Pistoleer: Roundway Down

by Smith, Skye

  "Ah yes, you were the Admiral's bargeman. Captain... I'm sorry."

  "Daniel Vanderus, ships master and not currently attached to any regiment. Please take me to speak to the general. I just arrived from Guildford and carry vital information for him."

  "Be careful of what you ask of me. If I take you the general at this time, he will most surely send you across the bridge to the prince."

  "The prince's claim has no merit. Firstly, we aimed at the horses. Secondly, we had no way of knowing that they were worthy gentlemen for they were remiss in announcing themselves to the bridge watch. In truth, their surprise attack was completely lacking in gentlemanly manners.” The gun crew cracked wide smiles and some chuckling could be heard.

  "Spare me your sarcasm," Skippon told him brusquely. "What really happened. The officer of the bridge was not much help. Apparently he was the first man downed, and missed most of the action, so his own report was thread bare."

  "Then Culpeper lives!" Daniel said almost with glee. "For that we must all give thanks, for he is far too precious to be lost to a royalist ball." He then made a complete report to the colonel, ending with "so we had no choice but to protect our men who were clearing the horse carcasses so we could lift the span. At that range, against charging cavalry, that meant grape. We fired but once and fired low on purpose to spare the men. As soon as the span was raised, the bridge was saved, so we ceased firing."

  Skippon had been nodding throughout the report. "I will tell the prince that his men were mistaken for brigands and footpads making a raid for profit. That we regret such an unfortunate case of mistaken identity."

  "Colonel, the information I carry to the general is so important that it cannot wait for the exchange of polite lies between the nobility. Please take me to him."

  "And if I refuse?" Skippon asked.

  "Then take me to John Hampden."

  "John and his Berkshire Greencoats are spread out all along the Thames to protect the villages from reprisals. What is it that is so important?"

  Daniel pulled him towards the river bank and away from large ears. "There is a sickness in the town that could easily become an epidemic if this siege is not turned into a quarantine. The royalists must not be allowed to leave carrying this sickness. Our men must not be allowed to enter the town while the sickness still rages."

  "Sickness is normal after a siege," Skippon told him. "It will be camp fever. Once the defenders leave those walls, it will run its course and be done with. And of course my first order will be to renew the latrines, and make sure of the water supply.” It would indeed be his order, for Fat Robin felt himself too important to deal with such trivial details of running an army camp.

  "Would that it were only camp fever. Your siege has been less than ten days, so not long enough to cause camp fever in the defenders. This sickness began over a month ago, perhaps two, and in the town when it was not under siege and was well provisioned and well organized."

  "Well don't leave me hanging," Skippon complained. "What is this sickness?"

  "A spotted fever that the Greeks call Typhos. Some of its symptoms are very like camp fever, but it is spread by fleas and lice rather than by bad food and bad water. A man may be sick with it for a month before he suffers the fevers and chills. Did you ever come across the like in your times serving in the German wars?"

  "Nay, but in those wars I was a company commander, not an army camp nursemaid," Skippon said ruefully. "Does anyone else know that this Typhos is in the town?"

  "Captain Culpepper. I was asking his advice when the attack began. He is learned in the medical arts."

  Skippon turned to the small group of officers who had accompanied him and he commanded them to, "Arrest this man and keep him in solitary confinement. He is not to speak to anyone, and he is to be allowed no visitors. Also, there is a Captain Culpeper wounded down by the bridge. He is to be sent back to London for treatment immediately."

  Daniel made the split second decision NOT to pull his pistols and hold Skippon hostage, and not to try to escape along the riverbank. "You can't!" he hissed at the colonel.

  "Oh but I must," Skippon replied. "Rumours of such an epidemic could turn our hard won surrender upside down, and ruin Hampden's plans of marching on Oxford."

  "Then I will surrender to you on one condition," Daniel said quickly for the other officers were ready to grab him. "That you will visit me at least once a day, so that you can keep me abreast of what is happening and I can advise you accordingly."

  Skippon said nothing but he did nod, and then Daniel was dragged away. His decision not to fight and not to try to escape was an obvious one. If his continued silence was so important to Skippon, then he may well have ordered him shot while escaping. Instead he gave his word as an officer that he would behave, and then mounted Femke and was escorted to the manor being used as Essex's headquarters. There he was locked up down some steep stairs in what must have been the wine cellar. The worst news was that there was no wine in it, only books, and there was no candle with which to read them.

  The hours spent in the dark dank cellar was worrying for Daniel because his imagination became filled with the touch of creepy crawly vermin in all of his hairy places. Such vermin were unavoidable on journeys, and usually he spent part of each day searching for and squishing such creatures, but to do that you needed some light and he had no light at all. Today he could not keep his mind off them because of the sickness they may carry.

  When the door opened and a tray of food came through with a candle lantern balanced upon it, he was more relieved by the light than by the food. The tray was carried by none other than Philip Skippon, the grizzled veteran who had sent him to this cellar. "The fools," Skippon hissed, "I ordered them to lock you up and allow no one to speak with you, not cast you into a dungeon. I suppose I shouldn't be so critical. This was likely the only private place left in this overcrowded manor."

  Without saying a word, Daniel reached forward and captured the candle lantern and drew it towards him. As if by magic the creepy crawly feelings seemed to disappear. Any hope of being led to better quarters evaporated, however, as Skippon put the tray down on a shelf and then turned to someone outside the door and hissed. "Bring a camp bed with clean bedding, two chairs, a small table, and a few nights worth of candles, and be quick about it.” There was a sound of frantic scurrying on the stone steps that led up to the ground floor.

  "I take it that you didn't come to release me?" Daniel asked.

  "You will be held in here for a few more days, at most a week," Skippon replied. "You should be thankful. When I reported to Essex that I had detained you, and that you had ordered the firing of the grape, his first reaction was to order that you be handed over to Prince Rupert. Once I told him of the news, er, warning that you carry, he agreed with me that you should not be allowed to speak with anyone. So you see, the same foul news that caused your imprisonment has also saved your life."

  "Ignoring my own fate, it would have been to the greater good to hand me to the prince so I could explain to him that the Reading garrison would carry an epidemic into Oxford."

  "Don't be so naive," Skippon hissed as he looked behind him to make sure that there was no one in the hallway to hear his words. He kept his voice barely above a whisper. "If what you told me is correct and the first symptoms of this illness are a lassitude of mind and muscle that lasts for weeks, then it is in our interest to have it spread to the king's garrison in Oxford."

  "I would rather be called naive than insane," Daniel hissed back, "and playing politics with epidemics is nothing short of insanity. The king is just across the river. Explain the situation to him. Have he and Essex agree to quarantine Reading. Captain Culpeper told me that there are Greek texts that tell all about the sickness and how to contain it. It can be done, so long as it does not escape out of Reading and into the rest of the kingdom."

  "If I were the Lord General, that is exactly what I would do, but I am not he. Essex has already decided and will not be sw
ayed otherwise. We are to promise anything to the Reading garrison to hurry their surrender and hurry their march to Oxford. If this illness fells the Oxford garrison, then that will be God's will and none of our doing."

  With a shake of his head Daniel turned away so he could think. He was the living proof that it was not God's will at all, but at least partially Essex's doing. That is, if he stayed alive. A year ago he and Essex had almost come to blows, and if something sparked that memory to Essex while he was being held here, then he would likely meet with some unfortunate and fatal accident. He could think of no way of stopping the spread the illness to Oxford, not if the officers ignored his warning.

  "Colonel, will you promise me that after the royalists have quit Reading, that our own army will not be allowed to enter the town until it has been cleaned of vermin. I have been told that to contain the spread of the illness you must shave and thorough clean those that are ill, and those that nurse them, and while this is being done you must burn the beds, the bedding, and the clothes that were used by them. This must all be completed before our own army is billeted in the town."

  "I can promise nothing, but I will speak about it with Essex and with the mayor and justices of the town. They meet upstairs as we speak. Actually, the mayor is petitioning Essex not to billet the army in the town. They have suffered all winter from 3,000 royalists being billeted with the 5,000 townfolk, and they are pleading poverty and ruin should Essex do the same."

  They both stopped talking because a squad of men arrived. Skippon stayed while the burly men shoved aside the wine racks to make room for the furniture they had brought down the steep stairs, but he left with the squad once Daniel's dismal quarters were arranged. He was again left to his own thoughts, but at least this time he had light. The first task he set himself was to explore the cellar, not so much to find a way to escape, but to find out if there were any nests of vermin. It was a long and itchy night, though in the morning he could find no fresh bites on his skin.

  Again it was Skippon who brought his breakfast, although a lesser man swapped the slop bucket. Once they were alone Skippon told him, "Without giving them reason for alarm, I did ask the Mayor and his party about the general condition of the folk of Reading. They did mention that there was a great deal of illness in the pressed and enlisted royalist infantry, but attributed it to the camp fever that often happens with crowded conditions. They told me that if the 600 musketeers had not arrived by barge to relieve them, that they would have surrendered sooner, for without them there were not enough infantry well enough to man the defenses."

  Daniel listened carefully to every word, and then asked, "Did they say how the infantry was housed?"

  "Badly. The cavalryer gentlemen were billeted in private homes, whereas the infantry were crammed into wool and cloth warehouses. The main earnings of the town are from cloth, so the town revolves around wool, wool processing, weaving, cloth, and clothiers. This I tell you in one breath, whereas they went on and on for an hour about how their business has been ruined. That their warehouses are now empty, and all shipments in and out are cancelled, and all existing stores were used up sewing royalist uniforms, for which they have yet to be paid. Over and over they made the same points."

  "But if they are in the wool business," Daniel said as the thought came to him, "then when men fell ill in their warehouses, they must have taken it very seriously. Everyone from shepherds to bowkers to fullers to weavers are terrified of the woolsorter’s disease."

  "Are the symptoms very different?"

  "Aye, with woolsorter’s any cut or scrape or wound turns into a black sore which poisons your blood and you die within days. The black sore is why the physician's call it by its Greek name anthracite. No, that is a type of hard coal, um, anthrax."

  "So they knew it wasn't woolsorter’s, and assumed it was camp fever. They did describe the symptoms exactly as you told me. First a lethargy of muscle and spirit, then a fever and the trots, but not disgusting trots, just water. Those that died, died because they did not take the dangers of the fever and dehydration seriously enough. Apparently the fever can rise unabated if the skin and head are not cooled."

  Daniel stared at Skippon as he mouthed the big words to himself. The trouble with gentlemen officers is that they tended to be over educated so they used many fancy sounding words from the French side of English. It took him a while to realize that dying of dehydration meant the same as dying of thirst, and rising unabated meant the same as higher and higher. "Did they mention if they had any foreign cloth in those warehouses. Cloth from say Holland or Flanders?"

  "As a matter of fact, they did, sort of. The mayor said that the first men to fall ill ruined bolts of expensive cloth that he had bought at a good price from the cargo of a prize ship. A Dunkirker prize ship, so from Flanders. How did you know? Why would you ask? Oh, of course, vermin on the cloth. Continental cloth carrying continental vermin carrying a continental sickness. Jesus wept! Of course, that is exactly what would have happened."

  "You see!" Daniel exclaimed. "It all fits. The symptoms, the source, everything. You must have Essex quarantine Reading and send a messenger to the king explaining why."

  "It is too late. The king has sent the garrison his permission for them to accept the terms. The deal is done. The garrison is packing as we speak. They are to keep everything that is theirs, including their horses and guns, and even field guns, and march out of the town and across Caversham bridge this afternoon." Skippon's face looked ashen, or perhaps it was just the grey morning light coming down the staircase. "I must leave you. I must go to Essex and insist that our army does not enter the town, at least not yet."

  "That should be easy enough to order."

  "Hah, easy, you jest. Our army has been sat in Windsor doing nothing all winter, while stories keep circulating about how other regiments are getting rich on the spoils of raiding cathedrals and royalist manors. To keep our army from deserting, Essex has promised them better wages, but he is now two months behind in their pay."

  Daniel nodded his understanding. This was a tactic typical of the conniving officer elite on both sides of this war. If a soldier is owed silver, he hangs about in hopes of collecting it, for if he deserts he gets nowt. The armies on both sides were always kept out of pocket. "I can guess the rest. Even though Reading strongly supports the rebellion, especially after being occupied and abused by the royalists for the entire winter, our own army wants to loot it."

  "Aye, and only by paying them can we stop the looting. We were promised a shipment of silver coins large enough to bring their pay up to date, but the men think it just another empty promise. The truth of it is that chests of Dutch silver coins were captured with a royalist ship by Colonel Waller, and supposedly it is being shipped to us from Bristol. Unfortunately there is no sign of it yet. Worse, we must assume that Prince Rupert knows of the shipment, and will have his flying squads riding far and wide to find it. For all we know, the devil may have captured it already."

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

  Chapter 23 - The Surrender of Reading in April 1643

  Femke seemed so petite compared to the great hunters standing all around her. Daniel had been allowed out of his cellar in order to be on hand for advice during the handing over of the town. Although Femke and he stood less than a dozen paces from 'Fat Robin', the general was completely ignoring his existence. That was to be expected for to a man of his exalted bloodlines, a mere clansman was beneath contempt. Fat Robin and his general staff were sitting on their costly horses near to Caversham Bridge while watching with smug satisfaction as the parade of royalists marched out of the town and along the road towards them.

  Femke nudged her way rudely through the taller horses so that she too could see. The parade was quite a sight. The wounded royalist General Aston came first in a carriage. He had been propped up in the seat to make it look like he was awake, but the drooling slack mouth
and the closed eyes spoke otherwise. Next came countless carts of all shapes and sizes carrying the sickly infantrymen who were too weak to walk. Behind the carts marched the rest of the royalist infantry. It was indeed lucky that 600 musketeers had snuck into the town by barge just the week before, because the backs and legs of those fresh men were helping the original garrison infantry by carrying their gear for them.

  Essex's infantry, thousands and thousand of them, stood in a silent column all along the route from the town to the bridge. They had been placed there in case of trickery by the royalist garrison or by the royalist force waiting on the other bank of the Thames. With the draw-span down there was the very real fear that Rupert's flying army may try to take the bridge again. The sorry state of the royalist infantry was having a solemning effect on the rebel infantry. Instead of yelling cat calls at the vanquished, Essex's foot were speaking urgently to each other in hushed tones.

  The Sergeant Major came to make a report to Essex. "There's a lot of rumours running through the ranks, sir. They are not happy that the king's infantrymen have been so poorly kept and they are speculating the cause. After all, our siege is less than ten days old so there hasn't been time for starvation, and yet they look so weak as if they had been starved."

  "Rumours?" Essex asked. "What kind of rumours?"

  "Different ones. About camp fever, about bad food, about mistreatment by their officers." The sergeant major cut the list short because he had almost said 'nob officers' to this group of nob officers. "Such rumours may be good news in disguise. They may help our recruiting efforts."

  "Rumours can be dangerous," Essex replied, "so I want silence in the ranks." He looked about at all of the officers gathered around him. "Spread out and move behind our column and order them all to be silent.” As the officers rode away to do that, Essex found himself alone except for Skippon and the Admiral's spy, Daniel something-or-other. He had once been told that this man was too good of a shot to ever challenge to a duel, so he certainly did not want to be left alone with him. "You," he pointed on the man on the pony, "go and make yourself useful. Stop those rumours."