Pudding is flying. Like Pegasus, she whistles over ditches; she glides over the churned grass. Sam laughs with the joy of the chase. They are one, Sam and his Pud, and they have unlocked the secret. They know how to do this. They can run for ever. She stretches out her long neck and legs. She is a goddess among horses, his Pud. Blood has dried on his arm, crusting into a cast that makes moving awkward. He finds he wants more, fresh and liquid. And Pud shall help him find it. The rebels run and he shall have their brushes. He will carve them and cut them and stuff them, the bastards. Alongside him, a herd of troopers flies with him, chasing them down.
His brothers! His glorious, beautiful brothers. He can see the fuckers ahead. Frightened and scrambling, as well they might be. Cuckolds, we come!
Behind him, something nags at him. A sound tries to intrude upon him. How dare it? He is an avenging god! He shakes his head, but there it is, the trumpet call. Sam tries to ignore it, but it thrums in his head, until at last he listens to it.
‘Halt!’ he screams, pulling at the reins, checking poor Pudding’s glorious flight. She judders to a stop, tossing her head. He strokes her sweat-slick shoulder, trying to find his mind. He is all limbs and thunder, raging blood and fire.
Orders, Sam. Give some orders.
He calls out: ‘Regroup, regroup. Retreat to the colours. The colours!’
Some of the men listen to him. He fights his way back to control and takes stock. Half the troop stands watching him, horses gulping at the air, men clutching at their sanity. A few others are galloping still, heedless and beyond discipline. The ones that remain look confused. They stare around at the field, as if awakening from some extraordinary dream. He looks for the right words to marshal them, but he doesn’t know what to say. Words seem stupid, empty vessels. The bloodlust leaks out of him, and he is just a boy on a horse, in a field.
There, over there! Rupert. Unmistakable. Relief floods Sam, and he calls them to him, and they canter towards their chief. Tell us what to do, thinks Sam. Make sense of it.
‘Hold them! Hold them!’ Ned screams, rage fighting frustration. They are being pushed back, slowly, inexorably. They slide and scrabble in the mud. To fall is to die.
‘On your feet. Your feet!’ Ned shouts, even as his own boots fight for traction. Oh God, how is it Your will that they, these papist scum, will push us backwards? How can we be dying? Where are you, Lord? Where are you?
Ned looks behind him to see Hugh Peter, Cromwell’s chaplain, riding behind the lines. A Bible in one hand, a pistol in the other, he is shouting them on, but Ned can’t hear him.
A ripple along the ranks. Skippon is hit. Oh Lord, not thy best servant. Please, oh Lord. He feels the men sag around him. Skippon down. The men next to him deflate like a kicked pig’s bladder.
Ned tries to rally them. He screams and he cajoles from the middle of his pack of men. But he can see the front pikes sliding away, melting into the mud and gore and blood. On his left, exposed by the flight of Ireton’s cavalry, their flank is being energetically stormed. Their muskets are hemmed in by their own pikes, wheeled round in a hasty manoeuvre to protect against the royalist horse. The charge is ferocious, and at the push of pike they are losing. They are being squeezed and pressed, front and left; juiced like summer fruit, their blood puddling in the trenches raked up by their desperate feet.
Beside him, Ensign Somers grips the colours, and the banner still waves. But the boy is crying and shaking with the effort of keeping the flag up. He has lost his helmet in the scrum, and he looks ludicrously young. Snot dribbles from his nose, and Ned, absurdly, wishes he could offer the boy a handkerchief.
‘Head up, boy,’ he exhorts, instead. ‘Show the papist scum how God’s anointed die.’
The boy just looks at him, as if through a fog, his eyes unfocused and red-rimmed, tears dropping fast. And then, somehow, a musket-ball finds its way through the pack to punch a hole between his weeping eyes. His head falls forward, chin lolling on his chest, but the press of men keeps him upright. Ned lurches forward to grab hold of the colours from the boy’s hand. He drops his sword to catch the pole, and it is lost in the mud.
He holds on to the pole with desperate ferocity. God’s banner is our sword. He thinks of the words emblazoned on the six foot of silk above his head.
‘In God we trust!’ he screams. ‘In God we trust.’
And then, from behind him, comes a roar, a rising surge of men and shouting. The men, feeling the reinforcements coming rather than seeing them, stiffen, and in the stiffening lessen the pressure. Ned, for the first time, thinks they might survive this. God has heard him.
‘Sir,’ screams one of Rupert’s staff officers. ‘We must return to the field, sir.’
There, in front of them, is the bastards’ baggage train. Stuffed with food and stores. With musket-balls and cannonballs. Groaning with cash from those rich fuckers in London who fund the rebels. It must be. Why else would they defend it so rigorously? The handful of men guarding it stand firm and shoot decided volleys at Rupert’s horse, who circle and pick at it like scavenging crows.
We could take it, thinks Sam. Just a little more time. Just a little more.
As if hearing his thoughts, the prince, nearby, says: ‘Not enough time,’ and swears vociferously in his thick home tongue. They turn then, back towards the field, following the drums and the thunder of the guns. Up the hill they ride, trudging back the way they had flown. They couldn’t get where they wanted to be, round the back of the rebels’ right flank to fuck Cromwell’s Ironsides from behind. Too few of them have regrouped from the charge, despite the urgent tarantaring of the trumpets. And there are hosts of the bastards this side of Moot Hill’s summit, hidden from the king where he stands on Dust Hill. They’d have to fight through all the reserves to get to Cromwell.
No, back the way they have come then. They pause on the great circling route round the field to come behind their own army again. On a ridge of high ground they can see the battle laid out like a chess game; too far to hear individual screams, or to smell the thick mix of blood, shit and gunpowder smoke. They can see the two hills where the armies faced each other at the off, and the slopes down to the flat field between. It is like a flat-bottomed pudding basin, with the chaos now contained in its centre. And Sam hears the prince swearing again; at least that is what he imagines those thick vowels and vicious consonants must be. For it is obvious from up here that things are falling apart. The charge to the enemy’s left with the best of Rupert’s horse and foot was supposed to have destroyed that flank, ripping open a route to the New Noddle’s heart. And yet the bastards are holding. From the pattern of the ensigns, it looks as if Colonel Pride’s regiment has come up from reserve to bolster Skippon.
There is worse. On the rebels’ right, Cromwell has clearly stuffed the Northern Horse, and is now assailing the king’s exposed left flank. The royalist reserves are all committed now, yet still there are hundreds of the rebel bastards milling away behind the hill or at its crest.
Bizarrely, on the other side of hill, are a herd of cows, munching at bush and grass. One lifts its head to stare at Sam, chewing lazily.
As they pause, taking in the patchwork of the battle below them, Rupert and his men can taste the loss to come. They can see already the looming humiliation. They know, in their warriors’ hearts, that this day will end badly. Sam glances sideways at Rupert, who wears a taut, impassive face, his eyes darting to take it all in. This loss will be laid at his door. Sam, for a heartbeat, thinks about turning Pudding round. We could run, my Pudding and I. This fight is lost; we need not be. He almost makes the move. The muscles of his right thigh begin to squeeze, to tell Pudding: Let us live, my darling, let us live.
Then Rupert turns to them, and says as if he is inviting them to tennis: ‘Gentlemen, shall we?’
It is not really a question. Sam looks straight ahead, trying not to catch any eyes. What if they knew what I was thinking? Despite the fear that courses though him, he presses both knees and
urges Pudding on, back to the fray. As he descends back down to the chaos of smoke and death, some instinct makes him look over his shoulder. And he sees the unmistakable form of Piers Langton, mounted on his priceless black charger, cantering away in the opposite direction.
There is a respite now. The front line has moved forward, leaving Skippon’s mangled regiment some room to breathe and lick its countless wounds. Ned sees a horseman come by, helmetless. He waves his sword and shouts, ‘Well done, my brave boys. God our strength!’
It is Fairfax, this apparition, and the men around Ned mumble in appreciation of the general’s bravery, of his willingness to get mucky in the heart of the battle.
Ned raps orders at Sergeant Fowler. Wounded there, we’ll deal with later. Get ready for a return. Five minutes rest, and then close order.
‘I’m going to check on the major-general,’ he tells the sergeant. He clambers up the hill behind him, slipping once and grabbing onto a gorse bush, which lacerates his palm. He picks at the thorns with his teeth. Suddenly, there is Skippon walking down the hill, chased by a remonstrating lieutenant. The major-general is white-faced, and a bandage on his arm is soaked red.
‘Ned!’ he shouts. ‘Hot work this, hey, my boy.’
‘Yes, sir,’ says Ned, dropping in next to Skippon and retracing his steps.
Ahead of them, the infantry who crumbled at the royalists’ first charge have been regrouped in some sense of order by their officers. Much depleted by death and running, they are ready, nonetheless, to be thrown at the sagging enemy. Beyond them, the royalist foot is stretched and close to breaking, and entirely unaware of this new tide building.
‘Well, Ned,’ says Skippon. ‘Let’s finish them.’
Sam and the captain ride among the fleeing Northern Horse, urging them back. But they are too far gone, horses and riders, lost in fear and life-lust.
Behind him, Sam knows, the Ironsides have reformed in calm order and are pressing the royalist flank. We should have done that, he thinks, disloyally. What training it must take to hold fast after a charge, to calm your blood and the raging life beneath you. What conviction and leadership, to hold, to re-form and to wheel back round in order. He thinks of his own mad charge after Ireton’s horse.
Aye, but we had to make sure they were cleared, he thinks, determined to be loyal to the last. Rupert was right, he tells himself, as he reins in, giving up the last attempt to quell the Northern flight. Surely Rupert was right.
Oh, the glory of it! They harry and chase the king. His Majesty’s muskets attempt a covering fire, but they are no match for the remorseless advance of God’s own army. Advance, kneel, fire, reload! Advance, kneel, fire, reload! It sings out like a psalm. Advance, kneel, fire, reload. A mighty victory paean to the God who has given this victory. Oh my Lord, Ned sings in his heart. Oh my Lord.
Captain Fenwick appears at Sam’s side, and together they shout and rally what horse they have left. No sign of their colours. Ten of them. Just ten. They canter up and down aimlessly for a while, rattling their swords. They have lost their bearings but will not admit it, even to each other. Each man secretly hoping that they will stay lost in these cursed and malevolent hillocks.
They mount a slope and see their own baggage train. It is being driven up hill through remorseless gorse, horses and men white-eyed and spit-flecked with effort and fear. Sam’s pathetic troop rides to guard their rear. Over a crest comes a party of horsemen. Whose? Hard to tell. Assume it’s an enemy. The pistol shots ring out, confirming it. Behind him, Sam hears the sound of dropping axels, of scrabbling feet and swearing. They’re running, and God, who can blame them, the poor saps who have to piss about on two feet while the Ironsides advance on thundering four. Sam half-heartedly swears at them to halt their run, but he knows he would do the same, God help him. No better target for a cavalry sword than a single, running man zigzagging across a battlefield like a cornered hare.
On Fenwick’s shouted command, they stand and draw pistols. ‘No fucker fires till he can see their eyes,’ shouts the captain, his voice high and cracking.
On they come, and finally, as they canter forward in a towering line, Sam feels his bladder give, and shame and piss leak from him.
He thinks, suddenly, of his father’s face. The old man’s creased and smiling eyes. Poor old bastard tried to warn us it would be like this. Oh God, he thinks, Ned. He imagines Ned’s face in victory. The smug compassion. He can’t bear the thought of it, the bastard’s pity and his righteousness. The thought of being humbled before Ned and his implacable God shrivels him.
‘Fire!’ shouts the captain, and Sam pulls the trigger. He pulls out his other pistol and sets his sights on one Ironside. Something about the way he is mounted, something about the set of his shoulders, makes Sam hate him, violently. He fires and the man falls, and then they are in a mêlée all together – swords swinging, the sound of steel striking armour, and the grunts of the men mingling with the high-pitched whinnies of the frightened horses.
Suddenly, Sam finds that the fury of the little fight has spewed him out of the side. He sees Fenwick, feet still in the stirrups, flung backwards across his horse’s haunches, arms out wide, only Fenwick has no nose and no chin.
Sam expands with rage. He wants to chase them, to close in again and to kill the buggers. He presses his knees, but Pudding, gallant Pudding, mutinies for the first and only time in her life. She refuses to go forward. She turns and runs, and Sam loves her more for taking the decision away from him than he has ever loved any creature in his whole short life.
They crest one hill, Pudding and Sam, and then another, before Sam realizes that she is slow, too slow. Too late he looks down and sees the blood tumbling down her right thigh. He checks her and throws himself to the ground. With his weight gone, she seems to fold, his Pud, and lurches forward onto her knees. They are in one of the dips in this treacherous, benighted landscape, and it feels as if they are all alone. She shudders and then pauses.
‘Come on, Pud, my darling Pud,’ says Sam.
But she falls horribly, finally still under his stroking hand. He puts his arms round her warm, bloodied neck and buries his face in her mane. The sound of horses’ hooves looms apocalyptically behind him. Now, at the end, he weeps.
At last, it’s over.
The baggage train is taken and guarded; the prisoners are rounded up. A couple of hundred papist drabble-tails, found begging for quarter with whorish mouths, are heaped by some wagons, where his men eye them hungrily.
Too soon to take off his armour. It is hot, this June day, Ned realizes. He feels the sadness that comes after battle, the weariness. But he is used to it now, and knows it will pass. He takes off his helmet, and what breeze there is catches on his sweaty forehead, congealing with pleasing coolness.
He will take his time to thank the Lord later, when the work is done and he can concentrate on his God’s pure voice. For now, he mumbles his thanks in a continuous, distracted stream. He searches the prisoners’ blooded, distraught faces. He does not know what he will do or say if he finds him alive. He thinks of Edgehill and the towers of corpses shimmering in the cool dawn light. He wonders if he should walk back down to the killing fields, once the men are billeted and sated with the king’s stores. He pictures the horror of picking over the bodies of dead boys, one by one, looking for traces of his brother’s shining face in the grey skin and glassy eyes. Nevertheless, it is his duty to look, his duty to Hen and his father – and, he supposes, to Sam.
It is early in the reckoning, but this victory seems to be the most complete Ned has known. It is true then, that we are God’s army, God’s beloved. How can it not be, if He gives us this victory in our first battle, when all despised us?
And they, the Amalekites, the cursed ones – did the Lord not smite them? Aye, and the women too. He mouths the words Hugh Peter spoke at last Sunday’s sermon, from the book of Samuel. ‘“And the Lord sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fi
ght against them until they be consumed.”’
Until they be consumed. He looks over to where the women cower, and beckons the sergeant over.
‘All secured, sir,’ says the sergeant, red-faced and perspiring.
Screams punch the still air. Ned looks over to the whores’ huddle, where a group of New Model foot is walking though the middle, swinging swords like scythes. The women are surrounded; there is nowhere to go. Those that fling themselves at the implacable ring of soldiers round them are bundled up and handed out. A second group of soldiers, with calm precision, is slitting their noses – the mark of the whore – inured to the screams and pleadings.
Ned walks over and thinks about intervening. He turns a questioning eye to his sergeant, who shrugs and says: ‘Papists, sir.’
A group of royalist prisoners stands nearby and shoves back, bristling at their captors. But they are unarmed and beaten back.
Undecided, Ned turns away to think, closing his eyes to concentrate without the ravaged faces and punctured bodies of the women clouding his thoughts. And then he hears it, tugging at the corner of his mind. A high, urgent shout.
‘Ned. Ned!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
16 June 1645
A FIST THUNDERS ON THE DOOR.
Hen sits up, her heart jumping violently. The window is open, and the city’s warm, ripe air fills the room. The sky outside is dark. It is late, then, this June night. Was it a dream that woke her? Beside her, Lucy breathes deeply, still asleep, the blanket pushed down and curled round her legs. It is clammy and silent.
And then the noise again. A thunderous knocking. Lucy wakes this time, lurching straight from sleep into a frightened wakefulness.
‘Who is here?’ she whispers.
‘I don’t know.’ Hen slides her legs out from under the blanket. She does not want to open the door. Only bad news travels this late. The word came into the city yesterday of a huge battle in the Midlands and the destruction of the king’s army.
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