I’ve travelled the world twice over.
Met the famous: saints and sinners,
Poets and artists, kings and queens,
Old stars and hopeful beginners,
I’ve been where no-one’s been before,
Learned secrets from writers and cooks
All with one library ticket
To the wonderful world of books.
Janice James
For Margaret and Brian Aldiss
From Perfect Occurrences of Parliament and Chief Collections of Letters from the Armie, 9th to 16th May 1645:
Friday, May the 9.—I shall this day in the first place present you with a May-game; but such a one as is not usuall, and deserves to be taken notice of, and it is an action of Warre too, and therefore the more sutable to the times.
In Kent the countrey people (no where more) love old customes, and to do every yeer what they have done in others before, and much pastimes, and drinking matches, and May-Poles, and dancing and idle wayes, and sin hath been acted on former May dayes.
Therefore Colonell Blunt considering what course might be taken to prevent so much sin this yeer, did wisely order them, the rather to keep them from giving the Malignants occasion to mutinie by such publique meetings, there having been so many warnings by severall insurrections, without such an opportunity.
Colonell Blunt summoned in two Regiments of his foot Souldiers to appear the last May-Day, May the 1, at Blackheath, to be trained and exercised that day, and the ground was raised, and places provided to pitch in, for the Souldiers to meet in two bodies, which promised the Countrey much content, in some pretty expressions, and accordingly their expectations were satisfied.
For on May day when they met, Colonell Blunt divided them into two parts, and the one was as Roundheads, and the other as Cavaliers, who did both of them act their parts exceeding well, and many people, men and women, young and old, were present to see the same.
The Roundheads they carried it on with care and love, temperance and order, and as much gravity as might be, every one party carefull in his action, which was so well performed, that it was much commended.
But the Cavaliers they minded drinking and roaring, and disorder, and would bee still playing with the women, and compasse them in, and quarrell, and were exceedingly disorderly.
And these had severall skirmishes one with the other, and took divers prisoners one from the other, and gave content to the Countrey people, and satisfied them as well as if they had done a maying in another way, which might have occasioned much evill after many wayes as is before declared …
(Appendix F from Sir Charles Firth’sCromwell’s Army: A History of the English Soldier during the Civil Wars, the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, being the Ford Lectures delivered in the University of Oxford, 1900-1.)
PROLOGUE
THE BATTLE OF SWINE BROOK FIELD
THE Swine Brook was running red again, with the wounded and dying laid out along its banks under the dappled shadow of the willows.
Mostly they were quiet now, engrossed in the final act of the tragedy which was about to take place in the bright sunshine of the water-meadow where the London pikemen and the wreckage of their brother regiments were huddled, waiting for the last great Royalist assault.
Bathed in sweat under their buff-coats and breastplates, unnerved by the suddenness of the fall of their general, the footmen had nevertheless fought like lions. Twice already they had repelled enemy attacks at push of pike; once—ill-advisedly—they had even tried to follow their retreating attackers up the ridge; galled by the fire of the two sakers up the hillside when their own cannon had fallen silent they had closed up and stood firm, so that the original extent of their line was now marked by their dead to the left and right of them. “Steadfast” had been their field-word and they had lived up to it: now they were about to die by it. The lions had become bullocks waiting for the arrival of the butcher.
The moment had come. The sakers banged out for the last time, the trumpets on the hillside shrilled and were drowned by the rising tide of Royalist cheers.
God and the King!
The answering cry from the water-meadow, God our strength, rang hollow. This day God was a Cavalier, and both sides knew it.
Even so, the Parliamentary ranks held firm for one shouting, grunting, groaning minute after the rival pikemen met. Then the lie of the land and superior numbers —and history itself—overwhelmed them: they broke and ran in panic towards the stream, their fear fed by the knowledge that Thomas, Lord Monson, was notoriously averse to taking Roundhead prisoners. Black Thomas had private scores to settle—a dead brother and a burnt home among them—and this was his day for the reckoning.
Clouds of insects rose from the water as the fugitives splashed through it in the thirty-yard gap between the hawthorn and blackberry tangles; the smoke from their burning wagons thinned, to reveal their abandoned cannon on each side of the rout.
The Royalist infantry surged after them, Monson on his great black horse now leading them. But as he reached the Swine Brook one of his men overtook him—
This was the moment of victory, and also the moment of the act which was to immortalise that victory—and Black Thomas with it—when greater triumphs and commanders would long be forgotten.
The soldier tore off his helmet and filled it with the dirty, reddened water. Then he climbed back up the bank and offered it to the Royalist general.
There was a growl of approval from the footmen as Black Thomas lifted up the dripping helmet high for all to see, a growl rising to a great cheer as he lowered it to his lips, the water cascading on either side down his gilded black half-armour.
Black Thomas had promised.
Black Thomas had fulfilled his promise.
“A Monson! A Monson!”
“God and the king!”
The Royalist infantry shook their pikes and waved their swords in triumph; and the watching crowds on the hillside above, who had been waiting for this above all things, took up the applause.
Henry Digby, observing the spectacle from his post beside an old willow ten yards upstream, grunted his disgust. One well-aimed musket ball would have cut Lord Thomas Monson down to size at this moment, and would have gone some way towards avenging the Swine Brook Field slaughter of the righteous. But he had no musket and today there had been no musket ball with Black Thomas’s name on it. That day would come, but it was not yet come.
The dead man beside him raised himself on an elbow.
“He’s not actually drinking the stuff, is he?” asked the dead man.
A dying man who had been dabbing his toes in the water nearby laughed. “I wouldn’t put it past him. Just like the real thing—and I’ll bet they’re all damn thirsty by now.” He pointed to Digby’s plastic container. “It’s not poisonous by any happy chance, is it? But that would be just too much to hope for, I suppose.”
“The dye?” Digby shook his head, frowning at the implications of the suggestion. “Of course not. It’s strictly non-toxic. But I hope to heaven he doesn’t drink it. The stream’s full of cow-dung.”
“Yrch!” The dead man stared at the stream, wrinkling his nose.
“But they drank it. And he drank it, that’s for sure,” said the dying man. “And it was probably full of pig-shit then. And it didn’t do him any harm.”
“I expect they had stronger stomachs than we’ve got. Probably had all sorts of natural immunities,” said the dead man.
“I doubt that,” said Digby. “They were rotten with dysentery at the Standingham Hall siege a week later.”
“Both sides were rotten with it,” countered the dying man. “I was arguing with a chap from Boxall’s Regiment last night in the pub. He said the cavalry was queen of the battlefield, when it came to a ki
lling match. But I reckon squitters was queen. More of the poor bastards crapped themselves to death than ever killed each other, for a fact. I had a bad dose of enteritis last summer, and it bloody near killed me, I tell you. And I was full of pills and antibiotics.” He nodded wisely. “I should think the safest ingredient in this water back then was probably the blood, and Monson just struck lucky.”
As if he had overheard their conversation, the Royalist commander came riding along the bank towards them while his troops surged across the stream in pursuit of the broken Roundheads.
He waved at Digby. “Keep pouring it in, Henry,” he shouted. “We want to make sure it goes all the way down to the road bridge—that’s where the crowds will be.”
Digby waved back and slopped more dye into the stream. It hadn’t occurred to the silly man that it was pointless to waste the dye when everyone was churning up the water, but now most of them were across and he wasn’t going to argue the toss. It was enough that he understood better than anyone that his role today, though unglamorous, was probably the most important one of all: just as Black Thomas’s unhygienic act had fixed Swine Brook Field firmly in the history books, so that it was remembered by people who’d never heard of such crowning mercies as Naseby and Marston Moor, so today’s red stream was what would catch the public eye and the public imagination. The afternoon before, when the other officers had been checking out the battle scenario, he had superintended a dress rehearsal of this bit of it for a BBC TV News crew. By this evening with any luck it would be seen in colour by millions, and from those millions there would be some hundreds of would-be recruits. From them the Mustering Committee would be able to raise half a dozen new regiments—good quality regiments of those who knew what they were fighting about, and loved what they knew.
“How long do we have to lie here?” The dying man consulted a wristwatch. “I’m getting damn thirsty—it comes of watching Black Thomas do his thing.”
Good quality regiments were composed of better material than the dying man, thought Digby disapprovingly. Wrist-watches were strictly forbidden in battle, together with all other anachronisms except spectacles, and even those had to be National Health steel-framed.
He added more dye to the stream. “5.30 for us.” The man hadn’t even read his scenario properly. “We have to perform for the crowd first.”
He pointed towards the ridge, which was already black with spectators who had been released from the retaining ropes by the crowd marshals.
“Don’t worry, Phil,” said the dead man. “Any minute now we’re due for succour from the Angels of Mercy and consolations from the Men of God.”
“You can keep the Men of God—you’re dead,” said the dying man. “Me, I’ll settle for an Angel of Mercy to ease my passing. A little bit of succour is just what I need at the moment.” He peered around uneasily. “You haven’t seen the Lord General anywhere, have you?”
“He’s in the next gap,” said Digby. “Why d’you want to know?”
“Because he’s probably keeping his beady eye on me, that’s why. I got chewed up for putting my hand up an Angel’s skirt at Overton Moor.”
“By the Angel?” asked the dead man innocently.
“Are you kidding? It was my own private Angel. But the Lord General doesn’t think a god-fearing man ought to fancy the flesh in his last agonies—he’s a stickler for bloody accuracy… . There are times when I think I ought to have been a cavalier. They expect that sort of thing, lucky bastards.”
Digby was slightly shocked by the dying man’s profanity. It was true that Jim Ratcliffe was meticulous in his requirements. But it was also true that it was becoming a point of honour in the Parliamentary Army that there should be no swearing on the field or off it. He had noticed the previous evening that even after the beer had flowed freely and the politics had become vehement there had been very little swearing among the men of his own regiment.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t change sides?” He tried to sound casual.
“Change sides?” The dying man repeated the words incredulously. “Christ, man—my old dad was a miner. I’ve voted Labour all my life, and I’m not going to change now… . Bloody cavaliers, you won’t catch me among them.”
“Phil talks like a Malignant,” explained the dead man loyally, “but his heart’s in the right place.”
“Too true,” agreed the dying man. “Just happens Dave and I don’t happen to be a couple of your Eastern Association men. We’re low-grade cannon-fodder— what Noll Cromwell called ‘old decayed serving-men and tapsters’. We run away when things get too hot, but we bloody well come back again. And we died out there too—“ he pointed towards the water-meadow “—before there ever were any Ironsides in their pretty uniforms. This is 1643, remember, not ‘44 or ‘45.”
He could be right at that, thought Digby penitently. But more than that, there ought to be a use for such cheerful rogues because even in defeat there was a marked reluctance among members of both armies to behave shamefully. The dying man and his friend might become the nucleus of a special group prepared to disgrace themselves—a company of cowards. He might usefully raise the idea with Jim Ratcliffe before the next Mustering Committee meeting. Although he was a successful stockbroker, Jim’s enthusiasms for the realism and the Roundhead cause were unbounded.
As he emptied the last of the dye from the canister and reached for a fresh one a shadow fell across his hand.
“Keep it up, Henry—keep it up.” Bob Davenport’s broad American voice followed the shadow. “It’s going down great at the bridge, the people there are loving it. If we could bottle it I swear we could sell it for souvenirs… . Casualties ready to perform?”
“Any real casualties?” Digby’s private nightmare came to the surface.
“Just the usual cuts and bruises … plus one minor concussion. No fractures— nothing serious,” the American reassured him. “The boys are getting pretty good at looking after themselves.”
“Have you seen the Lord General?” asked the dying man.
“Not since he was hit. He’s just round the next bush.” Davenport looked over his shoulder. “Well, here they come. Do your stuff now.”
Digby screwed the dripper-top into the new canister of dye and fitted it into the recess he had scooped out in the bank between the roots of the willow. When he had checked that the red stain was spreading satisfactorily he camouflaged the plastic with the grass he had cut in readiness and climbed back up the bank to where Davenport stood beside the bodies. As the first of the spectators drew near he dropped on his knees beside the dying man, his hands clasped in prayer.
“Courage, good friends,” said Davenport in a loud voice. “We must needs look upon this dread day as the hand of the Lord raised mightily against us poor sinners, for it was only He that made us fly from the ungodly hosts.”
“Amen to that,” said Digby. “For those that He loveth He first chastiseth, even as the mighty Samson was brought low before the Philistines.”
“Ye shall be cast down in this wicked world that ye be raised up in the world everlasting,” agreed Davenport. “And doubt not that on the dreadful day of judgment the Lord shall know His own.”
“He that loseth his life in Thy service shall save it,” said Digby.
“Look! He’s all covered in blood, mum,” said a shrill treble voice in the crowd.
“Sssh!”
“Tomato sauce, more likely,” said another voice irreverently.
There was a titter of laughter, which the dying man cut off with a realistic groan. “Lord, Lord—Thy will be done,” he croaked.
“Amen,” intoned Davenport.
The bushes on the far side of the stream parted and the first of the Puritan Angels of Mercy appeared exactly on cue, a fine buxom girl bursting out of her tight black dress in unPuritan style.
“Water, water,” croaked the dying man.
Raising her skirts with one hand and grasping her leather water-bottle firmly in the other the Angel stepped br
avely into the water.
“Thou comest as an angel of mercy, sister,” said Davenport. “This poor fellow hath need of thee.”
The Angel knelt beside the dying man and tenderly lifted his head as she tilted the bottle to his lips.
The crowd murmured appreciatively, cameras clicked, Digby smelt beer and the dying man winked solemnly at him.
Davenport launched himself into his standard five-minute sermon on the wickedness of the Royalists, the diabolical nature of their recent victory, its temporary nature and the inevitable outcome of their obstinate adherence to Popery, prelacy, superstition, heresy, profaneness and other abominations contrary to sound doctrine, godliness and the will of Parliament.
It was good stirring, authentic-sounding stuff and the American put it over with hellfire sincerity, thought Digby. Indeed, it knocked spots off all the modern political harangues he had heard, from National Front meetings to International Marxist rallies, at which each side had bayed for the other’s blood, but in dull twentieth-century language lacking the marvellous Old Testament vocabulary which had come naturally to seventeenth-century speakers.
Now the climax was coming—
“The Swine Brook runneth red this day with the blood of the servants of the Lord, shed by those men of Belial whose cause is the horridest arbitrariness that was ever exercised in this world.” Davenport pointed towards the stream. “It crieth out for vengeance, and be assured that the vengeance of the Lord of Hosts shall be terrible to behold—“
Digby rose unobtrusively from his knees (those who were not listening open-mouthed to the American were staring pop-eyed down the Angel’s cleavage) and made his way back to the stream’s edge to check the spread of the dye.
It was still dripping out nicely from the container, and also spreading—Digby looked down, suddenly perplexed. Where the stream had been stained rusty-brown downstream from the container, now it was also already coloured a vile unnatural pink upstream.
He stared to his left, into the dark tunnel of overhanging bushes. Some unauthorised joker was at work up there, spiking the water with a chemical of his own—possibly a toxic one. And that must be stopped quickly.
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