Black Tom's Red Army

by Nicholas Carter

  They were expecting clubmen, aye, or Roundhead stragglers. Not insolent sharpshooters willing and able to stand their ground in the face of an all out charge.

  “We’ll outflank them, shift to your left flank, left!” he bawled at the junior officers who had been first in to the field.

  Winter, that damned hotheaded rogue, had spurred off straight toward the enemy nest, a couple of his lifeguard seconding his desperate charge.

  “Get the dragoons up here! To your left. Left!” he bawled. It was no use. They were milling around in panic, being picked off like ducks on a pond. He spurred his charger through the gap in the hedge, a black wasp bullet missing him by half a foot and hitting his ensign high in the forearm.

  God’s bones, he’d have that bastard sharpshooter hung and quartered!

  He curbed his horse, peered at the closely clipped hedges. His lifeguards threw up their arms like discarded puppets. Winter careering ahead as if he had joined some frantic steeplechase.

  “Take your troop left,” Rupert screamed at one of the baffled officers, turning his horse under an enormous drooping oak as the balls sang and whistled through the foliage.

  “Left!” the fool nodded and spurred off taking half the command with him.

  By the time he had turned young Winter had reached the hedge and spurred his horse along the impenetrable obstacle, hacking at the greenery in an apparently demented rage.

  Even in the midst of sudden battle, Rupert was startled by his virtually insane bravery. What was he trying to prove? That he could be struck down as simply as the rest of the damned fools?

  He couldn’t leave him to die alone.

  “After me!” he called, pushing the charger across the body-strewn field. No more shots. The bastards were running now, running now sure enough.

  His heart thumped with excitement, his tired limbs instantly invigorated as his trumpeter blew the charge.

  Rupert spurred over the field, turned his horse after Winter’s hare-brained course.

  He leapt a low wall, saw the youth sprawled in the tangled vegetable garden from the corner of his eye.

  “After them!” he bawled. “On me!”

  *************************

  Edward Telling tilted his head as the odd musket pop turned into a ragged fusilade and then a viciously intense firefight.

  He and his fellow committee members had been meeting in the tithe barn, watching surly farmers handing more of their hard-worked produce over to ledger-wielding clerks.

  Telling had been supervising the distribution of the last weapons from the trained band’s armoury. Ensuring the younger men were given the pick of the muskets and pikes they had taken from the bewildered stragglers.

  They had dispatched the first column the day before, along with as heavy an escort as they could spare. Blunt and Lamb had taken charge of the goodwill mission, aiming to hand their haul over to the victorious New Model.

  Which left him in charge.

  He lifted an old sword from the scrap iron and trash in the crate, tested its weight and strode out into the yard.

  Farmboys and labourers were running pell-mell. Half the town seemed to be hurrying down the cathedral close, a sudden human tide dividing about the mighty structure.

  “Run! Save yourselves!”

  “The Roundheads are upon us!”

  “Get out, get out, get out!”

  Telling strode forward, grabbed a panicking musketeer by his coat collar and shook him straight.

  “Stand! Stand where you are! They’ll hunt you down like dogs across country! Stand I say!”

  Wild eyed clubmen careered across the green, others appeared from doorways. A hardcore of youngsters emptied out of the Swan, brandishing their prize weapons.

  “Form ranks and files! You men, you pike in the centre!”

  A handful of them clumped together under his brimstone orders. The musketeers formed a wavering skirmish line and raised their muskets. As far as they dared.

  Telling strode up and down, directing his peasant soldiers into a rough approximation of a military formation.

  The quaking human barricade corralled the rest, forcing them to run around the improvised regiment - or turn about and shoulder their way into the mob.

  “Stand, stand, there is no enemy here! The King’s men are raiding your cattle, stealing your foodstuffs,” Telling bawled.

  That settled it.

  They levelled their muskets, lowered their pikes.

  Charge for horse? How did that go no? Front rank kneel, right knee left knee, kneel? With Rupert’s hounds trumpeting through the town?

  The reverend’s red-faced assurances turned the fleeing congregation into an armed rabble, pulsing, shifting, edging sideways.

  “You will stand!” he screeched, spittle flying.

  *************************

  “Steady boys,” Muffet called from the side of his mouth. Unable to force a passage between the stalled carts and waggons they had jumped down from their horses. Two dragoons bundled reins over their forearms and hung on to bridles as the horses bucked and reared.

  The rest formed a rough firing line across the narrow street, Butcher and Muffet aiming their fowling pieces at the other end of the lane.

  Rupert and his cavalry trotted up, curbed their horses as they surveyed the impromptu barricade.

  Their quarry trapped this side of the amateurs’ obstacle.

  Sixty paces down the street, Sparrow eyed the gap beneath the waggons, wondering if they could roll beneath and run for it.

  Like children playing while the elders gathered the harvest.

  “Prepare to give fire,” Sparrow croaked. He’d raised his sword in his left hand, clutched the hilt to his chin.

  By Christ he wasn’t exactly a master swordsman with his right.

  “I’m ready Will,” Butcher called, thumbing the firelock mechanism. Francy was pouring powder down his barrel, bullet clenched between his teeth.

  “First rank prepare to fire!” Sparrow bellowed, bluffing the suddenly cautious horsemen.

  Rupert stared down the alley at them. Not even a dozen dragoons. Russet coats. A big officer in a grey suit trying to hold them. Horses prancing and rearing behind them.

  Seven, eight muskets trained on him and his. Firelocks. Sharpshooters.

  The Roundheads had defended their encampment at Naseby, dropped dozens of his men as they whirled and charged about their waggons and carriages.

  The Prince had had a bellyfull of them. He turned his horse, waved his men after easier targets.

  *************************

  By then, there were no easier targets. Roundhead cavalry had appeared from the south. Two or three troops of Ironsides working their way around the town to turn the tables on the disorganised attackers.

  Clubmen, hundreds of them, surging along the narrow streets and around the cathedral, armed to the teeth and shouting their damned slogans.

  “Hands off our cattle or be assured we’ll give you battle!” Telling joining in, throat hoarse and burning. At once elated and terrified.

  They would stand with him or he’d die but the simple equation didn’t shift him.

  “Prepare to fire!”

  Not one in a hundred of their ill-aimed shots would find a mark, but more and more of them were working their way back along the alleys and through the kitchen gardens, taking potshots at anybody on a horse.

  Rupert thought to charge the rascals anyway, but frowned and called them off.

  Not much point in negotiating now.

  And very few of the abandoned carts could be readied for moving - not without gathering up draught horses and locating missing tack. In a howling mob of disgruntled townsfolk.

  “That’s enough. Turn them back,” Rupert ordered.

  Dismounted troopers wandered back clutching wounds. Two of them were boosting young Winter along, the foolish youth barely able to put one foot in front of another.

  “Get him up behind you. We’re leaving,” Rup
ert ordered.

  His command regrouped by ones and twos, moved back up the Bristol Road.

  He waited as they trotted past, sweaty, wild eyed. Grinning or grunting. Laughing or cursing. They had rounded up as many loose horses as they could. Most of them their own.

  “Get a move on! Back to Bristol!“ Rupert ordered. He took one look at the wretched place and turned his charger after them.

  Damn them all to hell.

  By the Bishop’s Palace, Wells Cathedral, July 18, 1645

  The New Model Army had arrived. If not in its entirety, certainly in sufficient force to persuade Rupert’s raiders back up the Bristol road. The news-sheets could argue who had gotten the best of the hack and slash. The dozen and more corpses would suggest the honours - if there had been any - were about even.

  According to the veteran Ironsides bragging in the ale houses a few hours later it had been Sir Robert Pye’s regiment as had delivered the town.

  Sparrow’s badly shaken dragoons had recovered enough of their wits to argue the point, exchanging boasts and insults with the newcomers and inflating the likely casualty list tenfold.

  Pye’s horsemen had been detached from the main army, dispatched by Black Tom Fairfax to establish another Parliamentarian thorn in the flesh of what was left of the Royalist-held West.

  They had been rolled in to the New Model from the Earl of Essex’s old army - loudly reckoned to be the backbone of the cause - not least by themselves.

  To give them their due, the regiment’s advance guard had turned up in time to save the mob of clubmen from being herded straight into the cathedral moat.

  And in truth Sparrow didn’t like to imagine what would have become of his little party if Rupert had had the time and opportunity to work his raiders around their flank, or push dismounted dragoons down the dead-end alley after them.

  They’d dropped half a dozen of Rupert’s riders from a hundred yards and more - and chances were they wouldn’t have been offered quarter after that particular service.

  “By Christ, that was close,” had been Butcher’s laconic assessment. Sparrow had tried to swallow the bile which had choked up his throat, ended up dry retching and hawking into the gutter.

  He had wandered off to retrieve pistols and dropped swords from the littered field, glad to have precious moments to collect his thoughts despite the milling clubmen and villagers who had popped out of the town’s woodwork to loot the dead and wounded.

  “ You alright there Will?”

  “Aye.” He’d replied, hollowed out and hoarse.

  Damn the war. Damn Rupert. Didn’t he know the meaning of fear? Emerging from that hedge like Alexander, Caesar and Hannibal rolled into one black-maned Lionheart.

  And he’d stood and stared him down, a mean little street strewn and shadowed. A hundred paces away. Less.

  Sweet God almighty, close?

  He prayed he’d never come that close to the Prince of Darkness again.

  *************************

  Pye’s arrival had saved them as well as any number of the leering clubmen, brave enough now their enemy had been reduced to so many turnip sacks.

  The fortunate conjunction had also proved useful in keeping the country folk on side, encouraging the waverers to throw in their lot with the merciful Parliament rather than their cruel King and his murderous nephew.

  Rupert’s clumsy attempt to enlist or at least reassure the clubmen had rebounded about as badly as his efforts to win over his uncle’s councillors. Negotiating at sword and pistol point? He certainly hadn’t won too many hearts, minds, friends or allies that day.

  And it was the same story across the West.

  The homegrown movement - loudly declaring itself to be completely neutral - had in fact fragmented, some counties leaning toward the King, others toward Parliament.

  Somerset seemed to be poised on a knife edge somewhere between the two but was leaning, inch by savage inch, to Parliament.

  Hence the unusual attention being lavished on their mushroom encampments.

  But not even the most diehard Royalist could deny that the New Model’s quartermasters had at least made some attempt to pay for the goods and provisions they had requisitioned. This over-riding factor had encouraged more and more of the local population around to the cause, no matter how reluctantly.

  But the army wasn’t taking any chances.

  They had dispatched Pye’s horse, then selected troops from Rich’s along with Okey’s dragoons to occupy the town and browbeat - if not worse - the ringleaders into a more solemn and lasting engagement with the new power in the west.

  And to dot the I’s and cross the T’s, a coven of Parliamentary commissioners had followed close behind Pye’s crusaders. The hard-riding delegation was headed by Master Nathaniel Eagleton.

  The commissioners hadn’t been in town long before summoning Sparrow from his lodgings in the Swan, where he and his men had been treated as saviours by the grateful townsfolk.

  Sparrow had made himself as presentable as possible, marched down to the Bishop’s Palace along with his fellow guest. Edward Telling.

  Or at least, it looked like Edward Telling.

  The minister had changed out of all recognition in the week or two since Sparrow had last seen him. He seemed to have grown in stature, assuming the complacent airs and graces of a man long used to command.

  He’d seemed pleased enough to see Sparrow, but given the captain the vague impression he ought to be walking behind the minister holding his cloak.

  He had clearly made himself at home in the city, nodding and smiling at the townsfolk and wandering clubmen as if he was some lmperial commander come to cleanse the cathedral.

  He seemed more composed, somehow. Serenely, smilingly indulgent. As if his experiences over the past fortnight had washed the poor clay and flints from some fabulous mosaic.

  A life portrait the rest of them had trampled and missed.

  He was acting as if nothing could possibly harm him anymore. Sparrow wished he shared that particular conviction. His hands were still trembling half a day after their deadly encounter in the town’s blocked alleys.

  “I am told we have your men to thank, Captain Sparrow, for holding Prince Rupert’s marauders from breaking into the Cathedral Close and around the rear of our position at the Tithe Barn,” Telling confided.

  Our position at the Tithe Barn?

  He’d heard Telling had managed to pull together a few dozen clubmen from the general stampede. Where they had achieved little save blocking the streets and delaying the prompt deployment of Pye’s horsemen.

  Sparrow raised an eyebrow.

  “Thank the Lord the Prince’s vanguard hadn’t realised we weren’t loaded. If they had charged on in we’d be buried on the green along with the rest of them.”

  “Praise God they turned aside,” Telling echoed. “It is upon such decisions battles, and even wars, are won and lost,” he added with puzzling conviction.

  Sparrow strode along beside the flushed crusader, one eye on Telling’s re-forged features. Strong nose, downturned mouth, rigid jaw.

  Augustus in broadcloth.

  They walked in to the Bishop’s palace past a phalanx of inquisitive guards from Pye’s regiment, all well fed, armoured and armed to the bloody teeth.

  The New Model clearly hadn’t stinted, equipping its well beloved cavalry regiments, Sparrow observed testily. It had always been the same in this man’s army.

  There were at least a troop of them posted around the palace, eyeing the passing carts and crowds as if they expected further ungrateful rebellion. Eagleton clearly wasn’t taking any chances with the fickle mob. The show of force was clearly intended to keep them on side.

  One of the clerks guided the newcomers around the brutally stripped palace. All traces of its former grandeur had been torn away and burnt. Any suggestion of icon or imagery hacked and smashed from the very walls.

  The grim, smoke-streaked shell seemed suited to the mood in the main cha
mber.

  But then, Eagleton wasn’t exactly some travelling player employed by the Parliament to cheer newly liberated territories with his jollification and japery.

  The commissioner was, as usual, bent over a paper-strewn table, poring over a heap of documents, accounts, confessions and explanations. Did the wizened dwarf ever straighten his back or had his long service to Parliament distorted his spine?

  A correspondingly tall, straight, dark-haired soldier with a forked beard, resplendent in lacquered armour was picking over a casualty list. Another in a rusty red doublet and heavily stained buff coat was seated beside the table. Swilling his drink, staring at the dregs and holding his peace.

  Eagleton looked up, smiled as broadly as he was able.

  It reminded Sparrow of a cat’s yawn.

  “See the conquering heroes,” he called. “Come in, come in. Gentlemen, you are most welcome. Allow me to take care of the introductions.”

  Sparrow didn’t know whether to salute the rogue or run him through.

  “Captain, or should I say Major Sparrow, Okey’s dragoons, and Minister Edward Telling, Montagu’s regiment, lately serving as our liaison officer with the disaffected elements within these troubled districts.”

  Clubmen, he meant. Sparrow took off his hat and bowed his head. At least Eagleton seemed as good as his word, confirming his promotion in front of these senior officers. Sparrow decided to postpone his revenge, aye, for the moment.

  But he’d want the field promotion properly ratified.

  Eagleton inclined his head, nodded at the officers.

  “Perhaps you know Sir Alexander Popham? A great friend of Parliament in the West.”

  Sparrow knew of him.

  “I do sir. I remember you at Bath, with Sir William Waller, before Lansdown sir. I was there,” he added unnecessarily. He cursed his own naivete, flushed momentarily.