The Queen's Bastard

by Robin Maxwell

  I was breathless, for I knew I had it in me to be a leader of men.

  “I tell you,” he went on, “those men are a sight better commanders than most bloody noblemen who cannot tell their arquebus from their arsehole.”

  We laughed so uproariously at that we woke Partridge. We stumbled out together into the moonless night. I remember seeing their horses tethered outside the publick house next to Beauty, and wondering were they stolen or legally procured, but I do not remember more than that.

  When I woke at first light, groggy and looking for a near place to retch, we were all three sprawled on the village green. I roused my companions who cursed me roundly but came away with me willingly, alarmed by my report of a vicious town constable who enjoyed hauling ruffians and vagabonds off to gaol and throwing away the key. For Hirst and Partridge much feared any interruption of their journey. They were bound for glory on the battlefield and I, with scant urging to accompany them, mounted my horse and without a backward glance rode out of Enfield into the wide world to seek my fortune and find adventure.

  Hirst and Partridge and my self travelled overland to the training camp where the latest regiment of English volunteers were being readied to make the passage abroad and serve against Spain. Twas a vast sea of tents peppered with firepits, crawling with young soldiers, trampled fields made marching grounds and artillery ranges all round it. The first sight of the place made my blood run warmer but caused Partridge to cry out, “Oi, tis enough for me, I shall be off, mates!” and wheel his horse round to go. Hirst caught him and gave him a friendly pummelling, then together we rode into camp.

  We found a hearty welcome, the Lord Lieutenant greedy for men to meet his muster. We were given beds, equipment and a random array of uniforms which was, carped Hirst, anything but uniform. The Queen had no standing army, and truly there was at that time no real allegiance to England, the days not so long past when men served only feudal lords in foreign wars.

  So we banded together, a rabble of raw and poor rascals, each of whom Hirst enjoyed describing as we toiled thro our drill and training. Cockburn was “a man with legs like pins, so thin the enemy might as well shoot at the edge of a penknife.” And Masters was “as brave as an angry dove.” We learnt to shoot with weapons as small as a robinet and as mighty as a cannon, how to present our piece, take our level and give volley at the same moment as our comrades. We were taught the importance of well rammed wadding and shot down a barrel, lest the gun explode, and when and how to give the push of a pike.

  We learnt to march to the beat of the drum, observing our rank and file, and such commands as “advance your pikes!” and “triple your ranks by both flanks!” We learnt the S and the D formations, the squares, the wedges and the sheers. Twas hard work and we slept like dead men till the sun rose, and began again.

  Our horses proved a boon to our enlistment. We were offered a choice on our arrival — sell the mounts to the army for a goodly sum which is what Hirst and Partridge did do, or join the cavalry which I did do. I found my company commander a good horseman tho not great, and he scoffed at Beautys training in manège, saying there was not time for “anticks” in a melee.

  Hirst, wielding his rough charm like a cudgel, befriended the Master of Ordnance, a bumptious fellow with bulbous eyes and rotten teeth, convincing him to give us free gunpowder, for which we would otherwise have had to pay out of our meager wages. Partridge meanwhile acquired a passion for the art of encypherment, imagining himself a future spy in the Queens service tho, his low rank and lazy mind made such an occupation nigh inconceivable. At odd moments in our exhausting routine he would sit and ponder a pamphlet he had filched from the camp intelligence tent, all filled with strange symbols and cyphers. He gazed at them so asquint that I thought he could hardly have learnt their meanings. Still, as we had scant pleasures in that training camp, we did not dissuade him from his fantasy.

  For my self, I was in glory. This was all I wanted for my life. There was no fear, no worry. Only anticipation. When I lay abed in my camp cot at night I saw my self a great soldier, ever victorious in battle and a man of great merit. How fortunately bound in ignorance are the young, for there never would be raised an army if all callow boys knew the truth of war.

  Finally when time came for the levy we were ready as we were ever to be — that is to say not so ready at all. With our coat and conduct money then in hand we set out for the port of embarkation. There is not much to tell of Harwich. Only that the men who did not pocket their travelling wages and desert the Queens service were met with further privations in that town, as the Master of Merchant Vessels met with one obstacle after another in setting us upon the water for our journey to the Netherlands.

  The weather had grown foul, the wind shifting direction from one hour to the next. The draftsman who made the horse slings had not yet arrived in Harwich with his necessary cargo, and local merchants refused the mean offers made for their goods to stock our ship. Delay piled upon delay and then dysentery struck the troops. Tempers frayed like the rags of a beggar. Fistfights and riots broke out. Desertion rivaled disease for the thinning of our once robust ranks. Townsfolk cried out in anger and fear against the foul conditions brought to their home, and we were finally forced to embark, despite the wicked weather.

  The sea all round me was a terrible thing to behold. Great roaring waves like moving mountains rose suddenly, towering above the highest mast, then vanished only to be replaced by another, and another. The Channel was a living thing — a sea monster — and we in our tiny vessel were a parasite on its undulating hide.

  Our crossing, which in good conditions might have taken six hours, now straggled into its fourth perilous day. Hirst and Partridge had shipped on another vessel within an hour of mine, but we had lost sight of them in the storm and could only pray to God for their safe deliverance, as we prayed for our own.

  Never before had I been at sea and the long close confinement below decks with my fellow soldiers proved so unspeakable I thought I would brave the weather. As I stood on the ladder I could not at first budge the cabin door and thought it jammed. But finally it flew open, nay, was sucked open by the force of the gale as it changed direction, and a mighty slosh of seawater instantly drenched me to the skin. Whether twas the sight of those moving grey mountains or the sound of Gods fury in the shrieking wind I did not know. But I was filled suddenly with such a low dread that I could no longer stay, and so pulled the door closed, then clung shaking to the wall of the stair. I had seen Death out there and it was more terrifying an end than the agonizing throes of dysentery which had claimed several soldiers lives already, or the thought of the battlefield and its gory punishments. This death — to be swallowed whole by the monster and drown alone in its cold dark bowels — sickened me. All prayers fled my mind. My body could not stop its shuddering. I had seen Death rising behemothlike all round the ship, and if I never again stepped my foot outside that door, Death never the less would be there waiting for me.

  I thought suddenly of Beauty down in the hold, trussed up in ropes and a canvas sling like the dozens of other cavalry horses swinging all round her. Sympathy shot thro me. Twould be excruciating, suspended as they all were for safety on the crossing, with their feet never meeting the floor, the cries of their companions confusion and terror. I was a coward. I could not bear to visit her, try to comfort her. And I could neither stand out on the deck to confront my own death. With only the stinking general quarters and the galley — now congested with a company of seasick soldiers — to repair to, I thought I might in deed spend the rest of the crossing where I stood on the stair.

  How had I come to this place? Was it punishment for leaving my Father, abandoning him to a lonely ending in his hollow house? What kind of wretched son was I, I thought, to abscond without warning and only a shameful letter of explanation sent when I was halfway to the coast?

  But no. There was nothing to be done now, I reasoned, and no cause for guilt. I was a grown man without a future at Enfield C
hase. There had been no choice but to go abroad and seek a life for my self. Even with my gentlemans education I would flounder. In England rank and money were all, and I had neither. Perhaps, as Hirst had suggested that night in the Sows Belly, I might elevate my lot within the military.

  Then a gruff sailor bumped past me with a low curse, threw open the cabin door with nary a care and plunged headlong into the shrieking abyss. When the door banged closed I found my self moving — down past the packed galley, down into the quarters, which were dark except for small candle lanterns hung in several berths. I heard the sounds of two men talking, someone moaning, another retching. I sought my bed — if you could call a few boards and a pallet of flea infested straw a bed — and lay down facing the wall.

  As I lay in my berth cursing the army who had brought me to this vile moment, as miserable a state as I had ever been in, I felt a strange lightness come over me. I was suddenly and forcefully illuminated by reason. This ship could not possibly sink, for if it did I would surely die. And I could not die now, for I had not yet lived. My future, which I had seen stretched out before me on the beach at Milford Haven — to cross the sea and explore the world — was just beginning. I felt at once safe and snug in my berth, all fear subsiding like an outgoing tide. Slowly I rolled over and lay full on my back. I inhaled deeply. But the rank air and close darkness of the quarters, still rolling violently in a chorus of creaking planks which heretofore had filled me with dread, seemed only one side of the coin with which I had gambled my whole life. Sunlight, sweet wine and balmy afternoons wrapt in the arms of a beautiful woman were the other. I would have them all. Both sides of the coin. And thus encouraged by this great illumination I opened my arms and embraced my destiny.

  Book Two

  Twenty-five

  My dream of youth had been fulfilled — I had crossed the water to a new land and become a cavalry soldier, tho ensconced behind the walled city of Haarlem in my garrison several months had gone by and I had not seen battle. Since my arrival in the Netherlands I had been dismayed to learn that most warfare in this day and age was a matter of siege — the Duke of Alva’s Spanish troops surrounding a fortified city, and that citys residents and garrisoned soldiers valiantly resisting in isolation for months, sometimes more than a year. Haarlem, in one of the northernmost provinces, had not yet come under the gun.

  Combat in the field was scarce and much less exciting than the magnificent battles of boyhood fantasies — thousands of trained soldiers in huge formations, colorful banners flying, great cavalry charges with kings and generals overwatching from a high hill. All we could hope for were skirmishes or sudden raids, ambushes which occasionally might grow into a fuller engagement.

  By the time our volunteer army landed at Flushing after that wretched crossing, many horses had died at sea and others in poor condition were forced into an extended march almost at once, with no time to rest or have their terrors eased. Beauty was a champion amongst them, perhaps because of her excellent health and care previous to the journey. Her quick recovery and reunion with myself gave me a large advantage to begin my life as a soldier. Too, my knowledge of husbandry and study of Xenophons methods of care for horses in wartime held me in good stead with my cavalry commanders, most of whom were highborn but green, and none of whom knew more than me. On the march from the coast to our garrison I was soon singled out as a dispatch rider, carrying messages from commander to commander.

  Partridge and Hirst and I had been reunited on landing, but they were infantrymen and so we were separated in different companies. We were never the less to stay good friends who, in stolen moments, gambled and drank and whored together. They were all the family I had in this strange land.

  And strange it did seem to me at first. Unlike England with its solid ground of hills and forests and pastures bordered so rigidly by cliffs and beaches, Flanders seemed all rivers, bogs and marshlands, tho we did pass some forests of heather, pine and birch. And I had never before seen dunes, majestic mountains of sand sometimes two hundred feet high held together by grass and reed which stretched along the Channel coast from a string of northern islands, south to Calais.

  Stranger still were the dikes — structures of granite, wood, sod and earth, built by Julius Caesars Roman troops and early Hollanders to protect them against their enemy the sea.

  Haarlem, where our march ended, was collected behind old walls and crumbling towers, tho twas an otherwise fine and prosperous town. Edged by dunes of the North Sea to the west, there lay a beech forest to the south. To the east was a huge lake — which the townsfolk called a sea — on the other side of which in the distance lay the city of Amsterdam.

  We learnt quickly why we English were there in the Low Countries, and twas not so much in those days to defend our longtime partners in trade from the cruel Spanish hordes, but to protect our own commerce. Never the less the Hollanders welcomed us, and we were free to come and go in their city as long as we obeyed the rules of our garrison which carried heavy penalties for drunkenness, gaming or swearing, or for quarreling or fisticuffs. Abusing women with children, old people, young virgins or babes was strictly forbidden. For the crime of leaving the watch, punishment was the loss of both ears and banishment, and for stealing weapons or desertion or mutiny, death. We were each and every soldier obliged to pray in church twice daily and were allowed no women except wives, tho all the men I knew found ways round that one rule.

  Twas a sad fact, we learnt, that our captains were men of corrupted virtue. They were the link tween the company and the higher command in arming, feeding and clothing their men. They received their money “by the man” and so the more men, the more money. And these captains found many ways to make it seem they had mustered more men than really they had. They might dismiss a man in order to pocket his pay. Worse, they might send a man they disliked into dangerous and hopeless missions, knowing he would not return. This practice we called “dead pay,” but we had no recourse, no choice but to obey orders.

  Dutch folk I found to be as industrious and untiring as any I had ever known. Twas strange to see the women carrying goods on their heads and backs, and stranger still to see them with their wooden shoulder yokes hauling loads an English man would shy away from. They were sober and sensible people, maybe too much so for my taste, as they frowned upon the theatre which I did love. But their stern nature made for a safe and orderly town on whose streets a man or woman could walk alone day or night without fearing for life or limb.

  One fine spring Sunday after church service I could not wrest Partridge and Hirst from their idea of wenching, and decided to take my self on a proper haunt of the city of Haarlem. My companys garrison lay along the seaward wall of town and so I set off towards the Great Church whose pinnacle led me to the city centre. It seemed to me that all was water and red brick, with as many canals as avenues, wide and narrow ones and many broad, low arched bridges. The bridges were red brick like the street paving, and the houses too. The canals on that Sunday were quieter than in the week, which saw them filled with fishing smacks and barges with their goods, the most colorful ones filled with tulips. The Dutch were so mad for their tulips that sometimes one bulb of a rare color might fetch the price of a house, or a rich girls dowry.

  I headed into the city square which bustled with prosperous healthy humanity. Twas hard to believe that a war raged not far from here. Of all the fine buildings only the City Hall and the Great Church, with its steeple top shaped like a tulip bulb, were open. Services were long over, so I entered the church to find it as white and bare as our English cathedrals were ornamented, with a ceiling of faintly fragrant cedar wood, and a stair that took me up the steeple tower.

  Looking down from there I saw the whole towne of Haarlem from the square. Gazing round I saw the billowing North Sea from which I had barely escaped with my life, the great forest, and the lake across which in the distance I could see the steeples of Amsterdam.

  Back down in the square I wandered past fine shops all closed
on this Sunday but, to my curiosity, each boasting a sprig of green leaves suspended from the doorbeams. I had hardly stopped to ponder this odd decoration when I heard a commotion from down the avenue and saw a procession coming towards me. I was reminded of that adulterers procession in Maidstone and hoped this was not such a solemn progress to dampen the happy day.

  To my pleasure it was not, tho it did strike so strange a chord that I laughed aloud when I saw its nature. Twas a parade of marchers and musicians surrounding a fancy coach drawn by six horses, filled to its windows with herring! A large bough of the same green leaves in the shop doorways decorated the top of the fish coach. As it headed back for the square I followed along.

  Two young people amongst this crowd caught my eye, for they were identical in form and feature. The same eyes matching the serene lightness of blue sky, the same rosy cheeks, small noses and wide pleasant mouths. The same flaxen hair. Yet one was a boy and one was a girl, maybe fifteen. I spoke to them in Dutch, those words I had learnt since my arrival in Holland, and the girl giggled at my pronunciation. Her brother, to my surprise, answered me in English — quite good English at that. They were Dirk and Jacqueline Hoogendorp, residents of Haarlem. They were as pleased to make my acquaintance as I was theirs, and proceeded to explain that the procession in which we were all now a part — as well as the leaves decorating shop doorways — honored the seasons first catch of precious herring, now being delivered with great pomp and ceremony to the City Hall.

  They were more than friendly, these two. Besides plying me with intelligence about their town and the importance of herring to their culture — Hollanders are passionate about this fish whether green, white or red, smoked, dried, kippered, soused or boiled — they invited me to their home for Sunday dinner, and I instantly accepted.