Some of the men were pleased by the prospect of breaking the boredom.
“Make a change from sitting on our backsides here all day, Red Man. Will I be one of yours, Red Man?”
“If possible, Ned. If Sergeant Patterson will allow it.”
It all seemed very exciting to the boy. Micah was inclined to worry that they might meet the Scots and be forced to fight, with him in charge and responsible for the lives of the whole section. He must learn hard on their first patrol, with Sergeant Patterson showing him what to do.
The first two patrols had gone north and east. Micah had the west to cover. He sat down at the fireside with Sergeant Patterson after they had eaten on the night before they were to go out.
“First patrol, you learns the lie of the land, Corporal Slater. That way, you knows what you are doing and where you are next time. We are to go due west, what means up the side of the dale and onto the top, what is where you been before. Once there, on a high point, what do you do?”
Micah did not know, imagined that he must look around him.
“No! First thing you do is get off the top, off the crest. Stands out like a pimple on a parson’s prick, all stuck out on top. Drop down twenty feet so you’re less easy to be seen. Then you looks about you.”
That made sense, Micah thought.
“Suppose you don’t see nobody, which is what you expects, then you picks out the next place to go to. A hilltop is best, if there is another convenient inside a mile or two. Climb it and stop afore you gets to the top then look back behind you. You can see where you just come from and now can remember what it looks like from this side. When you got it fixed, go up and over the top.”
Micah could see the sense in that.
“How far are we to go, Sergeant Patterson?”
“Six hours marching, Red Man. Taking plenty of breaks. On this sort of country, that’s ten miles. Last couple of hours it’s eyes open for the place where you want to camp up. What is where, Corporal Slater?”
He had been addressed officially, which warned him that he must think about his answer.
“In cover. Warm. Up higher, but not at the top. Where a fire won’t be seen. Close to water. So, Sergeant, if so be there is such a place, best would be in trees or bushes part-way up the side of the moorland. Fill up with water at the bottom – there’s always a stream in the bottoms.”
“What about a barn down in a farmyard? Like this place.”
“Nope. Too many people to see us. Even if it’s empty, the farmer might come up every day to keep an eye on his place. Apart from that, if there be Scotsmen on the wander, the barn’s the first place they’ll go looking.”
“So it will be. What do you do if you see a bunch of Scotsmen doing the same as you, out on patrol?”
“Depends, Sergeant. If there’s more of them than us, keep well clear, see what they’re doing and come back to report.”
“If there’s only a few?”
“Lay up for them, and if they come our way, bring ‘em back as prisoners, Sergeant, so Captain Holdby can talk to them.”
“Good idea. Don’t do it! Lay up for them and shoot when they get right close. If any of them ain’t dead, bring ‘em back. But shoot first. Even if there’s no more nor two of ‘em – don’t give ‘em the chance to shoot you. If you do kill some, don’t waste time burying them. Run your hands over ‘em, grab everything they’ve got and leg it on back to us, fast as you can. They might be a patrol out on their own, like what you are, but they might be the scouts out in front of a whole battalion – a thousand men half a mile distant, and in hearing range of your muskets.”
“How do we know which, Sergeant?”
“If you sees a thousand men come running over the next hill, you’ll know, Red Man! Don’t never lay up for ‘em unless you knows what’s behind you and where you can run to. It’s not that killing Scotsmen is a bad idea - but letting them kill you ain’t a good habit to get into. In fact, it ain’t a habit at all!”
Micah did not notice that the last remark was meant to be funny. He would have laughed had he realised his sergeant was trying to make a joke.
“Sergeant Patterson, do you think it’s a good idea for Jonathan to come out on patrol with us?”
“No. There ain’t no choice, though. He’s a soldier so he’s got to go soldiering. He can march as far as any of you and he knows what to do with a musket… provided you watches him and makes sure he pulls the trigger. He won’t do anything silly acos of he won’t do nothing at all without you tells him to. Don’t know what might happen if you gets to hand-to-hand… Might be he won’t know what to do… Don’t know, but I can’t look after him, poor lad. He’s here and here he is, and that’s all there is to it.”
“He didn’t ought to be here.”
“No more did any of us, Red Man, but we are and must make the best of it. Don’t go getting killed unless you can’t avoid it.”
The patrol passed off with nothing seen. The moors were empty – no people, no stock, hardly any crows even.
“The farmers, such few as there might be in this sort of country, has all run off and the Scots ain’t got this far. Best sort of patrol, Red Man. Two days off and then go out again, making a bit further to the north next time.”
Micah obeyed the orders, translating ‘a bit further’ as no more than two miles. Again they saw nothing, which was entirely satisfactory – nothing there meant very little chance of being attacked back at their farmyard.
A fortnight later and Micah had ventured nearly six miles north of his original route and was spending three days out rather than two. They were perhaps fifteen miles in a straight line from their farmyard when the sentry saw smoke towards the bottom of a remote dale, some way distant from where they were sat taking a break, over the crest and hidden from their direct view.
“Only a little fire, Corporal. Let’s go and see!”
“Wait up, Ned. Might be a big fire that’s just dying down. Or a dozen small fires for breakfast that ain’t being fed no more. Let’s look about.”
They were sat in the shelter of a rock outcropping, just below a crest, sheltered from the wind and enjoying the rare sunshine. They were too far up the dale side for trees and the heather was barely waist-high.
“Jasper, Bob, Henry – stay put with Jonathan and watch down the slope and both sides for any what’s coming up behind us. Give a whistle if you see anything at all and we’ll come back. Load up and be ready to prime the firepans.”
Jasper, the unofficial second man of the section, nodded that he would do everything properly. He was a slightly older man and of a serious frame of mind and kept a Bible in his knapsack, reading it most days. Micah was sure he could rely upon Jasper.
“Rest of us, we’re going up the hill to the top and then we lies down and just shows our heads and nothing else so as we can see what’s going on. Load your muskets but don’t prime the pans.”
The firepans were uncovered and the priming powder could easily fall out on the move. They did not like trying to shoot in a strong wind.
Fifty quick yards and then two cautiously, hats off and peering.
“Head down, Ned!”
The boy did not seem to know what it was to be careful.
There was a blind dale, sheltered on three sides with a winding track leading in from lower ground to the east. There had been a holding there, tiny, a one-roomed bothy and an even smaller shed. Their roofs – heather and turf rather than true thatch – were still smouldering. A party of four men were walking out, following a sheep track up the side towards them.
“Spread out. Prime your pans. Keep flat under the heather. Wait my word.”
Six muskets to four men. Provided they waited until the four were no more than twenty yards distant, there was a good chance of hitting all four.
“Charlie, you go for the one on your side, the right. Dick, the one next to him. Ned, next one. Alfie, the one this end. Jem and me holds fire to see if any’s still standing.”
&nbs
p; There were mutters from the five as they pointed their muskets and waited.
Micah decided that the men climbing towards them might well be Scots – they were dressed peculiar. Instead of the buff coat and breeches they were bare-legged and wrapped in heavy cloth blankets or shawls around their bodies, tied up with belts. They had leather shoes, strapped up with thick laces. All had head-coverings more like bonnets than proper hats. They did not look like English soldiers. Two of them had muskets – he could see match burning. The other pair carried swords, one of them with a bow on his shoulder. Micah did not know that men carried bows to war any longer.
There was a patch of heather standing a little taller than the rest at about twenty paces distant. He decided to call the word when they reached that. It was a pity that they were in line on the narrow trail, but they were bunched up close to each other.
“Fire!”
Four shots in the same second and three men falling, the fourth snatching at his musket and trying to see men in the cloud of grey smoke they had created.
“Jem!”
Another shot and the Scotsman shouted and grabbed at his leg, bending forward. Micah fired and he fell.
“Reload!”
Micah dropped his matchlock and pulled out his two knives and ran forward, stumbling through the clinging heather. The leading man was rolling about, grasping his belly, groaning. Micah dropped to his knees beside him and drew his sharp carving knife across his throat before moving onto the next. The second and third were hit in the chest, the heavy soft-lead balls having ripped them open. They were dead. The last was bleeding out as he came to him, thigh ripped open and a great open wound across his belly.
There was no movement down at the burned-out holding, no sign of any other Scots in the area. If there had been a farmer down there, he was dead, with his family. Micah did not want to see what might have happened at the holding. He hoped they had fled days before.
“Right, lads. Look ‘em over. We’ll take the muskets and swords with us. See what else they got.”
Twenty minutes later he led the section across the hillside and away, just in case the noise had drawn attention. Two hours later he found a larger dale, empty like most were but with a clump of low trees besides the beck, a small stream, running through the bottom.
“Get a fire going, under the trees where the smoke can get lost in the branches. We’ll lay up here for a couple of hours.”
They relaxed after the tension of the previous hours, making speed away from the scene of their ambush, in case there was a battalion immediately behind its scouts.
“Nobody coming, Red Man.”
“Don’t look like it. We’ll spend an hour here and then head over the next hill and turn back east in the dale there. We won’t get back tonight, but we can lay up a bit lower down, where the trees are. Same place we used last time.”
They had found a pocket of woodland with an undergrowth of berry bushes, welcome as a rare sweet extra to their rations.
“What did we pick up from them Scots, lads?”
They had taken the dead men’s packs, unopened, as well as their weapons, except for the bow which none of them could use.
“Two swords and two old matchlocks with the lever not the trigger, Red Man. Not much use to us. Different size ball, as well.”
“Keep their powder. Break the levers and chuck the muskets away.”
That was quickly done, Ned surprised that they had not used apostles but had powder flasks instead.
“Old fashioned, Ned. Probably come from a poor part where they didn’t have the money to buy them proper muskets like we got.”
They agreed that made sense.
“What are the swords like?”
“One of them’s short, Red Man. No more than two foot in the blade, look. Thick and sharpened on both sides to a point. Plain handle with two of them things sticking out to guard your hands.”
“Quillons. Plain iron bars, that’s all. Made in the local smithy, I reckon. Simple sort of thing. Kill you well enough, though. What about t’other one?”
“Fancy, so it is, Red Man. Old, by the looks of the handle. The grip’s all worn, look. Got to be more than a yard in the blade and with a round sort of protector, not like they quillon things. Long so you could get two hands on it. Heavy as well. Not much of a point – this one’s for slashing and bashing, not for stabbing.”
“Take ‘em both back, Ned. I’ll carry the heavy one. Captain might fancy it for himself. What else they got?”
Four knives, ordinary blades for camp use more than for fighting, and a hatchet for cutting their firewood.
“Useful, that. We’ll keep that for our use.”
“I’ll carry it, Corporal.” Jasper tended to be more formal in his speech, more military, as if he wanted to remain as a soldier. It was in keeping that he would take the extra weight on his back.
“Thanks, Jasper.”
They opened the packs and found nothing of use but discovered each man to have a Bible tucked away, all of the same printing as if they had been issued to them by their army. It was noticeable that all had uncut pages, as if they had never been opened.
“Not much grub, Red Man. Oats and that’s about it. Less than we got.”
“Maybe that’s why they were out, on the scrounge for food, not a proper patrol like us.”
“Deserters, sort of?”
“Might be. Chances are, there won’t be any more following after ‘em. Anything else?”
There was a spare flask of powder and nothing else of interest. They dumped the knapsacks as being worse than their own.
“Not bloody much, Red Man.”
“Won’t make our fortunes off of these blokes, that’s for sure.”
Micah reported to Captain Holdby and handed the pair of swords and the powder flasks to him.
“Short sword’s nothing much. Sort of thing they issue to artillerymen, short enough to keep out of their way when they’re serving their guns. The long one’s different, though. Well-balanced and made of good metal. Old, handed down father to son over the generations. Some Scots family’s going to be upset for losing this. Hard luck! No crest or coat of arms on it – can’t tell who it belonged to. Probably owned by an armsman to a noble family. I’ll keep this, Corporal Slater, with thanks.”
Micah had no use for a sword, was glad to see it pleased his captain.
“You think they were foraging, Corporal Slater?”
“They weren’t carrying much food, sir. I reckon they might have been hungry and have deserted to try and find some grub.”
“Might be so... but not too likely. The King is paying the Scots a great deal of money every day for staying put and not coming further south. They ought to be able to feed themselves on the amount he is paying. The word I heard was that he is paying them eight hundred and fifty pounds a day to stay still.”
Working in the slate quarry, Micah might have earned eight pounds in a good year. More than a hundred years of his wages every day was an inconceivable sum.
“Couple of handfuls of oatmeal apiece, sir, was all they’d got. Might be they’d gone out on their own, sir, trying to lay hands on loot, and been unable even to feed themselves in so poor a land.”
“That could easily be so, Corporal Slater. In the end, it matters little – whatever they were doing, you brought their troubling to an end. I think, however, that I might like to know more of what is happening directly to our north. Your section to rest up for two days and I shall send Corporal Meadows and Corporal Drewitt out, just five miles apart and heading directly north for as much as twenty miles. Three days from now, you will go out in a line behind them and settle into a hide on top of one of the higher hills, to watch for them returning. It is not impossible that they will stir up a little of trouble and that they might be chased back. In that case, Corporal Slater, you will do what you can. It might be that all you can do is to report back and tell me what happened to them.”
Chapter Six
Yea
rs of Blood Series
Bold and Blooded
Micah spent most of the next two days, supposedly a rest period, worrying and trying to think of what he might do if he saw the other two sections, or either of them, under attack, being pursued by a great horde of wild and bloodthirsty Scots. He had to accept that he did not know, could plan nothing in the abstract, not knowing where they might be found. There was more than a chance, he suspected, that they might do no more than lie up in cover and watch as the rest of the company was swarmed under by hopeless numbers.
Sergeant Patterson had no useful advice. He had the task of holding the farmyard with two sick men and Captain Holdby’s servant as his total garrison and believed he had enough on his plate.
“Ye must do what ye must do when the time comes, Red Man. Captain Holdby trusts you to judge what that shall be. Remember that we need to know what is happening. Do not die without letting us know what is going on! If that means that you are helpless witnesses to a massacre – well, bad luck to you and to them, but you must not die because it is easier than to live having done nothing.”
That was not the most palatable of advice.
“I shall use Ned as a runner, Sergeant. If he is the sole man of us to return, do not call him coward for coming back.”
“Well thought, Red Man. That is why you must become an officer one of these days. You have something more than porridge between your ears, young man! The sole thing I can say is, think before you do anything. That and sleep well tonight. Eat a big meal and drink a pint or two as well. Not too much, just that amount that will send you to your bed happy. It won’t be more than a quart, the little that you drink, Red Man!”
Micah could not believe that he should fuddle his head on the night before so important a day. He drank nothing other than his hot tea until Sergeant Patterson came across to him with a black bottle in hand.
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