Black Tom's Red Army

by Nicholas Carter

  The driver and his mate saw to the horses. Muffet peered down from the top of the coach.

  “I thought you wanted to..”

  “Miss Telling isn’t well. She needs some air.” Sparrow informed his elder sergeant, his features burnt bronze in the pealing heat.

  Sparrow dismounted, hooked the sorrel to the coach and hauled the door open to help the widow down.

  She fell forward, Sparrow staggering under the unexpected burden. He straightened, holding the limp body in his arms.

  “What’s up wiv ‘er?” Butcher wanted to know, peering over the roof of the coach.

  “She’s got the vapours. Have you seen the crack in the side of her head? Blow would have felled an ox, by the look,” Muffet observed, pointing the victim out with the stem of his pipe.

  Sparrow eased his arms under hers and lifted her gently to the river bank. She barely weighed a thing.

  The Kennet flowed briskly past, reeds buckling in the relentless heat. He laid her out in the warm grass, stood back over her like a robber.

  She was wearing a borrowed brown gown over a plain shift – a large bonnet pulled down over what was left of her hair and the broad bandage about her ear.

  He ought to loosen her clothing. But he dismissed the thought, locking the lid on the barrel-load of memories threatening to flood up through his nose and throat and drag him down to some awful underworld.

  By God’s wounds, he was battling temptation everywhere he turned. As if the fates had strewn his path with pretty, pouting pitfalls. Lady Caroline back in Leicester and now Bella, his old sweetheart. Testing his wavering resolve.

  He lifted her head, gently removed her bonnet and used it as an impromptu fan. Bella lolled in the grass, odd gasps and groans seeping from her twitching lips.

  Sparrow leaned over the bank, doused the bonnet in cold water and patted the small area of forehead visible behind her bandage. She muttered, stirring a little.

  “Alright there Will?” Muffet called.

  “Keep your voice down, we don’t want every damned Cavalier in the West knowing what we’re up to,” Sparrow replied.

  Bella opened her eyes, squinting against the over bright sunshine. Sparrow’s familiar features swam into her slowly settling vision.

  Heavily stubbled, a little leaner than he had been. Full lips parted over strong teeth. A strong, caring, careworn face. Comforting though, no matter how much he’d changed since their old life in Chipping Marleward.

  “You must have fainted.” He told her, untying the tankard from his belt and fetching her a chill draught from the cheerfully burbling brook.

  The water revived her. Blinking, she sat up with difficulty and straightened her bandage with her good hand.

  “Hell’s teeth, what must I look like?” she asked, mortified to find herself stretched out beside the river in the drab old gown. She reached for her bodice strings, tugged herself a breathing space.

  Sparrow sat back on his haunches, trying to find the self-discipline to drag his eyes away from her. A faery queen poised beside her water realm. A sunburst vision – despite the livid bruising staining her jaw and cheek.

  Where was Eagleton when you needed him, his black-caped conscience.

  “Where’s Edward?”

  “Asleep in the coach.”

  “How much further is it?”

  “You should know. We’re coming up on the Avebury Rings. Then we’ll turn south, skirt Devizes and head for Roundway. Eagelton said there’d be fewer patrols out on the downs. They’ve checkpoints on the main road.”

  “And then what?”

  “I was thinking Melksham, then Bradford. Come up on Bath from the south. I know the roads better round there. Just in case we run into trouble.”

  Bella took another draught of river water, visibly refreshing her cruelly assaulted complexion.

  “I haven’t been home in months, years,” she thought aloud.

  “Nor me. Not since the siege – before Roundway.”

  “You’ve changed,” she told him, changing the subject.

  “Hark who’s talking,” Sparrow replied. She smiled. For the first time in weeks.

  Sparrow remembered her as she had been that day outside Chipping Marleward, skirts flying as she leapt up and down on her father’s wool sacks. Tiny motes floating in the haze like tiny faery familiars.

  He’d lain back in the waggon, watching her cavorting and cartwheeling.

  The most breath-taking creature he had ever seen.

  Magical, touchable but...untouchable.

  They both thought of Hugo - poor dead Hugo. The absent friend. The dead lover.

  The rogue who had interrupted their revelries back in Somerset. Ridden into their lives like a pantomime villain on his fine prancing horse.

  By Christ she was right, they’d been children then. And Telling not much more, despite his kingfisher suit and fancy sword.

  Sparrow had felled him with a satchel full of pamphlets, spoiling his immature ambush. According to Eagleton, the New Model had done for him for good now.

  Leaving a massive, unspoken block of stone standing in the field between them, a miniature ring of their own.

  Telling had been his enemy, had tried to kill him on half a dozen occasions.

  But he was gone and Sparrow was still very much here and now. With his Bella.

  *************************

  “You’re looking much better,” Sparrow observed, standing up to relieve his aching muscles. Bella arranged her skirts, tugged her bodice a little tighter.

  “I’m feeling better now,” she agreed. “The coach, I just couldn’t breathe.”

  “It is hot,” he allowed, taking cover behind the weather. They could stand there all day talking about that, neither Eagleton or Telling could possibly find fault.

  Safe ground.

  “We ought to get on.”

  “Yes.” Bella held her pale hand toward him. Sparrow took it, lifted Bella to her feet and steadied her.

  “I did love him Will. I did,” she whispered.

  “Will!” Muffet called. Sparrow looked around at his elder sergeant, waving his hat from the top of the coach. Telling was standing beside the door, still groggy from the heat and interrupted sleep. He was staring at the couple beside the bridge as if he couldn’t recognise them. Sparrow took a pace away from her, still holding her hand. Observing all the proprieties.

  “Miss Telling needed some air. I fetched her some water,” he explained, helping her toward the great black carriage.

  Telling watched them approach, stony faced.

  “Time we were off Will,” Muffet advised.

  Telling stepped aside, helped Bella back into the coach. Sparrow replaced his hat, nodded at the silent minister.

  “He’s right. We’d best make tracks.”

  Telling raised his chin, thought better of whatever he was going to say and climbed in beside his wayward charge. She looked like a child, huddled against the worn leather upholstery.

  She was crying.

  He couldn’t think of the words to say.

  He never could around Bella. And he wasn’t the only one.

  By Holt church, Wiltshire, July 4, 1645

  Balls. Sparrow was wondering how long their luck would last.

  Holt Church. Familiar enough territory, thank God.

  They had taken a peculiarly circuitous route across West Wiltshire, following ancient avenues threading through the prehistoric landscape of long barrows and ghostly monuments. You could almost have imagined all the villagers and townsfolk thereabouts had been swallowed up by the faery landscape.

  There was no bugger about, that was for sure.

  After the highly strung stop at Overton they had continued past Silbury Hill, bare and brooding in the blistering sunshine. From there they had turned south, following the Devizes road as far as they dared given the fact the town still housed a small Royalist garrison. They had then veered West, following the windblown tracks across Roundway.

&nb
sp; Sparrow rode by the old battlefield in silence. Odd scraps of rag and broken weapons the only sign of the disaster which had overtaken Waller’s army two summers before.

  He’d shuddered to think of it, the total and utter defeat snatched from the jaws of an apparently easy victory. They had outnumbered the enemy cavalry and yet ended the day driven from the field like cattle.

  Into the hands of that rogue trader Clavincale, who had sold the pick of the prisoners to agents of the Spanish crown for service in Flanders.

  He remembered the bewildered faces, the questions and recriminations. The ensigns galloping off the field with the various regimental colours tucked under their arms.

  Best not to think of it now.

  The broad down had been as deserted as the Devizes road. Sheep on distant slopes. Sparrow remembered the Royalist squadrons spewing from the hidden folds and dips in the ground as if they had ridden post haste out of hell.

  By God their own horse hadn’t stood more than a few moments before being swept away, pursued off the down towards Bath.

  They had followed the switchbacked path off the steep down, horses snorting as they passed the charnel pit at the foot of the cliffs. The grass and furze still blackened and burnt where they had built bonfires to dispose of Haselrig’s dead horses. Grey bones and shattered rib cages – semi circular reefs of petrified ash. They hurried on, passed through Rowde attracting curious stares from wary villagers who hadn’t spotted their approach. Across the Ford and on again. Sells Green. Melksham. Better progress than they had dared hope.

  Sparrow had begun to relax.

  Two thirds of the way to Bath now - or at least the country south of Bath Sparrow knew so well. He knew all the backways and alleys, the shortcuts and hideouts. Might come in handy in case of...

  And then the shrill whistle from the dragoons up front.

  Sparrow had snatched off his hat to shield his eyes. Francy Snow waving up ahead. He could see civilians. Dozens of ’em. Formed up in their country smocks and rustic suits either side of an older gent on a big bay. They had a flag but Sparrow couldn’t make out the slogan it bore.Hardly a firearm between them, but blocking their road to Bath sure enough.

  “Clubmen Will. About a hundred of ’em,” Muffet called, shielding his eyes and peering up toward the village. Sparrow vaguely remembered the place, a long village green screened by willows and a good inn. A small smithy beside the Melksham road.

  “Who’s that fat old bugger with em?” Butcher asked, preparing his fowling piece. “D’you want me to take him out first Will?”

  “Hold your fire,” he growled. Sparrow replaced his hat. It had been bound to happen sooner or later. You couldn’t ride around the country where you pleased.

  Not while there was a war on at any rate.

  And they couldn’t risk a fight out here, not against that many. The clubmen could use the cover of the hedges, work around the flanks and close them in before they knew it. It was either turn and run, or negotiate with the buggers.

  “Hold your fire. Corporal Snow, bring your men back here,” he repeated.

  Francy did as he was told, covering the retreat of his nervous vanguard.

  The buggers up the road started cheering and hooting.

  Sparrow spurred his horse forward, the dragoons falling into line behind him.

  “They’ve a few fowling pieces, hidden by those willows,” Francy reported.

  “They don’t want a fight any more than we do. They’re just warning us off.”

  The corporal shrugged.

  “There’s nine of us well armed,” Francy suggested.

  “That’s nine of them down, and 99 to worry about. If we’re lucky. Stay by the coach. I’ll go and talk to them. We’ve got the pass.”

  Snow snorted something, cradling his firelock over the horse’s mane. Sparrow eyed him.

  “Clear?”

  “Aye,” Snow allowed, eyeing the exits off the steeply-verged lane.

  Telling had climbed down from the coach to see what the commotion was. He peered up at Sparrow, silhouetted against the bright evening sunshine.

  “Clubmen – just as Eagleton warned,” Sparrow reported.

  Country folk protecting their goods and livestock. The commissioner had been unable to determine which side they favoured. Apart from their own.

  “I will accompany you,” Telling said, patting his worn bible. “They’ll not raise their hands against a man of God.”

  Sparrow studied the distant mob, then glanced around at the red-faced chaplain. He seemed to thrive on these uncertain encounters, relish the chance to confront the fleshy demons which squirmed behind that tightly buttoned doublet. At Naseby, outside Leicester. He’d shown courage enough.

  As if determined to demonstrate some personal point of honour to them all. Or himself.

  Well why didn’t he just join up and have done with it?

  Sparrow raised his eyebrows but nodded anyway. He would be glad of the company, truth be told. At least some of the bloody clubmen might be tempted to take aim at the hulking minister rather than him.

  Sparrow felt unusually calm, considering he was out on his own rather than crammed in the block with all his men. You felt safe there, hemmed in so tight you could be lifted straight off your feet.

  Oh well. He was a captain, better start acting like one, he told himself as he walked the sorrel up the lane toward the mob of villagers.

  They stopped shouting.

  Sparrow held his hat out to his right, crown out.

  Showing the inside of your hat was equivalent of sticking two fingers up to them.

  “Afternoon all,” he called, just out of pistol shot.

  The old duffer on the horse peered at him. Threadbare finery, grey beard, black hat.

  “And who might you be, riding up here as if you own the place?”

  “Sparrow. Okey’s dragoons.”

  “Oaky what?”

  “Dragoons,” one of his retainers called out. Youngsters mostly, or old fieldhands. Armed to the teeth with whatever old junk had been lying around. Hoes and shovels, axes and staves. Too old or too young to have been drafted into Hopton’s replacement regiments.

  “Formerly with the Chipping Marleward militia,” Sparrow called back, matching the oaf’s broad West country accent vowel for vowel.

  “Chipping Marleward you say? Come back to help yourself have you? With the King’s men gone?”

  Sparrow wondered at that. Gone? Completely? Surely they hadn’t simply abandoned the West as well?

  “No need, we’ve brought our victuals. Flagon of cider wouldn’t come amiss mind. We’ve coin to pay for it,” he offered.

  The mob broke out chattering and pointing.

  The old fellow on the horse leaned over to speak to one of the youngsters. He snarled something, straightened up in the saddle.

  “How many of you?”

  “Me and my two comrades, six dragoons. The Reverend here, and a lady on her way to Bath, to take the waters.”

  “Just passing through then?”

  “We’d prefer to stay the night, send word ahead. We don’t want any trouble sir,” Sparrow offered.

  The crowd had inched forward, using the hedges as cover. But at least they were talking. As reluctant to come to blows as they were.

  Farm hands and village children creeping in the undergrowth, peering out at him as if he was some goblin lord come to eat them all up.

  “Come on in, where we can see you,” the old man called.

  Sparrow frowned. In for a penny. He kicked the sorrel on, as casual as possible.

  The tallest of the youngsters strode out and grabbed his bridle, giving Sparrow a filthy look.

  “Alright there mate,” Sparrow nodded. The older man walked his horse out to meet him, squinting at the heavily built officer.

  “We’re not your mates,” the youngster threatened.

  “Ash, leave off will you?”

  “It’s alright. I’m not one of the big chiefs,” Sparr
ow said conversationally.

  “I can see that,” the old duffer chuckled. “Sparrow. I know you from somewhere,” he tugged at his beard. “Bristol. Or Bradford.”

  “I worked in these parts before the war, for...”

  “Greesham’s. The printer’s boy. Not Will Sparrow?”

  “Aye. Apprenticed to Greesham.”

  The old man relaxed, turned to the crowd.

  “It’s Will Sparrow. What happened to that wall eyed piebald you used to ride? Jenny?”

  “Jasper.”

  “Jasper aye. Brute would kick you as soon as look at you. At least you’ve found yourself a prettier horse.”

  Sparrow smiled, unable for the life of him to place the avuncular commander.

  “What’s up lad, don’t you remember me? Blunt, Thomas Blunt. Blunt’s the butchers. And that’s my eldest, young Ashley.”

  Sparrow chuckled. He remembered him then. Always good for a pound of chops, when he’d made the long ride out to deliver his newsheets, bills of fare and miscellaneous papers.

  Tom Blunt.

  “You’d best come on in. What about that lot with you? We’ve had our fill of dragoons Will. The bastards have had every old hen, every sack of meal.”

  “No, they’re not bad sorts. And we’ve our own food too. I meant what I said about the cider though.”

  “Aye, you were always partial to a jug or three. Who’s your friend?”

  “Him? That’s our minister. Edward Telling.”

  “Good afternoon sir,” the minister called.

  Tom Blunt tipped his hat.

  “And to you sir,” Blunt said guardedly. Ministers didn’t guarantee good behaviour, not with this bunch.

  Parliament, back in the saddle after being chased out of the West two years since.

  “We would be obliged if your smith would attend to the horses. There’s good coin for your trouble.”

  Blunt nodded at the glowering youngster.

  “They’ll take what they like, we go offerin’ charity,” Ash replied.

  “We’ll pay. We’ve got half the New Model following along behind,” Sparrow warned, smiling broadly.

  The youth looked startled. The old man pondered this.

  A coach and four out on its own? Didn’t make much sense. Unless you had more of your friends following behind.