Captain Fantom

by Reginald Hill

  ‘What, are you growing superstitious, you old fool ?’ I asked.

  ‘Always believe a warning,’ he said sternly, ‘no matter how foolish.’

  ‘Why then, I believe it. But what shall I do?’

  ‘Take care,’ he admonished.

  I laughed long and loud so that Jem stirred restlessly in his sleep.

  ‘So, I shall take care. But does it mean flee, or stay? Fight, or not fight? Eat, or starve? Piss, or hold my water? Tell me, thou Pictish wizard, tell!’

  ‘I know not. But this I know. Were I you, which heaven forfend, I should ride off now with whatever I could carry and take my boat to anywhere.’

  I put my cards down and said quietly, ‘And what do you know of a boat, wise man?’

  ‘I? Nothing.’

  I turned the pack over and spread the cards face-up before him.

  ‘Look well at these, Lauder,’ I said. ‘Each one commands thee to take care. Now, what’s this of a boat?’

  ‘A guess,’ he said. ‘I heard you visited the waterfront.’

  ‘Did you? From whom?’

  He jerked his head towards the sleeping chamber.

  ‘Jem?’ I said.

  ‘Aye. He is with you more than you know, I think,’ he answered.

  ‘And he spoke of a boat?’

  ‘Nay; only of the waterfront. I guessed at the boat. I thought as I would have thought myself, forty years since. A man should take care, especially a man whose profession and character puts him in the way of dangers.’

  ‘And what would you do now, Lauder, old friend?’ I enquired.

  ‘Who knows?’ he said. He put out his hand and sorted out the cards till the Queen reappeared.

  ‘Ordinarily, I think I’d do my work and take my pay,’ he continued. ‘But with this one staring up at me, why, I might be tempted to mount my horse and ride for the sea.’

  ‘And is this your advice?’

  ‘Advice, laddie? I give no advice. Ask yourself the question, then listen close and wait for your answer.’

  ‘Right, my grandfather. I have asked. Now I listen.’

  For perhaps ten seconds we sat in silence. It was complete. Even the sleepy breathing in the other room seemed still.

  ‘Alas,’ I began mocking, but got no further. The air was shattered by a succession of thunderclaps whose echoes rolled and rolled till they were consumed by other closer explosions.

  ‘Fairfax’s siege-guns,’ said Lauder rising slowly. ‘And our batteries reply. There’s your answer.’

  I went into the other room. Tommy Turner was sitting upright on his bed, a slow joyous smile spreading across his fresh young face, as though awoken by church bells and a woman’s hair tickling his cheeks. Jem still slept. I kicked the bed sharply and he awoke starting with fear as he saw me looming over him.

  ‘Nay, Jem, it’s not the devil,’ I laughed. ‘Rouse yourself now. There’s work to do.’

  I have had little experience of sieges from the inside, for Wallenstein’s tactic of settling in comfort behind a strongly fortified position and letting the enemy waste his strength without could hardly be called a state of siege. And while I can read a pitched battle pretty thoroughly from the confused pattern of noise and movement which shows itself to the tutored sense, this kind of warfare left me baffled and frustrated. I had no idea what was going on anywhere except in the immediate vicinity of my own wall-fort. And, worse, I was static. To a cavalryman whose whole fighting life consists of movement – advance, charge, regroup, charge again, withdraw, run like hell! – this sitting and waiting was unbearable.

  Mind you, I felt safe, oh yes. I walked round and round the battlements and saw no way in which anyone down there could persuade Nob Parkin and his lads to allow them up here. Yet fortresses had fallen, and castles had fallen, and citadels twice the height with walls twice the thickness of these had fallen, I kept on reminding myself; but I still felt invincible.

  ‘They won’t shift us from here in a hurry, Lauder,’ I said as we peered out into the darkness, lit from time to time by the flash of powder and rent by the boom of cannon and the cries of fighting men.

  ‘Not in a hurry,’ agreed Lauder. ‘But if there’re enough of them, and I trow there are, they’ll shift us right enough. Two of those siege pieces will knock these walls down, stone on stone, if they’ve time enough.’

  I was angry and afraid to hear this hardened veteran accept so matter-of-factly that we could be dislodged.

  The attack on our position direct did not start till half an hour later, during which time we irritated whatever enemy came into our range with fire from our muskets, while a detachment of gunners under my command covered a wide area with their sakers and minions. The noise of battle had never bothered me before, but now I found that to stand still with the monotonous rattle of explosions sounding constantly in my ear began to wear me down (I mean our own for at least the enemy fire that was directed at us made me duck and fear for my life). Fortunately they seemed to have little more than a single demi-culverin bearing on our fort and though it chipped away at our battlements as regularly as a mason’s hammer (though somewhat slower, only one shot every five minutes) it would be broad daylight before they could hope for a breach. Nevertheless I was almost relieved when a great cry came up to us from the darkness and I saw their troops rush forward to attempt the assault proper.

  Out of the darkness they lumbered. I say lumbered because all those who were not carrying ladders (of which there were perhaps a dozen with two men to each of them), bore huge faggots of fresh chopped branches wherewith to fill the ditch running beneath our walls. This burden made their progress slow and gave our shooters easy targets, but these were brave fellows, and still they came in spite of all, and in the end our shooting did but speed their task, for the ditch was soon level with bodies.

  Now came the ladders. At first we reached over and simply pushed them off whenever they came to rest on our walls but soon groups of their musketeers were positioned to send a hail of fire at the head of each ladder as soon as it came to rest, and after losing several men we let the ladders lie. In addition a small mortar had been brought into play and the gunner with more craft than those of his art usually show (for gunners are frequently stupid men, as like to blow up their own side as the enemy) had found a good range and was dropping his shot onto the platform of our fort with deadly effect. Of course, I had men stationed at the fort’s narrow windows, but these were so deep for purposes of defence that unless the ladders ran straight outside one of them, my men could get no aim at the climbers.

  For the climbing had now begun. The first I saw to rise above our battlements was a whey-faced lad whose spirit must have been great to overcome such fear. I saw from his accoutrements that he was a cavalryman, for it is a barbarous custom in some of the Parliamentary armies to let a horseman lead the assault in a siege, for the infantry claim that their riders do not share an equal peril with them. God’s piece! let some of these footmen ride at the close order into a regiment of cuirassiers flanked by culverin and they will understand the meaning of peril!

  Taking pity on his plight, I said, ‘Go find thy horse, boy,’ and struck him with the hilt of my sword. In gratitude for my mercy, the young bastard attempted to hurl a hand grenade among us even as he fell, but it bounced from the wall and fell with him, blowing him to pieces and the ladder from the wall with all those who were climbing it.

  I laughed, thinking this easy sport. And so it would have been with men of self-respect and wisdom, who would soon have withdrawn to lick their wounds and plan for the morrow. But these fools, they knew nothing of the morrow save what their canting preachers told them and still they came, some mouthing psalms, some mouthing oaths, some speechless with teror; but still they came!

  I heard at one point a voice something familiar promising all the glories of heaven to those who fell in capturing the city (which seemed to be a combination of Babylon, Nineveh and Sodom) and all the pangs of hell to those who defended it. Q
uickly glancing over the walls I saw below the moonface of Obadiah Jones who had laboured so long to save my soul in Winchester gaol. From the colour of the sword he waved over his head, he was not averse to acting as a recruiting agent for the devil.

  Turning, I looked for my lieutenant.

  ‘Jem!’ I cried. ‘Give us a tune to raise our hearts. Yon doggerel of Martin Luther’s will do!’

  For I recalled the fear we had felt before Lützen when the German apostate’s music had risen out of the mist which hid the Swedish forces.

  Jem started singing, his eyes lit up with a fervour that made Obadiah Jones look like a puling hypocrite. Soon the other lads joined in, some from mockery, some from belief, most from a mixture of both (for though a soldier may rob and murder and ravish in quieter times, yet religion is oft woken up by the assault trumpet). If the hymn lifted our spirits, it amazed the enemy. Perhaps they thought the fort had been taken, or that we had been moved by God to join them, for all round the battlements they paused and in a trice, my lads drove forward, swords swinging and suddenly the walls were clear.

  But the respite was only of a moment.

  ‘Blasphemers! Blasphemers!’ screamed Obadiah below and the Parliamentarians came back with renewed vigour. More and more ladders were brought up till the walls looked like the rigging of a galleon under full sail and I thought suddenly of my dirty little lugger rocking quietly in the mouth of the Avon.

  It was now after five and the eastern sky was lightening, though the sun would not appear for another hour. But the light seemed to cheer my men more than the attackers for though sorely pressed we still held the fort and men press less eagerly to the peril they can see than to that which stands hid in darkness.

  But then came a great outcry which seemed to run all round the outer walls of the city and this was followed by a mighty cheer from the enemy.

  ‘Oh, Captain, Captain, we are beaten!’ cried one of my men. Looking over our battlements I saw what he meant. Breached in several places and put under terrible pressures everywhere, the outer walls were being abandoned by the defenders. Rupert had ordered a general withdrawal to the castle where his sadly depleted and outnumbered force could better stand the next wave of attack. This was the time for us to go also, but even as I watched, I saw troop after troop of enemy cavalry gallop through the nearest breach in hot pursuit of the retreating defenders. There was no way out for us, or any others who remained in the outer forts. We were trapped.

  Now it was the Parliamentarians who had new heart. With psalms and hymns and Obadiah’s Welsh wail proclaiming the coming of God’s kingdom in Devon, they pressed forward again.

  My men fought well. We were professionals with a pride in our skills. But as a leader of professionals, I watched and waited till my mind was clear; we had earned our pay, let those who fought for faith and belief give up their lives, the Fantom troop could now treat with honour.

  As though catching my thought, the enemy slackened off the assault and a trumpet sounded below followed by a loud voice summoning us to surrender on peril of a further and final assault without quarter. With a sense of relief, I realized the time had come.

  I turned to Lauder, who had been doing the work of a twenty-year-old for five hours now, and told him my decision. I expected instant agreement but he shrugged and said nothing. Well, that was his privilege. I was in command and the decision was mine.

  I summoned my trumpeter and ordered him forward to play a parley while one stood alongside him with a piece of white cloth tied to his musket. But as the pair went to take up their positions, Nob Parkin stayed them and tore the cloth from the musket end.

  ‘What, Nob!’ I cried in a rage. ‘Do you know me?’

  ‘Aye, master,’ he answered. ‘But I know not why you shame us.’

  ‘Shame!’ I echoed. ‘Dost say I bring shame on myself?’ ‘No, Captain.

  Not on yourself. ’Tis well known thou wouldst fight with the devil, aye, and fuck him afterwards if he wore skirts. None will think shame of thee. But us, for whom you do this thing, we may be shamed. You do it for our sakes, loving us, but I know these men and it shall not bel’

  God’s lights! I thought. He thinks I set my own life at nought, yet love these stinking, illiterate, lecherous grotesques! He is surely mad, and they will tell him.

  But to my amazement and horror a murmur of assent ran round those close enough to hear.

  ‘What, lads?’ I cried. ‘Will you not take honourable terms and go forth to fight another day, if you will, or else back to the bosoms of your families, rich with coin and reputation?’ There was a silence while they thought of this, then an amiable rogue from Lincolnshire piped up.

  ‘Well, sir. I’d as lief be here as in the bosom of my family.’

  They all roared with laughter as though at the best joke they had ever heard and I knew we were lost. These stupid dolts were going to fight to the death – not for their King, not for their religion, not for their honour (their honour!), not for reward, not for anything I could think of. For fellowship perhaps? For me? God forbid! No. For fun. That was about the nearest I could get to it.

  I recognized their insanity but suddenly felt a strange lightening of the spirit.

  ‘Corporal Parkin.’ I said. ‘You are insubordinate and must be punished.’

  I approached him gravely, my sword aloft. He held his ground. Then I skipped behind him and struck him with the flat blade across his buttocks, as I was wont to do when he was labouring on top of some favoured wench, crying, ‘Go to, Nob! Show them thou art a man!’

  The silly fools all around laughed and cheered and threw up their hats in glee.

  ‘A song!’ I cried. ‘Like swans, let’s die in singing.’

  Jem Croft began to intone a hymn, but I stopped him impatiently.

  ‘Enough of that cant! Let those who fight for God sing of God. The Fantom troop has fought for other things and will die singing of them.’

  And I struck up my catch of the four-cocked giant which I had translated and taught to these child-like men.

  There needed no more answer to the enemy’s summons. Belowl heard Obadiah Jones’s cry of outrage as he caught the words of our song and next moment the assault was resumed.

  I have fought with the Turks and I have fought with the Swedes and I have fought with the Germans, but I have never seen men fight as my troopers fought that morning. And these were cavalrymen fighting on foot, far removed from all hope of escape or succour. As the attackers scaled the walls, coming from all sides now that they were inside the city, we gave them volley after volley with pistol and musket till our powder ran out. Then we drove them back with cold steel. Three times they came over the battlements at us and three times we charged them and sent them tumbling back to the ditch. But each time we regrouped there were fewer of us. No one was singing now, for none had breath or cause. Nob Parkin saw his two brothers slain at his side and fought the harder as though he would do work for all three. Only Tommy Turner remained cheerful, standing beneath our banner of the prancing white horse with a sword in either hand and a pleasant grin on his face which spread and spread as the number he had killed mounted.

  Now we no longer charged but with our back to the small central tower we received the enemy’s charge and again and again repulsed it.

  The top of the fortress was now swarming with the Parliamentarians, so many that they got in each other’s way and dared not use their muskets at us for fear of slaying their own. We were down to some twenty or less, scarce a fifth on the numbers I had started with. Not one of us but was wounded. I had a gash an inch wide in my thigh and as I put weight on it to thrust at one of the foe, my leg buckled and I fell to the ground.

  ‘Now perish, thou spawn of Satan!’ cried a near-hysterical voice and a great pair of knees descended on my chest and a bloody sword was raised above my head.

  ‘Nay, Obadiah,’ I gasped. ‘Thou broughtest me to the brink of salvation at Winchester. Wilt not say a prayer for me now?’

>   The mad eyes cleared, looked puzzled, then, ‘Fantom!’ he said. ‘Thou traitor!’

  The sword started to descend again but the respite had given me time to clasp my dagger beneath the tangle of my cloak and now I struck up from behind, driving the narrow steel deep into his anus. He shrieked horribly and sprang upright, straight into the inexorable sword of Nob.

  ‘Thanks,’ I gasped as Nob pulled me back to the relative safety of the wall.

  He grinned at me, but did not speak and the grin turned to the tautened rictus of death. I saw there was a hole in his chest through which the lives of a dozen lesser men might easily have issued.

  ‘Oh, Nob, Nob!’ I cried. But a hand plucked at my shoulder and turning, I saw Lauder on the outer flight of stairs which led to the top of the small tower.

  ‘Come, man,’ he said. ‘No time for elegies.’

  He was right. As the last half dozen of our force protected our backs, I half crawled, was half dragged up those steps. At the top, I lay on my belly and observed the scene below. I saw Tommy Turner steadfast beneath his banner still. He was cut almost to ribbons, his left arm dangled limp almost severed above the elbow, his scalp was shredded like a mothy old wig and his face was a mask of blood, though the shine of his teeth showed he was still smiling. His right arm still thrust and parried, but as I watched he took three or four more savage blows on the head and chest and sank slowly to the ground. The men who were attacking him now paused and looked at each other in wild amaze at the slaughter this one man had wrought. Then suddenly he leapt to his feet once more, swinging his weapon like a stripling youth at exercise, and dispatched five or six more before they drove him down again, this time not desisting till his head rolled separate from his body. He smiled still.

  Below at the foot of the stairs, my remaining troopers fell one by one. Jem Croft alone survived and as his last companion fell, blocking the stair, he took advantage of this respite to turn and run. But on that open stair he was a fair target and as he reached almost to the top, a pistol cracked and he staggered and fell. He was not yet dead and his hands clawed at the topmost stair. I reached forward and grasped them.