Pistoleer: Brentford

by Smith, Skye

  "No!" the governor cried out in alarm. "you must not tell the men that, even if it is true."

  "Why not? Why not tell my men the truth?" Meldrum asked. "Some of them have, or had, families in Broughton."

  "I, er, we, er, that news could have been just evil gossip. Wait the telling until I send a messenger to the king to find out the truth." The governor turned and clomped back down the stairs.

  Daniel and Meldrum leaned on a gap in the crenellations and waited to see who was sent as the messenger. Would it be the young earl-to-be, Henry, or the governor himself. If it was the governor, they would lock him out and Meldrum would take command of the castle. Unfortunately it was young Henry.

  "Oye, you," yelled one of the governors watchers to Daniel. "If this 'ere wrapped pipe is your'n then you can damn well move it. It's in the way."

  Daniel looked over. The watcher had pointed to his long rifle, still wrapped and tied in sacking and still where he had put it yesterday, leaning up in a corner where the wall met the tower. He had been so tired that it had slipped his mind. "Careful with that," he called back. "Don't touch it. I'll be there in a second." He wandered over and picked it up and carried it back to where Meldrum was using the looker to keep an eye on young Henry's progress towards the king's marquis.

  "Henry has stopped to talk with two mounted men. Here take a look. Do you recognize them."

  It took Daniel only a blink of an eye to recognize the devil prince and he said as much. The other man looked familiar too, and then he remembered. "Ah, the other man is young Henry Mordaunt's cousin, William Compton. He is the third son of Spencer Compton, the Earl of Northampton."

  "You seem to know a lot about him, wait ... was he the scout you questioned and got all the answers from?"

  "The same," Daniel said absent mindedly. He had drawn a sharp knife from his belt and was concentrating on cutting away just enough of the sacking tied around the rifle so that he could load and fire it. A bit off the muzzle ... a ring around the flint works and trigger ... access to the rod ... that was enough. Moments later the long rifle was all loaded and ready to fire except for the choice of rounds. He peered into the muzzle. The lad who had wrapped the rifle for him had cleaned it first, and had done a good job of it for the rifling grooves were shining and not caked in charred grit. He selected one of the larger polished balls and dropped it down the muzzle.

  "Why are you loading that monster?" Meldrum asked. "The governor has a standing order that no one is to shoot unless he orders it. Besides, the king is well out of range, even of our largest cannon."

  "Not the king, the devil prince. With the extra height of this wall I think I can hit him. Don't you see, he isn't wearing his armour because no one is expecting to do battle today. He is mine."

  "You can't shoot a prince!"

  "The hell you say. I've seen him and his men shoot unarmed water boys, and I've seen them slaughter the wounded with their sabres. I'm just returning the favour. Besides, with my ball his death will be a lot faster and cleaner than the death he brought to the kitchen staff at Kineton." He primed the pan and then set the sight notch for long distance. He wondered whether he should set the notch lower just because of the height of the wall, but then didn't.

  After that it was all concentration. Breath in, hold it, squeeze the trigger, spark, flash, hiss, boom, recoil, smoke, the ball was away. He sneezed to clear the acrid smoke and ash from his face and then asked "Did I hit anything?"

  Meldrum had not taken the looker off the prince. "You missed. Wait. You missed the prince but you hit the horse beyond him. William Compton just got bucked to the ground."

  "Hmm, that is the second time I've shot a horse out from under that lad.

  "Ach, well you'll not be getting another chance at the prince. You've put the wind right up the backside of our gallant Rupert. He is racing away to tattle to his uncle the king. Compton is slow in getting up. Our messenger, young Henry, has turned and is racing back to the castle gate."

  That was all that Daniel heard before all around him muskets and cannon were being fired. The men on the wall had been loaded and holding their fire for two days, and they took Daniel's shot as an obvious signal to fire, finally.

  "Hold your fire, hold your fire," Huncks was yelling as he raced up the steps. No one had ever seen the man move so fast before. The governor's captains took up the call and eventually the sound of powder explosions died out. Huncks came straight over to Meldrum and yelled, "This is your doing colonel. No one was supposed to fire without my order. You have disobeyed me. That is mutiny. I will have you hung."

  "Sorry gov," Daniel said while pointing to his long rifle. "It was my shot that started the men firing. No order was given. When the lads heard my gun go off, they thought that was your signal to open fire, so they did, and then so did everyone else."

  "Then I will hang you ..."

  "Not so fast with your condemnation, gov," Daniel interrupted. "Let me first tell you why I fired. It was to save Henry Mordaunt's life. He was barely out of the castle when he was set upon by two brigands ... despite his carrying a white flag. They blocked his way to the king and I feared for his life, so I shot one of their horses so that young Henry could escape them. He should be back through the gate by now. Ask him what happened out there."

  The governor chewed his next words, but then swallowed them. After a careful glance through the crenellations towards the king's marquee, he made a decision. "Colonel, you will hold this man until I have had a chance to speak with Captain Mordaunt. Use force if necessary." Then he was gone down the stairs even faster than he had climbed them.

  Meldrum almost pissed himself holding in a belch of laughter until Huncks was out of earshot. Then he split a gut, which got Daniel laughing, and the laughter spread to the men who were standing around them reloading their muskets. "I'll wager that neither Huncks or the king expected this to happen. You're a beauty Danny, and that be the truth."

  "The most believable lie is always mostly truth. Did your men hit anything out there or was this all just a waste of powder."

  One of the sergeants ran forward to report that the only thing that was hit was a horse. Even the cannon balls that had gone bouncing along the ground had not caused any grief. "But it wasn't a waste of powder colonel," the sergeant continued. "As we speak the king's gun emplacements are being moved backwards. Strange that they didn't answer our cannon balls with their own." That set Meldrum laughing again. Now he knew the truth about the king's big guns.

  It was another three hours before young Henry Mordaunt set out again to take a new message from Huncks to the king. In the mean time there was much gossiping amongst the bored, cramped and frightened townfolk who were sitting and laying about in the castle yard. The governor's men were spreading rumours that Broughton Castle had refused the king's terms of surrender and so it had been looted and razed, and everyone in the village had been slaughtered. Everyone, men, women, and children.

  On hearing these foul rumours, Meldrum sent a company of his own men down into the yard to calm the folk and kill the rumour. The company was made up of men from Broughton, men who were known to the local folk. They squashed the governor's rumours with the truth that the baron and all of the folk of Broughton had fled that castle before Prince Rupert could surround it. In other words there had been no slaughter of the folk. That was all just more of the king's lies.

  Young Henry Mordaunt returned to the castle just before sunset with more messages, or perhaps orders, for governor Huncks. At sunset Meldrum turned to Daniel and told him, "And so ends day two and still no damage to Banbury or its folk. I pray that Hampden is right and Essex will be soon be moving south out of Warwick Castle to push the king's army away from our walls." They climbed down from the wall and went in search of a meal. At one point they stood aside to allow governor Huncks and his lifeguard to pass.

  "Well Danny, there is the good news. Huncks saw you and did not arrest you. I suppose that means that you won't be hung after all. Young Henry must
have told him a similar enough story about your rifle shot for him to assume it was an honest mistake."

  "Aye, an honest mistake," Daniel said with a quick grin. "But you won't be insulted I quit this castle as soon as the king's army breaks camp."

  That night no one got much sleep for there was a constant noise coming from the town. The unsettling noise of windows and shutters being broken, and men calling, and women screaming. Something violent and widespread was happening in the town and the only good thing that anyone could say about it was that at least there were no fired roofs lighting up the sky.

  At sunrise those townfolk who were safe behind the castle walls felt justified in having put up with the over crowded conditions of the yard. This was not due to the sounds of violence that had kept them awake, but due to the spectacle in front of the castle at sunrise. A few hundred townfolk, mostly merchant families who had chosen not to sleep in the castle, were on parade in front of the gate. The men were filthy and bruised from being beaten, and the women's clothes were shredded from another kind of beating. Prince Rupert himself rode up to the gate under a flag of truce to speak to all of those staring down at the spectacle from the wall.

  Rupert's words were heavily accented by his German mother tongue, but that just made them crisper and easier to hear when he shouted them out, "My uncle the king has retired to his palace at Woodstock and has left the surrender of Banbury in my hands. I am not a patient man like my uncle, so know this. For each hour you delay in accepting my uncle's generous terms, I will have my men behead twenty of these town folk. Once they are all dead I will tell my gunners to breach this gate, and then my men will slaughter everyone within the walls with no quarter."

  Meldrum was standing with Huncks, Fairfax, and Mordaunt on the wall above the gate and he yelled down, "We have the king's mark on an offer that states that the town will not be plundered and that the folk will not be hurt. Would you break your king's word?" From the corner of his eye he noticed Daniel making his way to one of the crenellations carrying a long thin package wrapped in sacking. He nudged two of his sergeants and told them to seize the package from the captain, and to be quick about it.

  Again the prince's clipped German accent bellowed out, "My uncle knows little of what belongs to the warriors after winning a battle, but you need wait only one hour to see what I am willing to do if you do not surrender this castle." He didn't wait for an answer, just turned his horse and trotted out of musket range.

  "What are you waiting for?" Daniel called out to Huncks. "Rupert is still within cannon range. Blast the fucker into pieces before he can give the order to kill those poor folk."

  "Arrest that man and shut him up," Huncks ordered and his lifeguard pushed there way along the wall to grab Daniel. "Meldrum, Fairfax, come with me. We must go and discuss this development with the town elders."

  Young Henry Mordaunt bellowed out, "You would be a fool to risk two thousand lives just to keep these walls for a few more days. Speaking with the elders will delay our surrender until after the latest terms from the king have expired. You must surrender now."

  Daniel watched all this as if he were watching some players in the Globe theatre in Southwark. It was as if Fairfax, Mordaunt and Huncks were all saying lines that they had rehearsed. Eventually Huncks called out to the king's men that he would speak to the prince again and when the prince rode forward, Huncks offered to surrender the castle according to the latest terms offered and signed by the king.

  Only Meldrum spoke his true mind. "Those terms say that my men must first lay down their weapons and only then will they be allowed to march away from here free of hindrance. Before my men surrender their weapons I demand to send my scouts out along the main roads. If any of those scouts fail to return, then my companies will continue to hold these walls."

  Rupert listened to Meldrum and then agreed to allow his scouts free passage. After all, he would simply send word that the first men released from the castle were not to be interfered with, whatever was to befall the rest. And so it was decided. The castle was to be surrendered in good faith on good terms, humane terms. Once the scouts had returned, then the townfolk would leave the gates, then Meldrum's brigade, and then the Earl of Peterborough's brigade. The brigades would only be allowed to carry their knives and swords and other personal weapons. They would carry no army pikes, nor army muskets, nor powder.

  The prince, almost as an afterthought, demanded that the cannons and weapons of the armoury must be left in good working order. There was to be no spiking of guns nor watering of powder, else the terms were void and the unarmed regiments would be swiftly and violently punished. Meldrum agreed on behalf of his baron's brigade and then hurried down into the courtyard to muster six scouting parties. Daniel followed on his heels.

  When they were out of earshot of the governor's men, Daniel grabbed at Meldrum's elbow and hissed into his ear. "What folly is this. Surrendering these walls I can understand, for that devil will indeed behead those folk ... but to surrender your weapons and to leave these guns un-spiked and the powder dry ... that I cannot understand. The prince and his flying army are vultures. They like nothing better than slaughtering fleeing infantry, and you will be easy pickings without your pikes. Your idea of sending out scouts will mean nothing. The prince will allow them to return unharmed. Why shouldn't he. After they return they will be slaughtered with the rest of you."

  "Do you think I don't know that. Do you think me a complete fool," Meldrum replied in a soft burr. "I will tell my scouts not to come back. Instead they will ride to every friendly garrison to plead for help. Scouts, hah, I would not waste such a mission on my scouts when there are dozens of men sheltering behind these walls who will dance on the king's gallows or be held for ransom once they are identified to the prince. As my chosen scouts they will ride, and ride armed, and be well away from here before the surrender. When they don't return, I will use the confusion to stall the surrender further. Hopefully some of the scouts will be able to convince Essex to hurry his army south."

  The well thought out logic, the plan of how to make the best out of the surrender, took Daniels voice away as his mind raced through the implications. Meldrum was as much a fox as was the old baron Fiennes, or even Hampden. "What if Essex is still at Warwick Castle?"

  "Nay, Essex is on the march. Why else would the king decamp for his palace at Woodstock. The king had to move his camp, camp followers, and infantry further south ahead of Essex. Rupert and his flying army were left here as the rear guard, in hopes that he could convince the castle to surrender. If the castle doesn't surrender, then his mounted force will easily outrun Essex to rejoin the king. By the way, you are leaving with the scouts."

  Eventually it all fell into place in Daniel's mind. The scouting parties were just another stalling tactic, and a tactic that would not only get the king's enemies to safety, but also bring help. Hopefully in time. "But when we don't return, and no help comes, and you run out of time and must surrender, your brigade will be walking the road defenseless. I know Rupert well enough to predict that he break the terms and attack you."

  "At the last minute before I surrender the gate, I will demand that my men keep their pikes. The prince cannot refuse us defensive weapons without admitting to treachery. Pikes are no defense against squads of trained musketeers, but Rupert has none of those. His men are all cavalryers. With pikes in hand, my four hundred stout hearted men can hold them off, or at least make a good accounting of themselves."

  "Damn Rupert!" Daniel seethed.

  "You mean damn Huncks," Meldrum corrected. "Without Huncks, both the king and Rupert would have been embarrassed in front of these walls, and perhaps captured. I fear that instead this castle will be taken by them, and the cannons, and the armoury, and that will be enough to put London in grave danger."

  * * * * *

  The first scouting party to leave the gates included Daniel. His brother scouts included two of the town elders who had relentlessly spoken out against the king, and one
son of a local MP. Femke had been saddled and brought to him by one of the three men who had ridden into Banbury with him. Was that only three days ago. Daniel himself threw his horse holsters over her neck. He was just about to mount when the sergeant came running towards the gate carrying the deer rifle that had been taken from him.

  "Danny," the sergeant said to him as he lashed the long package to the saddle, "the horse you gave to me is twice the horse of this mare of yours. Yer legs are too long for this one by half. I will gladly swap you."

  "Thank yee, but I'll stick to the mare. It's true that she doesn't look worth stealing, but that is part of her value. We are old friends, she and I, and she well knows what I expect of her."

  The colonel rode out through the gate with them, and within hearing distance of Prince Rupert, gave them their instructions. "You will ride east as far as Farthinghoe and then you will return and make your report. The regiment will not leave this gate until you return to tell us that there are no signs of an ambush being set up. Only once all of the scouting parties have returned will I decide which of the roads my regiment will march along."

  All four of the men in the scouting party had kept their hoods up to hide their faces, and were careful to look straight ahead or down at the road. None of them wanted to be recognized and brought to the attention of the prince or his officers. They rode briskly over the bridge across the River Cherwell, and only then did they glance back over their shoulder at the grand castle.

  "Trouble," the MP's son told them, "we are being shadowed."

  Daniel was the only trained soldier in the party so he was obliged to look. "Bugger" was his first word. "I may have been recognized. The lad leading those scouts is William Compton, and he has reason enough to do me harm."

  "He wouldn't dare. The prince has given his permission for us to scout this road. He expects us to return within two hours and report that the road is clear."