The horsemen were a few yards farther distant from the second volley. One horse fell, the muskets inaccurate over the extra range. Micah took careful aim and squeezed his trigger then snatched up Ned’s matchlock and waited. A rider slowly bowed forward clutching at his belly and fell down into the gorse.
The last of the wounded stumbled behind the rocks and Jasper called ‘ready’.
“Shoot.”
A dozen muskets responded, the other sections having taken aim the while. Two horsemen jabbed their spurs in and took off hard, back the way they had come.
“Got they buggers, Corp!”
“So we did. Reload!”
Micah waited until they were all loaded and then ordered Jasper to take his group up the hill side to act as sentries.
“We did well then, but they’ll be back, and a lot more of them. Charlie, cut that horse’s throat. Shut the poor bastard up.”
Charlie had been a stable lad, assisting his earnings with a little of petty theft before he was caught. He knew horses.
The shrill noise came to an end.
“Check the others, Charlie.”
“There’s two are unhurt, Corp.”
“Can we put the wounded up on them to get them back, Charlie?”
“Up them hills? Not a bloody hope, Corp.”
“Then get their gear off ‘em and turn ‘em loose. No use to us.”
“They Scots’ll likely take ‘em back, Corp.”
“Let them, Charlie. No need to kill the poor sods if we can avoid it. Let them run for now.”
Charlie did as he was told, not caring either way.
“Get hold of their pistols, lads, and the swords and anything else they’ve got.”
Ten minutes of efficient looting saw sixteen pistols and eight short swords together with powder and ball set out on flattish rocks for inspection. The contents of purses, wallets and saddlebags had been distributed among them.
“A bit of silver and a few coppers, Corp. Not much for blokes what are supposed to ‘ave been looting towns on their way south!”
“The generals will have got hold of the bulk of that, Bob. Ordinary troopers don’t see much of the good stuff.”
They laughed, agreeing that was right, that was the way of the world.
“Right, I’m taking one of these pistols for meself, lads. Useful to have an extra.”
Corporal Meadows agreed and said two of his men had lost their matchlocks.
“Springs broke so we dumped them, Red Man. Can we ‘ave that spare you’ve got, for one, and a pair of pistols for t’other? Your section did the killing, so you got the say.”
Micah passed them across without a word.
“You ought to take a sword as well, Red Man. Shows you’re the boss man – almost an officer now, ain’t you?”
Chapter Seven
Years of Blood Series
Bold and Blooded
“You’re senior in the company, Corporal Meadows.”
Corporal Meadows did not fancy being put in the position of a sergeant. He had avoided responsibility through the whole of his time as a soldier and saw no reason to change now.
“What were the orders, Red Man?”
“Captain Holdby told me to go out and find out what was happening and help you get back, if possible.”
“Then you’re in charge until we’re back. You’ve done a good job so far. Did ye bring a bottle of gin with ye?”
Micah shook his head.
“Knew you’d make a cock of something, Red Man! What do ye want us to do?”
Micah scratched his head – he had not expected that response.
“Are there any more of yours to come, Jack?”
“Lost five, Red Man. All dead. Got caught by horse short of the woodland, a furlong away from cover. Corporal Meadows heard the fight and came across to help us out. Would have all been killed if he hadn’t.”
“Corporal Meadows?”
“Two dead and the two we’re carrying, Red Man.”
“Fourteen left on your feet.”
“And nine of yours. Ned not with you?”
“Sent him back to tell Captain Holdby we’d seen the Scots.”
They agreed that was sensible.
“Right, we need to get up high. How bad are your two, Corporal Meadows?”
“Ain’t neither of them making it back, Red Man. Sword cuts, both of ‘em. Slashing down and opening ‘em across the face and over the shoulders and chest. Bled heavy. Can’t close the wounds. Can’t leave ‘em on their own. Can’t carry ‘em over the hills. They’re buggered. Slowing us down.”
The two horsemen who had escaped would be back with more before too long. They could not hold where they were.
“Jack, you and your five to stay here until we’re at the top with the wounded. As soon as we get up, or before if need be, I’ll wave you to follow. We’ll find a place to hold while you pass through us with Corporal Meadows and the wounded. Jasper, you lead them back to the place where we made the fire earlier. Set up there, out of sight. Get a meal together. If you spot any Scots south of you and up on the hills, send a runner to me and hold as you can.”
Jack nodded and pointed his men to their places.
Micah led the others up the hill, pushing the pace as hard as was possible with the two wounded to carry and drag to the top. They were three parts of the way to the crest when Alfie called to him.
“Down on the flat, Corp! Horsemen, look. Just four of ‘em. Scouts. Looks like foot in the distance, behind ‘em.”
Micah whistled as loudly as he could, waved Jack up the hill as he turned to look.
“They’re coming. Move it. Carry the wounded.”
They managed a tired trot up to the crest.
“Jasper, take them along the tops, like I said. Rest of mine, stay here. Down flat where you can see them come up.”
Jack Drewitt led his section up less than ten minutes later, panting heavily.
“Follow on, Jack. Get your lads into cover a few furlongs back and ready to hold against the foot, if they choose to come up to chase us. If they got any sense, they’ll stay down in the dale and watch us as we go. If they got a lot of sense, there’ll be another company climbing up a couple of miles back and waiting for us.”
“What do we do then, Red Man?”
“Go west, slowly. Every time you come to some rocks, wait there and kill a few before moving on. Try to make it too hard for ‘em. I’ll hold here long enough to see what they’re doing. If they try climbing up here, I reckon we can kill a few and change their minds. Put it away, Jonathan!”
“Sooner you than me with him, Red Man. See you in a couple of hours.”
They watched from hiding for a few minutes, saw the Scots horse nervously approaching the dead animals and men on the turf in front of the rocks where they had laid their ambush.
“Got the twitch, ain’t they, Corp!”
“Don’t fancy going the same way, Alfie. Make sure you’re loaded. Those pistols as well.”
They waited, silently for the most part, drinking the last from their water bottles and chewing at the remains of their rations.
Water was going to be a problem, Micah realised. The becks ran in the bottom land, not on top of the moors.
“The foot are here, Red Man.”
He could see that for himself, knew that it was nervousness making Alfie speak.
“Keep out of sight. Let’s see what they do.”
For half an hour, they did nothing. Then an officer rode up and showed bad-tempered. He could be seen waving his hands and pointing. A small section picked up their firelocks and moved slowly uphill, evidently ordered out as scouts. They split into three pairs, perhaps a hundred yards distant from each other.
“Wait till the nearest two get close. When I shoot, Charlie and Dick fire as well. The rest of you, stay loaded and out of sight and watch the other four.”
The scouts were thorough, picking their way cautiously to the top and inspecting every bit of cove
r on the slope. The furthest two drifted off to the north, following a sheep trace there. The middle pair kept to a line that would bring them a good hundred yards away from where Micah waited. The nearest couple were making a slight angle across the slope, would pass perhaps twenty yards in front of him.
“Ready, Charlie. Ready, Dick.”
Micah thought it likely that Jonathan would shoot as well, copying the other three, but there was no gain to attempting to order him not to.
“Take your aim. I’m going for the one on the right… Now!”
The three muskets crashed, followed by Jonathan, as expected. The two Scots dropped, one rolling over and over, tumbling half way down the slope before wrapping around a rock, head down.
“Reload. What are the others doing?”
Micah could not see for the powder smoke around his head.
“Middle two are going back down, Corp. Bloody fast! T’other two are laying up behind rocks, better part of three hundred yards away.”
They could be ignored at that distance.
Micah waited while he completed his own reload, then called the others to fall back, keeping low for the first few yards.
“Right to the top. Look out for the others.”
A few minutes and they spotted the remainder of the company, not more than half a mile distant.
“Can’t make any time for the two wounded, Corp.”
“Sod it! Can’t dump them, leave them for the Scots to finish ‘em, or just to die on their own up here.”
“Might be we ‘as to, Corp. Lose them two or see every man-jack dead for trying to save ‘em.”
“I know, Alfie. Not yet, not till we got no choice, man!”
They kept in sight of the dale, peering down when they could find cover. It looked as if some of the Scots had been sent up to the tops but the bulk were marching along the low land, and making better time than the company could.
“They’re getting to the south of us, Corp.”
“Charlie and Dick, go west half a mile, no more, and have a look there, see if there’s a way of keeping away from the Scots and getting to the south as well, not too open.”
The pair ran, as well as they could with the heather tangling them. The moor top was open and fairly flat for the furlong or so to their front and then seemed to drop away, possibly just a dip, perhaps down into a dale more or less parallel to the one below them.
Charlie and Dick rejoined inside the half hour, out of breath.
“Narrow sort of valley, Corp. Not so low as this one next to us. Rough at the bottom except there’s a bit of water there, a stream, and flat on its banks by the looks of it. Saw a bit of a sheep path going down – could see wool caught in the heather.”
Where sheep could pass, soldiers could walk.
“Alfie. Run to the others and bring ‘em across. We’re going down that path. Leave your musket with me and run hard.”
They clustered together at the top of the sheep swale, the wounded still with them though being carried, unable to walk at all.
“Almost gone, they are, Red Man.”
“Could be you or me, Jack. I ain’t leaving them to die alone.”
“What happens if horse catch us down in that dale?”
“It’s narrow and tight, from what they said. Might be horse soldiers couldn’t come at us more than three or four abreast. If that’s so, we kill them. If they can make a proper charge in a line, then we run up high. The wounded won’t make it then.”
They saw no more of the Scots that day, working their way beside a beck, along the dale that ended some five miles to the southwest at a small rise. There was another dale on the other side, making down to the southeast, as they wanted, the pair surrounding a block of high moorland, it seemed.
“Going to bring us out south of the farmyard, I reckon, Red Man.”
Micah did not know for sure where they were but thought they had travelled further than they had coming out.
“See how it goes. Lay up here for the night, I reckon.”
The dale was falling away towards the flatter land to the east, becoming wider and with trees rather than heather and bushes. There were still frequent outcroppings of rocks that could provide them with cover. It was unlikely country for horsemen; they would be kept to a walk and would have limited visibility, would be exposed to muskets in cover.
“Keep the fires low and hidden. Fill your water bottles tonight. Four men on sentry, two hours about. Make sure your relief is wide awake before you go to sleep. I shall be watching. Jack, you and Corporal Meadows set up on opposite sides of the camp.”
If there was an attack, one or other would be in position to give orders.
The fires flared under the cover of the rocks and the men set their stew pots to boil, and another to make tea. There was dead wood in plenty under the low trees and no sign of previous fires.
“No farmers or shepherds round here, Corp.”
“Rough land. No use for anything.”
“Picking sloes and blackberries in season, Corp. Walk out a few miles into the hills, the womenfolk and children together. No other use.”
“The sheep must have come from farms to the north. This land’s too rough to be any good for them.”
It seemed likely that the flocks were pastured on the high ground for two or three months of the year, were kept down in cover in the cooler weather.
The following midday saw them back in the farmyard, carrying the wounded still.
“Brought ‘em back, Sergeant Patterson. Had to come the long way round to get back at all. Ned told you what was going on, did he?”
“Never seen him, Red Man.”
Both thought it unlikely that the boy would have deserted.
“I’ll go out to find him, Sergeant.”
“You’re knackered, Red Man. Get a night’s sleep in first.”
“Might be he’s fallen. Down with a broken leg on the hillside.”
“You ain’t going out on your own. Who’s fittest of your lot?”
They surveyed the company, shouted in unison.
“Put it away, Jonathan!”
Sergeant Patterson gave the order.
“Alfie, Dick, Bob. Go with Corporal Slater. Ned’s still out. Fill your bottles, pick up hard bread and dried beef for two days. Fill the apostles before you go.”
Twenty minutes and they walked out on tired feet, repeating the initial journey, expecting Ned to have kept to the route he knew.
They found him half an hour before nightfall, his body shot through, stripped of buff coat and shoes and dumped in the heather. The heather was beaten down as if men had camped there for a while. There was a firepit and a dip that stank from being used as camp latrine.
“They set up an ambush for us. Must have found our tracks going out and waited for us to come back up high. Got just the one. What do we do with the body, Corporal?”
Micah looked about him, saw a rock outcropping perhaps fifty yards distant.
“Get him over there. Pull the stones over him. No point to carrying him down to the farmyard.”
All had attended funerals but none knew the whole of a burial service, and no two of them came from precisely the same denomination of Dissenters. Micah cobbled together a brief prayer as they covered the body and they left silently.
They camped up a couple of miles distant, almost within sight of the farmyard but unwilling to make the descent to the dale in darkness.
“Must ‘ave been the better part of a company of they buggers, Corp. No need to shoot the lad. They could see ‘e’d got no musket. Easy to take ‘im prisoner. What for they killed the boy?”
“Don’t ask me, Alfie. I don’t bloody know. Scots bastards!”
“They don’t need to put their bloody ‘ands up to me, Corp. I ain’t never taking none of they prisoner!”
There was a mutter of agreement. The Scots could forget about mercy. They returned to the camp in the morning in time to attend the funeral of the two wounded they had brought in.
Two days later the word came that the fighting was over. The King had come to an agreement with the Scots and the English were to go back to barracks. The war was done.
“That’s it, is it, Captain Holdby? All finished, forget about it?”
“That’s right, Corporal Slater. The war is forgotten about, we are all good friends now and subjects of our sovereign lord, the King, God bless him!”
“Sod him, say I! What’s the point of fighting in the first place if this is all that comes of it?”
“Soldiers don’t ask why, Corporal Slater. We just do and die, young man.”
“So what comes next, Captain?”
“Wait and see. Soldiers spend more time waiting than doing.”
Micah shook his head – he did not pretend to understand what was going on.
A week of idleness, doing little other than eat heavy meals and polish their muskets and Sergeant Patterson called them to parade.
He shook his head at their unmilitary appearance – none remembered the little they had learned in camp at York.
“Stand at ease! Captain Holdby will address the company.”
Captain Holdby hardly had to raise his voice to be hear by the few present.
“The General has been informed of your actions in holding these hills against the Scots. He is pleased with your actions and sends his commendations. As a result of your efficiency, you are to be brought into Colonel Knighton’s Regiment of Foot as regular soldiers. The Regiment is to be stationed at York, for the while, and we are to march there tomorrow. You will remain in my Company under Sergeant Patterson and Ensign Slater. Jonathan, stop it! There will be a paymaster waiting at York. We are to be a company of shot, none of you being trained as pikemen. Numbers will be made up in garrison over the next few weeks.”
They listened and said nothing.
“Sergeant Patterson, take over.”
The parade was dismissed and Sergeant Patterson made his way to Micah and saluted.
“Captain’s compliments, sir. Please to join him in the farmhouse.”
“Me?”
“Ensign Slater, he said, sir. You’re the only one of them here, sir.”
“But…”
“Better to talk it over with the Captain, sir.”
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