Black Tom's Red Army

by Nicholas Carter

  “Sodbury? What do we want to go to Sodbury for?”

  The village in southern Gloucestershire sat on a junction of the main north road. If they turned east they could head for Chippenham.

  Now it was Sparrow’s turn to be suspicious.

  “Well you can head north for Gloucester, or take the high road for Marlborough. I don’t give a damn, as long as you’re out of my care.”

  Sparrow frowned.

  Gloucester was a couple of days’ march. Through a maze of Royalist garrisons. Re-tracing their steps to Marlborough wouldn’t be any easier.

  And both destinations were well away from where they might expect the New Model to be, Sparrow fumed.

  “Don’t fret Sparrow, you’ve completed your mission,” Porthcurn said archly.

  Sparrow ignored the barb.

  Porthcurn thought for a moment. Aye, maybe he had completed his mission.

  Maybe he and Mary, Bella and Telling, had been the diversion, a mere distraction all the long? The thought galvanised him all over again.

  By Christ, they had spent most of the past week sorting out this damned charade.

  Even Bella, in the bath-house over yonder, had only served to distract him from his duties. He felt a cold stone turn sideways in his stomach.

  Had he fallen for some game within a game, just as Telling maintained?

  “Never mind now. It’s time we were off.”

  Sparrow leaned over to embrace his wife and child while Porthcurn brooded, watching the rooftops.

  Chimney breasts. Chimney sweeps. The guardhouse manifest had mentioned sweeps. Sweeps? The bastards could be anywhere.

  “Ho there, Sparrow. Pass that lad of yours up to me. He can sit in front of me as far as the Bridewell.” Sparrow disentangled himself from Mary Keziah, flushed and crying and trying not to upset the boy.

  Sparrow looked surprised, but lifted the boy up over to Porthcurn.

  The Cornishman settled him across the saddle. The boy brandished his sword, pointing the way forward.

  “He’s a natural this lad of yours,” Porthcurn said. Any decent sharpshooter would go for the officer first. But Sparrow didn’t seem concerned he had placed his son directly in the line of fire.

  What on earth was going on?

  The procession reached the Bridewell without incident. Porthcurn ordered the governor’s men to collect Sparrow’s malcontents from their cells.

  They had bundled up their precious firelocks with leather straps. Butcher’s fowling piece a foot longer than the other muskets. Two of Bridges’ men strapped the weapons to a spare cob.

  The governor was shaking his head. Even more expense.

  Sparrow’s mutinous crew shuffled out, unshaven and blinking in the sunlight.

  “Alright there Will,” Muffet inquired, removing the pipe from its post in the gap between his front teeth.

  “Elder sergeant Muffet, mount the men up. We’re off.”

  “Thank Christ.” Francy Snow’s undertone rebounding about the walls.

  The dragoon corporal looked surly and insolent, but two the dozen carbine-toting Royalist horsemen persuaded him to hold his tongue for once.

  The prisoners mounted their horses. Two dozen eyes on their every move. Fingers curling around triggers. Hands on sword hilts. Safely under guard now.

  Porthcurn nodded slowly. Perhaps he was imagining things?

  “Right then. With your permission sir, we’ll leave by Northgate.”

  Sir Thomas nodded eagerly, ushering them off the uncomfortably crowded stage. North, South, East or West it was all the same to him. He would be more than happy to see the back of the greedy pack.

  So long as Porthcurn sent his guards back in one piece.

  The governor wondered what the Cornish rascal was worried about, an ambuscade, in the middle of Bath? What sort of show did Porthcurn think he was running?

  The governor followed along beside the captain and colonel, the boy happily brandishing his sword at townsfolk and passersby.

  “Charge!” he cried, “Charge!”

  They reached the Northgate, without incident.

  Porthcurn handed the boy back to his mother. Handsome girl, sweet face. But not strictly to his taste.

  “Thank you sir. For all you’ve done for us. Take care sir,” Mary Keziah said, disarmingly open hearted.

  Porthcurn half-smiled, unable to imagine this simple heart was in on the damned conspiracy. If there was one. Her lively brown eyes would suggest not.

  Perhaps he was getting tired. It had been a long week. He smiled at her, patted the boy’s head.

  “And you too madam.”

  He watched Sparrow lean over for one final embrace with his new wife, then led the way out of the Northgate without a backward glance.

  Dawn the whole place to hell. It wasn’t worth fighting over.

  Half his escort followed, then Sparrow’s men, then the rest of Bridges’ men, bringing up the rear with the musket-laden pack horse.

  Maybe it had been a crow up on that rooftop. Maybe he had imagined the whole thing.

  They rode north.

  Without incident.

  By Tormarton, Gloucestershire, July 12, 1645

  Porthcurn forced the pace as usual, eyes glued to the road ahead. They cantered up the long slope out of Bath past small market gardens and neat orchards. The horses were blowing hard, Bridges’ inexperienced troopers hanging on for grim death.

  He drew up on the Marshfield crossroads to let man and beast catch their breath.

  A gallows, stands of side-blown birch and elm.

  Sparrow turned in the saddle, looked back across the broad valleys to the south and west. Bath a few miles behind them and Bristol further away to their right. Between them, a patchwork of enclosures and orchards, cornfields and cottages.

  The long bare ridge opposite was Lansdown.

  Sparrow recognised it right enough. His first proper battle. He’d been riding his old piebald, Jasper, that day - nowhere near as fancy as his handsome sorrel.

  Sitting on the ridge with Archie, peering across the very same valley towards Cold Ashton and Marshfield. And the entire Royalist Army.

  Porthcurn turned his horse, followed his gaze.

  His command drew up in ragged files either side of the road, horses blowing hard. A couple of rear markers were still trying to catch up.

  What a bloody shower.

  The Roundhead captain looked as if he was in two minds whether to go on or turn around and gallop back to his wife and family.

  “Why don‘t you stay Sparrow?” he suggested under his breath. “It’s clear as day this is your stamping ground. Trotting about the Midlands with your precious New Model? It’s not what you were cut out for is it?”

  Sparrow glanced at the Cornishman, eyebrows raised inquiringly. He couldn’t tell whether Porthcurn was jesting or not.

  “With your lot you mean?” he shook his head. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “I could put a word in for you, get you transferred to the Bristol garrison. Look after that wife and son of yours,” he suggested, disarmingly casual.

  Sparrow frowned, tried to read Porthcurn’s inscrutable grin. Was he seriously asking him to turn his coat like Morrison had done, join the merchant’s happy little household back in Canon’s Marsh? They’d been safe enough these past two years after all.

  But then what, wait for the New Model to turn up? Because they would, sooner or later. He wondered how safe his new family would be then.

  He’d seen storms first hand. Seen the way the soldiery of both sides could fly off the handle. Turn murderous in a blink.

  But what was the alternative, have them ride a wain behind the army? Look what had happened to Bella after Naseby.

  Morrison had been in scrapes before, though. Aye. And come through them in one piece. The truth was Mary and Callum were safer there with the swivel-eyed, money-grubbing merchant than they would ever be with him. It was a depressing thought.

  He lapsed i
nto silence. Porthcurn imagined he had hit a nerve.

  “A captaincy, how does that sound?”

  “A captaincy? With the Bristol garrison?” Sparrow shook his head. “There’s no future in it. I’d rather tote a pike in the New Model, if it’s all the same to you.”

  He held Porthcurn’s gaze for a moment, tried to gauge what the colonel was thinking.

  Porthcurn shrugged, turned his horse and spurred on along the north road. Sparrow fell into place beside him.

  “You’re not a bad sort Sparrow,” Porthcurn went on conversationally. “Thank God you’ve nothing in common with bible-thumping serpents like Telling. That thrice-damned mealy-mouthed hypocrite,” he added, unusually restrained compared with his usual foul-mouthed standards, Sparrow thought primly.

  Sparrow had forgotten all about Telling, their spiritual guiding light and moral compass. He wondered what he had he done to get Porthcurn quite so riled.

  “I sent him on his way before we got back to Bath, if you want to know,” the Colonel reported. “Much more of his repulsive moral superiority and I swear I would have run the rogue clean through,” he added.

  Sparrow sympathised with Porthcurn’s unflattering assessment. But he thought Telling had shown grit and courage on occasion. He’d backed him in Leicester and he’d backed him in Holt.

  It took balls to confront armed men armed with nothing more than a worn out bible.

  Porthcurn mis-read Sparrow’s silence, nodding encouragingly.

  “I just can’t see you on the same side, not with the likes of him preaching and praying dawn till dusk. It’s never right.”

  “I’ve married Mary now,” Sparrow insisted. “I can look them all in the eye, tell ‘em I’ve put things to rights. They’ll have nothing else to throw at me, nothing more to hold me back.”

  “Pah, it’s just the promotion you’re after? In this New Noddle of yours?”

  Sparrow eyed the Cornishman, kept his own counsel for a while. Porthcurn realised he was butting his head against a brick wall.

  They followed the road north over a broad, undulating down intersected by narrow combes and moss-encrusted drystone walls. Fewer dwellings now.

  They rode in silence, another ten miles or so. Porthcurn finally pulled up in the slowly gathering gloom, pointed out a merrily lit inn on the next crossroads surrounded by a scattering of cottages and liveries.

  A thousand miles and more from the war.

  “Old Sodbury. There’s a coaching inn there. Not bad as I remember. You have the pass, that should see you safe to Gloucester. After that it’s up to you.”

  The escort party clattered to a halt behind them.

  Porthcurn reached around, freed the sack from the back of his saddle and handed it over to Sparrow.

  “Your sword and pistols, as agreed.” Sparrow took the sack, peered over Porthcurn’s shoulder as the Royalist troopers handed over the tightly strapped bundle of firelocks and sidearms to the suspicious New Model dragoons.

  Sparrow sensed the sudden tension. They were soldiers again, aye, on opposing sides and all. Armed to the teeth and doubly dangerous, even if it would take the New Model troopers a few moments to prepare their firearms.

  Porthcurn took off his gauntlet, held out a broad, darkly gnarled paw. Sparrow shook his hand.

  “Have a care Sparrow. I reckon we’ll not be swapping passes and warrants, the next time we meet.”

  “No, I don’t imagine we will,” Sparrow agreed. “But in the meantime, sir, I thank you for your proper consideration and attention to our case. Rest assured I’ll return the favour, if it ever lies within my power to do so. God speed, Colonel.”

  “Aye. Mind yourself Sparrow.” Porthcurn dragged his horse around and spurred back down the track.

  His escort formed up and followed.

  *************************

  Muffet had retrieved his firelock and gear like the good soldier he was, then checked the rest of the men were ready for action. He mounted, clicked his horse alongside Sparrow’s.

  Porthcurn’s party were disappearing into the fast gathering gloom. They could still hear the distant clatter of their hooves.

  Muffet nodded at the departing horsemen.

  “Getting a bit pally with ‘em there Will,” Muffet observed. “I thought.”

  As usual a master of understatement.

  Sparrow rubbed his jaw. “He was alright. For a Cornishman. Chose the wrong side is all. Are the men all set?”

  “Enjoying the fresh air, I warrant.”

  Sparrow grimaced.

  “The Bridewell was the best I could do for you. It was either that or the bloody pest house. Aye, really. Quarantine, they said.”

  “Quarantine,” Muffet repeated doubtfully.

  “Porthcurn hatched it with the governor to keep us all under lock and key. They had the drop on us by then.”

  “Aye well. They haven’t stopped moaning yet. Stuck there for two days playing dice with the guards. Mind you, we won more than we lost.”

  Butcher had dismounted, tugged his fowling piece from the bundled firelocks and straightened up like a child with a new toy. He checked the barrel, lips moving as he worked the mechanism as if going through some infernal catechism.

  The dragoons slid down from their mounts, selected their weapons and retrieved their powder horns and bullet bags.

  Muffet took his pipe, pointed the stem at the departing Royalist horsemen.

  “What I can’t make out, is how come he rode out with twenty six men and he rode off with twenty four.”

  Sparrow’s eyes widened in alarm, pulling his sword half way from its sheath.

  “What? Are you sure?” Muffet looked hurt.

  “Of course I’m bloody sure. We didn’t know how it would go, as soon as we were out of sight of Bath. You and that black-eyed Cornish bugger might have got on like a house on fire, Will, but those candle wasters at the Bridewell, I wouldn’t trust ‘em as far as I could shit.”

  Sparrow peered around the deserted walls and hedgerows, squinting into the gathering night as if the interlopers might appear like will-o-the wisps along the hedgerows.

  “I didn’t much like the odds. Twenty six against the nine of us, no weapons to hand if it all kicked off like. But he’s just ridden off with twenty four, or I’m a Froglander.”

  Sparrow swore under his breath.

  Imposters, tagging along for the ride?

  It was those damned blackamoors, Silas and Sidney whatever their damned names were. He’d put his purse on it.

  By Christ, Porthcurn had been on to them. The soot-shrouded intruders could have gotten the entire party shot as bloody spies.

  Sparrow slipped his baldrick over his shoulders, wound and loaded his pistols and shoved them into their holsters.

  “Where did they get to then? I didn’t see any of ‘em ride off?”

  Muffet shook his head.

  “They were there as far as the Marshfield crossroads, I’m sure of that. Maybe they hung back there, when you two were admiring the view.”

  “The bugger was trying to get me to chuck in with them. Go back to Bristol with Mary and the boy.”

  “Oh? What did you tell him?” Muffet asked innocently.

  Sparrow frowned. He didn’t like to think they’d been played by a couple of cockney sweeps. Porthcurn had been eyeing every window as if he expected trouble.

  He’d even plucked Callum up and sat him before him, as if he’d take a ball meant for Porthcurn.

  “Bastard!”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it Will,” Muffet said, startled.

  “Not you. That cunt Porthcurn. He stuck Callum in front of him, as we rode over to collect you. In case any bugger was going to start taking potshots!”

  Muffet considered this for a moment.

  “Aye, well. We’re out of it now. Best if we get back to the army, soon as.”

  Sparrow nodded. Aye, he had that about right and all.

  What a bastard!

  And he
’d left Mary Keziah and young Callum in his care!

  “Hurry up you lot. We’d best keep to the road as best we can. It’s a long ride to Gloucester.”

  “Gloucester? What in God’s name do we want to go back there for?” Muffet inquired.

  They had marched out of the place two years before, after breaking the King’s ill-managed siege. Marched out of Gloucester straight to Newbury, where he’d fought his second battle. A damn sight bigger and bloodier than the first and all.

  “Gloucester’s the only garrison we have left in these parts.”

  “But the army’s away south,” Muffet argued. “And every house ‘tween here and Gloucester is garrisoned by the King’s troops. We’d do better to re-trace our steps, Will, work our way around Bath and out over to the Mendips.”

  Sparrow shook his head.

  “He’s written us a pass as far as Gloucester. With a bit of luck we can get back there without any trouble.”

  Muffet didn’t look convinced.

  “If you say so Will,” he offered. “But it seems to me,” the elder sergeant wondered, “the war’s away over yonder.”

  Sparrow was about to reply when Butcher whistled, brought his fowling piece up.

  “Riders Will!”

  The dragoons fumbled for ball and powder, Francy Snow cursing. One of his men was hanging on to four startled horses, dragged off balance by their sudden lunging.

  “Captain Sparrow sir!” From the darkness. “It’s me, Silas, and me bruvva! Syl!” thin, high pitched voices, strong London accents.

  “Come on in,” Sparrow called, frantically waving his men to what cover there was behind the threadbare hedges.

  “We will, but don’t shoot sir! It’s only us-selves!”

  Sparrow peered into the gloom, watched two grey riders coagulate out of the murk.

  They were no more than boys on tangle-maned ponies. But boys clutching firelocks.

  The newcomers blinked and nodded encouragingly at their long-lost companions.

  Sparrow spurred forward, peered at their dark and unfamiliar features. He thought it was them. They had scraped the worst of the muck from their faces but still looked hideously savage, eyeballs white rimmed red.