by Smith, Skye
Daniel threw Denzil Holles a grin. Britta was in no danger any more. Even the officers would treat her with deference after seeing the personal interest the general took in her. He took Holles by the arm and ushered him towards the knoll beside the riverbank. On that high ground he could not only give this fine hunter back to his owner, but gaze along the riverbank for Anso and the launch. He had expressly told Anso to stay out of this battle. It was not their fight. Their priority was to get a dozen field guns back to London and then ship them to the Wash to be used on their small ships.
Percy Whistlethorpe thanked Daniel profusely for the return of his horse. He had never expected to see it again. Daniel accepted the thanks absently mindedly while he scanned the Thames embankment with his Dutch looker for any familiar face. And then he spotted Anso. By this time the knoll was packed with gentlemen sightseers from the finest houses of London, and Daniel and Holles had to plow through them to get to the Thames side and make their way down to the river bank.
Anso was leaning against a post lost in thought. The rest of the fensmen were asleep near to the launch. "Colonel Denzil Holles," Daniel did the introductions, "May I present Captain Anso Thoroldsen of the good ship Swift. Anso, Denzil was one of the MP's the king tried to arrest in Parliament. His regiment wears the red coats. You know, the red coats that were floating about around our barge of cannons. The king's army is on the fields above us, so I doubt there is much of a guard on our barge anymore. Why don't you go and have a look see?"
"I get your point," Anso said gruffly. "They couldn't have unloaded the cannons without first dragging the barge off the mud bank and then pulling her up to a quay. If they haven't done that yet, then the cannons will belong to the first men who float the barge." He bent down and gently nudged the closest sleeping man and told him to wake the others.
"Since you are going into the mouth of the Brent," Daniel added. "could you take Denzil with you. He would like to say a prayer over the bodies of his men."
"Aye, and welcome he is," Anso patted Holles on the shoulder. "We tried our best to save them but we were too late to save more than say ... thirty. I counted more than a hundred face down in the eddy."
The first pat of this giants heavy hand almost threw his shoulder out, so Holles braced himself for the second pat. "I thank you for that. Saving thirty is far, far better than saving nout."
"Err," Anso said in a low voice. "Those thirty and our barge crew got ashore, but a hundred and fifty men on another of our barges were not so lucky. We ordered them to surrender. They were Kingston men. They had no choice but to surrender, not after that gunpowder barge drifted up alongside their barge. One spark and they would have all gone up in smoke."
"Then you saved a hundred and eighty lives, and I thank you for doing so. I wish I could have saved a tenth as many."
"Here then, get in the launch. Let's all go and have a look see at what is happening in the mouth of the Brent."
"Not me, Anso," Daniel said as he stepped back up the bank. "Bloody Britta is with the party of women who came to feed the troops." He held up his looker and continued. "I'm going back up onto the knoll where I can keep an eye on her. You know what she is like when she has an audience of men. Here she has an audience of thirty thousand, and she has already had a run in with our black prince."
"Takes after her Da then," Anso quipped, and his crew all laughed. Most of the crew had known Britta since she was in nappies, and even as a baby she could twist men around her finger. They also knew that Daniel was at best a third cousin of Britta's and just her step-dad, sort of.
* * * * *
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The Pistoleer - Brentford by Skye Smith Copyright 2014
Chapter 18 - The Battle of Turnham Green in November 1642
Daniel did not wait on the bank until the launch was away. There was no need since from up on the knoll he would have a better view of it until it was around the bend and almost to Brentford. He stood right on the top of the knoll surrounded by frilly gentlemen until the inane comments from all the armchair warriors curdled his temper and he decided to walk further down the slope where some real men were standing. By their heavy leather aprons these men were butchers, and those aprons were all they wore as armour. They were new to Warwick's London trainbands and had only just been issued muskets. Muskets that Anso and the Swift had only just delivered to the Providence Company warehouse. They didn't even wear the cheap and effective pot-helmets to protect their heads from sabre slashes.
What they were wearing, hung from the bandoleer containing powder and shot for their muskets, was the tools of their trade. It was Daniel's interest in these tools that got him talking with these stout, heavy shouldered men. Some carried what looked like a pike but it was shorter than a stabbing lance though longer than a sabre.
"It's for stabbing a beasts heart for a quick kill," a slaughterhouse man replied to his query. "That's my work, day in, day out. A clean quick kill of a hundred big animals a day."
Another was carrying a heavy wooden mallet with a long handle. "For prize meat," the owner told him, "I use the mallet to smash the brains unconscious, but not enough to stop the heart. Then the heart pumps out all the blood rather than having to wait for it to drain."
Another was carrying a razor sharp, narrow headed broad axe. "Game animals must be bled and hung. This beauty takes their heads in one swing, no matter the beast. I make my living with fast, clean cuts, so the head can be mounted as a trophy and so the carcass can be hung and aged."
Others carried an assortment of cleavers and hatchets and massive razor sharp knives. They were all for cutting beasts into roasts of a size that a housewife could afford. They were all the tools of their trade, and their most cherished possessions. They were perhaps the most frightening weapons on this battlefield, not because of their purpose, so much as because these men used them with practiced skill a hundred times in a day, every day.
"Say, I know you," one of them told the rest while nodding at Daniel. "You're the one that helped Warwick's cook organize the food carts. Are you Warwick's man?"
Daniel didn't get a chance to deny it before another man jumped in with, "Say no more mate, we is too, now. I'll not follow that Essex fella ta the next latrine, but I trust Warwick. He always pays his butchers in advance." There was a rumble of agreement from all around. "So Warwick must'a sent you 'ere to make sure his women were protected, eh, 'nough said. We'll keep an eye on them for ya."
"If you work around Smithfields, then you must know most of Denzil Holles's redcoats," Daniel changed the subject before he could sour the help that had been offered by correcting the any of their misconceptions. His words were met with a grim snort.
"You could say that," one of them replied. "Apprentice louts the lot of them, and lazy to the bone, but they are cousins and nephews, and sons of friends. We heard about the mauling they received trying to save Brentford and so we came to help them out. Ain't seen many of them yet, mind you. I suppose a lot of them were captured." The man stopped speaking abruptly, not wanting to mention worse than capture and hoping to be told that they were all being held safe somewhere nearby.
Again Daniel clamped his mouth closed rather than correcting their misconceptions. These men’s nephews and sons were likely all dead. "I heard that too. It was all Prince Rupert's doing, him and his flying army. You'll know the prince and his lifeguards when you see them. They ride black horses, wear black armour and black cloaks. They ride in a group, but the prince is the tallest of them by far."
"You there, Captain Daniel," Percy called down to him from the top of the knoll. "What is happening, or rather, why isn't something happening?"
Daniel called back up to him, "All the ranks have been told to stand easy and keep to their lines. Apparently there is some big peace negotiation in progress so we are under vows of truce." He hoped that Percy had the good sense not to curse that he had come to see a great bloody battle. Not while he was surrounded by nervous, half trained militia men who were all
hoping for peace. Turning back to look along the lines, a moving shadow caught his eye. He whipped his looker out and focused on it. There he was, the prince and his lifeguard moving south towards the Great West Road or perhaps towards the banks of the great river beyond the road.
"Oye, what's that then," the fattest of the butchers said with interest based on boredom. Daniel had no choice but to explain the spectacle scope to them all and then show them how to use it, and then wait patiently while each of them had a turn.
"There's Warwick's cook and his mistress," one of them yelled with glee while reaching out beyond the lenses to see if he could touch them. "From up here I can see right down her..." It was snatched out of his hands by his friend who hadn't had a turn yet.
Daniel stared in the direction the looker was pointed and picked out Britta's long braids of yellow hair just beyond a jovial line of pot-helmets. She and the other women had run out of food and were walking in chattering groups along the outside of the battle line and making for the highway, or perhaps for this knoll. Good. He would send them all back to London and far away from the vicious insanity that could break out on this battlefield at any time. To the stubborn ones like Britta, he would simply say that they must go and fetch more food for when the battle ends.
* * * * *
Anso hushed the crew and the men slackened the pace so their oars would not splash. The launch drifted around the bend in the Thames and towards the mouth of the Brent. His eyes were everywhere. They had hugged the bank to stay hidden from any troopers in the town for as long as possible, which meant they were well within musket range of the shore. If he saw anyone, he would immediately and silently signal the crew to put them into deeper water. He and Holles were in the bow, or at least, as forward as they could get without sitting on the bow chaser. The canon was loaded and primed and one yank on the trigger line would release the flint dog and send a hail of grape out in front of the launch.
There was no one on the near bank, so the crew picked up the pace. It wasn't long before they reached the back eddy caused by the merging of Brent water with the Thames. Holles moaned. The eddy was filled with bobbing bloated bodies, each of them wearing a red coat, his red coats. The bodies were bumping up against a barge, Anso's barge, which was caught by the mud bottom of the eddy. Beyond the barge and across the flow of the Brent were two more barges, both aground on a gravel bar that reached out into Thames. Anso whispered to him, "The small barge upstream is loaded with kegs of powder."
"Surely not anymore," Holles replied. "The king's army would have needed the powder. They would have unloaded it by now."
"They are trying to but the mud bottom has slowed them down. See on the bank. They are trying to build a plank pier out to it so they can roll the kegs off her. They may have got some small kegs off, but not the heavy ones. They can't risk dropping them and wetting the contents."
"What was on the larger barge?"
"Mostly infantrymen, but also munitions supplies, muskets, balls, an eight pound gun. Again, anything heavy will still be aboard. That barge is holed so they won't be able to float her closer to shore. You can see why I ordered the men aboard her to surrender. They were armed and ready to fight, but one stray spark into the small barge and they would have all been blown to heaven."
Anso and Holles began the grisly task of poking the bloated bodies away from the bow so the launch could drift closer to their own barge. It was very grisly for Holles for occasionally a body would roll over and a face bloated beyond recognition would stare back at him accusingly. Once they had hold of the tow line, they would try to haul the barge into deeper water. Anso didn't tell Holles that there wasn't much chance of that. They had tried yesterday but the suck of the mud bottom had foiled their strong backs.
Luckily for them, there weren't many of the king's men about. They would all be at least a mile away on the battlefield and lined up to make a good show of it. Once they had the tow line they eased the launch out of the floating bodies and rowed out of the eddy and into deep water where the current of the Thames would help them tug. Someone on shore must have woken up to what they were doing, because there were puffs of powder smoke on the bank and then the crackle of muskets. They were out of range, so then a troop of guards waded to the bar with the muskets held high and clambered onto the munitions barge. That barge was aground bow out so from the bow their muskets were within range.
Anso signaled Uve to push the bow around so he could shoot the grape at the musketeers to convince them to keep the peace. Once the bow and the cannon were lined up, he pulled the cord. There was a snap, crackle, pop and then a boom, and then they couldn't see the barge for gunsmoke. Anso immediately set about reloading.
"Skipper," Uve said, "load her with one of the bombs."
"Waste of a bomb lad," Anso replied. "Grape is more sure at this range."
"I wasn't thinking of clearing the musketeers. I was thinking about how that powder barge blew up yesterday. It created a wave, like a small sea wave, that rushed out in a ring. A wave like that may lift our barge out of the mud suck. If we stand by ready to tug as she rises, we may shift her."
Anso nodded thoughtfully. "Worth a try." He found a bomb, their last bomb, and cut the fuse shorter before he loaded it. Uve had worked his oar a bit so the canon was aligned with the powder barge. The rest of the crew were already lying as low as they could behind the gunnels with their heads and ears covered. Anso pointed this out to Holles and then pushed him down to do the same.
"No, I will fire it," Holles insisted and fought Anso for the trigger cord.
"No one will fire anything until I've warned them musketeers to get clear," Anso told him as he batted the man's hand away from the cord.
"Bullshit, they shot drowning men and now they can justify their actions to their maker," Holles cursed and grabbed the cord with his left hand and pulled it. Between the snap, crackle, and the pop, Anso had physically grabbed the man up and lifted him backwards away from the gun's recoil, and then dropped himself as low as he could be.
At this range the boom of the canon was almost immediately replaced by the thunder, thunders, of the barge being disintegrated. No one looked up. No one dared to look up. Thousands of shards of barge were flying about and each of them more deadly than a pistol ball. When the shards changed from ripping sideways to tumbling from the sky, Anso sat up and shook his head and yelled to the men to man the oars. They had to get tugging if they were to use the wave. No one could hear a word of what he was yelling, and even to himself the sound of his own voice was muffled. It didn't matter. The crew all knew what was expected before they had ducked down. They spun the launch, took up the slack in the tow line, and then heaved on their oars.
Somewhere at the other end of the line there was a barge and somewhere very close there was a wave, but they could see none of it. Not only were they alone in a dense cloud of smoke and mist, but they couldn't keep their eyes open to watch because the smoke was gritty and stung. They just hauled on the oars and continued to haul on them even when a sharp wave lifted the launch and then raced away into the invisible gloom.
Everyone was on the oars, including Anso and Holles. Everyone was digging them deep and hauling hard. "We're moving," Uve called out but to dead ears.
"Is the barge moving yet?" someone called but no one heard.
"Keep rowing," Anso called out and this time he sort of heard his own words. They rowed in silence, or at least they thought they were being silent. At least the cloud of smoke was billowing up, which meant they could breath freely again. At least the rain of bits of wood had stopped so they could keep their eyes open and douse the embers. Eventually the smoke became mist and then... they saw it. The bow of the barge. It was following them, and then Holles leaned over the gunnels and puked his lunch out.
The crew all stared through the mist. The barge was afloat and was following them but so were dozens and dozens of bloated, red coated bodies. Either the wave, or the moving barge, or both had freed the bodies from the
eddy and now the current was moving them down the Thames. As they watched, two of the bodies rolled over and over and disappeared under the barge. "Stop it, stop it," wailed Holles. "Can't we pull the bodies out of the way. Haven't they suffered enough without being keel hauled." But no one could hear him.
Anso motioned to the men to turn the launch. They would row into deeper water and try to hold the barge against he current until all of the bodies had been swept away by the current.
* * * * *
The sound of musket fire and then shots from a canon caught the interest of every officer in both armies. Their regiments were lined up for a mile facing each other, but the men were at rest, for there was a truce. The same questions weighed on all of their minds. Who had broken the truce? Was the battle beginning? What should they be doing, advancing or holding the line? Then the great rolling thunder of the barge exploding posed new questions. Those who had fought at Edgehill knew the thunder and the mushroom cloud of a magazine blowing up when they saw it. With the green men all around Daniel on the knoll, however, there was rampant speculation.
Daniel did not bother to explain away all of their misconceptions. He had left the company of the butchers and had rejoined Percy's gentlemen on the crest so that he could scan the river with his looker. The powder barge had blown. That was very bad news for someone, and he prayed and hoped that it wasn't bad news for him. He focused on where the mushroom began behind the trees and then aimed the looker slowly out into the great river. He could see nothing through the smoke and mist. He thought about running down to the river bank, but why. He had a better view from up here. There, was that a shadow in the mist? Yes, yes, yes, it was the launch and his clansmen were putting their backs into the oars.