by Maria McCann
He waved his hand. ‘Drink more,’ and he stayed close as if to say, I don’t go until you do.
I sat up and looked about me for the other man I had heard, but he was gone. On both sides of the road, pressed around small fires, were soldiers wrapped in garments that had once been bright red but now were faded to yellow or filthied to brown, except where patches had escaped the mud and smoke of battle. At one fire nearby a boy sat watching us. He smiled and waved to my new-found friend.
‘We got some water down you earlier. Drink anyway. I’ll fetch you some victual.’ Ferris sprang up and walked off, stopping to speak with the lad I had noticed and clap him on the shoulder before passing behind a group of men and out of my sight. Pale blue smoke blew across me, smelling of home, and a thin rain, like spit between the teeth, chilled my neck. I could see now the cropped hair of the young boys round the fires. Some of them, and most of the older men, still wore theirs long. I put my hand up to my head; someone had cut my hair close to the scalp. There it lay on the grass, a knot of wet black vipers.
‘Feel better?’ He was back, squatting easily by my side.
‘Did you do this?’
Ferris glanced at the dead man’s locks on the grass. ‘No.’ He held something out to me, but I could not take my eyes away from what had once been myself, and was also Izzy and Zeb.
‘Here,’ he pulled my hand away from my shorn skull, ‘best eat without looking.’ It was bread and cheese, the bread hard as your heels and the cheese popping with mites, but I grabbed at it.
‘Not too fast if you haven’t eaten lately, you’ll hurt yourself,’ said Ferris. ‘Easy, easy!’ He snatched the cheese from me.
‘Why are you feeding me?’
‘Call it your ration. You’re in the New Model Army.’
‘You mistake. I am—’
‘We lack men. What, going to lie down and die are you?’ He laughed.
‘But I’m weak, unwell. I’ve been starving.’
‘Starving!’ The grey eyes mocked me. ‘Granted you’re somewhat hungry. We see it all the time. And that suit of clothes! We thought we’d found us a deserter, a Cavalier officer. Until you spoke.’
‘I said nothing to them.’
‘O yes. While I was bringing you round. And struggled. We stood on your coat to keep you down.’ He offered me the bread and cheese again. ‘Some of the lads thought we’d caught up with Rupert of the Rhine.’
‘He’s a devil,’ I mumbled into the tough crust.
‘So they said, and they were about to take a short way with you, but I told them, Prince Rupert’s not a man you’d find lying in the road. What is your name?’
‘I – well, I have a mind now to be Rupert.’
‘Aye, who wouldn’t be! Roast goose for him, no bread and cheese.’
‘Were you told to enlist me?’
‘No. I am squeamish – would not leave a man to die of thirst on the highway – so I came to see if you were well enough to enlist. You’re well enough now,’ and as I made to protest, ‘now.’ He jerked his hand towards one of the fires. ‘Yonder’s your corporal – he’ll teach you your drill.’
I considered. ‘Is it all bread and cheese?’
‘Not always that good! But there’s beef sometimes, and eight pence a day – when they pay it.’
He got up and put out his hand to me, but my hipbones, dry as the ones in Ezekiel, grated as I struggled upright, so that my weight pulled him down; laughing, he was forced to leave go.
While I was lying in the road the day had passed into evening, and I was glad Ferris walked before me as it was hard to discern either form or order in the groups of soldiers lying round the fires. He stopped in front of a man whose hair was so dirty it might have been of any colour, and was soiled with more than mud: as I looked closer I saw brownish blood all down the right side of his face, cracked where the sweat had oozed up under it.
‘Prince Rupert come to serve under you, Sir,’ said Ferris. I bowed awkwardly. The men around laughed.
‘And what might be his real name?’ asked this gentleman, whose voice was pinched with pain.
‘If I may, Sir,’ I put in before Ferris could spoil my game, ‘I will take the name Rupert, since it seems I am known by it already.’
He waved his hand as if to say, what was that to him?
I was put down in the Officer’s book as Rupert Cane – the first name that came to mind – and ten shillings given into my hand.
‘That’s your entertainment money,’ said Ferris, who was come with me.
‘Entertainment?’
‘Money on your first coming in. Keep tight hold, you won’t see that much again.’
I was handed a red coat, two shirts, breeches, and hose; also a leather snapsack and a cap with dried blood on it, as if peeled from the head of a corpse.
‘I can’t get this coat on,’ I said, holding it up.
The man shrugged. ‘Nothing I can do there. One yard of cloth, that’s the regulation.’
‘Suppose you gave him two, and we got a tailor to run them together,’ suggested Ferris.
The fellow was willing enough. I thanked him from my heart and Ferris took up the coats, saying he knew a man would undertake the work for a shilling.
As we walked across the camp I felt the food warming me and longed for more. To take my mind off it, I asked Ferris what would happen the next day.
‘We will see to your coat…and you’ll be drilled in the pike,’ he added.
‘You are surely not a pikeman!’ I said, without thinking.
He stopped and gave me a hard look. ‘I have outlived many pikemen.’
‘I did not mean—’ but my voice faltered, for I had meant it. There was a pike over the fireplace of the great hall at Beaurepair, and all the men had lifted it at one time or another. Ferris was of too slender a make to carry such a weapon. It might be, I thought, that he had some little thing to do, far from the van of the fighting. But carrying a pike was better than lying a corpse by the roadside, and for this I owed him thanks. I smiled on him and he at once returned the smile.
‘If you would know,’ he said, ‘I was a musketeer. But a man that knew me in London thought I might be more use elsewhere.’
‘Where – why?’
‘I am not bad at the mathematics, and some of his best were just then dead. So now I help with artillery,’ he said as we seated ourselves at a fire. ‘Really it is for the cavalry to do, but what with fever and shot – well, they need men who can count without their fingers,’ his mouth twisted at his own grim jest, ‘fire straight, and dodge whatever comes back. When the enemy are in range, so are we.’ He held my eyes and I felt myself rebuked.
‘I know nothing of war,’ I said.
‘Would that I could say the same. It is a bestial occupation.’
‘Yet it is said the men of this army are rather godly than beastly. Is it not the other side that plunders? Do they not call Rupert, Duke of Plunderland?’
Ferris grinned. ‘Is that why you took his name? Aye, there are those who sing psalms in battle, and our commanders take pains to hold in the plunderers, but not for love of the vanquished. They see rather that armies need friends, and that soldiers once run wild are insensible of authority. Especially if they chance on Popish wine.’ He threw a stick into the flames. ‘A man may sing psalms, you know, yet cut the defeated in shreds with as little mercy as—’ he paused for a comparison, and ended by shrugging.
Warmed by the fire, I stripped myself and tried the new shirt and breeches, Ferris watching me in silence. The shirt was coarse but almost clean; both it and the breeches were big enough. These last had pockets, a new thing for me. My old garments I put in the snapsack, but when I took off my shoes, the fine hose that Peter and my brothers had given me were worn to rags. Not without regret, I put them on the fire.
‘Ferris, you said, “especially Popish wine.” Is it so strong?’
He grinned. ‘Any wine a soldier finds is Popish. That salves conscience.’
‘Soldiers are but men. There are many both brave and merciful—’ Ferris paused to wave in greeting as a figure skirted the fire. ‘As for the other side, they are more than even with us—’
He broke off and called eagerly to the new arrival. ‘Welcome my lad, and did you get any?’
I looked up and saw a boy almost as tall as myself, all legs and arms. His face shone with pleasure and even in the poor light I was struck by the gem-like brilliance of his blue eyes, the kind which often go with yellow hair. This boy’s hair, however, was so dark a brown as to be almost black, and I thought I recognised the lad who had waved earlier from the fireside.
‘This is Nathan,’ said Ferris. ‘A good comrade and not beastly.’
‘Who called me beastly?’ asked the boy. ‘See, Ferris,’ and without awaiting a reply he pulled a cloth from under his coat and proceeded to unwrap two chunks of roast meat, the fat gleaming in the reddish light. ‘There’s bread too.’
‘You are a marvel,’ Ferris told him. Turning to me he added, ‘The meat’s mostly boiled.’
‘I guess this was picked up at Devizes,’ the boy said.
Ferris grinned at him. ‘Plunder, eh? Is there enough for Prince Rupert here?’
‘Prince—?’ He giggled, regarding me curiously, then said, ‘I think we have not met before?’
‘I joined up today.’
Nathan seated himself on the other side of Ferris and began slicing the beef with a dagger, trying to make three portions out of two. To my surprise he showed no sullenness at this unexpected reduction in rations. ‘Is your name really Rupert?’
I nodded.
‘You’re from these parts?’
‘Right again.’
‘I wager you’ll be pikes. They always put big fellows on pikes,’ and he commenced telling me the weight of a pikeman’s armour. He had altogether too much to say, and his voice grated on me.
Ferris, watching my face, said to Nathan, ‘He’d bear the armour well enough, if there were any.’
‘Surely,’ the boy agreed. He passed the meat to Ferris and began cutting bread.
‘Even I could carry what they issue now,’ Ferris continued with a glance at me. ‘But most men don’t want it. A buffcoat – that’s the thing.’
‘Would you wish to be a pikeman?’ Nathan asked him.
‘I wager Rupert thinks me unfit for any kind of soldier.’
‘O, no,’ I said, ‘I only—’
‘And he is right,’ Ferris went on. ‘The recruiting officers are told to find the tallest, strongest men, and what do they turn up? Seven years older than Nat, and not as tall.’
He passed me some beef and Nathan held out a piece of bread. I tasted my share and relished its very toughness as making it last longer. Ferris crammed roast flesh into his own mouth and closed his eyes, sighing as he bit into it. I watched Nathan layer his bread and meat, holding them delicately in long hands that hardly seemed fitted for soldiering.
Looking back at Ferris I found him staring at me. He said, ‘For all that you think, I can put down any man my own size—’
‘Nay, taller,’ said Nathan.
‘—and I wager that’s as much as you can do.’
Nathan coughed. A morsel of bread shot out of his mouth, brilliant in the firelight, and I saw that he was laughing.
‘Nat, you’ll choke one of these days,’ Ferris warned.
This made the boy worse. I heard great snorts as he fought to swallow his food.
‘What ails him?’ I asked, vexed at his silliness for I felt I was somehow being made a mock of.
‘Me and my bravado. He knows I am no brawler, eh Nat?’ Ferris handed me more beef. Nathan continuing to giggle, I rose, sensing myself in a false position. The two of them turned laughing faces up to me.
‘Where did you get the meat?’ I asked. ‘I will try for some more,’ and indeed I could have eaten the whole lot twice over.
‘That fire over there.’ Nathan pointed. ‘But they won’t give you any. It was a favour to me.’
‘We shall see.’ I made my way to the fire he had indicated and found some beef still in it, roasting on a stick. This I seized. The two whose food it was crying out in protest, I offered to fight first one then the other for it, and appealed to the others sitting around to judge if that was fair. They, being bored and ready for any diversion, said that it was. I then held myself upright and let the beef-cooks get a good look at me. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘which of you shall be first?’ and made to take off my coat. Neither budged, so I took up the meat and left them to the contemplation of their cowardice and the jeers of their companions.
Ferris and the boy were pushing one another, still laughing, when I returned with my trophy. They stopped at once upon seeing it, and Nathan gasped, ‘How did you persuade them to that?’
Ferris leapt up. ‘I can guess how,’ he said, and he had the stick away from me before I knew it. ‘I will tell them it was nothing but jest. Nat, give me this,’ and picking up the cloth he strolled off towards the other fire while I stood amazed, considering whether I should bloody his mouth for him if he returned.
Return he did, cloth in hand, and after grinning at me straightway sat down at my feet.
‘What do you mean,’ I said, ‘by – hey, you, what do you mean?’ It was awkward standing thus over a man on the ground and talking to him. Nathan glanced anxiously up at me.
‘Sit here and I’ll tell you.’ Ferris patted the grass. I squatted next to him, my anger ready to flame out at a very little thing.
‘That’s the second time today I’ve saved your life,’ he said.
‘Saved my life! They were near beshitten for fear of me.’
‘Can you catch musket balls in your teeth? Those men are musketeers.’
I recalled Mervyn’s syllabub.
‘I have told them you were in drink, meant the thing as a jest and would have brought it back, only you forgot the place,’ Ferris went on. ‘I suppose you are not really the Duke of Plunderland? They do say he goes about in disguise.’
Had someone at home – Zeb, or Peter – said such things, he would have smarted for it. I glared at Ferris.
He looked steadily back. ‘Ah, yes. You are full as big as he. Able to put me in the ground without a weapon, eh?’ He began untying the cloth. ‘Are you still hungry? Are you, Nat?’
A flush spread over my cheeks.
‘Here.’ Ferris opened up the last folds and pushed the bundle of meat towards me. ‘No bread this time.’
Nathan was full of admiration. ‘Brave Ferris! Where did you get it?’
‘From them, of course. I begged another share as reward for bringing it back.’
‘Many thanks,’ I muttered.
Humbled, I finished the meat in silence and endured Nathan’s prattle with as much patience as I could muster. After a while the boy said, ‘Ferris, we are to see Russ before turning in for the night.’
‘I forgot. Where is he?’
‘Methinks on the far side of the camp.’ The boy stood up. ‘We should go now.’
‘Agreed.’ Ferris rose. ‘You will be snug enough here,’ he said to me. ‘Warm, and plenty of comrades round you. Sleep well.’
They picked their way across the grass. The boy was indeed the taller of the two, and I observed with a pang that he put his arm across Ferris’s shoulders as I used to lay mine over Izzy’s. Where, I wondered, was my own dear brother? Was he suffering for my crimes? To walk with my arm round him, to seek his advice, these were things which most likely I should never do more. I looked around me. The men were sprinkled about in groups and I could see none so utterly alone as myself. I have been loved, I wanted to call out to them, for it felt like leprosy.
I slept that night with the others, as near the fire as I could get, and tried to ease my aching hips. The entertainment money was laid next my breast, where a thief could not lift it without waking me. Yet it
was impossible to rest easy, and after a while I gave up trying. As the fire sank low, and more men drifted into sleep, I heard mutterings, sobs and rustlings all around me. Many unknowingly gave tongue to their pain: ‘Mary, Mary, no such thing,’ mumbled one nearby, and another screamed out in the night, ‘Save him, it falls.’ Later, from some distance off, I heard shrieks as if a man were having a fit. It seemed that all suffered, the good along with the bad. But then, lying dismal and quiet, I felt the surge in my head which announced the Voice, and straightway there came unlooked-for comfort:
Our affairs are all of them ordered, and shall we, with our puny efforts, direct them ourselves? You are sheltered within the Lord’s own army. Rest you there.
Daybreak was deathly cold. Swathed and huddled bodies flinched as the drum beat out reveille; I watched the man nearest me open his eyes on God’s sky and fall to silent cursing. He lay awhile propped on one arm, coughing up phlegm, before crawling off to the fire and laying the wood together. He then moved away, came back with a water bottle and seemed to pour it into the flames, for steam rose. After a time I understood that he was boiling a pannikin of water, something I had done countless times. The strangeness of the place had made me stupid.
A cry of ‘Rise, rise’ was heard nearer to us and the men commenced groaning. When we were all upright I thought I had never seen such wild-looking folks as some of the young ones. They were purple-grey with cold and their cropped hair stuck up at all angles. I passed my hand over my own head: tufts and angles too.
‘Where’s your lovely locks, Rupert?’ one called to me.
‘Sent them to his honey,’ said another.
I turned away.
‘Eh Rupert, want some bread?’
I limped on stiff legs to the fire. The one who had first called pointed to something like boiling slops on it. ‘Bread’s so old you can’t eat it without.’
‘Maybe he can,’ another replied. To me he said, ‘Big lad, aren’t you? Are they all big in your family?’
‘I’m the biggest.’
‘Do they all talk like you?’ Much laughter. Their voices came hard and unfamiliar to me but not unfriendly. They sounded something like Ferris, and something like Daskin; I could not always catch their meaning when they spoke fast together.