Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 ..

by Taylor, Winchcombe

  "Brat," he parroted, nodding.

  Meg shrugged. "He hath no name, sir. At first he had a few words—French likely. Now him and the lass jabber stuff of their own making. Make him talk!" she ordered Carla, so sharply that the girl's large eyes filled and she began to cry. "Slut!" Meg flared and slapped her. "Do as I bid or I'll flay your arse!" Carla merely cried the harder, but the boy ran at Meg, his small fists flailing. "Slut! Slut!" he cried in pure fury.

  "Ha, here's a gamecock!" Dick caught him up onto his knees. For a little the child went on shrilling "Slut!" as if it were a battle cry, then stopped and looked up at Dick trustfully.

  "Here's none of your oaf stock, but good blood, Meg," the latter grunted. "Keep your hands off him or you answer to me."

  "Yes, your honor." She dropped her eyes.

  Ecod, she's near handsome, he thought. Should he send the babes away and lock the door? True, she was only a remount for privates, but he'd had her before. As if understanding, she let a smile touch her mouth, softening it voluptuously. There was a strained silence. He shivered, but then remembered the blonde Grietje. Bah, he could have Meg at any time.

  "His name," he pondered. "Why, since now I'm his father, he

  takes mine—Richard." He patted the boy bluffly. " 'Twas a good day for you, lad, when I came on ye at Ramillies."

  The boy's face lighted. "Wamee!" he aped, liking the sound.

  "Begod, you're right!" Dick cried. "Not Richard, but Ram— Ramillies Anstruther! Meg, ye'll so call him henceforth,"

  She nodded, furious that the moment between them had passed, that he no longer intended to have her, for which he'd have paid well. She wanted to scream, to spit at him. Instead, she said: "Yes, your honor. But you'll keep him yourself now, I think?"

  "Hey?" He put the boy down. "What would I do with him?"

  "He eats," she pointed out. "Hard enough feeding my own."

  "So that's it. Here." He tossed her a guinea. "For what you've done and will do. There'll be more later."

  She smiled then, aware that her services in the other way wouldn't have been paid so well. "I'll care for him, sir, like he wass my own."

  "God forbid!" he grinned, studying the children. The boy—his boy now—had fine red-brown hair, hazel eyes and a build that suggested good ancestry. Carla had Meg's sturdiness and hair but with an olive skin that was oddly foreign. When Meg had joined his company two years before, he recalled, she'd already been abroad from Wales some while.

  "Whence came that bauble?" he asked idly, watching the lad toying with a greenish stone that Carla wore around her neck on a silver chain. " 'Tis a devilish odd color."

  "A mere good-luck charm, sir, no more." Hastily, Meg thrust the stone into Carla's bodice, lest Dick remember its looting.

  Frank re-entered, looking guileless. But when he heard the boy's new name, he bowed mockingly. "Fostered by an old goat like you, he'll indeed be a ram—whoring and warring all his life!"

  "Have done!" Dick growled. And to Meg: "Away with ye now, and mark ye care well for my lad." As she was shepherding the children, he called genially: "Good day to ye. Ram."

  "Wam, Wam!" the new-named one crowed as Meg led him out.

  Frank regarded Dick slyly. The situation was much to his liking: what was more amusing than to help a man make a fool of himself? But to the writing. Grietje would soon be waiting.

  He began scribbling inventively. The first letter, dated from the

  Hague in May, 1703, told of how Dick had married a merchant's daughter a month before. "Her name?" he demanded,

  "Huh?" Dick looked blank. "A good Hollandish one, I s'pose."

  "Meg's the foster mother, so let's use hers, only in Dutch. Meg's Margaret, and Margaret's Grietje—like the wench here. Now a surname." Frank licked his lips. "Horns! Grietje van Hoorn! Most lavish she was with her charms, eh, you old stoat?"

  "Damn your eyes! What date's next?"

  "After the babe's birth and her death." Frank counted on his fingers. "Say April, '04. The third will be this spring, telling of the plague taking the grandparents. That'll do, with the covering letter. Tell about the deserter not posting 'em, mind." He wrote industriously.

  When done, he chortled inwardly at the richness of it all: gulling Dick's mother, cutting out Dick himself with the wench and with more japes to come! After all, war was a humorless business and the next tim.e in action could be the last.

  He left, to mount the garret stairs stealthily.

  Cheated Dick began copying the drafts. Soon he poked his head out and bawled for more geneva. When Grietje didn't appear, he roared so hard that a serving lad came scurrying with a fresh flagon and news that the girl had already gone to bed.

  Confident that she was making herself sweet for his pleasure, he took the fresh gin back to the letters. He wrote on stubbornly, though his spidery scrawl danced before his eyes. One more drink and I'll rest till she comes, he decided. But soon he was snoring, and daylight faded into a darkness that was lighted only by mortar bombs bursting upon besieged Menin.

  He was still snoring when several tipsy officers poured in, carrying torches and being stage-managed from the rear by Frank. "Where is he?" they whooped. "Where's Benedict Dick, who's wedded a whore and sired a ram without telling us?"

  Gin bemused, he was cursing and rubbing his eyes when they forced him into his coat. Someone worked on his hat so that two bayonets jutted up from it like horns. Frank, in fine fettle because of Grietje's compliance, ordered the next step. "The hoisting! Mr. Drew, is all ready?"

  "All!" Bob Drew agreed dmnkenly. "Gentlemen, come."

  They dragged Dick down the stairs, through the crowded taproom and into the night. " 'Fore God, what's to do?" he bellowed. "Is the alarm sounded? Do the French make a sortie?

  In answer his hat, strangely heavy, was jammed on his head. He was then shouldered and borne toward the small square, preceded by drummers and fifers playing the Pioneers' Call, which was also the Cuckold's March. Laughing, jeering men swelled the procession, and the villagers wondered at the madness of it all.

  Storming now, Dick thumped the heads of his porters, who pinched his broad buttocks in return. At the square, Frank bawled: "Bring the blushing bride!" and Meg, screaming obscenities, was dragged fonvard. Someone thrust Ram into her arms.

  "Behold the happy pair and their spawn!" Frank cried. " 'Tis a marvel—wedded, bedded and besonned, all in a single night!"

  "Dick'll be cuckolded ere dawn, if I know his lady aright!" Young Drew lurched over to whack Meg's bottom. She spat at him, which he had cause to notice; but he had no cause to notice ex-Corporal Ely glaring at him from the crowd. True, Meg was a company woman, but in her own way she was loyal to jealous Ely.

  Which is why, next night, Dick found Ensign Drew dead in a sap from the trench the company had just taken over. Powder burns around a hole in the lad's head mystified him. But, since he was busy settling his men in the position and was still suffering from his debauch, he credited Drew's death to some French marksman who had daringly crept into the Allied lines.

  "Always the juniors," he regretted. "It's only beardless boys who die now, while majors and colonels go unscathed."

  With that epitaph, he ordered the body carried to the rear.

  Ram knew no other brat than Carla. Everyone else was grown up, like Meg, who fed, at times bathed, cuffed and, more rarely, petted him. Too, there was Dobbin or Bagabones. Dobbin pulled Cart, in which Ram lived with Carla, Meg and Nan—known also as Scotch-nan—who had a loud voice and a heavy hand. When Cart wasn't moving, she and Meg washed clothes, which they hung on lines to dance in the wind.

  There were also many Red Soljers. Some came to Cart at night and would put their arms around Meg and Nan when they were lying

  in their blankets, just as Ram and Carla put theirs around each other on cold nights. Ram liked them all except Nickely who had a bad voice when he drank from bottles.

  Then there was Father, though Ram didn't see him often. Whenever Meg took Ram to him
, she first scrubbed him hard and brushed his clothes. Ram had to call him y'honor and Captain because, Meg said, Ram belonged to him forever.

  Sometimes there was Boom! Boom! far off and all the Red Soljers would march away. Then Meg would hit Dobbin with a stick and Cart would go fast, fast! And there'd be Red, Blue and White Soljers on the ground and they had Blood on them. Others were carried away and had Blood on them too and would cry loudly.

  Ram didn't like to hear them cry, for that's what Carla did when Meg hit her. He sometimes cried too, but not often. If Meg or Nan hit him or he fell down, he would hit them back or kick the ground that had hurt him, and everything would turn red and he'd feel hot inside. Yet he liked red. He liked it still more after Meg gave him a red coat with yellow on it, and red breeches and stockings. The yellow meant he was in Howe's and the red stockings made him Captain, like Father.

  Dick remained "Poor Dick," despite his gin-inspired scheme. His mother refused him any money. His dead father, she wrote, had won his captaincy under Cromwell and not bought it like merchandise. Besides, hadn't she already purchased his ensigncy for him seventeen years ago? And he'd been mad, entrusting important letters to a deserter. She grieved for the poor bride and the parents who'd died, and he must send his son home at once and not leave his care to foreigners who had no English.

  Worse followed: The vacant captaincy went to Frank, who had won the purchase price by gaming—mostly at Dick's own expense. Too, the 1707 campaign brought only skirmishes, so there was much marching but few casualties. However, the English and Scots received new colors; at last the Two Kingdoms had been united, and the new national standard blended the Red Cross of St. George with the White Saltire of St. Andrew. Men began speaking of English and Scots collectively as Britons.

  Eariy in 1708, Dick was quartered in Ghent, where he diced and drank while his money lasted and kept Ram in his billet, Meg coming

  daily to tend him. By this time he'd convinced himself that the boy really was his son; so he growled at him for not growing faster or learning more and loved him with all the selfishness of the lonely.

  His friends, meanwhile, argued politics: Queen Anne was ailing and childless. Government had offered the succession to her aging cousin, Sophia of Hanover, who, though of Stuart blood and a Protestant, was German by marriage and training. And if she died her son, George, would be her heir.

  The alternative was Anne's half brother, exiled James Edward Stuart. Now twenty but a Catholic and called the Pretender, wily old Louis XIV had already recognized him as James III, Britain's true king. Even in the army there were many called Jacobites who toasted him and cursed the Hanoverians.

  Dick took neither side, gloomily sure that, whoever sat on the throne, his luck would never change.

  Yet change it did, for Louis was fitting out a fleet to carry the Pretender and 6,000 French troops to invade Britain. At once Marlborough readied many of his veterans for passage home to meet the threat.

  Howe's was among the chosen. No camp followers were to go, but Dick took Ram. There was vast excitement as the troops moved coastward. Had the Pretender sailed? If so, where—to Ireland, Scotland or England itself?

  News came of a great storm which had already driven off the blockading Royal Navy squadron and allowed the French ships to reach the North Sea. The chase was on, with the invaders well in front.

  Dick's company, with four others, under Major Armstrong, embarked at Ostend in the 200-ton flute Martha. Having just brought horses from England, she stank vilely; but 300 men were crammed into her. The senior officers shared the cabin, the juniors were under the break of the poop, the sergeants under the forecastle and the privates in the main hold. Tarpaulins were rigged to keep the worst of the weather from the men, who had to sleep on bare planking with rats swarming over them.

  When the Martha reached the open sea the tarpaulins proved useless, and driving rain soaked and almost froze the men in the hold. Too, seasickness struck like a plague.

  Though dry in the fetid little cabin the senior officers, including Dick, were as sick as any. As for Ram, who lay in a bed made from an old cloak, he soon retched himself green.

  With dawn the wind fell and a frigate came rounding up the scattered transports. She reported that the fighting squadron was already seeking the French toward the Scottish coast.

  Dick still lay groaning in the cabin, holding Ram close to give him a little warmth; so Armstrong sent for Nick Ely to care for the boy. Strong-stomached Ely not only did so, but looked after Dick and others. They paid him well. Even if they hadn't, it saved him from the ghastly hold, where men had died and were still dying.

  On the third night, Dick dragged himself out onto the heaving deck to relieve himself at the beakhead. On returning aft he slipped and fell into the scuppers and lay there, too exhausted to rise. Someone brushed forward past him and in the moonlight he saw it was Ely, carrying Ram. Self-disgust bit him. Up! he told himself. D'ye want your boy to see you wallowing like a pig? As he regained his feet, he heard a thin wail and saw Ely, not ten feet away, holding Ram outboard.

  He staggered forward and grabbed the child. "God blast you, have ye no sense?" he snarled. "A slip and he'd have gone!"

  "I had him fast enough," Ely protested. "I wanted but to insure he'd not foul himself."

  'Til take him back. Go get him some broth." Curse him, 'tis well I broke him at Ramillies, he's even useless as a lackey, Dick thought as he regained the cabin and put Ram back in his bed.

  Early on March 21, land was sighted to larboard. Soon the small Durhamshire town of Shields opened, with transports and frigates already at anchor. When Dick learned its name, he forgot his sickness and carried Ram on deck. "England, lad! Home's not forty mile away." Somehow, he must get home, show the boy to his mother and so wheedle money from her.

  Among the other transports was that carrying the rest of Howe's, under Lieutenant Colonel Britton. The latter came aboard the Martha and, when he heard of the deaths, groaned aloud, having lost many himself. "Twenty good men gone. Bad as a battle. Damme, it's the Devil's own luck we can't recruit while we're here!"

  It was Dick's chance. On his farm, he promised, were good lads willing to take the Queen's shilling. Give him but four days and he'd bring them back. Besides, he'd not been home for seven years and his mother had never seen her grandson.

  Grinning at the "grandson" fiction, Britton refused, for the convoy might sail at any minute. But if any leave could be granted, Mr. Anstruther would certainly receive priority.

  A hundred miles northward. Admiral Forbin's flagship was anchored off the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth, and two Scots officers were being rowed to the mainland to announce the arrival of James III, rightful King of Britain.

  James himself was pacing the quarterdeck with his advisers. Though this was the only ship thus far to reach the rendezvous, he was afire to unfurl his standard ashore. But older heads dissented. It would be madness, some said, to land until sure English troops weren't waiting to slaughter them. What use, a French general asked, to land before the arrival of his veterans, around whom the undisciplined Scots could be organized?

  The admiral, too, had objections. The vessel was in the lee of the small island, and landsmen didn't realize the force of the southeast wind. Though it had blown the ship into the firth and could bring in the rest of the squadron, it was also fair for the British. As he spoke, lookouts reported several French sails in the firth's mouth, but with the British close astern. Though brave enough, Forbin shrank from being hemmed in against the shore, with no sea room for fighting.

  But now a smoke signal told that all was well ashore.

  "The die's cast!" James cried. "We land at once."

  "Impossible, now that the British ships are so close!" cried one who, having plotted against Anne for years, knew that capture meant his execution,

  A tall, gaunt Irishman stepped forward. "A blow, sire, and England's rule is over! Appear in Edinburgh and Scotland's yours. Give me but leave to reach m
y own land and in a week all Ireland will be up for you!"

  "Ah, if only all were like you, Major O'Duane!" the prince praised, reinspired. "A boat! Who follows Royal Stuart?"

  But for Forbin a miracle had happened. "Your Majesty, the wind's changed—we may yet escape! On behalf of my master. King Louis,

  I cannot permit you to endanger your royal person longer." He pivoted. "Ohe, up anchor!"

  He was obeyed. Sails filled and slowly the ship wore around; each seaman aware that, penned in these narrow, strange waters, his life was at stake. Already the leading French vessels had crossed the firth's mouth and were sailing on northward, the British so close astern that their guns' flashes were visible.

  While a Scots pilot conned the flagship through the shoals, James gazed at the receding shore, his lips moving in prayer. Faflure! His golden moment had passed.

  Brian O'Duane watched him, tight-lipped. This young prince sought kingship for its power and glory. But to men of Brian's race he must be served and sacrificed for, because only through him could they hope to return to Ireland, free to worship as Catholics, with their stolen lands restored.

  The months after Ramillies when, his mind deranged, he had long hovered between life and death, he had aged so greatly that no longer could he be called "Red" Brian, for even his eyebrows had turned white. But with regained health had come the cold resolve to exact personal revenge against all English, since it was they who'd despoiled his countr}', desecrated his dead wife and left his baby son to rot in some unknown grave.

  And now he, too, watched the receding shore, eyes wet with futile tears. Patience! he told himself. There'll be another time!

  Two days later, a frigate put into Shields with news of the invasion's failure and of the French being harried back whence they came. All warships were ordered into the chase and transports must wait until an escort could return for them.

  So Dick got his four days' leave and at once sent for Ely. "You come with me. Get the boy into a boat. We hire hacks and ride at once."