by Tim Vicary
“Louder, I reckon. ‘Twould be best to plug thy ears, afore it starts.”
“Then you wouldn’t hear the sergeant, neither, like me,” said Adam ruefully, gratified by the laughter they all shared at the memory of his mistake.
“I could do with a little less of his voice, anyway,” said Paul Abrahams, the youngest of the group. He glanced over to where the little sergeant was joking with some of the women, and spat expressively into the grass.
“Oh no, son, don’t think that.” John Spragg shook his head wisely. “The man knows his trade, and that’s going to matter to us in a day or so. If we can shoot and reload faster than our enemies, we shall have the victory.”
“It is for the good Lord to give us the victory, not mortal men,” growled Israel Fuller through his black beard, from where he sat by his pike. “We may go through this play of training, but it will be the hand of the Lord that will give us the victory, because of the justice of our cause.”
“Amen to that, friend Israel,” said Roger Satchell, who had come over to join them after leading the pike-drill. His lean face contemplated the preacher gravely. “But don’t you think ‘tis our duty now to transform ourselves into a fit instrument for the Lord’s hand, that through us He may smite more surely and swiftly when the time comes?”
“Assuredly, friend Roger. But it is a foolish vanity to think that it is only the matter of pike and musket drill that will fit us to be such an instrument; for the forces of Babylon will be equally skilled in such black arts as we. It is our duty to keep our minds and bodies pure and attentive to His Holy Word, that His army may conquer the enemy by the force of the Spirit alone.”
Israel’s dark, fierce eyes gazed around at them sternly, and Tom and several others gave a firm ‘Amen’.
“There’s little danger of our forgetting that, though, friend Israel,” said John Spragg easily. “Surely there must be the greatest gathering of true Protestants in these fields that you have ever seen, with a preacher every twenty yards or so?”
There was a general laugh at this, for indeed the wide black hats and Geneva bands of preachers were everywhere amongst the knots of men in the fields around them, and from beyond the hedge at the end of the field they could hear the lusty chanting of a psalm. Despite his own fears and doubts, there had been moments throughout the day when Adam’s mind had thrilled at the thought of being part of an army that was a huge religious instrument, gathering itself to strike into the ungodly heart of Papist England.
But Israel Fuller was not satisfied. “That’s an easy thought, John, and one that may well lead us into byways of sin unawares. Have you not thought of the danger of these women and young maids of Lyme, that do bring us food and drink? Did they not also wander freely through the camp last night, among countless scores of men from other villages? Such a practice is to put needless temptation in the way of those who may not be best able to resist it. I should think, friend Roger, that we should raise this matter with our leaders; for I doubt, from what I have so far seen of them, whether they be the best sort of men to think of sufficiently guarding against such a danger.”
A frown of irritation crossed Roger Satchell’s brow. He looked down and paused before he answered.
“I’ll mention the matter, friend Israel. But I think perhaps it would carry more weight coming from yourself, and other preachers, than from me. For now ... “
But they never heard what he meant to say next, for there was a sudden slap of hooves and jingle of harness as John Clapp rode up behind him and dismounted, the look on his round red face serious and urgent.
“Found ‘ee at last, friends. Roger, have ‘ee heard the news?”
“News? No, what now?”
“One good thing, one bad. The good thing first. We are to march this evening, to punish the enemy in Bridport. Here are your orders from Colonel Venner, in charge of the foot.”
There was a stir of excitement in the group. Adam shivered in the sunlight, and clenched his fist angrily on the grass. He must not be afraid now; he must not let them see it.
“And the bad news?”
“Thomas Dare of Taunton has been killed.”
“Killed? Where? How?”
“In Lyme this afternoon, by the Scotsman Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, in a quarrel over a horse which Dare brought in.”
“You can’t mean it.” Roger Satchell’s voice was hushed, like a whisper from the grave. Thomas Dare was his friend, the man who had sent him the letter from Holland. Fletcher of Saltoun was an experienced soldier, the man all expected to be the general of horse.
“Never more so, I’m afraid. Fletcher wanted the horse for himself, and Dare wouldn’t give it him, so they came to high words, and before anyone knew what was afoot Fletcher out with his pistol and shot him dead. Some say Dare used his whip, but I never saw it.”
“‘Tis likely enough. He never was the calmest of men.” Roger Satchell stared at John Clapp unseeing for a moment, then came back to himself with a start. “But what’s to become of Fletcher? Can he lead the horse after this?”
“Not so far as I can see. The Duke’s had him arrested and sent back on ship, to save him from Dare’s friends. I doubt we’ll see more of him now.”
“But he was our general of horse; the only soldier in the lot of ‘em, bar Monmouth! Who is to lead you now? Lord Grey, who was never near an army in his life before?”
John Clapp did not answer, and Roger Satchell sat silent, stunned by the death of his friend. Adam watched him anxiously; he himself had never known Dare, though he had a vague idea of him as a short bullish man he had once or twice seen in Taunton; but Roger Satchell knew both him and Fletcher well, and had fought in the French wars too, so knew the importance of experienced soldiers to an army.
“‘Tis the warning of the Lord,” Israel Fuller’s gloomy voice broke in. “We must put our own house in order, to be worthy of His service.”
“‘Tis a harsh warning then!” Roger Satchell glared at Israel in sudden fury, as though he would say more. But the words would have caused a worse quarrel; he bit them back. “And it warns us of something else the Lord needs in his service, which we must work to find as well as pray for. How many horses did Dare bring in, John?” He turned away to John Clapp, his voice controlled, hard and decisive, as though he had already pushed the matter to the back of his mind.
“Around forty, I think. ‘Tis still hardly enough to mount all the cavaliers from the ship.”
“And never enough to provide the proper cavalry regiment we need. They have mine, at least! I’d rather serve here with the foot, if the horse are to be led by my Lord Grey. But if only I’d thought to bring in my other horses with me! You have some, too, don’t you, Adam, that we could use?”
“Hardly bred as cavalry mounts, Roger,” Adam smiled. “But two might serve to carry a good rider - or three, if you count Ann’s pony.”
“‘Tis a good beast, that - I’ve seen her gallop it like a hunter! Do ‘ee think we could send someone home to fetch them?”
“Doubtful, Roger.” John Clapp shook his head. “The latest men coming in say they had a hard time of it avoiding the militia to the west, as well as at Bridport. I should think they’d be in Colyton, by now, with us gone.”
“Yet those horses are what we need now, more than men. An army of foot-soldiers alone will have hard work against the King’s cavalry.”
“The Lord will provide for the needs of His servants,” said Israel Fuller. “Is it not likely that when those royal soldiers see the strength and godliness of our army, they will be persuaded of the righteousness of our cause, and come over to join us?”
“Pray God it may be so, Israel,” answered Roger Satchell, calmly. “But such men have harder hearts than we might wish. And ‘tis my belief that the Lord helps those who help themselves. Have we no-one here who might slip through to Colyton, to fetch those horses for us?”
He looked around the group, searching each man’s face; but his eyes rested most on young
Paul Abrahams. The boy was only just turned fourteen, and not tall for his age; many men had been surprised and displeased when he had turned up amongst them, yet none had actually dared to send him home, for in a way he was upholding the family honour: his father, Richard Abrahams, being a hopeless drunkard supported on the poor law, who could not be expected to fight, and hardly deserved such an enterprising son.
Paul flushed, pleased to be the centre of attention, yet not knowing what to say. But it was not just Roger Satchell - it seemed they all expected him to speak.
“I ... I suppose I could go, if you think ‘tis needful, Mr Satchell; but in God’s truth, I’d much rather stay here.”
“And we’d be glad to have you, Paul. But ‘tis the army’s greatest need - a man who brings us seven horses now would do us far greater service than any one man could hope to do in battle.”
“Then ... “
But John Spragg interrupted him. “No, Roger, ‘tis too risky! The boy’s too young.”
Satchell sighed. “That’s why I’m choosing him, don’t you see? If you saw Paul without a musket, would you suspect him of being a soldier? ‘Tis less risky for him than ‘twould be for one of us.” He turned back to the boy. “Do you think you could make it home, Paul, and find some way of getting those horses to us without being caught by the militia?”
“I should think so, Mr Satchell. They’d have a job to see me, if I saw they first.”
“And you’d be sure to find one or two boys in the village to help you bring them back. If you could do it, lad, ‘twould be a blow worth ten of any you could strike here.”
So Paul agreed. Roger Satchell and Adam gave him clear instructions as to which of their horses to bring, if he could; and which of the men left in the village were most likely to help him. As Paul slipped off quietly across the fields Adam was glad to see him go, and half hoped he would stay at home and not return, for an army at war was no place for children. He wondered that Israel Fuller had not spoken out against that, as much as the presence of women.
He was glad, too, that his own son Simon had broken his leg, for he knew he would have had a hard time keeping him away if he had been fit. Then he thought of Mary, and the pain on her face when he had first told her he was going - and he had a sudden overpowering memory of the warmth of her embrace and the smell of her skin; a memory that brought such tears to his eyes that it had to be crushed instantly, lest it become too strong to resist, and set him following young Paul over the hills to his home. Slowly, firmly, he picked up his musket and began to clean it, ready for the battle to come.
13
ANN WAS down by the river with Oliver and Sarah when the militia came. Her mother had begun sweeping and tidying again that morning, although they had all cleared up the morning before; but it seemed she had to have something to do all the time to stop her thinking even for a moment about what might be happening to Adam, and as the things she found to do became more superfluous and unnecessary she had become more irritable with all of them. So at last it had seemed to Ann that the most useful thing she could do was to take the younger children and herself out of her mother’s way. And somehow her feet had taken her along Rosemary Lane, where she could not help looking in at Granny Marples’ cottage as they passed - the place where she and Tom would live, if he returned.
Sarah and Ann had pressed their noses inquisitively against the greasy, dusty window, so that the old lady had seen them and come out to shoo them away; but then she had seen who they were, and after a few sharp remarks about how Ann should teach her younger sister better manners, had begun to reminisce about her own children and married life in the cottage, and finally asked them in to have a look round.
Inside, Ann’s main impression was of the smell. Every house has its own smell, but this was of something damp and old and rotten. It was probably the old lady, she kept telling herself, as the endless memories rambled on - those bent, arthritic hands couldn’t hope to keep everything clean and fresh as her mother did. She winced as Sarah pointed covertly to a pan that had green mould growing round its rim, and told herself again that it didn’t matter - the pots and pans belonged to the old lady anyway, and would go with the cobwebs and memories; a few days’ hard scrubbing would soon get rid of the grime and dust on the walls and floor.
If only it did not seem so dark as well. She remembered how Martha Goodchild had told her the sun came in during the afternoon. It certainly did not come in during the morning. And as the old lady maundered on and on, weaving the web of her own past around them, with never a pause or a seam through which they could escape, Ann felt trapped in the gloom and dirt of the little house. She began to hate it, and wanted more than anything to get out into the freshness of the summer day which the small, dirty windows seemed to exclude.
At last Oliver did it for them, by knocking a cup off the table and breaking its handle. This gave Ann the chance to scold him and drag him protesting out of the cottage before he did any more harm, though really she would not have cared if he had broken all the cups in the place, so long as she could get away.
The brightness of the sun outside dazzled them. Ann felt the warmth of the sunlight cleanse her body of the damp and dark of the cottage, like a blessing from Heaven. But she could not so easily clean it from her mind. She walked slowly on down to Chantry Bridge by the river, for Oliver to lie on the bank and look for fish, and half-listened to Sarah chattering on about how dirty the cottage was and how much cleaning Ann would have to do. Ann herself sucked a piece of grass and stared up the road to the north, thinking how she would have to escape, how she could never spend her life trapped in a small, damp prison like that.
Then the militia came. They came as half a dozen horsemen, riding under the trees along the little dusty road to the north. Ann noticed how the purple coat of one of them matched the colour of the foxgloves in the hedge; and saw that they were followed by a straggling line of thirty or forty men on foot, shouldering muskets and pikes, a thin cloud of dust above them in the air. They halted just short of the bridge, while two horsemen rode forward to reconnoitre; and then marched across with a lot of shouted orders and nervous glances around, while the two girls and the little boy on the bank sat and watched them.
Ann did not recognise any of them, though the footsoldiers looked ordinary men enough, their clothes and equipment much like those her father and the others had. But the look in their eyes was different - as though they were men coming into a town full of strangers, where they had no business or justification to be, and who expected to be punished for it. Some looked at Ann and the children with an artificial frightened ferocity, others with a weak smile that seemed to say they were really quite friendly after all, and meant no harm to anyone.
Nonetheless they took over the town. Ann and the children followed them curiously along Vicarage Street into the market place, where the officer in charge read out a long proclamation to the effect that the Duke of Monmouth had begun a rebellion in Lyme, and that any person who offered him or his army any help or shelter would themselves be considered as a traitor, and punished as such; and furthermore that all the loyal men of Colyton assessed on the muster role as liable for military service under the Militia Act were required and requested to present themselves ready to perform that service forthwith.
The onlookers listened sullenly, and then dispersed. Groups of militia went to guard all the roads out of the town, and the officer set up a recruiting table in the middle of the market place. Other groups of men went around knocking on doors to arrange billeting and find the men on their muster role. Ann had just reached home when they came for her father. There was a loud hammering on the door, and Mary Carter opened it to a large, burly officer, sweating in his wig, heavy coat and riding boots, who pushed his way past her into the kitchen, followed by two nervous-looking men with muskets.
“Mrs Carter? I’m looking for Adam Carter, your husband. He’s on the muster-roll for militia service.”
“He’s not at home.”
“Indeed.” The officer sucked his lips loudly, his fat face unsurprised. He glanced at her briefly before taking in the rest of the room, his gaze resting with some slight curiousity on the pale, defiant figure of Simon, who sat staring back at him from the wooden chair in the corner, his leg stretched out before him on a stool.
“So when will he be home then?”
“Not today.”
“Nor tomorrow either, I suppose.” He didn’t look at Mary, but strode heavily into the room, lowered his bulk onto a bench by the table, and stretched out his hand to catch little Oliver by the shoulder. He chucked him on the cheek and smiled ingratiatingly.
“Your daddy gone to fight for the Duke of Monmouth, has he?”
“Yes ... “
“No! Oliver, don’t answer this man! My husband is a mercer and a carrier, as you should know. He went to Exeter yesterday to sell some cloth, and is likely to to be gone for some days.” Mary Carter stood angrily over the man, her hands trembling as she held them clenched by her sides. He did not look at her, but watched little Oliver, his big hand still on the boy’s shoulder.
“That’s not true, son, is it? He went off to fight for the Duke of Monmouth with the others, like a brave soldier, didn’t he?”
Oliver hesitated, his confused eyes faltering between the man and his mother. His lips parted, and closed again. Then he made up his mind. He almost shouted his answer.
“No! He didn’t go nowhere! He went Exeter!” He wriggled out from under the man’s hand, and went to hide behind Ann’s skirts.
The man sighed heavily, and wiped his sweating forehead with his sleeve.
“I see. A whole family of liars.” He made a mark on the list he held in his hand. “Well, if your husband’s not at home to do his loyal service, at least he can provide lodging for those who are. I’m billeting two men on you tonight, Mrs Carter. Soldiers Yates and Griffin. I’m sure you won’t want payment for it, will you?”