Pistoleer: Brentford

by Smith, Skye

  A pushing match had broken out to see which of the men would help her down from the horse, but she waved them all away and kicked her leg over the saddle and slid down the great beast's flank. He heard her fling orders at these men, yes in a soft voice, and yes with a pleasing please said through a smile, but orders never-the-less. The men jumped to follow her orders and eagerly, for she had ordered them to wolf down the vitals from the first of the pots of food that were now arriving. Once they had eaten they were to keep with the women and carry the heavy pots of food along the battle line so the women could concentrate on dishing it all out.

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  The Pistoleer - Brentford by Skye Smith Copyright 2014

  Chapter 17 - Feeding the Lads at Turnham Green in November 1642

  So it was that the Green, Purple and Red coats were fed first. These were the men who had fought on empty stomachs for a full day already, and they were given the choicest of the food ... but not too much. Enough to stretch out their stomachs and keep them going but not enough to make them slow or sleepy. The procession of women and pots moved from north to south along the great two mile long line of parliament's regular army. All the while, a hundred yards across the chess board of fields, the king's army was going without. Calls drifted across no-mans-land offering muskets for food, but they were not taken seriously.

  "Surely the king has provided food for his own army," Britta said to Daniel as she held forward a half a pheasant, that a few hours ago had been prepared for a merchant's lunch, to a lanky lad in an ill fitting green jacket.

  "He will have provided for the cavalryers, but not for the infantry," Daniel replied walking beside her while leading the borrowed horse. "The king's infantry are allowed to eat only what is leftover by his gentlemen. He truly believes that this is the natural order of things."

  "Well then, I'll wager I can shorten this battle right now," and with that she swung herself into the saddle and turned the horse to walk it across no-mans-land.

  Daniel had been taken quite by surprise by her actions and he ran after her to take back the reigns and lead her back, but she was already ten paces beyond him. "Britta," he called out in a panic. "Come back. It's called no-mans-land for a reason. Anyone out there without a white flag is fair game for snipers."

  She must have heard and understood, for in view of two armies and thousands of men, she reached down, hiked up her hem, and ripped a length of while linen from her petticoat so she could wave it about as she rode closer to the enemy infantry. The cheers showed that she had the full attention of hundreds of bored men on both sides.

  "Oye, what's the mistress up to?" a puffing voice called out from behind Daniel. It was the cook from Warwick House. She was a formidable woman in her own right, never mind being in charge of the formidable household purse of that grand house.

  "I don't know, but I don't like it," Daniel told her. "Rip me off some of your petticoat and I will try to keep close to her." Despite waving the borrowed length of white linen, and despite carrying a steitaxt, his double barreled dragon, a killing pistol, and his pocket pistol, he felt quite naked while loping after the ravishing blonde on the tall hunter. Luckily she had the sense to stop well out of aimed musket range of the king's infantry.

  "We women of London are serving a fine luncheon to our men in the other line," she called out slowly with most pronounced tones to the king's infantry. "We have brought food a plenty and there is more on its way from London. Come and join us. Why die with empty bellies when you can live with full ones."

  At first, of course, the men who heard her words jostled each other and jested, but then one by one, they actually thought about what this pretty alewench was telling them. The odds were heavily against them. Parliaments infantry outnumbered them two to one, and were being supplied from London which was just to the east of them along a fast highway. They, on the other hand, had marched well out of reach of their own supplies and well out of range of relief from the reserves held in Reading and Oxford.

  True they could count on the Prince and his flying army to defend them if they needed to retreat, but would they get the chance to retreat, and would the flying army be of any use at all in this patchwork of fields and fences, walls and hedges. Men began to walk out of line and towards the enchanting angel on the tall horse.

  The thing about no-mans-land is that officers on both sides can see everything that goes on. The men were not yet to Britta when Daniel saw the worst of all possible news riding towards her ... a half dozen cavalryers dressed all in black. The bouncing float of their black cloaks showed that they were riding quickly, but whether to capture Britta or to cut off the defectors, Daniel did not know, and did not care. He began to run towards the trouble making lass ... his stepdaughter.

  The prancing crows did both. They came between Britta and the defectors and asked the men what was happening. The offer of food was mentioned, and most of the crows turned towards to defectors with raised sabres to enforce the order that they return to their lines. One of the crows broke away from the rest and kept riding towards Britta. This one was resolved to threaten the woman who had been urging the defections, but he never did scold her. Instead, as he closed on her, he called out sweetly, "Mistress, you are perhaps the most beautiful woman I have seen since leaving Bohemia. It may be that you are even more comely than Bohemian maids. You have kindly offered food to my men, so may I repay your kindness by inviting you to dine with me?"

  Daniel stopped in his tracks and turned his head so that this forward crow could not see his face. He knew the voice and the accent. This was Prince Rupert himself, and it would go badly for Britta if the prince recognized him from their bargaining for Lilburne's life. His mind raced. Now what. How could he protect Britta and get her back to the friendly line. A running body bumped into him and they both went down onto the ground. He hadn't realized that the Cook had been on his heels.

  "Join me my fair maiden," the prince said ever so smoothly. "I am Prince Rupert and I invite you to be my companion for this campaign. I can offer you a soft warm bed and maid servants and fine clothes. The palace at Windsor castle is still stocked with the finest of silk gowns left behind by the Queen when she and her ladies traveled to The Hague. You may take your pick of them."

  "You do not hold Windsor," Britta replied. "So it is an empty promise. Did you offer the same promise to any of the women of Brentford last night?" Now that she knew this man to be the prince, she was worried. Daniel cursed this man's name every time it was mentioned, and Daniel was a canny judge of character. He had slowed his horse but was still getting closer and closer. She urged her borrowed horse back towards her own lines, not in a panic mind you, and not in a hurry, for she did not want to cause the prince to make a rush for her. "Ask me again when you hold Windsor." Once she had turned, she realized that she had been followed out into this field by both Daniel and her good friend the Cook.

  "You, the prince," Cook called out. She had a sergeant major's voice from a decade of running dozens of girls in a grand kitchen. In that time she had held many a lord's head over a puke pail, and was not cowed by this young German prince. "You stay away from my girls, and you keep your offers to yourself."

  "Who are you? Her nanny?" Rupert sneered and did not slow his horse's pace. "I am offering her a new life, so be still."

  "Would that be the same new life you offered the women of Brentford," Cook snapped back. She held out the long knife she had been using to carve meat for the lads, and the point was straight up. "You lay a hand on her and I will carve off yer cock and hang it with yesterday's pheasants in my pantry."

  All of this time Daniel had been keeping his face hidden by looking towards Hampden's lines. Britta had been moving slowly towards those lines as she spoke. They were almost within musket range, and certainly within rifle range, if Hampden had any snipers in his company. Some of the musketeers who the cook had been feeding had followed her halfway into the field and now, seeing the crow so close to the a
ngel, they were priming their flash pans in case they needed to shoot someone.

  The prince saw all of this, and made his move. He had one chance to capture this divine creature for himself. He spurred his horse to leap towards her in hopes of grabbing the reins from her and lead her horse back to his own lines. There was a man standing behind the nanny, leading the nanny as she walked backwards and yelled threats at him. That man now swung out from behind the nanny to face him and as he did so he raised and aimed the fattest dragon he had ever seen. With a flourish he stopped and turned his horse away from the girl and raced back to his own lifeguard.

  Cook couldn't resist yelling out after the prince, "Aye, you'd best be running away, cause if you ever fall from your horse, I'll be claiming that rapist cock of yours with my carving knife!"

  Her words easily caught up with the prince along with the laughter of all the musketeers who had heard them. He joined the other crows in forcing all the defectors back into the line, now that wasn't enough to appease his frustration. He was angry and humiliated so he slashed his sabre at the back of the neck of a lad who was already walking back to towards his company. The lad fell to the ground, his neck spurting blood and almost severed through.

  Meanwhile, Daniel and the two women had made it to the safety of the group of musketeers who had run forward in Cook's wake. Cook was voicing the word "bastard" over and over, and the sergeant of the musketeers agreed with her and added. "The prince is a demon walking the earth. Black suites him and his other fiends."

  A call of "Where do you want to carve the rest of these, ma'am?" was asked of Cook from a dozen men carrying six spitted sides of roast beast, probably beef from the great slaughterhouses at Smithfields in Holborn. Many of the men who had volunteered to Holles's regiment had been apprentice butchers at Smithfields, so it made sense that their masters would have sent as much food as they could to feed them.

  Cook looked up and down the line of the regiments. Every man to the north of her had his round pot helmet off his head and was using it to hold food. She pointed south and called back, "Keep moving down the line until the food is gone," and she picked up her skirts and her pace to catch up to them. Britta gave Daniel a brush of her lips against his three day stubble and then picked up her skirts and followed Cook.

  Daniel should have followed them, but he had important words to say to the sergeant, one of Hampden's sergeants. "Them black cloaked buggers are a real danger to your colonel. I heard one of them say that the prince has offered him a thousand marks for Hampden's head. I've told John already but he brushed my warning aside."

  The sergeant stopped in his tracks and took another look, a good look, at the flowing black cloaks that were now moving south along the king's line of infantry. "Aye, John is like that. He thinks that all men are as moral and as honest as he. What you say troubles me deeply. The silly bugger thinks it endears him to his men if he rides with them into the breach. It just makes him a target."

  "Do us all a favour sarge, and the next time you see any black cloaks close to your colonel, tell your men to take a good aim and bring their horses down. That type will run for their mothers once they are dismounted."

  "An order that will be a pleasure to give, and a pleasure to follow. My men are itchin' to take down a few of the king's fine gentlemen despite the general's order to capture them unharmed if possible."

  "Can't ask better than that," Daniel told him as he grasped him hand to elbow in ancient warrior fashion.

  "For sure, now, I'll do much better than that," the sergeant said in a low voice. "I'll spread the word to all sergeants up and down this line that it is open season on men in black armour with black cloaks. Next time them buggers ride near to us, they'll be dodging a hundred musket balls."

  "If you bring down the prince, I will buy the ale."

  "If I bring down the prince, I'll not pay for a pint for years to come," the sergeant chuckled and then released Daniel's elbow so he could return to his men and start the word moving up and down the lines.

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  By the time Daniel caught back up to Britta, she and Cook were carving beef for the personal lifeguards of all the colonels and generals now meeting in the general's grand palanquin near the center of the line but more towards the highway. A man with grief etched on his face was standing outside the palanquin and as soon as he saw Daniel leading the tall hunter he walked over to speak with him. It was Denzil Holles, the colonel of most of the men who had been slaughtered trying to keep Brentford and its folks out of the prince's talons.

  "Danny, you needed to speak with me? That's what I was told on the quay," Holles called out.

  "It can wait. Don't you have more important things to discuss with Assex," Daniel replied.

  For an instant Holles smirked at what Daniel had called the man who had inherited earldom and fortune enough to be given command of this army. "Essex has no orders for a colonel who no longer has a regiment." There was heartbreak in his words and his face once again became the mask of a tragedy.

  "Well then, do you have time to see more of your regiment? The ones who were shot while drowning."

  "Damnation, this just gets worse and worse," Holles replied with a wail. "I'll be having nightmares for years. I won't be able to look a London mother in the face for years. Oh go on. Tell me the worst."

  Daniel did tell him. He told him of how he and his launch and barge had tried to save the men, but at how the kings musketeers kept shooting at them as they were drowning in the Thames. He told him about how many of the bloated corpses were still caught in a back eddy at the mouth of the river Brent. "My launch could take you to them so you could pray for them, that is, if that is what you would like," he offered.

  While Holles was deciding, the great general, Assex, came out of the palanquin full of bluster and indecision saying, "I cannot order the attack, no matter how we outnumber them. The king is finally suing for peace. Our peace envoys have been rebuked for a week, and finally today the king is taking our offers seriously." He was telling this to Lord Brooke, who was one of the leaders of the "war" party. That half of the Pym's Reform Party that wanted to beat the king into submission rather than pacify him.

  "He is only taking them seriously because we outnumber him," Brooke said with conviction. "All we need do is send some sappers to blow the Brentford bridge and we will have him trapped and cutoff from his reserves and supplies. He is stalling until he can find an excuse to withdraw from the field of battle. Attack, I say. Blow the bridge and put his back to the Brent. Then we'll have peace for sure."

  "I cannot," Assex replied. "We are in the middle of negotiations. Instead of rallying my officers to bloodshed you would be more help if you would get them to understand how important it is that none of our men break this truce. They must keep to their lines and not attack, no matter the provocation." He turned and saw a face he knew well and wanted to know better. She was carving thick slices of juicy meat off a full side of beef and handing the slices personally to his lifeguard. "Britta my dear," he called out.

  Britta turned at the call of her name and expertly hid her disappointment behind a practiced smile. "Just feeding your men something before the battle," she replied sweetly. "You will have better than this in your grand tent." She doubted it. She was carving prime rib, freshly roasted this morning at the great London meat market that was just down the road from Warwick House and therefore her house. The butchers had volunteered so much of it that they had also supplied a heavy dray-and-four to cart it all.

  The general was coming fast towards her, and the last thing she wanted was his usual clumsy attempts to hug her so he could squeeze her bum. She stopped his advance short by pointing a long carving knife at him. On the end of it was a choice slice of prime rib. Thankfully the man accepted the food and busied himself with chewing it down. Between chews, for never would a gentleman speak with his mouth full, he asked, "Was that Prince Rupert I saw you speaking with earlier in no-mans-land. I suppose he is also an admirer of yours.
"

  "In truth I was rebuking the prince for his harsh treatment of the women of Brentford," she lied. "He took amiss at the criticism. I fear that he is no longer my admirer."

  "That is for the best my dear," Assex said while licking his fat greasy fingers, "he is a blackguard with women, a most immoral character. German you know. And it shows on the battlefield. The man has no honor ... or perhaps too much."

  "Do wish me to have him shot, your grace?" Britta asked demurely. "I can snap my fingers and make it so."

  Assex didn't know how to answer her. Was she jesting? Was she serious? She was one of Warwick's stable, so she likely had some dangerous companions. Like that Captain Daniel, her supposed guardian. He was one of Warwick's dangerous men. He decided to answer with the candid truth, "Nay, lass, but thankee for the offer. The killing of the prince may sour our peace negotiations with the king." It must have been the wrong answer for she turned her back on him to serve the next man holding out his pot helmet. He took the opportunity to squeeze up behind her and grab her by the waist and pull her delightful bum into him.

  She let him. She actually let him for once, but only long enough to whisper in his ear. "Not here, not now, Robert. Not with me dressed as an ale maid and with all of your men watching. Would you mind terribly if I slapped your face, just to warn the men that they must not be grabbing at the women who are now feeding them.

  "If you must," he said, while letting her go and straightening up. "Ouch," he yelled at her slap, and then in a whisper, "you didn't have to make it look so well meant. May I expect you for dinner?"

  His question was interrupted by Colonel Skippon, his second in command. The man had walked out in a group of colonels from the palanquin and on seeing all of the men all around with their helmets off and in the sight of God, he took it upon himself to urge them to pray. "Come my boys, my brave boys, let us pray heartily and fight heartily. I will run the same hazards and fortunes with you. Remember the cause is for God, and for the defense of yourselves, your wives, your children. Come, my honest brave boys, pray heartily and fight heartily, and God will bless us."