Pistoleer: Brentford

by Smith, Skye

  The field gun was lashed to the fore deck, and the kick of the damn thing caused the launch to leap backwards and Anso lost his balance and fell, but already the oars were turning the craft and digging in, and digging in hard. Anso grabbed up the two oars of the forward position and joined in at the same hard rate that the rest of the men were pulling with just one oar apiece.

  The launch was flying along under oar and away from the barge until Anso yelled out, "Hit the deck!" and there was a crash of bodies and oars as men did anything they could to hide behind the gunnels and cover their heads and ears and eyes. This was easier said than done because of the stiff bulk of their boiled leather buff coats. The good news was that they could flip up the thick collars to protect the back of their necks.

  "BANG" when the bomb as the fuse finally entered the inner chamber. "Whoompf," went the first keg of powder, and then "WHOOOOMPFFF" went a hundred more. The force of the blast hit them like a solid object and the rush searing air robbed them of breath and hearing, yet still none of them got up to take a look. And a good thing too, for then burning bits of wood and sail cloth began to fall on them. Large pieces first, then smaller, and then feather light. At that point they had to get up to use their pot-helmets to ladle water over each other and over the launch to put out the glow of a hundreds of embers.

  That was when the launch was tossed up like a toy boat by a wave of water that was like the ripple of a pebble in a pond but a thousand times larger. Daniel put his hands above his eyes to shield them from the still falling embers and he stared towards where the barge had once floated. Now it was just a mass of disjoint and splintered timbers surrounded by countless floating morsels of wood and kegs and canvas. He watched the plume of smoke rise and rise and rise like a summer thundercloud, like a mushroom of the gods ... and he remembered.

  He remembered the time a few years ago when he had lit the fuse that blew up the Dutch Hellburner fireship that had forced the Spanish Armada to cut their anchors free at the Downs. He remembered the shock and awe and the terror of such power. He remembered the searing breath, and the falling debris, and the mushroom cloud ... and then he remembered something else. Afterwards, the mist had risen from the water all around and created a dense white fog that smelled of fire and brimstone.

  "Row damn yee," he yelled out. "Those of you who were at the Downs must remember the fog after the Hellburner blew up. The fog. The fog. We must get back down river and keep ahead of the fog." Even as he spoke wisps of mist were rising up from the water around the remains of the barge as if the water was in a kettle and ready to boil. The crew, of course, couldn't hear a word of what he was saying for their ears were still ringing. To get them to sit up and row he had to jerk at Uve, the closest oarsman to him, and pantomime the act of rowing.

  The silence after the explosion was deafening, or perhaps they were just all deaf. The river, now that the giant ripple had done its run, had gone eerily flat and still, and everywhere there was a mist rising. Had the muskets also stopped firing, and the cannons. They could hear none. They put their backs into their oars and rowed double time to catch up to the one powder barge that was still under tow. It didn't take them long to overtake it, but even by that time they were being followed by a billowing fog that was thicker than anything they had rowed through this morning.

  It was the calls from the tillerman of the powder tug that proved to them that they were all still deaf. They yelled back that they were all deaf, so the tillerman pantomimed his message. Or rather he pointed to the other powder barge. They all looked. It was drifting in the current. It was being pushed by the current towards the Brent bar and was sure to lodge itself up against the crippled troop barge that had now been successfully run aground.

  Daniel changed course slightly and ran up behind the grounded troop barge while being very careful to keep the bulk of the barge between them and the musketeers on the shore who were exchanging fire with the troopers on the barge. As soon as he was within hailing distance he began yelling to those on the barge. "You must surrender. You must give yourselves up. You must get off the barge and wade along the bar and give yourself up as prisoners."

  Eventually someone took notice of what he was yelling and mouths wagged back to him, but he could not make out the words. Even when they were closer, he could make out the sounds but not the words. He ignored what they were saying and instead yelled out his reasoning. "The powder barge. The men on the shore don't know that it is a powder barge. If they hit it with something that sparks, then you will all be blown to pieces, them and you."

  They did not seem to understand. Daniel was loosing his patience. Hadn't they seen the other powder barge explode. The musketeers on the shore may only have heard it blow, but while the stern of this barge was aground only twenty yards from the shore, the bow was sticking out into the river. Those on the bow must have seen the explosion. The must realize the danger they are in. He yelled the same words again and again. "You must surrender. You must go ashore and flee away from the powder barge."

  Finally an officer on the barge seemed to understand and he waved an acknowledgement and then waded through his men to make his way to the stern to hail the musketeers on the shore. From somewhere he had found a length of white cloth and he was waving it and mouthing something to his own men. The gun smoke that had been rising as a continuous cloud from the muskets on the barge, was no longer spewing forth. They had stopped shooting.

  "Bugger," came a call from the bow. It was the first spoken word that Daniel had heard and understood since the explosion. He fingered his ears in a vain attempt to open them wider. The voice had been Anso's and he was pointing ahead as they drifted around the bow of the troop barge.

  Daniel couldn't see anything to swear about. From his viewpoint in the stern he could see that the one powder barge that was still under tow was slipping around the bend with the help of the current, and one of the other launches. He could see that the two other troop barges were now safely around the same bend and nudging in closer to the bank to be out of the line of fire from the cannons. A situation that had been well on its way to being a complete disaster was now only half a disaster. And then they were beyond the grounded barge and finally he saw what Anso had seen.

  Their own barge, the one that had been plucking drowning men from the water, had run aground on the far bank of the River Brent at the point where you could even say it was the bank of the Thames. Their own cargo of ten field guns were now stuck in the mud and surrounded by mudflats. Yes, the original crew of ten was now thirty or forty but how many exactly he was not sure of, for many of them were lying down. The additional crew meant that at least some of Brentford's defenders had been rescued from the river.

  And then he realized that the mudflats around their barge were not mudflats at all. It was hundreds of bodies. Men half floating face down and being oozed about by a back eddy, bobbing and slurping and bumping against the barge. He changed course and did a wide circle around the end of the bar to keep out of range of muskets until he was downstream of his own barge, and then he cut in close to shore and the launch moved towards their barge until the crew refused to row anymore. They could not touch water with the blades of their oars without pushing the oars against bodies.

  The pilot launch was in the lee of the barge, with the crew resting over their oars, exhausted. The pilot called out, "We've tried but we cannot budge her. The extra men have weighed her down onto the bottom. She's a beached whale, she is."

  Despite the disasters all around him, Daniel was actually pleased that he could hear all of the pilot's words, and he replied. "Then lets get the men off the damn thing and we'll tug her off with both our launches."

  Their planning was interrupted by a loud call from the shore. "There are fifty muskets aimed at you. Keep your hands where we can see them and identify yourselves."

  Daniel stood so he could better see who was hailing him, and he replied with, "We have been sent by Colonel Onslow of Kingston with troops and munitions to rel
ieve Brentford. What are your orders?"

  "To get the fuck out of here. We can't hold the Brent River bridge so we are doing a staggered retreat towards Old Brentford to form another line. Are those your troops on the barges down river. Will they follow my orders to be deployed? There is a quay just downstream from the town where they can disembark."

  "And who are you?"

  "Captain William Burles of Holles's Redcoats, at your service."

  "Is Denzil with you?" He meant the Member of Parliament, Colonel Denzil Holles.

  "Nay, he has ridden to London to hurry Essex and the army out of the city."

  Daniel asked the pilot to carry the captain's order down stream to the other barges, and once the pilot's launch was moving he called back to the captain. "We've plucked some of your men out of the Thames. They will need help to get off this barge and back to your lines. Will you see to that."

  "Yep, and right fuckin' now. I don't know how much longer we can keep Rupert's cavalryers from charging across the bridge."

  "We have a cannon and some exploding shot," Daniel called out. "Do you want us to try to blow the bridge?"

  "I want that more than I want my next breath," the captain yelled back. "I'll send a runner to warn the last men on the barricade to watch out for you."

  "Back us out of these bodies, lads," Daniel ordered. "Anso, start loading the bow gun with another bomb. I'll load the stern gun with a canister of grape, just in case we have trouble getting up the River Brent."

  "Just in case there is trouble," Anso called back sarcastically. "Why ever would there be trouble, what with the Devil Prince and his flying army not three hundred yards upstream. And don't you be tipping over this launch with that sideways gun of yours. You give us lots of warning so we can balance her recoil."

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  The Pistoleer - Brentford by Skye Smith Copyright 2014

  Chapter 15 - The Devil Prince at Brentford in November 1642

  They never did get a shot at the bridge. The fall had been too dry so the Brent River was not yet in flood, so it was too shallow for even this light launch to navigate up within sight of the bridge. And they did have trouble, lots of trouble, for on the western bank of the Brent some of Rupert's men were throwing a noose over a low branch of a giant oak and were getting ready to hang someone. All around the poor victim was a throng of cavalryers waiting for the spectacle, and a company of enemy musketeers. All of these men were now more curious about the launch nosing into the little river, than in the victim, a man who seemed to be either saying a last prayer or giving a speech.

  The safety of the launch was immediately perilous and the crew stopped rowing and prepared to back them out of the river as quickly as possible. They didn't have a hope of outrunning musket balls, and already a dozen muskets were being raised in readiness to aim at them. Daniel did the only thing he could think of. He waved a torn flap of singed sail cloth as a white flag.

  "Do you surrender," a cavalryer officer called out as his horse stepped closer to the launch. "This seems to be our day for taking prisoners off boats."

  Daniel had no desire to become a prisoner, so he played for time. "Nay, we have come in peace to negotiate the release of the man you are about to hang."

  "We will not release Captain Lilburne. He is to swing for sure. He has slandered the king and is a proven traitor and rebel."

  The name made Daniel remember where he had met the victim before. This was the eloquent Captain Lilburne who Venka had schooled at the council meeting in Fishtoft. He didn't have time to ponder the thought however, because the very tall officer dressed in black armour who was sitting on a grand horse next to Lilburne was signaling to some other cavalryers also dressed in black. "Back us out of here," Daniel hissed to the crew, and the launch lurched backwards immediately. "Get us into deeper water, quickly."

  What Daniel had seen was that a handful of black garbed men were now circling behind the line of musketeers to come at the launch from the rear. This had not made him more fearful and more ready to surrender, but instead had filled him with hope for an easy escape. If he could bait the cavalryers into coming between the launch and the musketeers, then the musketeers couldn't risk a volley. That would give his crew only five or six mounted men to worry about, and the horses of those men would be stepping into deepening water with a muddy bottom.

  To gain time he waved the white cloth again and called out, "You must respect our flag of truce. We came on a mission of mercy." He kept his eye on the musketeers, watching for any motion to warn him of an impending volley. These would be the same men who had been shooting at drowning men. Would they even know the meaning of the words 'respect' and 'mercy'.

  The delay had worked. Five black cavalryers broke through the ranks of the musketeers and careened into the river towards the launch. They miscalculated how quickly a light launch could be set in motion by ten strong Frisian backs. By the time they reached the launch, splashing and churning in water deeper than they had expected, they were attacking the bow, not the stern, and the wave caused by their horses was pushing the launch into deeper water, instead of blocking off its retreat. By the time the five reached the launch and looked down at the men in it, they found themselves facing a cocked dragon in every hand, and so they immediately wrenched their horses around and shied away.

  All of course except for the lead rider who had tried to slash his sabre across the neck of the giant man standing beside a small cannon lashed to the bow of the boat. To his shock he had found out the hard way that an oar has a much longer range than a sabre. Anso had bounced his oar up off the gunnels and then swung it around in an arch that smashed into the man's neck and knocked him backwards out of his saddle. Since the horse was still moving forward it almost looked as if the rider had stopped in mid air and been held above the horse by the oar. But then he crumpled down on top of the cannon and Anso kept him pinned there as the other oarsmen each pulled at an oar one handed to back away from the cavalryers and into even deeper water.

  Not a shot had yet been fired, and Daniel was quick to hold the white cloth up high again. "We now also have a prisoner," he called out, this time not to the original spokesman, but to the tall man in black beside Lilburne. "Notice that he is stretched out over the barrel of our cannon. If you hang Lilburne, then please believe that we will blow this mans guts into your faces."

  Anso called softly from the bow, "Enough Danny. We can use him as a shield against the muskets. Let's be away while we still can." They both knew that the gun was loaded with a bomb and if Anso fired it while the man covered the muzzle, then the bomb or the cannon or both would explode and kill them all.

  Daniel nodded in agreement, but before he could signal the oarsmen to back further out of the river, the tall man beside Lilburne called out, "You will release my captain, and you will release him now."

  The words were a shock to Daniel not because of the meaning, but because in the man's urgency he hadn't spoken in English but in German. From his Frisian and Dutch, Daniel knew enough German to respond in kind. "If you promise not to harm your prisoners, especially Lilburne, then I will release your man unharmed, and hand him to you here and now. Do I have your word?"

  The man stretched over the muzzle let out a muffled cry. He had just regained his senses to find his crotch blocking a muzzle. His must have lost control of his bowels, for there was a sudden whiff of latrine.

  "Nein, you do not have my word," the tall man replied still in German, "But this promise I will make you. If you harm my old friend, then I will execute all of the prisoners I have captured today. There are nearly five hundred of them. One German knight is worth five hundred English dogs, wouldn't you say?"

  Why hadn't he thought of it before. This tall man was not a captain or even a colonel of the Prince's horse. This was the prince himself. The devil prince of the Rhine, Prince Rupert. Daniel switched to English and called out loudly so that everyone on the bank could hear his words, "So your highness, you claim
that the life of one German knight is worth more than the lives of five hundred English infantry dogs." He stopped speaking for a moment so his words would ring in the ears of the prince's English troopers. "Then release all of your prisoners and let them walk over the bridge to safety, and this knight is yours and unharmed."

  It was then that Lilburn loosened the noose around his neck so that his strong voice could boom out. "Nay, nay, nay. You are both wrong to be doing this ... bargaining for men’s very lives like Lucifer himself. A killing on a battlefield is an act of war, but the killing of a surrendered prisoner is murder and nothing less. Both sides in this war must agree to treat all prisoners well, as you yourselves would want to be treated if you are captured. The future cost of not agreeing to this is too high. It will surely lead to eye for an eye vengeance and this small war between gentlemen will become treacherous and bloody in the extreme. Lex Talionis is an abomination and we must treaty against it."

  The prince was ignoring the words of the man in the noose. Instead he was looking at the effect that his own translated words was having on his own musketeers. To a man they had lowered their muskets and were now looking along their column towards Lilburne. "Speak English you burke," one of them blurted out. The prince didn't know if the comment was meant for him or for Lilburne.

  "If you let my knight go immediately then I will not hang Lilburne immediately," the Prince called out, this time in English. "I will leave that order to be given by the king."

  Daniel wasn't really paying attention. The current had drifted them into a deeper and wider part of the River Brent. He was giving hidden signals just to Uve for some light touches on his oar to slowly turn them about. As the launch slowly spun in place his sideways facing stern cannon changed its heading and the aim slowly moved along the ranks of the prince's musketeers. It was loaded with grape. At this range it could knock down ten musketeers like they were skittles.