But her eyes still begged me, her pain cut me like a hot knife. I took a deep breath.

  ‘Lord have Mercy,’ I whisp
ered. I fired at point blank range.

  A few moments later I reloaded, finished her husband and another poor old man who lay groaning in his own blood in the gutter.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Cutch was angry, tried to pull me away.

  ‘Sparing no soul,’ I said grimly, ramming more wadding into my gun, ‘that’s what our orders are.’

  He stilled my arm. ‘Don’t be crazy. Save your powder, these aren’t worth it.’

  ‘Not worth it? Not bloody worth it?’ My words were thick with rage. ‘Leave go of me.’ I thrust him away. ‘D’you want them to die in slow agony? These are our countrymen.’ I fired my gun at a Royalist soldier, whose stomach was no longer in his skin. The shot went through his skull and he lay still. Tears blurred my eyes.

  I was about to fire again when a troop of horsemen appeared at the top of the street. I glanced round. They were Royalists, and something about their demeanour told me they meant business.

  ‘Ralph! Get a grip.’ Cutch shook me by the shoulders.

  ‘God Save the King!’ came a yell behind us. I swivelled to see the men who had been clearing a way, running back towards us. Cutch side-stepped neatly into an alley, dragging me with him.

  In a flash of understanding, I realised the rider bearing down on us was the young King Charles himself, though we should not call him that. He was nobody, I had to remind myself. His father had been beheaded and we no longer had a king.

  His fine-boned horse passed within a few feet, close enough for me to see his polished-leather boots with their fall of pristine lace dangling over the tops. The whiteness and delicacy of that lace was out of place in this street of carnage. He was a youth my age, but whippet–thin, his pale face blank. He averted his eyes from the dead men piled up to the shop doors. I wanted to shout at him – look at them! This is all for your cause!

  The group of foot soldiers ran to the empty mounts that jostled behind the party. Copthorne spotted us in the alley, and from his eyes I could see he was still intent on attacking me. He unsheathed his sword and sprinted towards us.

  ‘Copthorne. To Horse. Now.’ The Royal equerry pointed to the empty steed he was leading, a big black beast with foam-flecked reins.