Death of the Fox

by George Garrett

  Might have known better. Saw his first action and killing in ’49, fighting against rebels of Kett’s Rebellion, and in the Western Rising. On the Continent saw more battles and warfare than most, as far away as Hungary and Turkey. But always with books, Caesar and Sallust, handy. Came back to England to make a name for himself.

  As in ’87 he was to assist in the muster of Essex and Hertford. Tried to teach clod-footed bands such things as what he called “the order of marching of a semicircle of two ranks oblique according to the Hungarian and Turkey manner.”

  At Tilbury he was a bleeding colonel. Captain General Leicester found him amusing until the day he inspected Smythe’s troops. Of which the Earl reported: “After the muster, he entered into such strange cries for ordering of men and for fight with the weapon as made me think he was not well. God forbid he should have charge of men who know as little as I dare pronounce he does.”

  Leicester relieved him and sent him home to write more books.

  Smythe discovered the English longbow. It must have been new to him. The Council was eager to keep archery alive. It was a matter of statute. Not for warfare, mind you, but for general health and welfare and to discourage folks from less healthy ways of spending leisure; and to keep our English craftsmen, the bow makers, from starving. But Smythe had to attack the Privy Council on such subjects as supply and recruiting, organization, arms and equipment. Adding his groatsworth of opinion on the subject of the recent failures of the English Army, and, especially, the Earl of Leicester’s expedition to the Netherlands.

  His book was suppressed and he was fined.

  In ’96 he found his hard head in the Tower. For, two days drunk, he came to a muster in Essex and tried to lead a rising. Lucky for him, he was too drunk to be understood and fell from his saddle.

  He never ceased offering advice to Council and anyone he could collar in an alehouse.

  Smythe was one of the best of the pudding-headed fools. He died poor enough. Even had to pawn his armor. But the best of that kind will get you killed or leave you one-legged or crippled to prove that Euclid or Pythagoras were right or wrong; and shipped home to beg at the edge of towns and fairs, wrapped in bandages like a babe in swaddling. Leaning on a stick like a stork on one leg.

  Christ on the Cross, deliver me from them all! They have made the sod of half the world grow greener over bones of Englishmen.

  Smythe, that windy fart, he was a mighty scholar when it comes to vanwards and rearwards, sleeves and wings and forlorn hopes, trenches with half-rounds indents, traverses, quadrants and angles of fire. But, do you know, he barely touches on the subject of the siege? The siege, that’s half of warfare. Digging and sweating and waiting.

  I’ve got the calluses to prove a soldier’s got more use for a pick and shovel than a pike.

  Any damn fool can see at a glance that the captain is the key to the English Army.

  Now, many a man who’s served his time will tell you hair raising tales of captains. I’ve heard them all myself more than once. And there were some bad ones just as the world always has room for wicked scroyles. Otherwise how would we know virtue when we meet it? Do you see?

  But seeing I’ve served as a captain myself, I ought to say a few words in defense of my fellows.

  Ask yourself this: why would a man want to be a soldier? Never mind musters and press gangs and such. There are ways to avoid them. Once bitten may not be the beginning of wisdom, but it teaches a man something about dogs. And a soldier can always run away and many did that too. There were times when even I, myself, took leave on my own. I’ll admit it. My four limbs and the head on my shoulders are proof of it. When Gabriel sounds his trumpet, I can report to that final muster all in one piece and won’t have to hunt all over half of Europe and Ireland for leftovers. I’m sorry for the ones who will, but that’s their medicine to swallow, not mine.

  But why would a sane man ever choose to be a soldier? No future in it, sir, no future at all. Exactly.… But a soldier has no future and no past. And therefore, it’s as logical as any schoolmaster could ask, he isn’t thinking of a future at all. Hard as it can often be, the life of a soldier can also be merry. There are times when he’s in good health and out of danger, when his clothes are clean and dry and the rations are good, when women are free with favors and wine and ale are strong and cheap, when his luck is running with cards and dice. Times when a soldier can laugh at the plowboy stumbling behind a plow and the prentice fumbling to learn a craft. Times when gentlemen, merchants, lords, seem like clowns of Fortune with so much to regret and fret over. And a man who farms his own plot of land can starve to death on it or work a lifetime and lose it.

  Nobody starves a soldier on purpose. And if he’s got half wit he needn’t starve anywhere I know of. Except in Ireland, where starving is the way of life.

  A soldier has nothing to lose but his life. And that’s a good thing to know as long as he can believe it.

  Back to the captain. He wears a different pair of shoes. He is least likely to be killed and, further, can fix the odds in his favor. He has to think somewhat of the future, and if he thinks it through, he’ll see it’s a shabby one. Lucky the captain who ends his service with enough in his purse to give him a decent old age. He makes do with dead pays and a muster roll that lists dead men and deserters as alive and on duty. He’s a merchant when it comes to the buying and selling of provisions and clothing. And some, not of the best, have been tempted to deal with the enemy. Especially in Ireland, where the kerns and gallowglasses would give all they had for an ordinary English arquebus.

  What harm? Say the arquebus of a dead man. It’s no use to him now. Better for someone to have it than rusting in an armory. The Irishman still has to find means to feed it with powder and shot. And sooner or later he’ll get one anyhow off a corpse. He’ll kill for it. Why not save a life and make a profit at the same time?

  Not that I engaged in such traffic myself, of course. You have my word on it.

  But there’s a check on how far a foolish or wicked captain can go. His company will stand for only so much. And there are more ways of disposing of a captain than mutiny. The captain knows this better than the men.

  There is always a chance that a captain doing well enough may find one foot on the ladder of preferment. There are many examples of that—Ralegh, for one.

  For a man with no fortune and small future, there’s not much to lose and always at least a chance of a change for the better.…

  It is true we had a good issue of uniform, all in all. But the use and comfort of clothing depend on where you wear them. Ours might have been adequate for England. But in France and Portugal we sweated and fainted from heat. Dutch cold stiffened our joints and shivered us to the bone. In Ireland we might as well have been swimmers in wet air. In Scotland, where God has turned his back and witches dance bareass with the devil, if the cold does not kill you, you’ll drown in the damp.

  The wet is worst, for English cloth will shrink around your frame. Picture a march of a dozen miles, a fair day’s march, in the rain and mud, clothes as heavy as armor. Then the sun comes out for a peep, long enough to dry us, and everything shrinks to fit as tight as a new glove.

  In Ireland our clothes were rags in no time. Shoes of English leather rotted away, and everything metal rusted. I doubt that St. Patrick had trouble persuading the snakes to leave. No trick to that. Birds and beasts are scarce enough, too, and I’ve seen the Irish, half-naked, wrapped in a piece of cowhide, men and women alike, eating grass and leaves and nuts off the ground.

  We wore Irish brogues and breeches when we could find them. Even if it meant sending some Irishman on his way barefoot and baldass.

  Ireland was the hardest service with nothing worth stealing and even our friends couldn’t feed us full. The weather was misery, winter or summer. And no proper war at all, but an ambush here on the road, a skirmish there at a ford, or a cattle raid. The drums would call To Arms and To March and away we’d go through mud a goose would di
sdain and rocks that would take the breath of a goat. To catch a few, hang them, bring back some heads on the ends of pikes. No beginning and no end to it, with nothing improving no matter what we did, or if we did nothing.

  It had a beginning for the soldier, though: a puking voyage on a stinking ship, like riding a wild mare on waves, stinking rations and foul straw to sleep on if you could sleep; and all that to remember, to endure again if and when your time was up.

  A wet, dirty, bloody war where you would never learn which was your enemy and who was a friend, if they knew themselves. And the least you’d get out of it was Irish ague for life.

  That was a school that taught a man nothing but declensions of misery and prepared him for nothing except the pains of hell.

  But hell’s bells and the devil’s clanging balls! That was not all the truth. For even in this telling, I can recall good times.

  Men have said your Irishman is a savage. I have heard (in one ear and out the other) preachers tell why. The Irish are a lost and outcast tribe of Israel. Sometimes they are the last of the branded offspring of Cain, etc. And I have heard tavern tales of old mariners, who will tell you that the black African or the red Indian is a better man by far and puts an Irishman to shame.

  Well, I know less of Holy Scripture than I should and believe less than I admit. I wouldn’t waste a small fart in a high wind worrying where the Irish came from. And though I have seen both black and red in London, I’ve never yet been to Africa or the New World. All I can say is I doubt I would have been any different if I had been born an Irishman. And I’ll say the same for you.

  After all’s said and done.… And why not say it? The Irish are cunning and treacherous, cowardly and cruel when it suits them, lazy and idle, ignorant and dirty, arrogant and proud, and all crazed—a nation of Abraham men. But they can be as brave as any who ever lived. And when it suits them they can be as free and generous as if they own the world to the horizon and have never heard of tomorrow.

  You’ll hear more than one Englishman, some dainty lad pressed out of the clink in Southwark, rail against their rude shamrock manners. Curse dirty oatcakes and sour milk and lice as thick as the freckles of Sir Francis Drake. They’ll tell you how the ignorant Irish still plow by the tail and sleep bare naked by the fire, toasting first one side and then the other. They’ll tell of dirt and stink and how one Irishman clings to more foolish country beliefs—of haunts and faeries and spirits and such—than all the Welsh and Scotch put together. They’ll tell you, too, how an Irishman will explode in blackfaced choler and draw knife against you if you fart in front of him, lacking even the first understanding of civil behavior.

  I confess this last is true and I don’t understand it at all. But farting does enrage them, and so it’s best to humor them. Hold it if you can. Walk away if you can’t.

  Not an Englishman, though, unless he is a liar to the marrow of his bones, but will tell you the Irishman’s courageous. He can live on roots and grass and march for miles and make a stand and fight to the last and never cry quarter or mercy.

  More than once when I was a captain there, I found myself at the feast of some seneschal. All served outdoors at a log table or on the ground. And devil take weather, wind or rain. For a feast they’ll eat the last cow they own. And once you are accustomed, you can learn to hunger for their food. It warms both heart and bowels. It sticks to the ribs. A chunk of butter with oatmeal and fresh blood and plenty of meat. They won’t touch fish or wildfowl even when there’s plenty of both.

  Some Englishmen cannot swallow meat of a beast that’s been skinned and cooked in its own hide, sewn up and strung over a hot fire. It’s a different taste, true, but savory with juices.

  Best of all and the finest medicine against cold and damp is usquebaugh, as they call their spirits. Drink it straight and full like ale, or mix it with a little milk, and you’ll fear not the devil or any man alive. And before the feast is done you’ll be drunker than Noah and will see the whole world in pairs as he did.

  At a feast there would be singing and dancing. Always boys playing pipes to match the piping of your blood. And a poet with an Irish harp at the last. To sing old stories and sorrows while everyone keeps silence and beards glisten with tears like raindrops in a holly bush.

  On the morrow they may slip six inches of steel between your ribs. But at an Irish feast a man can believe in brotherhood.

  Will you believe this? When I was mustered out the last time, home from France, I offered myself as a common soldier. I would have carried arquebus for eight pence a day, to get back to Ireland.

  It wasn’t just fighting or feasting either. There is something about an Irish woman.… Not only that her favors are for sale at bargain price. There are always women where soldiers are. And we all know, being sons of Adam, that there’s none of it a man can ignore and pass by except at the price of regret. A Bishop in a bush is pure pleasure in any language, call it what you will.

  An Irish woman has something different and pleasing beyond all the others. I never saw such comely sturdy flesh—even on the poor. With their long dark hair and their color all over, head to toe, of fresh cream. And something wild as a witch about them, sparks of hell in their eyes. She may join you in a feather bed or behind a hedge—all the same to her—and for no price at all save the joy of it. And never ask your name or tell you hers.

  Once I was riding alone, carrying a message through forlorn lonesome country. Cold wind blowing and rain falling steady. I lost the trail and then lost my way and direction. The wind was blowing up more fierce, rain in my eyes, dark coming on and no recollection of north and south. Not a tree or a bush for miles, it seemed, or even a rock for shelter.

  I came over a rise and there below was one of those round stone towers they like to live in. A fenced yard with wet cattle standing. Light from ports of the tower and the top of the tower smoking like a chimney. Not a soul in sight and no man challenged me. I kept my hand on the hilt of my sword and would not unsaddle, though I fed my mare some oats. Rain was coming down harder and not a star in the sky or the memory of a moon. I was as wet as a flounder and cold as a cod.

  So there was nothing else but to hike back my shoulders and go up to the door and rap my knuckles black and blue against it.

  After a time I heard bolts squeaking loose. I gripped the hilt of my sword, ready to cut and fight and make a run for the mare. The door swung in and there in the light was a woman, not much more than a girl, standing there smiling at me. She was wearing a shift that came down to her knees, a thin shift as soft as a bandage. And the light behind revealed all secrets.

  Before I could say a word, she beckoned me to come, and I stepped in and she slammed the door to and shot the bolts home again. She motioned to follow and I followed her up a creaky circle of stairs to the top. Where she opened a door and we came into a round hall with a fire burning and smoking in the middle and the rain from the smoke hole spitting into the fire.

  And there around the fire, as white and rosy as angels, were nine more like her, of divers shapes and sizes and all dressed the same. They stood up and smiled and I smiled too.

  Then a young man came in, a comely lad, and he welcomed me and bade me be his guest for the night. For a moment I would not trust my eyes, for there he stood, all smiling and polite, a gentleman to be sure, and as naked as a newborn babe.

  I mumbled gratitude and he spoke to the women in the Irish tongue. And they laughed and ran to me and seized me like a prisoner. I wrestled and they wrestled back and he told me they meant no harm, only to take my clothes to dry. And take them they did, every last stitch, and laid them near the fire. Then two of them rubbed me dry with a soft cloth and another brought me a wooden bowl of Irish spirits and one to my host. He nodded and raised it and drank it down in a swallow or two and I followed suit. And then here was another one, full to the brim, handed to me.

  The women took carpets from a chest and spread them in a ring around the fire. The young man motioned me to take my place
by the fire. The women slipped out of their shifts and came and lay down too. Astonished I was, to be sure, and suspicious as well. But not completely defenseless; for the dagger at the fork of my legs was well nigh a pike by that time. Which seemed to amuse them all a great deal. They brought some bread and cheese and more usquebaugh. And we lay on soft carpets and toasted ourselves pink on both sides till the fire began to dwindle and the hall to darken and we had to huddle close to warm each other.

  I kept warm enough that night, I’ll tell you. And, neither asleep nor awake, I did my duty as an Englishman. Until I conceived it might be a cunning plot to kill me with excess.

  Then I shrugged my shoulders and I thought to myself: If it is a plot for murder, they will find this victim cheerful and willing to the last breath. And if I die let me go, Lord, to the Turkish heaven.…

  In the morning, weak as a kitten, I set out following directions they gave me. The sun was shining and the day was fair. My host bade me stay on for more hospitality. And when (damn fool!) I said I could not, he told me I would be welcome any time.

  I confess as soon as I was able I set out to find that place again. But there had been raids and fighting in all that section. I never found the tower, though there were ruins that could have marked the spot.

  One night like that in a lifetime, sir, is worth one thousand nights with a nagging wife in a thatched cottage with all comforts. And I reckon it’s worth all the trouble of being a soldier, too.…

  But I see you are impatient. You did not imagine me out of the darkness to hear the chronicle of my life or my privy opinions.

  It is Walter Ralegh you are seeking. He eludes you as he lies there snoozing. You say half asleep. Not so, sir. He sleeps now, well enough, but he sleeps like a soldier or a cat. Light enough for a change in the wind or the dying of a fire or another man’s snoring—if the other be a sentinel on the watch—to wake him as quick as lightning and thunder.

  The old saying goes: A captain must not sleep a full whole night.