Pistoleer: Invasion

by Smith, Skye

  Only a few of the skirmishers ventured out beyond the privies and woodshed that morning, and those men were led by Burt who wanted to lower the bells from the cathedral tower and claim them for his own use. Once Burt had returned from that chore, Daniel decided that it was past time that all of his men had a treat to warm their tummies. Namely hot cacaolait. In the cellars of this house they had found an abundance of wines and brandies, so Daniel had taken all the keys to the cellar for himself in order to keep his men sober. While inspecting the cellars he had found the manor's well stocked spice cupboard, including cacao beans and cayenne.

  Later, when Colonel Waller came calling with his newly expanded force of lifeguards, he was sat down in front of a roaring fire and handed a pot of steaming, spicy, cacaolait. "I don't usually take my cacao with spice,” Waller remarked while warming his hands on the pot and licking the brown creaminess from his lips.

  "Drink it down. The cayenne is good or you,” Daniel told him. "The Portuguese fleet swears by it. They say that it keeps the scurvy at bay, which is important when you sail half way around the earth to trade in spices, but just as important if you are living rough in an English winter.” His men around him guffawed at his choice of words since they were living in this grand house and eating from its well stocked larder.

  "After I've finished my cacaolait, we must speak in private,” Waller told him.

  "You can speak openly in front of my men,” Daniel assured him. "They were honest enough to bring you all the church treasures they captured, and it's not like the king is likely to offer them knighthoods or titles to sway their loyalty.” His men were mostly apprentices from London or from the Home Counties around the city. They would be more satisfied by the favours of an alewench than those of the king, and had a good chance of one, and no chance at all of the other.

  "I've come to borrow Burt to blow some French Farts at the North Gate of the castle,” Waller stated between sips. "Not that I want to, but my officers advise it. Two years ago I spent a bloody fortune on rebuilding that gate, and it irks me to have to blow it up to gain entry into my own castle."

  A burly lad spoke up. He had claimed one of the closest places to the hearth, and was holding out his woolen hose on sticks to steam them dry. "Shows how much officers know about walls and gates."

  Waller had come to expect such lack of manners from the skirmishers who rode with Daniel. Apprentices bowed and scraped to their trades masters, not to the gentry. "How do you mean?"

  "Like you said, you spent a fortune rebuilding the gate a few years ago. Me and my friend are mason's apprentices and we earns our crust from scavenge dressed stone and brick. Any of us can see that there are easier places to breach them castle walls than a newly rebuilt gatehouse."

  Waller sat forward and asked, "Like where?"

  "You'd best take him and show him, Jake,” Daniel said.

  The three men with bare feet resting on the hearth all groaned, and Jake said, "But we were just getting feeling back into our feet, and our boots are still soggy.” He knew his arguement wouldn't gain him any pity so he pulled his hose back from the fire and began to pull them over his feet.

  An hour later Waller, his lifeguard, Daniel, and a group of his apprentices were walking along the back wall of the great old castle, the castle of the first Norman kings. Jake was giving the tour. "Some idiot didn't fix the banks of the moat on this stretch. See how the foundation of the wall is bulging out in a few places. That's cause the water in the moat has carved away the bank and is now undermining the wall. If they don't protect the foundations from the moat, this wall will crumble under its own weight within say, fifty years."

  "This section of the moat has always been used as a fish tank,” Waller told him. "When I was rebuilding the gate, my sister, the Lady Ogle, brought a garden designer over from the continent to advise us. He had the moat widened, not just to make it shallower but to make it so it served as a reflective pool between the old wall and the weeping willow trees on the outer bank. Very scenic you know. It's all the rage on the continent."

  "That designer should be whipped for what his idiocy has done to this wall,” Jake replied. "It's bad enough that the locals have been thieving the dressed stone from the wall whenever a block is pushed loose by frost and water. This is an ancient wall, see. It looks heavy and thick but most of that is rubble. Only the outer surface is of mated dressed stone.” His rant was interrupted by the crack of shots from up on the wall.

  Waller and his lifeguards dashed under the cover of the closest willow, but Daniel and his apprentices did not even step aside. If you were hearing the shot then the ball was already amongst you, and you had as much chance of being hit by stepping aside as by standing still. "Colonel,” Daniel called out to Waller, "don't be fearful of the musket balls. There is no harder shot with a musket than at a steep angle downward. Just stay spread out so you don't get hit by accident. Of course, if you see an arrow whiz by then run for your life. An archer can mark the flight of his last arrow and adjust the aim of his next."

  Waller brushed off the dusting of snow that had fallen on him from the ancient willow and walked towards Jake. "So young man. What are you suggesting about this wall?"

  "Ask Burt,” Jake nodded to the great lump of a man who was now carefully, one baby step at a time, testing the thickness of the ice that covered the moat. He raised his voice and yelled for Burt, and Burt backed away from the pond ice and came to talk.

  "Well, where ever the rubble inside the wall has slumped and pushed out the dressed stone, I could lay a charge. Lay a French Fart. Just a small one. Let's see that's, four, five, six. Six bells. I've got eight small bells set aside in the cathedral. That should be enough. They should move in a minute, what would slump over fifty years. Now I can't promise it, but it could be that one of the slumps will leave us a rough staircase up to the top of the wall. If we're lucky, two staircases, maybe even three."

  "But that would be fantastic,” Waller beamed at the filthy, ragged, lump of a man. "If we take the wall then we can use our carbines to keep Grandison's men out of their own courtyard. Better still, perhaps I won't need to destroy my lovely gate."

  "Two problems,” Burt belched. "I don't trust the ice to get across it."

  Jake answered quickly, "So we do the deed before the sun can soften the ice, and use sleds to get men and bells across the moat. We often move heavy stones on sleds because it spreads the weight of 'em. What's the second problem?"

  "That cannon over there on top of the closest bastion,” Burt replied. "They don't seem to have many cannons in this castle, but just that one would tear into us with grape as we got near the top of the wall.” There was silence all around. No one was going to volunteer to scale the wall to silence that cannon. That would be suicide. And no one was going to volunteer to run up any breach into grape fire. That would also be suicide."

  "Then I'll burn my new gate,” Waller pronounced mournfully.

  "Well if yer goin' ta do that then I may as well use one of the big bells on your gate,” Burt told him.

  "I don't mean to really burn it,” Waller said thoughtfully. "Just stack tinder against it and gather skins of oil, and organize my cavalry into groups ready to charge the gate. Hopefully that will be enough for them to lower that cannon down from the bastion and place it behind the gate ready to shoot murderous grape at my brave lobsters.” There were more shots from the walls. This time Waller stood still, but that didn't mean he didn't cringe in full expectation of the pain if a ball tore into him.

  "It's decided then, Colonel, though it needs more planning,” Daniel replied. "But let's away. It's for the best that we not show any more interest in this wall until they have lowered that gun down. Come with us back to our manor and we'll feed you more hot cacaolait."

  * * * * *

  Daniel shook his hands to try to warm them up. "This waiting is the hardest,” he said to Burt right into his ear. In truth, he had said that at each step of this mission. Getting up in the pre-dawn chi
ll. Hauling the sleds they used to move the small bells filled with gunpowder ... bells sealed waterproof by wax just in case they fell into the moat. Crawling silently and carefully across the moat's ice to run the tow lines to the cover of the wall. Hauling on the lines to pull the sleds as quietly as possible across the ice ... luckily there had been a fresh dusting of dry snow. Digging out a place for the bells in the half frozen mud at the base of the wall. Setting the fuses. With all that done, they had sent the rest of the crew back across the ice to safety, leaving Burt and Daniel alone could light the six fuses.

  "There it is,” Burt sort of whispered. He was pointing to the cathedral tower where a torch was waving It was Waller's signal to begin the attack. "So now Waller's men will make a lot of noise charging the gate to draw the garrison away from the wall. How long do you want to wait before we blow this wall, and then climb it?” He looked to his captain for confirmation, although they had discussed nothing else for a half hour. Daniel nodded to him so he took out his flint and steel and his purse of flash powder, and then scurried along the wall to the bell furthest to the right while Daniel did likewise to the left. They would each light three fuses and meet back here to crawl back across the ice.

  Once the fuses were all lit, they met once again in the middle, but Burt had some bad news. "The fuses are burning faster than I expected. It must be this cold dry air. We don't have time to crawl across the ice to safety. We'll have to trust our luck and make a run for it."

  Daniel grabbed the heavy man back. "Nay, we'll break through, and then blast or not we will be done for. Grab one of the sleds. We can lay on them to crawl. That should be a lot faster.” Each man sprang onto the top of a sled and pushed off from the bank. For the first six feet they glided, but then they began to work their hands and feet for all they were worth. When Daniel was not more than six feet from the other bank, he was hit from behind by something heavy which caused him to roll off his sled sideways. Not knowing what was happening, he grabbed hold of the sled and so it rolled over on top of him. It was only then that he realized what had hit him. Burt.

  Burt had leaped from his sled to roll Daniel over onto his back while yelling, "We're out'a time mate!” He frantically pulled the sleds over top of them both and waited. He only had to wait a split second. Woomph, woomph, whoomph, woomph, woomph, woomph. The noise of the explosions was surprisingly muffled, perhaps by the mud the bells had been buried into. They covered their heads with their arms and tried to squirm further under the sleds for cover. Bits of stone began to hail down on them. They both tried to pull their legs up in hopes of more cover from the sleds. The hail stung their legs like biting flies.

  Just as the hail of stone began to thin, they and the ice under them and the sleds above them were picked up as if by some giant fist and physically thrown onto the bank. And then all they could feel was the burning shock of being soaked to the skin with ice water. They felt strong hands grabbing at their shoulders and dragging them away from the moat. They heard the sounds of fifty men running forward with bales of straw to throw into the moat to create floats for a plank bridge. They heard the sounds of a hundred men racing to climb the breach in the wall and get up to the top before the defenders could rally against them.

  Daniel was so cold that all he could do was shiver and watch through eye lashes that were half frozen together. Burt's French Farts had not just created a few staircases up the wall, they had created a wide landslide of rubble and mud and water. The dressed and fitted stone on the inner side of the wall still stood strong, but in front of it there was a rugged rubble ramp stretching from this bank of the moat, across the moat to the base of the wall, and then sloping up almost to the top of the wall. At the top, some of the dressed stone that had withstood the giant slump looked just like a staircase.

  The first of his skirmishers were now climbing those stairs. There were screams as a few defenders ran forward to push those men over, but the screams were not from his men. The screams were from the defenders who had just lost their ankles to the axes most of his skirmishers carried. And then the top of the wall was theirs.

  The next men to reach the wall carried standards and torches so that everyone in and around the castle could clearly see whose men were now on the walls. Behind them were men carrying carbines and muskets, a lot of men carrying muskets, and these men now flooded onto the top of the wall and began running each way along it. Just to make sure that there was no question in the minds of the royalist garrison about who was in command of the walls, the skirmishers were taking wild pot shots into the courtyard.

  The last things Daniel remembered before he fell asleep were the hands rolling him into woolen blankets and then rolling him onto a sled, and then the endlessly jarring ride across the cobbles of the city streets. It was all like some nightmare from Hell, but not the Christian Hell where he would have been warm, but the Norse Hell where you were always cold. It was only when the jarring ended and a blast of warm air hit him in a doorway that he gave up trying to keep himself awake.

  * * * * *

  He had no idea of how long he had slept, but now he was hearing words. No, that was wrong. He had been hearing words for a long while. The difference was that now he was understanding them. "Will they live?” He fought his stupor to hear the answer.

  "Aye, now that we have them warmed up again. Their bodies had shut down to keep their hearts beating. That is why they fell asleep.” Was that Jake's voice? The other, was that Waller?

  "So they weren't knocked out by falling stone?"

  "Nay, they are sorely bruised from the waist down, but nary a scratch above. The stone wall slumped into the moat and created a wall of water, which is what threw them onto the bank, but it also drenched them as if they had fallen into the moat. We've been feeding them spoonfuls of cayenne tea to heat their blood."

  No wonder his lips were burning.

  "So has the garrison surrendered?” Jake asked.

  "Aye, they threw themselves onto our mercy without terms.” So it was Waller's voice.

  "Well you can't fault them for trusting you,” Jake said. "In the past week you've captured a thousand of their side and you have treated all of them fairly and gently. You even set five hundred of them free."

  "And we will do the like for these men. Many of the rank and file have said that they could walk to their homes within three days so we will let them do just that. So long as they are armed and clothed as if they were farmers rather than soldiers, they will be free to walk away. In this weather I am willing to trust their oaths that they will go straight back to their loved ones. As for the officers, especially Grandison, well I have given them into the safe keeping of Colonel Urrey until parliament decides what is to be done with them."

  "No! You mustn't! Not Urrey!” Daniel called out, or tried to call out. His tongue felt like it was stuck in his mouth with molasses.

  "Did he just speak?” Waller asked.

  "I think it was just a snore. Don't fret for him. By tomorrow he will be more fit to receive visitors."

  "No! Not Urrey!” Daniel tried again, and again. It was no use. They weren't listening. They were walking away. "Not Urrey!” he shouted out one last time. It did sound like a snore. From the corner of his eye he could see a pot of water on the floor beside his pallet. If he knocked it over, they would come back. He willed his arm to move, but it was like he was bound to the pallet. His arm wouldn't move. Everything went dark.

  Everything went light. His head was clear, and he found that he could push himself up the wall until he was almost sitting up. "Good morning,” came a voice from the other side of the pallet. Waller's voice. "I came to see how you were doing."

  Daniel tried to say something but his tongue was still stuck. Someone put a pot to his lips and let water trickle into his mouth. His tongue loosened. "Grandison a prisoner?” were his first words.

  "Yes and no,” Waller replied. "We took him prisoner, but he and his senior officers escaped from their confinement and into the night."


  "Urrey's doing?” Daniel said in a voice louder than he expected.

  "Shhh,” Waller replied. "Perhaps, though it could have been the work of corrupted gaolers. The gaolers have all disappeared too."

  "Who chose the gaolers?"

  "Urrey, but that still proves nothing,” Waller said as he set the pot back down. "Well it's nothing that you should be worrying about. You just get well again. Burt is already up and about, although it pains him to walk. Like you, he has a hundred small bruises on his legs."

  "He carries a few more layers of fat than I do,” Daniel said lightly, rather than the dark thought that was in his mind. How could he blame the gaolers for Grandison's escape since Urrey could have ordered them to allow it, and how could he blame Urrey when he could have been so ordered by Waller, and Waller by Essex. He had warned John Pym and Warwick repeatedly that they could not trust the nobility they had put in command of their troops. That a turncoat in a position of power could cost them dearly. Had that time now come?

  One of Waller's lifeguard came into the room and urgently whispered a message into the Colonel's ear. The Colonel turned to Daniel and said, "I must go. Apparently some of our more extreme Presbyterians are upset by those objects in the cathedral that smack of papism. They are carrying them outside to break and burn them; statues of saints, relics, crucifixes, the bones of kings, everything. No, don't get up, not yet. I will stop at the kitchen on the way out and have some food sent to you."

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Pistoleer - Invasion by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-15

  Chapter 5 - The Seige of Arundel in December 1642

  Burt passed the kijker back to Daniel. "Yeh, same as in Farnham. Dump something heavy on the drawbridge so it can't be lifted, jam the portcullis, and then dump something heavy behind the French Fart to hold it in place against the gate. It worked good'nough at Farnham, so let's give 'er a go here."