Devil's Charge (2011)

by Arnold, Michael

  At last, the light of understanding shone in the earl’s small eyes. ‘Very well.’ He ignored Edberg’s furious expression and looked at Stryker. ‘Take whom you will, Captain.’

  ‘Get the women and children into the cathedral, my lord,’ Stryker instructed, then strode past Chesterfield, fixing his grey eye on as many of the courtiers’ gazes as he could. ‘You each brought men? Gather them now. Bring them down to the south gate.’ He turned to the dragoon commander, whose stare was so acerbic Stryker thought it might almost burn the air between them. ‘You too, Major.’

  Stryker waited until he had a force of perhaps ninety strong. Many more could be mustered in time, but time was the one thing he had so little of.

  Deciding Brooke needed to be engaged sooner rather than later, and with his musket and sword duly returned, Stryker led the defenders out through the south gate, across the causeway rising above the Minster Pool and on to Dam Street, the long road that ran all the way to the south of the town. He did not look back, knowing instinctively that Skellen and Forrester were with him, and hearing the thundering boots of dozens more. If the enemy truly had a large force, this show of defiance would be little more than a futile gesture. But while Stryker did not know the odds he faced, he would try his damnedest to do his duty.

  One of the earl’s men was running up from the direction of St Mary’s church. Stryker recognized him as one of the sentries guarding the old barr at the southern perimeter.

  ‘Make your report,’ Stryker said as the man reached them.

  The sentry doubled forward in exhaustion as soon as he stopped his unwelcome exertion. ‘Roundheads—sir,’ he panted through gasped breaths.

  ‘Where?’ Stryker snapped impatiently. ‘Where, man?’

  The sentry kept hands clutched to his knees, but craned his neck up to look into Stryker’s concerned face. ‘Everywhere! From—south—sir. Like—a swarm. They come up here,’ he pointed along Dam Street as it stretched away behind him. ‘And up—Bridge Street. All roads, sir. Purple’uns.’

  ‘It’s Brooke, right enough,’ Forrester said.

  ‘Hundreds—sir!’ the sentry added, desperate to convey the town’s plight. ‘Praps thousands!’

  And then Stryker knew the day was lost, for this was no curious party of scouts, nor tentative vanguard, but Brooke’s full force, and they were clearly not here for mere forage or reconnaissance, but to execute a mandate to drive the Royalists from Lichfield.

  Stryker patted the sentry on his heaving back. ‘Thank you,’ he said briefly, stepping round him and beckoning for the others to follow. The large group paced quickly southwards along Dam Street, sending panicked townsfolk scattering in all directions like so many mice.

  ‘Now yer for it!’ a black-hooded woman screeched from an upstairs window. ‘Pym’s brave boys’ll skin you Romish bastards, as you deserve!’

  ‘Shut it, Rosy!’ another woman howled back from one of the houses opposite. Stryker stared up to see her leaning precariously out between painted shutters. ‘These are Charlie’s rightfuls!’ The woman leaned yet further out of the window so that her plump face could be seen by the earl’s men. ‘Skewer them fuckin’ Banbury-men, good sirs. Chase the buggers off! God ’n Saint Chad be with you!’

  More shouts accompanied the defenders’ march. Men and women lurched from upper rooms to wave fists and decry Chesterfield’s soldiers, or whoop and squawk their allegiance.

  ‘My father once planted an avenue of hornbeam leading up to our family home,’ Forrester said, his words matter-of-fact but his tone strained. ‘I hated walking up that long road as a child, for the rooks would pack those bloody trees and mock our every step with their confounded cawing.’ He shuddered. ‘That noise.’ He paused suddenly, pointing a chubby finger up at an open window immediately above them. ‘Still your tongue, woman, or I’ll still it for you!’

  ‘Easy, Forry,’ Stryker said calmly. ‘Let them shout what they will. They are frightened fools.’

  Forrester turned silently back to the road, his face grim.

  With the bellowed words of scorn and encouragement ringing in their ears, the soldiers crossed the marketplace and reached the squat stone edifice of St Mary’s church. It stood in the centre of the town, dominating the junction between Dam Street, Bore Street and Sadler Street, and it was here that Stryker paused. He turned to the assembled throng. Chesterfield’s officers were mostly amateurs who had hoped to pass this war safely barricaded behind the high ramparts of Cathedral Close. But events had conspired against them, and Stryker could see that they were as frightened as their men. ‘Whichever way they advance,’ he called, meeting as many anxious gazes as he could, ‘they’ll have to pass by here. So it is here we shall make our stand.’

  A nervous tension seemed to hold the soldiers in thrall. They stared back at Stryker, unsure of what to do next. They were on the wrong side of the earl’s great walls, and the wrong side of his deep moats.

  Skellen did not await an order. He grunted something unintelligible, and set about loading his musket. For a heartbeat Lichfield’s beleaguered Royalists stood inert and dumbstruck, watching him entranced.

  As he checked the length of the match against the closed priming pan, ensuring it would ignite successfully when called upon, the long-limbed sergeant glanced up, eyes sepulchre-black in their deep sockets. ‘Shut yer beslubberin’ ale-pipes and get your guns primed!’ he bellowed with sudden, terrifying savagery, making several men start in alarm. ‘Gapin’ like Lot’s bloody goodwife’ll get you shot! If not by the enemy, then by me!’

  And then there was a flutter of movement within the throng as a man bearing a fearsome-looking fowling piece shook himself into action and reached for a powder flask. Stryker recognized him as John Dyott, brother of Sir Richard, and he offered a small nod of recognition. A couple more followed his lead, then ten more, then a score. Before long the entire mass of men were making their weapons ready for combat, and Stryker was thanking God for William Skellen.

  A small man hefting a musket as tall as himself stepped forward. ‘What now?’ he asked in a coarse, half-throttled tone.

  ‘Master Barkworth. You’ll take these men,’ Stryker said, indicating the thirty or so soldiers immediately to Barkworth’s rear, ‘and cover Sadler. I want that street bristling with muskets.’

  Barkworth nodded, dour determination etching deep valleys across his face, yellow eyes brighter and more feral than Stryker had seen them. He well understood, for that same battle excitement was washing over him too: the terror and the risk, and the base need to shed blood for a cause.

  The men Stryker had pointed out began to group in Barkworth’s wake, following him to their defensive positions, and Stryker turned quickly to Skellen. ‘Bore Street, Will.’

  The sergeant spun immediately away. ‘You lot!’ he called to a swathe of the remaining men. ‘Let’s have you!’ No one argued.

  ‘The rest stay with me,’ Stryker ordered. He caught Forrester’s gaze. ‘Take some across the street, Forry. We need all angles covered.’

  ‘Sir,’ Forrester responded.

  And then, like spectres materializing at the town’s southern limit, men in purple uniforms began to appear. At first there were three, then fifteen, then fifty. By the time Stryker had arranged his men around the nearest homes and shops of Dam Street, the invaders were too numerous to count. It was a column of men in Lord Brooke’s distinctive purple coats, urged on by bawling halberdiers and bristling with musketry and steel. A vast square of purple taffeta swayed in the breeze above their metalclad heads bearing the arms of England and seven stars in the field. It was a standard that told of a hardy, experienced force. One that had come to claim Lichfield for Parliament.

  The attackers were on the very fringe of musket range, but Lichfield’s Royalist garrison could not wait. They needed to delay the swelling tide of Roundheads. If not kill them, then make it plain that further advance would bring lead to their bodies. Stryker did not order any man to fire, but fire they did.
It was sporadic, erratic, each man loading and firing in his own time, but the effect was profound and immediate. The oncoming column seemed to slow, then its front rank took a step backwards. The men around St Mary’s cheered and Brooke’s purplecoats hesitated and his sergeants snarled.

  But the garrison’s joy was to be short-lived, for, just when their desperate defence seemed destined for miraculous success, the Parliamentarian force changed tack. The foremost ranks broke into small groups, perhaps half a dozen in each, and burst from the column suddenly, darting ten or twenty paces up the road. One such group stopped to level their muskets, and let fly a small volley that ripped its way up the street. The defenders ducked low, or flattened themselves against houses and within doorways, but the range was still too great, and the bullets hurtled uselessly above their heads. But as the Royalists came out into plain view again in order to offer shots in reply, another of the smaller attacking groups opened up their own minor volley. A third joined them, and then a fourth. Most of the balls sailed past the defenders, peppering the church’s austere stonework at their backs, but the range was gradually closing, and one of Chesterfield’s men clattered to the ground to Stryker’s left with a heavy sigh.

  ‘There’s too many,’ another man whimpered querulously. ‘By the Virgin’s piss, there’s too many.’

  Stryker threw him a vicious look. ‘Hold! Hold I say, or you’ll meet a swifter end than you expect.’

  The man clamped his jaw shut and forced himself to stand firm, though his hands shook so violently Stryker wondered whether he would even be able to bring his musket to bear.

  Brooke’s strategy was clear now. His companies were advancing in small packs, giving light volley fire like skirmishers. The lord did not want a cumbersome column that would be easy for the defenders to pick off, a mass of bodies offering guaranteed success to even the most ill-aimed of shots. He had deployed his men into fast-moving groups, giving fire alternately so that the Royalist garrison was granted no respite to load and aim their weapons. It was a good strategy. One that, allied with vast numerical superiority, would see him bring a swift end to this fight. For a moment Stryker considered abandoning the defence, for there was no chance of repelling such a large, determined force, but he would be damned if he’d let Brooke have things all his own way. If only for courageous men like Barkworth, Stryker would not have it said that Lichfield was surrendered without so much as an altercation.

  The high crack of a carbine volley came sharp and deafening from the far side of St Mary’s and Stryker was given renewed hope, for it announced the arrival of Edberg’s troop into the fray. He could not see the yellow-coated dragoons, but knew they would be dismounted for this fight, and hoped their combined fire would stem the enemy’s flow along Bridge Street.

  Stryker’s men on Dam Street were firing as rapidly as they might, their shots rarely finding success at this range, but serving to delay Brooke’s inexorable progress. A crackle of musketry came back at them, and Stryker dodged behind an abandoned cart. Up ahead, at the far end of Dam Street, scores of purple-coated musketeers came on rapidly, pairs breaking away intermittently to check the flanking houses for snipers.

  Stryker knew there were none, and he cursed the earl’s inertia.

  ‘Shoot ’em! Shoot the bastards!’ Skellen’s snarling tones carried to him from the entrance to Bore Street. The fact that his pitch was even remotely shrill was cause for grave concern. Clearly, the swarming enemy were as numerous along that road as they were on this.

  In a moment of supreme shock, he felt a pressure at his temple and, lifting his free hand to feel for the anticipated wound, his fingertips met with skin that was made slithery with moisture. Stryker crouched low behind the cart as he checked his hand for the expected slick of blood that would soon be pulsing freely down his face, but instead he saw only a completely transparent liquid. He touched his head again, realising that there was no pain, and this time his fingers came away covered in small white specks. He stood, peering into the cart, and, for the first time, noticed it was piled with small, wizened apples. A volley from down the street crashed into the area around him again, and several of the fruit were destroyed in an instant, pulverized into specks of white flesh by hot musket-balls. He ducked once more, wiping more apple pulp from his head and cheeks.

  Crouching still, Stryker loaded and primed his musket, threaded the long barrel between two of the cart’s wheel spokes, picked a target and sent forth its vicious missile. A stout man, gleaming partizan in hand, was snatched backwards, twitching where he lay.

  He loaded again, squinted through the thick cloud of throat-burning smoke now roiling about his head, and picked another target. The intended victim bent low to grasp something he had dropped, and the movement saved his life. Stryker cursed silently as the ball holed a water trough some yards beyond its mark.

  More shots rang out, some from the outward-facing defenders ranged around St Mary’s and the entrances to Bore, Sadler and Dam Streets, others from Brooke’s men, their sheer weight of numbers ensuring progress was inevitable, despite the hail of lead that greeted each step. Windows shattered, a scrawny dog lay whimpering pathetically at the side of the road, blood cascading down its hind quarters where an errant ball had entered.

  Still the Parliamentarians came, and for the first time Stryker noticed the frequency of defensive fire was beginning to wane. Chesterfield’s amateurs were tiring, their fire increasingly desultory. Individual muskets continued to cough, cracks echoing loudly in the narrow streets, but their collective sound was more like the rattle of hail on a still lake than the thunderous crescendo of a coordinated volley.

  ‘We’ll have to fall back!’ Forrester called from the other side of Dam Street.

  Stryker peered across to where his friend was standing, back pressed against the door of a timber-framed house. ‘Not yet!’

  Forrester’s face was lurid puce against his black hat and fair fringe. ‘Jesu, Stryker, there are too many! You’ll have us all dead with your stubbornness!’ He shook his head angrily, loaded his musket, looked up again and grinned.

  Stryker grinned back, loaded, and shot a purplecoat in the chest.

  ‘God and Parliament!’ came the cry from the oncoming attackers. It resounded about the buildings, echoing all the way up Dam Street to the little church that had become the makeshift defensive hub, and its sheer volume, competing admirably with the sporadic gunfire, gave away the true nature of their numbers.

  ‘They won’t stand!’ a curiously hoarse voice reached Stryker’s ears. ‘The craven zealots won’t stand before us, sir!’

  He turned. It was Barkworth, the small man having joined him behind the apple-cart. ‘Make your report.’

  Barkworth’s eyes seemed to shine like gemstones, as though the action had breathed new life into him. ‘My lads cover Sadler Street, Captain. But there’s plenty of the bastards.’

  Stryker was not surprised, for he had foreseen Brooke would deploy his men along all the main roads through Lichfield, rendering defence near impossible, forcing Chesterfield’s men to spread themselves too thinly to be effective. ‘Perhaps it is time to give ground.’

  Barkworth’s jaw dropped. ‘Nay, Captain Stryker, do not utter it,’ he had to shout above the terrified braying of an ancient-looking palfrey, left tied to a wooden post near St Mary’s south-west corner. ‘The devils shan’t stand for long.’

  Stryker was amazed. ‘I thought you spoke of our men, Master Barkworth!’ He jerked his head back towards the oncoming Parliamentarians. ‘Just count them, sir! The enemy could be unarmed to a man and they’d still win this fight.’ He turned away from Barkworth’s look of fury and flinched as a musket-ball careened above the cart and into the stone of the church just behind them. His heart sank, for the men in purple were too close now, the Royalists’ best efforts seemingly having no effect. He cupped a hand and bellowed across the road to where Forrester maintained his volley fire. ‘Forry! Forry! Retreat! If we stay, they’ll surround us!’ />
  ‘Thank Christ you’ve seen sense!’ Forrester barked back, immediately corralling the nearest men so that they might follow him back towards the church and Cathedral Close beyond.

  Stryker turned away, looking to the men within his own earshot, but found his path blocked by an indignant Simeon Barkworth.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ Barkworth snarled.

  ‘You say they come up Sadler Street, sir. My sergeant fights them along Bore Street. And look,’ he pointed at the tide of men he and Forrester had been attempting to quell. ‘They are on Dam Street also. There are too many, from too many directions. We’ll be cut off and cut down if we do not retire to the Close in short order.’

  Barkworth’s face looked as though it might implode, his veins rising from the skin at his temples. ‘To hell with your yellow bloody cowardice, sir! We’ll cut these Banbury-men a new set of arseholes, and feed their innards to our dogs!’

  Stryker did not have time for delay. He took Barkworth by a scrawny shoulder and thrust him aside. ‘I do believe you have lost your wits, sir.’

  ‘I’m not afraid!’ Barkworth bawled behind him. ‘I’ll cut these stoneless bastards to shreds, so help me! They’ll not stand! They’ll not fucking stand!’

  Stryker was at once staggered and repelled by the little man’s bravado, but something about Barkworth compelled him to see that the crazed fellow lived. He turned back, taking a fistful of the back of Barkworth’s collar, and hauled him towards the safety of the Close.

  ‘I’ll die here!’ Barkworth screamed.

  ‘I do not doubt it,’ Stryker replied, feeling certain the Scottish firebrand’s immeasurable courage and lust for violence would indeed make an end of him. ‘But not today.’

  Bridlington, Yorkshire, 2 March 1643

  The wind howled. Great gusts, swirling, freezing and relentless, lashed inland from the North Sea coast like an army of screaming banshees, besieging those fortunate enough to seek solace within warm cloaks, and punishing those who were not.