Pistoleer: Roundway Down

by Smith, Skye

  By the end of the day's training, the twenty lads were born again. Not in their belief in God, for that was already very strong in these Berkshire country lads, but in their belief in themselves. Knowing how best to use their clumsy dragons had given them a confidence that yes, they could fight the sons of nobles, and yes they did have a good chance of beating them despite those sons having been trained in weapons for most of their lives.

  Afterwards John walked Daniel back to his humble billet where he was still guarded by the gunners who had pulled him safe from the mob in Reading. As for John, he was billeted with a wealthy and generous family where the wife kept a fancy larder. It was one of the advantages of his having grown up near Thame and having attended the local school. John was very much a local hero.

  * * * * *

  The next day they continued with the training of the green dragoons, but this time it was Captain Crosse of the Thame Greencoats who was leading it. He had assembled all three troops of his recently trained dragoons along with their horses in order to practice Daniel's tactics while mounted. Daniel and John also arrived mounted even though they had only come to watch and give advice. Though his back still ached after a few hours in the saddle, Daniel was well pleased that he could once again sit a horse, and Femke seemed to be pleased by the company and the exercise.

  Crosse was right to have assembled this full scale practice, for the complexity of wheeling an excited horse while at least one of your hands was wielding a weapon, and while other horses were wheeling nearby, was far harder than the men doing the same dance on foot. This was one day when Daniel did not mind the seemingly ceaseless drizzle which had marked this year's spring, for if the training ground had not been damp then the racing and wheeling of two hundred horses would have choked them with the dust.

  Much later, while the lads were congratulating themselves on getting three lines rotating from shooting to reloading, an officer came riding across the training ground as if the devils of Hell were on his tail. Colonel John Stapleton was not just the commander of Essex's cuirassier lifeguard but also now the commander of his entire regiment of horse, so of course the lads stopped still when they saw the speed of his approach.

  "John!" Stapleton called to Hampden, "Prince Rupert has been spotted leaving Oxford in force. Over a thousand men mounted, plus infantry." So it was something to do with the devils of Hell after all. "It seems likely that he means to cross the River Thame."

  "That means he is circling to the south of us," Hampden replied thoughtfully. "That is not good. That is very bad. The supply train from London has still not arrived. How many? A thousand of the devils, plus infantry. You command the only mounted force large enough to block them The best place to block them would be at Chislehampton Bridge. How quickly can you leave?"

  "There in lies my problem," Stapleton explained. "I can leave immediately with perhaps three hundred, but it may take me the rest of the day to gather a thousand. Three hundred is not enough to turn them. We'll like as not be slaughtered."

  "But if you don't do something to slow Rupert down, he may capture our supply train. That would be a disaster. You know of course what is with that train? Shhh, don't say it out loud."

  "That is why I am here. These two hundred lads are already mounted and armed. Essex wants them to ride out immediately along the Wycombe road to warn and support the supply train's guard."

  "Captain Crosse," Hampden turned to the young Greencoat officer, "these are your trainees. How do you say?"

  Crosse looked at Stapleton as he answered. "We can leave immediately so long as Colonel Hampden and Captain Vanderus ride with us. I will need the advice of seasoned officers."

  "So be it," Stapleton replied. "Get going. Your orders are to warn the train. Do not engage the enemy, or otherwise stray from that task for any reason until that warning is heeded."

  * * * * *

  They found the long, slow-moving supply train just to the west of High Wycombe, and the news they carried about the approach of Prince Rupert's flying army made the major who commanded the supply train want to turn back to Wycombe, but Hampden convinced him otherwise. "Rupert will expect you to make camp at one of our small garrisons, so he will be visiting all of them. That is why he rides with so many, over a thousand. Postcombe, Chinnor, Stokenchurch, Wycombe, he will be paying a visit to each of them in turn."

  "If you have a better suggestion, I am all ears," the major replied.

  "I suggest that you hide the train so he doesn't find it," Hampden replied. "By later today Stapleton's cuirassiers will be out in force, so we do not have to hide it for long. All we need is a place out of sight of any main road which is easy to defend and hard to attack on horseback.” He winked at Captain Crosse. They were both locals and they well knew this road through the Chiltern Hills.

  "A quarter mile ahead there is a track that leads to the next road north," Crosse told them. "Off it runs a track that goes up a small blind valley filled with a dense wood. We can reach it quickly, and it will hide us well. Even if we are discovered, the lay of the land will hamper any mounted attack. They won't like that. It makes it too much like a fair fight."

  So it was that the supply train hid through the night in the blind valley. Crosse's dragoons manned a series of ambushes on the only track into the valley. They never had cause to trigger those ambushes because they were never found by Rupert. Even so, no one got much sleep because everyone was on edge and jumping at every sound. The picket up on the ridge above the valley never even saw Rupert's column, but they did see its effects. Two separate groups of roofs were burning fiercely a few miles to the west of them.

  When they heard of the fires, John and Daniel climbed up to the picket on the ridge to have a look see for themselves. It was dark so Daniel's looker was useless, but John knew the lay of the land and hills and it was he that named the places being burned. "That one is the village of Chinnor," John said in a seething voice. "The other is Postcombe." It was Postcombe that he was worried about, for as they rode to find the train, he himself had warned the small garrison at Chinnor to be wary. "If the men from Chinnor did not send a warning out to Postcombe, then they may have been taken completely by surprise."

  * * * * *

  The next morning the supply train set out on the last eight miles to Thame and the first village they went through was Chinnor, or what had been Chinnor, for it had been burned to the ground. Hampden's warning had saved the folk, however, and they had already come out of hiding and were trying to salvage what they could. With the supply train now within four miles of the full army at Thame, Hampden thought it safe to take Crosse's dragoons away from the supply train and ride to Postcombe to see what had happened there.

  What had happened in Postcombe put Hampden into a fury. A survivor, an old woman, told them that the village had been taken by surprise by the devil prince. The small garrison had put up a fight but they were soon overwhelmed. Rupert had been so furious at not finding the supply train, that he took out his wrath on the garrison and the village, and fifty poor souls had been put to the sword. Those he spared were told to spread the tale of what happened to villages who did not surrender immediately to him.

  She also told them that Stapleton and a huge force of cavalry had ridden through the village less than an hour ago and on seeing the slaughter had ridden out hot on the devil's tail in the direction of Chalgrove. Although both Crosse and Daniel wanted to turn about and make sure that the train arrived safely in Thame, Hampden would not listen to reason. He wanted to catch up to Stapleton and help him to destroy the devils who had slaughtered these poor folk. They tried to argue with him, but he was a hard man to argue with because his mind was so quick.

  "Rupert will be riding to get back across the Thame river at Chislehampton," Hampden argued. "If he can hold that bridge, then he can stop Stapleton from following him. That is the safe and sensible thing to do, and what Stapleton will expect of Rupert. That is why we must follow Stapleton. Rupert is a devil. He uses whatever is exp
ected of him as bait for his next trap."

  Daniel nodded at the logic but Crosse looked confused asked for an explanation, so Hampden gave him one, "He will divide his forces into slow and fast. The slow half will go directly to the bridge and hold it. They are his anvil. The fast half will hide along the road this side of the bridge until Stapleton has past by them, and then they will follow him to the bridge. Once Stapleton engages the anvil, the devil will attack him from the rear. The hammer for the anvil. That bridge is in a bend in the river which forms an open horseshoe. Stapleton will be trapped between hammer and anvil and river and his only escape will be back through the hammer. Once he is engaged with the hammer, then the anvil will attack him. Stapleton's men will be slaughtered just like the folks here."

  "Only if Stapleton takes the bait," Crosse pointed out.

  "Exactly, that is why we must ride after him. To make sure that he does not take the bait."

  As hard as they rode, it still took them until the other side of Chalgrove before they saw Stapleton's force ahead of them, or rather, saw the cloud of dust that marked the thousand horses ahead of them. Stapleton was almost to the bridge so Hampden hurried his mare ahead of Daniel and Crosse, and yelled out to the others to speed up so they could catch up to the main force. Daniel put a hand out to hold Crosse from hurrying just yet.

  "Before you join him," Daniel told not just Crosse but all of the men within hearing, "you should know this. Rupert has offered a bounty to any of his lifeguard that kill or capture John Hampden. They tried to collect that bounty at Kineton and again at Brentford, and they will try again. John likes to lead his men into battle, so he is an easy target. Keep close to him and don't let any cavalryers who wear black armour with a red eagle crest get anywhere near to him.” He had barely finished the warning when a dozen of the lads spurred their horses to catch up to their colonel, their local hero.

  So it was that it was Hampden and that dozen who first saw Rupert and a great force of cavalry coming out of hiding from behind a copse of trees on the other side of the road's hedgerow. John immediately fired a pistol. Even though he was well out of range of the cavalryers, the shot would warn all three forces that contact had been made. That one shot ruined Rupert's trap, because now Stapleton's cuirassiers would know that the enemy was behind them.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

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

  Chapter 25 - Ambushed by the Devil in Chalgrove Field in June 1643

  Rupert must have been furious that his trap had been sprung early before Stapleton was close enough to the bridge, the anvil. He spurred his horse directly at the roadside hedge and forced her to leap it to gain the road, so that he take out his anger on the dragoon officer who had foiled him. On seeing their prince alone on the other side of the hedge from them, twenty of his lifeguard also leaping the hedge, but the rest of his six hundred cavalryers chose to ride around the hedgerow.

  For a few moments it was the prince and twenty against Hampden and a dozen, so Hampden should have led his men in an orderly retreat. Should have except that he was so filled with hatred for this Bohemian devil who thought nothing of slaughtering women and children, that he charged at him to get his one remaining loaded dueling pistol within range. The foolhardy move took everyone by surprise. Once within range of the prince, the scholarly businessman took aim at the devil's face and pulled the trigger.

  Hampden's green dragoons raced to keep up with him, with their dragons leveled at saddle height in their left hands. Many pistols fired at about the same time and immediately there was a cloud of acrid smoke and within the smoke there came the screams of horses in pain and angry men. The dragoons then wheeled and fled from the cavalryers back towards the rest of the company of dragoons. All that is, except for Hampden. It was as if he didn't know where he was. His horse was cantering, but diagonally away from the cavalryers and from his own retreating men. His left hand was stretched across his chest armour and seemed to be holding up his right arm.

  One of the lads yelled out, "The colonels been hit in the shoulder," and then he wheeled a half a turn to race after his hero. The rest of the dozen wheeled to follow him. It was not to be. The twenty cavalryers were now blocking their way. For a moment, just a moment, each of the lads wondered if they could race through them, but calls of caution from the dragoon company barreling up behind them caused them to stop such foolish thoughts and wait for the rest of their company to catch up.

  Rupert and his lifeguard wanted to chase after Hampden. Rupert had recognized him and was calling out to his Bohemians in German, "Es Hampden ist , um ihn!" His guards, however, were more interested in how close the full force of the dragoons were, and instead blocked their prince in and forced him back towards the six hundred cavalryers that had just ridden around the hedgerow. The main body of cavalryers were howling and cheering at their good fortune, for they so outnumbered the charging dragoons that it would not be a battle so much as a slaughter.

  The lead riders of the six hundred raced towards the lead riders of the two hundred at speed with sabres out and pointed forward. It was a proven tactic of Rupert's cavalryers to have the lead men frighten and force a hole through the enemy and then wheel and attack them from behind while the rest of their force hit them from the front. It had worked for them countless times, and always the rebel dragoons and even the rebel cavalry chose to flee to safety rather than fight.

  As they expected, the lead dragoons wheeled as one to flee in front of them, but then it was as if the very air behind the wheeling horses became stinking, stinging pain. Their horse's momentum carried them through the gunsmoke, but at the cost of the horses slowing almost to a stop, and then they turned every which direction. As the lead cavalryers coughed and choked and blinked while fighting for control of their snorting panicking horses, another wave of dragoons was on them, wheeling, and filling the air with more smoke to keep their throats on fire.

  Two things then happened simultaneously. The second wave of cavalryers had not expected the first wave to turn into a wall of misbehaving horses, and they crashed into them at speed. Meanwhile the third wave of dragoons charged up, wheeled, and once again filled the air with pain.

  With a wall of two hundred stalled cavalryers in front of them, the other four hundred went around them on both sides so as to charge into the dragoons in a pincer move. It was another of Rupert's German tactics which he had used whenever there was a blockage of fighting men in the center. It meant that the enemy behind the blockage suddenly found themselves outflanked and surrounded on three sides, which left them only one recourse - to turn and run. Frightening men into running away was the key to Rupert continued success. Once men were fleeing in ones, twos and threes, you could run them down and slash at them with very little risk to yourself.

  But these Berkshire buggers in their green coats were not running. Yes, they were retreating, but in an orderly retreat, in waves backwards while they covered each other, and all the while they were filling the air behind them with burning, stinging grit, and birdshot. But a retreat it was, and it was only a matter of time before the cavalryer's weight of numbers would defeat these dragoons, and then they would run, and then the fun of slaughtering them would begin.

  The sounding of horns brought the fighting, slashing, dashing cavalryers to their senses. They were being called back to regroup. It was only when they broke off from the dragoons and escaped into fresher air that they realized how many other cavalryers were no long fighting. Those with stinging eyes and misbehaving mounts were eagerly obeying the recall. No longer did they look much like a fighting force as much as the blind leading the blind. Some horses had even been abandoned and their riders had doubled up with friends.

  The recall was not about regrouping to organize a new charge on the dragoons. Once out of the smoke where they could once again catch their breath and open their eyes to look around, they could clearly see the glint of sun off helmets, masses of helmets, coming fro
m the direction of the bridge and coming fast. The main rebel force of cuirassiers was almost upon them. The main rebel force which they had attempted to trap, was now closing them into a trap. The horns of recall were to regroup, yes, but not to fight. It was obvious what their prince had decided. It was time to high tail it to the bridge and get safely across.

  While the regroup was being called Daniel was fully busy giving orders to get the dragoons ready for the next charge. His orders were simple. Get back into your line and reload. "They underestimated you on their first charge. The second charge will be different. They will wheel just before they come into range of our first line, and then wheel again to attack us on the end of our line. You must wheel with them. You must keep facing them. The only way to defend against cavalry is to keep facing them, no matter which way your horse is going."

  It was sound advice, but the men were too excited at their success to be listening. In truth most of them were watching the two masses of cavalry forming up before their eyes. Rupert's force right in front of them and to the left, Stapleton's. Stapleton's regiment had left the road for the fields so that they could arrange themselves in a long line for a full charge. This left the road open and empty, so Rupert's regiment turned and rode at speed down the road towards Chislehampton. All except, that is, for about five riders in black armour who had broken off from the main force.

  "Where are they going?" Daniel asked aloud to no one in particular.