Devil's Charge (2011)

by Arnold, Michael

  ‘Now,’ Stryker said, ‘I want you to take aim at that man.’ He pointed down on to Dam Street. ‘The one in plate and helmet. See him?’

  John Dyott remained silent, gazing down at the city stretching away beneath him.

  Stryker was staggered by the man’s discourteousness and bit back a barbed comment. ‘I said, do you see him, sir?’

  Dyott knelt and chose a lead ball from the small pile of ammunition he had placed on the stone at his feet.

  ‘God’s teeth, man!’ Stryker snapped, unused to this kind of insult.

  ‘Captain Stryker!’ The voice was Sir Richard’s. He had come to the top of the staircase. ‘I am sorry. I thought you were aware of my brother’s affliction.’

  Stryker looked at him. ‘Affliction?’

  ‘Dear John is quite deaf, Captain. Deaf and dumb from birth.’

  Stryker stared back at the man who was already taking aim with the huge weapon. ‘Stone me. My apologies, Sir Richard. I did not know. But he is a good shot?’

  ‘The very best. Why he—’

  Stryker did not hear Sir Richard’s words, for the man who could neither speak nor hear had opened fire.

  Captain Thomas Fitch shrank back from the fine shower of sticky liquid that sprayed his face. He frantically wiped his eyes clear, wondering where on earth his general had gone, and dashed forwards into the porch area.

  ‘My lord! General!’ Fitch cried, hoping Brooke had not stridden out into the open. But then he saw the booted feet to the left of the doorway, and he peered round the frame to see a pair of inert legs. Fitch moved further out with growing trepidation, only to see the armoured torso and then, horrifyingly, the head crowned with an exquisitely crafted helmet.

  It was only then that Fitch looked down at his hands. They were covered in blood, and he suddenly understood that that was the substance he had wiped from his eyes.

  ‘My God,’ he said to no one. ‘Dear God.’

  Fitch scrambled out on to Dam Street, unconcerned with the men in the Close, and knelt beside the prostrate body. ‘Help here!’ he bellowed back into the house. ‘Help here, damn your eyes!’

  Men came running. They joined the captain, helped him drag Lord Brooke back into the safety of the house. Only then did Fitch turn his general over.

  ‘A sign from God,’ Captain Thomas Fitch murmured. And then he began to weep. For Robert Greville, second Baron Brooke, was dead; a wide, ragged hole of glistening scarlet where his left eye had been.

  ‘For Saint Chad!’ Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, bellowed into the crisp morning sky. ‘God and Saint Chad!’

  The news of Brooke’s sudden and shocking demise had already spread throughout the garrison by the time Stryker’s feet touched terra firma. Now he was out in the courtyard, listening to the cheers of Chesterfield’s newly invigorated men. The earl himself was at the centre of the throng, wrapped tight in a fur-trimmed cloak, shadowed discreetly by the ever-watchful Barkworth, and lofting his walking stick as though it were the king’s own standard. And why not, Stryker thought? The garrison needed an infusion of confidence, and if Chesterfield could achieve such a hitherto difficult task by reminding them that their enemy had died on the very day dedicated to Lichfield’s patron saint, then all to the good.

  He strode past the crowing group, pleased to be at some liberty again, and made for the infirmary.

  ‘Watch yourself, Captain,’ a voice called sharply to him from the shadows between two nearby wagons.

  Stryker held his stride and a hand went to his sword-hilt, ready to draw the weapon at a moment’s notice. He could not yet see the man who had hailed him, but the accent was one with which he was all too familiar. ‘I always do, Major.’

  Like a wherry boat resolving from a Thames morning mist, the stark features of Henning Edberg gradually appeared as he stepped into the light. ‘You think you have evaded justice?’

  Stryker shook his head. ‘No. You’re still here, aren’t you? The charge still stands. Chesterfield merely sees more use in keeping me free than locking me up. While the rebels are at his door, leastwise.’ He remembered the earl’s curt acceptance of his skills in those breathless moments after that first skirmish in Lichfield’s streets. Chesterfield’s glances were narrow, his voice reticent, for he remained suspicious of a man on such a heinous charge, but the bloody action had convinced the earl that the presence of Stryker and his men was infinitely more of a help than a hindrance. Stryker also remembered the Swedish dragoon’s outrage as he was told that the matter would be dealt with as soon as Parliament’s forces had turned tail back to Warwickshire. ‘You and I can settle our differences once this—’ he waved a hand above his head, indicating the entire Close, ‘is finished.’

  ‘I would settle this now,’ Edberg growled, his face set in a sour grimace, and he stepped forward so that Stryker wondered if he were about to launch an attack.

  Stryker held his ground. ‘You would duel here, in the open, with so many to bear witness? Christ, Edberg, are you entirely frantic? The Close is a prison, whether I am in chains or not. I cannot take my leave. You have me captured, sir.’ And then his voice trailed off, for something in Edberg’s eyes had unsettled him. There was a fury there, the blood-fury Stryker himself felt when in the heat of battle, at that moment when he scented a kill.

  And then, just as Stryker moved to unsheathe his sword, Edberg stepped back, plunging into the shadows again, leaving Stryker standing alone, questions swirling about his mind.

  ‘This woman is a rare marvel, Captain,’ Doctor Gregory Chambers greeted him in the perpetually gloomy room.

  ‘She fares well, then?’

  ‘Well?’ Chambers grinned. ‘Near better than most in this God-forsaken fort!’ He clapped Stryker on the shoulder suddenly. ‘I hear you stuck a ball through Banbury Brooke’s eye! Well done, sir. Well done indeed!’

  Stryker shook his head. ‘The feat is not mine to claim, Doctor. Sir Richard’s brother must take the credit.’

  ‘Ah, stands to reason,’ Chambers said. ‘Dumb Dyott is an impressive shot. Always was.’

  Stryker felt heat burn at his cheeks suddenly. ‘Dumb Dyott?’

  ‘Oh, worry not, sir,’ Chambers blurted quickly, evidently reading threat in the officer’s stare, ‘the term is not made in offence, but endearment, I assure you. Honest John is known as Dumb Dyott in Lichfield. He and his goodwife Katherine were both deaf and dumb from birth.’

  Stryker had not realised his expression was so readable, and felt instantly embarrassed, wondering if the doctor could tell that such nicknames, bestowed for a man’s physical misfortunes, bore him a particular pain. He stared at his boots. ‘May I see her?’

  Chambers moved aside. ‘Naturally, Captain.’

  ‘You do not understand,’ Stryker said, as he sat in his usual place at Lisette’s side. It was mid afternoon, and he had spent the four or so hours since Brooke’s death watching her sleep. There seemed little point in staying at the walls, for the enemy cannon fire had ceased at a stroke on the death of their general. Now Lichfield’s beleaguered Royalist garrison simply waited for the purplecoats to make their next move.

  ‘No, mon amour, you do not bloody understand!’ Lisette was sitting, cushions propped at her back, colour finally returning to her cheeks. She was still weak, and Stryker could tell that the pain in her shoulder fringed on the unbearable, though she would never admit it. But, mercifully, the fever was long gone. She glared at Stryker. ‘I must reach Jonathan Blaze.’

  Stryker rubbed his eye with a powder-blackened palm. ‘Lisette, please, listen to me. You are not strong enough yet. Besides, we are trapped here. Brooke besieges the cathedral.’

  ‘Brooke is gone,’ she said defiantly.

  ‘But his regiment is not. They have stopped the bombardment, yes, but only while they deal with the loss of their general. His death does not spell the end of the siege.’

  ‘And you say they attack from the south? From the town?’

  He nodded. ‘Aye
.’

  ‘Then why can we not go north?’

  Stryker stared at her, thoughts a whirl. ‘I do not know,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Captain! Captain!’ The shout came from the infirmary’s doorway. It was an unusual-sounding voice, but one Stryker had come to know well.

  He turned. ‘Barkworth?’

  ‘They’re attacking again, sir!’

  ‘Then get up on the walls,’ Stryker responded tartly. ‘Start shooting.’

  Barkworth’s head shook vigorously, and Stryker saw that his face – a face scarred and weathered from a lifetime of fighting – was etched with concern. Perhaps even fear.

  Stryker stood. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Come to the walls, sir, please!’

  Stryker climbed the ladder to the wooden rail that ran along the inside face of the Close’s wall, providing a shallow platform from which the defenders could pour their fire. As he ascended, he peered down at the south gate, noting that stout lengths of timber had been nailed to the cannon-weakened structure to bolster it in advance of a further bombardment. He was satisfied to see Chesterfield had not been idle during the respite afforded in the wake of Brooke’s death.

  But that respite had not ended. There were no more booming artillery salvos, no splintering of wood or crumbling of stone. So what, then, was this new attack of which Barkworth spoke?

  ‘My God,’ Stryker said aloud as he risked a glance over the parapet.

  Down in the town, near to the point in Dam Street where Lord Brooke had fallen, a crowd was gathering. They were civilians by their clothes, but this was clearly not the simple coming together of curious townsfolk wishing to view the siege works. It was a mass of bodies, tethered together by long chains. Hostages, cajoled and harried from behind by the blades and muskets of purple-coated soldiers.

  The men at the walls, Stryker among them, looked on in horror as the crowd began to move. They walked slowly, faces chalk-white, reluctance marking each pace, all the while prodded onwards at sword-point.

  ‘Jesu, Edith!’ a man some yards to Stryker’s right wailed. ‘It is my Edith! And little Rose!’

  Stryker followed the man’s pointing finger to a pair of citizens at the front of the oncoming crowd. He realized that those faces were that of women – or, rather, a woman and a little girl – and he realized with chilled blood that these must be the enraged man’s wife and daughter.

  ‘It is our kin!’ another was screaming. He balled his fist, shaking it in impotent fury at the purple-coated men who remained at the rear of the advancing throng. ‘You’ll burn in hell’s flames for this, you craven bastards! Burn in hell, I say!’

  Along Dam Street they came, the rebel column and their unwilling human shield, until they had reached the causeway that would lead them to the south gate. With each step the captives’ cries grew louder. They tried to turn back, but the chains and the weapons and the snarling Parliamentarians kept them moving forwards.

  The attackers were progressing towards the gate unhindered, and would be smashing their way through with ram or petard in a matter of minutes. Stryker knew something had to be done, and he looked left and right in search of the Earl of Chesterfield, but, though he could hear the earl’s cries of furious derision well enough, he could not see him for the sheer volume of bodies that had climbed up on to the battlements. The platform was crammed with soldiers, all screaming obscenities at the rebels but unwilling to loose a shot lest they put a ball through their womenfolk and children.

  Stryker licked the tip of his index finger, holding it aloft. ‘Wind’s died.’

  ‘Don’t!’ Barkworth’s voice reached him, and Stryker looked down at the small Scot who had taken up position at his side.

  ‘Don’t?’ Stryker echoed.

  ‘Do not fire upon them, sir. You say you fought in Germany? Then you’ll know that too many innocents died in those sieges because neither side spared a thought for the poor bastards.’ Barkworth’s face was grey with disquiet. ‘Do not bring that barbarity here, sir.’

  Forrester, Skellen and John Dyott were still in the watchtower when Stryker and Barkworth appeared from the narrow staircase behind them.

  ‘And Brooke was a damned Puritan!’ Forrester exclaimed as Stryker went to the ledge next to him. ‘You’d think all those high bloody morals would set a man against employing women and children as a living siege work!’

  ‘You’re probably right, Forry,’ Stryker replied as he looked down upon the streets. Those thoroughfares were busy now, for the townsfolk had appeared in their droves from hitherto barred and shuttered homes, to pour scorn upon the purplecoats. ‘But Brooke’s gone. Whoever’s taken charge clearly does not share the baron’s sense of honour.’

  Forrester glared down upon the oncoming horde with a rare expression of fury. His usually rose-coloured cheeks were a deep scarlet, and his round, perpetually amused eyes seemed narrower now, as though that which they beheld had sucked the joy from them. ‘What can we do?’

  ‘You want us to shoot,’ Skellen said suddenly. His face was calm, expressionless, though Stryker detected a strained undertone in his voice. ‘Don’t you, sir?’

  ‘The wind’s dropped,’ Stryker said simply.

  All eyes were on him now. ‘You cannot mean it, old man,’ Forrester began. ‘We cannot risk hitting one of the civilians. We’d be bloody lynched. It’s prepost—’

  ‘Jesu, Forry, will you just do as I damn-well tell you?’ Stryker snarled with abrupt ferocity. Forrester’s jaw froze where it was, the word left unfinished on his tongue, and Stryker glared at the others on the platform. Barkworth had already said his piece and kept silent, though his face was tense, while Dyott, evidently reading the words as they formed on Stryker’s lips, stared at him wide-eyed, a single tear tracing its way down his cheek.

  Stryker turned back to the town below them. ‘Look!’ he pointed to a place just beyond the Close’s outer wall. ‘They’re on the damned causeway. Just yards from the bloody gate. If we don’t act now, the rebels will be through and then we’re really in trouble. We’ve killed their general, for Christ’s sake! You think they’ll let us leave unharmed?’

  ‘I s’pose we’ve a better chance of success from up ’ere,’ Skellen said, and took up his already loaded musket. ‘Just have to be a bit careful.’

  There was no preamble. No discussion or carefully baited breath. The tall sergeant simply took aim and fired. Out on the causeway a man in purple uniform gave a sharp, terrible cry and fell to the ground, stone dead.

  Stryker patted Skellen on the back and loaded his own weapon. The others followed suit.

  Down below it was chaos. The men at the Close’s high walls were all turning, craning their heads up to see who had had the audacity to fire a shot so near to their tethered kin. A great wail of horror and desperation rose up from the captive crowd outside, driven onwards like a flock of terrified sheep. At their flanks and backs the rebel soldiers jabbed at them all the more aggressively as they realised their strategy was not working entirely as planned. A few gave replying fire up at the tower, but they could not hope to hit the unseen figures.

  Stryker eased back his trigger and another purplecoat fell, hands clutched to a kneecap that seemed to pump blood like a fountain. Dyott picked a target with his monstrous iron fowling piece and the result was a twitching Parliamentarian body far below. Forrester’s shot found a sergeant’s chest, knocking him backwards as though he had been hit by a battering ram, his halberd clattering at the feet of his prisoners.

  ‘Again!’ Stryker barked.

  Skellen’s musket had been reloaded, and he closed an eye as he carefully sighted a man down its barrel. Another purplecoat fell.

  Stryker was ready next. He leant over the stone ledge, feeling the old comfort of the wooden stock against his shoulder. He scanned the crowd, desperate to choose a target far enough away from the women and children to ensure that even a poorly aimed shot would not find innocent flesh. It was then that he saw a man dressed differently
to the rest. He had the same coat and breeches of purple, but the ensemble was interwoven with silver thread. His falling band collar was a lacy affair, and, now that they were so near the gate, Stryker could even see his sword’s impressively ornate hilt and pommel.

  Stryker had no idea who the man was, but took him to be the attackers’ commanding officer. The well-dressed soldier was positioned behind a middle-aged woman who seemed to pray aloud while she stroked the heads of two terrified children clutched tight to her skirts. He bellowed orders left and right, unconcerned for himself, protected as he was by his walking shield.

  Stryker wanted him. He wanted to put a ball in the officer. But it was all too close to risk. The woman was in the way. He’d likely hit her or, worse, the children. But the fury was welling in him now. He had chosen the man he would kill. The barrel wavered out in front of him, hovering around the tethered woman’s stoic face, waiting to let its lead fly as soon as she moved out of the way. Stryker watched and waited, holding his breath, his finger curled in preparation around the musket’s smooth trigger.

  At his flanks, Dyott, Barkworth and Forrester all fired, and more Parliamentarians fell. One of their victims was a musketeer some five or six paces away from the woman blocking Stryker’s aim. She instinctively ducked. The officer behind her did not. Stryker shot him in the face.

  A great cheer went up then, confusing Stryker at first, for he thought it had come from the attackers, but he soon realised that it was the men on the walls who were celebrating. He knew then that the man he hit must surely have been a senior figure.

  As if to confirm the suspicion, the attack began to stall. With impossibly high casualties, a human shield as yet untouched and a sudden lack of positive orders, the Roundhead drovers were rapidly losing the will to force their screaming livestock any further. Far from providing safe passage to the gate, the slow-moving prisoners had simply ensured that the soldiers were easy targets for the snipers up in the tower.

  Whether in response to a new order or simply a collective instinct, Stryker could not tell, but the purplecoats suddenly broke from cover and surged the final few paces towards the Close. It was a final gesture of defiance in the wake of a plan that lacked either honour or success, and Stryker wondered how they planned to make it through the newly bolstered gate. But came they did, more and more, scuttling like crabs, bent low and weaving side to side so as to avoid being caught by the terrifyingly effective snipers high up above.