Major Jevons listened and tried to show understanding.
“We should call for their surrender, do you say, Captain Carew? They have an indefensible position, after all.”
“Not yet, sir. They might have a squadron or two of horse in their yards. My company of pikes to the south, where a charge must be sent. Captain Slater’s shot next to me on the open ground. Guns and a mixed company of pikes and shot – Number Four would do well – up here. One company of shot along the far side of the riverbank. Two in the woods to the north. The remaining three companies of pikes to hold up here on the hillside as the reserve to be sent where needed. Yourself here, obviously. Place ourselves and make ready against need. Only then do we call for their surrender.”
Major Jevons gave the orders.
“Baggage up here on the hill, I must imagine, gentlemen.”
They agreed.
“If surrender is refused, then the guns to open fire on the strongpoints?”
Daniel shook his head impatiently.
“On the house. The lord of the manor will not care too much if a few soldiers are killed. If his roof comes tumbling down around his ears he will rapidly think twice about his position.”
That seemed a hard response to Major Jevons. He did not know that he had gone to war to destroy the property of men such as himself.
“Will the gentleman not have his family inside with him, Captain Carew?”
“Not if he has any sense. He should have sent them off to safety long since. If he has not… Well, that is his foolishness, is it not? We cannot make war and consider the safekeeping of the enemy’s kinsfolk. They are theirs to protect, not ours.”
Micah thought of his sisters, vulnerable if Stamford should ever be besieged, if an enemy should come storming up that long hillside into the old stone town. He suspected that many a family in the country was at risk in this war.
They dispersed to carry out the orders that Jevons had approved, two hours to place the men where they could both protect themselves and if needs be kill their enemy.
Early afternoon saw all ready, the men in cover, as much as they could be, to north, east and west and the two companies to the south in defensive array, the pikes to stop horse and the shot to kill them. Major Jevons sent his runner to the two captains to join in calling for the surrender of the house.
“Mr Halleck, you will have the right, remember. You are left if the need arises, Mr Walsh. In three ranks, firing in turn.”
The pair acknowledged, hiding their nervousness as their mentor strode off and left them with the responsibility. The two sergeants said nothing and walked their ranks, checking each man was ready.
Major Jevon’s servant had a white flag tied to a pikestaff and led the way towards the front of the building where a gravel driveway led up from the valley to wind through a garden area and turn to the stables at the rear. One of the new strongpoints blocked the way at the edge of the gardens, perhaps fifty yards from the house.
“Stop there!”
The shout came from behind the timber barricade, was followed by a flag carrier and a single gentleman dressed in civilian clothing - breeches and doublet over calf-high boots.
“Major Jevons and Captains Carew and Slater of Colonel Jevons’ Regiment. We are ordered to disarm your forces, sir, and send you and your senior officers to face your trial as insurgents against the rule of Parliament. I am permitted to assure you that your lives will be safe if you surrender immediately.”
“I am Sir Michael Melford. Are all of my followers safe in their lives?”
“Your men, your family and theirs. There will be no butchery here such as there was at Brentford. We shall remain to oversee the slighting of your fortifications and the disarming of the house. On your promise of good behaviour, no garrison will remain here.”
“What of this trial?”
“My understanding is that a fine and surety will be demanded. No more than that. I cannot pledge my own word to that, for Parliament is my master and can overrule me – but that is what I have been told.”
“I cannot surrender without a shot fired. My honour will not tolerate that.”
Major Jevons was at a loss for an answer. Daniel stood forward.
“There are culverins on the hilltop.” He pointed to the guns, smoke curling up from linstocks. “We shall bombard the house and then attack from three sides. If taken, the men will have the rights of sack - I cannot refuse them those.”
“You are a cruel and wicked man, sir. I must surrender my all to your senior’s mercy.”
Major Jevons gave the correct orders and the garrison filed out from the house and little forts, no more than eighty strong. The house disgorged family and servants and some of the tenantry and their kinsfolk, another hundred or more.
Weapons were laid on the grass and the fighting men stepped back at Jevons’ order.
“We shall inspect the house. Sir Michael. You will accompany us with your keys. Where is your arsenal, sir?”
“In the dry cellar, Major.”
“My men will remove it. I would remind you that you have surrendered all weapons that could be used in war. That is to include any sporting guns that can fire ball.”
“That is harsh, Major.”
“You chose to set yourself up as a traitor, Sir Michael. Do not complain that you are not to be trusted now.”
“I stood for my King!”
“Your King is an enemy of your country. You are a traitor.”
Melford was close to tears, outraged that his loyalty should be impugned.
There were twelve quarters of gunpowder in the cellar, a little more than three hundred pounds weight, wholly insufficient to fight a siege. Daniel was disbelieving.
“Four thousand rounds of ball, Sir Michael – fifty shots for each of your eighty men in addition to the contents of their pouches. You could not fight a day with so little. Where is the rest?”
“There is no rest, sir. The King’s Army was to replenish our stores. It has not yet done so.”
“The Man of Blood is careless with his promises. Those who rely on him to keep his word are short-lived – as was Strafford, as an example.”
“He is the King.”
“More shame to this country, that is still so. It will not be the case for long, sir.”
“He is the Anointed of God. He cannot cease to be King.”
“I can imagine a circumstance in which his head will no longer bear a crown. More than one of his predecessors have discovered the unwisdom of offering tyranny to the men of this country. It is less than two hundred years since Crookback Dick felt the weight of the people’s displeasure.”
“May God forgive you your wicked words, Captain!”
They continued their inspection of the house in silence, coming to Sir Michael’s workroom.
There was a desk and chairs and a few books on a shelf, hardly to be called a library, and a large chest in the corner. Micah tugged at the lid of the chest, found it locked.
“Your keys, sir?”
“That is private, it contains my records.”
“You will open it, sir, or I shall. It will take ten minutes to bring the cooks’ felling axe here.”
Sir Michael handed over a key.
The box contained ledgers, the estate books, as Sir Michael had said. There were a dozen of canvas bags as well, each the size of a man’s two fists. They were tied shut by waxed twine looped around their necks. Cut open, they disclosed copper and silver coins and a small amount of gold.
Major Jevons was quite pleased; Daniel Carew drew a pistol.
“Perhaps thirty pounds, Sir Michael. You have eighty men under arms. Where is the rest?”
“There is no more.”
“I shall burn down your house and barns if you do not tell me. The men will require their shillings and you must have the wherewithal to pay them. Where?”
Sir Michael slumped, his resistance ending. He had never envisaged losing, had made no real plans for the day.
>
“In the gun room. I will show you.”
The gun room contained three flintlock long guns, equally able to fire ball and birdshot. There were fishing rods in one corner and a selection of vermin traps in another, typical of any country house. Tucked away in the darkest rear, away from the window there was a pair of cupboards, bolted shut.
The one disclosed little boxes of fishing lines and hooks and paper screws of birdshot made up into loads for convenience. There were three full powder horns in a rack at the bottom. The other was lined with metal and had a lock as well as bolts. Sir Michael turned the key and pointed to the leather bags inside, lining four reinforced shelves.
“Four and twenty bags, each to contain coin to the value of one hundred pounds. A small part of it is mine. The bulk was given by neighbours as taxes and gifts to His Majesty the King.”
It was huge sum, all in gold and silver.
Major Jevons did not know what to do with so much money.
“A company to escort a waggon to Guildford, sir. There to put it into the hands of the garrison commander. This gentleman may go with it, on his way to London. Better far to move it out of our hands, sir. The temptation offered by such a sum is huge.”
A man could live comfortably on one hundred pounds a year. More than two thousands could purchase a small estate and a life as a gentleman. It was too much to leave in the proximity of soldiers.
“Who?”
“A mixed company, sir. Pikes to hold off an attack, shot to kill the stationary horsemen.”
Daniel was short in his reply – the answer was obvious. Any soldier should know how to protect a waggon on the road.
“Oh, yes, you are right, of course… I shall send Captain Connor, I think.”
That at least made sense. Connor was the eldest son of a very substantial landholder and unlikely to run off with the money.
“I shall send him back to Guildford in the morning and tell him to march direct to Petersfield on the following day.”
They applauded Major Jevons’ wisdom.
“What about these fortifications here, gentlemen?”
“Set the prisoners to ripping them apart, sir. The bulk of the timber to go to the firewood pile.”
“We can make camp here tonight and tomorrow and will use some of the wood for our cook fires.”
That made good sense as well. Major Jevons was pleased with himself when he came up with the proper orders to put their suggestions into effect.
Two morning’s later they marched southwest on the roads leading towards the north of Petersfield, a small market town only important because it straddled the road from Portsmouth to London.
The village of Steep lay on the River Rother close to the town, a small hill to one side, marshy low ground surrounding most of the rest. There was a fortified house on the hill, commanding much of the area.
The nine companies came to a halt below the position and drew a breath. There was a cloud of smoke followed by a loud bang and a cannon ball bounced at the foot of the hill and rolled towards them.
Daniel dismounted and walked across to the ball where it lay, cast iron and the size of a large cooking apple.
“Saker. Perhaps five pounds. On top of that hill, it outranges us, sir.”
The hill was no more than two hundred feet tall, but very steep where it faced them. A waggon road curled down and round, taking two passes across the slope before it reached the flat. At the top they could see a low stone wall, waist high, and behind it a small manor house, less than the one at Melford but far more of an obstacle.
“Garden wall, no more, but not easy to climb across from this side, sir.”
Major Jevons stared up the hill, having no idea what to do.
“Besiege the place as a first step, sir. I cannot see where that cannon is, exactly. I hope it is the biggest they have. We will not be able to dig lines in the marsh to the rear, sir, but there may be a footpath down into the village which we can cut.”
“Ah, yes. Do that, Captain Carew.”
Daniel obeyed orders and told Micah to take a platoon into the village and talk to the folk there. Not all would be Royalists; some would have useful information.
Micah took a round dozen men with him, match lit and muskets loaded, just in case.
The village was small, no more than twenty houses and a single beerhouse on either side of the road through. There was a church at the near end and a small meetinghouse at the far. The pastor of a chapel was unlikely to be a King’s man.
There was a scrawny, ill-dressed fellow working a hoe in the garden by the chapel.
“I beg your pardon, brother. Canst tell me where I may discover the men of God in this village?”
“Thou art talking to such a one now, Captain. Are you saved?”
“I am, brother, and am pleased to meet a fellow toiler in the gardens of the Lord. I am Captain Slater of Colonel Jevons Regiment of Foot, sent to discover and root out malignants in the land of the saints.”
“Then, Brother Slater, thou hast come to the proper place for thy endeavours. The house on the hill is a den of iniquity comparable to Sodom and Gomorrah and greatly in need of a cleansing.”
“They shall receive their just deserts before we leave, brother.”
“I shall pray for thee, Captain.”
“I shall be glad to receive thy blessings, brother. What canst thou tell me of the evil-doers on the hill?”
A great deal, it transpired. The pastor was very precisely aware of the wicked doings of the villains who looked down upon his godly village.
“There are more than a hundred cooped up there, Captain. Behind the house there is a barn and a pasture, the hill being flat on top and larger than it may seem from here. They have horses there for fifty men. I have seen them to carry a great gun to the hilltop and indeed I heard them to fire it at thee.”
“A single gun?”
“There is but one, Captain. It has but small wheels and they carried it in a waggon.”
A naval gun, no doubt picked up in Portsmouth.
“I saw them carry many long pikes in their waggons. I do not know that they have any number of muskets. Jasper Palethorpe, owner of the house of wickedness, came home from the sea four years since with no great sum of money, so it seemed. I doubt he could have bought muskets. Those who have joined him, many of them, are farmer’s sons, often with a horse and a blade, but without the coins that would buy a firelock.”
Micah reported back – a siege was practical and an assault could be successful, provided some thought was given to the process.
“They are short of shot, it seems and have just the single saker. They are one hundred strong, half of them mounted. They may well ride out, but they cannot mount a charge on so steep a hill. It is possible that there is flatter land on the other side of the hill, Major.”
They waited a few seconds in silence for the Major to make the suggestion that they should actually send a company to look at the reverse slope and discover what was there. Both senior captains breathed a sigh of relief as Jevons came up with the idea.
“If it is flatter there, then we may be able to place our demi-culverins to bombard the villains!”
“We may indeed, sir. A company of pikes to protect the guns against the troop of cavalry, and another of shot perhaps to make sure, sir?”
Jevons assented to that disposition of his forces and addressed the assembled captains.
“Best we should change the first orders, sirs. You to take your companies to guard the guns which are so valuable to us while Captains Slater and Carew invest the hilltop from behind.”
Chapter Six
“He is learning, Red Man. Not perhaps quickly, but he is thinking a little.”
“Better than not at all, Daniel, but it is irritating to be obliged to prod him into deciding to find out what is hidden from his direct sight.”
“He will improve, provided he does not make a mistake that kills him.”
“I am not sure which option I
might prefer, Daniel… Thinking on it, if he dies in battle, he may have killed me first. Better he should learn.”
They marched their companies around the hill and discovered it to be connected by a saddle to a slightly higher ridgeline running off to the west. The hillside sloped down for some eighty feet and then climbed to the ridge, rising maybe a hundred feet over a quarter of a mile.
“Horse could walk down from the fort and then raise a gallop before being forced to walk up the far slope. They would not find it easy to ride to either side because of the downward slope. To be practical, the horse would not have come this way; they must have been brought in by the road and expect to leave by the same road. They are to give mastery of the local villages rather than play a part in a defence.”
Micah listened to the explanation and put it into his memory. He would know if they faced a similar situation again.
“The guns could play a useful part, if we could bring them up here… I must say that I do not fancy trying to pull their weight up this hillside.”
“Nor me, Red Man. If the need arises, we can do it, a whole company to one demi-culverin, but I would not wish to. A last resort.”
They saw the defenders clustering along their low wall, looking down at them, perhaps wondering what they planned.
“If they have any sense, they will manhandle their saker around to this back wall. They could drive us back almost to the ridge – if they have a sufficiency of powder and ball.”
Daniel called to his sergeant, told him to start the men digging.
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