by Smith, Skye
Three of the men kept to the cover of the cart, but not Jake. He had unlashed the long ash prying bar from the side of the cart and now he signaled to Daniel that is was time for a full volley at the musketeers on the wall. As soon as that volley was booming and echoing, he dashed across the bridge with the bar and jammed it into the guiding groove of the lift-gate. The smoke from the volley had now drifted over the bridge and he used it as cover to zigzag back to the cart.
As one, the four men dashed back from the cart to where Daniel and the rest of the patrol were now taking careful aim and sniping at any man up on the wall foolish enough to show his face. "Send twit to find Waller and have him hurry his ass here,” Jake said while pointing at the ensign. "Eventually them in the castle will count our numbers, and then sally over the bridge in force. Then we'll be for it."
"Well at least Waller now has a chance of taking the castle, what with the bridge down,” Daniel said and slapped each of the four men on the upper arms of their stiff leather coats in thanks and congratulations.
"Only until the garrison commander comes to his senses,” Jake told him. "The bridge is tarred wood. All they need do is drop burning oil on it, and whumph, it will go up in flames. Just like that, no more bridge."
"They won't do that. The fire would catch the gate on fire."
"Not if they water it down. No, if Waller is to take that castle, we have to breach that gate before they burn the bridge."
"So it's over then,” Daniel said, frustrated. "Waller has no cannon to breach the gate."
"Oye!” Jake yelled to one of his mates. "Bring Burt over here.” A moment later, a short, wide man with dark hair and dark skin was led towards them. "Burt's from a mining family. His dad's been playing about with usin' gunpowder to help break up rock faces. Ask him what his dad would do to breach that gate. Um, you'll have to yell 'cause he's a bit hard'a hearin'."
Daniel spoke loudly and clearly to the lump of a man using simple words and phases and pantomimes.
"I'm a bit deaf, I'm not stoopid,” Burt interrupted him. Like all folk with hearing problems, his voice boomed overloud. "You've got spare powder, so just blow the damn gate. Shouldn't be hard.” He looked around, calculating. "That church over there will have a warning bell. You ever wonder why bells and mortars are the same shape? Have some of the lads lower it down. We can move it into place using that second cart. The one with sand in it."
"Wouldn't it be easier to use the first cart? It's empty now,” Daniel asked.
"Do I tell you your business?” Burt replied. "Oye you lot!” he yelled at four lads who were hiding behind the wall of a house while they reloaded their carbines. "Didn't you tell me you were dockyard riggers? How fast can you have a bell down out of that church tower?” The four men didn't wait for the cap'n's order before they trotted along the road towards the church, for the roar of Burt's great voice was commanding enough. "And you lot!” he pointed to the men who had pulled the pins on the stone cart. "Get the sand cart over to the tower so they can lower the bell down into it."
A call and a wave came back from the riggers who had reached the church door, "Oye, cap'n. Come 'ere quick like."
Daniel told Jake, rather than the ensign, to take command of the carbineers who were keeping anyone from leaving the castle gate, so that he could go with Burt over to the church. They had no sooner reached the grand church door, than they realized the problem. The village folk had locked themselves inside the church.
It took precious moments to convince the folk that they were just the advance scouts of a larger force of parliamentarians who had come to defend them. The door looked every bit as strong as the castle gate so the stone church and would have kept the folk safe for hours, so the skirmishers were surprised when the church door was unbarred from inside, and then opened.
"They have our women inside the castle,” a fat burgher told them. "You must rescue them."
"Bloody hell!” Daniel cursed. "Why didn't you hide them? You must have heard what the king's gentlemen have been doing to young women. The bastards all think it is their god given right to ravage the lasses."
"We did hide them,” an old woman interrupted. She was walking forward in a group of old women. Not all women were in the castle then, just the young ones. "They beat our men, and then threatened worse to the children. The young moms all surrendered themselves to save their kiddies. Can you blame them?"
"So how many of the king's gentlemen are in the castle?"
"Perhaps eighty, plus their dog's bodies,” replied the burgher.
"And how many of your women did they take?"
"About twenty."
"Shite, they'll 'ave been rogered senseless by now!” Burt interrupted in his roar. He shut up because everyone was staring at him as if it were he who was shagging the women. He left Daniel speaking with the townsfolk and went back outside where the cart was already in place, and a bronze bell was being lowered slowly down into it. He leaped up on the cart and eyed the load of sand, and then began to dig a hole in it just to the rear of the center of the pile.
When the bell was hovering at head height, Burt called for the cart to be moved two feet forward so he could guide the slowly swinging bell down onto the edge of his hole, and once balanced there, he tipped it top down into the hole in the sand. "Drop the rope!” he yelled up to the men in the tower, and it snaked down into the cart. "Right, now we need all the gunpowder you can gather to put in this bell. At least three or four pounds of it,” he told the men handling the horses, "And enough leather or sail cloth to cover it, and about ten feet of cord to tie it down, and a length of match cord to use as a fuse, say a foot.” When the lads came down from the tower, he repeated his shopping list to them.
By the time Daniel had calmed and reassured the townfolk in the church, and had convinced them to stay inside with the door barred for their own safety, Burt had his mortar ready to fire. Daniel walked around the back of the cart and looked in at it. "What's the leather for?” he asked.
"Ta keep the powder in place and dry,” Burt replied.
"So what will you fire from this? A stone?” Daniel waggled the bell's clapper but it sounded more like a thunk than a dong. "The bell's casting isn't strong enough. You'll have but one shot before it cracks. You'll be lucky if you don't blow yourself up."
"No stone. Just the leather,” was all that Burt replied and gave him a look that said 'do I ask you your business?' "We're pretty much ready. When do you want me to breach the gate?"
The word "Now!” had barely left Daniel's mouth before Burt and his helpers began leading the horses and cart towards the drawbridge. There had been a continuous sound of individual shots coming from the castle, so Daniel ran on ahead to take back control of the carbineers.
"They tried to raise the bridge, but after two tries they gave up,” Jake told him. "Now that they know that their windlass won't take the uneven strain, they have been trying to send groups of men out to clear the stones. So far they have cleared only one stone, and that cost them four wounded men. It's been quiet for a few minutes. We've seen smoke so we think they are heating up some oil on top of the gate tower ready for burning the bridge."
They stood and watched as the sand cart came towards them and then did a half circle ready to be backed onto the bridge. Daniel told them to get on with it, and then told all the carbineers to look lively and give them staggered fire as a cover. With Burt roaring directions they began to back the horses, the same as they had with the cart of stone, only this time they crossed the bridge all the way to the gate.
In the distance Daniel could just make out the sound of approaching horses, a lot of horses, and the timing of Waller's arrival could not have been worse. When those in the castle saw the main force approach, they were likely to pour their oil down and light the bridge.
"Captain Vanderus, what are you about?” came a call from the leading party of officers of the approaching column.
"Trying to convince the castle to surrender to you,” Daniel ca
lled back. The snot nosed ensign was riding next to Colonel Waller. "The trouble is, they keep shooting at us."
"Your ensign reports that you have ignored my orders,” Waller called out as the stopped his horse beyond musket range of the castle and then took a good look around. "What are those men doing up by the castle gate?"
"Well, see the squat dark man with the men tipping that cart,” Daniel replied, playing for time, hoping Waller wouldn't interfere. "He is a miner. He's trying out one of his father's inventions. Something he calls a French Fart for some unknown reason.” As they watched suddenly the dark man began to run, as did the four men with him. They had tipped the cart and with it the sand and the bell, had abandoned the horses, and were now running full speed back across the bridge yelling at the tops of their lungs, "Give us covering fire!"
All talk between Daniel and the colonel and amongst the other officers became futile because it was drowned out by twenty carbines giving the running men cover.
"Cease fire! Stop firing!” Waller yelled out, and his officers took up the call. Daniel didn't mind. The five men were now well away from the bridge and had dived behind the stone wall of the closest house. Burt's roar drowned out the cultured voices of the officers with, "Everyone get down on the ground."
Daniel was not about to tell Burt his business, and he reached up and dragged Waller out of his saddle and half carried him and half pushed him behind a wall. While doing so, he even took the time to reach up with his other hand and drag the snitch of an ensign out of his saddle and drag him along too. Luckily Burt was still roaring his warning, so most of the mounted cavalry followed the lead of their colonel and found cover for they and their horses.
Daniel was expecting an explosion as loud as when the powder barge had blown up in the river near Brentford, but instead there was just a muffled whumpff followed by a lot of dust and smoke and splinters. Once the splinters stopped flying, he poked he head around the corner of the shed he was hiding behind. The two cart horses were no long standing. They looked quite dead, probably punctured by a thousand long slivers of oak before they even had time to scream in fear at the explosion.
Waller came up beside him and looked on as the smoke and dust cleared. Of the two gates, one still stood firm, but the other gate, the one that the spill of sand had trapped the bell against, had been splintered and blown off its pivots and backwards six or ten feet into the castle. "What did the miner call that? A French Fart?"
There were screams of anguish coming from behind the now open gate. "They were heating oil above the gate,” Daniel explained. "The blast must have tipped the oil onto their own men.” Daniel pulled a long white silk scarf out of his pocket, one of his step-daughter Britta's fine scarves, and said, "With your permission, Colonel, I will go and announce your arrival.” Without waiting for permission, he rose, waved the scarf, and walked over to the pile of stones that were holding the draw bridge down. Burt ran to join him, likely just to inspect the destruction he had wrought. The cart horses were indeed dead ... a shame but at least they had died quickly. With all the slivers in their meat, those were two rare horses, for they wouldn't make it into the stew pot tonight.
Daniel first told Burt what he wanted called out to the men behind the wall, and then the squat man bellowed the words out, "Ahoy, in the castle. The invincible Colonel William Waller has arrived to accept your surrender."
A man stepped out through the broken gate, and stepped gingerly around the pile of still smoking sand and the eviscerated horses and came closer to speak. "I am Lord Denham, the king's Lord High Sheriff of Surrey. I know Colonel Waller, so we will respect the truce you are offering. Send your colonel forward so that we may discuss the terms of surrender in private."
Daniel wrinkled his nose, not at the thought of allowing this man to try to convince Waller to cross over to the king's side, but because the man smelled of pine creosote. Pine creosote was what Daniel's village used for sealing ships planks beneath the waterline, so he well knew the smell. When heated it became a liquid which could be poured and used like paint, but you be very careful when heating it because when it was liquid it would catch fire so easily. Daniel told the sheriff, "You will surrender to me. There are no terms. Hand me your sword."
"I will not surrender to the likes of you. Bring William to me, and be quick about it."
Daniel turned to his squat companion and said, "Burt, yell to the men behind the gate that we will give them to the count of five to throw out their weapons, else we will throw burning torches amongst them.” He turned to Denham and told him. "You have two choices. Go back and burn to death with your men, or hand me your sword."
Burt's bellowing did not just warn the men in the castle of what was about to happen, but it also told the rest of the skirmishers what was expected of them. They immediately set their hands and their flints to making torches. Daniel counted to himself slowly, all the while holding his hand out to accept Denham's sword. It remained empty.
On the count of ten, Daniel shoved his scarf away into his pocket, and stepped behind the cover of the pile of stones, while Burt yelled out the order to fire the gate. Twenty skirmishers lit whatever had come to hand that they could set alight and throw. In twos they ran forward towards the broken gate and threw their makeshift torches through the gate and at the barricade that had been hastily erected behind the gate to block the breach.
The sheriff had not re-crossed the bridge back to the gate because he was frantically trying to signal his old friend Waller. Realizing the danger that the open flames were to his creosote soaked clothes, he gave up on waving to Waller and instead ran towards the downed horses, as far away from the men with torches as he could be. Some shots were exchanged. Some fires were lit. Some screams were heard from the barricade inside the gate, and then Daniel held up his hand to stop the next volley of torches. This because he had heard a new sound, a loud clattering.
There it was a gain. Something had been thrown down from the crenellations on the wall above the gate. He looked out along the bridge. A musket had been jettisoned. Then another, and another. The guards on the wall were throwing down their weapons and yelling out to stop the throwing of the torches. They were pleading for surrender because some of the men at the barricade were being burned alive and needed help.
Denham came to him and offered up his sword, so Daniel accepted it, and then turned away from the gate and walked towards the shed where Waller was. All this time Waller and his officers had been calming their horses, and regrouping their cavalry, and regaining their saddles in readiness in case the king's cavalry sallied forth from the castle gate. Daniel held out the sword to Waller and told him, "The castle has surrendered, sir. What are your orders?"
"But we haven't even organized the charge yet,” Waller said, almost annoyed and somewhat taken aback. "What terms did you cede? Why didn't you call me forward to do the bargaining?"
"They asked no terms, colonel, and the surrender came so quickly that I thought it better to accept it immediately rather than risk having them change their mind. Sheriff Denham is under guard and coming up behind me to discuss the logistics of the surrender with you.” In a louder voice so that every man around could hear, not just the officers, he announced, "I have good reason to believe that the men inside the castle had a hand in the mistreatment of prisoners and in the butchering that was done in Brentford, so perhaps they surrendered quickly hoping that you would spare their lives, or at least grant them a quick execution."
Waller's men began to speak amongst themselves with an angry tone to their voices, and eventually there was such a din that Waller had his sergeant major yell out for order in the ranks. A moment later he greeted the Sheriff of Surrey like an old friend, and then handed the surrendered sword back to him. Once the polite greetings were over with, he listened patiently to Denham's plead for the fair treatment of his men as prisoners. Daniel heard little of this, for he had been dismissed from their discussion. As he walked away from the two leaders, Waller called out a
fter him. "The man who was responsible for the French Fart ..."
"Burt Miner?” Daniel replied.
"Yes. Have him report to me. From now on he is assigned to my personal staff."
Daniel nodded his "yes sir” and then turned and walked away. He couldn't help but smile at the thought of the effect that the half deaf and wondrously blunt miner's son would have on Waller's staff. His genteel personal staff of snotnosed ass kissers.
* * * * *
The sun was setting when Daniel was summoned to join Waller on the wall of Farnham castle. There was a stunning view of the shallow valley through which ran the main highway from Southampton to London. It was a grand place for a castle, but though its thick walls looked formidable they would have been quickly turned to rubble under a barrage from modern artillery. Down below in the yard, the disarming and securing of the prisoners was complete and Waller’s men were setting about the more important task of feeding themselves.
Out in the village there were some menfolk walking about but things seemed calm and the men were walking without the furtive looks of the fearful. Earlier the village's women had been released and had been invited to press charges against any of the prisoners who had assaulted them, but none of them tarried long enough to do so. Instead they had hidden their faces behind scarves and had hurried out of the gate to the waiting arms of the elder women of their village.
"You wished to see me sir?” Daniel interrupted the colonel's conversation with two other captains.
"I have been warned that your skirmishers are spreading the idea that the prisoners should be executed for their part in the slaughter at Brentford,” Waller said. "Is that true?"
"They are simple men, sir, who do not understand all of the issues. They will abide by whatever you decide. That said, it was a good thing that none of the local women they freed had been sliced or beaten, else there would have been no stopping my men from returning the favour."