Pistoleer: Brentford

by Smith, Skye

  Reaching for a choice bit of crackling earned Uve another clip. "Wash your hands first," the crone told him. Yes, the keeper and his wenches were truly terrified of these pirates.

  The ale was not green at all, but aged at least a week, and the meat was sweet tender pork, not French. Daniel's inquisitive look to the keep earned the answer, "You didn't expect me to offer up my best until I'd seen the color of your coin did ya? Not these days with so many armed men roaming the highways."

  The best included the arrival of the true ale wenches, complete with plunging cleavage and lots of ankle. Once they glided in and began pouring ale, the crones went back to their kitchen. The crew stood about and drank and ate in silence until the dust of the road was out of their throats and the knots were out of their stomachs, and only then did they even notice the ample cleavage. This alehouse had a fine view.

  It was built on a rise in the road, not a high rise, but high enough to allow them to see over the great trees that grew down along the Thames flats. "That must be Richmond to the north," Daniel told them all and then looked to the west in hopes of a view of Kingston. There was, and they were closer to it than he had thought. Less than two miles. Instead of taking this rest, they could have pressed on and been there before dark.

  As if reading his mind the keep said, "Not a bed to be had in Kingston right now. Not with the extra regiments camped there. You made the right choice to eat here, rather than risk going hungry in Kingston. If you promise to eat here in the morning, you can bed down in my barn. If you want to tip the wenches, that'll be an extra fourpence a hump. They are both clean girls, never with child. One at a time mind you. No group humping allowed on the premises. I run a good Christian house."

  On queue the two wenches plumped their breasts higher and lifted their skirts on one side to show a bit of thigh. The men all smiled at the free view but no one spoke up for either of the women. The thought that these two could have been humped a hundred times in the last few weeks soured the keep's pitch.

  "Your offers are generous, and we are beholding, but we have urgent business in Kingston so a short rest is all we have time for," Daniel said as he walked towards the keep. He poured more coins onto the counter and pushed half towards the keep. "Could you have your women pack us another meal for later, and refill our aleskins." The two wenches dropped their skirts and hurried away to the kitchen with a look of relief. "Are the girls indentured?"

  "Of course," the keep replied. "You don't think I'd be selling my own daughters do you? At the rate they are being tipped I'll have doubled what I laid out for their bond within the month."

  "How long is the term?" Daniel asked. He meant the length of the bond.

  "Three years, but I have to make my profit while I can, for they could catch the pox on any day and then all they'll be good for is fetching and carrying."

  A huge arm came between the two men, and Anso half pulled, half pushed Daniel away from the keep. "None of our business," he sternly told his clansman. A clansman who was well known to react violently to the mistreatment of women, especially when the target of his violence was a smirking slaver. As they walked towards their horses Anso added, "I should have asked the bugger for a discount for saving his life."

  The ale wenches brought the food and ale to the horses and were very friendly with the men and bid them all a fond fare-thee-well. As they rode down Kingston Hill they could clearly see Kingston. They could make out the long wooden bridge and the great grounds and buildings of Hampton Court Palace on the other side of the bridge.

  "It's no wonder they've sent 3,000 men to hold Kingston," Uve called out, "with the king's favourite palace so close by."

  "It's not the palace lad," Daniel called back. "it's the bridge. The first bridge above London bridge and so the back door to Southwark and the entire south bank."

  The warm farewell of the ale wenches did not prepare them for the cold reception they got on the outskirts of Kingston. Shopkeepers closed their doors at the sight of them, and young lads yelled out things like "bloody roundheads" at the sight of their pot helmets.

  "Why do I have the feeling that Colonel Onslow's regiment has been misbehaving in this town?" Anso commented as they rode up to the large fortified manor house which loomed over the road to the bridge. Coombe Neville was the closest thing there was to a castle in this un-walled market town, so they had just assumed that it would have become the headquarters of the Colonel's regiment. It was.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Pistoleer - Brentford by Skye Smith Copyright 2014

  Chapter 13 - Tugs and barges at Kingston in November 1642

  Richard Onslow was a wealthy parliamentarian who had been awarded the rank of Colonel by the Earl of Warwick, and therefore had met Daniel before. He agreed to meet with them immediately. When Daniel asked him about the animosity of the townsfolk, he explained, "Kingston is the original Royal Borough, so of course they side with the king. Every town from here to Windsor sides with the king. Ashford, Staines, the lot. Their markets have always done well out of the royals, especially with Hampton Court Palace so near, so they resent our being here and they resent Parliament keeping Charlie out of Hampton."

  Onslow was leading Daniel along the central hall of the great manor, but instead of turning into his office, he led him up a winding staircase and out onto the roof and up to the parapets. "The town is undefendable," Onslow said, pointing down at the bridge. "The only fortifications are this manor and the arsenal over there on the other side of main road."

  Daniel nodded. He knew the town from earlier this year when parliament had fought off Colonels Lunsford and Digby to keep the Kingston arsenal out of the king's hands.

  "A few days ago after Prince Rupert was refused Windsor, he paid us a flying visit in hopes of surprising us," Onslow continued. "It was only because I had musketeers and field guns on those two barges on either side of the bridge that we stopped him from crossing it. Instead he went back up river to cross at the next bridge in Staines. If he had come at us from the south bank, there was no way we could have held Kingston. Luckily for us, he decided to loot Staines and Egham and never did make it back to us."

  "Luckily for you, but what of the poor folk of Staines?" Daniel asked. "And where is Egham?"

  "Egham is across the bridge from Staines. Poor folk is right. Both towns support the king, so they were shocked when their shops were cleared, their purses robbed, and their daughters defiled by the king's gentlemen."

  "And knowing this," Daniel asked thoughtfully, "the folk of Kingston would still welcome the king's army? Why would they risk the same happening to them?"

  "I wish I knew," Onslow sighed. "Perhaps they just don't want to take either side. Better to be robbed and raise bastard babies, than to be slaughtered because you made a stand. This town has survived for a long, long time without walls. They just bend with the wind rather than being snapped by it."

  "I like your idea of putting your guns on the barges. Nice and safe from cavalry attacks. That is why I am here, by the way. To put some of your guns on a barge." Daniel began to explain his mission and once the story was out he reached for the paperwork to prove it.

  Onslow put a hand on his to keep the paperwork in the side bag. "I don't need to see them. Hand them to my clerk in my office. How do expect to ferry a dozen guns down the Thames with Rupert’s cavalry at large?"

  "Mainly by staying mid stream. My plan is to put ten of them on a cargo barge with enough locals on it to do the poling and steering, and to put the other two on a river launch, one on the bow and one astern, with my own men at the oars. Our job will be to keep everyone else away from the barge. Until we are threatened, we'll help move the barge by towing it."

  "An armed tug," Onslow said with a smile. "I like that idea. I like it a lot. That may be the solution to my own dilemma. Come downstairs. I'll send a captain with you to requisition everything you need from the arsenal, the guns, the powder, the shot, and afterwards he can requisition your
choice of a barge and a launch."

  "Colonel," Daniel said with mouth open in surprise, "I am overwhelmed by your helpfulness. I was expecting to argue and bargain with you for days."

  "And you would have, if this order hadn't just arrived," Onslow replied and then handed Daniel a carefully folded letter. "It's from Lord Brooke in Brentford," he continued as the pistoleer read the letter. "He fears that Brentford will be the next to be attacked by Rupert. Brentford must not be lost else the Great West Road will be open all the way to Westminster. He needs men, and ordnance, and especially gunpowder. Because of you I now know how to get it all to him. On barges towed by armed tugs. You set yours up, and show me that it works, and then I will copy it ten fold."

  "But my men need rest," Daniel complained while trying to picture where Brentford was. Obviously on both the Great West Road and the Thames, and obviously where the river Brent ran into the Thames ... but how far was that from here, and how far was it from Westminster."

  As if reading his mind, Onslow said, "Brentford is halfway between here and Westminster. It is where the Thames stops going north and turns east, and so the Great West Road runs close to the Thames. By holding Brentford you control both the road and the river. Unfortunately, like Kingston, it has no fortifications and the only strong walls are some fortified manors. I'll have my clerks draw you a good map so you will have no trouble leading my barges."

  Daniel's heart sank. Of course there was a catch. There was always a catch. "Me, lead your barges."

  "Why of course. Who better for the job than a sea captain who has seen service in the Netherlands. Well it makes sense doesn't it. You were going that way anyway. My barges can follow your lead." Onslow had reached the bottom of the winding staircase and he strode across the great hall towards his office, all the while yelling for his officers to attend him.

  "Bugger," Daniel said under his breath as he realized that he had just been foxed, yet again, due to this promise of a dozen field guns. "It would have been simpler to have fetched them from Rotterdam."

  * * * * *

  It took less than a half an hour for Anso to choose the best of the light guns from the arsenal ... a dozen four pounders. Some were fired by flints, some by matchcords, but all twelve were barely used and more important, they all weighed but a half a ton each. The warehousemen at the arsenal scramble to find and collect an assortment of canisters, shot, exploding shot of the correct caliber and added to it a small supply of gunpowder for the journey down river. It took another two hours to manhandle the guns onto carriages and take it all down to the quay beside the great bridge.

  Daniel was waiting for them with his choice of river boats. The barge was your typical narrow medium sized river barge which could float ten of the guns, plus the shot, plus ten of Onslow's men who would pole it and man the great sweep oar that was used instead of a rudder when turning the clumsy thing. The launch had been harder to choose. It had to be light enough to be rowed quickly by ten men, yet large enough to carry two of the guns, one fore and one aft.

  Anso stared into the launch and said, "The gun in the stern will block out the use of the tiller. We'll have no rudder."

  "Then we'll steer by oar," Daniel replied the obvious. He began yelling orders to have the wheels and towing shafts removed from the carriages, and orders to have a place in the bow cleared for receiving the carriage. Anso was not the kind of man that stood about watching, so he walked over to the barge and supervised the loading of the other ten guns. After the first gun proved unstable in the barge, he also ordered all of the carriage wheels and towing shafts removed.

  As the bow gun was lowered into place onto the decking, the light launch nose dived alarmingly under the weight, and the men doing the lowering had to hold the weight on their lines until six men leaped into the stern of the boat to counterbalance the great dead weight of the gun. Then began the task of placing the stern gun. The stern was all cockpit with no decking and it just wouldn't fit close in to the stern, so they cleared seats out of its way and while men held the great weight of it, they backed the launch under it until it would fit. That cause the counterweight men to scramble out of the way as they kept the balance, and this almost ended in a disaster. The solution was to turn the canon at right angles to face out over the starboard gunnels rather than have it face out over the stern.

  With all the guns now loaded, Anso came to have a look at the launch. "Well at least now someone can sit with the rudder," he said, and then snickered, "but if we ever fire that stern gun, the recoil will tip the launch over, men, guns and all. Why not run with just the bow gun."

  "We'd still have to counterbalance her weight," Daniel replied. "I'd rather carry the second gun than a half a ton of river stones. Hopefully we'll never have to fire her, but if we do, at least she will be pointing at the north bank of the Thames. That is where Rupert's flying army is ranging."

  By this time Onslow and all of his officers were on the bridge looking down at them. They wanted a demonstration, so Daniel gave them one. They eased both boats away from the quay, and then with the launch towing and the men on the barge steering with the sweep, they rowed a wide circle across the Thames and back.

  "Good enough," Onslow yelled down at them. "Now help me to organize my own barges and tugs."

  This took hours and hours to do. The solution to moving six hundred of Kingston's garrison along with a half dozen six pounders, tons of muskets and balls, and a magazine of gunpowder was to just begin loading. By the early hours of the next day, Onslow's fleet was ready to leave. It consisted of three small barges, three medium barges, six tow launches and a fast little pilot launch. The three small barges were unmanned, because each one was loaded with kegs of gunpowder and nothing else. They would be towed using long lines by three of the launches, with sixteen men on the oars in each.

  The three medium barges were loaded with ordnance but no powder, and were crawling with troopers, about a hundred and fifty on each barge. Sail cloth was tented over all the barges, on the medium ones to keep the men dry and on the small ones to keep the powder dry. Dry, because during the night there was a heavy, heavy dew and the Thames rivermen had warned them that the dew would turn into a dense mist come daylight. The men on the barges were pushing and shoving each other for space enough to lie down and catch some sleep under the sailcloth.

  Because the medium barges had lots of manpower for poling and sweeping, they were to be towed using shorter lines by three launches, each with but a dozen men on the oars. This was, after all, to be a run downstream with the current. The pilot launch was manned by local river men who knew every curve and bar on the river. Every .man on every boat carried a musket, except for Daniels men who carried pistols. Once every boat was loaded there was no sense in waiting around for daylight, so they pushed off and began the slow trip down the Thames.

  The pilot launch took the lead and showed a stern lantern, for the others to follow. Behind it was Daniel's launch and barge, then three sets of trooper barges with their tow launches, and then three sets of powder barges with their tow launches. While each of the trooper barges showed a lantern on the stern to guide the launch behind it, the powder barges carried no lights due to the risk of setting off the powder accidentally.

  At the first bend in the river the launches practiced steering their barges. Those towing the manned barges had no problems, but those towing the unmanned powder barges had a devil of a time working out the angles and speed needed to keep their barges within the channel and to stop them from drifting sideways with the current towards one shore or the other. After all of the barges were around the first bend, the pilot launch stopped rowing so that Daniel's launch could catch them up.

  "Damn," the pilot called out, "we should have had another pilot launch along to nudge them powder barges around the bends."

  "Once there is daylight," Anso called back, "you can come aboard our launch and we will take the lead, while your launch hangs back and nudges the barges."

  "Right you a
re," the pilot waved, "once there is daylight." His light, unencumbered launch then leaped forward on the oars to again lead them along the deepest of the channels.

  There never was a dawn. The mists rose from the damp banks, the mudflats, the backwaters and the eddy's of the great river and got denser and greyer. The dark of night became the dark of day. At times the fog was so thick that they could see neither bank. So thick that the line of boats had to slow and run closer together so that the lanterns could be seen to mark the course. Without any visibility ahead, the pilot launch had to keep to the lead, so at each great bend in the river the powder barges drifted, sometimes almost going aground on the mud banks. Due to the dry fall, the Thames was still very low and therefore the channel was narrow and the mud banks many.

  The only good thing that Daniel could think to say about the dense fog was that at least there were no other boats plying the channel. Anso mumbled that there was no other bugger as crazy as they were. No other boats, but there were sounds aplenty. Sounds carry well through the fog so they could hear the town of Richmond waking up long before they could see it. The sounds, normal sounds of voices, animals, tinks and clinks and wheels on cobble seemed to be just ahead and it had them all peering ahead waiting to see the loom of a church tower or a mill or at least a house. They had to wait a long time.

  Once they were beyond Richmond, and the sounds of that town were behind them, they heard other, more worrying sounds. Sounds from the north bank. Sounds of the hoofs of many horses moving in a hurry, shouts of command, and the rumble of heavily laden wheels. Occasionally a light breeze would lighten the fog and they could see both banks, but the same breeze often brought them a stench. The unmistakable stench of too many men and horses pressed together in a small space. The stench of an army.