Women of Courage

by Tim Vicary

  “Fire, then, you bugger!” Adam heard a terrible voice roar. There was a huge echoing clang! and he felt his head knocked sideways. He closed his eyes, felt himself staggering, and then opened them to see Tom’s pike ripping the blue intestines out of the man’s stomach. He realised his helmet had been hit, and the voice had been his own.

  He stumbled forward, past the man, and then suddenly slumped to his knees. John Spragg bent to help him, his hand on his shoulder.

  “Leave him, soldier! Keep your line!” roared the sergeant. John hesitated and then was gone, pushed onward by the ranks behind. Adam put his hands on the grass, and stared at it until it stopped spinning and the humming in his head was quieter. He put his hand to his helmet and felt the dent where the musket ball had glanced off it. There was no hole. Something hot and wet dripped past his left eye. He put his hand up and it came away red. He remembered the man who had shot him and whipped around in a sudden panic. But there was no danger. The man was dying, twitching in a heap with the bloody mess of his entrails on the grass beside him, his mouth stretching open in a scream without sound.

  ‘I should kill him,’ Adam thought, ‘I should stop that agony.’ His suddenly shaking hand reached for his musket but even as he did so the man’s back arched in a final jerk, a faint gargle came from his throat, and he died, his sightless eyes staring at the buttercups above his head.

  “Oh Lord, help us poor sinners,” Adam muttered. “Be with us now and at the hour of our death.” He felt a momentary surge of disgust and pity for the man who had tried to kill him and was now dead; and then he felt fear for himself and forgot the man completely.

  He looked hastily around the field. The others had gone on. He was alone and terribly vulnerable. At any moment a horseman might cut him down as Tom had. But there were no royal troops coming his way; only a few disorganised horsemen putting up a desperate fight against a line of pikes and muskets; and nearer at hand, a man crawling jerkily out of the way of the advancing company from Taunton. He heard a volley, screams and cheers, from the lane, and looked down the hill to see his own company lining the hedge and firing down into the lane. He had to reach them; only with them he would be safe.

  “Hey, lads, wait for me!” He got to his feet, and staggered sideways as the faintness came over him; but he stayed upright, leaning on the musket, until the faintness passed, and then made his way forward at a careful, stumbling walk to the hedge. He leant against the bank beside William Clegg, gasping for breath.

  “Adam! Your face! ‘Tis all blood, man!” Adam peered at William, wiped his hand across his forehead, and stared stupidly for a moment at the blood. Beyond his hand, the hedge seemed to be swaying strangely. He gave his friend what he meant to be a smile.

  “‘Tis all right, I’m spared yet! And you’re not so beautiful yourself ...”

  A volley of shots from the lane hummed past them, and Adam saw a white blaze appear on a branch just by William’s head. There was a scream from down the line. Sergeant Evans’ furious bullroar rose above it as he strode along the line behind them.

  “Come on, move, you soldiers! Draw forth your scourers! Shorten them! Charge with bullet! Quickly now! Ram it home!”

  The trained response pierced the confusion in Adam’s mind. He seized his scourer guiltily and then put it back as he realised his musket was still loaded. He set it in its rest instead and looked through the hedge, down into the lane, seeking a target and waiting until he got the order to fire.

  The lane was choked with men and horses, some struggling to form into order, others struggling to escape. To his right Adam saw a cluster of royalist horsemen in blue coats attempt to charge the line of men under Colonel Vincent, who blocked the lane into the village. But the royalists had to slow down to guide their horses through the litter of dead and wounded men and horses in front of Vincent’s regiment, and a shattering volley poured into them from the hedges on either side of the lane, followed by another from the blockade. Only three or four of the dozen royalists reached the line, where they discharged their pistols, slashed wildly with their swords at the pushing, threatening pikes and scythes, and then hurriedly retreated.

  “Cock your muskets! Guard! Present!” Adam saw an officer on horseback waving his sword furiously and yelling to get his men together. He sighted on the man’s hip as he sat sideways on to the hedge.

  “Fire!” Through the smoke after the great boom and kick, he saw the officer’s horse rear wildly and plunge forward into a group of dismounted dragoons. blood pulsing from a wound in front of the saddle. All around it other horses and men were staggering and falling, the movement in the lane now definitely an impulse to escape rather than attack.

  “Hip and thigh! Smite ‘em, Lord! Smite ‘em!” He heard a wild, high yell of triumph from William Clegg, and on his left, the voices of Israel Fuller and John Spragg raised in a psalm of triumph.

  “Come on, boyos! Half-cock your muskets! Clean your pans! That’s it, now! Look to your primers. ‘Twas a good volley, lads, one more like that’ll finish ‘em! Prime! Shut your pans!” The sergeant’s orders came like a song now, too, but never for a moment did the Welshman stop or relax his urgency. And so on through the long drill until the muskets were ready again, in a little under two minutes. Adam saw the hedge sway again for a moment, and had to pause and lean against the bank until it was clear to him which was musket and which was scourer, but at last he was ready. And they were winning!

  “Fire!” Again the boom and smoke, and through it the sight of the grenadier he had aimed at stumbling drunkenly round in a slow circle, his arms waving stupidly as though to ward off something from his face, before his knees gave way and he crashed over onto his back. This time the pikemen advanced into the lane, their long hedge of steel pushing the remainder of the royal troops back down the lane to where they received another withering volley from the Taunton company. A surviving couple of dozen scrambled away through the hedge, and then there were none. All the royal troops had fled in front of them!

  A great cheer of triumph rose all along the line. The men in the lane waved their muskets and pikes to those lining the hedges, and Adam and William waved back, ecstatically. Then the men in the lane reloaded their muskets and marched off to the left, where firing could still be heard.

  But Adam’s part in the battle was over. He stood in the line for about ten minutes, and cheered again hoarsely as he saw King Monmouth ride hurriedly past on a white horse to confer with Colonel Wade. But the effort was too great; his knees began to shake uncontrollably, and he sat down sharply, like a dropped sack.

  John Spragg knelt beside him. “What is it, boy? Are ‘ee hurt bad?”

  “No, no. ‘Tis just my head ...” But though he tried Adam could not get up. He leant weakly against the bank of the hedge.

  “Don’t worry, us’ll get ‘ee to the surgeon.” The deep voice of John Spragg rumbled comfortingly in his ear.

  William Clegg eased Adam’s helmet off and mopped his face with a rag torn from his shirt. “Proper scarecrow ‘ee look with all this red on thy face, Adam. I reckon ‘twas the sight of it that sent all King James’s soldiers running just now. But you’d best wash afore you sees Mary again, I think. ‘Er’ll send ‘ee straight out the house, else.”

  But though Adam tried to join in the steady, comforting banter that was going on around him, he found that the words would not come. He was tired, and he began to forget where he was, and why he was there. He looked away, letting his eyes focus idly on the horizon. The last thing he saw, before he collapsed, was a group of three riders, two of whom looked like women - women? - on the crest of the steep hill to the north-east.

  32

  “IT’S HORRIBLE! Truly horrible! All those poor brave men killed and wounded!” Marianne shook her head disbelievingly, tears in her eyes. “Where is my Lord Feversham and John Churchill? What can they be doing?”

  “There are some more soldiers coming from the right, my lady. The others are running to them. Perhaps they w
ill give the rebels a better fight.” Simeon pointed to the north, where a group of horse, in fact commanded by Lord Churchill, were beginning to give some protection to the hurried retreat of the surviving foot of Captain Hawley’s advance guard, which had been so decisively routed. About five hundred yards behind them the main body of the royal army was drawing up in a ploughed field to face the advancing rebels.

  Ann said nothing, but sat silently, her whole body tingling with horror and joy. There were tears in her eyes too, but they were tears of gratitude, that the Lord had heard her prayers and was giving Monmouth the victory! Despite the haughty insolent confidence of all the royal officers she had been surrounded by for so long, the victory was going to her own people, the ordinary good honest religious people of Colyton and Lyme and Taunton! It was really happening, here in front of her own eyes; her father and Tom and William Clegg and John Spragg and Roger Satchell were decimating the royal dragoons and grenadiers and horsemen, sending them scurrying like rabbits back where they had come from! The Lord God had remembered them all!

  She knew that Robert might be killed, as might her father or Tom or any one of them, and the thought filled her with horror; but greater than her horror and fear for their lives was her sense of the importance of the Cause, and her vengeful joy at the victory.

  She felt Marianne’s eyes upon her, and realised she was smiling.

  “Ann! How can you look at it like that? Don’t you find it horrible?”

  “I knew it would be horrible, Marianne. I have been with the army already.”

  “But how can you talk of it so lightly? Those same soldiers rescued you from the cruelty of the rebels. Where would you be now if it were not for them, you ungrateful girl?”

  “With my father.” The truth came very soft and quietly, so that she was not sure Marianne had heard or understood what she had said. So she spoke more clearly. “I would be with my father, Marianne, and my betrothed, who are down there now with the men of my village, fighting for our King Monmouth and the true religion. The story Robert told you was a lie. He rescued me, or at least found me alone in a wood, but only because I had nearly been raped by some of Lord Churchill’s dragoons - those men down there, who you feel such pity for! They raped the two young schoolgirls who were with me - one of them still hasn’t been found. I suppose Robert lied because he was ashamed to tell you what his own men were like.”

  Marianne stared at her aghast, her usually cheerful face blank with the double shock. Ann noticed how the beauty patch on her cheek stood out sharply against the sudden pallor of her skin. “But ... you are a rebel, then! And your father too?”

  “Yes, Marianne. I didn’t wish to pretend, but it was Robert’s idea. Lord Churchill knew it too.”

  “And I sheltered you in my house, and lent you my clothes, and my horse.”

  “It was really most kind of you, Marianne. I am most grateful. I didn’t mean to deceive you.” Ann was suddenly conscious of the careful calculating look in Simeon’s eyes as his horse edged in her direction. She kicked the little pony smartly in the ribs, so that her last words flew over her shoulder as she trotted downhill. “I shall remember your kindness, if our army comes to Bath!”

  And then she was away, concentrating on the ride, guiding the little pony as quickly as she could down the slope towards the soldiers of her father’s army. Good little pony - don’t stumble now, whatever you do! She ducked as she rode through a little clump of low trees, pulling him sharply to one side to avoid a group of startled sheep, and then came out onto a smooth sloping meadow.

  She looked back. Simeon was still slithering cautiously down the first part of the slope, and Marianne sat where she was. Even as Ann watched, Simeon’s horse slipped, and the old man lurched forward in the saddle, clinging round the horse’s neck to stay on. He would never catch her now.

  She reined in, and looked up at Marianne on the hilltop. She felt grateful to her, even now. Had Marianne been so kind just because she had thought it had been the rebels who had attacked Ann, and because she wanted to help Robert make her his mistress? Had that been all? Ann waved tentatively as she rode on, but there was no response.

  At the foot of the field she turned left, to avoid any fleeing royal soldiers, and approached the army in a wide sweep that took her between their own lines and the village. As she came closer she wondered what she should say. If she could find her father’s regiment it would be easy, but there were thousands of men down there, all busily engaged in deploying for battle. They had no time for lost girls. And if she did find her father, he would hardly be pleased to see her now, when he thought she was safe at home.

  But in the end it was easier than she had thought, for no-one had time to take any notice of her. She reached the lane just as two field-guns were passing along it, the sweating teams of horses urged on by an excited troop of gunners and their officer. Ann found herself squeezed into a gateway while they passed. A hand caught her stirrup and she looked down to see a face looking up at her; an old, simple face, of a man about her father’s age, tired and anxious, black with stains of gunpowder round the mouth and right cheek.

  “Miss? Do ‘ee know where surgeon’s to? Have ‘ee seen him?”

  “No ….why?”

  “‘Tis Davy there. ‘E’s got a ball in the neck and ‘e’s still bleedin’, whatever I does. But ‘e’s not dead yet, ‘e’s still breathin’. I reckon surgeon could save ‘un if only I knew where ‘e was to!”

  He waved at a younger man who was lying weakly in the hedge, a wet, bloody bandage round his neck.

  “I don’t know.” She looked helplessly round at the lane and fields, thick with marching men and horses. Where would Nicolas Thompson, or any other surgeon, be amongst all these? “Perhaps ... I think he’ll be in the villlage.”

  “If only us could get ‘un there. I’m sure surgeon could save ‘un!” The man looked desperately at his friend, whose eyes opened weakly for a moment, and then closed. But ‘e’s bleeding like a pig, an I can’t stop it.”

  It was true. It was hard to see where the bandage ended and the neck began, there was so much blood. Ann felt sick to look at him. What could she do? Even if she could find the surgeon in the village, the man would have bled to death before she could bring the surgeon back here. And what would he do if he came? She remembered what Nicolas Thompson had said when she had helped him with the wounded men at Chard. “If a wound’s bleeding, pressure will stop it, nothing else. Bind it up tight and let the pressure stop it.” He had shown her how to put a tourniquet on an arm or a leg, but that was dangerous, he said - the bloodless flesh below the tourniquet could die, and then the limb have to come off. So she could not put a tourniquet on a neck; but should that bandage be tighter, perhaps?

  “Hold the horse. Let me see him.” She dismounted quickly and gave the reins to the soldier. He looked startled.

  “But surgeon ...”

  “There’s no time for surgeon. I worked with him. Let me try.”

  The man’s neck was slippery with the warm blood, everywhere, so that at first she could not find the wound. Then she moved the bandage, a strip of loosely tied cloth, and her fingers found the dark hole in the side of the neck. The blood was not pulsing out of it, but slowly filling it like an inexhaustible well. She gulped down her disgust, and turned to the man.

  “We need a tight bandage. Where ..? I know, his shirt. Help me get his coat off. We’ve got to tie it up with his shirt.”

  The thick leather coat was difficult to get off, especially as the wounded man alternated between feeble resistance and helpless lolling, but at last they did it, and the man tore the thick woollen shirt apart into long strips.

  “Now, a pad. Look, we’ve got to press hard on it.” She folded part of the shirt into a thick pad and pressed it down hard over the wound.

  “Tie that tight over it. Round here and under his arm. As tight as you can. Mind his throat - he must be able to breathe.” The tightness of the bandage forced the man’s head away from t
he wound, onto his shoulder, and his opposite arm up, so that they had to tie it down to his side, but when they mopped up some of the blood it seemed to Ann that there was less coming. The pad and the bandage were red, but not soaking.

  “I think we’ve staunched it,” she said, sitting back uncertainly. If they hadn’t, she didn’t know what else they could do.

  “I think we have too. And ‘e’s still breathing.” The man bent forward to listen to his friend’s breath, and cleaned a smear of blood from his nose. “Oh Davy, Davy, don’t ‘ee go to the Lord just yet! Us’ll save ‘ee - just ‘ee hang on, now! Oh thank ‘ee, miss, thank ‘ee, miss! You saved ‘un for me!”

  “I hope so,” said Ann. “But he’ll still need the surgeon. I don’t know what to do next.”

  “Let ‘un rest yer, miss, maybe, now ‘e’s not bleeding. I’ll stay with ‘un now and fetch ‘un back to surgeon soon as I can.”

  “Yes, perhaps. I don’t know what else to do.” Ann looked at the pale, limp figure slumped in the grass of the gateway. Probably there was more a surgeon could do, but they did not yet know where the surgeon was, and for the two of them to attempt to carry him in this state would probably make things worse. “I’ll go and look for the surgeon, and see if I can send someone back for him.”

  “Right, miss. Thank ‘ee again.”

  She got on the pony and rode purposefully down the lane towards the village, urging the pony down the side of the lane against the advancing tide of troops. Some of them glanced at her curiously, but these looks did not hurt. She was no longer imprisoned and vulnerable, a prey to every man who could catch her and force himself on her, but her own free person again, with a purpose, a part of the great collective movement of the whole army. She smiled back at the soldiers, and spurred the pony forward.

  33

  ADAM HEARD the rattle of musket-fire again, and saw the smoke puff from his own barrel. Yet there was no noise. The smoke enveloped him and he tossed his head from side to side to see what was happening. He heard the cheers of his own side, and saw Tom and the pikemen charging forward, spearing the helpless enemy on the ground. “It’s good, he’ll be all right,” said a voice, and the blue steaming entrails burst out of the enemies’ stomachs, more and more of them, writhing on the grass like snakes. The snakes caught men around the ankles, and dragged them down to devour them.