by Maria McCann
‘We’re from London,’ said the last one to speak, seeing my difficulty. ‘My name is Hugh, this’s Philip and that’s Bart.’
Bart took out a little pot and spooned some of the mess into it. I watched him blow on the brownish curds. It was the coarse bread called cheat; at home we had eaten the good white manchet, like the gentry. ‘You can have this after me,’ he said. ‘There should be beans, but we ate them all last night.’
‘And cheese?’
‘Cheese, lads! No, there’s been no cheese of late.’
‘A man gave me some yesterday.’
‘He’s a friend worth having,’ said Bart. He handed me the pot of boiled bread. ‘Must have picked it up somewhere. Is he here?’
I looked about and saw Ferris seated some yards off, examining the inside of a shoe. Turning to the rest I was about to point him out when I noticed their intense stare, like the eyes of dogs on a rabbit.
‘I don’t see him,’ I said.
That day I entered upon my training. First we learnt how to position ourselves by rank and by file, and the distances to be observed, such as touching with outstretched hands, with elbows and so on; then the various motions: facings, doublings, countermarches and wheelings.
The business started well enough. To The Right Hand was simple, for we all swung to face the right and were brought back again, or reduced, by the command As You Were. This the veriest fool could have performed without difficulty, and I began to feel hopeful; but when we passed through To The Right Hand About (which was still sweet and easy) into Ranks To The Right Double, there was some stumbling, as when young children learn a dance, and when we came to Middle-Men, To The Right Hand Double The Front, a sigh passed through the lines of men. The corporal was obliged to take us through this last five times at least before the move could be seen for what it was, and even then the soldiers were by no means sure of it, as was plain from their glancing about to see what their fellows did. One near to me, a thin man with yellow skin tight and shiny over his face, had been lost since we abandoned To The Right Hand, and could never make it up after. I saw him, baffled, whirling and stamping about. There were others equally out of tune with the rest, too slow or turning the wrong way entirely. Many seemed as raw as myself, and some few were evidently so stupid as to be hopeless of instruction.
A short rest followed, and as soon as we broke rank there came a steady rain. The men wandered about, complaining, or squatted on their heels until it should be time to begin again. I thought I had not done too badly, and that once accustomed to it I should perform my part as well as any.
Next was weapons drill, and we were now given to understand that we were already divided into groups according to the arms we would carry. Ferris and Nathan had been right, for I was handed a pike. Weighed in my hand it seemed bigger than the one at Beaurepair, some six yards long and so heavy it was hard to carry except on the shoulder. We stood in the rain trying not to jab each other as the corporal took us through our postures.
Handle Your Pike was no more than raising it from the ground, and as to Recover, and Order, those were just as a man might say, Plant It Thus By Your Side. Yet all around me I saw confusion, and men in the wrong without knowing it.
The corporal shouted again, ‘Order your pike!’
I stood still, my right arm extended, slightly bent, to hold the pike with its base just before my right foot.
A voice not the corporal’s said, ‘Bring the hand as high as your eyes.’
I turned. The man behind me was a greybeard, but hale and strong, with the look of a practised soldier. He indicated his weapon. ‘Thumb cocked, and your pike against it.’
‘Thanks, friend.’ I copied him, finding that the correct position held the pike firmly, but also (since we were made to wait a long time in this posture) made my arm ache.
At last we got on to Advance Your Pike, which was done in three motions. I was cack-handed here, and the movement would not come smooth. The pike, which was to be locked between my right shoulder and arm, slipped away and I had to catch it in the left hand before it brained one of my fellow scholars. We then Ordered the pike again, very like the first time, and went on to the next part.
‘Shoulder your pike!’
As I took the thing on my shoulder the top of my shoe came away from the sole. The pike dropped backwards and the others cried out to me to mind what I did. Our corporal came up to see what was the matter.
‘I can’t stand level on one shoe,’ said I. He told me to take off both, so I stood watching the mud squeeze up between my toes while he walked again to the front of the file.
‘Shoulder your pike!’
Had I known how many postures were to be gone through that day, I would have drilled with less enthusiasm. My feet cold unto numbness, I learnt how to Port, Advance, Charge For Horse, and other moves, with their endless palming, griping, raising and forsaking. Nothing could ever be done with a pike, it seemed, unless it were done in three motions, and there was already some considerable doubt in my mind as to whether men could do thus in the heat of the fight.
When the full drill had been gone through, by which time the new soldiers were reduced not to any former posture but to perplexed misery, those who could read were given a paper with the main points set down in the form of a doggerel rhyme. This I folded up and afterwards forgot.
The corporal told me to go again to the baggage train for shoes and wrote out the order. Taking it there, I was given a pair of boots, finer than anything I would have worn at home. They were even big enough, though I felt the last man’s feet moulded within them.
‘Why boots?’ I asked.
‘The latchets we have here are too small. Give me those, soldier,’ for I was still carrying my own shoes.
‘The sole is torn away from this one.’
‘No matter, we can make up a pair from two odds if we have to.’
So my shoes were put in the pile with the others and that was the last I saw of them. Once I was Jacob. I washed in sweet water for my bridegroom’s bed. Now I was Rupert, and I took my boots for battle.
We broke camp in the afternoon, and I was glad of the even road for walking. While marching along I considered what I had learnt. At Beaurepair there had been an old drill manual in Sir John’s study, designed to promote the use of Dutch tactics. All of us young men had studied it on the sly, sometimes snatching up a broom and posturing as musketeer or pikeman. We had pored over the engravings of classical battles wherein the troops advanced in orderly fashion, the files of pikes showing like square hedgehogs, and every kind of soldier keeping with his fellows. I had marvelled at this thing called an army. Yet our army marched in small knots and gaggles, the men seeking out their friends to pass the time. Sometimes these were comrades who carried the same arms, sometimes not, and I concluded that such books were like books of manners, written for that things were not done as they ought to be.
As we trudged on some of the men, especially the London lads, began to tell me of the fighting they had seen and of their dear hopes. I said they were most admirable at their drill, as indeed I thought.
‘You would be amazed to see how they drill in London,’ said Bart. ‘They’re trained to defend the city against attack, for the liberty of the people.’
‘From what you say, there are none so good in these parts,’ I admitted.
‘Another thing, most trained bands won’t go from home,’ Bart went on, warming to his subject. ‘But the London ones, well! Fifteen thousand lads, prentices mainly, regularly exercised. And they do their stuff.’
‘I wager they frighten the other side,’ I offered.
‘The Cavaliers – to speak truth, they’ve some good men but they run wild. No discipline, rag tag and bobtail.’
‘What are their men?’
‘Great lords, poor country fools…’ here he hesitated but I smiled, ‘Papists, folks from up north where they think the King pisses perfume, Irish and Welsh rabble…’
‘And men from the rich
cathedral towns. Where you find a cathedral and a pack of fat priests, you find Royalists,’ put in Hugh.
‘They bring their doxies with them,’ Philip said.
Another man, walking behind us, here shouted, ‘He’s got doxies on the brain.’
‘Are there not women here also?’ I asked, for I thought to have seen some near the baggage train. ‘What are they?’
Hugh laughed. ‘Many are wives to some man here. Others are wives to all.’
‘There are women feign their sex,’ put in Bart. ‘To pass among the men without insult.’
Philip guffawed. ‘Or to whore the more freely.’
I enquired of him what happened to these soldieresses if their men were defeated. None answered me, so I asked where we were headed.
‘Now Devizes is fallen we’re off to Winchester,’ said Hugh.
‘Fallen?’
‘Aye, where have you been? And Bristol two weeks back! Your namesake was there.’
‘Mine?’
‘Prince Rupert. It was he defended the town.’
‘I knew Bristol was gone. Is Rupert dead, then?’
‘Not he. Black Tom let him go to Oxford to the King. We should have put him to the sword, but that’s Fairfax for you, honourable to a fault.’
‘He’s honour itself,’ said Bart.
‘Will you show him me?’ Though I felt Fairfax had done wrong, showing so gentlemanly to a necromancer, I was more eager to see him than ever.
Philip explained, ‘He’s gone on to Exeter. He’s black like yourself; wears his hair a bit longer, mind.’ Here they all laughed and I knew that one of them must have cropped me.
‘You’ll know him on sight,’ added Bart.
‘Was that why Rupert yielded? Because Fairfax was Fairfax?’
‘Well. Long walls they had at Bristol, hard to man properly. And water running short. Once that happens…’ Hugh waved his hands expressively. ‘We got the garrison supplies, but he saved his men and the citizens.’
‘Were the citizens all Royalists, then?’
‘Not when Rupert left, they weren’t! His men flay the people, see, and he turns a blind eye. When he came out the townspeople were shouting, “Give him no quarter!” They’d have torn him to pieces if it hadn’t been for Black Tom.’
I returned to the question I had asked before. ‘What happens to the women on the losing side?’
‘That depends,’ said Philip. ‘On your commander, on the luck of the day, the class of person you’re dealing with…I’ve seen everything. Seen them run through. There were Irish whores drowned back to back at Nantwich – that was Fairfax.’
‘Not so,’ Bart said. ‘A false report. He let them go.’
‘No?’ Philip jeered. ‘Naseby, then.’ He turned to me. ‘You’ve heard of Naseby?’
I nodded. I knew what was coming, the slit faces, but was curious to hear his story.
‘Well, you know God gave us victory outright?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Cromwell said it was cutting down stubble! And after, we found their women fleeing the field, some of them English gentry and some of them Irish. Not a word of English could they speak, what did they want over here, filthy Papist whores? We ran them through.’
‘What, all of them?’ I could not hide my shock.
‘Only the sluts and the Irish. About a hundred. They kept jabbering, calling on Satan to save them.’
I could think of nothing to say.
‘They were Welsh, not Irish,’ put in Hugh. ‘They were speaking Welsh.’
‘Irish or Welsh, they were walking bow-legged.’ Philip winked at me.
I asked, ‘And the English ones?’
‘I told you, the sluts we paid off. For the rest, some paid us off, and some – well, we carved their faces for them.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘They were seemingly gentlewomen, but no decent woman would have followed that army. So we ploughed up their cheeks – put an end to their trade.’
‘Basely done,’ said Hugh, shaking his head.
‘Suppose those bitches had found us wounded on the battlefield? You know what they’d have done to us?’
Roundhead. The wildest, the crop-headed prentices out for a savage holiday. They had told me that calling another man Roundhead in the presence of an officer meant a fine, it was such an insult. I remembered that Zeb could scarcely ride or walk and that Caro was tricked out in My Lady’s blue gown. The jewels. Heavenly Father, let them not be overtaken by such men as this. For their sakes and mine, let me not be guilty of their deaths.
‘Are you well, man?’ They were staring at me. ‘You were chewing your lips.’
I nodded, thinking, This is curiosity not pity. Izzy, how he did pity everybody. The men in front began singing psalms:
‘O sing unto the LORD a new song;
For He hath done marvellous things;
His right hand, and His holy arm,
Hath gotten Him the victory…’
As long as I could fix my mind on the psalms all was well, but I could not long forbear thinking of Philip’s words. I had heard before that there were plunderers and would-be ravishers in the Parliamentary ranks as well as among the King’s men, but kept under a much stricter discipline. That restraint had seemed well enough, and as Ferris had said, soldiers are but men; yet I had not thought how it would be to live side by side with such. God’s army! I could not go on walking next to Philip. I moved away from him and quickened my pace; it was not until I saw Ferris, walking alongside one of the great guns, that I realised I had been looking for him. He smiled at me but said nothing as we fell into step together.
‘Were you at Naseby-Fight?’ I asked him.
Ferris looked surprised.
I went on, ‘What happened to the Royalist women who were left on the field?’
He frowned. ‘They were barbarously treated,’ and raised his face sharply to mine. ‘Do you want to know how?’
I felt my cheeks flush.
‘You already know,’ he said, turning his profile to me.
‘I hoped you could tell me it was not true,’ I said.
‘It is true. You get no more from me.’
I thought him unjust. ‘Was it my sin? I was not there.’
He again lifted his face to mine. ‘There are men who warm themselves at others’ sins. Someone has infected you, heated you with his boastings, so you come to me for more.’
‘No, indeed!’
‘I can smell it on you. But you will be disappointed in me. My way has always been to show mercy where I could, to man, woman or child.’
We walked on. From time to time I glanced at my companion, but he kept staring ahead.
‘Forgive me, Ferris,’ I pleaded. It was the way I would sue for pardon to Izzy when I was too rough with him during our childhood games. This man had something of Izzy’s way, and I should keep by him and away from the prentices – though Hugh was perhaps not a bad young fellow.
‘You’ll get your chance to hurt people,’ he said, looking full at me.
This was mighty strange talk, coming from a soldier. I wondered if, like me, he was fallen away from some better life.
‘Ferris, how did you come into the army?’
He was silent.
I tried, ‘So what trade were you put to before the war?’
‘A draper in Cheapside.’
‘Are you married?’
His face twisted.
It seemed I could say nothing right. I battled on, ‘What will you do when the peace comes?’
‘I should like to leave trade and farm for myself,’ came the surprising answer.
‘What, like a peasant!’
‘No, like a freeborn man with no master over me. London is one great Babylon, a very Sodom of cheating – O yes, the citizens’ houses too! You’d be surprised what goes on there. Between prayers they find out new ways to water the servants’ milk.’
‘You’re bitter, Ferris.’
‘And you’re not?’
A second
time he had laid his finger on something I thought hidden. Was I then so easily sounded? No one at home had thought so, but London folk were different. We walked on a few steps, fear coiling my belly into loops.
‘This bitterness of mine, can you tell—’
‘I am not a soothsayer!’
‘No, no. A jest,’ I said. Not a good man to lie to; last year his friendship would have been a delight to me. Now, how could I tell him about the boy, or about my doings in the wood?
But even as I argued with myself, my spirit was opening to him. Again I felt how much I missed Isaiah, how I ached for a good and trustworthy friend. In the company of such a one I might mend, and live better.
‘You wish to stay with me,’ he said.
‘Ferris! How do you know?’
‘How can I not know! You are saying it to me, in your walk.’
‘Is that a thing a man may interpret? To what end?’
‘Well, it’s of great help in training dogs.’ He grinned and I saw that he had forgiven me. Was that because he thought of me as his dog?
‘Take no offence,’ he added.
SEVEN
Bad Angel
Ikept with him from then on, except when we were forcibly separated, as for drill. By dint of frequent repetition I was now grown proficient in this, and not only joined with the rest of the men in proper form as regards rank and file, but also went through the pikeman’s postures without pause or bungle. In addition I had learnt to follow the drum, and to know the beats for Call, Troop, March, Preparative, Battle and Retreat, all of which lessons I endeavoured to put into practice as best I might, for I was the same proud and careful workman I had always been.
Ferris’s task, as he had said, was to help with the artillery, and there were many times when we could not be together. Besides, he had his own mates among the gunners. In fact, he had plenty of friends among all the better sort of men – after two days he had my coat ready, for one of these friends was a tailor – and he would often joke with them. But he hated certain kinds of bawdry, in particular tales of amours struck up with women obliged to give free quarter, when the men jeeringly recounted their conquests afterwards. At times, too, soldiers would chronicle some rape reported of the Cavaliers, speaking with a relish which showed them secretly envious, and this he perceived and despised.