Pistoleer: HellBurner

by Smith, Skye

  "Sounds like the Pope,” Cleff cackled, which became a belly laugh when he saw the effect of his suggestion on the faces of these educated Protestant men. "What, can't you take a jest? Ooh, you should see your faces."

  "By what Cleff was saying earlier, according to British tradition the role or protector was the role of the elected king,” Oliver pointed out. "That would solve it. Let every mayor of every village cast a vote and chose the next king from the ranks of the kingdom's best mayors. Even you, Robert, could be elected king."

  "In your dreams,” Robert replied. "I could never win for I have become a purveyor of fine aquavitae, and at the moment the good Puritan wives all have a hate on for the demon spirits."

  "You, a Puritan, are a spirits trader?" Oliver said with shock in his voice.

  "Not a spirits trader,” Cleff laughed. "THE spirits trader. Robert and Daniel oversee and buy the finest Genever in Holland and ship it on Wellenhay ships to Cambridge, where it keeps all the wealthy students in a fine humour."

  "That is ... uh...,” Oliver searched for a word other than 'disgusting' so as not to insult Robert. "...sinful. I cannot believe that two so formidable men would take an active hand in ruining the lives of so many. And not just the ruin of the drunks, but of their families and all others who suffer from their drunken behaviour."

  Robert blushed and looked away. He had never been comfortable with his business of shipping Genever to England, and so he usually called himself a purveyor of fine woolens. As an excuse he said, "The drunkenness is not due to the aquavitae but to the abuse of it. The Dutch sip and savour their strong spirits, whereas the English bolt it down as if it were ale. Is that my fault?"

  Genever was five times the strength of strong ale, so the result of the English habit of binge drinking was streets awash with drunkards. "Our Genever is the finest. You won't find it sold in taverns. The malt wine is filtered before it is distilled, and then the resulting tawny Genever is flavoured with juniper berries and aged in smoky casks. It is sipped by the wealthy, not swilled by the street drunkards."

  "Aye,” Cleff added, "and if you wished to kill off half the aristos of Cambridgeshire, all you need do is add some oil of monkshood to our casks. And so what if the rich aristos do become drunkards? What is wrong with ruining the lives of the idle rich? Nothing that I can fault."

  "That having been said," mumbled Robert, "this is my last shipment of Genever. I've had word that my mother is dying and as the eldest son, I must take my savings to Somerset and clear my father's debts, for they will come due with a widow's last breath. My time in Holland is finished. I must go home and care for my younger brothers and sisters."

  Meanwhile, Daniel had returned from the bow where he had bored of watching out for sand bars in the river. Robert's last words made him frown. He and Robert had been partners in the Genever business for a year, a profitable year, and they had argued about his giving it up to return to Somerset. This was not the time or place to rekindle the argument, so he looked around for something with which to busy himself that would keep him within earshot of the men.

  Oliver watched with great interest as Daniel lodged an oar horizontally and then heaved his saddle leathers over it. They were not like any saddlebags that Oliver had ever seen, and he stared at them trying to figure them out.

  Daniel noticed his interest and said, "Robert and I spent enough time in Holland that we were required to join their militia. Due to our business we owned riding horses, so we joined the Pistoleers. These are the saddle leathers of a Dutch Pistoleer."

  He pulled the heavy leatherwork down straight on both sides of the oar. "It hangs over the shoulders of the horse, in front of the saddle and down in front of the rider's legs. The long leathers on each side keeps your legs safe from being slashed by bush or blade, but their main purpose is to provide holsters for your weapons so their handles are close to hand. I carry a pistol on each side, a carbine on the left and an axe on the right. Up top here there are pouches for the powder and shot, also close to hand."

  Daniel began reloading his carbine and then Robert's pistol. The carbine he had used to shoot the pistol from Edward Heath's hand, and the pistol for Robert's warning shot. "If you want the theory of using Pistoleers instead of Lancers, you must ask Robert, for he is the tactician. I am but a marksman, so all I can explain is the worth of weapons."

  Silence was Daniel’s cue to continue speaking about weapons. "This carbine is a musket with its stock and barrel shortened so that it can be used from a saddle. This one is rifled, which means that there are spiral grooves inside the barrel that set the ball spinning as it leaves the barrel. A spinning ball flies truer. Longer barrels aren't rifled because it makes them hard to keep clean."

  "Actually I was looking at your pistols,” Oliver pointed to the two holstered guns. "I have rarely seen such long pistols. The trend here in England is towards shorter and smaller. Are they old?" .

  "Old,” Daniel made a face and his voice took on a nasty edge. "They are the latest from the Dutch gunsmiths. Short pistols have no range, but they can be concealed. They are the tools of the assassin. We carry our pistols in plain sight in the holsters. Their locks are weatherproof, which is critical when fighting in the wetlands. The barrel is long enough to make a killing shot while still out of range of smaller pistols or lances."

  "Calm your temper, Dan,” Robert urged. "Most Englishmen have no idea why or how the Dutch use their flying squads of Pistoleers."

  "So tell me,” Oliver replied. "I want to know."

  Robert shifted his legs and made himself comfortable while he thought of a way to explain such tactics to a man who had probably never been in a modern gunpowder battle. "First, you must realize that pistols and muskets are replacements for arbalesters and crossbows, but they do not replace archers with bows. Guns, like crossbows, are slow to reload. In the time it takes me to reload my pistol, any trained archer can loose a dozen arrows at me.

  We carry two pistols and a carbine, so we have three shots before we must fall back to reload. Just as our horse gets us quickly into a fight, it also gets us quickly away to reload. We carry a long-handled axe rather than a cavalry sabre, because it has many other uses than just slashing at men."

  "So you are cavalrymen?"

  "Nay, the Dutch republicans don't field a true cavalry. In most armies, the aristocrats and nobility form the cavalry, but in the Netherlands the lordly have mostly sided with the Empire. The Imperial army is ruled by their lordly cavalry, but most of the grunt fighting is done by an infantry of mercenaries hired from across Europe. There is nothing more foolish than having cavalry officers command the infantry. They drill the mercenaries endlessly in using pike squares to defend against cavalry charges, and yet the Dutch republicans field no cavalry, just infantry militias and field cannons."

  Daniel interrupted. "Poor brave bastards. They stand in their pike square formations and get mowed down by Dutch cannon grape. It's as if they are still fighting the last war, a war from before field cannons were perfected by the Swedes."

  "As I was explaining," Robert shot 'the look' at Daniel to stop his interruptions, "The republicans have no cavalry but they do need some mounted forces, so they created the Pistoleers. We are companies of mounted infantry and we carry carbines and pistols instead of heavy armour and lances. We ride fast cheap horses rather than huge expensive chargers.

  When the army is on the march, we Pistoleers serve as scouts and messengers. When the army is forming their fighting lines, we serve as skirmishers and make targeted attacks either on leaders or on powder supplies. As the armies close on each other, we serve as a light cavalry to keep the enemies' cavalry and skirmishers at bay. Once the battle is fully engaged, we serve as a fast-moving reserve infantry, for filling in holes in our lines, or for pushing through any advantage."

  "Dangerous missions all,” Oliver whistled in awe. "A Pistoleer must have a short lifespan."

  "Not so short,” Robert replied, "for the regular infantry admire the Pistol
eers. You have to be related to knights and nobles to be a cavalryman, and so the cavalrymen lord it over the infantry. Although we are mounted, we are still infantrymen. Any regular infantryman has a chance of someday becoming a Pistoleer, which means that every musket, every bow, and every pike is willing and eager to protect our backs.

  The infantry well know that once we have fired our three shots that we must retreat to reload. They trust that once we have reloaded, we will be back to help them again. It is in their own interest to protect our retreat. Dangerous, yes, but no more dangerous than being an infantryman. At least we are on light fast horses, so we can retreat in a hurry."

  Oliver said pensively, "I begin to understand why the little Dutch republics have lasted so long against the massive Imperial armies. Just as the seas protect the English from foreign Papists, modern gunpowder tactics protect the Dutch."

  "Aye, well spoken,” Robert nodded. "The safety of the republics depends on each republican doing his duty, and the safety of each republican depends on his weapons. A republican without a pistol is nothing more than lance bait waiting for the aristocracy to finish him. I foresee the day when every good republican will carry a pistol. Whatever his main weapon is, whether he be pikeman or bowman or musketeer, he will also have a pistol in his belt, just in case. One last shot reserved for saving his own life or that of a friend."

  "Or,” Daniel interrupted, "for taking the life of their worst enemy."

  "So, of the many duties of the Pistoleers, which is the most important?" asked Oliver.

  The two Pistoleers looked at each other and shrugged and motioned to each other to speak first.

  "Blowing up powder kegs and killing artillerymen,” said Robert. "Fast ambushes to put the enemy's big guns out of the battle. The biggest danger to our brothers in the regular infantry is a cannon shooting grape."

  "Bah,” Daniel said while he stroked is now reloaded carbine. "That is important yes, but only after you have killed the elite officers and paymasters. You know, the Empire's chief slave masters. The faster we kill all the aristocrats, the faster we will have a lasting peace for all the folk on both sides. Why bother shooting the gunners when they will all run back to their farms once their paymaster is shot?"

  While the two friends argued these points, the small ship turned up the River Cam. Every man, woman and child working in the fields along both banks stood tall and waved to them, for they all knew this ship and the men who rowed her. Between the trees Cambridge's watch tower came into view. By now the watch in the tower would have sent a warning of the ship's approach to the garrison, to the docks, and to the market place.

  Cleff now took the tiller, while everyone except Oliver ran out an oar, for they were approaching the fastest currents of the River Cam. After rounding a bend they passed the village of Upware, where the locals had dredged a canal behind their weir to serve as a small harbour for the local barges and coastal ships. Everyone waved to them, and yelled out questions about the cargo they carried. Most of the boats in the small harbour would soon be pulled out of the water to allow their keels to be dried and scraped and resealed during the winter storm season.

  Oliver stood beside Cleff at the tiller in case he could help with anything. He had not visited a city for the entire year that he had been sorting out the bookkeeping mess left by his uncle, the previous titheman of Ely. He had lived in a city, Huntingdon, until he had been financially brutalized by the Heaths and had fled to the farming hamlet of St. Ives. In hindsight, it had been a bad choice of a haven, for the common land of St. Ives had already been enclosed and privatized. Without access to grazing and water for their animals, the cottage farmers could no longer support their families.

  No matter how hard he tried to make a go of his small farm in St. Ives, he was doomed to fail, and with the ongoing failures had come his bouts of depression. Years of endless depression, until his uncle in Ely had fallen ill and could no longer keep up with his duties as the Abbey titheman. He had been chosen over his oafish cousin to replace his dying uncle, and so he had moved his family from St Ives to Ely.

  Now, by borrowing some courage from the company of these dangerous and worldly men, he convinced himself that he was past due a visit to a city, though he was glad that the city was Cambridge and not Huntingdon. Huntingdon held too many bad memories for him. Just seeing his grandfather's George Inn, now owned by the Heaths, would have filled him with grief.

  At Cambridge the welcome for the ship and crew began at an inn called The George, but this was the inn at Midsommer Common. Though many that sat at the garden tables of the inn waved to them, those on the oars could not wave back. They were all putting their backs into the oars to make headway against the current. Once through the narrows they were in view of the docks at Monk's Corner, the highest ship's docks on the Cam since the building of the Castle Street bridge.

  After so long away from the wantonness of cities, Oliver was shocked at the flurry of publicly sinful activities at the Cambridge docks. Not the sins, so much as them being done in public. The sins of Ely folk were private sins, not public ones. Lechery, adultery, whoring, drunkenness, gambling were not strangers to Ely, but they were done discretely and done under cover and hidden and rarely spoken of.

  As the titheman, of course, it was Oliver's job to know about all of it in case there were tithes owing. Know of it but not to speak of it. No one wanted him to report it to the Abbey, not those doing the sinning, not those being sinned against, and certainly not the Bishop, who would then be expected to do something about the sinning.

  Here at the Cambridge docks, the ready availability of tempting sins was openly being announced and flaunted. Seamen, whether local or foreign, were a ready source of income for the professional sinners, and the competition for their coins was fierce. It was as if all of the folk of the alehouses and markets had spilled out at once onto the pathways that ran towards the river bank between the docks and the warehouses.

  Almost as soon as the ribald crowd of purveyors of fine sins saw the name of the ship, and the fair hair of the crew that rowed it, they lost interest and began to walk away. This was not a crew that would be paid out their wages in Cambridge, but only once they safely reached their own local villages. Wages paid out close to home would be pocketed by their womenfolk and kept safe for the winter needs.

  Moreover, this was not a crew that would be searching out loose women, because their own clanswomen were handsome and willing. This was not a crew that tempted the shrewd gamblers, for to cheat one would be viewed the same as to cheat the entire clan, which would end badly for the gamblers. And as for getting them liquored up, hah, they were just in from Holland with a cargo of the finest Genever.

  By the time the ship was tied off, and the mast's spar re-rigged as a crane to help unload the casks, the crowds from the inns and alehouses had dispersed and had been replaced by the keepers of the inns and alehouses, all yelling out for samples before the bidding for the casks began. One of the loudest of the innkeeps was invited to choose a cask for the sampling, which he did slowly while tapping and sniffing and pretending he could tell the quality without opening each cask. Eventually he chose one, and Robert stood it on the aft castle close to the dock and tapped it. Men pressed towards it, each holding up a silver cup to be filled.

  Meanwhile, old Cleff had walked to the hut beside the dock to show his manifest to the port clerk. Some of the crew were now on the dock and they waded into the crowd of would-be samplers, to give the push to anyone not carrying a silver tasting cup. Robert himself did the pouring by giving a first small taste to everyone close by. This tasting might use up a small cask but it served to delay the bidding until word made it around the city to all the private houses and colleges that there was prime Genever for sale on the docks. Possibly the last fine Dutch spirits that would be sold in Cambridge before winter winds closed the sea and Christmas revelers filled the halls.

  The poseurs in the crowd of tasters were sipping and sniffing and smacking their lips
and sucking air over the liquor and then describing the sensations in terms of flowers and fruits. The truly serious buyers stood beside Robert and looked at the glass bowl of it that he had drawn so everyone could judge the clarity and pale colour. One of them produced a strange measuring stick that he floated in the bowl and then read off the notches that marked how high it floated.

  "It measures the strength of it,” Robert told Oliver over his shoulder as he refused again to start the bidding. Within two hours the crowd of serious buyers had doubled in size, and every cask had been sold. Most of it was bought by the wealthy colleges, though three of the finer inns also bought some. None was bought by the alehouses. Oliver was amazed at the amount of gold changing hands and he mentioned it to Daniel.

  "That’s why I have my pistols under my belt,” Daniel replied. "The difference in price between bathtub Genever and the finery we carry is tenfold. The idle rich don't want to learn how to savour good Genever, they just want to know that they are swigging the best, which to them means the most costly."

  "They pay through the nose,” Oliver quipped. He had just watched one of the poseurs sniffing his cup and then listened to his fanciful utterances describing the delicate touch of Juniper berry. "May I try some?"

  "But Oliver, you are a Puritan, and this is the devil's own drink." Daniel was just poking fun at the Abbey's man, for he motioned Robert to pass Oliver a measure. Only once Oliver was coughing and sputtering as the burn reached his throat, did Daniel remind him that this was the finest of sipping spirits, and therefore not mixed nor watered down.

  When he could finally speak again, Oliver made the observation, "A dock filled with people of all walks of life have witnessed a fortune in coin being exchanged to Robert. Surely he will be marked to be robbed. It is a long way to Somerset."