Captain Fantom

by Reginald Hill

  There had been some new arrivals late the previous night and I strolled along the line, examining their mounts. Nothing of interest, I thought, till I heard a loud neighing which had in it something familiar.

  I looked round. There picketed some distance from the main line as was often the custom with uncut stallions was Digby.

  I greeted him with pleasure and he obviously recalled me though our acquaintance had been but brief. ‘God is just,’ I said, sending my thanks winging heavenwards with all the other hymns of praise which were now rising all over the camp (the Fantom troop were always earliest at their devotions). When I looked close at Digby I saw evidence of hard use – a saddle cloth had been laid on with a fold in it, raising a tender area on his back, and his mouth was also sore, probably from too much pulling on the over-strong bit some fool had needed to control him.

  ‘You like my horse, Captain Fantom?’ spoke a voice behind me. I turned. A long gangling fellow with a fair wispy beard smiled complacently at me.

  ‘You have the advantage of me, sir,’ I replied.

  ‘Captain Hector, at your service,’ he said, bowing. His accent and this parody of courtly manners placed him instantly as some trademan’s son whom dyspeptic chance had belched up to a commission in this democratic army.

  He continued, ‘Captain Fantom’s name is, of course, famous wherever soldier’s deeds are talked of.’

  The long streak of pigeon shit was trying to mock me. My only notable feat in this war had been to escape hanging at Winchester. But I would still have answered him politely (for the penalty for quarrelling in the quarter was cashiering) had not the fool persisted, adding lest I should miss the subtlety of his wit. ‘I bought my horse in Winchester where I believed you too were well mounted; and nearly well mounted for it.’

  He laughed most heartily and one or two troopers attending their mounts near by grinned openly.

  I regarded him coldly, wondering if he were a thief as well as a fool. But I decided he could not be such a fool to talk thus if he knew whence the horse had come.

  ‘What did he cost you, Captain?’ I asked.

  For a moment he demurred, but some men cannot resist boasting of a bargain.

  ‘Faith, I beat down the rogue who was selling him and I had him for five pounds.’

  Five pounds! That was scarce more than the price of a dragooner’s nag!

  I reached for my purse, which in the field I wore always tied to my body, and took out a sovereign.

  ‘Five pounds,’ said. ‘Well, I shall take two off for the hire of the horse, and another two for the treatment he will need to recover him, so here is your compensation.’

  ‘I do not take your meaning,’ he said.

  ‘The horse is mine,’ I said kindly. ‘Stolen of me while I lay under false arrest in Winchester. You have been cozened, Captain Hector. Take your money.’

  ‘Nay!’ he replied, striking my hand aside so that the coin flew through the air, fetching up in a mound of newly dropped horse shit. ‘Go your ways, sir. These may be your lecherous foreign ploys for taking a man’s horse, but they shall not hold here, sir.’

  I grew tired of the fellow and boxed his ears soundly. His mouth dropped wide in amazement and his hand went to his sword, so I kicked him hard just below the knee and as he capered around on one leg, I took his left arm and forced it up behind his back.

  ‘Now, Captain Hector, take your money and go in peace,’ I said and pushed him down over the pile of droppings in which the sovereign gleamed. He tried to resist, so I pushed harder and with a high scream he thrust in his hand and plucked out the coin.

  I let him go and returned to Digby whom I now untied.

  ‘The Colonel shall know of this!’ screamed Hector after me.

  Half an hour later when the general muster was called, I was ordered to the Colonel where he stood before his own troop in the centre.

  Dismounting from Luke, I saluted him. In the background I could see Hector, his face rendered almost mature by hate.

  ‘Captain Fantom,’ said Sir Robert. ‘This gentleman says you have assaulted him and stolen his horse.’

  ‘Not I, sir,’ I replied. ‘I helped him seek some money of his which he had let fall. Nothing more.’

  ‘And his horse, sir? What say you of his horse?’

  ‘There was a horse,’ I answered. ‘One which I lost in Winchester. Captain Hector had bought it in error. I gave him compensation and took back what was mine.’

  Sir Robert glared angrily at me.

  ‘Sir, any man can say these things. What if I should say to you that yon nag you ride is my horse, taken from my stable in time past? What then?’

  ‘Why then,’ I said clicking my fingers so Luke came up to my shoulder, ‘I should say, take your horse again, Sir Robert. I am most heartily glad to have recovered such a fine beast for you.’

  Those who stood around smiled to see the Colonel so baffled and he, seeing them smile, grew angrier.

  ‘This will not serve your turn, sir,’ he said. ‘We are concerned here with law, not a man’s word. What evidence can you produce?’

  ‘Ask Captain Hector how much he paid for the beast,’ I said, adding when I saw that he was reluctant to speak, ‘Surely he has boasted to some of these gentlemen present of his bargain?’

  ‘Aye,’ said the other field officer of the regiment, Major Colloboy. ‘He told me he had the animal for five pounds.’

  They all looked significantly at one another. Such a price for a good mount smelt strongly of some illegality.

  I pressed home my advantage.

  ‘When occasion arises, I shall produce some comrades who were by me at Edgehill to identify the beast. Now, sirs, is it not time to ride, else our friends in Gainsborough may fare the worse for our tardiness?’

  This was a mistake I realized instantly. As I’ve said before, reminding people of their duty is often worse than sneering at their ancestry.

  As I walked away, leading Luke, for I would not mount in my colonel’s presence, Sir Robert bawled after me, ‘You are insolent, Fantom! You are known for a brawling, lecherous Papist, and I will not tolerate you, no, not though your friends were thrice as powerful. Return Captain Hector’s horse within this quarter hour or I shall … I shall ….’

  He choked on his threat, unable to find one vicious enough within his power. I looked around at him and said, ‘I would obey your order, Colonel, as is my duty, but I have no horse of Captain Hector’s, so I cannot. Good day.’

  ‘Fantom!’ he screamed as I continued walking away. ‘Fantom! I will not tolerate … halt, or I … Fantom!’

  There was a loud explosion, something struck me on the back making me stagger against Luke. I turned. Sir Robert stood with a smoking pistol in his hand, his face already aghast at what he had done. At my feet I saw the ball which had hit me. I bent and picked it up. It was still hot so that I felt it even through my gauntlets and I had to juggle it from one hand to another as I made my way back to the Colonel.

  ‘Sir Robert,’ I said, ‘take your bullet again. Our cause is just, but we still have need of all our shot.’

  This time as I returned to my troop, no one spoke.

  Jem Croft examined my back later and told me there was only a faint bruising of the skin though the leather of my buff coat was crushed and burnt where the bullet had struck. He was greatly impressed and eager to know wherein the trick lay, believing there was some spell or conjuration which gave immunity. In the end, I muttered a few words in my native language over him and told him that now he too was shot-free if only he had faith in the efficacy of the charm. But when I pointed my pistol at him, he turned pale and refused the test, which is perhaps why miracles are now so rarely known.

  I myself twisted uneasily between explanations. One was physical – that indeed there was something in the herb brew I still drank which rendered my skin immune to bullets; one was coincidental – that each time I had been hit, the force of the ball had been nearly spent, either through dist
ance or a weak charge; and the third was metaphysical – that my life was being spared for some great purpose.

  Well, be that as it may, until the great purpose was revealed to me I saw no reason to divert from my chosen course, and a reputation for invulnerability was no impediment here. It was a nice irony in this most holy and unctuously self-righteous of armies to be known as a man in league with the devil! It certainly gave me that extra degree of control over my own troops which was necessary if our excesses were not too quickly to be known in the wrong quarters.

  Our technique was carefully worked out. We looted in bands of five, two of whom were always posted as look-outs, for there were still plenty of authorities civil and military who exercised themselves in preventing – or punishing – this time-honoured campaigning activity. All valuables were held in common; in a sense we were the most democratic community existing in the country at that time, every man in the troop had a voice and one vote, including myself though it is true to say that mine was a casting vote – whatever the division. Anyone caught trying to appropriate plunder for himself was summarily dealt with – on the first occasion by a fine equal to ten times the value of whatever he had tried to steal, on a second occasion by death. Beatings, mutilations, and such bestialities were pointless. They merely produced dissatisfied vengeful men who might vent their spleen by betraying us all.

  Share-outs were based on seniority of rank and service. I took twenty-five per cent of the total, Jem Croft got ten per cent, Tom Turner seven and a half per cent, Nob, Coll, and Perce Parkin got two and a half each, and the men shared the remaining fifty per cent between them.

  Coin was easily divided; plate I nearly always had melted down which though it meant some loss in value gave us a good safe untraceable lump of metal to carve up. Other goods such as bales of cloth, glassware, china, clothing, carpets etc. were more difficult. They had to be sold for what they were and to find a market and get a reasonable price posed considerable difficulties. It was at these times that I felt most in need of an experienced quartermaster and I was close to issuing a directive forbidding the collection of such booty.

  You must not imagine that we neglected our more obvious soldierly duties in the pursuit of riches. Just as we were the first to rise and praise the Lord each morning, so were we distinguished by our application to the martial arts. I drilled my men and their horses to the point of mutiny, following my precept that a true cavalryman must be expert in all branches of the horse-soldier’s art. When noise of complaint from my men reached me I told the Parkin brothers to offer any who wished to depart a fair discharge, and to my critics amongst my fellow officers I replied by leading the troop with more distinction and fewer casualties than any other in our engagements in the north that summer.

  It was a curious thing to see how my men were at the same time motivated by the lust for wealth and also by a burning pride at being a kind of elite. Once they realized what all their drilling had made them, they became infected with an absurd esprit de corps. Each cavalry troop had its own distinguishing banner and to start with mine was a white cross on a black ground with the motto, ‘Veritas Vincit’. But the simple tastes of my men made them eager to have something more illustrative and dramatic, such as the picture of an armed soldier waving his sword over a kneeling bishop which one troop had as their emblem. I gave way to this harmless if naïve wish and we had the more symbolc device of a rearing white horse trampling underfoot a serpent with the head of a cavalier, and the motto ‘Latet Anguis In Herba’. But I drew the line when they wished to have the same device painted on their buff coats. One gang of soliders looting a house looks much the same as any other gang. I had no desire to make identification easy.

  In every group there are weak links, of course, men who cannot subordinate their selfish desires to the general good. Nob Parkin, having led a small party to plunder a grange just outside Nottingham, delayed the group’s departure so that he could ravish a wench who had taken his fancy. The others, deprived of leadership, started to drink or pursue the older women who, apart from a couple of elderly servants, were the sole occupants of the house. They were surprised by the return of the master of the grange with a group of his farmhands who set about my troopers with such wrathful energy that they were constrained to flee, leaving behind one of their number and all of their booty. As soon as I heard the news, I led a larger party back to the grange, thinking it imperative to rescue our man, but when we approached our destination it was to discover that we were forestalled by a troop from the regiment of that canting bastard, Cromwell, who was then making such a sound in the north. Any other lot would have accepted my lad as their prisoner till out of sight of the house, then let him go. But these were fanatics and would certainly take him back to face trial. So I laid an ambush along the road, put balls into a couple of Cromwell’s men and blew our lad’s brains out. It was for his own good. They would certainly have hanged him and this way he was saved the tedium of their endless sermons.

  I imposed a swingeing fine on Nob Parkin, but I realized that this was just one of a line of near-misses which all stemmed from the same problem. Just as indiscriminate looting by individuals would almost certainly result in the end in capture and punishment, so with indiscriminate ravishing. Jem and I sat down and worked out a strategy which would minimize risk. The first principle was never to mix the two activities. Parties would go out with a single well-defined objective – loot or sex. Sexual parties who returned with booty would have no share in it; looters who indulged in rape would be heavily fined. We devised a roster so that those with the strongest needs went out most often. This meant that at first Nob Parkin went on every rape detail but in the end we had to stop him as he could hardly sit on his horse.

  Choice of targets was the big problem. In large towns there were willing dames enough, or at least enough so close to the edge of willingness that they raised little complaint, especially as the man in charge of the detail had a bag of coin which he shared out among the ravished women. Small towns and the countryside posed other problems. Best were hamlets under some threat of attack, for the women tended to group together for safety while the menfolk were out in the fields.

  I led one such raid myself in a small midlands village. Posting look-outs at all approaches to the place, I went on foot up to the church door and rapped gently thereon.

  There was a ripple of noise within then silence. I knocked again.

  ‘Who is there?’ asked an uncertain voice.

  ‘A servant of the Lord’s,’ I answered, ‘come to seek shelter from the ravagements of these most violent soldiers. Pray let me enter or I shall sleep on these steps till it please my Master to rouse me unto Him.’

  Silence again. Then slowly the door was unlocked and creaked open; and my men, crouched in silent anticipation behind the stones in the graveyard, rushed in.

  I took no part in these exercises myself As I have pointed out, my needs were no regular craving for animal pleasure, but something much more erratic and compulsive. I strode around amidst the spasmodic bodies, urging haste and applying the flat of my sword where I felt brute energy was decelerating into art. Not that much urging was needed. A competitive element had arisen among the men, and the whole business had become something of a race.

  But this time the runners were not fast enough. One of the look-outs came panting into the church to say that a troop of cavalry was approaching.

  ‘Whose?’ I demanded. But the question was academic. Even if they were our own regiment, I had too many enemies there for the chance to be missed of getting one over on me. But more likely it would be a troop of Cromwell’s psalmsinging East Anglians led by some bullet-headed Puritan with his balls packed in ice.

  Our horses were hid in a barn at the edge of the village. We could not make a run for them without being noticed. It seemed best to stay still and hope the newcomers would ride through.

  I gave commands.

  ‘Everybody, get down among the pews. And keep these women quiet.
’

  The clatter of hooves was clearly audible now. They got nearer and nearer. I held my breath waiting for them to pass. Then, ‘Whoa!’ I heard right outside the church door.

  ‘Lieutenant,’ I heard a deep voice say, ‘let the men rest here a while. I shall go alone into the House of the Lord and seek spiritual guidance for our further work this day.’

  Christ, I should have locked the door! I thought. It was too late now. It creaked open once more. Someone entered, silhouetted in the light for a moment, then the door closed and the shadows took over again.

  The troop captain (or so I surmised) moved forward. Oh these pious fools! I thought. Could he not worship as well from the back of the church as up by the altar? A glance to left or right and we were discovered.

  But he had stopped again. Crouched at the end of a pew, unable to retreat any further because a half-naked woman blocked my path, I contemplated rising to my feet and bluffing things out. But it might not be necessary. This fool’s silent meditation must soon come to an end. He seemed to be in the grip of some strong emotion. I heard his throat working as if the right words were not to be found. Then came a long sigh that smacked more of relief than regret. Surely he would go now.

  His feet sounded on the stone floor once more, this time moving away. He was going. Praise be to God! I thought fervently.

  Then one of the women screamed. Or squeaked rather. Just a semi-breve of noise squeezed through the gagging fingers of her assailant. But it was enough.

  The footsteps halted. Resumed. Returned. The figure came abreast of me and peered into the pew opposite. Slowly, realizing the futility of concealment, the three men hiding there rose, their breeches round their ankles, still holding tight to the women, their skirts round their waists.