Spirit of the Highway

by Deborah Swift

  Spirit of the Highway

  Deborah Swift

  © Deborah Swift 2015

  Deborah Swift has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  And where is your soft bed of down, my love?

  And where is your white Holland sheet?

  And where the fair maid who watches over you

  As you take your long, sightless sleep?

  The earth is my soft bed of down, my love,

  The grass is my white Holland sheet.

  And the long, hungry worms my servants

  To wait on me as I sleep.

  The True Lover’s Ghost – Traditional Ballad

  Table of Contents

  1 - HIGHWAY TO WAR

  2 - PIKE AND MUSKET

  3 - MERCY AND VENGEANCE

  4 - THE TAVERN

  5 - THE HOMECOMING

  6 - SISTERLY LOVE

  7 - HARVEST HOME

  8 - A DIGGER’S DREAMS

  9 - IN REMEMBRANCE

  10 - THE MATCHMAKERS

  11 - BROKEN BONES

  12 - THE HUNT

  13 - A SAVAGE SECRET

  14 -THE NIGHT VISITOR

  15 - THE OUTLAWS

  16 - HOLD-UP ON THE HIGHWAY

  17 - DARK ENCOUNTER

  18 - THREE CROWS

  19 - A PLAN

  20 - CAVALIERS AND REBELS

  21 - THE NOOSE

  22 - A LIFE, A DEATH

  23 - RETRIBUTION

  24 - THE WAKE

  25 - RESTLESS SPIRIT

  Historical Notes from the Author

  Acknowledgements

  1 - HIGHWAY TO WAR

  England, August 1651

  I can hang like a mist, seep through solid walls, slither through keyholes. When you turn to look, you won’t see me, just feel a chill frost ruffle the hairs on your neck. You will sense my presence, and stare hard into the dark, but I’ll be already gone, into a past or future where you can’t follow.

  My sister Abigail likes to tell my story, but she often gets it wrong. Sometimes she doesn’t understand, being deaf and all. Besides, she only ever tells her side of the tale, and not how easy it is for simple events to shift and change and be embroidered into a legend. That’s because, like the rest of the living, she can’t have my perspective.

  Being dead has its disadvantages. I feel nothing, not the grit underfoot, not the weave of the linen shirt on my body. I will never feel those coarse things again, only the subtlest tingle as I move through the trees, through objects more compressed than I am myself. The solid part of me is my feelings, and they haven’t diminished. Sometimes I’m all anguish, sometimes a wisp of temper, or a vapour of tenderness. And I can look back on myself, the living me, and wish it had been different. Yes, sometimes I’m a cloud of regret.

  The day I went to war I didn’t look back, despite the fact I could feel Kate’s eyes on my neck all the way down the highway. Or maybe because of it. I fixed my gaze on the ranks of marching men, not wanting to let Kate see how much I cared. How heavy the soldiers’ footfalls seem now! Though Kate was left behind, her face seemed to burn before me, her expression troubled, her green eyes full of questions and doubt about me going to war.

  We would win, I thought to myself, and the King’s scurvy men had to fall. I was angry inside for feeling so much, so I gripped my musket tighter to my shoulder. Pray God the rumours were right and our numbers would be greater than theirs, because I had to survive. If I did not, my Kate would be left to the Fanshawes, and that I couldn’t bear.

  I marched on. Though when I say marching, it was more of a slouching, a rousing of dust as the rabble clanked their disorderly way down the road, their provision pots banging against their pikes and muskets. I can hardly remember the smell of that dust now, nor the heat of the sun, nor the grit on my kerchief as I wiped my wet cheeks. It was sweat, I told myself; that’s why my eyes were watering so.

  ‘You at Marston Moor?’ A shorter man appeared at my shoulder and fell in next to me. His face was flat and open, and blue with old bruises.

  ‘No. I just joined.’ It was a relief to speak.

  ‘So late?’

  I bridled at his slight reproof. ‘I don’t hold with armies.’

  ‘Then why’d you join?’ He pushed his lank, black fringe out of his eyes and fixed me with an owl-like look.

  ‘To finish it. To make a new world, where the men who work are masters of their own lives. So womenfolk can rest safe again in their own beds.’

  ‘Ah. A girl is it?’

  I sniffed, hitched my musket further onto my shoulder. ‘Don’t you want to change the world?’

  ‘Me? Nah, just want to survive it.’

  We marched on in silence except for the sound of tramping boots. The first cold vestiges of fear had begun to worm their way into my blood.

  My short companion glanced over to me, ‘Odds are for us, they say. We’ll whip them this time.’ He grinned, showing a gap the width of my little finger between his front teeth. ‘That whelp of a King won’t know what’s hit him.’

  I nodded, tried to look more knowledgeable than I felt. Father was just ahead of me somewhere, on his horse, leading the line. At the thought of him I clenched my teeth, marched faster. The drunken bastard. I wondered how I could ever have admired him.

  ‘Hey, slow down, don’t want to wear yourself out, do you?’ The short man quickened to stay abreast of me. ‘I’m Cuthbert Briggs, by the way. Folks call me Cutch.’

  ‘Ralph,’ I said.

  ‘You a farmer? Thought so. From your hands, see. Harvester’s scratches, no mistaking them. I was apprenticed to a wheelwright, before all this. Can’t remember a thing about it now, been all over the country this last five years. Look.’ He rolled up a sleeve, pointed to a livid purple scar. ‘Sword cut. But I slit the devil’s throat in return.’ He laughed. ‘You stick with me, you’ll be right. I can mend anything, me. I’ve learnt bone-setting, amputation, all manner of surgeon’s skills. Let’s hope we don’t need ’em, eh?’

  I thanked him, but knew I’d rather be alone. The air was charged with excitement, with the buzzing, anxious thoughts of men intent on battle. Some of us would die, it was certain, and nobody wanted to be that man.

  Moisture gathered on my upper lip, but I licked it away, concentrated on the buff-coloured back of the marching man in front. If we won, when we won, and Cromwell was victorious, then what would happen to Kate? My stomach lurched. That’s what came of falling in love with a Royalist. Someone on the wrong bloody side. I thanked God our troops were well away from Markyate Manor. For now, at least, Kate would be safe.

  *

  My feet were all-over blistered. Four days it took, to cover the hundred miles, until we saw the pitched towers of the cathedral and the city ramparts shimmering ahead of us, pink in the heat. I stared at their bulk. There would be young women like Kate behind those walls, afraid of men like me.

  Cutch threw down his backpack on the verge and pulled off his helmet to reveal a thatch of damp black hair. I joined him whilst we waited for orders. We shared a rough knob of bread and an apple that Cutch boasted he’d robbed from an orchard the day before.

  A couple of tired-looking women, camp followers, sat down next to us, with hopeful expressions. Shaking my head, I tore my bread in two and handed a lump to the nearest woman, the one with the yellow hair. She crammed the crust between her teeth, swallowed, wordlessly uncorked a flagon of small beer, handed it over.

  I took a swig but had been sitting only a few moments when a horseman appeared, look
ing up and down the lolling men. They stood to attention as he passed. I prepared to stand too, but as the man got closer I saw it was Father. I stayed where I was.

  Cutch rose straight away, and dipped his head as Father drew up in front of us and reined his horse to a stop. Father slid down and landed heavily with a jangle of spurs and sword.

  ‘Ah, Cutch,’ he said, handing him the reins. He turned to me, ‘Mind you stick with Briggs here. He’s a seasoned soldier. They say we shouldn’t have much trouble judging by the terrain. We’ve got them cornered. Rats in a nest, they are. And the Welsh supporters have given the young King the old heave-ho. But watch your back, son, because there’s still a bunch of Scots waiting to give us a thrashing.’ He paused, tried to look me in the eyes, but I kept my gaze firmly on the point where the tip of my boot met the ground.

  Father cleared his throat, rubbed his sandy beard, squatted to crouch next to me, out of the women’s earshot. ‘Ralph lad. I wanted to wish you … well, to wish you luck.’ He reached out a hand to clap me on the shoulder but I shrugged away.

  ‘I know you’re still smarting from what happened at Markyate Manor,’ Father said, ‘but these things happen in war.’

  ‘You were going to rape a woman, Father.’ I spoke the words with icy coolness, loud enough to shame him. ‘A girl who had done nothing wrong, except to be in her own home. In our own village. She could have been your own daughter.’

  ‘She’s a Royalist,’ he said, standing up. ‘She spat on us often enough. Her family taxed us to death and well you know it.’

  ‘It’s no excuse. I saw you. It was not done in anger. You were laughing, drunk. You were taunting her for entertainment. It is that I can’t forgive.’ I turned away. I caught a glimpse of the yellow-haired girl, her wide-open eyes showing she had heard every word. She stood, made a ‘V’ gesture at Father, and stalked off.

  ‘What’s the fuss? We let her go didn’t we?’ Father’s face had turned the colour of a plum.

  ‘Only because I was there to stop you.’ I closed my eyes to shut out the image of what I had seen, Kate’s kicking and struggling to escape. ‘How many more, Father? How many other young girls have you terrorized whilst poor Mother sits at home fretting over your fate?’

  He dropped his eyes. There was my answer. I felt sick. Ashamed to be his son.

  Father climbed awkwardly back onto his horse, exchanging a look with Cutch, who nodded back to him. ‘You don’t understand.’ Father sighed as he took up the reins. ‘You will. When you’ve seen action.’

  I watched him gallop away. My belly was sore with a pain deep inside. I used to be so proud of my father, of his swaggering strength, of his assertive way of talking. I used to look up to him with a mixture of awe and terror. But now I was taller than he, and suddenly he seemed empty, as if I’d been admiring a man of straw. I slumped back down to the ground.

  Cutch dropped his backside down next to me. ‘Women. They’re a curse. He’s a fine man, your father. You should show him more respect. He’s saved many a man through his courage. I’d not be here today if it wasn’t for him.’

  I ignored Cutch, until a sergeant came to divide us up. Some men to the River Severn and some to the Teme, to make pontoon bridges across the river. I asked another soldier why, and he told me most of the bridges had been destroyed by the King’s troops. All except the one at the main gate, and the Royalist Scots were thick as butter all over it. I pushed away from Cutch into the group for the Teme, but at the last minute he broke ranks and joined me. The sergeant couldn’t be bothered to complain, but merely looked annoyed and gestured to Cutch to hurry.

  ‘Nearly lost you then, friend,’ Cutch said.

  I gave him a thin smile.

  *

  That night we had to drag all the boats on the river together and tie them to each other to make a wooden crossing. It was a relief to be doing something, though the water was deep and slopped up to my waist. Cutch and I hauled the first skiffs from the shore and tied them together. All along the bank the glint of breastplates as other men scurried furtively to drag more row-boats into position. There was not a fisherman in sight, the rumour of our troops had gone before us, and all sensible anglers had fled. Only the cows lowed plaintively in the fields and a night time owl screeched her warning.

  Across the river it was a dark mouth of blackness. Somewhere over there would be men like us, chafing, their stomachs watery with fear, dreading the morrow but willing it to come quickly, unable to sleep.

  ‘Sssh!’ Cutch put a hand on my shoulder, and I nearly leapt out of my breeches. It was hard to be quiet. I had to rip the planks from the fences, whilst other men splintered the farmer’s cart with swords and knives and brute strength. Finally we managed to fasten the wood into a serviceable walkway. Our foreheads dripped with sweat, but the pontoon bridge on our side swayed on the undulating surface of the river. I wish I had known then it was a bridge to hell.

  2 - PIKE AND MUSKET

  I’d hardly slept. The distant whinnies of the enemy’s nervous horses set me on edge. When they fell silent just before the dawn, and a faint rustling betrayed an army on the move, I could bear it no longer. I buckled on the breastplate they’d issued me with, and fished in my bag for the powder flask and pouch of lead shot.

  As I pulled them out, a scrap of white dropped to the grass. I reached down to retrieve it. Kate’s handkerchief. I’d unthinkingly put it in my bag after I’d dried her parting tears. Now the flimsy linen looked so fragile, with its embroidered monogram of ‘K. F.’, the tiny stitches of the fleurs-de-lis of the Fanshawe crest. I brought it to my nose, inhaled as if to smell her. The thought of her pale translucent skin, her copper hair, made a chasm in my chest. From the corner of my eye I saw Cutch watching me through half-open eyes. I hurriedly turned my back, pushed the handkerchief deep inside my jerkin next to my heart.

  ‘They’re on the move,’ Cutch whispered.

  On my right-hand side pikes bristled to upright, an instant thicket of trees. The sight of their pointed metal ends made me even more apprehensive. Father would be riding amongst them, in breastplate and helmet, barking out his orders. Pray God he was sober enough. I was momentarily sorry for those men.

  I heaved the musket onto my shoulder not a moment too soon. The order ‘Cast about!’ came in a whisper, passed from man to man. No doubt the sergeant hoped to conceal our existence from the enemy as long as possible. A sudden movement to my right and the forest of pikes made for the pontoon in an ungainly stagger. The make-shift bridge had been finished from the other side, but it wobbled and drifted and several men fell into the river, unable to stay upright with the weight of their pikes.

  ‘Poor bastards,’ Cutch said, next to me, jamming on his helmet.

  The second wave of pikes was across when a rumbling noise turned my throat dry. On my left flank the Scots cavalry exploded into view, not head-on as we’d expected, but from the side.

  ‘Where the hell did they come from?’ Cutch shouted.

  I’d no time to wonder, because our musketeers began to stream across the field to block their path. Fearful of being left behind, I stumbled after them until they threw themselves down to their bellies in the wet dew.

  ‘Place the Charge!’ Yates, the artillery sergeant, sounded calm.

  Be still. I willed my hands to stop shaking, as I planted the stock of the gun on the parched ground and tipped powder down its muzzle. Damn. Half of it fell over my boot, but I fished out a musket ball just the same and dropped it down on top.

  ‘Wadding!’

  My fumbling fingers found the small pieces of shredded cloth, but my eyes were fixed on the cavalry who were galloping full tilt at Father’s pikemen who formed the wall between us and those sharp hooves. I saw father dismount and order his ranks into a bristling hedge.

  ‘Ram it down!’

  Panicking, I thrust my scouring stick down the barrel until the wadding was compacted on top of the ball. Why hadn’t I practised this more when Father told me to?
>
  ‘Prepare to give fire!’

  Lord have mercy. I dived to the ground, but my eyes were chained to the scene in front. Ahead of me a pikeman crumpled beneath the charging horses, his pike splintering like a matchstick, his body soon lost under the dust of the pounding hooves.

  I sucked in my breath, jammed the cord in the serpent jaws of my musket. A small boy ran up and held out a burning coal. At first I didn’t understand. A boy? Here? But he pressed the coal to my cord, and then I understood. It was shaking about so much that the cord wouldn’t catch. But finally it glowed and I blew on it frantically to keep it alight.

  The cavalry regrouped for a second charge.

  I can do this, I told myself. I raised the butt of the gun to my shoulder and flicked open the priming pan.

  ‘Give Fire!’ The end of the order was lost in the blast.

  Deafened, I dragged back the trigger and let it go. An almighty flash. It seared my eyeballs and a kickback like a punch hit into my shoulder, forcing the breath from my lungs. I had no idea where the musket ball went, only that ahead of me horses, screaming in pain, toppled down onto the pikes, their hooves thrumming the air as if they were drowning.

  I could not move, it was as if the strings to my legs were cut.

  ‘Forward!’

  Cutch and the other men lurched into action. I was pulled with them, caught in their momentum. Smoke obscured the view, but now I was actually moving, a great tide of anger bore me forwards, swamping my vision with a black haze.

  I ploughed onwards, musket banging against my thigh, following Cutch’s buff jerkin. He looked back for me, his face fixed in a roar, as we ran pell-mell across the field towards the pontoon bridge. Too late. Another company of enemy horses from the side. My chest felt as if it would collapse with fear. The Scots were upon us, swords glinting through the smoke in the early sun. Mouths open in a yell to urge on horses already wild-eyed with the scent of powder and blood.