Pistoleer: Roundway Down

by Smith, Skye

  "Aye, and it has a path along it," Mick agreed. "One side of the ditch is choked with bushes so we'll have some cover.” He began to walk out of the battery towards the ditch, and the others fell in behind him. Had they more time, they could have kept low, or even crawled from cover to cover as they had done along the beach, but they were running out of time. Instead they trotted along at a good pace.

  "If we are attacked," Daniel told the men, "we retreat along the ditch back to the beach and signal the Four to come in and pick us up. She'll use her guns to give us covering fire.” Though the Four belonged to their clan, it was chartered out as a patrol ship to the Eastern Association of Trainbands. She was just forty feet at the waterline, but she carried a six pound cannon mounted fore, and two swivel guns aft.

  The ditch led them to the base of a steep slope, but there was a path which traversed up the slope through the bushes. Daniel took the lead, because he had been the one to volunteer for this mission. The rest of them signed on because they trusted him. If someone was to catch the first musket ball, by rights it should be him. Again he felt naked without his Dutch-steel armour and he shivered. At least they had brought helmets. They were the steel skullcaps that were now so common with fighting men, not just because they could save your head, but also because you could flip them over, remove the inner leather cap, and use them as a soup pot.

  Just thinking of using it as a soup pot made Daniel want to retch. Last year he had fought in too many battles, too many sieges, and too many skirmishes, which meant that he had eaten too much over cooked horsemeat. Horsemeat was actually quite delicious when spit-roasted over hot coals, but boiling it up in battlefield water meant you had to cook it long enough to make sure that the water was fit to drink. Tough, boiled meat with a tang of metal and whatever else was in the water. Yuk.

  The path ahead was widening and leveling. They were near the top of the ridge. He signaled those behind him to hug the bushes, and then he crouched low and shuffled towards the crest. It was times like this that his experience hunting game in the Fens did him service. He calmed all thoughts from his mind to allow his senses to strengthen and come forward in his mind. From the smell of horse shit, there must be a bridleway or a cartway ahead. Or was that just his memory of French stew. Songbirds. The songbirds were in full spring throat, which meant that nothing was moving along the cartway.

  He should have known that the road would run along this ridge for it was the closest place to the beach that would be dry even in the winter floods. Slowly he moved forward until he could see the surface of the road. It was wide enough for carts. Cautiously he poked his head out from the last bush and looked left towards the town. The navigation tower was two hundred yards south. To the north he could see a sharp bend in the road about two hundred yards away. Across from him on the other side of the road was a cut in the bushes. The continuation of this path.

  Mick was now at his back with his dragon cocked in his left hand. "See anything? Anyone?"

  "There's no one on the road. The path continues on the other side. I'm going across. Wait for my signal and then have the men come across one at a time.” With that, Daniel looked both ways again and then without rising above a crouch, scurried across the road and into the bushes on the other side. He was right. The path continued. He waved to Mick to send the first man. One by one they crouched and waddled across.

  Once there were two men on his side of the road, Daniel left them working with Mick, while he followed the new path through the bushes. After less than thirty yards of bush, the path opened to a clearing. Cautiously he crept forward to have a look. One look told him all he needed to know. The town was expecting the troop of men who were marching here from Yarmouth. When the other's caught up to him, he told them so. Each of them had a look for themselves.

  "Well that's the effin' trouble with civil wars, ain't it," Nate whispered. "Everyone’s a spyin' on their neighbours, and there ain't no way o' tellin' whose side they's on."

  "Well at least that solves the mystery of the missing cannons at the shore battery," Mick added.

  The clearing they were peering into was on a rise at the northern end of the town. Just inland of the clearing was the first crossroads of the town where the Yarmouth Road jogged a bit and became the High Street. The road they had just crossed, the ridge road, joined the Yarmouth Road at that cross. The clearing lay between the two roads.

  The three cannons from the battery had been moved into the clearing and had been set up pointing towards the crossroad and the Yarmouth Road. The gunners would wait for the Eastern Association's troopers to reach the cross road, and then they would let loose a fury of grape shot. The guns were culverins big enough to do damage to ships at sea, so perhaps sixteen pounders. Each of them would shoot over two hundred pistol balls at a time. Six hundred pistol balls in the first salvo. It would be a slaughter, plain and sure. Even if the troopers were saved by their armour, the balls were sure to cause panic in the horses. Being bucked off a horse could kill you just as surely as a pistol ball.

  Of all the men, Daniel had the most battlefield experience, and by far. In his youth he had lived in Rotterdam and had done service with the Dutch militia as a pistoleer skirmisher. It was a trade he knew well, too well, and more than once in the past year he had been called on by parliamentarian officers to use that experience to help them. Here he was again. He passed his looker around so the other men could see the situation.

  "The only men around the cannons are the gunners," he told them. "The rest of their force is behind the barricade down where the buildings begin on the High Street. They've narrowed the road with a barricade at the first building, and have run a chain across at chest height to stop a mounted charge.” He waited while the next man had a look. "It's a simple strategy, and it will work well enough. Too well. When the leaders of our troops arrive they will see the barricade and the chain, so they will stop just out of musket range, say a hundred yards. The other troopers will bunch up behind them while our officers discuss the situation and call out a greeting to those behind the barricade."

  "And while they are all bunched up," Mick's mind leaped to the obvious conclusion, "they'll eat grape. It's diabolical."

  Nate had Mick's looker. "That's Cap'n Allen down at the chain. With that bastard in charge it's bound to be diabolical, ain't it?"

  "Did anyone get a count of the men at the barricade?" Daniel asked.

  "Over forty. About a dozen with swords."

  "That means there will be at least a dozen horses hidden behind the buildings." Daniel told them. "Once our troopers retreat from the grape, the king's gentlemen will chase them away from those wounded by the grape, and then the men behind the barricades will run out and take them hostage. This raid on Lowestoft will be over before it gets started."

  "So now what?" Mick asked. "What can we do? We are but eight, and lightly armed."

  "We rest," Daniel replied, "and hide and wait for our troopers to arrive."

  "Oh aye, that makes sense," Nate added with a nod. "Once our men come into sight we can run to them along the ridge road and warn them."

  "Why should we warn anyone?" Daniel asked softly, menacingly. "When Cap'n Allen has made such a blunder."

  * * * * *

  There were about fifty mounted men riding three abreast towards Lowestoft along the Yarmouth Road. Behind them were fifty infantry on foot, and behind them about another thirty mounted men as a rear guard. There was a row of perhaps forty heads and muskets along the barricade. The gunners in the clearing were quietly watching, and waiting for the signal to fire. The big guns were already loaded and aimed and hidden behind cut bushes, so all they need do is put a torch to the powder vents and all hell would break loose down at the crossroads. Then the gunners real work would begin, for it was nasty, filthy, hot, hard work to reload big guns and restore their aim ready for the next shot, and to do it quickly.

  There were twelve gunners, four per culverin, but they were watching the barricade for the signal,
or watching the column approaching the crossroad. Like gunners everywhere, they were hard of hearing, so it took Daniel three yells to get them to turn around and face his voice. What they saw was a line of eight men, each holding two big pistols, and all the pistols were cocked and aimed ready to kill them.

  Now that Daniel had their attention, he yelled an order at the dozen big men. "Run away and we won't kill you! Now! Do it.” As he yelled he pointed his killing pistol right between the eyes of the closest gunner. The man blanched, pissed himself, and began to run out of the clearing and down the slope towards the barricade. The other eleven join him in his sprint away from sure death.

  "Right," yelled Mick. "Everyone lend a hand. Let's get the first of these cannons turned towards the barricade. Don't mess with the elevation, just turn the aim.” He looked down towards the crossroads. The lead troopers were slowing and stopping. Already the riders behind them were bunching up. "Get whistlin', Danny."

  Every man, woman, and child in their clan's seafaring village of Wellenhay lived with a whistle hung on a thong around their neck. It was just common sense. The Fens was a place of mists and marshes, so if you got in trouble, your whistle was your best friend. It was the same aboard a ship or a punt. If you ever fell overboard, your whistle was your best friend. Daniel stood on the low rubble wall to one side of this hastily made battery and he blew on his whistle for all he was worth, all the while waving one of the gunners' six foot torches.

  "You've got their attention," Mick called to Daniel. "Both our troops and Cap'n Allen's." He put his looker to his eye and found Allen at the barricade. The captain was staring back at him through his own looker. That made sense. These days every ship's master had one of the Dutch wonders, despite the cost. "He ain't pleased. Them gunners is lucky he hasn't shot ‘em yet. Looks like he's orderin' some of the king's gentlemen up here to do for us."

  "Some riders have already broken off from our column," Daniel called back to Mick. "By the time Allen's men mount up and ride the long way around to reach us from behind, we'll have lots of help."

  "Oye, give me that torch," Nate told Daniel. "My guns aimed right at Allen's head. Let me be the one to take it off."

  "It's grape, not a ball," Daniel told him. "You wouldn't just kill Allen, but ten men on either side of him."

  "Yeh, right, so what's yer point. Give me the torch," Nate replied. "Shit, it's too late. The men at the barricade are walking out with their hands high. Oh, let me do it anyway. I've never fired a cannon before."

  The riders who had peeled off from the column had reached the makeshift battery. Daniel pointed to the other side of the battery, the town side, and told them, "There'll be eight or ten of the king's gentlemen trying to flank us from the town. Keep riding and cut them off, for once they realize that the barricade has surrendered they'll be scattering and making for their homes."

  The lieutenant who was leading the flying squad put a finger to his helmet in acknowledgement and then spurred his horse and his men on. They ploughed through the bushes to get back onto the ridge road, and were gone.

  "Everyone form a watch all around, and with pistols at the ready," Daniel yelled out to his men. "Let's not make the same blunder that Allen made."

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Pistoleer - Roundway Down by Skye Smith Copyright 2014-15

  Chapter 2 - At the Swan Inn in Lowestoft in March 1643

  Daniel was alone at the Swan Inn, that is to say, he was the only one there of the eight men who came ashore with him from the Friesburn Four. Now that the town was controlled by parliament's forces, the other seven had walked back to the longboat to go back on board the Four and sail her around and into Lowestoft's small harbour. Meanwhile he had been asked to attend the questioning of the fifty prisoners, which was taking place at the Swan. The prisoners were locked up down in the cellar and were being brought up one at a time for questioning.

  He had been ordered to attend, yes, but instead he had been told to wait in the tap room, where there was nothing to do but sit, and rest, and share a jug of best ale with Sergeant-Major Sherwood. Not that he minded talking with Sherwood. Of all of the men who marched into Lowestoft today, Sherwood was the man with most field experience. He was an old soldier from the German Wars who was now earning his crust by training the militia bands of foot over in Norwich.

  "That was a pretty piece of work at the crossroads, Danny me boy," Sherwood said as he clinked his pot of ale against Daniel's.

  "Don't thank me," Daniel replied, once he had emptied his pot, "thank that Cap'n Allen. Don't yee love it when gentlemen play at being soldiers."

  There was a harrumph from the third man at the long bench table. Tom Mighells was a wealthy merchant of the town, and it was he who had seen the hopelessness of defending the barricades against the three culverins that Daniel had captured. He had been the first man to walk out from the barricade and surrender. "Allen thinks too much of himself. If it is his idea, then obviously it must be perfect, so he will countenance no criticism. He acts as if Jesus himself speaks from his anus."

  While the man continued to speak of Allen's failings, Sherwood and Daniel sat in silence while they pondering the merchant's big, educated words, and guessed at their meaning from their usage. Meanwhile Daniel was watching the merchant's face as he spoke. Since the bloodless surrender had been Mighells doing, he had been allowed to wait here in this taproom, rather than in the cellar with the others. As Mighells spoke his eyes were shifting about nervously to see who else might be listening.

  He was typical of wealthy men of the kingdom these days. Most were stalling for time and playing a nervous game of fence sitting, hoping that they weren't asked for a full commitment to one side or the other in this war, at least until it was more clear who was likely to win. His words were condemning the actions of the men who were already committed royalists, such as Allen, even though he had stood shoulder to shoulder with them at the barricade. The first casualty of war was the truth.

  "So why didn't Allen have guards and watchers at the cannons?" Sherwood interrupted. "You obviously knew we were coming 'cause you set up the battery."

  "We set up two batteries and barricades, one at each end of High Street. To do that we had to move the guns from both the northern shore battery and the southern shore battery, but we did that over a week ago." The southern end of High Street led to Norwich, and the northern end to Yarmouth.

  "So what you are saying," Daniel asked, "is that your force was split between the two barricades, so you didn't have enough men to guard the guns properly?" His question earned him a kick in the leg from Sherwood, and a warning look not to put words in the man's mouth. Daniel gave him an apologetic nod. In court that was called leading the witness, and this man's interview later today would be a form of court.

  "Not at all," Mighells said almost proudly. "We were watching the Yarmouth Road from up on the light tower, and the Norwich Road from up in the church steeple. When we saw only one force approaching and that it was coming from Yarmouth, we ignored our southern barricade and called everyone to the northern one."

  Daniel noticed that the man stopped talking abruptly and said no more. To account for his sudden silence he pretended to take another drink from his pot, but their pots were all empty, as was the ale jug. What had Mighells just given away? He played the mans words back through his head. Sherwood had his eyes closed. He was doing the same.

  "Martha, more ale," Mighells yelled out so he could turn his face away from the handsome man sitting on the other side of the grizzled old trooper. He felt uncomfortable under the younger man's unwavering stare, and he shivered. "Martha! Where are you?"

  A colourfully dressed woman appeared carrying a jug . She was neither young nor pretty, but not by much. Suffolk had so far been spared the vicious side of this civil war that elsewhere in the kingdom had the women dressing for mourning. Dressing for mourning either because they were, or because they didn't want to be. Martha was wearing bright colors and w
as showing plenty of ankle and cleavage, all of it framed in white lace. She quickly filled Mighell's pot, and then Sherwood’s, but then she lost herself for a moment in the younger man's blue eyes and slowed down while pouring his ale.

  Without a thought, or perhaps with a few thoughts, she arched her back which raised her cleavage towards those dreamy eyes. His eyes were drawn to cleavage, as she knew they would be, so she took a deep breath which pumped up her breasts above her bodice and lace and almost showed her nipples. This view was for him, dreamy eyes, and not for the others. All they saw was her back. She almost sighed as his nose slowly and gently delved her cleavage until his eyes, his dreamy eyes, were pressed against the plumped up flesh of her breasts.

  Daniel never could resist a woman's offer of cleavage. He felt his eyes relax against her warm skin. Nay his whole body relaxed. This was that magic place on every mother or would-be-mother. The goddess place. An alter for worshipping the goddess in every woman. The goddess of the moon, of the tides, and of creation. The goddess Freyja. He prayed a thanks to the goddess for the lack of bloodshed today, and for keeping his clansmen safe.

  Her free hand slowly moved to the back of his neck and gently caressed his long blonde hair. Lovely long threads of gold. Wasted on a man. His free hand slowly moved to the small of her back so that she wouldn't pull away before he was finished his prayer.

  "Ahem," came a throat clearing grunt from behind Daniel. The moment of magic was lost and Martha straightened up and finished pouring the ale. Daniel turned to see who was behind him. It was a lad not much older than eighteen.

  "Excuse me sirs," the lad said politely and actually bowed a bit while he said it, though there was no way of knowing if that was for the men, or so he could get a better view down Martha's cleavage. "Mister Mighells, they will see you know. If you will come with me, sir."