‘Something of a millstone about our necks, eh?’
Burton shrugged as he stepped into the gloom of the little cave. ‘None blame you, sir. We all would have taken it had we the chance.’ He removed his hat, propping it in the crook of his inert arm, and ruffled his long, mousy hair. It was a relatively muggy evening, and the strands at his forehead were matted and dark. ‘And at least we’ll never exhaust our shot and powder.’
Stryker chuckled ruefully. ‘That’s true. If only the Roundheads had been transporting food as well.’ He leant against the wagon, suddenly tired, shoulder blades digging into the timbers. He felt his stomach rumble, and a thought struck him. ‘Slaughter one of the horses.’
Burton’s brow rose. ‘Sir?’
‘Wild is coming. We will not surrender to him, and Hogg’s threats have failed, so they will come as soon as their cannons arrive. The men cannot fight on parched beef and berries alone.’
‘But to cook the meat—’
‘If an ember strikes our cache,’ he patted the side of the wagon, ‘would that be so bad?’ Even as the words left his mouth, Stryker regretted the fatalistic sentiment. He was glad only Burton had heard. He shook his head angrily. ‘I am sorry, Andrew. That was wrong of me.’
‘No harm done, sir,’ the lieutenant replied stoically. ‘But now I come to think on it, perhaps the men should eat well. The cart is nicely protected in this cave, after all.’
‘Then we’re agreed. Have Skellen pick one of Wild’s destriers.’
‘I will, sir. The men’ll be pleased.’ A shadow crossed Burton’s face suddenly, as though a terrible thought had stabbed at him. ‘I confessed my feelings to Miss Cade.’
The words had been blurted so unexpectedly that it took Stryker several moments to absorb what his second-in-command had said. ‘You did what?’
Burton grimaced. ‘Confessed my feelings, sir. You advised me to—’
‘Wait,’ Stryker ordered, stepping away from the wagon. ‘I advised you?’
‘Aye, sir,’ Burton retorted defensively. ‘There was nothing for me to lose, you said.’
Stryker struggled to recall the detail of their earlier conversation. ‘I—I did.’ He scratched a sudden itch at his neck. ‘But I meant further down the way, perhaps. Not days after the deaths of her father and protector.’
‘But that’s just it, sir,’ Burton protested, the words becoming shrill as they tumbled from his mouth. ‘I should wait until we’re away from here? Safe at Launceston or Oxford or wherever? We’re never getting off this damned hill. I decided to seize the moment. Carpe diem, as Captain Forrester would say.’
Stryker drew in a huge breath and blew out his cheeks, feeling the scar tissue on the left of his face pull against the movement. ‘Christ, Andrew, what did she say?’
Burton sighed. ‘She was her usual polite, radiant self.’
‘But?’
‘But she said this was not the time for such matters.’
‘Hardly surprising,’ Stryker said without thinking. A pang of wretchedness twisted his guts when he saw his friend’s crestfallen expression. ‘I am sorry, though, Andrew. Truly.’
‘I—’ Burton began tentatively, staring hard at the ground.
‘Go on.’
The lieutenant’s gaze finally drifted up from the floor to fix on Stryker’s lonely eye. ‘I had thought, perchance, that you and her—’
Stryker remembered the strange, almost hostile looks Burton had given him these past days, and realized with shock that they must have been borne of jealousy. ‘Miss Cade and I?’ he spluttered, desperately hoping that the guilt would not be etched on his face. He might never have acted on his attraction for Cecily, but attraction there most certainly had been. ‘S’blood, Lieutenant, no! What gave you that—?’ He remembered the moment when Burton had seen him with his hands on Cecily’s shoulders. ‘The other evening?’
Burton nodded, but already his challenging expression was transforming into a look of embarrassment. ‘Aye, sir. It was silly of me. My mind playing tricks, evidently.’
‘Evidently.’
Burton looked at the wagon suddenly, his face cracking in a sad smile. ‘Perhaps it would be a good thing if that lot were to go up. It would save my blushes.’
Stryker moved back to the vehicle, peering in at the powder barrels and bags of shot. ‘What a sight it would make. I can imagine old Seek Wisdom would be a tad vexed if we were to blow up his castle, though.’
And then a thought came to Stryker. It hit him like one of the huge mortar shells he had faced at Lichfield. Screaming, blazing, and awesome. He spun on his heel. ‘Fetch ten men, Lieutenant.’
‘Sir?’ Burton, still crestfallen, muttered in a hollow voice.
‘Fetch ten men,’ Stryker repeated, ‘and be quick about it.’ Burton and his worries would have to wait.
Because Stryker had had an idea, an epiphany, and the game would change once again.
CHAPTER 14
Gardner’s Tor, Dartmoor, 7 May 1643
Stryker was glad he had risked a fire the previous night, for the garrison’s bellies were full, their strength and spirits high, when the first ashen light began to lift night’s shawl. He was glad because out on the grey plains from which the tor sprang there were cannon.
The dread alarm had been cried out from the lookouts on the very highest crags. The hawk-eyed Trowbridge twins, Jack and Harry, had reported movement out on the flat ground to the east during the darkest hours, but they could not tell exactly what transpired. Encroaching daylight had gradually illuminated the hills and the woods, the river and the abandoned village, and, ominously for the beleaguered Royalists, a pair of gleaming black tubes, each mounted on large wheels and drawn by a pair of horses.
Musketry splintered the still morn as soon as the ordnance was spotted, for Stryker immediately dispatched a squad from the summit to harass the gunners and mattrosses.
‘He means to drive us out,’ he had said to Lieutenant Burton as the officer, still sullen from Cecily Cade’s rejection, led the redcoats down towards the shimmering waterway and the crumbling village beyond. ‘They hope to push us on to the open ground before the barn.’
‘Where they’ll shred us,’ Burton replied bluntly.
‘Aye, so get as close as you can. Don’t let the bastards fire.’
Burton had done well, for his red-coated squad were able to take shelter within the ruined longhouses, propping their weapons on the rough-hewn walls and spitting shots at the men gathered about the black-mouthed guns. The range was too great to be effective, but their bullets still whipped close enough to make the crews flinch and falter, and the Royalists jeered at them from up high.
But the victory was small mercy, for, by midday, Colonel Wild, conspicuous with his stark stripe of grey hair, had ridden out to personally assess the dismal progress. The crews were redeployed almost immediately, one sent south and the other circling all the way round the hill to take up position on the western plain, a squad of Wild’s fearsome harquebusiers left in their wake to guard any potential escape eastwards.
Stryker suspected that this was not an ideal situation for Wild, but the compromise would allow the colonel’s gunners to come close enough to do certain damage without the fear of vengeful musket fire. He ordered his men to keep up the harrying shots, but, with the squads now forced to shoot from back on the tor, the range was far too great. The crackle of flying lead served only to irritate the Parliamentarian crews as a swarm of flies might pester a horse, but they stuck to their work in the knowledge that, even if a lucky ball were to hit home, its speed would be pathetic.
The falconets quickly began their barrage. The opening shots came in together, one from the south and the other from the west, twin reports echoing like distant thunder across the high moor. The screaming iron spheres missed, flying well above the granite crest, passing each other in the still air, but the cheer from the Royalist garrison was desultory at best. They all knew that, eventually, the gunners would find their r
ange.
Stryker barked orders for his men to seek shelter. They moved to the higher ground, huddling behind the jagged standing stones, the smooth, broad boulders, and the vast stacks. Stryker himself took up position on the crest, moving quickly to the wide avenue between the largest two stacks. There, secreted in one of the little caves, he caught sight of Cecily Cade. Her eyes were wide orbs, tear-reddened and glistening. The carter, Marcus Bailey, was with her, thin hands trembling in his lap. He nodded to them both, hoping his show of confidence would provide some solace.
The next shots exploded from down on the plain, first from the south and then the west. Falconets were not siege pieces, their missiles tiny by comparison, but here, firing with impunity at the isolated hill, they might have been a brace of demi-cannon. The shots missed again, but their screaming sound was louder this time, closer, and even the hardest of Stryker’s veterans involuntarily flinched.
‘No riders, sir,’ Sergeant Skellen’s droning voice reached him in the aftermath of the volley.
Stryker turned to look up at his old ally. ‘They mean to soften us up a while.’
Skellen nodded. ‘Aye, I think you’re right, sir. Mash our wits afore they strike.’
‘That’s what I’d do. Still, we must be thankful they do not have lanthorne, eh?’
Skellen whistled softly. ‘Jesu, sir, that’d sting a bit.’
‘More than sting, Will.’ Lanthorne shot consisted of a closed cylindrical case, packed with smaller lead balls, that would disintegrate when fired, spraying its lethal projectiles in a wide area. The weapon might have been extremely useful against the men trapped on the tor, and Stryker was thankful Wild’s falconets were too small to fire such ammunition.
The air filled with an ear-splitting crescendo as the next shot came in. It was the gun to the south that had fired, and, though Stryker could not see where it had struck, a call from one of his men on the south-facing ridge confirmed that the ball had hit the slope, pounding into the earth. He imagined the huge clump of soil and grass driven up before it.
The cannon to the west fired almost immediately. Stryker shrunk as low as he could, feeling the turf on his cheek. This time the gunners had found their range, and the careening round shot ricocheted off the side of a tall stack to his right, smashing noisily into another. A shard of rock twirled away, scything frighteningly close to a crouching musketeer’s face.
Even as Stryker breathed a sigh of relief, a shrill scream cut across the cannon’s echo, and he saw that another man had been sitting behind the first musketeer. The vicious stone splinter had cleaved sickeningly into his groin, its wider end still jutting from the redcoat’s inner thigh in a macabre parody of his genitals. Blood jetted steaming and unyielding from the wound to drench the ground. His face seemed to become blue, then faded to a deathly white, and he slumped back in silence.
‘Jesu,’ Skellen whispered.
Stryker might have been thankful that the pieces were too small to fire lanthorne, but now, faced with a brace of falconets working in tandem, he realized the situation was nevertheless dire. Yes, his men could seek shelter in the avenue at the tor’s summit, protected by the impenetrable granite stacks that jutted skyward like a giant’s crown, but then who would defend the hill? Their survival thus far had been the ability to man the slopes with pike and musket. The jagged stones littering the hillside negated any horse-borne assault, and the muskets, fired from behind those stones, had been enough to keep men on foot at bay.
But now things had changed, dramatically and fatefully. The cannon would set to work on the once safe slopes, pounding great chunks out of the lesser rocks and forcing the Royalists to seek solace higher up. Which meant Wild’s men, his dismounted cavalry and dragoons, could charge up the tor unhindered, overwhelming the men on the crest with their superior numbers.
Stryker caught Skellen’s hooded gaze. ‘It’s not riders we should watch for, but infantry.’
Out on the plain to the west, Colonel Gabriel Wild bent low to direct one of the falconets. He was not a gunner, of course, and had no real experience with ordnance, but this fight was personal, and he’d be damned if he was not spearheading the bombardment.
‘A little higher,’ he snapped at the mattross.
The gunner’s assistant rolled his eyes, but sullenly did what he was told.
‘Truly, Colonel,’ the gun captain insisted, ‘I do know my business.’
Wild straightened and fixed the gunner with a baleful look. ‘I dare say you do, sir, but I have overall command here, and you’ll take my direction or you’ll be this cannon’s next target. Understand?’
The gunner nodded stiffly. ‘Sir.’
‘Good.’ Wild wound a strand of hair about his forefinger, silver stripe mixing helter-skelter with brown. ‘Now keep pounding the Romish malignants.’
‘We will, sir,’ confirmed the gun captain. ‘Though they’re safe enough up on the crest.’
Wild frowned as he stared up at the grey tor. ‘You’ll hit it, though.’
The gunner nodded frantically, aware that the words had been meant as a statement rather than a question. ‘One more shot, Colonel, and we’ll have them locked in sight. There’ll be no missing after that.’ He wrung gloved hands nervously. ‘But we shan’t penetrate it, d’you see? ’Tis granite, sir. Thick and sturdy. Good as any castle wall.’ He patted the falconet’s big wheel affectionately. ‘And she’d be no use ’gainst a castle.’
‘It will suffice,’ Wild grunted. ‘All I want is to keep the buggers up on the high ground. If you can do that for me, my lads will do the rest.’
The gunner wiped his sooty brow, smearing the stain with more filth and sweat. ‘Oh, that’ll be simple enough, sir. They won’t want to come a pace b’yon’ those biggest stacks. Give me an hour, and the whole place’ll be empty as a slut wi’ punk’s evil.’
‘Quite,’ Wild said, the corner of his lip upturning in distaste. ‘But do not rush to it so. I would attack on the morrow.’
The gunner gawped up at the big cavalryman. ‘The morrow, sir?’
‘You were too damned late in preparation,’ Wild said irritably. ‘I would escalade in daylight.’ In truth, Wild did not relish the prospect of another night assault, given the failure of the last attempt. If they attacked now and things went wrong, he would soon find himself running short of light.
‘You will find your shots now, sir. Pound the very wits out of the knaves for the rest of the day, and wear them down to shadows. Rest only with nightfall, and begin again at dawn. By the time we attack, they will be begging to surrender.’
Just then the mattross signalled that the gun had been scoured to eradicate any debris from the previous shot. ‘She’s ready?’ the gun captain asked.
‘Aye, sir, that she is.’
‘Then load her up and let her fly, Jed, eh?’
Wild watched the gunner pace over to the cannon as the mattross, Jed, reloaded and primed it. He turned away just as the crew were about to fire, fixing his sharp eyes on the high tor, praying for the round shot to somehow find a chink in that deep stand of rock and pluck Stryker’s head from his shoulders.
The falconet roared, muzzle flashing, and the whole scorching unit reeled back on its groaning wheels. Smoke billowed all around in a stinking cloud, and Wild had to screw up his face to prevent his eyeballs from blurring with moisture. He saw the ball strike home, slamming with a cacophonous crash into the granite face, shards of iron and stone flung far and wide. Up on the tor, the redcoats jeered defiantly, but Wild did not care.
‘Well done,’ he said simply, catching the gunner’s eye.
Stryker and his men could crow all they liked, he thought, for the falconets had found their range, and now they would turn the stubborn hill into a place of nightmare.
Near Torrington, Devon, 7 May 1643
Henry Grey, First Earl of Stamford, had to be carried off his horse when he arrived at the River Torridge, for his gouty leg was as bad as ever. He swore when the aides set him o
n the mangled earth, shards of pain shooting through his feet and up to his knees, and the men froze, fearful of his temper. He waved them away, insisting that he could walk so long as one of them brought him a robust cane. When it had been fetched, Stamford took a huge breath, gritted his teeth against the pain, and limped slowly towards the river. Because it was there, crammed along the west bank of the rushing Torridge, that a large part of his army had gathered.
There were tents as far as the eye could see. Grimy ranks of off-white awnings, ordered in rough lines, narrow corridors of dead grass between. Men practised swordplay in those corridors, bare-chested and grunting behind their blades, while some sang songs of home and others darned clothes or puffed smoke. The camp followers – whores, goodwives and their multitude of filthy urchins – sat around the black remains of long-cold fires, calling to one another with coarse voices and bawdy humour. Some fished in the bone-chilling river, others stood knee-deep in the corrugated flow, dunking, scrubbing, and wringing garments for their menfolk.
As Stamford walked with his lurching gait into the camp, a pair of sentries, faces wreathed in tobacco smoke, clambered to their feet from rickety stools and doffed caps respectfully. He acknowledged them with a curt nod, glancing sideways at one of the officers who had accompanied him from the town. ‘Which are these, Major Lewendon?’
Lewendon, a sharp-featured fellow of average height, wrinkled his pointed nose like a rat sniffing the breeze. ‘Northcote’s, my lord. Devon men all. No room left in the town for them, I’m afraid.’
‘Good, good,’ Stamford replied absently, more concerned with the agonies in his limbs. He paused for a rest, swollen ankles screaming at the unwanted exercise. ‘How many?’
Lewendon thought for a moment, removing his hat and sweeping a long-nailed hand across a head of slicked-back auburn hair that smelled strongly of lavender. ‘Twelve hundred or so, sir.’
Stamford pursed his lips as he calculated his strength. ‘Which brings us just shy of four thousand foot, does it not?’
Lewendon’s head twitched in a minute nod. ‘Thereabouts, my lord, aye. A healthy number, what with the horse reaching more’n a thousand.’
Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles Page 26