Devil's Charge (2011)

by Arnold, Michael

  One of Stryker’s officers came to stand at his shoulder. A man whose fluff-covered upper lip was at odds with his confident bearing and weather-beaten skin. Andrew Burton might have still been in his teens, but he had seen more fighting than most witnessed in a lifetime. His right arm was withered, propped close against his ribcage within a tight leather sling, the shoulder shattered months earlier by a pistol ball. ‘Men are ready, sir,’ Burton said, glancing back at the ranks. ‘It’s past noon. Will we advance, do you think?’

  Stryker removed his hat, fiddling with the once bright feathers at its band, careful to have them in good order for the inevitable assault. Somehow it was important. ‘Imminently, Lieutenant.’

  Burton stared at the earthworks hedging the town. ‘I had hoped we might pound them a while,’ he said wistfully.

  ‘Aye,’ Stryker agreed. Royalist ordnance had softened the town’s resolve during late morning, the damage becoming increasingly visible amid the low rooftops, but here, at the southwestern entrance, the defences were left unscathed. ‘It seems the prince will require an escalade.’ He regarded the younger man with interest. ‘Frightened?’

  Burton’s neck convulsed as he swallowed thickly. ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘All is well then,’ Stryker said. ‘You’ll not get yourself killed for misplaced bravery.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘The colonel did not promote you so that you could dash away your life against this damned town’s barricades. Caution, Andrew. There’ll be time enough for valour, lad, but you must choose your moment.’

  Lieutenant Burton nodded solemnly, and paced back to the men at his command. Stryker frowned slightly. His protégé had proven himself more than once since joining Stryker on their suicidal mission to arrest Sir Randolph Moxcroft in the weeks after Kineton Fight, and had been rewarded for his bravery and rapidly increasing skill, but a streak of recklessness had also shown itself. Burton was now second-in-command of the company. Stryker needed a man with a level head as much as he needed one of stout heart.

  The drums rolled.

  They rumbled low and ominous across the snow-blanketed fields, lingering in echo as they climbed the white summits of hills beyond.

  Stryker studied the nearest buildings. They were not within the town’s dilapidated walls, but outside, straddling the road. It was, he had been told, a small farm known as the Barton. It was there that the defenders would stage their first attempt to repel the closing horde. By the look of the old Roman walls that surrounded the town, he imagined the Barton would be the most difficult obstacle. Once they were beyond it, the town would quickly fall. He wondered whether the inhabitants had had the good sense to bury their valuables and flee into those high, sheep-crowded crests. Somehow he doubted it.

  ‘Capital of the Cotswolds,’ Captain Lancelot Forrester said as he came to stand at Stryker’s side. All but Colonel Mowbray had dismounted for the day’s action, the horses corralled at the rear by the dour wagon-master, Yalden.

  Stryker’s thin lips twitched in amusement as he acknowledged Forrester. ‘Not much to crow about, is it?’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Forrester agreed, absently fingering the gold trim of his blood-red sash.

  Stryker frowned. ‘Should you not be with your lads?’

  ‘They’re neat, tidy and ready for the off, old boy, worry not!’ Forrester exclaimed brightly. He had been with Stryker and Burton on that terrible mission the previous autumn, had shared those same dangers and carved his own swathe though the hellish barricades of New and Old Brentford. His reward had been the posting of his choice, and the death of Mowbray’s fourth captain in a skirmish outside Banbury had provided a vacant position serving with his old comrade.

  Stryker stared down the line of pike and musket to cast an appraising eye over his friend’s new command. ‘A good group, Forry. You’ve done well with them.’

  ‘Kind in you to say,’ Forrester said simply, though his big cherubic face became a little pink. He hastily rummaged in the snapsack slung at his shoulder, eventually plucking out a short, tooth-worn clay pipe.

  Stryker’s lone brow shot up. ‘You lost the game, Forry.’

  Forrester glanced at the pipe. ‘I did, I did. And I had not forgotten the forfeit.’

  ‘No sotweed for a month.’

  Forrester propped the pipe stem in the corner of his mouth. ‘The chirurgeon prescribed it for reasons of health.’ He pulled a hurt expression. ‘You would have me give up tobacco, to the detriment of my lungs, for a little game of dice?’

  Stryker laughed and turned back to point towards the Barton. Forrester followed his companion’s gaze as he touched a smouldering length of match to the pipe bowl, eyes resting on the walls of stacked clods and stout barrels that formed the deep works. Those works were crowned by a palisade of sharpened stakes, behind which would doubtless be as many immovable objects as the townsfolk could gather. He remembered this method of defence from that terrible day west of London where the men of Holles and Brooke had proved so damnably difficult to shift.

  ‘Bloody waste to dash them against those works,’ Stryker said bluntly.

  Forrester sighed, cheeriness eroding. ‘I’d prayed we’d avoid a climb.’

  ‘Prayed?’ Stryker said, failing to keep the surprise from his tone. ‘Hardly a religious man, are you?’

  Forrester smiled weakly, pipe smoke wreathing his round face. ‘No, I’m not. But when faced with imminent death, one’s thoughts do turn to one’s saviour.’

  Stryker kept his tongue still, though he could not help but agree.

  ‘The good news,’ Forrester added, forcing brightness back into his voice, ‘is that they’re seriously under strength.’

  Stryker knew that was true, and knew that he should have been elated by the news, but the prospect of witnessing the town’s inevitable demise was not one he relished. Once the Royalist force had breached the Barton and the ancient walls beyond, they would give no quarter to those inside. He let out a heavy breath that obscured his face in roiling vapour. ‘Why do they not surrender, damn them, and save us all a bloodbath?’

  ‘Parliament heartland, Stryker. The good citizens are misguided souls, harbouring rebel sympathies. Every man-jack of ’em. The whole shire’s rife with it.’ Forrester chuckled blackly. ‘Like French-welcome in a bawdy-house.’

  Stryker turned to him. ‘The townsfolk will fight?’

  Forrester nodded slowly, ruddy cheeks bright. ‘No bloody doubt about it. When they turned the prince away last month they declared they would die for the True Religion.’ He blew out his cheeks at the thought of the day’s almost inevitable bloodletting. ‘They’re ready for the slaughter, Stryker. Now Stamford’s buggered off with most of his men to Sudeley Castle, and he’s mired in snow and mud. They’ll never make it back in time. So the town has what’s left of his force bolstering the walls, while the streets ’ll be lined with pitchfork-wielding peasants.’

  Stryker shook his head. ‘God’s teeth.’

  Forrester shrugged. ‘Worry not, Stryker, we’ll be warming our arses by their hearths in short order.’

  ‘It’s not the assault that worries me most, Forry, but what follows.’ He looked back to the settlement and the buildings huddled within, remembering well the horrors inflicted on so many similar towns and villages in Germany and the Low Countries. ‘Bloody town.’

  Cirencester had grown rich from its wool, and sat between Charles’s new court at Oxford and his hotbed of support in Wales and Cornwall. It was a fat, juicy apple crying out to be plucked. But if its wealth and geography made it a logical prize for the Royalist army, a forthright defiance of the king had made Cirencester a personal target for their commander, Prince Rupert. So he had brought a horde to its walls. Stryker knew the price to be paid for defying men like Rupert of the Rhine. By dusk, so would the folk of Cirencester.

  ‘Bloody, bloody town.’

  Cirencester was surrounded. Prince Rupert held a large division of horse, dragoons and foot, of which Mowbray’s men
formed only a fraction, before the town’s south-west entrance. There were several units further out on the Stroud road, and, Stryker knew, more bristling companies to the east. On the road leading south-west towards Bristol, Lord Wentworth had three companies of infantry, one of dragoons and one of light cavalry, while to the north-east, in the direction of Sudeley and Winchcombe, the Earl of Carnarvon led a similar number. It was a force to be reckoned with.

  The Royalist artillery had pounded away with little reply as the assault troops moved into position, gnawing at the defences, reducing them to nothing more than a display of pitiful insolence. If the attackers were able to force their way inside the town, it would be short work, Stryker knew, for the remains of Stamford’s troops would be spread pathetically thin manning the perimeter of the town while patching up the myriad breaches in the fortifications.

  ‘And all the while Robert the Devil intends to gallop straight through the main gate,’ Forrester’s well-educated tones startled Stryker from his thoughts.

  ‘You read my mind,’ Stryker said grimly, taking the pipe from Forrester and inhaling deeply. Carnarvon would lead an assault against Spitalgate to the north, while, according to the orders hammered out by Rupert’s drummers, the prince would take his cavalry directly through the Barton and on into the town. The strategy baffled Stryker, for, though entering Cirencester by the south-west road was the shortest route to the town’s heart, a cavalry charge against the only heavily fortified point in the relatively weak perimeter seemed futile.

  ‘You try and teach prudence to the youth of today,’ Forrester went on, snatching back the tobacco-filled clay stem and twitching his head at Lieutenant Burton, ‘and our good commander proves himself entirely devoid of the stuff.’

  Stryker’s laugh was more like a bark. ‘Aye, the prince has a way about him. They won’t expect him to make for the front door.’

  ‘The surprise alone’ll win him the day, I’d wager. He’s mad, Stryker. Quite mad.’

  ‘But you’re glad he’s on our side,’ Stryker replied.

  Forrester slapped his friend on the back. ‘I thank God for it daily!’

  ‘And I thank Him for the two of you, though I can’t comprehend why, what with all your whining!’

  Forrester’s face turned cherry red with embarrassment as Prince Rupert of the Rhine reined in behind the officers. The young General of Horse seemed like a giant atop his great stallion, an impression only enhanced by his russetted armour and thick buff-coat. The portly captain stared up at King Charles’s nephew, snatching off his hat in rapid salute to reveal sandy hair that only made his cheeks appear more livid. He stuttered the beginnings of an apology, but the prince stopped him with a great bellow of laughter. ‘At your ease, Captain Forrester! We will indeed make for the front door, as your one-eyed compatriot so eloquently put it.’

  Stryker met the prince’s gaze. Rupert seemed to be fidgeting in his saddle, such was his unbridled excitement. ‘May I ask as to your plans, General?’

  Rupert offered another beaming grin, his neat white teeth bright beneath the sliding nasal bar of his Dutch-style pot helmet. ‘Plans, Stryker? I plan to toast a great victory this evening. Find me after! We’ll share a bottle, if the God-bothering stiffs ain’t poured every drop o’ drink in the Churn!’

  ‘After, sir? We attack soon?’

  ‘We do, we do. Carnarvon strikes to the north even now. We’ll take the southern entrance while their heads are turned.’

  Stryker frowned. ‘Beg’ pardon, General, but the southern defences are stout. Do you not require infantry to first clear that barricade? We—’

  To Stryker’s surprise, the young prince’s eye twitched a conspiratorial wink. ‘They say I use sorcery, Stryker.’ He indicated the giant white poodle that stood, as ever, beside his horse. The dog had been a gift from Lord Arundell during the prince’s time in an Austrian prison after the battle of Vlotho in 1638, and was now Rupert’s constant shadow, even joining its master’s often death-defying cavalry charges. ‘They say Boye, here, is my familiar. Would you countenance such puritanical drivel?’ Rupert laughed at the notion, though his sharp features hardened a fraction of a second later, his eyes darkening with a steely seriousness. ‘Well today, Captain, I mean to show ’em some real magic! Look to the barricade!’

  In moments the prince was gone, galloping away down the line, Boye in tow, to find his famed cavalry.

  The drums sounded again.

  Stryker turned to Forrester, noting the sheen of sweat that had already crept across his fellow captain’s plump jowls despite the oppressive cold. ‘That’s our order to advance.’

  Forrester upturned his pipe, letting the still smoking contents litter the snow, and shook the proffered hand. ‘Godspeed. I must see to my own lads. Once more unto the breach an’ all that, what?’ He stared back at the Barton, perhaps imagining the rows of muskets that must wait behind the piled wall. It seemed almost inevitable that those muskets would repel the cavalry charge with devastating ease, leaving the task of assault to his infantrymen. ‘Rather wish there were a breach to assault.’

  Stryker shrugged. ‘Watch the barricade.’

  Forrester shot him a wan smile. ‘I’ll watch it. By God, I’ll be watching nothing but.’

  Stryker set his jaw, determination puckering the ragged tissue that covered his long-shattered eye socket. ‘Fare you well, Forry.’ He turned away. ‘Sergeant!’

  A tall man appeared from where he had been waiting patiently some distance behind the officers. His sinewy frame and weather-hewn face marked him as a seasoned winter campaigner. ‘Sir!’

  Stryker craned his neck up to look into the sergeant’s face. ‘Make them ready, Will. He’ll send in his beloved horse first, but we’ll sweep behind right enough.’

  ‘’Bout bleedin’ time,’ Sergeant William Skellen murmured.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Men’ll have a grand old time, sir,’ said Skellen, his voice suddenly finding clarity in the crisp air. ‘Armed and eager, Mister Stryker.’

  Stryker jerked his head back towards the ranks of brown-coated infantry, pike files bristling, musketeers blowing on match-cords to prick bright holes in the gloomy day. ‘Get on with it then, Sergeant.’

  Skellen gave a curt nod and turned away.

  ‘And Sergeant?’

  Skellen looked back. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Try not to come back dead.’

  The sergeant grinned ferociously, showing stumps of mottled amber. ‘Never did yet, sir.’

  The first cavalry units began to move. Of the four thousand men at Prince Rupert’s disposal, the majority were harquebusiers, and they surged forward, raggedly at first, but soon forming into a great wave of armour and hooves as the charge gathered momentum.

  Stryker watched the horsemen go, and he felt the land shake beneath his tall boots. He wished he could be in that great assault. But, as the elation of battle prickled along the nape of his neck and quickened his pulse, he bit it down savagely, forcing himself to focus on his own command. He knew them for hard, confident men, men who had followed him into the terrors below the ridge at Edgehill and had survived. Fifty-three musketeers, thirty-six pikemen, two commissioned officers, two sergeants, three corporals and two drummers: Stryker’s company. Ninety-eight men that would take on the entire rebel army if he asked it of them.

  ‘Ensign Chase!’ Stryker bellowed at a stocky, full-bearded fellow stood at the front of the company. ‘Hold that bloody colour high, man! Let ’em see who they face!’

  Chase had not been Stryker’s ensign long, but he knew his business well enough. With a powerful heave, he lofted the banner as high as he might, so that the square of red taffeta caught the breeze, its pair of white diamonds flickering taut and proud.

  The dense swathe of horse was a hundred paces away now, charging inexorably towards the ominously robust barricade. The Royalist infantry units to Stryker’s flanks began to move. Colonel Mowbray was out in front, standing tall in bright stirrups, proudl
y urging his regiment to the fray. In turn, Stryker sucked air deep into his lungs and bellowed, ‘Forward!’

  The men of Sir Edmund Mowbray’s Regiment of Foot took their first steps towards Cirencester.

  ‘They have artillery, sir,’ Burton, away to Stryker’s left, chirped uncertainly.

  Stryker snorted. ‘They dragged their culverins over to pound Sudeley Castle. And their best crews, to boot. What they have left are half a dozen small pieces. Don’t sound a deal more than drakes. It is not their guns you should fear, Lieutenant, but their bloody muskets poking at us from beyond that barricade.’

  Burton’s brow creased in consternation as he assessed the grim task ahead. ‘Our horse will never break that.’

  Stryker understood what he meant. It seemed as if the cavalry and infantry would take it in turn to hammer uselessly upon the thick barricade, only to be shot at by jeering defenders. And yet something in Rupert’s nervous energy had infected him, made him dare to share in the young general’s confidence.

  ‘Have faith, Lieutenant.’

  Burton briefly sketched a crucifix across his chest with his left arm, the right hanging uselessly in its strap. ‘I do, sir. I do.’

  Stryker grinned. ‘Not in God, Burton. In Rupert.’

  ‘Sir?’ Burton seemed baffled.

  ‘I believe the general has something hidden up one of those long sleeves of his.’

  Burton said something in reply, but Stryker did not catch a single word for, in a single great, ear-splitting, earth-shuddering second Cirencester vanished from view.

  It was a matter of moments before the cavalry hit home. But they did not blunt their blades against the earthworks or hurl pathetic insults up at the men safe behind the palisade. Instead, the horsemen whooped and cheered and screamed their thanks to God. They stood high in their stirrups and vanished into the red flame and black smoke that billowed about the Barton.