The leading redcoat suddenly stood high in his stirrups, craning to see over the next hedge, and when he turned back, Forrester saw that his face was a mask of grim relish.
‘Drakes!’ he bellowed excitedly. ‘They’ve goddamned drakes back there!’
Forrester understood the truth of the situation, and the crucial task the dragoons would be required to execute. The drakes were placed on the Roundhead flank for one reason alone; to shred Northampton’s cavalry as they charged against Gell’s main body of infantry. They would carve bloody swathes through the Royalist column, spitting a venomous cannonade into the side of the approaching Cavaliers. Unless, thought Forrester, the dragoons could stop them.
Stryker heard the demi-cannon’s crew long before he saw the great iron piece.
‘Get your arses movin’, damn your rancid bones!’ a man with the accent of Wales growled from beyond a small copse. ‘Get ’er set up to sing, or we’ll be usin’ your bloody ballocks for target practice!’
Stryker glanced down at Barkworth, who moved on foot beside the group, little legs almost having to run to keep pace with the loping animals. ‘Go on and announce our arrival. I do not wish us mistook for the enemy and shot on sight.’
Barkworth scampered ahead of the three horses and rounded the copse, and, when Stryker, Blaze, Skellen and Burton had cleared the thicket of trees, the gun crew were waiting expectantly for them.
Stryker scanned the scene as they approached. The road had reached an abrupt end beside the copse, the sunken track of viscous mud giving way to a wide expanse of heath land that sloped away to his left. He glanced down that slope, seeing the distant buildings of the village of Hopton at its very bottom, and then ran his eye back up again. The first troops were those guarding the artillery train. Infantrymen, armed with firelocks – a necessity when in close proximity to large quantities of black powder – providing an escort for the dozen or so wagons that trundled on to the heath.
Further up the slope to his right was a dense crowd of cavalry. Northampton’s harquebusiers, preparing, Barkworth had told him, to take the battle to the enemy. From this low vantage point Stryker could not see the top of the ridge, for the Royalist horsemen were in his way, but he knew that distant crest would be filled with waiting ranks of infantry. Pikemen and musketeers, all hoping to cut the king’s famed riders down as they launched their great charge.
But that was not his prime concern, and Stryker stared across at the party immediately at his front. It consisted of nine men – three gunners, and their half-dozen assistants – all gathered around a vast tube of dark iron, mounted on huge wheels. There were thick ropes extending from the tube’s carriage, all connected to a team of stout-looking horses, perhaps, Stryker reckoned, near twenty in all. This was Roaring Meg, the biggest gun in Stafford.
The gun captain paced forward to greet them. He hefted a long poleaxe in one hand and rested the other on the hilt of his tuck. ‘Porter, sir,’ he addressed Stryker, ‘and may I ask which of you is Master Blaze?’
Stryker clambered down from the horse and reached up to brace the man who had shared his saddle. That man, bloody and broken, with blackened stumps for hands and a great wheel of scarlet spread across the linen at his midriff, slumped sideways, allowing the tall captain to ease him down on to the wet grass.
‘This,’ Stryker said to the artillery commander, as Burton and Skellen dismounted, ‘is Fire-worker Jonathan Blaze.’
Porter’s face convulsed as he looked at Blaze’s horrific form, but a stern glare from Stryker curtailed whatever remark might have been forming on the Welshman’s tongue, and the gun captain simply offered a deep bow. ‘It is truly an honour to meet you, sir,’ Porter said when he had recovered from the initial shock. ‘I—we—’ he corrected himself with a wave at the men gathered at his back, ‘are great admirers of your work. You and your brother are truly the most revered artillerymen in the kingdom.’
Blaze seemed to shiver suddenly. ‘Here,’ Stryker said, hooking his arm around the wounded man, ‘see if you can walk.’
Blaze did as he was told, though it was difficult in the extreme. The pain at his stomach clearly seared through his entire body, and tears welled from his eyes with every movement.
‘Master Blaze,’ Stryker said to Porter, ‘is taking charge of this piece.’
Porter’s eyes widened. ‘But, sir, Roaring Meg is a tricky mistress, and he does not look to be able to—’
‘Still your blasted tongue, curse you!’ Jonathan Blaze hissed through lips made tight by pain. ‘I am a fire-worker. The best! I will command this cannon, and you will see how a real artilleryman works!’
Stryker had once despised Jonathan Blaze for his arrogance. Yet now the mere flicker of that old spark made him proud of the man who remained so defiant despite such hardship and betrayal. He fixed Porter with a hard stare that he knew would carry the shimmer of silver. ‘Master Blaze will command Roaring Meg, sir. You will do as he says and, by all means, discuss any grievances with me.’
Gun Captain Porter chose not to argue further. He shouldered the poleaxe, turned on his heel and strode back to the waiting team. Stryker’s party followed, Skellen taking the reins of his captain’s horse as well as his own, while Stryker moved painstakingly slowly as he helped Blaze across the long grass and hazardous patches of dark gorse.
‘Barkworth!’ Stryker called to the little Scot walking ten paces ahead.
The former personal guard to the Earl of Chesterfield turned to meet Stryker’s eye. ‘Sir?’
‘You said there was something at the artillery position I would wish to see.’
Barkworth’s face creased. ‘Aye, sir, that I did!’
‘Well?’ Stryker snapped impatiently as Barkworth turned away. And then he halted where he stood, his legs suddenly unable to function, such was his surprise. For a small woman dressed in a tight-fitting suit of black stepped out from behind Roaring Meg’s vast bulk.
‘Bonsoir, mon amour,’ said Lisette Gaillard. ‘Did you miss me?’
CHAPTER 21
Among the hedges and enclosures of the Parliamentarian right flank, men were dying.
The ebullient redcoats had streamed through the sword-chopped gap in the first organic breastwork, and immediately galloped across the clearing to the second hedge, cutting down any defenders slow enough to be caught in the open ground.
Lancelot Forrester was at the forefront of the attacking troops, and he could see the greycoats in the next enclosure, busily forming ranks to give volley fire. These would be a more difficult proposition than the men of the first hedgerow, for they were more numerous and evidently better organized.
And then the firing began. A crashing, ear-splitting, air-trembling volley from the foremost greycoats, men kneeling immediately behind the hedge, and their musket-balls filled the atmosphere like a meteorite shower. The man to Forrester’s right was taken in the chest by one of the lethal lead spheres that flattened on impact, punching out through his back in a wide spray of red mist and white shards of bone.
For a moment the attack stalled, as more dragoons were thrown backwards, and the survivors, realizing the greycoats would cut them to pieces before they so much as touched the barrier’s leaves, desperately searched for a way to pass through to the space beyond. But there was already an opening in the second hedge, a gap originally made to allow shepherds to pass between the enclosures in order to tend their sheep. Today, though, it was a wide, inviting breach in an otherwise solid breastwork, and the dragoons gave an exultant cry when they spotted it.
The first horseman reached the fissure with an unintelligible war cry. It was blocked by a low gate, but those ancient timbers were dark with rot, and the dragoon urged his mount directly into the obstacle. The horse smashed through the decaying wood, as though the gate had taken a direct hit from a mortar, and he raced through to face the Roundheads on the far side. Half a dozen muskets cracked in greeting, lifting him clean away from his saddle, suspended in the air for a heartbeat by
the sheer force of six shots, and then he plummeted to the long grass, staining the heath in gushing fountains of crimson.
Forrester was next through, and he winced, clenching every fibre, ducking low, fully expecting to be pummelled by flying lead. But no shots came, and, risking a glance from behind his mount’s neck, he saw that the first dragoon’s horse, maddened by the pain of a musket strike at its broad chest and terrified at the sudden loss of its master, had charged headlong into the waiting Parliamentarian formation. The line of musketeers, three ranks deep, was demolished at its very centre by the crazed beast, ribs and skulls and faces kicked and crushed by flailing hooves, bodies battered out of the line by the huge, unstoppable mass of muscle.
The ends of the rebel line were still intact, but they had lost their bravery in the face of the charging beast, cohesion and competence vanishing for a fraction of a second. That fraction was enough to allow the oncoming dragoons time to close with them, and, before the rebel officers could drag order from chaos, the Royalists were upon them.
Forrester’s musket was primed and ready, clutched in one hand, his reins in the other, but he was moving too fast to bring it to bear with any degree of accuracy. He kicked hard, compelling his horse to gallop straight at the waiting line, glad that no pikemen were positioned within the two ranks, and turned it at the very last moment so that he was parallel with the rebels. He was so close now that he could not miss the shot, and, like a warship firing a broadside, held the musket at arm’s length and pulled the trigger. He could not see if the missile had flown true, for he was past the line in moments and wheeling round for the next assault, but the range had been undeniably deadly.
By the time Forrester completed the turn, the grey-coated ranks had disintegrated. They remained dangerous, for they carried swords and many still had loaded muskets, but there was no more hope of the coordinated volley fire that was so destructive against mounted troops. Forrester spotted one such musketeer taking aim at a Royalist some ten yards away, and he lobbed his own spent long-arm directly at him. The long club of wood and metal turned cartwheels in the air before crashing into the greycoat, causing him to fire wildly at the gathering clouds.
One of the rebel’s comrades turned on Forrester then, firing his own weapon at the Cavalier dragoon, and Forrester’s horse loosed a shrill scream of anguish as the ball ripped into its chest. Forrester managed to slew the wailing mount to a reluctant and twitching halt, and slid from the saddle before he was thrown. Immediately his blade was drawn, held out in front, poised for the inevitable action to come.
He did not have to wait long, for two greycoats came at him, long tucks outstretched. One, bearded face grimacing beneath a grimy montero cap, stabbed high, aiming the tip of his blade at Forrester’s eyes. The other, a fellow of short stature and crooked nose, crouched down, making to cleave through the Royalist’s ankles. Forrester stepped forwards, knowing retreat would only embolden them. A twitch in the bearded man’s shoulder told him that the first move would come from there, and he flicked his blade upwards, using nothing but his wrist, and parried the attack with ease. The riposte bought him time to deal with the ankle blow, and, blade flashing in the grey light, he swept the sword down in a short arc to meet the shorter rebel’s weapon.
But two opponents were difficult enough to best for even the greatest swordsman, and Forrester was immediately on the back foot as the first man swung at him again. Again Forrester met the blade, and this time he darted forwards with a thrust of his own that caught the Roundhead at the left temple, slicing through skin and ricocheting off the skull. The man recoiled, blinded, as blood gushed from the wound to his eye, and Forrester looked to deal with his mate. But this time he was not fast enough, and the second man was able to swipe his sword inside the captain’s defence. The cutting edge of the blade slammed into Forrester’s leg, just above the left ankle, and he stumbled back, pain jarring all the way up the limb. Fearing the worst, Forrester shifted all his weight on to his right foot, lest the wounded left give way at a crucial moment, and he met a succession of staccato jabs from the crooked-nosed rebel with deft flicks. He was clearly the superior swordsman, but his agonized left leg had thrown him off balance and limited his ability to attack, for he could not risk a forward thrust. He had to be content with bringing the shorter man on, allowing him free rein to swing his blade freely, and counter each riposte with a sharp parry of his own.
Just when he thought he would be backed right across the clearing and trapped against the hedge behind, Forrester saw the rebel plant his foot in a gelatinous pile of red tissue that he presumed must have been the sword-loosed entrails of some unfortunate horse. In his eagerness to achieve the kill, the greycoat had not noticed the slippery mess, and Forrester whipped his blade downwards in a low feint. The Parliamentarian moved to respond, only for Forrester to flick the steel point vertically upwards. The move was not designed to be a killer, but, as the razor tip clipped the rebel’s pointed chin, it caused him to lurch violently backwards, instinctively protecting his face, and, as the Royalist officer had predicted, his foot slid from under him amid the oily intestines. In moments the man with the crooked nose was on his back, staring with wide, sparkless eyes at the drab March sky.
Forrester jerked his sword free from the sucking flesh of the greycoat’s throat and stared about at the carnage. Bodies lay strewn in all directions, twisted, folded, grinning, like so many macabre dolls. Some wore the red of the Earl of Northampton, but the vast majority were swathed in the grey uniform of Sir John Gell, and Forrester knew that this second enclosure had fallen. And then he saw the drakes, four of them, miniature cannon designed to macerate flesh rather than break stone. They were at the corner of the enclosure, beyond the point where the musketeers had formed ranks, and he shuddered at the thought that their vicious attentions might have been turned upon the invading dragoons. It was only after several moments, as the fog of battle began to drift clear of his mind, that Forrester remembered the little artillery pieces were not pointed directly down the slope. They were angled away, to his right, in effect towards the centre of the heath.
‘Christ almighty,’ Forrester said aloud.
Sporadic musketry still crackled from deeper into the ridge, where a third enclosure harboured a new rebel force, augmented by those fugitives fortunate enough to escape the first two fights, but already the earl’s dragoons were streaming through a gap in the next hedge, this one larger than before, bringing with them steel and lead and death.
Forrester looked back to where his horse had been shot. The beast was still there, but now it had slumped to its knees, blood rushing from the wound in a gushing fountain, wisps of steam drifting off the warm liquid as it met with the late afternoon air. Forrester shook his head sadly and made to join the latest assault, now as a fully-fledged infantryman, but a deep pain flashed up his shin in stark reminder of the wound he had himself sustained. He looked down, fearing the worst but seeing nothing other than a slight scar along the buff leather of his riding boots. The blade, though powerful enough to cause a great deal of pain, had not been sharp enough to penetrate the tough boots, and Forrester privately thanked God that he had not been forced to don the standard issue infantry shoes worn by Northampton’s dragoon companies.
He decided to look for a new horse, one made riderless by the skirmish, but, before a suitable replacement could be spotted, a new order carried to him on the breeze. ‘Form up! King’s men, form up!’
Forrester hailed one of the senior officers, a bull-necked fellow with sore-looking lips and hollow cheeks. ‘What now, Major Setter?’
Setter looked at him. ‘The flanks are clear, and we have captured their ordnance. So we shall resume battle formation and hold this flank.’
Forrester glanced back in the direction of the slope, though the hedgerows blocked his view of the Royalist army. ‘What does Northampton plan to do?’
‘Plan?’ Major Setter peered at Forrester as though he were an escaped Bedlamite. ‘He will charg
e, sir.’
Spencer Compton, Earl of Northampton and supreme commander of the king’s forces at Hopton Heath, was restless. He had a strong compliment of Cavaliers, many of them veterans of the European campaigns and all experts in horseback warfare. But they were not a force to be cooped up behind walls, surrounded by besiegers. They were useful for one thing, and one thing only: attack.
Northampton looked up at the ridge. ‘Show the signal, damn you,’ he muttered.
‘My lord?’ a nearby aide said in reply.
The earl shook his head. ‘The signal, Watkins. They must wave that cursed flag before I will move.’
‘The dragoons, my lord?’
Northampton scowled at Watkins. ‘Of course the bloody dragoons!’
‘May we not ride out now, my lord?’ another man, a colonel by status and dandy by dress, enquired from somewhere in the rank behind.
The earl rounded on him. ‘No, sir, we may not. If Gell has a shred of sense, he’ll have prepared those flanks properly, which means we’ll be carved to pieces from three sides, and we won’t even reach his main force.’
The colonel lifted a lace kerchief to his thin mouth, dabbing daintily at the corners. ‘My lord.’
‘I would charge the base rogues as soon as you, God’s blood I would,’ Northampton went on, calmer now, ‘but first the flanks must be cleared.’
He gazed back up at the ridge. At the grey coats swarming on that crest, at the glinting of leaf-shaped pike-heads and the glow of smouldering match-cords. The clouds at the rebels’ back were darkening with every moment, and he knew the day was steadily drawing to a close. That thought terrified him, for nightfall would put paid to his attack more readily than any crashing volley or stubborn block of pike. He needed to attack soon, for time was running out.
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