‘A strange twist of fate for an infantryman, sir, I grant you.’ He shrugged. ‘It is a complex tale.’
‘Never fear, sir,’ Trevanion announced brightly. ‘We have ample time for the telling!’
‘What the devil?’
It was Hopton who had spoken, and the sheer tone of his voice was cause enough for alarm. Burton and the assembled colonels stared after the general, mouths gaping, as he pointed frantically up at a low ridge to the west.
‘There! See?’ Hopton spluttered, standing in his stirrups as he fished for something in his saddlebag. In moments his hand came away with a battered little spyglass, and he trained it on the place that had so ensnared his attention. ‘Horsemen on the right flank!’
Already many of the non-commissioned officers stalking along the army’s right side had spotted the threat and were instinctively arranging evasive action. The column juddered to an abrupt halt amid a storm of snarled instructions.
‘Get Digby back here!’ Hopton called to his nearest aide. The five hundred mounted Royalists were some distance up ahead, obscured by a dense stand of trees, and it was not certain they would have noticed the men on the ridge. The aide kicked his horse into thrashing life, racing away down the road with his dire news.
‘Whose are they?’ the general snapped, tossing the spyglass to Slanning.
The huge, owlish eyes pressed against the brass rings for a second as Sir Nicholas slowly replied. ‘I believe that is Chudleigh, sir.’
‘Which?’
Slanning lowered the glass. ‘The elder, sir, to judge by the cornet.’
Hopton pursed thin lips and ground his teeth. ‘Meaning we face only the horse, for young James commands the foot on Lord Stamford’s behalf.’
‘We will hold,’ Slanning said confidently.
‘Have to pay them their dues, I suppose,’ Colonel Trevanion said, seemingly as unflustered as Slanning, though all about him the pikemen shuffled into position. ‘They risk a great deal by sending their horse against us, but it is a bold move.’
‘There is no deliberation here, John,’ Slanning muttered derisively. ‘They were travelling south, I’d wager, and blundered into us. Sir George is compelled to give battle, though I guarantee he’d rather not. When he sees this will be no Sourton he will disengage.’
‘Then what in Jesus’ name are they doing here?’ General Hopton replied absently, but no reply came. The enemy were coming.
Lieutenant Burton was staring at the advancing cavalry with a mix of trepidation and awe. It was a large force, comfortably more than a thousand, and they swept down from the high ridge in a whooping, silver-crested wave designed to smash into the Royalist right flank. But they had attacked early, giving credence to Slanning’s guess that they had been as surprised to find the King’s Army as Hopton had been to see them. There was still a good half-mile to cover, giving the Royalist officers, sergeants, and corporals ample time to prepare a defence with shrill orders and bawled threats, and the men on the right flank turned smartly to face the ridge, blocks of pikemen stepping to the fore, musketeers arranged, three ranks deep, in between.
Burton watched in stunned silence as the Roundhead wave coursed across the damp turf with a growing roar. He instinctively adjusted his arm strap, as he always did before battle, though he knew his position with General Hopton would probably negate the need to fight. Sure enough, a group of heavy-set men, pikes facing outwards in a protective ring, moved into position around the general and his young commanders, ushering them towards the safer left flank.
The first horsemen were soon in range, and the rapidly barked orders to fire by introduction were spread along the threatened flank. The foremost rank of musketeers snapped back their triggers, tongues of flame lashing out in front. Immediately the rank behind moved between that forward rank and fired, followed in quick succession by the third, thereby offering an almost continuous fusillade. A great storm of smoke and flame pulsated across the Royalist force, belching violence towards the encroaching peril.
The range was still great, and only two Parliamentarians were knocked from their saddles in that early barrage, but the Cornish cheered their defiance like a horde of Celts facing the might of Rome, and they snarled and spat and cursed at the advancing enemy.
The first rank fired again. A few more of Sir George Chudleigh’s cavalrymen went down this time, and the Royalist jeers grew like a Penzance squall, but time was against them and they stepped rearward as pike blocks shuffled to the fore, great shafts of ash angled upwards, braced against each man’s instep, presenting a glinting barrier of razor points for the white-eyed storm to drench.
The wave broke with a clash of steel that rippled all the way along the human storm-break. The noise of man and horse, musket butt, pike, halberd, and sword mingling in deafening crescendo, echoing like a thunderclap all the way back up the ridge.
But the momentum had gone from the charge. The musket volleys had slowed the Roundhead attack, and the pikes, thrust into the faces of Chudleigh’s horses, had made the frightened beasts shy away from the fight. They wheeled back almost as one, understanding that their beating broadswords would not cut enough holes in the Cavalier defence to lever a breach.
Burton was leaning across his own mount, whispering softly into the pricked ear to sooth the animal’s frayed nerves. His eyes, though, were still fixed over the heads of the Cornish infantry to the chaotic front line where the last of Chudleigh’s attackers were extricating themselves from personal duels, desperate to be free lest they become isolated and abandoned. Somewhere to his left a trumpet screeched, all eyes shifting to meet the new sound. Burton peered too, searching the dark tree line for the origin of the startling note. There, bursting out on to the road like so many avenging angels, were more horsemen. This time, though, the Royalist column did not have to brace itself for action.
‘It’s Digby,’ Sir Nicholas Slanning announced from somewhere behind Burton. ‘About bloody time, eh?’
Another cheer went up from the grizzled foot, but its tone was rueful rather than joyous. Slanning grinned. ‘The horse can chase Chudleigh into the hills, but our lads know who won this day.’
Sure enough, the Roundhead force, so irresistibly large, was already making for the safety of the ridge, desultory pot-shots sent whistling in their wake by optimistic musketeers. And there, on the top of that gentle slope, they regrouped. But this time there was no malice in their movements, no drawn blades or screamed challenges. There would be no repeat of the attack, it seemed. No relentless charges like those Burton had witnessed at Hopton Fight. The enemy were leaving.
All around Burton staff officers nodded congratulations to one another, though their eyes remained warily trained on the horizon. It was a hollow kind of victory. They had survived with only minor casualties, and yet the direction in which the Parliamentarian party were headed seemed to be cause for concern. They were not waiting around to watch Hopton’s army, nor racing north to the main rebel hub at Stratton, but filing quietly away to the south, funnelling on to the road that would lead them deeper into Cornwall.
The Royalist column took pause for around two hours after the skirmish below the ridge. They had come through it relatively unscathed, but burials had to be organized and land had to be more thoroughly scouted.
‘What the devil were they about?’ a pink-jowled Hopton snapped when relative calm had returned. ‘What was Chudleigh doing here, damn his hide? And where did they vanish to?’
For answer, a barrel-chested horseman in full harquebusier armour cantered up to the group. He lifted his hinged visor, revealing pock-rutted cheeks, bulbous eyes, and a syphilitic nose. ‘Captain Newbury, sir. Compliments o’ Sir John Digby, an’ I’m to tell you we took a couple o’ the scrofulous villains, if you’ll pardon m’ language.’
‘Well?’ Hopton replied impatiently.
‘Their treasonous tongues flapped readily enough, General.’ Newbury rubbed a gloved forearm across his disease-ravaged face, mopping up the bea
ding sweat that clung to his bushy brows. ‘They weren’t here for us, sir. They discovered us by accident and gave steel, but we were not his target.’
‘Oh?’
‘What did I tell you?’ Sir Nicholas Slanning whispered as he caught Burton’s eye.
‘Sir George Chudleigh,’ Newbury went on, ‘is charged with the blockin’ o’ Bodmin.’
Hopton frowned. ‘Blocking?’ He shot a wary glance at Slanning and Trevanion. ‘They know about the militia?’
The cavalryman nodded, sweat running from his chin to speckle his breastplate and the waxy hem of his coat. ‘They do, sir. Chudleigh is tasked with preventing the posse’s muster.’
Slanning spat a clump of powder-spotted phlegm on to the hoof-spoiled grass. ‘And with that many troopers I’d wager he’ll succeed. He must have had fifteen hundred men.’
‘If Chudleigh rides to prevent the raising of Bodmin, then Stamford’s thought remains bent on Stratton,’ Hopton mused. ‘And without the Bodmin posse, we must be about our business with half the men he has.’
Burton coughed nervously. ‘General? Is there no time to gather more troops?’
Hopton’s round head shook. ‘We will rendezvous with Grenville imminently, which will bring us to full strength.’ He grimaced. ‘Barely three thousand.’
‘Against Stamford’s near six,’ Slanning added grimly. ‘With a thousand and a half horse roaming Cornwall.’
‘And that,’ continued Hopton, ‘is why we must break him soon, before his horse return. We know Sir George Chudleigh will be a goodly while at Bodmin, so there is time.’
Andrew Burton could feel the colour drain from his face, but was powerless to prevent it. These brave, reckless men were marching to war against insurmountable odds, and he was marching with them.
To his surprise a fist thudded sharply into his left shoulder, and he looked across to where Sir Nicholas Slanning perched atop his muscular charger. The colonel’s lips pared back in a wolfish grin. ‘Do not fear, Lieutenant. Without his cavalry Stamford will be forced into a straight fight between armies of foot.’ He swept an arm out in front to indicate the solid lines of rough-hewn infantry. ‘And for such a task, sir, there are none better than the Cornish.’
In that moment Lieutenant Andrew Burton believed him. Believed the power in Slanning’s voice and the devilry in his glistening eyes. Despite himself, he felt a surge of hope. ‘Aye, sir. We’ll send him packing.’
‘Back to Devon, Lieutenant! That’s the spirit!’ Slanning beamed. ‘So long as he does not find a bloody hill to climb, eh?’
Near Stratton, Cornwall, 14 May 1643
The hill was ideal.
Looming over the village from the north, it was steeply sloped and flat-topped, protected to the south by a patchwork of hedged fields and to the east by a wooded escarpment that was far too sheer to scale. Furthermore, the River Strat gushed at its foot, and an ancient earthwork provided stout defence at the summit.
Yes indeed, thought James Chudleigh as he gazed down at the cluster of pale dots that was Stratton, the hill was perfect. As commander of Parliament’s army – at least until Lord Stamford arrived – the task of scouting the land had fallen to him. And he had been guided by God to this spot. Ordinarily it would be madness to camp on the top of such a high place, but his army was well supplied with ammunition and provisions, and he could stay there for as long as was necessary. Thus, he had decided to march up to the flat crest with his five thousand men, and challenge the Cornish Royalists to knock him off. Soon the malignant horde would come to this hill, flounder on its steep slopes, and be overwhelmed by Chudleigh’s much larger force. The coup de grâce, of course, would be the triumphal return of his father’s cavalry from Bodmin. They would smash into the Royalist rearguard, sweeping them from the field, and from England, in one decisive victory. All he need do was hold the position and wait.
‘You see the trees lines?’ Chudleigh said, thrusting an arm to the west to indicate the network of hedges and sunken lanes that webbed the lower third of that steep face.
The woman standing beside him shrugged. ‘I see them.’
‘That is where the king’s men will flounder.’
The woman gave a contemptuous snort. ‘You pray.’
‘I do not need prayer, Miss Cade,’ Chudleigh said, not deigning to look at the infuriating bitch. ‘If they choose not to fight then I will await my father, who comes with near two thousand horse. When he arrives I will march down there to meet him and together we will smash Hopton’s pitiful army between us.’
‘It is the Cornish,’ Cecily Cade retorted waspishly. ‘They will fight.’
Chudleigh shrugged. ‘Then I will have men – hundreds of men – in those lanes and hedges, and they’ll cut the malignants to shreds before they so much as spy the summit. A few will doubtless make it on to the open terrain.’ He glanced at the big artillery pieces being dragged into place a little way down the hill where the lanes petered out, leaving open pasture all the way to the summit. There were thirteen such guns, and, further back, a huge mortar, squatting like a black mastiff against the green grassland. ‘And those will be shredded in seconds.’
‘You are confident, General.’
‘With good reason, Miss Cade. With good reason.’
Cecily Cade stared up at the young Parliamentarian. ‘Why did you feel the need to show me all this?’
Now Chudleigh met her gaze, his face serious, his right cheek twitching slightly. ‘Because you must see your folly. Witness the end of the war in the south-west. Understand that to join the rebellion is to join God’s own cause. We are on the cusp of change, Miss Cade. England will soon be made anew.’ He grasped her shoulder suddenly, making her shudder. ‘Tell me the location of the gold and the new nation will be yours for the taking. You will be a heroine of the rebellion.’
Cecily Cade looked the major-general straight in the eyes. ‘I would sooner be dead than betray my king.’
He sighed in resignation. ‘You will certainly pray for death before too long.’
She looked up at him with utter scorn. ‘You will hand me to your vile men? I am not afraid, sir.’
Major-General James Chudleigh shook his head sadly and began to walk away, leaving his prisoner to the guards who now converged around her. He looked back briefly. ‘I shan’t give you to the men, Miss Cade. I am not a monster. No, you will be questioned by another.’
‘Who?’ she called after him.
‘You are not afraid?’ He shook his head. ‘You should be.’
An hour later, in the shadow of the hill that had become a rebel fortress, three men strode purposefully through fields left untended and abandoned by terrified farm workers. Their boots trampled green crops, sank in soft soil, and slipped when planted in the slick droppings left by the horses and oxen used to haul Chudleigh’s big guns into position.
‘Curse this mierda!’ one of the men, lagging behind the others, hissed in heavily accented English as he shook his leg to free the toe end of a particularly sticky piece of faeces. He was a short man, dark of skin and hugely fat, his black cloak, designed to be voluminous, stretched tight about a morbidly fleshy frame.
The taller of the fat man’s companions, keeping up a brisk lick despite leaning heavily into a knotted walking cane, turned back brusquely. ‘Keep up, José!’
José Ventura, Spaniard, Protestant convert and faithful servant to witch-finder Osmyn Hogg, muttered something unintelligible in his native tongue and launched into a jowl-shaking scuttle to regain the pace. ‘Where we go?’ he added breathlessly.
The third man, a pale creature with beady black eyes and skin so taut it was almost translucent, did not look round. ‘Into the village. Well, the outskirts, to be precise.’
Osmyn Hogg, limping beside the pale man, glanced down at him, instinctively suspicious of the Parliamentarian power broker. ‘Oh?’
‘I have something to show you,’ Major-General Erasmus Collings answered nonchalantly.
That did no
t fill Hogg with confidence. He made his daily bread by hunting out and purging evil-doers from God’s realm. Sometimes it meant that difficult decisions were made; blood spilled, children frightened, and folk killed. But whatever he and Ventura did, they did it in the name of God, with His blessing. Yet Hogg had returned from the New World to find an England full to bursting with men like Collings. Those who would inflict pain and suffering, would lie and cheat and steal and betray for their own advancement. For earthly rewards. He mistrusted such men.
‘Why we leave Colonel Wild?’ Ventura asked suddenly.
Again, Hogg noticed that Collings did not lower himself to address the Spaniard directly. He offered a cursory reply as he studied the ground, careful to avoid the dung. ‘Because this is none of his concern. He will spend the rest of the day sulking, no doubt.’
‘He feels,’ Hogg answered quickly, as much to curtail Ventura’s abrupt line of questioning before it was perceived disrespectful than anything else, ‘he should not have to suffer such indignity.’
‘He is a failure in the Parliament’s army, Master Hogg,’ Collings answered as though he spoke to a halfwit, ‘and he will suffer whatever indignity I perceive fitting. His troop are good. One of the best we have, in fact, and he will get them back. But he should be put in his place.’ He looked at Hogg then. ‘And when better than during a battle at which his harquebusiers would have been utterly impotent?’
‘They would?’
‘Of course, sir. Hopton will have pike blocks, so we will crush them with pike blocks. Besides, we have near six thousand men on top of that small crest. Where would we put horsemen as well? No, they are better employed down at Bodmin with Chudleigh the Elder.’
That seemed reasonable enough to Hogg. Still, he thought, Wild’s rage smouldered bright and hot. They had spent much time in his presence since arriving at Stratton, both for their own protection and because, when battle came, Hogg felt that would give him the best chance of finding – and killing – a certain Royalist officer. ‘He is angry.’
Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles Page 35