“What about them men I might have seen, Sergeant?”
“Deal with ‘em when we sees them, Red Man. If so be they’re running, empty-handed, then a boot up the arse and keep going. No use to us. If they’re under command, a platoon under a corporal and keeping their muskets, then take ‘em in, make ‘em part of the company. They won’t have pikes. No man in his right mind is carrying a bloody great long pike while he’s on the retreat.”
Corporal Meadows waited until Sergeant Patterson had left them before speaking confidentially to Micah and the others.
“Them buggers what’s running – the ones what have thrown their muskets away and are empty-handed. Have a look in their packs if they still got them. Chances are they’ll have been looting where they can. They might still have a blanket, and we can use extras. Shake ‘em down hard afore you boots them out.”
“What if they’re civilians, Corp?”
“Tell the girls they can have a meal and a warm roof for as long as they want, if they want to pay their way, as you might say.”
“They ain’t going to have any money, Corp.”
“They got other ways of paying, Red Man.”
Micah did not approve but he had to admit that there was much to be said for the chance of finding out exactly what it was all about. He said nothing, scowling at Edward who was inclined to be raucous.
The first of the runners from the north came down the road a little later, a group of four men sticking together, being fit and strong and making better time than most. They were unarmed but carried full packs on their backs.
Corporal Meadows had watched them walking the last few furlongs towards them and had six of the company waiting with muskets loaded and match burning. He stood at the side of the road where it took a bend around a rocky outcropping with no sign of what was hidden out of sight. The whole army could have been there for all the runners knew.
“Halt and discover yourselves.”
The four gave their names but made no mention of company or battalion. They were wearing the breeches and buff coats of soldiers.
“What are ye?”
They were brothers, they said, forced to flee their farm in front of the marauding hordes of Scotsmen. They spoke in Southern English, were probably Londoners by their voices. There was no trace of Northumberland in them.
“Bloody liars. Take them packs off. Let’s see ‘em.”
They hesitated, saw Micah shift his musket forward, ready to shoot. They dropped the packs and stepped back at Meadows’ wave.
“Empty your pockets. Turn ‘em out. Drop your purses.”
“Ain’t got no purses.”
“Edward, check ‘em over.”
They had neither purse nor wallet. Their pockets disclosed almost nothing.
“Watch ‘em, Red Man. Edward, with me.”
The two opened the packs and emptied them, found four blankets of the sort they had been issued with and little else.
“Blankets is Army. Pack the rest up and bugger off.”
The spokesman tried to argue that they needed something warm, was cut short by Corporal Meadows.
“Shut up or be shut up! Bugger off. Quick!”
They ran, hopefully thankful to be free, not under arrest as deserters.
Another two score, all unarmed, came by during the afternoon, none carrying any amount of loot. The pile of blankets grew, sufficient for an extra apiece.
“Get some more tomorrow, we can hang ‘em up round the walls to cut the winds out, lads.”
An hour after dawn saw a group of eight marching behind a corporal. All carried muskets. Their corporal had them under command and stopped them while he addressed Meadows.
“Got any of that grub I can smell, Corporal?”
“Come on in with me. See the Captain.”
The nine came from the Trained Band of a place called Hertford, which they had none of them heard of. They had been marching a week since the Army had fallen back before a much bigger force of Scots.
“Ran every bloody which way, so they did. We stuck together acos of we knew which way was south.”
“What happened to your captain?”
“Got a horse, hadn’t he, sir.”
Captain Holdby asked no more.
“You can march on if you wish, Corporal. I don’t know where the main force is, somewhere towards York, which is maybe twenty miles distant, or twice that, perhaps.”
“Walked far enow for the while, sir. Stay put with your company, if it pleases you, sir.”
“I can use the men. What’s your name, Corporal?”
“Drewitt, sir. Jack Drewitt.”
“Report to Sergeant Patterson.”
The company could use the extra men if the Scots ever came south. There were almost sufficient now to man the wall and the pair of breastworks inside it.
Micah had never fired his musket at a man, had wondered what it would feel like; he was inclined to hope now that he would not find out. The sight of the new men sitting down to their first hot meal in a week, and then taking their boots off, sighing with relief, persuaded him that he could do without discovering what ‘real’ soldiering was all about.
More men trickled through during the day. Two of them, solitary individuals, had kept their muskets and were happy to join the company. The remainder tried to slink by or attempted to brazen their way past the picket. A group of eight together waved knives and kitchen cleavers threateningly, claimed to be willing to fight the seven men who had stopped them. Corporal Meadows whistled and Micah led the rest of the original company down to his side, quickly tipping powder into the flash pans as they levelled their matchlocks at the little gang at a range of twenty feet.
“Drop they knives. Now.”
The eight huddled together, shoulder to shoulder, said nothing.
“Red Man! Aim at the one in the middle.”
Micah set his rest and dropped the musket barrel onto it, a deliberately slow process of threat. There was a short fellow waving a big butcher’s knife and shouting something in a far Southern accent.
“Thees can’t kill I! Ain’t done you no ‘arm!”
Corporal Meadow repeated his order.
“Drop the knives!”
“Bugger you! Can’t kill I for lookin’ after meself!”
“Fire!”
Micah squeezed the trigger and felt the kick against his shoulder. He dropped the musket off the rest, butt down between his feet and grabbed for an apostle, pulling its cap off and pouring the powder down the barrel. He took his ramrod and rattled it down, thumping the powder home and then taking a ball from his pouch and wrapping it in a cloth patch before settling it into the muzzle and shoving the ramrod hard to seat it on the powder. The cloth patch would prevent the ball from rolling out as he held the unwieldy musket in the crook of his left arm and poured fine-grain powder from the horn into the flash pan and then blew on the slow match in the jaws of the serpentine and was finally ready to shoot again. The process took more than a minute.
Armed again, he looked up to see what harm he had done.
The little man was flat on his back, a bloody mess where his chest had been. The remainder were knelt, hands on their heads and shaking. Two showed wet patches at their breeches. They had stolen and looted and bullied and butchered but had never fought before and did not like their first experience of taking fire.
“Edward, collect the knives together.”
The schoolboy obeyed quickly, glad to be moving, to do anything other than look at the suddenly dead man.
Micah swallowed back the bile that had risen in his throat. He would not vomit. He was a soldier, a grown man.
“Well done, Red Man. Jonathan, stop it!”
Micah did not look to see what the natural was doing; he was evidently excited by the bloodshed, was giving off a high-pitched titter.
Captain Holdby came at the run, drawn by the shot.
Sergeant Patterson had appeared and was whispering with Corporal Meadows, listening
to the story.
“Well done, Red Man. Clean as a whistle and reloaded properly. Beg to report, Captain, that the gang of deserters attempted to fight the picket, sir. At Corporal Meadows’ orders, Soldier Slater shot the leader of the gang, sir.”
“Did he now! Well done, Slater.”
Micah gagged and managed a salute and a muttered ‘thank you, sir’.
“Tie the villains’ hands, Sergeant Patterson. Then search them and their bags. See what they have been up to.”
The bags showed the pathetic spoils of a dozen looted smallholdings, the few possessions of the poorest of farmers. Some pewter – four plates and a drinking mug and half a dozen spoons; six leather jacks; a handful of horn spoons; a pair of carving knives. Put together, their spoils might have fetched five shillings. The last knapsack disclosed a pair of drawers such as a young girl might wear.
“What the Hell?”
One of the kneeling prisoners giggled.
“Kept ‘em, didn’t I. For a laugh. Took ‘em off ‘er before I ‘ad ‘er. All of us did. Good, it was.”
He stopped laughing as Sergeant Patterson swung his boot into his mouth.
“No timber here, sir, to make a gallows.”
“Knock them over the head, Sergeant Patterson. They don’t deserve the honour of a bullet.”
They had no clubs either.
“Red Man, you and the platoon, grab one of those knives apiece.”
Sergeant Patterson stood them, one behind each of the bound men.
“Right stick the knives in and cut their bloody throats. You all have worked on mess detail, butchering the beeves and sheep. Do the same for these animals. Now!”
The last word was a shout and Micah obeyed reflexively, his hand jerking almost of its own accord. He stepped back from the jet of blood and stared at what he had done. Edward was weeping next to him, his schoolboy days finally left behind.
There was a shrill, piercing noise behind them. Jonathan was excited again.
“Put it away, Jonathan.”
From being sick, Micah was suddenly in control of himself. He booted the body forward, face down into its own blood.
“What do we do with the stiffs, Sergeant Patterson?”
Sergeant Patterson could respect Micah’s composure.
“Well done, Red Man. Get the handcart. Dump ‘em at the peat working, at the wet end where they ain’t cutting no more.”
An hour later, the bodies disposed of in the pit, Micah was called into the cottage to stand before Captain Holdby.
“We need a third corporal, Slater. You have the rank. You are a good soldier.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Micah was not sure that he was a soldier at all. He did know that he was a boy no longer. He had shot one man and cut throat of a second; that made him a man, or so he supposed.
The flow of stragglers became thinner over the next two days, was virtually ended by the third. The last few were all men carrying flesh wounds that slowed them but were less than crippling. Most of them were weak and barely able to continue down the road. They fed them and pushed them on their way – they had no place for men who could not fight if the need arose.
“What happened to the men what was bad hurt, Sergeant?”
“They ain’t hurting no more, Red Man. No doctors in an army that’s running away. Left behind for the Scots to give them mercy. Some of them might have got it. Most won’t. No time for the wounded when there’s a battle to fight, a beaten King to chase.”
“Beaten? Won’t he be back with another army?”
“What army? He could hardly pull us together. We’re all the army King Charles has got, and we’re no bloody use. He needs ten thousand men, and all he’s got is the tail end of the Trained Bands. Maybe he can send over to the Germanies and pick up mercenaries from the wars there – but he’ll have to pay for them and he’s short of the readies. He’s lost this war, Red Man, unless he’s got some fine trick up his sleeve.”
They ate their evening meal, a stew with plenty of meat in it, revelling in the full rations still in store, and then crawled into their blankets as the sun set. Micah slept undisturbed, never a dream still less a nightmare. Come the morning he ate his hot oatmeal and wondered why he was so little affected by his doings of the previous day.
He supposed he was lucky. Judging by the black circles under Edward’s eyes, the boy had hardly slept at all. He shrugged. Every man must come to terms with what had happened in his own way. If he could not settle his mind, then he must suffer. There was nothing he could do and little that was sensible to say. Each man must live inside his own head and put his own thoughts to rights. There was no such thing as an apothecary who sold medicines for the head.
Chapter Five
Years of Blood Series
Bold and Blooded
“Blood all over my hands, Red Man! It spurted out and covered them!”
“So it did, Ned. It will again on another day, if so be you stays as a soldier. Better another man’s blood than thine own. Forget it, Ned! The man was a wicked, Hell-bound beast who had committed the vilest of crimes. Thou may be proud to have brought his evil to its end. No other young girl will be made to suffer by him. He is burning in the Fiery Pit, Ned, sent there by thy godly hand, much to thy credit. I shot the one and cut the throat of the second, and I am conscious of no sin in so doing. It was the Lord’s work to kill those Devil’s hounds, Ned. Let us pray that we may do the same to more who deserve such an end.”
Ned was still young and impressionable; he accepted Micah’s words and set to eating his breakfast.
“What of Jonathan, Red Man? He enjoyed himself.”
“He is a natural, poor lad. He knows not what he does. I could wish he were less willing to pleasure himself when excited, but it is just a matter of smacking his hand when you see it inside his breeches, after all.”
“Aye, but…”
“Yes, I know – not what we want to see when we are supposed to be fighting a battle. He is a soldier - he can point his matchlock and he does not run away. Best to watch him on the load, perhaps…”
Jonathan sometimes forgot to pull the trigger when they were at exercise and started to put a second load into his unfired barrel. He had not managed to complete a double load yet, but they feared he might in the field when he was likely to be unwatched.
“Not to worry, Red Man. At worst he will only blow his head off, and he will not notice that to be missing!”
“You are cruel, Ned! Right, though!”
Ned had been on sentry-go for half of the night and returned to his blanket after breakfast while Micah sat to sharpen the knife he had been given on the previous day, and to clean it of blood. His own knife in its sheath was razor-sharp and spotless.
“To thy feet, Red Man!”
Micah scrambled up and stood straight before Captain Holdby.
“You did well yesterday, Corporal Slater. Sergeant Patterson tells me, and I am inclined to agree, that you could be made into a Lieutenant, to be my second, which I need, or will do, when the Company is made up to size again. I shall be watching thee, Corporal Slater. For the while, we took a little by way of spoils yesterday and Sergeant Patterson is to hand them out to the most deserving.”
Sergeant Patterson called the men together, leaving Jack Drewitt’s new people to watch the wall.
“A pewter drinking mug to Corporal Meadows, he having need of such!”
They laughed in friendly fashion.
“To Red Man, a pewter platter and spoon, for he is still a growing lad and needs to fill his belly. Next time, perhaps we shall discover a razor for him!”
Micah’s ginger colouring had led to a very fair beard, hardly to be seen and needing a shave at most once a week; he had decided to grow a beard, eventually. The company roared their delight at their sergeant’s humour.
The men who had acted as executioners were all given some token – a pewter plate or spoon and some sort of extra by way of a powder flask or a horn cup
.
Jonathan was given a sharp knife to keep as his own as well as a spoon; he seemed pleased at the present but unsure what to do with it. They tucked the knife away in his knapsack, safely. He smiled his gratitude at their kindness, always so pleased by the way his friends looked out for him.
“He’s a good-hearted lad, Ned.”
“He is too, Red Man, but he should not be here. He should be safe in an alms house, poor lad.”
“He is happy among friends, Ned. Would he be so well looked after back in the village or in Stamford itself?”
Ned could not argue that he might be – he knew that naturals were more often mocked and abused than treated with compassion and sympathy.
“We should do better than send him off to war, Red Man. It is not right.”
“Few things are, Ned, in this world of ours. For the while, do you draw the charge in that matchlock of yours and set to cleaning it. I can see a speck of rust on the serpentine, Ned, and that will not do. I am thy corporal now, Ned, and cannot tolerate that thou shouldst be careless with thy piece!”
“Yes, Red Man.”
“Best it should be ‘corporal’ when I have given thee an order, Ned. ‘Red Man’ for sitting talking, but not when it is duty.”
“Yes, Corporal.”
For a quiet week they hoped they had been forgotten, that the rest of the Army had passed to the south and would leave them in their little backwater to grow fat on double rations and idleness. A horseman came riding in with orders to end their tranquillity.
Sergeant Patterson pulled the company together in a parade.
“We has orders to make patrols to the north, to discover what’s going on and send the knowledge back to headquarters. Captain Holdby has our command and has been given that of three other places in these hills. The lieutenant is to go out to one of them which has no sergeant. Captain is to ride between them, though staying his nights here with us, this being the biggest outpost. Because he cannot go out, I shall go with the first three patrols, to show thee how it must be done. Thereafter, corporals in charge. Tomorrow, Corporal Meadows and nine men. Two days after, Corporal Drewitt and his men; last of all, five days from now, Corporal Slater will take his section. Each patrol will march for a day, lie up for a night and then return by the evening.”
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