by Maria McCann
All behind the wall was of a piece – a fearsome show of strength. To one side was the Old House, of a very fine red brick. It was flanked by two great towers and encircled by a mighty earthwork. Men said the earthwork was most likely built by William the Bastard or his friends, so long had oppression reigned here. In itself the Old House looked ready to outlast any siege whatsoever; but that house was but the half of the place named Basing, for some way off was raised the New House, built in the time of Bluff King Hal. This second was a palace in itself, and though it had suffered hurt from the cannon, it was still of a size to daunt the courage of a besieger. To me it looked like a great many dwellings pushed together and topped by domes. Russ, passing by on his way to the baggage train, told me it had near four hundred rooms, which made Sir John’s Beaurepair, which I had once thought so grand, a hovel to it. Some said that these Old and New Houses were joined by a long covered passageway, which made them one, and though Russ told me that was nonsense, there was no such thing, yet I could not help picturing the defenders scuttling back and forth from one house to the other, like rats in a pipe.
So much for what lay inside the wall. Outside, where the common people had lived, not a cottage remained. All had been razed lest they shelter the enemy, for Paulet, intent on the defence of his own, did not scruple to scatter the stones of humbler hearths.
We were encamped in the park, some six thousand men with little occupation until the guns were in place. A Dutchman, Colonel Dalbier, not one of the New Model but engaged with Parliament’s blessing in the same enterprise, was already installed and had lost no time, for his battery had done good service. There was a great turret shot down, and part of one wall of the New House. Word went round that when the wall collapsed, goods had spilled into the court below. That sight had warmed the besiegers to their work, for every soldier had heard of the fabulous treasures within.
‘Will we really sack it?’ I asked a man standing near me.
‘What do you think they are come for?’ he answered. They were a crowd of folk with carts and waggons, camped well back from the field. ‘Crows, all of them. The house is as good as a carcass already.’
‘Surely the army will take whatever’s there?’
‘What they can carry. That leaves plenty.’
It was clear now why Cromwell had been on edge to fetch his artillery here before the roads grew too bad. The place was so well defended that there was nothing to do until Ferris and his mates should have smashed us a passage through the walls. I said, thinking aloud, ‘But the place is a town in itself.’
The man smiled. ‘Show me the town Cromwell couldn’t take. Besides, the God who was with us at Naseby is with us still.’
‘If God intends to make it another Naseby-Fight,’ I said, plucking one foot, then the other, out of the mud, ‘He does not show his love in the weather.’
‘Lord bless you,’ cried the other, ‘that’s all to the good. Soft earth for the pioneers.’
He moved off. I remained, rain soaking through every thread on my back. Those inside Basing-House, or Loyalty House as the Papists were said to call it, enjoyed the unspeakable comfort of a roof – two roofs – over their heads, along with wine and feather beds. I already knew that some were actors and whatnot, hardly a man among them able for honest work. There were also war-like and unnatural women who had thrown staves at our soldiers from the windows, and swarms of priests, buzzing away at their Latin spells. But we would have a good swat at them and by constant stoning of their wasps’ nest we might bring it down at last. At any rate, we would not come away before one side or the other was utterly undone. Looking on the place, I only prayed it would not be ours.
As soon as Cromwell arrived he was in council with Dalbier, and the two together spent some time in reconnaissance. Ferris went with the other gunners up to our breastwork, as they called the foremost defence, built so that a man might hide behind it. Pioneers had crept forward, digging their trenches always at such an angle as to offer no clean sweep to enemy firepower, so that this breastwork was now close to their defences. From time to time came the roar of Dalbier’s guns, followed by white smoke drifting across the field.
Nothing could be done, the first few days, but dig latrines and plant the artillery. I made trenches for the former and laid planks across them, knowing that in two days the stench would sicken me, and indeed, every time I had occasion to go there, I wished that men could seal their noses as dogs flatten their ears. Worse still was being there in company. Soldiers complained of their watery arses, their costiveness, their piles, as if any cared to hear, and I was not spared the bestial merriment which for some must accompany each turd or fart. I had never felt my fellows so gross, and would have gone almost anywhere else to relieve Nature, had it not been that, save a sea of mud, there was nowhere to go. Every so often it was bruited that such-and-such a soldier was slipped from the planks head down into the shit-pit, and in these stories I perceived a depraved relish in anything filthy and disgusting that could befall a fellow creature.
While the sky was light I saw nothing of Ferris, unless it were a far-off glimpse of a man who might be him, and whenever shot landed near his position I clenched my fists and prayed. When at last he came back into the body of the camp I found Nathan glued to him. It was the same the first night and the second. Afraid of me the boy might be, but not so much as to keep off and let me have my friend to myself. I wondered if Ferris had borne my apology as he had promised.
Men passed the time as best they could: cleaning weapons they had not fired, writing letters which might never be read, stone-throwing and wrestling. The more godly squinted at their soldier’s Bibles. Those men whose wives trailed along with us were better off at this time especially, for along with cooking and mending clothes, the women had much to do nursing the sick. In addition to the usual wounds, a raw cough was spreading rapidly among the troops. All about us was wet, grey and brown. At first we had thought to forage for hedge-fruit or coneys in the fields round about, but once men began crossing them they soon became nothing but one great bog of mud. Whatever could be eaten, and much that could not, was gone by the second night.
By day I avoided Nathan and Russ, but since at night they were always with Ferris I was obliged to make one of the company if I would see him at all. A fire would be found or built and our wettest clothes spread next to it. There was no soothing the misery of never being dry: the hands that we rubbed on our chapped skins were split between the fingers. Some grew so weary of damp garments that they sat naked by the fireside, holding steaming shirts and breeches against the flames. During the worst nights a man might wake and find that while he slept, his front turned to the fire, his shirt-tail had frozen stiff at the back. I wondered how many of these men were homeless and masterless, how many had a desperate and bedraggled wife trudging behind with her babes. It was now the middle of October; had there still been a call for sickles and scythes, I guess many would have run.
The long hours of darkness dragged. Russ talked of past exploits, Nathan of the new Jerusalem, and I of nothing. Ferris struck me as weary, which was natural to one in his situation, but I saw that he was fretted by more than guns and gun platforms. He seemed ill at ease, and I sensed he was waiting for me to set things right with Nathan. It might be the third night, one blessed time when it was late and the boy still not there, that I found Ferris sitting alone by the fire. I was just about to make him a present, half a loaf of good bread, when he spoilt all by cutting into my talk.
‘I have done my utmost to make peace with Nat,’ he said. ‘I have begged forgiveness for your knife. But what good is it, when you do nothing but glare on him?’
‘I do not glare,’ I cried, and indeed I had no idea of doing so.
Ferris sighed and said that Nathan was young and green, he must be gently handled, and for all he imagined himself a warrior he was but a sprig.
‘Then he should not be at war,’ I replied.
‘I say as much to him myself. He answe
rs that young lads are fighting everywhere—’
‘Starvelings, maybe. But he can read and write, has parents, has he not? Why does he stay?’
Ferris regarded me an instant, hesitated, then said, ‘To the point. He is easily faced down – as well you know – and there is something besides. He has heard some tale about you.’
‘From whom?’
Vexation narrowed my friend’s eyes. ‘Planning vengeance already? You don’t listen to me, you must go about things a softer way. In your place I would—’ he stopped, for Russ and Nathan were approaching us.
‘I have no need of other friends,’ I complained. ‘I wish to talk with you alone.’
‘And if I am shot tomorrow? These are not bad men. Sit with us, and bear yourself kindly.’
Unhappy, I sat with them. Doubtless I looked ferocious, and did myself no good with the boy. Nathan no longer pestered with his talk, but pained me a new way, by asking how many men had been killed on the artillery, and how close the shot was come to Ferris. This was a thing I had as lief not know, but I held my tongue.
‘One of my mates had his face blown off,’ said Ferris dully. He held up his arm and I flinched to see the reddish-brown slime stiffening on it.
‘What did the surgeons do?’ asked Nathan.
‘What could they? The men wouldn’t even take him, they said it was wasting a hurdle, and I guess they were in the right of it. That was before noon and he was still alive come sundown.’ Ferris spoke through gritted teeth.
‘But he’s dead now?’ asked Russ.
‘Aye. He died as soon as it got dark.’
Russ and Ferris exchanged a steady look, which I thought I understood and saw that Nathan did not.
‘They give us it hot and strong,’ Ferris went on. ‘Barrow-loads of stones as well as shot and shell.’
‘The breastworks are very close,’ said Russ, adding for my benefit, ‘that makes things bloody,’ which was just what I most dreaded to hear.
Ferris said, ‘All we can do for now is lob granadoes.’ I hated to think of him doing this, for the granadoes, pottery shells full of powder, sometimes went off while still in the soldier’s hand. ‘But Cromwell does well with the gun platforms. We’ll soon get a practicable breach.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘When the walls start to collapse,’ Russ explained. ‘Then you get a slope the men can run up.’
‘The cannon royal,’ Ferris added, turning to me, ‘fires around – sixty – pounds.’ His last words were smeared over by yawns.
Russ told him, ‘You should sleep, lad.’ There was something like tenderness in his voice. To me he said, ‘It’s backbreaking work. You won’t see any of your milords as gunners, they’ll none of them touch it.’
‘You won’t get your face shot off now,’ said Nathan to Ferris.
‘That’s not the way it goes, Nat.’ Ferris smiled wearily. ‘Just keep praying for me. What’s the password? Sleep.’
He lay down on his side, found he had placed his injured cheek to the ground, and rearranged himself so that the wound did not touch anything. ‘It drags,’ he muttered, and drew up his knees for warmth.
Grunting, the rest of us also settled ourselves in our soggy clothes about what was left of the fire. Nathan took great care to get Ferris between himself and me, as if I might creep to him in the dark and cut his throat. He made such a business of it, I was tempted to shift places and stretch out with my head in his lap.
Russ and Nathan wished me a feigning ‘goodnight’, which I returned; Ferris murmured, ‘Sleep well, Rupert,’ as if he meant it.
‘Sleep well, Ferris.’
Waking some time later, I heard his breathing rattle. There was wheezing on every side; we were losing more men to flux and to inflamed, bubbling chests than to gun or sword. I dozed briefly and was straightway with Zeb, squabbling over some job left undone in the kitchen. Coming out of that dream I lay a while thinking about those I had lost, until I at last drifted off. It was a poor night’s rest, full of fears and starts. Towards dawn I grew as miserable in body as in soul, and not only from cold, being unable to sleep soundly for the want of a piss and unwilling to piss because I was half asleep.
Jolted by some noise, I opened my eyes and saw Ferris already up, his shoulders heaving from a hard cough. After a moment he hawked and there was a hiss as he spat into the embers. None of the other men moved. His face melancholy, Ferris contemplated the sleeping Nathan. I thought he might be about to look at me, so feigned sleep. When I opened my eyes again he had put on his helmet and was pulling some bread from his snapsack. I watched as he bit it, and heard him sigh; it was evidently too hard.
‘I have some,’ I whispered.
Ferris started and smiled. I rose and took from my sack the half-loaf I had saved for him; he did not pretend to refuse, but pressed my hand as he took it, saying, ‘Many thanks.’ Then he walked off in the direction of the battery, eating the bread as he went. I watched him circle the mud pools as he moved over the grey field.
The rest of us felt the dew on our hair and clothes, swore or prayed according to inclination, and readied ourselves for another day of waiting. I relieved myself at last by pissing into the mud next to the others, and was abused for it, and wondered was I indeed that same man who had washed down his body in scented water.
That was the day, all our weapons being in place, that Cromwell sent to John Paulet, the Marquess of Winchester and Master of Basing-House, to know would he surrender in common sense and decency, or put his own people and ours to the danger of a storm. For, he wrote plainly, as acknowledged Papists, the Marquess and his people could expect the utmost severity if they went on to the bitter end, and their only hope of mercy, according to the law of arms, lay in surrender. But whether through stubborn pride, or fear that we were less honourable than we pretended, the Marquess could not be brought to sue for terms. The time was now come to show them some play. The order was given and our great guns commenced firing.
My fears for Ferris rarely left me, and having little else to do I had taken to standing in the field, watching each ball and shell crash into the outer walls and cringing whenever the enemy landed something near our battery. After a while I was joined by one Price, a tall man and well made, but sickly-looking and with the cough which was spreading through the camp. He it was who told me most about Basing-House and its occupants.
‘Romanists, all of them,’ said he. ‘The Marquess pushed out his one Protestant commander. That was Colonel Rawdon, and a fool’s trick it was to get rid of him. Paulet threw away five hundred men at a stroke.’
‘He must have great faith in his idols,’ I remarked.
‘In the walls, as well as the Pope. One way and another, the place has been under siege for years.’
‘And always stuck it out?’ I tried to picture how much food must lie within.
‘Aye. We nearly got in with the London Trained Bands,’ Price broke off to cough up some phlegm, ‘but it ended in disgrace.’
‘How? Our men were cowards?’
‘I’d not say cowards. They were over the wall – the hardest part! – and they got into the barn.’ He pointed at a massy building within. ‘It was full of food and drink. Would you believe the whoresons stayed there, gorging, and the roof in flames over their heads?’
‘Did they burn to death?’
‘The defenders turned shot and cannon on them. The rest were beaten back.’
Remembering the cheese I had stolen while tramping the road, I could well understand how the chains of duty and common prudence had snapped all at once. Such plenty, spread before men both hungry and cold, would be irresistible.
‘Have the people inside never gone short?’ I asked.
‘We nearly had them once – they were starved down to oat porridge. A couple of them tried to get out over the wall. Paulet hanged them, else more would have followed. Desperate, they were.’ He sighed. ‘And then the place was relieved. No, the only way is to batter down the hou
ses.’
‘And that’s what Cromwell’s sworn to do?’
‘He and Dalbier before him.’
I asked why, if Dalbier were set on it, he had not done the thing
‘It takes time,’ said Price. ‘The man’s no fool with his mathematics.’
‘That’s not to say he is a soldier,’ I returned.
Price looked strangely at me. ‘Do you think war is all sword-work? He’s an engineer, that’s what artillery needs.’
I assured him that I gave full credit to the artillery.
Cromwell’s great guns shot off, then Dalbier’s, then Cromwell’s again, sometimes the two together, while we waited and sank deeper into the filth of the field. Those of us who were not concerned with the bombardment kept back from the breastworks and passed our time as best we could.
I walked forward once that day in search of Ferris and saw him load his weapon, body tensed with effort. He straightened up with a hand to the small of his back and seemed so far from any thought of me that I lost courage and returned again to my place. All this time the sky blackened, emptied onto us like a well-bucket, and like a well-bucket refilled itself for another drenching.
Back from spying on Ferris, I went to stand beside Price, the two of us holding our pikes and watching cannonballs sink into the walls of Basing, when suddenly he began to sway.
‘How is’t with you?’ I stretched out my hand to him, but he suddenly bent, groaning, and spewed a vile, stinking fluid. He dropped the pike but fortunately it fell between, and not on, two men standing in front of us.