Micah passed the word to Sergeant Patterson, watched as he did the rounds of the corporals and took Jonathan’s fife away from him.
“No time for a jig tune, sir.”
“Keep an eye on him, Sergeant. We don’t want him turning to his other amusement, not in the square here.”
The Chairman of the Bench stood on the steps of the church at the side of the square to read out the sentences and order the Bailiff to go ahead. The crowd stood silent and watched, almost neutrally.
There was a mutter of approval as the two commuted floggings were performed, the token offered and the pair released to their watching families.
Sergeant Patterson shrugged.
“Might be they won’t be King’s men no more, Lieutenant Slater. Just as like they will feel humiliated and hate the saints even more.”
The gallows frame would support a pair of bodies and the Farmer brothers were turned off together. Listening hard to the crowd, Micah discovered they were not well loved in the small town, known as heavy-handed bullies in the habit of throwing their weight around. There was a general feeling that their demise was overdue, irrespective of whether or not they were malignants. The crowd quietly dispersed as the bodies were taken down.
Micah was left with the impression that the town could still throw in with the King’s party but was just as likely to support the Parliamentarians against him. Nothing had been decided.
“What are we to do about the Collyweston people, Captain? Can they be brought along in their training?”
Captain Holdby thought it wise that they should be but did not want them appearing regularly at the castle. Better they should be less visible, for their own future.
“I could take Sergeant Patterson and one of my sections to the village, say on every Saturday afternoon, and train them for three or four hours at a time. Do the job properly, you might say. We could take muskets with us. A wagon with a score of matchlocks might make sense – there are too few of them to make a mixed pike and shot company.”
“Do that, Red Man. You might well wish to leave them in possession of their weapons, just in case. What of the flintlock pieces we have laid our hands on?”
“Too good for villagers, Captain! One of our sections to be equipped with them, to be our Forlorn Hope, perhaps.”
It was a sensible suggestion, provided they could find a good officer for them.
“Ensign Albright, do you think, Captain?”
“A steady man and one who thinks correctly as well. He reads in his Bible every day, so I am told, Red Man.”
Micah was conscious of the fact that he did not carry the Good Book and had not willingly opened its pages in some years. He nonetheless agreed that all good officers should do so and that Jasper Albright was to be commended both for his piety and for his more soldierly qualities.
“Colonel Knighton must make the appointment, Red Man. I cannot. I send him a report every week and he replies the next while he is to be found in Newark. I shall write him today and would expect to receive his agreement at an early date. He knows well that we need more good men and true to stand in front of our companies – though I doubt he would apply the same criteria that we espouse! Not to worry, we shall make Corporal Albright into a Mister in short order. Do not tell him until the promotion is confirmed.”
“Good. I shall ride up to Collyweston and speak to Pastor Doddington and make the arrangements with him. Do you think it possible to spread the word to other villages that they might do the same? Have they also set to their Trained Bands, do you know, Captain?”
Captain Holdby did not know and was not sure how to find out.
“Some of the squires may have done the same as your man, what was his name?”
“Tixover, Captain. Short of riding into each village and asking at the chapel, I do not know. Was I to do that then the word would soon be out that we were trying to recruit the Trained Bands to us. It could lead to trouble.”
They debated the risk and decided it was excessive. There was still a chance that there would be no war, though all the news that arrived from elsewhere said that to be less and less likely. If there was a peaceful outcome then soldiers who had been recruiting for war would not be well-liked, the more especially if they might have been shown to be strongly against their King.
“Best we should lay low, Red Man. Put together our supplies and build a stock of powder and ball by whatever means may be possible. Recruit men and train them. Find officers especially – we have too few even for our existing numbers of men. Be seen in the town, perhaps… It might be wise, Red Man, to march our companies through the town once a week, with a drummer rattling away and matchlocks shouldered and showing very willing. Nothing like the sight of a hundred muskets to persuade people which side they might be on. It will keep the magistrates polite, as well as suggesting to the merchants and shopkeepers that they might wish to offer the odd puncheon of flour or butt of beer as a token of their pleasure that we are there to protect them.”
That seemed a little cynical to Micah, but he could not object to building up a store of provisions. His brief experience of campaigning told him that food was the first concern of the soldier in the field.
“We can pick up a drummer boy easily, Captain. There are a dozen and more of lads every day, hanging about the castle hoping to earn a penny or scrounge a bite to eat. I shall speak to the likeliest and find one willing to wear a uniform and eventually become a soldier when he grows up.”
Micah rode up to Collyweston next morning, calling on his brother to tell him that all seemed well and then going on to speak to Pastor Doddington.
“War becomes more and more likely, Pastor. When it comes then any village may be at risk. It is in our minds that the Trained Band should be made effective, capable at need of marching to join an army on the field of battle or of mustering here in the village to halt any plundering rabble that may appear. Captain Holdby will give you a score of matchlocks, with powder, ball and match. You have too few of pikes to be able to stand unsupported; better all should be shot, and properly set up with muskets.”
Pastor Doddington gave his thanks for their kindness.
“Word has come to me from Men of God in London town that the arch-fiend called Strafford has been condemned for his wickedness and that the King has forsaken him and signed his death warrant. Some say this shows that the King has seen the Light. Others believe this merely shows him inconstant, willing to betray his friends for temporary advantage and wholly untrustworthy. The so-called Archbishop, the papist-loving Laud, is also under restraint and the King has shown no desire to protect him. I am told that men of goodwill now believe the King may not be trusted. Unless he chooses to abdicate, I fear that force may be used to dethrone him.”
“War is the more likely, you say, Pastor?”
“I fear so, Brother Slater.”
Micah was the more certain that the Trained Band must be put into good order.
“I will be able to bring a Corporal and his Section to Collyweston on a Saturday, to spend four hours with the men in addition to their Sunday afternoon, Pastor. I know they should be at work but fear they must be begged to make the sacrifice. In a few weeks, I may be able to discover a young officer to take them in charge. The village and its women and children may thus be made safe, the men keeping their muskets in their cottages and able to come to the defence of all.”
The Pastor blessed him for his good heart and kind thought for his own village, leaving Micah to wonder just what had caused him to act as he did.
“I do what a man must, Pastor. These are troubled times and all must do what is right for themselves and their own. I fear for our people, Pastor. The Days of Blood are upon us and I doubt not that we may soon be called to Judgement.”
Pastor Doddington welcomed such holy words, as Micah knew he would.
Chapter Fourteen
Years of Blood Series
Bold and Blooded
It was uncomfortable, Micah mused, to be
sitting on his horse in idleness while Jasper marched his section toiling up the long hill from the valley of the Welland. That was part of being an officer, however, or so Captain Holdby assured him.
“See and be seen, Red Man. You cannot lead if you are not to be visible. Think, if there are pretty girls cheering the troops, then you will be the cynosure of all their eyes! Of course, if there is an ambush, you will be the most prominent target. Your men want you to attract the attention from them, except when there are pretty girls – but that’s more than uncommon, in my experience.”
Micah was not sure that was a comforting doctrine, that his main function was to attract the enemy’s aim.
Not to worry, there would be no ambush on this day.
He sat up straight, stiff-backed in the saddle, as they reached Easton-on-the-Hill and came in sight of the foreigners there. He would show them what a soldier looked like, though they were probably too stupid to comprehend the lesson. Malignants all, he had no doubt – he had known from childhood that they could never be trusted, not those people, not that he saw any of them, hiding away from the forces of good as they were.
A couple of open fields, a quarter of a mile or so and he had left Easton and reached welcoming Collyweston. The lanes and gardens were equally empty, the people too busy at their honest toil to come out to gawk at the soldiers, the girls too properly modest in any case.
They came to the open space outside the chapel and found the young men waiting for them, standing up from the grass where they had been resting. Micah counted, saw that all nineteen were there, led by Pastor Doddington. He dismounted as the wagon laboured up, its single horse tired from the pull.
“Unhitch the old horse, driver. Get it into the shade and do what is needed. Mine as well, if you please.”
“Drop of water do ‘em good, master.”
Without thinking it unusual, Micah asked Pastor Doddington to arrange a bucket of water. He did not see the indignation in the eyes of the leading figure of the village who was not in the habit of minding soldiers’ horses.
“Brother Jacob, this is Corporal Albright who is here to aid thee in the mastery of the musket. He and his section will show you all how to hold and load and fire the matchlock, and how to stand in proper ranks while ye do so. Please to listen to the Corporal. If all goes well and we can see that the men may be trusted, then we shall give each man his piece to take to his own house and keep it there against need. There will be match and powder and ball and the rest as well. Bad times are coming, I much fear, Brother, and we must all be ready for them.”
“All men must be ready, Brother Micah… I am sorry, that ought to be ‘Lieutenant Slater’ did it not, for we must show our respect to thee, sir.”
“On the training and parade ground, yes, for we are soldiers. When duty is done for the day, then we are brothers again, Soldier Slater.”
They met each other’s eyes with a half-smile. The watching men were properly impressed – this was serious business, they were not playing at soldiers.
Jasper Albright took over and set the men in two ranks, one of his own soldiers at the side of each of the villagers. They showed them first simply how to hold the matchlock and then to lift the muzzle-heavy musket to its rest and tuck it into the shoulder. There were cries of outrage from the soldiers as they forced the villagers to grip the matchlocks tight into their shoulders, to take control of the terrifying weapons. Micah suppressed all traces of his natural grin, showed stern approval where appropriate, a sad shake of the head on occasion. He called a break after two hours of familiarisation.
The village women appeared within the minute, bringing dippers of water and slices of bread for their exhausted men. Micah walked across to his sisters, greeting them by name, to their confusion, it being a public place. All three were grown girls now, he noticed, and to his admittedly biased eyes, not unhandsome.
“Corporal Albright, you should greet my family.”
Jasper came across, not unwillingly.
“My sisters, Eleanor, Jennifer and Rosamund.” Their mother had had the naming of the girls and held to the old English names.
Jasper smiled his very best, the girls responding naturally to the first man from out of the family they had ever met. They did not count the village boys as outsiders, and in any case rarely spoke to them.
“Is our mother not with you, Eleanor?”
“She is none too well just now, Brother Micah. Brother Jacob’s wife, Rebecca, has remained with her. We fear she has a growth, Brother Micah, for she complains much of pains.”
Many of the village women died before they were fifty, though those who survived beyond that commonly lived into their seventies. It was part of the woman’s lot, Micah feared. It was in any case the Lord’s will and beyond his comprehension. He expressed his sorrow and hopes that she might be fortunate.
“Brother Micah, what is this we hear of war? Is it possible that there could be bloodshed in our land?”
If the protected, sheltered girls of the village had heard such talk then the country was in a desperate state. Micah presumed there might have been some discussion after chapel on Sundays. His first inclination was to dismiss her fears – but that might lead to an even greater disaster if was did come to the village.
“King and Parliament are opposed to each other, Eleanor. They may yet come to blows. If they do – and who is to say they will or will not? If they do, I say, then war is very possible in all of the land. If soldiers come to the village, then take your sisters and run. Get into the woodland and hide away. Do not dally. Get you gone and do not return until the foreigners are out of the village again. They may be wicked men who would do you harm.”
He could say no more in all decency and she could not ask.
She nodded and rejoined her sisters, shyly talking with Jasper. Micah made his way across to the Pastor’s side.
“A very promising beginning, Pastor. The men have learned much in the last few months of drill. You have done very well with them, sir.”
Pastor Doddington was naturally pleased to be congratulated but could not like being patronised by a man – little more than a boy – who, it might be argued, still owed him obedience as part of his flock.
“Thank you, Lieutenant Slater. What do we do next?”
“Load and fire, Pastor, and then learn to clean the barrel, which is easy enough. Then we shall give each man his matchlock and match and twelve wooden apostles full of powder and his pouch of ball and his little flask of fine powder for the flashpans and his rest. I shall beg of you, Pastor, to take custody of two quarters of powder in the keg. The men will wish to practice firing, no doubt, and they must have powder to hand to recharge their apostles.”
Pastor Doddington could not refuse the responsibility but was not best pleased at the prospect of keeping a half-hundredweight of powder under cover and dry in his house.
“I do not much like this term ‘apostle’ that thou usest so freely, Lieutenant Slater.”
“It smacks of blasphemy, does it not, Pastor? I found it hard to swallow when first I heard it. However, soldiers all know the twelve wooden holders by that name and it can hardly be changed. It does not come easily off the tongue, even so. I tell myself that they will do God’s work in smiting the impious who stand against the saints assembled in their army – yet it is not truly proper, Pastor. I see no way of using another name for them and tell myself there is no ill-intent… Whoever first gave them that name was ill-advised at the very least.”
Micah was surprised to discover that he more than half meant all he had just said. He had grown up to six hours of chapel every Sunday and to family devotions morning and evening – such a legacy must have had an effect, he suspected.
The Caton brothers nodded and touched their hats to Micah and half-seriously congratulated him on the beard that was finally coming in, almost as red as his hair. The villagers could none of them afford sharp razors and grew full beards as a matter of course, as did the bulk of soldiers. M
icah’s fair fuzz had been an embarrassment to him; he was not at all sure that his brother’s servants were correct to mock him, even affectionately. He did have the sense not to show offended, knowing that would rapidly make him unpopular.
“They call me Red Man, lads, in Colonel Knighton’s Regiment, for showing up in the ranks of brown and black-haired men.”
They noticed that they were ‘lads’ in his eyes, accepting that he was now much senior to them. They wondered how it had come about but were not too deeply concerned.
“Beg pardon, Lieutenant Slater, but do ‘ee reckon it’s goin’ to come to using these old muskets you just give us? Really, like, in a war?”
“It looks very much like it will come to that, lads. There is a chance you will have to pick up your matchlocks and hold the village against foraging bands, come to steal your food and do harm to you in passing. The women will need be looked after. Some of you may be ordered to march off to the army. All of you need be awake to all that might happen. Bad times are coming, lads, and you must be ready to live through them, supposing you can. If I can get hold of them, I shall be back with short swords for you to keep at your belts. You may need them.”
They looked at each other then back at him, shocked by the possibility he had outlined. It had been a game, strutting around on a Sunday afternoon waving pikes. They were not enthralled at the real prospect of fighting.
“Ain’t right, sir, not for us. Don’t want no wars ‘ereabouts, not none of our business what they Kings and such do at far away. Don’t see why we got to fight for what’s nowt to do with us.”
Micah tried to find words to respond to their grievance, accepting that it was real and justified. An argument between King and Parliament a hundred and more miles away in London might well result in their village in flames and families dead; in looting, rape and murder of innocents who neither understood nor cared about either cause.
Bold and Blooded Page 20