The fight in the centre of Marston Moor fulminated at the cusp of the ditch. The Royalists were on the north bank, the Parliamentarians and Scots on the south, save the Earl of Manchester’s brigade, under Major-General Crawford, who had striven across the barrier to take the fight to the prince’s army. The ditch itself was bare now, its broken hedge line almost entirely shredded to stubble by pike and shot, and its depths had been filled by bodies that lay sightless and knotted in macabre piles along its length.
Captain Lancelot Forrester was part of the Northern Foot in all but name. His regiment, Mowbray’s Foot, had been brigaded with one of Newcastle’s white-coated units, so that they already acted as one, but now Colonel Mowbray was dead, and the battle was as hot and lurid as anything he had ever experienced, so that barely an order, by voice or drum, could be discerned through the din. Thus, they moved with one mind, the pikemen and musketeers, driven only by instinct and the need to survive.
They had been winning the fight. The middle brigades of the Army of Both Kingdoms had crumpled and fallen, and the Royalists had moved up to secure the kill, but the Englishmen under Crawford had ground out an unlikely advance to Forrester’s right, and the Scots under Lindsay had somehow endured an hour of hell over on his left, which meant that the Royalist flanks were exposed to volley fire, and all that had come of their early success was a cruel stalemate. Now the brigades operated independently as they came up against an opposing force, so that both armies were bunched, their cohesion gone as pike blocks advanced and retired by turns, with neither side managing to punch cleanly through.
Forrester’s brigade had wheeled to their right to engage the strident men in green and red coats beneath the banners of the Earl of Manchester. The fight pulsated back and forth, the rebel battaile inching north, only to be pushed back at point of pike by its Royalist counterpart. Forrester, on the edge of his redcoats, used his pistol, firing into the dense rebel block with no idea as to where the bullet flew. The fog was thick and choking. The grass was wet with rain, blood and entrails, and he slipped at every pace. Occasionally he would hear a thud as a musket-ball slammed into flesh. He might have vomited with the terror of it, but there was nothing left in his twisted stomach.
A huge volley crashed in smoke and flame from the Parliamentarian position. Forrester shied away, turning his body in profile as though he waded into a strong wind. The files in his battaile bunched together like a folded fan as each man sought shelter behind the man in front. Screams ripped through the perpetual roar, but then they were on the attack again, advancing over the bodies of their friends to put their own lead into the filthy ether. Forrester stepped back to load his pistol. He caught sight of a messenger on horseback, pulling on his reins to gallop free of the front line. Then he saw a familiar face in the crowd; one that was badly blemished and perfectly round. He commanded whitecoats but wore a suit of blue with a blue and red cross stitched on the arm.
‘Captain Croak!’ Forrester ran to him. ‘Heartened to see you alive, my friend!’
Elias Croak, the man who had saved his life at York’s Mount sconce, brandished the grin Forrester remembered well. ‘We’ve done it, sir!’
‘Done it?’
Croak’s cheeks were soot-shaded, his twitch furious. He flinched as the iron ball from a small field piece ripped hot through the air just a few yards away. ‘Fairfax’s horse were routed in the east, so said the herald. Goring gives chase. There is word that all three of the enemy’s generals have abandoned the field!’
Forrester gritted his teeth. ‘You kick a man when he’s down, you must make sure he dies. Lest he kick you back.’
‘But they are in disarray!’ Croak blurted. Now he levelled the sword eastward. ‘Look, sir, Goring’s horse almost have the beating of them.’
Forrester followed his gaze as more musketry bellowed near and far, but all he could see was the tussle between the stubborn Scots and what remained of the Royalist horse. ‘They should have penetrated by now. And where are the rest? That is one small part of our left wing, Elias.’
Croak seemed not to care. ‘They will join soon enough.’
‘And where the devil is our right wing?’ Forrester went on. ‘Prince Rupert’s own regiment is there. They should have swept the enemy clean back to East Anglia by now.’ He looked to the rear, where the reserve of horse had been. ‘Widdrington’s regiment. What happened to them? All is not well. And where is Newcastle?’
‘He is here,’ Croak chirped, unperturbed. ‘He returned with his guard. They fight at all quarters.’
Forrester almost laughed. ‘So our generals are nowhere to be found. Prince Rupert has not been seen at all, while the marquis gallops the field as though he were a company captain. If we are a great beast of war, Captain Croak, where in God’s name is our head?’
‘You worry too much, Captain, truly you do. Look there.’ Croak pointed into the west where a body of horsemen walked towards them. ‘Here they come. Our brave cavalry, back from the fray. The Prince at their head, I’ll wager.’
Forrester looked. ‘That is not our cavalry,’ he whispered as more and more came into view, tightly arrayed, deep in rank and vast in number. There were thousands. Their banners could not be read in the murk, but he could see the scraps of white glowing from their pots. His guts lurched. ‘Oh, Christ Jesus, help us.’ As Croak gaped, Forrester cupped hands to his mouth. ‘Charge for horse! Charge for horse!’
The cavalry of the Eastern Association were coming, and with them they brought only death.
It was just as well, John Kendrick thought, that he was a hard-man, and therefore unable to be killed, for otherwise he felt sure he would have died a hundred times already this day.
All three of the Allied lines were engaged now, the third ordered up to support the faltering men in front. Things might have been over, Kendrick believed, had the Northern Horse broken Lindsay’s brave resistance, but somehow those suicidal Scots had weathered the storm long enough for reinforcements to make their way into the blood-drenched bout, and the worm had well and truly turned.
Kendrick stared up at Lord Manchester as the earl cantered past his unit, braving bullets for the sake of conspicuousness. The effect of Manchester’s sudden, unexpected appearance on the field had reinvigorated the tiring troops, and now he hailed his infantrymen despite the danger. ‘Generals Cromwell and Leslie have taken the flank!’
The men huzzahed in a deep, rolling chorus.
The earl drew breath. ‘Prince Robber is defeated,’ he bellowed, ‘perhaps dead, pray God!’ He paused as the men cheered again, louder than before. ‘Their foot have no support! We will hold our position until our cavalry strike, and then we shall advance!’
Kendrick stared westward. Out there, in the gathering gloom, he could see the parading banners of Scots and Eastern Association cavalry emerging on to the moor. Manchester, it seemed, had already made contact with Cromwell, and a plan was in the offing.
Kendrick studied the field, his eyes straining against the shroud of smoke and dusk. The enemy brigades appeared to convulse as they prepared for the rebel horsemen sweeping from the left like the bristles of a vast broom, Royalist stragglers, stranded by their wounds, felled at a stroke and mowed mercilessly down. The cavalry moved slowly, because they were unopposed and because they were expertly led, and Kendrick imagined with relish the dread their steady poise would engender. It was left to the infantry, so embattled and ragged, to maintain the press, keep enemy eyes trained on the threat to the south while their flank would be ripped to shreds. This was a pincer movement that would crack Royalist resistance and snatch glory from the jaws of defeat.
Still Kendrick looked for Stryker. Still he was disappointed. But now, at least, he would be part of a famous victory, and he turned the cinquedea in his iron-clad hand, letting the last light dance on the blade as it slanted through the clouds. He would bide his time, wait for the enemy ranks to shatter, and then he would go to the slaughter.
Stryker had made for Sir E
dmund Mowbray’s Regiment of Foot, but in the swirling chaos he could find neither the colonel himself nor his huge colour of red and white. Instead he, Hood and Skellen ran upon a brigade of Northern Foot dressed in coats of green and of yellow. One of the many flags was yellow and silver, one he recognized as the standard of Sir Richard Strickland. The regiment had been in the Royalist third line during the day, but it was now in amongst the rest as the whole battle line converged haphazardly, blasting at the rebel line with all it could muster.
He had come to warn them of the enemy cavalry advance, but they could see the Earl of Manchester’s horsemen bearing down upon the centre of the moor for themselves, and had shifted into their hackled formation without delay. They were unwilling to part for three unknown riders, so Stryker and his men were forced to linger on the outside. He kept Vos under tight control, holding the jittery animal in sway by granite thighs and fists. He searched for Strickland, could not find him, and shrank low as a fierce volley of shot rent the air all around. The enemy infantry had extra impetus now, for they must have seen their cavalry begin its move, seen too the torpor that would result in their opponents’ hunkering into the solid but static hedgehog, and the air seemed suddenly closer, hotter, as the Parliament ranks laid down renewed fire.
‘Keep form!’ Stryker screamed into the pike forest. ‘Keep the shape! They will not charge circle!’
But that all depended upon the circle remaining intact.
Lieutenant-General Oliver Cromwell had begun the day with four thousand horse. Now, with a portion of his cavalry riding into the country to hunt down the routed enemy, he rode at the head of just over two thousand, made up of his own troopers of the Eastern Association and of David Leslie’s Scots. The English units thudded gauntleted fists upon shining breastplates, the clang echoing over the hills, while the Scots chanted a war-cry in their exotic tongue. The lancers of Balgonie, on their spry mounts, lofted the long, sharp spears that had already put paid to Prince Rupert’s highly experienced regiment. They were a deadly battle line, forged together in the blood of the shattered enemy wing, and now they went towards the fulcrum of the day’s encounter.
The English harquebusiers of the front line drew the first of their two firearms, for some a carbine, for others a pistol, and carefully looped the leather reins about the free hand.
Cromwell, out in front, fastened his helm and lowered the face guard. He raised a gloved hand, held it like the sword of Damocles, and waited for a new shiver of pain to trace its way over his injured neck. Then he swept it down, slapping his thigh.
The horses went to the trot. They swept across the moor, splitting line only to skirt the detritus of battle, reforming as soon as they could to present an unbroken front of steel and malevolence. As they rode they chanted psalms, shouted prayers, and felt their hearts hammer against the Bibles that were held fast against their ribs. The rain had gone but the wind was up, and their cornets fluttered and snapped as they bore down on the flank of the enemy infantry, who would be hesitant to form the spiny defensive perimeter because they would be easy prey for the muskets of Crawford’s foot brigade.
They were a hundred yards out. The earth shuddered beneath their hooves. They could hear the frightened shouts coming from the Royalist divisions, but knew nothing could stop their assault. They raised their voices, praising God in the highest, but always, always keeping to the steady trot their dour general insisted upon.
‘God with us!’ Cromwell called, his throat suddenly arid.
They swarmed over the moor, sweeping from west to east in a wave that would roll over the human shore, drowning everything in its path. Infantry could stand against cavalry. Men could huddle behind a breastwork made of ash poles and entrust their survival to a horse’s fear of sharpened steel. But they could not achieve such a feat if its other flanks were raked at the same moment by cannon balls and bullets. Lord Lindsay’s hard-nosed Covenanters had done it, but they had faced only a small number of Goring’s original complement. Now the malignant brigades would shudder under Cromwell’s well-ordered wing, and their fortunes would not turn so favourably.
When they were fifty yards out they levelled their firearms. The pikes fell to the charge position, ready to impale any man or beast foolish enough to risk contact.
Thirty yards and still at the trot. They pulled their triggers. Smoke crashed around the riders’ heads. The Royalist blocks visibly shivered. They thrust home the flintlocks and drew their swords.
And the first of the enemy ranks fell apart.
Stryker felt Vos shake. At first it was a tremor, as though the creature was cold, but then the great Dutch stallion stumbled. He fell forwards slowly, and Stryker slid on to the horse’s granite-hard neck. He felt the blood, slick on his gloves, and knew there was too much. Then Vos was down, slumped on his fore-knees, his breathing a gargled rasp like an iron file on a grate, and Stryker jerked his boots from the stirrups, rolling to his right as the beast collapsed in the opposite direction. He scrambled up, throwing himself over Vos and dropping his sword so that he could cradle the heavy head. The beast’s breaths were unfathomably fast and pathetically shallow. Stryker counted five bullet holes in his neck, ragged and black and gleaming.
Vos meant ‘fox’ in the Dutch – he had named him thus for his red coat – yet that magnificent pelt was now dyed from ear to shoulder in a deeper, darker hue. Stryker held the horse, his companion through so many fights, as the animal gave a final, violent shake and fell still. He dropped the head, muzzle sinking into the gore, and scrambled for the saddle, hands plunging into the bags, ripping the straps, gutting the innards as blood smeared. His pipe came away, dropping into the mud at his knees, and a wooden bowl, a tinder box and a length of match. Skellen was above him, on foot, shouting at him to get up, and Hood was there too, grasping at his shoulders, but he shrugged the lieutenant away. Then he found what he was looking for: Faith Helly’s Bible. Hate-Evil Sydall’s cipher. He tore it free of the bag, taking his pistols too, and snatched up his sword. Hood and Skellen took him, dragging him physically upwards so that he slid clumsily to his feet. There was no time to return to their own mounts, so the trio pushed their way into the hedgehog as the cavalry of the Eastern Association crashed home. The pikes jutted out to block them, and they veered away, seeking easier quarry, but that was not the end of the danger. Stryker was safe behind the pikemen now, sheltered against the storm, but he knew it was an illusion. Strickland’s men muttered, as they witnessed the grinning harquebusiers roll down through the Royalist lines to pick off the weakest units. And quietly, so quietly, they questioned whether this was their fight at all. Because the enemy raiders were numerous and confident, and they all knew that between those spiteful horsemen and the mighty tide of Allied foot, they would stand scanty chance without the support of their own cavalry.
‘Hold!’ Stryker brayed, though none seemed to heed the call. They were frightened, tempted to break cover and run, and there was nothing he could do to stop them.
He tucked the Bible into his breast pocket and peered through the gaps between the heads of the pikemen and musketeers. The adjacent brigade was in trouble. Like wolves sensing the weakest heifer in a herd, the tawny-scarfed troopers had swirled around its perimeter, maintaining and prolonging their attack because the circle had not been fully formed. Perhaps some of their officers were dead, or simply too frozen by fear to give the right orders, but their manoeuvre to shield against horse had stalled and now they were caught between charging their pikes and presenting their muskets. Holes had opened up, like fissures in a dam, and the horsemen lunged into them; soon the brigade that hitherto had been so well ordered and expertly drilled melted away. In the end, the only thing left to do was run, and so they ran.
‘Hold the circle!’ Stryker bawled to Strickland’s brigade, but he could barely hear his own voice. He could sense men filtering out to the rear, hear the clatter as pikes were discarded, and knew that the formation was beginning to fracture as its neighbour had done.
A massive volley of muskets boomed from the south. Men fell all around. The rebel foot were crossing the ditch now, pressing their advantage as Cromwell’s crowing horsemen were unleashed to carve deep furrows into the staggering Royalist blocks. It was too much. Strickland’s brigade collapsed, jettisoning weapons and scarves and hats and snapsacks in their desperation to be free of the killing ground. They were making for Wilstrop Wood, but there was at least a hundred paces to cover before reaching the tree line, and there was no chance the fugitives would make it before the rebel cavalry hunted them down.
Stryker, Hood and Skellen bunched back to back. Stryker’s pistols were in his belt, for there was no time to load them, and he held his sword out straight, challenging any who might make sport of his slaughter. The rout raged everywhere as the enemy cavalry spurred into the fleeing throng to slash at backs and skulls. Their infantry were on the march now, coming up to support their shattering success. More Royalist brigades were imploding with every moment.
‘The wood?’ Hood called.
Stryker flinched as a pistol ball whipped between them. ‘No! We’ll never make it!’
‘There!’ Skellen snapped. He unslung the halberd from his back, pointing it at a brigade fifty paces to the south-west of their position. ‘Lambs!’
Stryker nodded. ‘They’re standing firm!’ The first of the rebel foot were close to their position now, driving blades into the fallen wounded as they swept up the field. Soon their pikes would be jammed into whatever remained of the Royalist units. ‘We’ll take refuge with the whitecoats!’
‘But they will soon be alone!’ Hood shouted. ‘Stranded!’
Stryker glanced round. ‘You’re right, Tom, it is a terrible idea. Tell me yours.’
Hood opened his mouth, then hesitated. He did not have to see how many of their routed comrades were already being put to the sword by the exultant cavalry, for he could hear their tormented screams well enough. In the end he simply blew out his cheeks in resignation. ‘After you, sir!’
Marston Moor Page 37