by Ann Swinfen
The next day brought rain so heavy that it was almost impossible to perceive the difference between daylight and the preceding night. About halfway through the morning, the additional soldiers arrived again, and John and the others were rounded up. John slipped his Boethius into one pocket of his doublet and his handmade chess pieces and his Bible into another. He tied up the bundle of his spare linen, and tucked his pipe amongst the clothes, hoping that somewhere he might be fortunate enough to obtain more tobacco. Coming down the stairs from his chamber, he encountered Jacob.
‘So you’re released at last, Master Swynfen?’
‘We’ve been told nothing,’ said John. ‘It may be that they’re simply moving us to another prison. Our fellows were marched off under armed guard yesterday. It didn’t look much like freedom to me.’
He felt in his pocket for a coin to give Jacob, from the small store smuggled to him by Anne, and tried to press it into the man’s hand, but Jacob would not take it.
‘Nay, man,’ said John, ‘don’t refuse. We’ve all been more grateful than we can tell for your many kindnesses.’
Jacob shook his head.
‘I will not take it, sir. If you’re indeed set free, then you may come back and buy me a drink, and I’ll drink with you gladly, but until you’re sure, best keep every penny you have. You may be going to a worse place, where you’ll need money for food or blankets. I beg you, sir, keep it until you are free.’
John seized Jacob’s hand and shook it warmly.
‘You’re a good man, Jacob. And as soon as I am free, we shall drink a bottle each of the best Canary wine that money can buy in the whole of London town. Have a care of yourself, now. In this new state of the realm, you may not be as free to bestow kindness as you have been in the past.’
With that he joined the other prisoners at the door, where the soldiers formed up in their usual fashion, a musketeer taking each prisoner firmly by the arm, while others with drawn swords surrounded them, and they were marched off down the Strand towards Whitehall Palace. They had not gone more than half a dozen paces before the rain found its way down the back of John’s neck, between the brim of his hat and the collar of his cloak. Before they reached the Cross, his boots were sodden from the deep puddles in the road, and the bundle under his arm stained with the wet.
At the gates of the Palace, the party was broken up, and the prisoners were led away in different directions, without even the time to bid each other farewell. John found himself conducted around to the back premises of the Palace, into a cluster of stables and outbuildings. A farmer’s cart was standing in the yard, the kind used to carry produce to market, the kind his own labourers used at Swinfen to take corn or beans to Lichfield. It was long and wide, with a shallow-sided body and a tall canvas hood stretched over hoops for a cover. Suddenly John was grabbed by two of the musketeers and heaved into the cart, cracking his head and sprawling amongst a litter of dirty straw. Dazed, he had no time to scramble up before four of the soldiers climbed into the cart behind him. They were not careful where they put their feet. One trod on his hand. Another kicked him, perhaps not accidentally, in the ribs.
John struggled to his feet, the blow on the head making him dizzy and unsteady. Two of the men immediately pushed him down again, so that he was forced to crouch on the floor, while they loaded their packs and two or three dozen wooden crates into the cart. They arranged some of the crates for seats, and laced together the flaps of the cover at the rear to keep out the rain. When their preparations were complete, one of them thrust his head between the flaps of canvas at the front of the cart and called something to the driver. With a heave and a jerk, the heavy cart got under way. John, having nothing to hold on to, tumbled sideways against the sharp edge of one of the crates. The soldiers laughed.
They were a rough and dirty set of men, the dregs of the New Model Army, into which Tom Fairfax had tried to instil discipline and pride. Certainly during the renewed fighting of the last year, the army had been obliged to conscript many unwilling men, and amongst the volunteers it had always attracted the worst sort—homeless, broken men, criminals released from prison, thieving servants turned away from employment, and men who saw in the army unlimited opportunities for violence, rape and pillage. These four had the look about them of this last sort. They kept John sitting on the floor while they lounged on their improvised seats, which must have been far from comfortable, but were at least raised from the dirt and lice mixed in with the straw on the bed of the cart.
Covertly, John studied them. A broad-shouldered man with a broken nose and wiry black hair seemed to be in charge, though he wore no distinguishing marks about his rough uniform. Another, the heaviest built of the soldiers, with hands and feet like slabs of butcher’s meat, wore the vaguely unfocused look of a man weak in the wits or well into his cups. There was a small, weasel-faced youth of about eighteen, whose eyes were intent upon meeting each other across the bridge of his nose. The fourth man, the one who had kicked John so viciously, caught his eye and grinned with malicious pleasure as John sprawled at his feet.
John kept silent, assuming that he was being moved from one place of imprisonment in London to another. He had no wish to give the men the satisfaction of refusing him information. They passed a flagon of beer from hand to hand, and the youth poked at his teeth with a piece of stick. They said little to each other, merely grunting acknowledgement as the beer went round. It seemed to John that the cart had turned west as it left Whitehall Palace, but he could not guess in what direction they were now travelling. The day was so dark that even outside it had been nearly impossible to see the position of the sun. Inside the cart, under the brown canvas hood, in the dim light, there was no way of judging the points of the compass. If indeed they were heading west, it might mean he was being taken to Windsor, to join Waller, Clotworthy and the others. Why had they suddenly decided he was so dangerous that he must be imprisoned there? For, judging by the way he had been manhandled, he must still regard himself as a prisoner and not a man on his way to freedom.
After about an hour, the men opened one of the packs they had brought with them and took out food. They had pies and fresh loaves and a whole cheese which they broke apart with their dirty hands. The leader tore off the crust of a loaf and a piece of cheese, and threw them on to the floor beside John.
The vicious-looking thug jeered.
‘Weren’t nothing in our orders about feeding him, Tize,’ he said.
The first man shrugged.
‘If we hand him over dead, there’s some as might ask questions, and you know it as well as I do, Ed. I don’t feed him out of kindness.’
John pondered this exchange, looking at the bread and cheese lying in the straw. A beetle ran across the cheese and paused thoughtfully, waving its front legs about. It seemed interested in the smell. The men were afraid he might die if they did not feed him, so they must be travelling a great deal further than Windsor. No man would die of hunger on the way there. If a long journey lay ahead and he was not to waste away, he had better swallow his pride and eat the food they tossed him, like any beaten cur.
He picked up the bread and cheese, brushed off the beetle, and began to eat.
It was many hours before the cart stopped. The men had a large supply of drink, and they became first merry and then melancholy as more of the flagons were emptied. The stench in the cart grew worse as they used a corner of it freely as a piss-pot. At first John sat with his back against the side of the cart and his hands about his knees, but the rough movement of the cart, perhaps combined with the blow he had received on the head, began to fill him with nausea. At last he lay down, as far away from the men as he could contrive, with his aching head on his bundle of clothes and curled up to protect himself in case they started kicking again.
He was woken by the sense of the cart stopping and the sound of voices. He opened his eyes cautiously. Ed and the youth also lay asleep on the floor. From the smell, one of them had vomited th
e last of his drink. The big man sat dozing on one of the crates, with his head bowed on his chest and his hands hanging slack between his knees. The fourth man, the one they called ‘Tize’, was leaning through the gap in the canvas cover at the front of the cart, talking to the driver, although John could not make out the words. Still confused and half asleep, John began to think that it might be possible to escape from his guards, if he chose his moment with care. He moved his head cautiously, so that he could examine the fixings of the canvas cover at the rear of the cart. A sharp pain stabbed through his head and he only avoided crying out by biting his lips.
The canvas flaps were still laced together. Unless all the men were to fall asleep at the same time, he would never have time to unlace them unnoticed. The cover was fastened down tightly along the sides of the cart, with no gap through which a man might slip. That left only the front, where the flaps overlapped but did not seem to be secured, perhaps so that the driver could pull them around himself for shelter. But it would be impossible to escape that way while the driver sat in his seat. At some time they would need to rest the horses and either take a meal or buy more food. If their attention were distracted, he might then be able to slip out of the rear of the cart.
What o’clock might it be? Not yet dark, but still the same half-dark it had been all day. He felt as though he might have slept two or three hours, which would make it the middle of the afternoon. It was surprising they had not rested the horses before—unless they had done so while he was asleep. They were strong beasts. He had noticed them as he had been led across the stableyard at Whitehall. The breed used by the brewers’ draymen to haul the heavy carts filled with barrels of beer around the streets of London. They plodded along slow as oxen, but they were accustomed to drawing great loads all day long; this cart would be light by comparison. Perhaps his escort intended to drive on at this steady pace all day, without bating the horses at all.
Tize stepped back and the cart jerked into movement again. John closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep in case the man should make sport of him again, but Tize ignored him and sat down, yawning and belching loudly. Clearly the men took no more pleasure in this journey than he did. What could be their destination? Even at this slow pace, they might have travelled further than Windsor by now—but north, south, east or west? That was the problem. Not east, surely, or he would have smelled the sea, the scent of the Thames estuary, unless they had gone south-east into Kent. But surely he would have noticed if they had crossed London Bridge. There seemed no sense in it. Why should they move him from London? Rationally, he would have expected them to free him like Crewe and the others, or else keep him near at hand if they wanted him still in prison.
He pondered the possibilities of escape. It would be best attempted at night, because once out of the cart, he might find himself in open countryside without cover. Yet there was no chance of judging the lay of the land from inside this blind vehicle. And he would have to depend on quick concealment. After nearly two months of inactivity, he could not hope to outrun a group of hardened soldiers, unless they were so drunk they were incapable of motion. However, their plan must be to stop at some wayside tavern to sleep; even the great dray horses could not continue to draw the cart all night. Once inside the tavern, they would have him under close watch, perhaps locked up. Some time between dusk and the night’s halt, then.
Pleased with this plan, he lay and awaited his chance. Perhaps he could catch up his bundle and leap from the front of the cart, pushing his way out past the driver before he realised what was happening. It was all a matter of timing his attempt carefully. He lay quietly, shamming sleep. If they thought he was asleep, they would watch him less closely.
Unfortunately, John had not allowed for the blow to his head. As he lay with eyes closed, sleep overtook him again, for the injury had made him not only dizzy but sleepy. When he woke the cart had stopped again, it was full dark, and the soldier called Ed was unlacing the cover at the back of the cart. Prodded by the boots of the men, John got to his feet with difficulty, clutching his bundle. His whole body was stiff and aching, bruised by the endless jolting of the cart and the hardness of its floor. He could barely climb down to the ground, and he realised that, even if he had been awake and seized his chance, he could not even have scrambled out of the cart before his guards caught him. His crabbed movements were humiliating, but not as humiliating as a failed attempt at escape.
He was marched into a dark and noisome tavern and put to sit in the corner furthest from the door. The youth, who was called Will, and Makey, the big slow fellow, guarded him while the others went off to demand food and lodging from the landlord. Little by little, he stretched and eased his limbs, until they came back to some kind of life, pricking and stinging as the blood flowed back into his stiffened joints. He would have to make his escape attempt tomorrow, and beforehand he must keep himself moving somehow, to avoid becoming helpless with cramp.
The company in the tavern’s common room cast a few curious glances at him, then ignored him. In this dim and smoky corner the heat of the fire scarcely reached him, but the stale smells of food and the heady reek of spilt beer caused his empty stomach to rumble. Tize and Ed and the driver returned, followed by a slatternly woman whose filthy hair hung down into the bowls of greasy stew she slapped down in front of them. John still had his table knife tucked into his boot, but he left it there, out of sight of the soldiers, and ate with his fingers as they did, tearing the bread and dipping it into the stew and ripping the lumps of fatty meat apart between fingers and teeth.
They spent the night all together at the tavern in one room, the soldiers and the driver occupying the beds, John once again forced to lie on the floor. Tize locked the chamber door and put the key in his pocket, before lying down to sleep, boots and all. John’s sleep during the day made it difficult for him to fall asleep now, and he lay on the boards, sticky with dust, with his head on his pack, and thought over his plans. He still had no idea where they were. He had finally humbled himself and asked, but the men had merely laughed at him. They were enjoying tormenting him; it was the only relief from the boredom of their task. They must have been instructed to keep him under close guard and deliver him up . . . somewhere.
He turned over on to his side, and cursed the discomfort of his hip-bone grinding against the floor. At least they had allowed him the same meal as they had eaten themselves. He must accept nourishment, however foul, if he was to make his bid for freedom.
Next day, they set off as before after a scratch meal of ale and bread. The rain had slackened to a surly drizzle, and today Tize decided that the rear flaps of the cover should be rolled back to give them air to breathe in the foul interior of the cart. John prayed fervently that they would be left like this, for it increased his chances of escape mightily. All day he was quiet and obedient, in the hope of lessening their vigilance. Today they had again provided themselves with a basket full of flagons, and spent the time drinking. John passed the weary hours watching out of the back of the cart, trying to detect some sign of where they might be. The countryside was fertile and well watered, a rolling landscape, but not truly hilly. It might be almost anywhere in the middle of England. There was still a heavy cloud cover, but today there was sufficient variation in the sky for him to be able to detect where the sun lay behind those clouds, and to decide that they were travelling northwards, and perhaps a little west, for the roads were narrow and winding, and their direction changed as they travelled along.
No opportunity for escape offered itself that day or the next, though John was alert for any moment when the flaps should be unlaced and the men might fall asleep. Each day they stopped for the night at some tavern and John would promise himself that the next day he would make his attempt. The journey continued in this way until John lost track of the days. For some reason the men were not following one of the main roads across the country. They passed through no towns, only a few mean villages and hamlets of cottages so poor they seemed har
dly distinguishable from the hedges. The patient dray horses plodded on at their slow but inexorable pace, although one day they did make a stop in the early afternoon to unload some of the crates at the side of the road. Across a field, John could see the tents of a regular military encampment, a method of housing the soldiers more common in these latter days of the war, when quartering was difficult to find. A group of soldiers who had been lounging under a tree, apparently waiting for them, looked curiously at John as they lifted the crates down with considerable care. Observing their caution, he wondered whether the crates contained powder and shot. Once the delivery was made, the cart did not move on at once. His guards joined the other soldiers on the verge, where they had made themselves a campfire for warmth and were cooking pieces of chicken over it, doubtless stolen from one of the neighbouring cottages. The smell of the roasting chicken made John’s mouth water. He took the opportunity to walk up and down in the cart, stretching and bending to loosen the stiffness from his legs and arms. No one was keeping any kind of watch on him, but there was no need. He would not be fool enough to try to run off under the nose of an entire regiment.
At last they moved on. The men were cheerful after their good meal and the break in the boredom of the journey. The small, rat-faced one, Will, even threw him a whole loaf, nearly fresh, and a larger piece of cheese than usual. John ate sparingly, and when none of them were looking, pushed the remaining food into the centre of his bundle.
The rain had stopped, but the almost endless downpours of recent weeks, sometimes of rain, sometimes of sleet, had turned the poor road into a quagmire. The great horses strained to pull the cart through the mud. Although it had been lightened by the removal of several of the crates, it sank repeatedly into the soft surface. Then one or two of the soldiers would climb out cursing, and put planks of wood in front of the wheels, and help the horses by heaving the cart out of the mire.