Pistoleer: Roundway Down

by Smith, Skye

  The tactical strength of the cuirassier’s heavy armour was also its greatest weakness - the weight. Musket balls, arrows, spears and sabres all bounced off the heavy armour, but get the man on the ground and he may as well surrender. Without the horse to carry the weight, he has little mobility to speak of. It was only common sense that if your musket ball was going to bounce off the armour then you may as well shoot the horse to put the rider onto the ground.

  "If we are attacked by royalist cavalry," Daniel called out to his lads, "aim at the horses not the men. Take away their horses and they will withdraw soon enough. The king's gentlemen think too highly of themselves to fight on foot against mere mortals such as we."

  The lads all nodded in agreement, for they had all seen battles before, and as more than half were wearing steel chest armour rather than boiled leather armour, they had seen some successes. All of them were unlashing their axes from their saddles so they could block the Marlborough fork of the road with felled trees. It was usual to leave such work to dragoons because they carried axes rather than sabres. Dragoons were mounted infantry skirmishers, so creating ambushes was what they did best.

  While they were resting after felling so much timber, Daniel tried to convince the lads to stop loading their dragons with multiple pistol balls and load them for dragon's breath instead. When they complained that they carried no bird shot for the load, he had Sergeant Henry Foster bring over the troop's pack animal. Five small sacks of bird shot were weighing the poor beast down.

  By the time that Hopton's scouts discovered the ambush on the Marlborough road, Daniel and his troop were no longer there. Five troops of infantry had come to relieve them at the ambush. They were escorted by a company of cavalry, with a Major Duett in command. Duett ordered Daniel and his dragoons to accompany his troop further towards Devizes to set up another ambush. They had ridden but two miles towards Devizes when they heard the distant popping of muskets. By the sound of it, all hell must have broken lose back at the fork in the road.

  Daniel wanted to turn back to support the infantry, but Duett overruled him by explaining, "This has all been planned by the general. Hopton cannot afford any delay other than the briefest of skirmishes because our army is right on his tail. The infantry at the fork has orders to take pot shots at the column, but not to break from the safety of their cover. The entire plan was to use the ambush at the fork not only to slow the column down and force it onto the Devizes road, but also to try to separate Maurice and his flying army from the rear of the column. Our orders are to continue on and set up barricades in likely ambush places all the way to Devizes."

  It was a day of hard work for the dragoons. The cavalry, of course, carried sabres rather than axes, so they were quite happy to stand on guard while the dragoons attacked trees and bushes with their axes. No sooner had they set up one barricade than they mounted up to ride on to the next likely place. Daniel was beginning to admire Waller's plan. By slowing Hopton's column and harrying it every step of the way, Waller would encourage more of the Cornish infantry to desert, and indeed, they were deserting. Meanwhile Maurice's cavalry would be kept very busy riding up and down the column to guard against ambushes.

  After setting up the last of their ambushes, Daniel and his dragoons took a well earned rest on a rise above it to the north. Some of the lads had led the horses to water at a spring at the foot of an escarpment. "The locals call it Mother Anthony's Well," Henry told them, "because where it comes out of the cliff it is clean enough to let babies drink from it, so fill our water skins while you're there." He leaned towards Daniel and said in a lower voice. "I always wondered why any spring that is safe to drink is considered holy in this kingdom."

  Daniel ignored him because he was staring intently down at their final ambush site. They had blocked a small bridge at the village of Rowde less than two miles from Devizes. From their viewpoint they had a good view of the bridge and of the road leading up to it, a road that was now clogged with Hopton's column. In the delay while Hopton's army cleared the blockage and got across the bridge, Waller's cavalry was on them. True, most of Hopton's column did make it across the bridge and into Devizes, but at a great cost to Maurice's flying army who were covering their rear. He had counted perhaps fifty of the king's gentlemen being injured or taken prisoner by Major Duett and his cavalry.

  While the cavalry were fighting it out, what remained of Hopton's Cornish infantry was streaming into Devizes, where they immediately set to work blocking the outer streets with anything large enough for musketeers to hide behind. Once Waller's musketeers arrived, both sides began shooting at each other. Waller's cavalry tried to flank the town, but retreated when musketeers opened fire on them from the town's old castle. Devizes was a royalist garrison town, and that garrison must have been manning the castle walls.

  It was at this point that Daniel brought out his Dutch made looker to survey the castle defenses, for the town itself had no wall. "They'll not take that castle by storm," Daniel told the lads and passed his looker on to Henry, who had a good stare through it and then passed it to his corporal.

  The corporal took one look through the pipe, and then let go of it with both hands as if it were burning hot. "Witchcraft," says he, "and in my hands, and my eyes, and my mind."

  Henry was ready to cuff the man for dropping the precious instrument, but Daniel stayed his hand and instead ordered the corporal to pick it up and clean the dust off it. "Not witchcraft lad, but science. Does your Gran use spectacles for reading?"

  "My Gran can't afford them, but her neighbour does."

  "Well these glass lenses are like the ones she wears, except that in this pipe they are in a line one after another after another. Pick it up lad and look at how it is made. You could make one yourself if you had the lenses. None of the lenses cracked did they?"

  "Nay sir," the corporal said sheepishly as he looked at the lenses at each end, and then tried the looker again.

  "One lens makes the next seem larger, and so the third. Changing the length of the pipe can make the vision clearer. Now pass it along and let the others have a try.” While the lads were passing it along, Daniel stood and stretched and looked up and all around at the escarpment and high ground to the north of them. There seemed to be a track up through a gulley that was choked with low brush. As he stood there looking, a lad brought a refreshed Millie back to him. He told the others, "Go and fetch your horses and meet me at the top." And then he led Millie along a sheep track that seemed to traverse its way up the slope and over to the gulley.

  Duett's last order to Daniel was to block the Devizes to Marlborough road, and that road was somewhere on the other side of the escarpment. They were to camp along that main road all night if need be and capture any messengers riding in either direction. By climbing up to the highest point above, he would be able to see the lay of the land and the road that they were supposed to block.

  He took his time on the climb partially because he was tired and partially because he was enjoying the fine view out over the lowlands. He could see many groups of men making there way south overland away from the road that they had laid ambushes along, and it was his sincere wish that those men were Cornish deserters. The more the better, especially since one of the reasons for laying out so many ambushes had been to encourage them to desert. On a rough count of the groups he could see and the size of the groups, he estimated their number at between two and three hundred.

  Like all hills, there were harder ways and easier ways to the top, depending on the lay of the rocky outcrops and gulleys along the way. As steep paths go, the gulley track was not bad until he got to the last fifty feet before the top, but that was a hard grind. Once to the top and safe over the edge of the escarpment he rested and looked around. There was a nose of land sticking out from the escarpment with ancient earthworks still visible on it, so he mounted Millie and rode towards the very end of that nose. The nose was a wondrous place, a natural fortress, and it would be easy to believe that the ancients had
used it as such because it was a peninsula vaulted above the lowlands with the only approach from the plateau above the escarpment.

  Beyond it to the north across the plateau there was a higher hill, but he was satisfied to sit on the edge of this natural fortress and look down and all around. Now he regretted leaving his looker with the lads. Down below, they were labouring up the slope leading their horses, and would bring it to him soon enough. The only thing that marred the eerie godly feeling of this place was the crack of musket fire and the boom of cannons from down below. Again he missed having Rob Blake for company, for Rob had read history at Oxford and would likely know the history of this magical place.

  If he squinted his eyes, he could see the outline of an ancient ditch and dyke where some forgotten clan had long ago dug earthen work defenses on this nose. He could tell it was a hill fort and not a holy henge because the ditch was on the outside of the dyke not on the inside. There must be no water supply on the nose otherwise some Frenchie war lord would have built a stone castle here. He stood on the edge and raised his arms wide like the wings of a soaring eagle and it almost felt like he was being lifted by the rush of wind coming up the escarpment.

  The lads were getting close, so he put his arms down. Many of the lads were from Somerset and Wiltshire where there were steep hills and bluffs beyond counting, so they may not understand the wonder of this escarpment to a man who had grown up in the flattest of places, the Fens. As it turned out, he should have had more faith in the lads. On their arrival at this magic place, about ten of the lads walked to the edge and spread their arms like eagles in the same way that he had. Henry barked at them to stop the Tom foolery and step back from the crumbly edge.

  "Notice somethin'?" Henry asked Daniel. "No grazing animals, not even sheep. See how long and lush the grass is. No animal has grazed on it for months. And the poppies, look at how the poppies have spread. Well, at least poppies ain't bloody buttercup. Bloody thievin' royalists. Over the winter they must have claimed every animal worth eatin'. Blast, I could have done with a bit of spitted mutton for a change."

  "Keep your eyes open for the kitchen carts. They should be arriving soon enough," Daniel told him while looking out over the carpet of happy red flowers. Poppies were just an annoying weed to herdsmen, but buttercups were poisonous to all grass eaters. "Once you see the carts I'll send some of the lads down to bring us back some roast haunch of French."

  "Don't promise what you can't supply," Henry scolded. "We've been hungry since the battle of Lansdown, and we haven't seen a kitchen cart in days. Bloody Maurice has like as not slaughtered all our kitchen lads for sport, or for spite, like Rupert did at Edgehill." He passed the precious looker to his captain.

  Daniel took a careful look all around with it. This down was a rolling plateau with a half dozen hills. It looked an eerie place, an empty place, a land of grassy fields without trees or hedges or walls to mark the fields. Usually in open fields, whenever the farmer found a stone they would carry it to the edge of that field and plunk it down. Eventually they will have cleared the field of plough breaking stones, and meanwhile will have created walls of loose stones to mark the borders of their field. If there were no stones in the field, then they would plant hedges or trees to mark the borders. Here on these downs there were no field markers, just endless empty rolling meadows as far as he could see.

  Everyone was looking at him expectantly so he called to the corporal, "Take two lads with you and go below and find Major Duett." Duett was in command of Waller's own horse regiments, both his cavalry and his dragoons. "Give him my compliments and tell him that I advise that he send pickets and lookouts up here to keep these bluffs and hills safe for our own use.” The corporal touched his helmet and turned to go.

  "And see if you can't snag us some food," Henry added.

  "When you return you won't find us here," Daniel continued to the corporal, "but along the Marlborough coach road to the north of here, so don't bother coming back up the escarpment. It will be easier to cross the lower saddle of land and use the gentler slopes."

  "Aye, like the one the Devizes road goes up," Henry added.

  "So you know the roads around here?" Daniel asked.

  "Course I does," Henry replied. "In my youth I traveled with me gov’n’r explorin' the stone circles along the Marlborough coach road. From here they'd be about half way to Marlborough. They's the Devil's own work. The Devil and his giants used to rule this kingdom from up here on these chalk hills. This nose of land we sit on was called the Devil's Leap 'cause this is his step where he leaps up and down from the sky. That gorge just to the west is where he once missed his step and his talons rented the earth to get a grip. This is an accursed place, a haunted place, an evil place and god fearing men shouldn't be up here."

  "Don't you be scaring the men with your silly tales," Daniel scolded him, and then to the lads around them he explained, "That gorge was made by centuries of water running down the slope and leaching out the chalk."

  "Silly tales are they? Then how do you explain the great stones that are spread all over these chalk downs. Great hard stones that don't match any outcrop anywhere around here. I'll tell yee how. The devil's giants carried them here so they could throw them at their enemies, cause in them days they didn't have cannons or balusters - just giants throwing stones. That is why the stones stand up on top of the soil, even on top of hills. Alone or in threes they stand, as if marking the most accursed of places. Underneath every stone are the bones of them men that was crushed under them."

  "Chalk downs?" Daniel confirmed, feeling foolish. "So that is that why there are no field stone walls."

  "Aye, there are no field stones on the downs," Henry replied. "Just thin soil with dusty white chalk under it."

  "But there are no hedgerows or lines of trees either."

  "Hedgerows need water," Henry explained. "With chalk under the soil the water seeps right down. All the streams are under the ground, not on top. Not unless it is raining, but they vanish as soon as it stops. What you said before about them gulleys being cut by runoff water. That may be true enough. As for the trees, there used to be copses o' yew and beach in all the hollows, but they've since been burned."

  "By Devizes to make glass?" Daniel asked. Many of the forests of England had been stripped bare to feed the Tudor craving for glass windows.

  "Not glass, quick lime, slaked lime. There are chalk pits everywhere. Bloody man traps, they is, especially in the fog. Near each big pit is a chalk kiln. It takes a lot of trees to turn chalk into quick lime."

  "We have the same man traps where I come from in the Fens, except they are peat pits," Daniel explained. "Worse, for peat pits are usually filled with water deep enough to drown you. Chalk pits must be dry holes."

  "Aye, sometimes they are holes, but there are a lot of caves too. It is easier to mine the chalk by digging away at a natural gulley. All you have to do is undermine the side of it and then it caves in and almost falls into you cart. So in the fog it's not just the pits that'll kill yee, but the chalk cliffs. You'll be ridin' along a rollin' meadow and then suddenly you step out into emptiness and fall to your death. It's all the work of the Devil."

  "Stop frightening the lads. The Devil has no need to mine chalk. If you want to tell them old stories, then read to them from your holy book. Perhaps stories from a desert land will make them forget about how damp and miserable they've been since last summer."

  "Sorry, cap'n. I guess I've told too many stories around too many campfires. You're right, it wasn't the Devil who cut down all the trees and dug all the chalk pits. Most of that was the doing of two local families of land lords. The Gabys and the Nicholases."

  "All I know is that all of this rolling down is a cavalry commander's dream come true. It's all grazing meadow with no obstacles to break a horses pace and nowhere for the infantry to go to ground."

  "You're not the first to realize that, you know," Henry said with a chuckle, " which is why the ancients built earthwork fort
s all over the chalk downs. There is even a great ditch and dyke wall on yon ridge," he pointed north towards the largest of the hills. "One defensive ditch that stretches from that hill and all the way to Marlborough. That hill, by the way, is Saint Maggie’s hill. It's the highest place anywhere around here."

  Daniel suddenly realized that he knew the ancient dyke wall that Henry was describing. It was the one he had used it to sneak around the royalists on his last ride back from Lyme. He had told Blake about it and Blake had told him the name - Wansdyke. Just to be sure it was the same dyke he asked, "And on the other side of Maggie’s Hill is there an ancient road bedded with stone and brick? A straight road?"

  "Aye, that there is," Henry confirmed.

  "Mount up lads," Daniel called to the men. "Let's go find a place over on the other side of the down to set up camp.” He climbed aboard Millie and turned her up and along the top of the earthwork dyke that was the main feature of this nose of a plateau. Where the earthworks turned the corner of its square, he rode down and continued along the edge of the gulley they had used to climb up to the top of the escarpment.

  "Oye, get away from the edge, it's dangerous!" Henry shouted after him. Daniel stopped Millie and looked around while Henry caught up. "That gully you are riding along used to be all trees, bush, and game. A covet for game."

  "Trees? All I see is brambles.” Daniel replied.

  "Aye, well covets ain't owned land is they? They's common. The cottagers hereabouts have killed all the game and cut all the trees, and now the covet is their source of chalk for making slaked lime to pave the floors of their cottages. From up on the edge there is no way of knowing where and how deeply the buggers have undercut the bank. Get too close to the edge and the ground under your feet may give way and whoosh, landslide, you with it."