‘He will hold, m’lord,’ Gentry replied.
‘He’d better. I’ve a mind to—’ The Earl of Forth finished his sentence, but his subordinate did not hear the words, for in the distance cannon fired.
It had begun.
Lieutenant Colonel James Quarles had not been expecting the attack that burst forth from heavy mists to the west of Brentford End, and his bowels had turned to water at the sight of the vengeful cavalry ploughing the earth in their wake into great flying clods. He fervently thanked God that the need to make provision for defence had not entirely escaped him.
‘Reload if you please, Captain Bennett,’ Quarles barked.
The fields surrounding Wynn’s estate were a mixture of arable and pasture, and the farmers had enclosed each plot with dense hedgerows. Quarles had positioned his force in a great line, three ranks deep, behind a particularly high hedge that ran in front of the great house, either side of the highway. To reach the house, the Royalist cavalry would have to gallop down this road, funnelled into tight ranks by the hedgerow barriers on either side. On Quarles’s order, his men poured fire and hell upon the hapless riders.
The artillery had been positioned behind that great hedge the day before. Quarles had hoped that the peace talks at Windsor would make this precaution unnecessary, but gut instinct made him place the midsized saker cannon, capable of shredding man, beast or stone, out of sight but ready for action.
Now, as the smoke drifted into the cold midday skies, the first Royalist horsemen lay in bloody tatters across London Road and their comrades were kicking their mounts into desperate retreat.
Captain William Bennett, the young officer charged with commanding the artillery teams, snapped crisp orders to his men and their soot-shrouded faces became grim masks as they fell into deadly routine. They would be ready for the next assault.
‘Thank you, Mister Bennett!’ Quarles called. He had dismounted now, preferring to keep his head low behind the defensive hedge. He surveyed the scene, noting with satisfaction the twisted remains of the enemy dead now scattered across the road. They would hold this position until reinforcements arrived. The hedgerows were too broad, too high and too barbed for the cavalry to safely negotiate, and they would be cut to ribbons by cannon fire if they chose to make another attempt at using the road.
Quarles ordered three more of his captains, Povey, Lacey and Hurlock, to make small holes in the tightly meshed branches, through which muskets could be thrust. Moments later the hedge had been perforated in a hundred different places by slashing swords and sweeping halberds.
‘Keep ’em back, lads!’ Quarles bellowed. ‘That’s all I ask! Make the dogs too frightened to growl at us, eh?’
In the field beyond the hedge the foremost cavalrymen were summoning the courage to storm the road again, hoping to punch through the gap before the cannon could belch its devastating load into their flesh and armour. They stood in stirrups; calling to one another, whipping their comrades into frenzy, cursing the heathen rebels, beseeching God to intervene on their behalf.
When the first man fell, plucked from his saddle before the musket’s report had even reached his ears, his compatriots wheeled around in alarm, looking for an impertinent musketeer who’d dared to venture brazenly into the open. But all they saw was the hedge, stretching left and right in front of them.
There were two more loud reports. A second man fell, and a third.
Too late, they saw the glinting musket barrels, scores of them, poking through the hedge, levelled at their ranks. The defenders had transformed the landscape into a tool of war. The hedge had become an organic parapet, complete with its own arrow slits.
The Cavaliers panicked and kicked at their horse’s flanks as more musket-balls were unleashed by the hidden infantrymen. They hauled on reins, desperate to turn the heads of their mounts so that they could fall back beyond the range of the long-arms.
The men of Denzil Holles’s Regiment of Foot cheered.
The morning light had never come for those huddled together in the dank cellar. Indeed, they would not have known dawn had broken at all, had it not been for the bucket of water brought down by a weary redcoat.
‘And what are we supposed to do with that?’ Forrester had asked, outraged.
The infantryman shrugged. ‘Drink. Wash. Piss.’ He dumped the bucket down on the cold stone, the liquid slopping haphazardly and darkening the floor.
When the guard had trudged back up the steps and slammed shut the hatch, they began to stretch cold, stiff limbs. Stryker took the water first, drawing a long draught of the liquid before passing it round. The water was bitter, granules of grit swirling manically within the bucket, but it was welcome nonetheless.
As they drank, another creak came from above. The hatch was violently wrenched free and they were bathed in dazzling light again. All eyes squinted up at the cellar’s entrance, where footsteps now rattled down.
Captain Eli Makepeace was wearing an odd expression. Behind him, Sergeant Malachi Bain thudded clumsily down, followed by four of Holles’s redcoats, all brandishing primed muskets.
Like a flock of starlings instinctively turning from the threat of a diving falcon, all the captives except Stryker and Forrester stepped backwards into the room’s depths, shuffling towards the far wall.
‘When do we receive our victuals?’ Forrester demanded. ‘I’m bloody famished.’
Makepeace shot him a withering glance. ‘By the look of you, Lancelot, you might benefit from a period of abstinence.’ He grinned at Forrester. ‘Still, it’s probably too late for that.’
‘Are we to be murdered, then?’ Burton said in a voice that hardly hid his fear.
The turncoat grinned. ‘I dearly hope so, young man. But that is not my decision, I am sorry to say. Sergeant Bain and I are here to bid you farewell. We leave this morning, bound for London. With Sir Randolph in our care. Don’t want to be caught here when the king’s lads come a-knocking, y’see.’ He fixed Stryker with a triumphant stare. ‘You may yet be vouchsafed to your regiment, Captain. But you will have failed in your mission. And I will have succeeded.’
Makepeace’s eyes drifted beyond Stryker, fixing upon a face he had not expected to see. Gradually the corners of his mocking grin flattened out. ‘You—’
‘You!’ Lisette was already moving as she echoed the word. ‘You! Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!’ She was pushing from the rear of the group to the front, making rapid progress to where Makepeace stood.
Makepeace backed away, scraping his sword clear of its scabbard, while Bain advanced to put his great bulk between his master and Lisette.
‘Why, if it ain’t F-Froggy!’ Bain growled, producing a dagger, bending low in preparation for her attack.
‘Out of my way, you troll!’ Lisette screamed, but she found herself stuck fast, her progress abruptly halted, like a fish hooked on a line.
Stryker had a good hold of Lisette’s cloak, and he spun her to face him. ‘What are you doing? They’ll kill you!’
At that moment, the stone floor seemed to shake as a low boom sounded from far off. It was a dull sound, like distant thunder, and for a while everyone stared at one another. Burton pointed down to the ripples that were tracing their way across the surface of their water pail.
Stryker let Lisette go so that he could kneel and touch the floor, while others pressed palms against the moist walls. Sure enough, the tremors coursed through the room once again. ‘Cannon,’ Stryker said. ‘The king is attacking at last.’
Sergeant Major Timothy Neal was a pious man. He attended church, he prayed as often as he could, and he’d named his first-born Josiah, a good biblical name. Yet now he cursed. He cursed loudly and violently. For the mist was beginning to clear, and the day was giving up its secrets. There, hovering on the far side of the hedge above the low cloud in tight, bristling ranks, were hundreds – no, thousands – of pikes. They could perhaps be kept at bay, but with the pikemen would be musketeers, and a hedge was no barrier to flying lead. Th
e cavalry that threatened from the adjacent fields also carried firearms, but carbines were less powerful and had no accuracy at this range. They were easily held back, especially now that Tainton’s troop had sped on to the field in small but swift sorties, harrying them with impressive skill and drawing their focus from Quarles’s redcoats. But muskets – that was a much more fearsome proposition.
Neal was forty paces from his lieutenant colonel and ran along the thorny barrier to draw up next to him. ‘Infantry, sir,’ he said breathlessly.
‘Seen ’em, Timothy,’ Quarles replied. He was peering through one of the thicket’s hastily cut holes and did not look up at his sergeant major. ‘They’ll have muskets.’
‘They will, sir.’
‘Then we cannot remain.’
‘I fear not, sir.’
Quarles turned then, meeting Neal’s gaze. ‘Where the hell are my reinforcements, eh?’ he demanded fiercely.
Neal shrugged helplessly.
‘I sent for them an hour ago. Damn them, Timothy, but they’ve high-tailed it back to the old town, I’d wager. Heard the guns and fled.’
Neal spoke carefully. ‘We are told of the peace accord, signed by the king’s own hand, and ordered – upon pain of death, sir – to hold ourselves with all discipline when encountering the enemy.’ He shrugged. ‘We must commit no hostile acts, sir. Perhaps the men at Brentford believe they are honouring that command. They do not know we face this horde.’
‘They can hear the damned guns, can’t they?’ Quarles snapped in frustration. His ire was cut off abruptly by the cough of a musket from the opposite end of the field. It was a lucky shot, and a Parliamentarian musketeer fell back soundlessly.
The men looked to Quarles for orders. He looked through the hedge. What he saw turned his insides to churned butter. The advancing Royalist infantry had emerged from London Road and were fanning out in wide ranks across the fields that spread to the west of Sir Richard Wynn’s house. Three thousand at least; possibly four. Quarles’s meagre detachment had no hope of holding the house. They could continue hiding behind the hedgerows, sniping at the oncoming swarm, but they would be overwhelmed in short order. When the cavalry rode in, cutting and slashing down at their backs, every one of them would be annihilated.
‘Sir?’ Captain Bennett, the young officer in charge of the saker crews, had approached the lieutenant colonel, eager for orders.
Quarles affected a jauntiness he did not feel. ‘We make an orderly retreat, William. Orderly, mark me, no bloody running. We give ’em volley fire, keep the buggers at arm’s length, and fall back to our lads at Brentford End. There’s a bridge over the Brent. It’s nicely barricaded. We’ll get across and hold ’em there. They’ll not—’
Captain William Bennett was no longer listening to his commanding officer, for a musket-ball had passed through his windpipe. It burst from the side of his neck in a great fountain of gore.
‘Fall back on my order!’ Quarles bellowed, as Bennett’s body sank to its knees.
CHAPTER 17
Captain Roger Tainton sat in the former bedchamber that currently served as his quarters staring at the contents of a small wooden box.
He had been given the strongbox during the night. God’s hand was clearly involved, for it had been pure chance that Tainton’s men were on picket duty at that time. Roused from his sleep, the captain had been told of the capture of a Frenchwoman down at the river. Trooper Bowery had explained that the patrol needed to have her incarcerated quickly, for they were charged with sailing on towards Kingston-upon-Thames, and Wynn’s was the nearest viable option. Tainton had agreed. And then Bowery had passed him the strongbox, which had been tied to the suspected spy by a length of twine.
The lock had not given a fraction until Tainton had taken a pistol and blasted the lid from its hinges. Now, as the battle raged outside, he found himself transfixed by what he had found inside.
Tainton lined up the objects on a small, polished table. There was a yellowing piece of parchment, folded several times into a tight square; a small brooch, edged in gold, with the ivory silhouette of a woman at its centre; and a posy ring, just a small, gold band, adorned with nothing more than a faint inscription.
Tainton picked the ring up between thumb and forefinger, turning it so that he could read the words across its inner surface. ‘None shall prevent the Lord’s intent,’ he whispered. ‘Amen to that,’ he breathed.
Setting the ring down, the cavalryman’s eyes moved to the item he had saved until last.
‘Why do I always ’ave to d-do the donkey work?’ Sergeant Malachi Bain said unhappily as he hefted Sir Randolph Moxcroft on to a broad shoulder.
Makepeace nonchalantly smoothed down the front of his exquisite purple doublet and flicked specks of mud from the matching breeches. He had enjoyed his brief stay in Sir Richard Wynn’s house and had raided the building’s cavernous chests to furnish himself with new, beautiful clothes. ‘Because, Malachi, you’re the donkey,’ he replied, the wide ruff, thick with frills, bobbing at his throat as he spoke.
‘We’re hardly enamoured of this arrangement, either,’ Moxcroft snapped, wincing as Bain’s muscular shoulder dug painfully into his midriff.
Makepeace glanced up at him. ‘My apologies, Sir Randolph, but the current situation necessitates a swift and, I’m afraid, uncomfortable solution.’
As soon as the gunfire started, Makepeace’s instinct had told him that to linger on the front line was tantamount to suicide. But even he had not anticipated the Royalist attack coming so soon.
Makepeace and Bain had run from the cellars. They ordered the hatch shut and barred, and, while Makepeace was locating their cart and saddling the horses, Bain went to fetch the spy.
‘There are fucking thousands of them,’ Makepeace breathlessly explained to Moxcroft as they emerged from the rear of the house. ‘Wynn’s will fall. Then the town itself. And then God only knows.’
‘So one should escape?’ Moxcroft asked, his confident demeanour shaken by the gunfire and by the panic on Makepeace’s face.
Makepeace watched as Bain dropped the spy, rather unceremoniously, into the wagon. ‘Quarles told us there’s a bridge further east, between Brentford End and the new town. We’ll cross the river there.’
‘But they’ll ride us down, Captain.’
Makepeace shook his head as he helped Bain bolt the vehicle’s rear flap shut. ‘If we stay this side of the Brent, yes. But the bridge is well defended. Once we’re across, we’ll have some time before the king’s men break through.’
‘What of Stryker?’ Moxcroft said. ‘Is he dead?’
‘Tainton’s problem now.’
Bain growled as he joined Makepeace at the front of the cart. ‘That Puritan arse’ole won’t deal with ’im p-properly.’
Makepeace flicked his wrists sharply so the reins slapped at the horses’ spines, urging them into motion. But even as the cart surged forward, his mind was wandering, for he knew the sergeant was right. Tainton would undoubtedly be up to his neck in the fighting. And, when the rebels finally relinquished their hold on Sir Richard Wynn’s house, would the cavalryman have time to gather his prisoners? There was a good chance that Stryker’s company might yet go free.
‘L-let me go back,’ Bain said. ‘I can’t leave ’ere knowin’ he’s still alive. And that froggy b-bitch of his. She nearly stuck a blade in you once.’
‘I had not forgotten, Malachi,’ Makepeace snapped. He thought of Lisette Gaillard. The French whore had tried to murder him in the days following his maiming of Stryker. The provosts had stopped her, but the memory of her burning fury still frightened him. He made a decision. ‘As you wish, Malachi.’
Bain turned to him. ‘Eh?’
‘Go back there. Rid the world of their interminable presence.’
Sergeant Bain grinned, wafts of foul breath drifting from behind rotten teeth. He leapt down from the wagon with impressive agility for such a big man.
‘When it’s done,’ Makepeace ca
lled after him, ‘meet us at the bridge.’
‘Sir!’ Bain shouted over his shoulder.
‘And Malachi?’
Bain turned reluctantly.
Makepeace smiled. ‘You might want to have some fun with the girl.’
Out in the grounds at the front of Sir Richard Wynn’s house eight units of infantry sent as vanguard by the Earl of Forth vastly outnumbered Quarles’s red-coated defenders, but the butchers and dyers of London were veterans of Edgehill and not an easy nut to crack.
The Parliamentarians were arrayed in their companies, pikemen forming bristling blocks at the regiment’s centre, musket companies taking up the flanks. They would make a stand here, in front of the house, straddling the road.
Quarles was with one of the musket companies on the right flank. ‘When the first of them come through the gap, feed the heathens fire and lead!’ He was gratified to receive a cheer for that. ‘When all arms are spent, fall back ten paces! Pikes to cover!’
It was a simple enough plan. They would fire their muskets into the ranks of the enemy and retreat, by increments, toward Brentford End and safety. It was true that the numbers were daunting, near four thousand Royalists bore down upon them, but it remained for those attackers to funnel, one company at a time, on to the road, for the enclosed fields were impenetrable. It was then, when they were at their weakest, that Quarles would hammer them. It was a difficult, bloody way to retreat, but to break cover and make a run for it would invite the Royalist cavalry to mow them down. That time might yet come, but he would be damned if he’d give the king’s men an easy time in achieving it.
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