Captain Fantom

by Reginald Hill

  But still there was fighting to be done. Fairfax’s army had raised the siege at Oxford and marched north which was cause for joy. Cromwell too was on his way, also cause for our pleasure if Prince Rupert’s counsel held, which was to continue our own march north, reviving support for the King there, and eventually joining up with, or at least sending reinforcements to, Montrose in Scotland. The Covenanters once defeated, the King would have a solid base stretching from the Highlands to Yorkshire out of which to face Parliament. The West Country, hitherto so important in all Royalist strategies, was now too unstable to make a division of the King’s powers worthwhile. Our generals there, Berkeley, Grenvile and Goring, spent more time fighting each other than the enemy. I speak metaphorically, though a report had reached us of the two halves of Goring’s force in the west each mistaking the other for Fairfax’s army and fighting together for two hours before realizing their error. Now Goring with his cavalry should, according to his orders, be riding north to join us. But there was no sign of his approach or even of its intention, only news of the growing Parliamentary strength.

  So Rupert wanted to keep going, as far as Newark at least, but there were others, notably Lord Digby, who were hot for a fight. The battle to end all is a concept much favoured of civilians. As if a cause can be snuffed out in the space of half a day! You can’t even really manage to destroy an army in a single battle. Kill a few, capture a few, there’ll still be those with the wit, stamina, agility to head for the hills. No, this war had a lot of mileage in it yet, whatever might happen this windy June.

  But as so often happens the civilian with his catchy slogan got his way while the military commander, able to advise nothing but caution and the biding of time, was not listened to. When our intelligencers told us that Cromwell’s troops had joined Fairfax’s, making a force of some fourteen thousand to our seven or eight, I waited the command to turn and withdraw. No one in his right mind would accept such odds unless time and circumstance forced them on him, will he, nill he. But the command did not come. Instead we all went forth on a gusty summer morning and arranged ourselves for what might pass for a battle near a village called Naseby. It was about eleven o’clock when all was ready – if such a term can properly be used of so outnumbered a force as ours.

  The Fantom troop was on the right with Rupert, facing Henry Ireton. Petrarch was standing quiet beneath me, his head turned to lick at the sugar in my gauntlet palm, a treat he only received on days when I wished him to know there was fighting to do. We stood on a ridge with the northerly wind almost at our backs and I watched the long summer grass ripple wildly away from us down a shallow dip then up another slope till it broke against the waiting lines of Ireton’s horse.

  A thick hedgerow ran towards us from the left marker of Ireton’s line and I thought that, were I in his shoes, knowing Rupert’s proclivity for charging first, I should interlard those hedges with sharp-shooters to take us on the flank as we galloped forward. Indeed as I looked I glimpsed movement thereabouts and further back I could see groups of unmounted horses. Dragoons, I thought, and turned to send one of my men to the General lest he had not been made aware of this danger, but before I could speak Rupert had doffed his scarlet monterey cap, waved it in the air, the whiles shouting our day’s slogan, ‘Queen Mary!’ and we were off. The order came so quickly that I had some difficulty in falling back into line with my troop, but I would have been angry if it had proved easy. We were drawn up in the Swedish formation, in column of three, and we charged at the close order, that is with the right knee close locked up against the thigh of the next rider to the right. This produced a line not exactly straight, but which, properly constructed, was as taut and strong as a steel-link chain. The Fantom troop, I prided myself, rode tighter and closer than any in either army. We had once broken through a line of cuirassiers in Yorkshire and found ourselves on the other side with five of our lads shot dead, yet still held on their saddles by the pressure of the formation.

  There are some who have felt that an officer’s place is ahead of his troop, but they are mostly dead or civilians. In broken or in wooded country where there is a free charge, why, the sight of the captain ahead with his cornet by his side may indeed be a spur to those behind and I would venture myself so when the occasion demanded it. But any. officer I saw riding in advance of his line at the close order across even terrain, him I would cashier – or rather turn with contempt from his funeral for the poor fool must certainly die. Well, a man’s life is his own, but an officer’s life is his men’s and to put himself where he will certainly be shot in full view of his troop is wrong; and to put himself where he cannot fall back into line without causing the line to break is wrong; and to put himself where his corpse and his horse’s corpse may cause the line to break is wrong; and to put himself where those men immediately behind him cannot fire forward lest they strike his back is wrong. Have I said enough? These heroes who ride out in front, I would let my horse shit on their graves.

  But we on the right that day had a straight tight line and our General’s scarlet hat bobbed in the middle of it. I myself as all my officers wore a harquebusier’s ‘pot’, that is a helmet open before with plates to protect the cheeks, and, of course, a light cuirass or ‘back and breast’ armour. There was a tendency amongst officers of both sides to neglect the use of protective armour on the grounds partly of comfort and also, implied rather than spoken, of courage. More targets for my stable droppings I My troop, officers and men alike, were trained to respect their bodies and when they saw that their captain, the famous hard-man, did not scorn to wear ‘back and breast’, they never complained of the extra weight.

  Back to our charge. The time – eleven of the clock. Down the slope we went, gathering speed till we reached the full trot (no gallop is possible – or necessary – in this formation). As we began the slight ascent out of the dip, I heard the dragoons concealed along the hedge open fire. Let them, I thought. You do not stop a cavalry charge with a few musket balls from the flank. As yet none of the enemy ahead had fired and neither had our men. They each had three shots, the first from the carbine held at the ready across the horse’s neck, the other two from the pair of pistols primed and spanned in their saddle holsters. I permitted my men only two shots in their first charge, keeping one of their pistols in reserve so that they might rapidly reform and be ready armed for a second charge. But I had spoken to them so seriously about the need to kill a man with each shot that it was now part of their most sacred credo and they felt the shame greatly if they had not made sure of their men in the first charge.

  Now the enemy’s line was close; some of them had started firing, I picked my man, a big red-faced country lad wearing only a buff coat and no cuirass, and as we struck I put a musket ball in his chest. Their front line broke like rotting cloth on a week-drowned man. I drew a pistol and sent a young corporal to his Maker. He looked scarcely old enough to have sampled sin, in which case I had done him a favour.

  Now we were in the midst of them and I began to swing about with my pole-axe, the little battle-axe many of the King’s cavalry wore tied to their right wrist, with a sharp blade on the one side and a hammer head on the other. It was a weapon I had found mighty useful in space too constricted for the sword, and all around me my lads were putting them to good effect. I saw Nob Parkin take a man’s head off with his, a fine blow, though a shameful waste of energy when compared with the economic slaughter perpetrated by Tommy Turner despite the labour of having to bear our standard.

  Suddenly we were clear; the enemy had broken. One, perhaps two of their regiments were galloping wildly off the field. A cheer went up from the King’s troopers but I did not join in. What booted these small advantages when Fairfax had so many thousands to spare? But small advantages should be pressed home and I rallied my men round, hoping for a second charge against those of Ireton’s troops we had still to deal with. I could see them where they stood, obviously displayed by the ease with which we had shattered their fellows. A cha
rge now might carry them away.

  But it was not to be. My own men apart, these Royalist troopers had no discipline for a rapid re-formation and a second onslaught hard on the heels of the first. They were broken up now into parties, some attacking the infantry, others pursuing the flying regiments and yet others doing nothing as though all were now done and the victory ours.

  This was the high point of that day. It was now close on a half after the hour of eleven. By twelve the battle was lost. By one, all resistance had ended and the King’s army was in ignominious flight. Little care was taken to bring any order to that retreat and into the enemy’s hands fell our artillery, supply waggons, the King’s entire correspondence, most of the army’s baggage train and dozens of coaches full of women, legitimate and loose, and of wealth the same.

  The Fantom troop suffered least of all. As soon as I had seen the odds against us, I had ordered Lauder to make a discreet withdrawal with our personal waggons and when we rendezvoused with him near Leicester and counted our losses they amounted to no more than six horses and a handful of men. My reputation reached a new height among my followers. Any fool can triumph in a victory. It takes real talent to come comfortably through a defeat. So the men laughed and chattered happily as they made a late dinner.

  Fools.

  Why do I call them fools?

  Because they had fought with courage, come off with honour and reputation intact, and earned their pay. Any who asked me for it would have been given an honourable discharge from the army which, though not strictly legal for I would have had to lie about the reason for discharge (such as, wounding, illness etc.), would certainly have satisfied most who read it and permitted the men safe return to their homes with their booty.

  Yet none asked, which meant that none foresaw what I did, that though there were many battles yet to fight, each would be more desperate than before, and all for nothing. In a way Digby had been right. Naseby had been a battle to end all, for I was sure now that without the intervention, long promised by Digby, from Ireland or the Continent, the King had lost his war.

  1645

  Hereford — Bristol

  My life now was like a weary horse which starts galloping downhill towards a cliff and has not strength enough to pull up short of the edge.

  I had written to Annette telling her of my fortunes and asking for her hand in marriage. Having had little, ground in romantic composition, I fear my letters must have swung between military chronicles, full of blood and tactics, and a schoolboy’s billets-doux. Our last encounter had given me hope of a kind answer, but never a word came back though those new come from Oxford reported her in good health, if somewhat subdued from her former lively self. This I optimistically laid to my absence and wrote again, but still there came no reply. I asked the Prince’s favour to be posted to Oxford, but he told me as plain fact without hint of flattery that his best troop could not be spared. I could have by now been a colonel at least had I so wished, but I refused the promotion. So short were we now of men that many of our officers (of whom there was ever a superfluity since the King’s habit had been to squirt out commissions like a boar pissing) formed themselves into companies of reformados, and to be the captain of a loyal troop was, to my mind, better than to be a colonel without a regiment.

  So I followed the Prince, first to Hereford then down into the West Country. It was a busy summer with enough of good news from the Scots under Montrose to give colour to jolly George Digby’s continued optimism and this coupled with minor successes at Stilton, Huntingdon and Hereford revived the hopes of the King’s side. But my spirits remained low, partly because of Annette’s silence and partly because of my certainty that the war was lost. Do not think I had become a devotee of the King’s cause. If monarchs are appointed by God then God has it in his power to give them enough sense to retain their thrones. As a bad Catholic, I might deplore the rabid Protestantism of the Parliamentarians, but the episcopalian system they opposed (among other things) was equally schismatic, perhaps more so because it flaunted many of the trappings of the True Church. No, my concern was simply that these hypocritical Englishmen showed scant respect for the professional soldier and his right, service done, to take newemployment. I began to dream at nights of hanging and to wake in a cold sweat, reaching for the brandy flask by my pillow.

  God’s arse! I told myself angrily. You have been nearer hanging than this, Fantom, and never felt a pang.

  But thought alone can not soot he the troubled spirit and when I saw Fairfax’s army preparing to lay siege to Bristol where Rupert and his force now had their quarters, I took steps.

  I went wandering around the sailors’ taverns on the waterfront, sitting quiet and curbing my natural exuberance of spirits (save once when, blinded by drink and the flaring of my trumpets, I took this strapping wench against a bollard on the dock and found when I had excavated a vast confusion of petticoats that I had a man. Pah! such are the filthinesses of these sailors! I tipped him in the water where perchance he drowned, I know nor care not.) Finally I found my man, the captain of the Albatross, an old lugger fit to run small cargoes along the coast, or sometimes, if wind and weather promised fair, over the sea to Ireland. His name was Hugh Trengold, a silent brooding kind of man with all the yearnings of mighty villainy, but nerve enough only for small.

  At our second meeting I offered him a hundred guineas for passage on his ship with another hundred to be paid on safe arrival at my chosen destination. His eyes glinted.

  ‘Where would you go, master?’ he said. I could see he was thinking what other rewards there might be in this.

  ‘Where, and when, is my business,’ I answered. ‘This payment will bind you to take me off at slightest notice any time in the next twelvemonth. Agreed?’

  ‘Aye, master,’ he said reaching for the purse of gold.

  ‘Wait a while longer,’ I said. ‘There is yet another condition. That fellow offends me. What is he?’

  The fellow I pointed out was a great ox of a man, strong, certain of himself, the kind in whose company all men laughed or kept silent as he laughed or kept silent, out of fear of his correction. Tonight he was in a laughing mood and the raucous noise filled the smoky air.

  ‘Meddle not with him, master,” said Trengold, suddenly fearful for his money. ‘He is a brute who maims men for sport.’

  I rose and approached the merry group.

  ‘Sir,’ I said addressing the big man.

  He took no notice so I seized a mug of wine from one of his fellows and poured it over his head. That won his attention.

  ‘Sir,’ I repeated. ‘’Tis a matter of the noise you make. My ears are sensitive and I would appreciate a diminuendo. My nose too is sensitive, but I am not so sanguine as to look for a quick improvement in your scent. But the noise, sir, let there be an end to the noise.’

  Prepared as I was, he almost got me, lunging with great speed for a man of such bulk. Fortunately the table lay in his way and I was able to step back from his grasp. A fellow to my right reached for his sea-cutlass so I smashed the pot mug I held over his head and with the shard that remained I leaned forward and scored a bloody gulf across the big man’s brow.

  Blinded with rage and blood he came running at me. I stepped aside nimbly, having no desire to wrestle with this ape, seized his left hand as it clawed for my face, broke his little finger deftly, saw with some relief the broad-bladed knife appear in his other hand, drew my own dirk and slit him up the belly and breast, neat as a filleted fish.

  ‘Take him to a doctor,’ I ordered. ‘He may yet live.’

  And to Hugh Trengold I said as we walked along the darkened seafront, ‘Captain, the other condition of which I spoke is that should you fail in any part of your bargain, you die.’

  I left him then, feeling happier now that I had an escape route at my back.

  It was not a route open to large numbers, however, for there was a squadron of Parliamentary ships blockading the sea roads. Rupert had had foresight to stock the town
with plentiful supplies in anticipation of the siege and for a while things went well. We had a jolly time, sallying once or twice a day to hack a few of Fairfax’s men to pieces, then returning to a good dinner. But gradually the grip of the besiegers tightened and there was no sign of relief coming from the King. Early in September Fairfax summoned the garrison to surrender. Rupert played for time, exchanged messengers, entered into protracted negotiations. Two years earlier, the position had been reversed. Rupert then had been outside the city and the Parliamentarians within, so now he knew the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. He must also have remembered the tremendous losses his army sustained when they stormed the city, and also perhaps that the enemy’s garrison commander, Colonel Fiennes, had been court-martialled for surrendering and sentenced to death. Robin Essex had pardoned him (good old Robin – he was a great pardoner) but it was an unsettling precedent.

  Finally Fairfax grew impatient. Guessing that the assault was soon intended, Rupert had made preparations accordingly. I and my troop were given the task of manning one of the forts on the outer wall, not a job normally performed by the cavalry, but there would be little chance of performing our usual role and I realized our general was putting his stoutest men at the most important positions.

  Early in the morning of the tenth day of September, I sat with Lauder playing cribbage. We talked low, not to disturb Jem Croft and Tom Turner, who slept in a close antechamber till it should be their turn to mount the watch. Lauder too might have been taking his rest but as I have said, age seemed to have freed him from the snares of sleep which trap a man from so much of his life. Three times in succession as I cut the cards, the Queen of Spades was turned up and Lauder’s face grew long.