Pistoleer: Roundway Down

by Smith, Skye

  By the time Waller marched his army out along the Oxford road, everyone in Bristol knew that they were off to lay siege to Malmesbury. That was by design, for they wanted the royalists of Bristol to report this to the king's spies. It was thirty miles from Bristol to Malmesbury, and most of the mounted regiments would easily have made the march in one day, however Waller held them back and made camp at Badminton about a mile short of a ford. They would cross the ford in the morning.

  It was a relatively shallow ford across the upper Avon River near the village of Sherston, which was about three miles from Malmesbury. Waller did not want to arrive in Malmesbury tired and short of light, but more importantly, he wanted to make sure that the royalist garrison at nearby Cirencester had time enough to call their garrison troopers back from the royalist siege of Gloucester.

  Rob and his new company reached the proposed camp site early, just behind the scouts and so they were charged with setting up the first pickets. Though the main part of the army would be settled in the camp well before sunset, the straggling companies escorting supply carts and field guns would continue to arrive all through the night. One thing that Rob had learned while riding with the Rotterdam militia, was that a good sleep was your best weapon, and thus he had hand picked a large farm shed in which to billet his men. It was as far from the main camp and the road traffic as possible, and was on the low land near where a brook entered the Avon so they would be sheltered from the noise of the camp by the slope of the bank at their backs.

  His company was an odd lot of men who had joined Waller singly or in pairs rather than with an already formed militia group. They were an odd lot in other ways, too. The first thing that Rob had realized about them, however, was that they were not properly trained. They were scrappers, yes, and knew horses, yes, but had little idea of how to work together effectively. He began changing this even before he organized the pickets.

  Rob ordered his thirty men, which included four corporals but no sergeant, to assemble on the flats between the shed and the brook. He called on the corporals to take five steps forward and then spread themselves out facing the men. That done he took a deep breath so he could boom his voice and barked out to the lads, "Right! You lot have one main job, and that is to keep me alive.” There were snickers, which was a good sign. "These corporals have a different job. To keep you lot alive. I want you to split yourself up into squads behind the corporal you would trust with your life."

  After a moment's thought the men moved across the yard, most of them to stand with a squat, balding man who had arms the size of thighs and looked strong enough to lift a horse. The corporal's name was Fodder and Rob said to him, "Right, Fodder. You are now my master corporal. Please separate the lads into four even squads, and by that I mean not just even in numbers but even in how dangerous they are."

  Fodder beamed and set to it, while Rob took another of the corporals aside to speak to him privately. His name was Perk, and not one man had come forward to stand with him. "The men don't trust you," Rob said the obvious. "Why is that?"

  "I'm new. I came from another company."

  "Why?"

  "Had a war with my sergeant, didn't I," Perk replied. "Should'a been the sarge swapped here, not me."

  "You keep your lads alive, and I'll send you back as a sergeant."

  Perk immediately straightened his lanky frame and gave a crisp salute, "Yes sir. Thank you sir."

  Once the men were organized into squads, Rob had them line up so he could inspect their weapons. These men were what at headquarters were known as 'expendables' because they had joined up singly. Usually such men were forced to join up by the courts or gaolers or irate fathers. As un-sponsored men, their equipment was castoffs that regular companies had replaced with better, including their horses, saddles, armour, and guns.

  Their nags were one step up from pack animals and their armour was of shaped boiled leather, but at least their pistols were flinters rather than matchlocks, and they all had two, a dragon and normal pistol. They had no swords, just long daggers. Their axes were just that, felling axes with no pike points, hooks, or hammerheads to make them more versatile. Most had a carbine hung from their saddle, but they were just field cuts, older muskets which had been cut short to carbine length in the field.

  "Do you know," Rob asked them, "why the officers call you the expendables?"

  "Because they can add new men to our company to make it larger," one man called out.

  "Expendable, not expandable," Rob corrected him. "It's because they won't catch hell from some mother from their parish if one of you doesn't march home at the end of all this.” He walked along the line of men. They were all taller than he. "I say bullshit! Everyone will be missed by someone. Even the men we fight. That is why I want you to load your dragons with birdshot and lime grit rather than balls.

  Your dragon will be your first shot, and you will aim it to blind, not to kill. Blind the horse or blind both horse and rider, or blind any men standing too close together. Stinging eyes take horses, riders, and pikemen out of the fight. A ball may miss, bounce off, or wound, which leaves them angry and you empty, whereas a dragon's stinging breath will easily find their eyes and nostrils.

  Your other pistol will be loaded with one polished ball. One, mind you, not two. You keep it as your weapon of last resort, your killing gun. If you are ever forced to draw it, then shoot to kill. As for your other weapons, whatever they are they will work a lot better against blinded men.” A few of the men began to speak amongst themselves.

  He waited patiently until they were quiet again and then told them, "Now listen carefully to my rules of engagement. They are simple. When I tell you to attack, you attack immediately. When I tell you to retreat, you retreat immediately, but you must never, ever turn your backs to the enemy. Whatever else you do, you will not wound a man who has surrendered or who carries a white flag. My last rule is that you will never do harm to a woman or a child or a man who is trying to protect them. Now I will say them again slowly and you will repeat them after me."

  Rob repeated his rules, with the men parroting them until they could recited them without his lead, and then as they repeated them one more time he stared from face to face. "I am told that your general does not allow his dragoons to carry swords because they are not gentlemen. To that I say bullshit! If you take a sword from a man who was trying to kill you with it, then you have the right to wear it, just as you have a right to his horse, his armour, his guns, and yes, even his purse."

  The men eagerly began to murmur in agreement. Rob yelled over the murmour, "But NOT! Not while we are still attacking. Do you understand me? You do not stop for purses until every one of us can stop for purses.” There was silence. "Answer me!"

  "Yes sir," came the chorus.

  "Good. We have been asked to set up the picket camps for the night watch, so mount up and let's get that done before the rest of the army arrives."

  * * * * *

  As each squad was replaced at their pickets by newly arrived companies, they wandered back to the shed for some food and some rest. The fates had other ideas. They had no sooner made themselves comfortable, than their own watcher sitting on the roof of the shed called out that there were riders approaching fast towards them along the banks of the Avon. Everyone grabbed up their guns and ran up the slope behind the shed to claim the high ground before the approaching riders reached the brook. Rob sent two lads to warn the rest of the camp about the riders.

  By the time the riders had slowed to cross the brook, Robs thirty men were in place and ready to fire their carbines, and double their number of other dragoons were trotting towards them from the other companies in the camp. "Hold your fire until they are across the brook," Rob yelled out, and a lot of trigger fingers relaxed.

  Moments later he was so glad he had said these words, for when the first rider to cross the brook saw them on the slope he yelled out, "Is this Waller's army? We are from Bath. Is General Waller here?"

  Rob trotted do
wn to his horse, which was tied up behind the shed, and swung himself up bareback to ride beside the strangers and lead them to Waller. The man he rode with was a Major Burghell who had been sent by Governor Hungerford of Bath to secure his country estate which was over towards the village of Corston.

  Burghell told the rest of his story to Waller, but Rob stayed to listen. The major and his fifty men had found the estate recently plundered, so they had tracked the raiders to Sherston only a few miles from here. His scouts had reported that they numbered over two hundred, all cavalryers. "So you see," Burghell finished. "My force is too small to attack them, so I need your help. My plan is to wait until they are comfortable for the night and then ride them down."

  Rob groaned inwardly at this. He shouldn't have stayed to hear the story, for Waller was a man of quick decisions, and that meant that if you stood near to him, you became a part of those decisions. Sure enough, Rob's company was volunteered with two other dragoon companies to ride with Burghell to see to the royalist raiders.

  * * * * *

  "So much for getting a good nights sleep in the shed tonight," Rob groaned to no one in particular and then shivered. It was almost midnight and they were walking their horses across a field in hopes of surprising the royalist camp. I was strange that the cavalryers had chosen to sleep out rather than forcing the village of Sherston to billet them. Strange, yes, but good news for Burghell, for these fools were camped under the stars in an open field. This allowed Burghell to sneak up on them out of the dark and down wind from their horses.

  Rob was moving amongst his men so he could give them instructions in a low voice. "Remember, they are just being woken out of their sleep," Rob whispered. "If we surprise them, then they will still be busy putting on their armour and finding their weapons when we sweep through them. On the first run through, fire your dragons to blind them. We will stop and reload on the other side of their camp and then run through them with the dragons again. We'll continue to do that until it doesn't work any more. Listen for my whistle and when you hear it, drop whatever you are doing and regroup."

  The next half hour was complete madness played out in the dark. There were so many frightened men and riders racing about that it was hard to tell which side anyone was on. At first Rob's men assumed that any mounted man was with them, and any man on foot was against them, and that worked well enough the first sweep through the camp and they fired dragon's breath into the faces of anyone on foot.

  By the time they had reloaded their dragons and then swept back through the site, it was much harder to tell who was who, so they had to wait until someone raised a hand against them before they fired. There was no third sweep. The company that was supposed to have put the run on the camp's horses had failed miserably, and now there were both friend and foe mounted. Luckily the royalists were more interested in saving their skins so once they found a horse they were looking to escape rather than fight. Eventually the only royalists left in the camp were mostly crying for mercy as they rubbed at their eyes, but there were also a few men with bleeding wounds from pistols and swords, and with broken bones from being run down by horses.

  Only Rob's company had been using dragons loaded for blinding. The rest of the dragoons were firing multiple pistol balls. Rob shook his head at the foolishness of expecting accuracy out of balls shot in the pitch dark at running, diving men. Or was it lack of experience rather than foolishness. There was little chance of hitting anyone with a ball, and as much chance of hitting a friend as a foe. Burghell's gentlemen had been more successful with their swords, if you consider inflicting such gruesome injuries on another man as success. Rob's company had been the most effective by far at turning fighting men into captives.

  By the time they realized that all the royalists who could still find and mount their horses had fled, there were only twenty five royalists left including the captain and his two lieutenants. That was not including the eight that Burghell's gentlemen swordsmen had butchered. Those number roughly tallied with the forty horses they captured. The rest, some hundred or more, had escaped into the night with their horses and most of their kit. Although Rob thought that they should have captured more, with Burghell in command it was a miracle that it went as well as it did. The true wonder was that no one on their own side had been hurt. A miracle considering the black of night, the complete confusion, and the number of balls that had been whizzing about looking for someone to hit.

  His own men were overjoyed, for Rob told them that they could claim the personal spoils of any man with stinging eyes, which was over half of them. Burghell was not pleased by that, but he was so overjoyed at having recovered most of Governor Hungerford's loot that he did not make much of an issue of it.

  It was Rob that made an issue of his men's spoils. He demanded that no matter what or how much his men had grabbed off their claimed prisoners, that it must all be pooled and then shared out as equally as possible. This meant that everyone upgraded their equipment in some way, whether it be a horse, or a saddle, or armour or guns. The few swords were claimed first above all else. As for the contents of the purses, Rob kept back a fifth to start a mutual fund in case any men were wounded in coming skirmishes, and then divided the rest out evenly.

  As for sleep, they got little that night. Burghell decided it was safer to take over the royalist campsite, than to march back through the night, so he posted a full third of the men as guards while the rest slept. Who could sleep after such a furious and dangerous adventure in the dark. All tried to calm their own excited chattering, so as to allow others to sleep, though few did. They all knew that there were very few hours left before they must rise and go to meet Waller's column as it crossed the Sherston ford.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Pistoleer - Roundway Down by Skye Smith Copyright 2014-15

  Chapter 11 - The Siege of Malmesbury in March 1643

  Of course it was the sleepy expendables who were asked to lead the column into Malmesbury. The road they were using approached the town along the north side of the River Avon, so it would eventually join with the main road to Cirencester. Before noon they stopped within a quarter of a mile from the outskirts of the lower town, the newer town whose streets were built outside the towns ancient stone walls. They were passing one of many small woods when master corporal Fodder yelled out, "There's riders in these woods."

  Rob's company turned their horses to face the woods, and then halted while they fumbled to check the primes of their pistols, but then Rob began to yell, "Retreat, retreat, follow me and form a line where I stop!" With that he turned about and raced back towards Waller's column, yelling his orders again to the men he passed. As soon as he was a hundred yards clear of the woods, he pulled his mare to a stop and then turned and grabbed up his dragon.

  His lads most certainly approved of this order to retreat, for they were right on his tail. Luckily the men in the lead had understood the complete order, for they slowed and swung around him to form a line which blocked the road and its verges. Now they all had time to take a good look at what had been waiting for them in ambush, because royalist cavalryers were storming out of the woods to give chase to the retreating dragoons. There were at least a hundred of them, and they already had sabres in hand. Rob wondered if they were the same men who had escaped them last night at Sherston.

  "Loosen your axes and blades!" Rob was barking out. "Get your dragons ready! They need to be very close to use their sabres. Just before they get that close, fire your dragon to blind the horse charging you!" The cavalryers were getting very close and by the formation were planning to break through their line at its center point where Rob was. "Steady, keep the line, steady. If they don't wheel to our flanks, then we'll be doing the wheeling into their column. Steady.” He could hear his own pulse in his voice.

  And suddenly the charging cavalryers veered off onto a cart track and turned and raced away towards the northwest. Behind him Rob could hear the thunder of hooves. He took a quick look over
his shoulder. Waller’s light cavalry was coming up behind them at a full gallop, hundreds of them and all of them wanting to catch up to the royalists. "Break the line," he bellowed out at the top of his lungs. "Clear the road," and then he dug in his own spurs and his mare leaped off the road and got out of the way. "Give'm a cheer lads," he yelled and then began cheering himself in heartfelt thanks.

  Waller was riding along near the center of the charging column, and now he slowed and signaled for the men behind him to slow with him. The two hundred ahead of him could exercise their horses, for the royalists had enough of a lead they would not be caught unless their horses stumbled. "They won't stop until they reach Cirencester," he called out to the men around him, and then waved back to the cheering dragoons beside the road.

  Rob heard Waller's words clearly, because he was already back on the road and waiting to give his report. "Nay, I think that they will stay close by," Rob pointed out. "Malmesbury is well fortified, so their infantry can hold the walls without the help of the cavalry. If there is to be a long siege, however, they don't want their cavalry trapped inside those same walls. I'll wager that the orders of those cavalryers is to wolf about looking for easy prey, and to keep tearing at your flanks."

  The column began to move forward again with the expendables again to the fore. "How did you know to retreat straight away?" Fodder asked Rob. "How did you know there would be so many of them?"

  "I must admit, I did not," Rob told him honestly. "When you called out the warning, I did not expect cavalry, but a dragoon ambush. I expected a hail of musket balls from the cover of those trees, so I had to get you all moving, and moving sideways to their line of fire. The quickest way to do that was to order a retreat. I was as surprised as you when we were chased by cavalryers. They were fools not to use their guns, but it is all too typical of cavalryers to chase after fleeing men with their sabres swinging."