Black Tom's Red Army

by Nicholas Carter

  Sparrow looked from the straight-faced colonel to his red-faced wife, sitting up with the bedclothes deployed as hasty fortifications around them. Her shoulders and chest were starkly white compared to her tanned neck and face. Long summers toiling in Sir Gilbert’s haphazard household.

  “The governor? What’s he got to do with the price of fish? It was your Welsh boys he was worried about, not us!” Sparrow exclaimed, climbing into his breeches and tucking his soiled shirt into the waistband.

  “Well there you are - you can be sure he has not simply picked on your party.”

  Porthcurn unfolded the order he had obtained from Sir Thomas last thing the previous evening.

  By Heaven, Bella was sharp. Quarantining them had been her idea. Detaining Sparrow’s party long enough without compromising Porthcurn’s precious honour.

  She had suggested the scheme whilst they climbed back into their clothing after their encounter in the pool. Bella apparently regarded ‘taking the waters’ as some kind of euphemism.

  Porthcurn couldn’t help grinning at the memory. By God, her pale figure in that green water. Like some mermaid of legend. The way the water jewelled her…

  Sparrow narrowed his eyes, wishing he wasn’t seeing double.

  “What’s so funny, is this some kind of jest?” he threw his doublet back on the bed. “For God’s sake Porthcurn, this is supposed to be my wedding night!”

  Callum started to blub, his mother pulling him tighter and shushing the wide-eyed youngster.

  Porthcurn straightened his face.

  “All persons coming into the town will from this date be quarantined for a period to be determined by the town physician, on the instructions of Sir Thomas Bridges, governor. It’s here, all signed,” Porthcurn offered.

  “I had a pass, all signed,” Sparrow countered.

  “For God’s sake Sparrow,” Porthcurn argued, “You’re under the jurisdiction of the King’s forces here. We brought you in, saw Bella…Mistress Telling delivered to her father as arranged.”

  “Aye, but it wasn’t intended as a one way mission. We were warrantied to Bath and ipso facto back to the army,” Sparrow said, wrenching his doublet on and fastening a selection of the buttons. He peered under the counterpane to find his boot hose and stockings. “You know full well the pass covers us both ways!”

  “I know no such thing. I am sorry Sparrow. It’s the best I can do. If we take you in to Bristol, there is even a possibility you could be shot as spies,” the Cornishman threatened.

  “Shot? Under a signed warrant from Parliament, countersigned by you?”

  “I have honoured your warrant Sparrow. A week, ten days, and I will return and escort you back to Marlborough.”

  Marlborough? What use was that? Sparrow shook his head accusingly.

  “Are you worried I’m going to tell tales about the garrison, the state of the bloody defences?” Sparrow raised his arms as if to encompass Bath’s fragile fortifications.

  “I’ll tell you what Porthcurn, this place won’t stand more than an hour, when the New Model turns up! You don’t have to be a bloody master spy to see that!”

  Porthcurn couldn’t argue with his frank assessment.

  “The Governor has made his decision Sparrow. I have interceded on your behalf, to ensure you and your wife and child,” he nodded at the blushing Mary Keziah. “Are housed at the Guildhall, under appropriate guard.”

  “And what about my men?” Muffet and the rest had been taking their ease in the Bridewell, well fed, well watered. Sparrow had heard they had even had a couple of Bath’s whores hanging around - not that the straight-laced Muffet would have had anything to do with that.

  “They’ll remain where they are. They’re safe enough, you have my word.”

  “Your word? Well that’s alright then, your word,” Sparrow sneered. “We trusted your word at Holt, and here we are locked in the damned pesthouse!”

  “You’re not going to be locked up in the pesthouse!”

  “What about you and your horsemen? You’re out from Bristol, that’s where the plague is. Are we going to be sharing a room?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been in and out of here for months, as have my men. We’re clearly not infected.”

  “Oh is that right? The town physician has ruled on that and all, has he?”

  Porthcurn looked over his shoulder as one of his men hurried in, nodded breathlessly.

  “Sir Thomas sends his compliments, sir. Could you join him at the livery?”

  What now? Did they need him to come and change a bloody wheel?

  Porthcurn nodded at Mary Keziah, then Sparrow.

  “Please remain here while suitable arrangements can be made.” He leaned closer, caught the furious Roundhead’s eye.

  “This is out of my hands Sparrow. Enjoy your holiday - or come back to Bristol and explain to Prince Rupert what you‘re about,” he straightened up, clicked his heels, and left them to it.

  *************************

  Sparrow and his wife had dressed and straightened the rented room at the Three Tuns as best they could.

  “For God’s sake Mary, leave off. You’re not the housekeeper here,” he scolded. Mary was folding the counterpane down, busying herself with domestic chores while Sparrow paced and fretted. The door had been left ajar, but Porthcurn had left a couple of musketeers on the door and more downstairs.

  Mary was about to reply when they heard the clatter of heavy boots down the well- worn hallway.

  Porthcurn barged past his sentinels, glared at Sparrow before launching into a bewildering, boot stamping tirade that left the newlyweds exchanging bemused looks.

  “Oh ho, that’s right Sparrow, butter wouldn’t melt now would it! How did you manage it eh? We didn’t let you out of our sight apart from the odd visit to the piss house!” Porthcurn eyed the astonished Mary Keziah.

  “Apologies madam. But I would know what you are about Sparrow. Don’t stand there gawping man!”

  “Perhaps you’d better explain what in the name of hell you’re shouting about?”

  “I’ll tell you what I’m shouting about Sparrow. Bodies. That’s what!”

  Sparrow’s mystified shake of the head looked genuine enough.

  “The bodies you brought in on Bella’s carriage. Ringing any bells now?”

  “They’ve been there a month and more now. I can’t help it if they’re kicking up a bloody stink!”

  “I’m not worried about the stink Sparrow, I’ve been around a few bodies in my time,” Porthcurn leered. “It’s the coffins. Somebody’s had the coffin away, left one of the bodies on the carriage roof as if it was a side of bloody beef.”

  He eyed Sparrow intently, watching for any sign of recognition. There weren’t any. He was either a master play actor or didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

  “Harrington Hardiman, officer of horse. Has been turned out of his coffin, Sparrow.”

  “What’s that got to do with me? Some thief has had it away for firewood, I wouldn’t wonder. What’s this got to do with us?“ Sparrow snarled, temper fraying all over again.

  “We’ve hardly been out of your sight,” Mary Keziah interjected. “What would we want with a secondhand coffin?”

  Porthcurn didn’t know, but he didn’t like it.

  “I have ordered the other coffins opened and checked,“ he reported, watching for a reaction. Sparrow shrugged.

  “I have the names of the officers involved,“ he began, searching inside his doublet.

  “I don’t need their names. The other bodies are present and correct.”

  “Well there you are then. A recently bereaved housebreaker or somebody in need of some firewood I imagine.”

  Porthcurn paused, wondering if Sparrow could have been involved at all.

  “There is something else,” he added slyly. “Reports from the nightwatchmen. Intruders at the walls, disappearing into the night like phantoms,” Porthcurn elaborated.

  “Grave robbers?
” Sparrow suggested innocently enough.

  “Aye, maybe. Maybe they were disturbed?“ Sparrow’s shrug seemed genuine enough.

  “We have reports these intruders,“ Porthcurn paused for effect, “Appeared to be blackamoors.”

  Sparrow’s eyes widened. Those idiot scouts? What were their names?

  The Cornishman gave him a sideways look, pointed the befuddled Roundhead out. “Now I conceive I have hit a nerve,” he accused.

  “A nerve? What rot! Grave robbers, phantoms, blackamoors? Your boys must have been at the hoof glue again Porthcurn,” Sparrow argued.

  Hiding behind a jest - as was his habit. But hiding all the same.

  “Friends of yours, more like. They must have followed us in from Holt,” Porthcurn theorised. “Hanging back while we rode on in.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sparrow said flatly. Porthcurn studied him closely, watching his eyes.

  “And I’ve no idea how all this fairyland nonsense connects to us. You haven’t been more than a yard from my side since we rode in. Mary and I were married yesterday noon and spent the rest of the day downstairs.”

  And the night with Mary Keziah and Caleb, acquainting himself with the ins and outs of married life. The landlord and his wife could vouch for that.

  “But I was away last evening, attending upon the merchant and Mistress Telling,” Porthcurn talked through his own movements. “You could have cooked something up while I was away!”

  “Cooked something up? I was celebrating my wedding day! If you weren’t there one of your boys was.”

  Porthcurn racked his brains, trying to work out the connection.

  Could these night intruders have been sent out from the New Model? He waved the messenger back in to the room.

  “Get yourself over to Southgate. I want a full account of every bugger and beggar they let in, on whose authority, as well as details as to where they were to be accommodated, is that clear?

  ““Hang on Porthcurn. I thought you said they’d come over the wall?”

  Porthcurn had heard enough.

  “You’re up to something Sparrow, I bloody knew it from the start. A coach and four for one poor widow and three bloody corpses? We could have had you all shot in Holt, if you hadn’t gone and got the bloody drop on us. I knew there something going on, I bloody knew it.

  “But Porthcurn had no idea what was going on.

  Trouble was, neither did Sparrow.

  *************************

  Goring’s deception had worked like a charm. And perhaps his skilful manoeuvres warranted a more deserving outcome.

  Porter’s men hadn’t gone ten miles before their noisy and unusually energetic departure had taken its toll on horse and rider.

  The summer afternoon’s ride had quite worn them down, troopers blinking and sweating in the broiling sun out on the open moor. Horses foamed, heads lolling.

  Dusk, and Porter called a halt beside a deep green rhyne, a stand of willows providing some relief from the fierce midsummer heat.

  He watched the column disperse across a large meadow, his men climbing down from the saddle, loosening girths and folding stirrups over saddles. The best part of six hundred horses lined the pondweed choked ditch - drinking their fill while the men lolled and dozed.

  Porter had stayed by the road, perspective glass fixed on the open moors and hills behind them. No sign of Fairfax and his damned Ironsides. The plain was bare save the odd windmill and cottage. Criss-crossed with deep green drainage channels, tiny humped back bridges.

  The long suffering locals had left the moor, taking what was left of their livestock with them. They could have swept every farm and yard and not turned up with more than the odd emaciated chicken.

  Porter closed his glass, satisfied they were away clear.

  *************************

  With his prisoners safely under lock and key in the Bridewell and four of his own men augmenting the governor’s lackadaisical guards, Porthcurn strode over to Southgate to collect the previous day’s guardhouse manifest.

  A list of traders, herders, shepherds and pigmen. Milk deliveries and faggot mongers. Even a couple of itinerant chimney sweeps. No word as to where any of the buggers had got to though.

  He had left the list with Sir Thomas Bridges back at the Guildhall, not that he expected much response from the spineless hack. The reluctant warrior had made it quite clear he could hardly wait to see the back of them.

  “I would respectfully suggest you identify and apprehend the whereabouts of the persons on this list,” Porthcurn advised with what little tact he could muster. “It may be that somebody is involved in this incident. I am sure his highness Prince Rupert will expect a full report, on his next inspection.”

  Sir Thomas wasn’t having any of that.

  “I am sure his highness Prince Rupert has other matters to think about, over and above the theft of a coffin. Especially as the coffin was paid for by the Parliament.”

  Porthcurn could have smacked him one.

  “Even so. The matter needs must be investigated further. I like it not that the theft coincided with this embassy from the New Model. Something’s amiss sir,” he warned. “Something is amiss.”

  The governor followed them out to the road, where the rump of the party were preparing to board the coach.

  Edward Telling was standing beside them folding his hat brim, as usual the odd man out, lacking any lines or apparent purpose in the bewildering interplay.

  The merchant was insisting Telling remained with them, as some kind of black-suited chaperone. It was either that or leave him locked up in the Bridewell with Sparrow’s mob. Detaining a man of God might bring repercussions. Let the buffoon glare and gripe, but he was better off coming with them.

  He noticed the reverend’s filthy look, wondered if he should change his mind and leave him in Bath with Sparrow.

  “Is something troubling you, Reverend Telling?” Porthcurn inquired. Telling’s lip curled in distaste.

  “A great many things trouble me, Colonel. But there is little I can do about them, yea even as a man of God.”

  Porthcurn had no time for his grumbling. He waved the party aboard the coach, Sir Gilbert Morrison apparently delighted everything had turned out for the best.

  He wished he could share the merchant’s unquenchable optimism.

  Morrison and Bella made themselves comfortable on board the coach, where Porthcurn could have an eye on them. Telling climbed in beside them - an Old Testament thundercloud in stained broadcloth.

  Either his breeches were too tight or he was suffering from chronic cramps. Porthcurn ignored him, clapped the door shut and walked toward his waiting horse. One of his troopers passed over the reins and Porthcurn swung himself into the saddle. He caught Bella’s demure glance, raised his chin a notch to turn his fevered look into a sober inspection of the black carriage.

  Three dead officers on the roof, one in a coffin supplied by the garrison.

  Was the theft a coincidence, or part of some sinister conspiracy?

  Waller had turned up on the doorstep six months before, fully expecting the town to be handed over lock, stock and barrel. Was Sparrow in touch with the same crew, using some unguessed go-between?

  If so, who?

  Porthcurn frowned, led his remaining men out of Southgate with the blasted carriage rumbling behind them, and took the fork for Bristol. With luck, they would be back there by nightfall.

  What were these rogues up to? Had Bella’s bath house seduction been part of it? His prick jumped at the memory, rubbed between his breeches and the saddle.

  Damn them all.

  *************************

  The moment the sun was up Porter was back in the saddle, steering the chestnut across the sleepy camp to check the moor behind them.

  Cooking fires twisted, horses steamed along their picket lines stretching out in all directions.

  Porter raised his glass, peered into the pre-dawn gloom.
Grey hills, thin grey willows. Mist rising from the deeply scored rhynes stretching across the moor.

  He turned, annoyed at the growing commotion as his troops prepared their breakfasts.

  It took him a moment to realise what was going on. Hundreds of his men had re-mounted their horses, turned them back toward the lane they had been following in a sword-waving stampede.

  In another moment he realised they weren’t his men.

  His men were running like hares. His men had dashed back toward the crowded horselines. His men had leapt the ditch and were sprinting off in all directions.

  Porter held the glass out as if it was Marshal Tilly’s baton, supernaturally capable of conjuring his command back into some semblance of order.

  Hundreds, thousands of enemy horse had sprung up out of the ground, risen from the ditches or dropped down from the drooping willows. Solid blocks of buff-coated demons, riders tucked knee to knee, brooked no resistance or argument from the mass of fugitives.

  Guidons and ensigns snapped above helmeted heads and hunched shoulders. Sabres flashed and glinted in the damn sunbeams.

  Porter’s troopers were knocked aside like ninepins. Some hurled themselves into the turf. Others collapsed, skewered on bloodied swords. Some jumped into the ditch and crouched shivering in the weeds - safely beyond the sweep of enemy swords -for now.

  Two score troops of Roundhead horse had appeared from nowhere - from the big nowhere behind them at any rate.

  Porter’s jaw fell. They had no business being there! The New Model Army was supposed to be twenty miles behind them!

  He turned his horse, called the few mounted men to him, and spurred the chestnut back up the lane.

  George Goring’s brilliant deception had been unhinged in a blink. Five hundred and more valuable horsemen scattered and broken.

  And it wasn’t even fully light.

  By Bristol Keep and elsewhere, July 9-10, 1645