Bold and Blooded

by Andrew Wareham

  He mentioned none by name, but members of his congregation were quite willing to do so later as they talked after the service.

  Squire Tixover was well-off, as squires went, but was a minor country gentleman with little prospect of advancement in the ordinary way of things. In a peaceful country he would die as he had lived, and his fathers before him, unknown in the greater world. War, however, would give him the opportunity to make his family a power in the County, possibly even known in the whole land. There had been lordships in the past, won by men who had grasped the chance that civil strife could bring. A convenient war in Scotland, far away from his own doorstep, could bring him many advantages.

  In the first instance, he must deliver his little force to his masters, and that must mean ensuring the Collyweston villagers were willing to serve their King.

  He could not imagine how to make the men loyal while Pastor Doddington stood before them every week, offering his words of sedition.

  He could remove Pastor Doddington. It would be simple enough to arrest him and charge him with treason. Even if he was eventually acquitted he would be months in prison awaiting trial with a strong chance that he would die of gaol fever first. Easier still would be to find unlawfully killed game in his kitchen; that could always be arranged and a trial organised before a hanging judge.

  It could be done, but the villagers would know that he had been the moving force behind the business and they would never follow him then.

  If he could not bludgeon Pastor Doddington, then perhaps he could bribe him into conformity with his needs… But he would have to be certain of offering more than the Pastor could refuse and he could not imagine what that might be.

  The Pastor’s eyes were firmly fixed on the Gates of Heaven. He was determined to enter into the Eternal Presence and was concerned for nothing else. Money meant nothing to the man, either for himself or for his wife and children. If he starved to death in the company of his little ones, he would welcome their martyrdom; offering them luxury would be valueless to him.

  There was nothing to do, unless he could find one of the villagers who might stand as a leader in his place, and that was simply impossible, because none other could offer salvation.

  Squire Tixover was reduced to hoping that his King would behave sensibly and not cause offence to the consciences of the ordinary people. They had no damned right to possess consciences in his opinion – they should be content to allow their betters to think for them. The world was going to the dogs!

  Chapter Four

  Years of Blood Series

  Bold and Blooded

  “On the march tomorrow, Red Man. Pass the word. The call has come from the north, the need is for more men quickly. Hard marching. The word is that we are to make twenty miles a day.”

  The normal march was of fifteen miles, and that would be hard going for the pikemen with their weighty and cumbersome weapons. The shot found marching a little easier, provided their shoes stood up to the pounding of the potholed tracks that passed for roads in the North Country.

  “Three months we been sat doing bugger all, now we got to push off in a hurry. What’s bloody on, Sergeant?”

  Micah’s language had suffered from three months in camp with vulgar soldiers. He was still far more polite than most but he had allowed the occasion ‘damn’ and ‘bugger’ to sully his lips. As yet, he had avoided the temptations offered by loose women and the ubiquitous sellers of alcohol who thronged the camps. As much as anything, his continence and abstinence was due to the fact that they had not been paid. He had not seen a penny in wages since he had signed his name to the company roll. That was a major factor in the rate of desertion from the ranks – it was thought that two men in every five had taken French leave. The count was uncertain because of the presence of ghosts, as Sergeant Patterson had painstakingly explained to him.

  “If pay ever should arrive, Red Man, then it will be dished out according to the Company Roll. If the Major presents a paper to the Paymaster saying that he has sixty of private soldiers and three corporals and one sergeant, then he will get sixty of eightpences and three of tenpences and one of one shilling for each day they are paying. Forty-three shillings and sixpence as pay out for the men. But what if he tells the Paymaster that he has one hundred and twenty men and six corporals and two sergeants?”

  “Then he will be given four pounds and seven shillings, Sergeant Patterson, and will pay out far less… He will be a very wicked man, Sergeant, and will be pocketing fifteen guineas or thereabouts in a week, which cannot but be tempting. Can the General not order the men mustered, so that he can make an actual count of them?”

  “He could, but he has ordered rations for all of the men on the payroll. That food which has not been eaten, he has had sold. No doubt he has called for muskets from the Tower, for all of his men. Powder from the mills, as well. The extra he will have sold off – probably to agents working for the Scots, who have to buy somewhere. It is not to the General’s advantage to go ghost-hunting.”

  “Do we get our rations for free, Sergeant?”

  “Do you Hell, Red Man! Of your eightpence a day, sixpence goes in deductions. Your pay is three shillings and sixpence less than the four shillings and eightpence laid down. The major pockets the deductions and uses them to buy your rations and uniforms and firewood and accoutrements, most of which you don’t see. If you sleep out in a barn, he charges for the cost of a lodging in a public house. You see one shilling and tuppence a week, when you get paid at all.”

  Micah decided that the leaders of the Army were all wicked men, sinners who would not discover salvation.

  “Few of them believe in your God, Micah. Probably, even fewer care. There are few Godly men to be found in the ranks of the King’s officers.”

  “Yet I am to fight for them against the Scottish Presbyterians who may be in some ways misguided, but who truly believe in the Kingdom of God! I am in the wrong army, Sergeant Patterson!”

  “So ye might be, Red Man, but do not say so aloud. It is easy to desert, if such is your wish and you do so quietly. Talking about desertion or even discussing the virtues of fighting for the enemy can put your neck in a noose, quite precisely so. A big mouth can be a deadly possession, Red Man. Keep it closed!”

  Micah did not think that he could desert. He had pledged his solemn word when he had signed the roll; he could not forswear himself.

  He collected his few belongings together and readied himself to march out in the morning. He had been three months sleeping in a barn with the others of his Company and had made himself a little more comfortable than was allowed for by the Army. He had stripped heather from the moorside to lay underneath his blanket and make a rough palliasse and had scavenged bits and pieces of timber to patch the holes in the sides of the old outbuilding and cut the worst of the draughts. Now, he was to march out and leave his bedspace behind, knowing that he would be sleeping outside under his single blanket, on his leather groundsheet and hoping to have found a patch of dry turf to lie down upon.

  The officers would have tents or be able to evict farmers from their cottages for the night, The men would have no protection from the elements, and summer was drawing to its end, as Sergeant Patterson had forecast. The nights were growing longer and the days cooler, and they were heading north.

  They marched for three days at the enhanced pace, made sixty miles before the halt was called.

  “One quarter, Red Man! One man in bloody four!”

  “What, Sergeant, fell out on the march?”

  “No! Bloody well got to the camp here, Red Man. Three in four are straggling, that is they might be if they haven’t turned round and buggered off! Two thousand men, maybe! That is all who are here. Most of the horse are present, although they say the nags are in poor condition after just three days. Too little grain, too much grass, for the quartermasters having thieved the money for the purchase of fodder. Of the foot, at most a thousand, and too many of them shot, too few pikes. Was we to be assail
ed by a regiment of heavy horse, we should be in trouble, Red Man.”

  “What do we do, Sergeant Patterson?”

  “What we’re bloody told, Red Man. We’re soldiers and we don’t do nothing what we ain’t ordered to. Today, we stay here, sat on our arses on a moorside in the middle of bloody nowhere. Tomorrow, either we stay here, or we don’t. And that gives us five chances – we march north or south or east or west, or we don’t march at all. Was I you, Red Man, I should make meself comfortable tonight. Cut yourself some of that heather to sleep in and collect all the dry wood you can lay your hands on, what is mostly the dead stems of the heather, and keep your fire burning. Like to be cold up on this bloody hillside and you might just be here a few days while they work out what comes next.”

  They sat and listened to rumours and did very little else for a week. Then they received orders to go back to York.

  The army, such of it as remained, marched slowly and unwillingly at first, then a depleted squadron of horse overtook them on its way south.

  “The Scots are across the border, Red Man. They have taken Newcastle and are said to be in Sunderland.”

  Micah had never heard of either town but gathered that it was undesirable that the Scots should have them.

  “If their foot and guns are there, Red Man, how much farther south are the horse?”

  That was a good question and one to which Micah did not know the answer.

  “What are we to do, Sergeant Patterson?”

  “March, unless we get other orders.”

  Another ten miles and the command came to halt. Then the depleted company was instructed to take over an abandoned farm a few yards up the moorside from the main road south.

  The farm was a poor holding, depending on pasturing sheep on the moors. There was a small house, a single little barn and a tumbledown drystone wall to make the yard.

  “Packs into that barn. Officers will take the cottage. Sergeant Patterson, post the men along the wall, one in four to stand sentry at any time.”

  Captain Holdby retired into the cottage with his servant and was joined by the single lieutenant who had come to the company. A few minutes saw smoke rising from the chimney, followed soon after by cooking smells.

  “Right, lads. Corporal Meadows, take your platoon and put the wall into order.”

  Corporal Meadows turned to the four men who remained to him, passed the order along.

  “Red Man, you worked with stone. Get the wall fixed, you and Edward and Jonathan and Thomas.”

  Micah scratched his head and surveyed the tiny farmyard, glad it was no bigger. The company was down to eighteen men, before it had ever seen a battle. They were few enough, he suspected, to hold even a tiny fortalice.

  The cottage was stone built, two rooms on the ground and a single bedroom built into the roof space. It was no more than fifteen feet on a side. The barn had walls no more than seven feet high with a shallow-pitch roof above. It was thatched with heather over hurdles, held up by a pair of wooden posts towards the middle. The farmer had looked after his roof and it was probably waterproof. There was a wall surrounding the yard, tall enough to keep sheep out at about four feet; it was rickety, tumbledown, uncared for. The entrance had no gate. The whole yard was barely sixty feet across bare, grey, wind beaten. The animals had been driven off, the larder emptied. There was a little of hay and straw, sufficient for pallets, perhaps.

  The pastureland stretching up the hillside was dotted with scattered stone outcroppings.

  “Edward, Thomas. Take Jonathan with you and collect all the stone you can. Dump it to the gateway first. I’ll build it up into a double wall with an offset to walk in. Keep the bloody hosses out, at least. Time we done that, we make up a couple of breastworks in the yard, taller than they bloody walls.”

  The mention of horse was sufficient to keep them busy for the rest of the day.

  Sergeant Patterson watched and supervised the other men as they knocked loopholes into the barn walls and cooked up a thick stew from the rations they had put together. He had managed to get an issue of a week’s rations for the whole company – fifty men officially – before they had left their previous night’s bivouac. So many men had run that there was actually a surplus of foodstuffs remaining in the quartermaster’s stores.

  “Bloody peats, Red Man!”

  Micah had never heard of peat.

  “Thick sort of turfs that burn if they are cut and set to dry under cover. Stinks summat awful, they do. You don’t want to sleep in a closed room burning peats. There ain’t no firewood hereabouts, up on the moors. We might get left here for some weeks, outpost, like. So we needs more than is here. Tomorrow morning, if it looks like we’re to stay here, we’ll take a walk out for a mile or so, see where the peat workings is. Won’t be far off – too heavy to carry far. Same time, you and Corporal Meadows, what has got some sense between you, is going to walk up that bloody moorside and take a looksee from the top.”

  It made sense, Micah accepted. He stared at the climb he was facing – a steep slope rising some four or perhaps five hundred feet to an open, turf-covered summit. The moor formed a ridge by the looks of it, another valley probably lying parallel to the one they were in.

  “What happens if they puts a gun up there, Sergeant Patterson?”

  “We runs like buggery, Red Man. If so be the slope is the same on t’other side, they ain’t getting nothing up there. If there might be a shallow sort of dale and an easy track, you’re going to tell me first. That’s one reason you’re going up there.”

  That made good sense, considering it.

  “How long are we to stay here, Sergeant?”

  “Bloody good question. Depends on the Scots, don’t it. If they keeps coming, we ain’t holding against their whole bloody army. If they stops, so do we. If they goes back north again, we stays put until someone remembers us and then we do as we’re told.”

  Micah had been long enough in the army to know that was highly sensible.

  They set their sentries as three hours on and nine off, needing their sleep. That night they remained undisturbed, woke up to find the cooks had been busy since before dawn and ate some sort of hot oatmeal together with the heated-up leftovers from the previous evening, two solid bowls full of good grub to put a lining to their bellies. Life suddenly looked better.

  It took an hour to climb the hillside and then find a high point to look north from, nearly a mile from the farm. The road leading south seemed empty. There was certainly no army moving south in its columns.

  “Might be the odd man there, Corp – I can see specks moving, but they might just be crows at the edge of seeing.”

  “Stragglers, maybe. Might be farmers running. No army.”

  They inspected the reverse slope of the ridge, found it to be steeper if anything, giving no way for horse or guns to come upon them.

  “If they Scots is coming at us, they might get up here on foot, but it’s too far for a musket to carry down to the farm. The most of them is coming in head-on, Red Man. Chuck they bloody pikes away and each of us puts ‘is matchlock to rest on the wall and we might do some bloody good. Can’t do no ‘arm, anyways.”

  They reported to Sergeant Patterson who informed the captain. Then they sat down in the shelter of the wall, out of the wind making the most of the sunshine.

  “How long can we stop an army for, Sergeant?”

  “Half an hour, Red Man. Long enough for them to weigh us up and then organise a charge. Say the major has put all four of his companies into farmyards like this. Two hours of the day wasted in getting us out the way. Four or five miles lost. Two score of men killed and wounded to each place. A week of that and they Scots will be getting annoyed, and the King has got time to bring up another army before they get too far south. Makes sense it do, to a general. Ain’t so good an idea for us, mark you.”

  Micah sat and thought about the general’s strategy. He was forced to agree it made sense.

  “Those of us what’s left, Sergean
t, be men what has had the chance to run and ain’t taken it. Best sorts to put up a fight, you might say.”

  “You got that right, Red Man. We ain’t going to run too easy, being the sort who ain’t inclined that way. If we do get into a fight, Red Man, chances are it will start with a few of horse, out scouting the way. If that be so, we hold in cover till they’re no more nor twenty foot distant. Then we gives they a volley. If there’s just half a dozen, what is what you might expect, then we can knock they all down. Then leg it out, quick time, and grab their pistols or carbines or whatever they got, as being useful and giving another shot what may be unexpected.”

  Corporal Meadows laughed and waved the pipe he was smoking.

  “Get your ‘ands through they pockets and purses and whatever as well. Finders keepers when it’s the battlefield!”

  Sergeant Patterson gravely agreed.

  “Suppose you kills ‘im, then all he has is yours. That’s the law of the army, Red Man. Same if he kills you, of course.”

  “He’s welcome to whatever he finds in my pockets, Sergeant. There ain’t bugger-all in them.”

  “Then Scots will have more, for having been scavenging all the way south.”

  Corporal Meadows agreed. They would have had the looting of all of the towns and villages they had passed through.

  “And they’ll have had all of the womenfolk what didn’t run fast enough as well.”

  Sergeant Patterson nodded.

  “War’s hard on the women, Red Man.”

  Micah was not sure he knew what they were talking about. He asked no questions of them.

  “Did you find those peats you were talking about, Sergeant?”

  “Over behind the house, look, in that bit of a shed. They left a handcart behind them. Not two furlongs distant, downhill a bit. The farmer had got a load cut out and drying under a bit of a shelter, a thatch roof, like. I reckon there’s enough there for the winter. Two fires, one in the barn, one in the house, all night long.”