Black Tom's Red Army

by Nicholas Carter

  “Am I to have any say in this matter at all?” Bella inquired, with all the accumulated scorn she could muster.

  But her troubled convalescence had drained her legendary firepowers, left her dangerously adrift in a very masculine environment. Matilda had been sent packing, she was on her own again. Alone in an utterly alien army that made war with papers and pens with as much enthusiasm as they did with musket and pike.

  For the first time since she had been a strawberries and cream complexioned child, Bella had been set aside, overlooked and patronised to within an inch of her existence.

  Wounded, battered, bruised. Half her hair sawn away, jaw swollen like a rotting pumpkin, she had been robbed of her accustomed trump cards.

  Wits, not looks, were what was needed now.

  But they wouldn’t tell her more than a fragment of the plan Eagleton and his blushing apprentice Sparrow had contrived upon.

  Apart from the fact it involved her father. Sir Gilbert, forty miles and more away in Bristol.

  “If I am to play some small part in this mummery, perhaps you would be kind enough to hand me my lines?” she continued, interrupting their whispered intrigues.

  Eagleton didn’t even raise his eyes from the cluttered table. Maps, lists, warrants and commissions - the bread and butter of his very existence. She would have wagered he had ink for blood.

  Sparrow gave her a sideways look which would have earned him a slap around the mouth bare years before. When they were but children about the world.

  Sparrow seemed to imagine they were still there.

  “Your full and complete recovery,” Eagleton said flatly, “is our only concern, my dear.” He favoured her with the briefest of glances.

  “I don’t like it,” Sparrow growled, “Warrants and passes are all very fine and fancy when you’re dealing with gentlemen like yourself, with clerks and officers and such like. In a nice calm headquarters tent. But we’ll have forty odd miles of enemy territory to cross armed with a scrap of paper.”

  He tossed the carefully rolled commission back in the clutter. Eagleton frowned and retrieved it, offered it back to the hulking oaf.

  Sparrow raised his chin a notch.

  Eagleton’s madcap design was unravelling before his eyes. He wondered how he had ever agreed to consider it.

  Ah yes. His commission.

  No, his field commission, as Eagleton hadn’t hesitate to point out. No sooner signed than rescinded...

  Maybe he should do as Muffet always said, go back to the ranks and keep his head down for the duration.

  But nagging ambition had overmatched his precious store of common sense to bring him this far. He’d done well at Naseby. They had all said so. He’d led them well in Leicester’s cindered streets. He had even succeeded in driving Lady Caroline’s tortured convoy out of the ruined town and to the relative safety of the open road.

  What would Archie have made of it all? Sparrow always measured his success – or failings - against his Scots mentor. Aye, he’d done well enough.

  “I was under the impression we had an understanding, Captain Sparrow?” Eagleton asked, brandishing the warrant. “The King’s horsemen have gone west, or to Wales the last we heard. His foot are taken. He has but static, poorly-manned garrisons between here and the Bristol Channel.”

  Sparrow eyed the scrap of parchment. What good were pens and paper against pistols, muskets and swords?

  “What happens when we come across a Royalist patrol?”

  Eagleton blew air down his nose.

  “You read them your warrant. You present them with your pass, signed by the Lord General himself. We will forward a covering letter to Hopton. Via one of Sir Gilbert’s outposts, his home at Chipping Marleward as you suggested. They will not dare gainsay a commander of his status.”

  Hopton. Commander of the Bristol garrison.

  An honest and upright West Country magnate with whom they had locked horns these past two years. A close personal friend of Sir William Waller - his Parliamentary counterpart.

  Sparrow chewed his lip.

  “That might get us as far as Bath,” he allowed.

  Eagleton’s bloodshot eyes narrowed, flicked to the girl and the brooding cleric standing with arms folded behind them. Bible tucked behind his elbow as if it might provide an alibi. Telling kept his furious counsels to himself, glaring about the headquarters tent as if his eyes were fire pikes.

  “Well be assured then. You shall have your warrant for Bath.”

  “Enabling Bella...Miss…Miss Telling as was,” Sparrow said with his usual lack of tact, “to take the waters and thus speed her recovery.”

  “I am overwhelmed you have paid such minute attention to my health,” Bella interjected, pressing her fingers to her forehead. The interchange was straining her nerves. She looked at Sparrow, alternately full of himself and stricken by doubt.

  He’d not changed that much then.

  He had never been one for dangerous japes behind enemy lines.

  That was more Hugo’s territory, she thought with a stab of guilt. And remorse.

  Hugo, dead? She could barely comprehend it, let alone mourn him as she knew she should. She must. She would.

  Sparrow wouldn’t let it go, questioning the clerk despite the fact he had clearly out-stayed his welcome.

  The war had taken him further from her, somehow.

  Or was it simply she no longer interested him as a lover?

  By God’s wounds he hadn’t been able to keep his dirty paws off her a year or two before. Hideously jealous of Hugo - always had been.

  Poor Hugo.

  She wondered for a moment if her dead cavalier would have cared what she looked like now.

  They had fought each other for her affections for going on three years.

  Now they might as well have been discussing some drop-dugged doxy.

  Sparrow had barely dare look at her. So why was he so keen on escorting her to Bath? Intuition told her it had something to do with her father. Sir Gilbert Morrison.

  Trader, turncoat. The last she had heard he was running half a dozen manufacturing shops in Bristol. Muskets, swords, soldiers’ shoes, saddles. Organising the logistical feats which kept the King’s western forces in the field.

  Mere coincidence then, that Parliament had settled upon returning his wounded daughter to the family home. Although they all knew damn fine she hadn’t been back there for two years and more.

  Did they imagine her vicious ordeal at Naseby had stolen her reason as well as her looks?

  “It is the least we could do my dear, given the appalling treatment you received at the hands of certain rogue elements of our army in the hour of our late victory. The Lord General has said as much himself,” Eagleton elaborated smoothly.

  “There were dozens of women attacked, and worse, at Naseby field. And yet you seem to have laid on a carriage for one.”

  “One or two fortunate individuals, assuredly. Parliament will not be going to the expense of delivering every whore in the king’s army to a destination of her choice,” Eagleton snapped, exasperated by her continual interruptions.

  They had delivered her back from the dead, now all she could do was question their continued generosity. He glanced at Sparrow.

  “I am sure Master Eagleton does not mean to suggest you fall into that category Bella...Mistress Telling.” He shot her a warning look.

  “Indeed not. Parliament has gone out of its way to ensure the goodwives and ladies taken in the rout have been returned to their homes as far as reasonably possible. As we are proposing,” he rolled the word around mouth for a moment, “to do for you.”

  In other words, kindly shut your mouth.

  “Besides, we will be taking the opportunity of escorting two or three other wounded enemy personnel back with you. A courtesy we would expect the King to recognise and reciprocate.”

  Pure blather, Bella fumed. There were not going to be any significant prisoner exchanges now. Not with the best part of five tho
usand Royalist troops shuffling off to London.

  She tried another change of tack. “And once safely ensconced in Bath, William can renew his acquaintance with my father. Bring him word I am but a dozen miles away.”

  “The warrant won’t reach as far as Bristol,” Sparrow corrected her. “We dare not proceed any closer to the city without being shot as spies,” he added heatedly.

  Eagleton didn’t seem overly concerned at that prospect.

  “You correctly divine a secondary purpose to this mission of mercy, my dear.”

  Bella bit her tongue. Call me my dear once more and I’ll swing for him, she thought, knowing full well she daren’t do any such thing. Not with her arm in a sling at any rate.

  “Once in Bath, the intention will be to send word to Sir Gilbert to inform him his beloved daughter is safe and recovering from her wounds. He can come to you, bringing this serving woman from his household,” he clicked his fingers.

  “Mary Keziah,” Sparrow supplied patiently.

  “Mary Keziah, to Bath in order for Master Telling here to officiate at her unfortunately delayed wedding to Captain Sparrow.”

  Bella glared at Sparrow, reddening a little in the draughty headquarters tent. Telling’s jaw sagged.

  “He will also act as chaperone to Mistress Telling on the journey to Bath, ensuring she is protected from the rougher sorts of soldiery.”

  Sparrow frowned. Did Eagelton mean him?

  Edward Telling buried the ball of anger that was threatening to explode from his tightly buttoned doublet like a loosely fixed petard.

  So Eagleton intended to complete his humiliation. Marry the hulking clown to his long lost drudge while Sir Gilbert, one of the most notorious turncoats in the entire kingdom, played happy families with his wayward daughter.

  He arranged his mouth into something resembling a smile.

  “I shall be honoured to fulfil the duties you have outlined,” Telling grated. “As you know, Mistress Telling’s welfare has always been my primary concern.”

  Nobody rushed to agree with him.

  Sparrow sniggered to himself.

  Telling had been caught red-handed outside the Phelps’ farm infirmary, a commandeered carriage ready to whisk Bella off to God knew where.

  Back to headquarters, he had insisted, to ensure she received the proper care. Fiercely outraged that anybody could suggest any other motive.

  Why, what was Sparrow suggesting?

  Sparrow wasn’t suggesting anything.

  Then, sir, why was he here, interfering with Telling’s good intentions? And with a squad of grinning dragoons into the bargain.

  Did the rogue imagine he was about to kidnap his own brother’s widow? Before Hugo’s body was cold in his grave?

  Well what was he up to then, spiriting her off to the countryside somewhere?

  What was he suggesting? And how had he known where Bella was being cared for?

  Sparrow and his men had simply followed him from his quarters. Good trackers these lads. Telling hadn’t a clue the dragoons had been on his trail.

  Eagleton was less than impressed with their tracking abilities.

  They were as bad as one another, if not worse.

  In truth, Eagleton would be glad to be rid of the pair of them. Aye, and the troublesome Mistress Telling into the bargain.

  Eagleton had seen through the lurid pantomime in an instant.

  It was clear the pair of them had less than proper intentions towards their bewildered victim. They were both lustfully inclined toward the wounded maid. Interested in little more than whisking her off to supervise her ‘convalescence’.

  Telling, a man of God, anxious to get his paws on his dead brother’s widow. Sparrow determined to renew his acquaintanceship with a woman who by his own admission had been a childhood sweetheart. While the mother of his own bastard waited to hear from her absent lover back in Bristol?

  A disgraceful set of affairs for the army of the Saints to have to resolve.

  But Telling’s failings were perhaps more damaging - after all, he was supposed to be responsible for his regiment’s moral welfare.

  Exposing one of the New Model’s black-coated clerics as a lustful, conniving kidnapper might not play well with their masters in the House of Commons.

  Questions might be asked whether Parliament’s army new modelled possessed the moral high ground it so loudly and deliberately claimed.

  Faced with this serpent’s stewpot, Eagleton was quietly delighted with his carefully devised solution. Of which the guilty parties before him had but the flimsiest grasp.

  “Which is precisely why I have authorised you to accompany the party to Bath. I am relying on your calm authority and clear thinking to provide the moral compass the army and parliament expects of you.”

  Couldn’t be much clearer there, Sparrow thought, glad his own role hadn’t attracted quite such attention.

  “I don’t see how Telling’s presence is going to be any more use than your warrant. I’ve run in to my fair share of dodgers and chancers who wouldn’t give a fig for your letter.”

  “We have discussed this at length Sparrow,” Eagleton rasped. “Mayhap I can find some other officer to perform this duty?”

  Sparrow pondered the all too predictable response.

  “I repeat, am I to have any say in my proposed course of treatment?” Bella inquired.

  “No,” Eagleton replied. “The matter is decided.”

  *************************

  Only it wasn’t as fully decided as Sparrow had imagined.

  Item, one commandeered carriage and four.

  Item, one driver and mate.

  Item, half a dozen or so outriders - handy enough if they ran into a patrol without attracting too much attention on the ride west.

  He had planned to take his new charges from Okey’s dragoons - the resourceful if untrustworthy Francy Snow and his little troop.

  He had successfully argued for Muffet and Butcher - his old muckers from Sir Hardress Waller’s regiment, as his principal scouts, eyes and ears.

  He would have asked young Nicodemus to go with them and all, but fancied the ensign might be safer with Gillingfeather and the army than gallivanting about enemy territory with random bits of paper.

  He had barely obtained the necessary horses and provisions for the mission before Eagleton had interfered again, adding a couple of chancers from some Sunday school Eagleton had connections with back in the capital.

  Sylvester and Silas Appleby - blackamoor brothers in arms who had apparently served with the London auxilliaries. Soot-faced chimney sweeps turned sharpshooters, according to Eagleton.

  “They won’t be riding with you. They have particular skills you may find useful, watching your flanks and rear.”

  The twins appeared virtually identical - a pair of grinning soot-grimed monkeys from the London stews. Undernourished alley brats with close-cropped heads.

  Joining the army must have been a rest cure compared to their civilian existence.

  “Your warrant doesn’t extend to them,” Sparrow had argued, rather cleverly he thought.

  Eagleton hadn’t even looked up from his damned paperwork.

  “It won’t need to,” he said simply.

  By Canon’s March, Bristol, July 2, 1645

  Arms and armaments didn’t grow from seed and Sir Gilbert Morrison couldn’t help feel a surge of pride as he looked out over Bristol’s bustling dockside.

  Canon’s Marsh was boiling and belching with activity – and a fair proportion of the prodigious output was from his manufactories.

  You name it he had somebody nailing it, planing it, beating it or shoeing it.

  His original warehouse – aye all he had started with a bare two years before – looked as if it had been gathered about the waist with a corset of ill matched timber until it had burst and busted from every upper orifice.

  Gable ends sprouting ill-balanced garrets. Galleries had been extended out over the bustling street, ya
wning crow’s nests home to tapping hammering and jabbering apprentices and urchins.

  He had bought up some of his less resilient rivals – cheap mind – and replaced soap and print works with smoke belching factories spitting out muskets and swords, pikes and pistols.

  Goodwives toiled by guttering candles turning out hastily thrown together doublets – blue grey and green mostly. Sewing patches over tell-tale holes in the secondhand uniforms they had delivered by night from infirmary and graveyard.

  Cobblers fetched from half way across Somerset nailed and trimmed sturdy workboots – the type the famers wore – for pikemen and musketeer alike. Straight patterns strung up along the walls like trophies of war ready to be worn in to left and right shoes.

  Craftsmen churned out cheap helmets – lobster pots with hammered steel neckguards rather than the fancy segmented type the Roundheads wore.

  Plain morions with riveted rims, none of your apprentice piece Spanish combs.

  Munition grade would do, aye and munition grade was what you got doing business with Gilbert Morrison.

  Bewildered Irish farmboys straight off the boat from Waterford would make their way along the quay, collecting breeches and roughly sewn shirts from the quartermaster’s piled stores. Stockings and shoes, a blanket and simple sausage-shaped linen sack for the treasure trove of tack Morrison’s mills were churning out by the waggon load.

  After pulling a roughly-hewn pike from the racks outside the woodturners huts they would join their fellows for the short march to the castle – and some basic training from bawling Somerset veterans they could barely understand.

  Ill-made knights of the road.

  Some were veterans - Irish, Scots and English, back from the viciously vindictive wars across the water. Morrison had come across more than one who seemed to think they had come to Bristol to serve Parliament!

  Well they were serving the King now, thanks to Gilbert Morrison.

  Companies, regiments, brigades fitted out and dispatched to the field armies north, south and east.

  Hopton, governor of Bristol, had been training up new drafts almost as quickly as the Royalist commanders could wear them down, thanks to the ever resourceful merchant.