Pistoleer: Slavers

by Smith, Skye

"Oliver has explained it well,” Henry said. "Here in England no one ever expects the Inquisition, but we do indeed have one. The last time it was used to any great extent was to torture the early Independents, like the Brownists. To escape the English inquisitor, they fled first to Holland and then with the Mayflower to Massachusetts."

  Again Pym's fine mind was sprinting ahead. "So Oliver, what you are suggesting is that we rouse the London Brownists against the Court of High Commission?"

  "My father-in-law is a secret Brownist. He told me that it wouldn't take much to launch a mob against the court at Saint Paul’s, or against the Archbishop and his bishops and their palaces."

  "I well like both of these ideas,” Henry said. "A riot of coal merchants will pressure the king and a riot of Independents will pressure the archbishop. This war with Scotland was caused by Laud and his bishops so why shouldn't they reap some of the consequences?"

  "Poor Inigo. Years of his fine work could be ruined,” John Hampden said softly. "But we have no choice. The coal situation is a tinderbox ready to light, and with Leslie's help we may be able to finally collar Charlie. The Brownists may take a while to heat up, so we must light them now. First thing tomorrow we should all meet again to draft up the two sets of pamphlets."

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  The Pistoleer - Slavers by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14

  Chapter 15 - The London riots of October 1640

  With Cleff as a guide through the docklands of East London, and Daniel as a guard, Pym and Oliver felt safe enough to seek a high place from where they could watch the coal sorting-yards. They were trying to see if their simply and carefully-worded pamphlet had moved the Londoners to take action. They were now precariously perched on the roof of a warehouse. The coal yards spread out towards the river to the south of them. The main gate to the yards was at the street corner not four hundred yards from where they were perched.

  The back streets had been ominously quiet considering the size of the crowd that they were now looking down upon. None of the streets had been blocked by the London watch, or by squads from the White Tower. The only guards they had seen were those now standing inside the main gate of the coal yards, but they were well spaced out along the high brick wall ready to punish with a cudgel anyone who climbed over it.

  The watcher of this warehouse had charged them sixpence each to climb to this roof, and they were not alone in paying it. The local merchant who stood beside them was full of the local news. He had shuttered his shop early to come and see what was really happening. "The watch were given two sets of orders,” he told them. "One from the Mayor to stop any unruly groups from reaching any of the nicer neighbourhoods. That's why all roads leading into the City are blocked to carts going either way. The other order was from the Port Authority to stop anyone from reaching the coal yards. Guess which order the watch ignored?

  You can't really blame the watch, can ye? They are not well paid and the hike in coal prices has hurt them as much as anyone. Did you see this pamphlet? Whoever wrote it should be hung for inciting a riot." The merchant passed it to the well-dress man beside him.

  John Pym pretended to read with interest the pamphlet written by his own hand. "He makes a good point, though. The Lords of Coal are profiteering from our war with the Scots. They will reap double profits while London folk freeze in the dark."

  "What's that you say? Are you against business making profits then? Profits are what make the world go round. Without profits where would we be?"

  "Warm at home,” Pym replied while pulling his cloak closer in. The wind on this roof was bitter cold, right off the river. "Do you think there will be violence done today?"

  "Hope not. I just hope them guards are too smart to hit anyone with their cudgels, cause if this mob gets angry, no one will be saving them guards." The merchant was quiet for a while, but then pointed over to side of the roof closest to the yard gates where there were some men hiding from the wind behind a chimney. "It worries me that I saw those men over there carrying muskets up the stairs."

  "Perhaps I should go and find out who they are,” Pym told the merchant in a voice loud enough for his companions to hear. He began to make his way along the edge of the roof, all the while leaning into it, so that if he did slip he would fall into the roof and not off it. He heard footsteps following him. He suddenly felt braver. Daniel was following him.

  It took fully ten minutes for them to pick their way to the chimney. The men crouched there gave them the eye and waved them away. Pym called out, "We just wanted to see if the view was better at this end of the roof." Again they were waved away. Because Pym had stopped, Daniel stepped around him and kept going. He had borrowed an old cloak from Tom because he didn't want to risk his good cloak anywhere near a coal yard. It wasn't quite big enough to close and he feared that the men ahead must have seen at least one of his pistols.

  "We told you to keep your distance,” a very solid man sneered at him. Was it a sneer or was it that his face had been mangled in a fight. There was something about the hunch of his stance that reminded Daniel of gun crews on frigates. The other two men also looked like ship's gunners.

  "What ship are you from?"

  "None of yer business, now hop it." The man was trying to block the view of six muskets laid out on the roof, and half hidden by the chimney. Six muskets, three men. These were not watchers, they were marksmen.

  "Now you wouldn't be hired by the Coal Yard to shoot anyone trying to rouse the crowd into storming the gate, now would you?" Daniel said, as he pretended to be keeping his balance on the slope by twisting backwards away from the man. In reality he was hiding his left arm from them and leaning backwards to that his cloak fell open on the left side.

  "We've told you polite-like, and you don't seem to be listening, so now...." The man had slowly been moving his right hand towards the butt of the pistol pushed down his belt.

  In one motion, Daniel drew his double-barreled dragon with his left hand, and as it rose to level his right hand cocked the flint of the lower barrel. "Don't move. A roof is a risky place to be blinded, and that is what this dragon will do to you if I pull the trigger."

  "Don't get excited!" The man tried to calm the situation. "We mean you no harm. Just walk away and no one will get hurt."

  "You were about to pull a pistol on me. Why try such a stupid thing? Don't you recognize another gunner when you see one?"

  One of the other men looked him up and down. "You're no gunner. You're too tall and too clean. Besides, where would a gunner get a fancy fuckin' dragon like that?"

  "Any of you scared enough to want to take a leak?" At their silence, Daniel motioned to the leader to start. They all knew what he was talking about. Ordering a man to piss down the barrel of his own gun was the safest and least violent way of disarming him. "One at a time now, and no tricks. First the pistols, then the muskets, and then the powder horns."

  "And if we won't?. You can't shoot all of us, and those of us you leave will do fer ya."

  "There are women and children on the street below. I can't allow you to cause a stampede amongst the men else the innocents will be crushed. I will shoot you if you don't start pissing, and I will need only one shot. Like I said, my dragon is loaded with a blinding load. Once you are blinded this roof will do the rest. It's a long way down."

  The men were looking at something behind him, so at Pym. Pym must have drawn his wheel-lock. It was enough to tip the balance. One at a time the three men pulled out their pintel and pissed in their powder. When they were finished, Pym backed away, aimed his pistol at the closest of the men and then told Daniel to back away.

  The gunners did nothing. They still had their guns, the tools of their trade. The tall bastard could have forced them to throw them over the side, but he hadn't. He was definitely a professional, but in a different class from them.

  Pym and Daniel made their way carefully back to where the rest of the folk were watching, which meant they were blocking the staircase. W
ith no way down, the three gunners leaned back against the chimney and watched the street as the rest of the folk on the roof were doing.

  Down below things were heating up. The guards, now having realized that the London watch were not coming to help them, were backing away from the gates and the walls. Some men were leading a dray down the street. It must have been the last coal cart loaded, and it had at least five tons of coal on it. They lined it up in front of the gate, and then unhitched the team. With twenty men on each side of it, they got the dray moving, faster and faster until not only did it hit the gates, but it ploughed right through them. The crowd poured into the yard. The guards were running away towards the brick counting-house where they could hide behind stout walls and iron bars.

  For hours and hours the folk of East London controlled the sorting-yards. People came and people went in a continuous stream. Anything that could carry coal was being put to use, from shopping baskets to dog carts, from blankets to barrows.

  The merchant beside them kept saying over and over, '"This isn't a riot, it is mass theft," but then he hurried away to fetch his own barrow, as did everyone else on the roof. Even the gunners tipped their hats as they made their way to the staircase with their muskets under their arms. They were on their way to gather coal for the winter. And why not?

  The mob didn't stop looting coal until there was nothing left of the great mounds of coal but dust. A fortune in coal was taken. Perhaps twenty thousand silver pound's worth. More at profiteering prices. When it was over, the Reformers walked through the now-crowded streets of the docklands back towards the City, where they were conspicuous by their cleanliness. Everyone else, no matter their housing situation or their profession, was coated in the black filth of coal dust. The whole way they saw no violence. No one was trying to rob each other of coal. Why would they when the gates to the black diamonds were wide open and the guards were cowering out of sight?

  John Pym held up the pamphlet the merchant had given him and his entire face was smiling. "This will always be my greatest writing, for it has moved thousands to take direct, peaceful action. The irony is that to claim it as mine would cost me my life." He spun around and walked backwards so he could face them. "So you must all swear to me that the title of it will become my epitaph."

  "Er, well, I think your wife may have something to say about us putting 'Theft from Profiteers is Divine Justice' on your tombstone." Oliver laughed.

  Pym laughed with him, "No, really, I mean it. I will never write anything with a greater effect." He was so giddy with glee and accomplishment that it was as if he was drunk on Genever and he spun like a dancer to face forward again, and then spun again. Dirty filthy smiling people in front of him ceded space enough for him to dance a jig, but when he motioned for them to join him, they politely refused. The well-dressed gentleman was obviously touched in the head.

  It was a day to remember. The day that the poor folk of London made fools of the Lords of Coal. By the time they were halfway across the City, it was as if nothing had happened. The riot in the docklands had not interrupted the pace of City life one bit. No one was fearful of it spreading, no one even seemed to be aware that there was coal for the picking up. It was as if what happened in the docklands was a dream that had never happened.

  Pym was still dancing as he walked. "Don't fret," he told them. "Those who live in fine houses will learn of it soon enough when they order their winter coal and are told that there isn't any. That is when the fire will be lit under Charlie's ass to agree to Ace Leslie's terms and sign a treaty with the Covenanters."

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  Two days after the Coal Yard riot, Cleff and the lad caught a coach to Cambridge. Daniel did not join them because Henry Marten had asked him to stay a week in his fine townhouse and tell him more about his new ship, the Swift, and more about the Battle of Newbourne. Though he knew that gifts from Henry came with ulterior costs, he had not declined.

  It was two days more before there was another meeting of the Reformers at Henry's house, and for those two days groups of young men roamed the streets of the City yelling out their frustration at there being no work for them. The meeting had been called by Pym, and Daniel wondered if it were Pym and not Henry who had wanted him to stay in London a little longer. His suspicions were proven true when Pym called the meeting to order and then introduced his topic as the most important thing that he had learned while at the Rally in Cambridge.

  "The letter from General Leslie telling of his nonnegotiable terms?" asked Haselrig.

  "No"

  "The forewarning that the king would not be displeased if we were silenced, permanently?" At the mention of this by Haselrig, Henry and a few others leaned forward in their seats. They had not been told of this yet, but they decided that they were not surprised. Not really. Not after some of them had been arrested and held at Lollards Tower immediately after the last session of parliament had been dissolved.

  "No,” Pym told them with a stubborn look that made the guesses stop.

  "What could be more important?" Haselrig was at a loss.

  Pym pointed at Daniel. "The fact that when we needed protection in Cambridge, this man was able to snap his fingers and have a dozen armed and dangerous men at his side almost immediately. Here I am on my own street, and if I snapped my fingers right now, who would turn out to protect me? My footman, my valet, my gardener.

  During the last session of Parliament, Henry taught us all a lesson by giving each of us a pistol that could be hidden in our coats. Now, in Cambridge, Daniel has taught us another lesson. Each member of the House of Commons must recruit, arm and train a band of dangerous men that will answer his call in an emergency. Daniel's were all his clansmen, and that points the way. We must all look for recruits amongst our extended families, our political supporters, and their sons."

  This suggestion had everyone speaking at once, and it took many minutes to restore order. Eventually it was again quiet enough for normal voices, and Pym looked towards Henry with interest. "Henry, of all of us I expected you to become a champion of my words, yet you are strangely quiet. Why?"

  "Because I know of two parliamentarians who have already done this." There were calls of 'who?' and 'which ones?' He answered. "Myself in the valley of the Isis, and Robert Blake in Bridgwater. Daniel there, gave us a good price on some used pistols, and Robert gave me a good price on training my men. Each of us now commands a Dutch-style militia of flying squad pistoleers."

  The questions were fast and furious for awhile, and Henry's answer to most of them was, "What can I say? Other than the men all enjoyed the training, and were most pleased by the gift of the pistols."

  Realizing that he was about to be bombarded by questions that would not be well thought out, Daniel excused himself as if he needed to pee, but instead went upstairs to sit with Mary while she rocked her baby to sleep. "Alice has a baby about the same age. Do you ever see her?" he asked. "I mean, to discuss baby things?"

  "Quite often when Henry visits Margaret, but not so much when he is here," she replied. Margaret was Henry's wife, while Mary was his concubine, a mistress with acknowledged children. The good news for Mary and for Margaret was that they were the best of friends. Mary had once been her personal maid and confidant. "They are calling for you," she told him softly to bring him out of his daydreams.

  After a quick stop in the front bedroom to fetch his newest book, Daniel rejoined the men in the library. As he entered the room Haselrig was complaining, as was usual for him. "That is fine for you, Oliver. You live close enough to Daniel that he can help you to train your squad. What about the rest of us? You can't just hand pistols to farm boys and porters and expect them to know how to use them, never mind when."

  Without saying a word, Daniel laid his newest book in Oliver’s lap. Oliver read the title and then ignored the rest of them for a few minutes while he thumbed through it. Eventually he looked towards Daniel, who was pouring himself a glass of Spanish brandy, and asked, "Where ever did you get thi
s book?"

  "You were always harping at me to read the bible, and I finally found a bible that was useful to read."

  "No jests, Danny. Where, how, who gave you this book?"

  "The translator. Look at the printer's page."

  "Whose translation of the bible is it?" Haselrig asked. "James'?"

  "It's not a bible," Oliver replied. "It is the Officer's Field Manual of the Swedish army as published by King Gustavus Adolphus." He flipped to the printer's page. "As translated into English by - oh of course - Field Marshal Alexander Leslie. First Impress ten copies June 1640, Edinburgh, Scotland. There is a dedication in Leslie's hand. ' To my friend Daniel. May this book help you in your quest to the New World'."

  "I don't understand," Haselrig said as he leaned over Oliver's shoulder to see the book. "Are you off to fight a war in the New World, Daniel?"

  "It is an army field manual. Yes, it explains training and tactics for fighting but most of it is about the basics of how to build fortified camps and wells and latrines and field kitchens and bridges and hospitals and supply lines and..." Daniel stopped listing things, "... and everything else that would be vital to know if you were carving a colony out of a wilderness."

  "But it does mention training and tactics, yes?" asked Henry.

  "That is why I am showing it to you. I suggest that you send to Scotland for more copies, and then hand them out to Reformers as Christmas presents." Daniel was expecting laughter and agreement with his simple suggestion, but all he got back were sour, disapproving looks. Of course, Puritans resented the pagan rituals of giving and feasting at Christmas. "Fine, I was just trying to help. May I have my book back now, please?"

  "Nooo!" Oliver and Henry chimed together. "At least not until I have read it, and copied the best bits,” Oliver said in a softer voice. The Swedes have the most modern army in Europe, and Ace Leslie was their Field Marshal.

  Later that evening, as Oliver was putting on his cloak to leave - one of the last to leave, as usual, because he was living at his father-in-law's house and they did not get along - he asked, "May I borrow your book to read?"