by Smith, Skye
"Alex, this plan was of your design,” Daniel replied. "It was you who convinced Argyll and parliament. And it is a good plan, a very good plan. Take Tynemouth and stop the keelsmen from loading the colliers. That not only cuts Charlie off from his share of the coal revenue, but makes all of London realize how stupid he was to pick a fight with the Scots over what prayer book is used in Scotland."
Alex took another swig of Genever and sighed. "Aye, but good plans made over a map look quite different when it comes time to ask men to charge the cannons."
"Hah, how many men did you lose taking most of Northumbria?"
"One,” the general glared at Daniel. Daniel had the decency to look away. The only man he had lost had been a clan-kilted Highlander who had been shot by Daniel. Of course it wasn't Daniel's fault. The Highlander had pulled his dirk on the tall archer who marched with the ship's gunners. At the time the archer had been helping an old English woman claim her chickens back from the Highlander's clan, who had been thieving them.
Although Daniel and he had arrived in time to stop a brawl between the English Fensmen and the Highlanders, and although he had repeated his standing order to all present that there was to be no looting or raping of the Northumbrian folk, this one Highlander had taken objection to the archer pulling him away from the old grandmother and schooling him in manners.
At first it had been funny because the archer's logic had been so irrefutable. "What would you do to any man you found beating and stealing from your own grandmother?" Of course the village Highlander had answered truthfully, "Hit him, and hit him hard." To which the archer complied with his ham fist.
With the Highlander on the ground, the archer had turned his back on him to help the old woman, and that is when the Highlander had drawn his dirk from his boot and went for the archer's back. Daniel's pistol ball flew true, and by the time the gunsmoke had cleared, the Highlander was already dead.
Even though the man's own clan admitted that Daniel was in the right, Alex did not trust them not to avenge their cousin, so he had paid the entire clan out and sent them off to join Argyll's army of Campbells over on the west coast. Not only had he lost a man, he had lost an entire clan of tough mountain warriors.
"Aye, I've taken Northumbria without a battle and without the locals hating me. That is true. But once it becomes clear that I intend to cross the Tyne, things will be different. My spies report that Lord Conway is making ready to mobilize the smaller cannons from Newcastle fortress. Wherever I chose to cross, it will be into the mouths of those cannon. The spies report that the coal miners will help Conway because they fear I will close the mines. They are tough men, those miners, and they know the terrain."
Daniel poured Alex another dram. "Tell your spies to assure the miners that we have no interest in the mines. Our only interest is in the aristocratic lords who cheat them out of their fair wages. Tell them that they can keep working the mines and better still, they can keep the aristo's share of the profits for themselves."
"But that is not true. One of the key points of my plan is to stop the coal from reaching London."
"They are both true,” Daniel replied. "To stop the coal we do not need to close the mines, but simply stop the Tynemouth keelsmen from loading the colliers. The mines can still be worked. The only fib is that the coal will pile up at Tynemouth until you allow the colliers to be loaded."
"I like you Danny. You think like a Scot. You keep to the letter of promises, but not necessarily to the spirit assumed of them."
"As for Conway's cannon, well, you know better than I the disadvantages of old-fashioned cannons. They will be heavy, so slow to move, and slow to load, and tricky to aim. Their shots will hit us randomly, while our shots will target his gun crews. Once his cannon are silenced, we will control the battlefield with grape."
"It's like I am listening to an echo,” Alex grinned. "I suppose we have no choice. I don't mind targeting Charlie's officers, and I don't mind silencing his cannon, but I will surely pray that we will not be forced to use our grape against the lads of the infantry. I did too much of that in Saxony, and I hated it."
"I hope you won't stop us from mowing down Conway's cavalry. All those second and third sons of Charlie's aristocracy will be no great loss to England. They are assholes, born and bred and inherited."
"Wasn't it you that told me that not many second and third sons rallied to Charlie's call this time? They sent mercenaries in their place."
"Well then, you have solved your own dilemma. No experienced mercenary will charge your cannon. They will leave the battlefield at the first foolish command from their officers."
The two captains sitting on the other side of Daniel from Alex reached over and slapped Daniel on the back, and slammed down their own pots for more of the Genever. Alex was always like this before a battle, full of second thoughts because he hated to order men into the slaughter. The Fen's captain had not said anything that had not been said before, but he had picked out the key points and had spoken convincingly.
"Right then,” Alex growled. "Where do we cross the Tyne?"
Everyone gathered around the map table answered the same, "Newbourne, five miles up the Tyne from Newcastle, and the closest bridge and ford to the sea." There was nowhere else that made sense. They knew it, but unfortunately so did the English army.
* * * * *
General Alexander Leslie returned to his camp in a grim depression after the war council with Charlie's generals Lord Stafford and Lord Conway in Stella, a village just across the River Tyne. And not just depressed that the two fools told him outright that they would not bargain with a mere peasant, though this particular peasant had more experience as a winning general than either lord could ever fathom. And not just depressed that they did not accept his offer of peace along the Tyne if they would just order their outnumbered army to withdraw south away from the banks of the Tyne and away from the fortress at Newcastle.
What depressed him was that some trigger-happy English musketeer had shot and killed one of his junior officers while they were riding back from the council. True, the lad was showing far too much interest in how the English had built their earthen work rampart on the south side of the river, and in how many cannons they had poking out, but still.... they were all riding under a flag of truce at the time.
On returning back across the bridge into Newbourne, the general said a quick prayer over the lad's body, and by the end of the prayer his depression had been replaced by a fuming anger. "Dammit, Lord Conway's spies are the equal of ours. He stalled us waiting for this council, which served to do nothing, and all the time he was floating Newcastle's cannon up the river to place along his ramparts. And dammit, I know the lad's mother. What am I to say to her?"
Alexander Hamilton, who the other captains called 'Ham' to distinguish him from Alexander Leslie, had been Leslie's artillery commander for five years in Saxony. He rarely spoke, so when he did speak everyone, including the general, shut up and listened. "Most of Conway's cannon are Tudor era culverins. It would have taken them eight or ten horses to move each from the barges and up the banks. If we can force them to retreat they will have no option but to spike those guns and leave them useless to all. Without those guns, they are outmatched on this field of battle, for we outnumber them two to one in muskets. If they can't get those guns back to the fortress, then the fortress is nothing but a big wall."
"So we must not only get them to retreat," Leslie moaned, "but to retreat so quickly that they must spike their guns. Meanwhile, they have had more than enough time to sight them and range them on the bridge and both fords. Yes, we have a larger army, but they are dug in. If we charge across the river, their grape will slaughter us by the thousands before we can win the other bank, and then there are the ramparts guarded by a thousand muskets."'
"We have the church,” a musketeer captain pointed out, searching for any solution that did not involve charging his men across the ford into grape. "It is a Norman-built church, so the tower is b
uilt like a castle tower. We could put our two four-pounders on top of the tower and target their gun crews."
Ham said something new, but so quietly that no one heard over the chatter about the captain's idea. Everyone immediately went silent to hear him repeat it. "The four-pounders have neither the range nor the payload to quiet those culverins."
"What about our demiculverins,” Leslie suggested, meaning the Dutch six pounders that Daniel had brought him from Rotterdam.
"Too heavy to hoist up the church tower," Ham replied softly.
"How long will they be useful on top, before the English guns blow the tower to pieces?" Daniel asked.
"Perhaps an hour, perhaps two,” Ham looked at Daniel with curiosity. "Such a large change in their aim will require physically moving the guns and those culverins are bitchin' heavy to move. Why?"
"My gun crews are ship's crews too, remember,” Daniel replied. "We can rig naval style blocks and tackle to put some six-pounders up on the tower, but it will take some time, and they will be in plain view while we do it."
"We can lift them at night." Ham made the obvious suggestion.
"Even so, from the moment we open fire to the moment the tower is blown to pieces, you say will be perhaps an hour or two,” Daniel warned.
Ham smiled. It was an evil smile and everyone who noticed it went perfectly still. "Ah, but there was a case of bombs sent with your cannon. If we fire the bombs at whichever culverin is next to be aimed at the tower, then we will buy our tower more time."
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Pistoleer - Slavers by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14
Chapter 6 - The Battle of Newbourne in August 1640
The sun rose already hot on August 28th, 1640. Daniel's cousins, the gunners of his crew, were working with Ham high above on the church tower that overlooked the bridge at Newbourne. One of them waved down to General Leslie that all was ready. Alex Leslie was sitting in the shade of a thick stone wall with Daniel and his other captains. Leslie gave his permission to open fire, and then all hell broke loose over on the earthen ramparts on the English side of the Tyne.
The first two shots from the tower were a signal to every other gun crew. The other cannons were safely arranged on the high ground that surrounded this village. They were out of the range of making useful shots against the English culverins, but they would stop any notion the English might have of outflanking the Scots. Leslie's musketeers were safely hiding behind the stout stone and brick walls of every building near the river's edge.
The church cannon's first ranging shots were cannon balls and nothing more, and had little effect other than to ruin the breakfast of the three or four thousand Englishmen under Lord Conway's command. Unlike the rest of Leslie's cannon, however, the church cannons had a supply of balls that were fused bombs and would explode when the fuse reached their compressed powder. Ham himself measured and cut the fuses of the first two bombs using the book of ranging tables that the Dutch had included with the case of bombs. The first two bombs ruined more than just the breakfast of the army across the river.
The first of the bombs exploded early, with the effect that red hot smoke and shrapnel slammed into the gun crew who had raced from their breakfast to load the English culverin closest to the bridge. Some of the glowing shrapnel must have hit the powder charge, because the bomb's initial explosion was followed by a second larger explosion.
The second six-pounder bomb exploded too late, once it was past the targeted culverin, but the effect was no less frightening as two bodies were hurled like rag dolls through the breech in the ramparts where the culverin's muzzle pointed outward.
Meanwhile Leslie's other guns were doing what they had been ordered to do, and were sending occasional cannon balls skipping murderously through the tents and campfires of Conway's army. While they did little actual damage, the effect on the English morale was important. Conway's entire army was soon lying flat on the ground and ignoring their muskets and their ramparts and their orders.
Within five more minutes and four more bombs, the two culverins closest to the bridge were no longer manned. It was time for the gunners on the tower to select new targets. Since none of the culverins were yet being moved to aim at the tower, Ham selected the culverins closest to the downstream ford. This time however, the English gun crews knew what to expect and after the first ranging ball skipped passed their gun, they began fleeing, fleeing to anywhere other than around their own gun.
Meanwhile Ham continued to use his own kijker, a looker which had larger lenses than Daniel's, to look along the line of English guns. Now other culverins were being physically manhandled to aim at the tower, so rather than targeting those closest to the fords, he ordered Ham to target any culverin surrounded by men. Since the culverin gun crews did not know which of them would be targeted next, their heavy work of manhandling the tons of metal was interrupted whenever they saw gun-smoke on the church tower.
Although the re-aimed culverins bombarded Newbourne continuously, after two hours they had still not silenced the guns on the church tower. Meanwhile, half of their culverins were no longer firing, and certainly none of the culverins closest to the bridge and the church.
In Newbourne, the Scots remained dug in, hiding behind walls, and trying to keep up their sense of humour throughout the bombardment. The light banter between them hid the terror in their souls from knowing that eventually they would be called upon to charge across the bridge through withering grape shot.
With time, the pounding of the Scottish infantry lines became less frequent, whereas more balls were landing closer and closer to the church. Due to his looker and his vantage point high on the top of the church tower, it was Ham who first realized that the English had made a tactical error. He called down to his general who, like the rest of the army, was cowering behind a wall with his head well down and ducking every time he heard a cannon blast or the ominous whistle of an incoming ball.
"Alex, they've made a mistake. Instead of re-aiming three or four of their culverins at this tower, they are re-aiming all of them. For the next half-hour to an hour, their culverins cannot defend the bridge or the fords."
Leslie looked to the man sitting next to him. "Daniel?" he said, and that one word was enough to carry a meaning to the experienced pistoleer.
"No." Daniel replied immediately. "No Alex, I am here as a gunner. Remember our bargain."
"Please, Daniel. You are the only man I have who has seen battle as a Dutch pistoleer."
Daniel sighed. He knew this would happen. Flying squads of pistoleers were just too bloody useful. With the culverins temporarily out of position, someone had to make the first charge across the bridge, and what better force for such dangerous work than a mounted flying squad? He poked his head over the ruin of the wall and stared at the bridge through the dust that was still floating in the air from the last cannon balls.
"Right, all right," he said haltingly. "But only because it is low water, which means that we can use the fords to retreat even if the bridge becomes a death trap. I'll do it. I'll charge through the breech in the ramparts."
"No, no, no. Absolutely not, Danny." Alex spoke hurriedly. "Even though their culverins are useless, they still have musketeers. I don't want you to actually charge into the breech. Yes, I want you charge across the river, but I want you to retreat as soon as you see their musketeers filling the breaches to protect the culverins.
Before you charge the bridge, I will reposition my six-pounders closer to the river to bring them within grape range of their ramparts. I want you to feign a charge, so their musketeers gather to protect the culverins, and once you turn and are out of the line of fire, my cannons will blast the culverin positions with grape."
"Then I have changed my mind. I refuse to go. It will be an outright slaughter of their infantry. I did not come here to slaughter English lads just because they are carrying Charlie's muskets."
"Danny, I hear what you are saying,” Alex growled. "I did no
t come here to set five thousand Scottish farm boys upon five thousand English farm boys. I will not be having thousands of mothers on both sides of the border cursing me to my grave. The only way of saving all those lives is to convince the English lads to flee the field before we ever get close to them.
Don't you understand? I am trying to save lives. Yes, your false charge may result in twenty or thirty musketeers being shredded, but that may save thousands of lives today. Perhaps even ten thousand. Their army is like my army. Except for a few squads of mercenaries, the infantry is a mob, an untrained rabble. Once the English lads see the true terror of grape, first hand and close up, they will ignore their officers and run home to their mothers."
Daniel went silent, thinking, planning, visualizing. "So, say I lead a false charge. Say your grape keeps the musketeers in hiding so that they will not cut us down before we are over the bridge. What then? What about their cavalry? As soon as we turn our backs to retreat, they will give chase. Chasing down fleeing men is what cavalry do best. We will be slaughtered by their sabres because neither your cannons nor your muskets will be able to target them without hitting us."
"Danny, trust me," Alex replied confidently. "Some of the six-pounders will be hidden behind the walls closest to each ford. They will be shooting at enough of an angle that they will be able to target any cavalry giving chase so long as you stay ahead of them."
"But the fords will be our second choice for retreat. Most likely we will come back across the bridge. What then?"
"I will risk my own Swedish four-pounders at our end of the bridge. As soon as your last man is out of their line of fire, they will cough grape at any cavalry on the bridge behind you. It will become a death trap for anyone chasing you."