Curran grinned and deposited a mouthful of spittle on the roadside. “I think it’s very decent of them to give us the opportunity for some sport, sir,” he replied.
“My thinking exactly,” said Connaught. “My guess is that these people are not just simple villagers. Puritan rabble, that’s what they are. They deserve everything that’s coming to them.”
Meanwhile, behind the barricades, brothers John and Henry Fowler crouched behind the barrels and trained the sights of their muskets on the approaching soldiers. John Fowler was the schoolmaster and curate of Barthomley and son of the rector. He was only twenty years of age, but being the most educated of the villagers, he was accepted as their leader.
“What do we do, brother?” breathed Henry Fowler, the younger of the two siblings. “We cannot possibly resist a whole company of trained soldiers.”
“We must,” said John. “The Irish are little more than animals. They will rape our women and steal our belongings. They have pillaged every village from Audlem to here. We must try and divert them.” With that, he stood up and called to the soldiers.
“What do you want? There’s no passage for you here.”
There was a moment of hesitation before Major Connaught stepped forward. “In the name of the King, we demand passage and sustenance. Let us through and you will not be harmed.”
“Go away, Irishman,” responded Fowler. “We hear what you have perpetrated in the villages around these parts. Leave us in peace. If you are heading for Crewe, take the road behind you to your left.”
Connaught said nothing but motioned his men forward with a wave of his hand. Twenty of them moved across the field to the right whilst another group crossed the narrow stream called the Wulvarn, which runs along the side of the road. This group headed to the left to encircle the village, whilst the rest headed straight for the barricades, walking slowly. The villagers looked at each other and shuffled nervously, not knowing whether to shoot or run.
“We can’t hold this many men here,” said one. “What do we do?”
Fowler looked round in desperation. Building a defence around the half-timbered houses in the village was not an option. Apart from the fact that this would expose the women and children hiding inside the houses to immediate danger, they would be overrun by a group of soldiers as large as this in a matter of minutes. St Bertoline’s, however, had been built on an ancient drumlin and burial mound and, with its crenellated roof, could have passed for a fortress in the half-light of dusk.
“Withdraw,” shouted Fowler, “to the church. We can hold them from the tower.”
Dragging their weapons with them, the villagers scuttled back down the street, musket shots flying above their heads. Entering the church, they climbed the turret stair of the western tower, several of them, including John Fowler, emerging at the top, whilst the remainder guarded the stairs. The Irish soldiers quickly surrounded the church and positioned themselves behind walls and gravestones.
“Don’t be fools,” shouted Connaught, stepping out to where the villagers could see him. “Surrender now and in the name of the King, quarter will be given to all.”
“Fuck off back to Ireland, you papist scum,” screamed Fowler, from the top of the tower, and aimed a shot at Connaught. The musket ball fizzed past the Major’s head and hit the soldier behind him, who screamed and fell to the ground. Connaught dived back behind a gravestone to loud jeers from the villagers.
“O’Quig’s been shot, Major,” said a voice behind him. Connaught turned round to see the stricken soldier lying on the ground with a hole the size of a fist in his belly. His face was as grey as the sky.
“I can see that, Mallon. By all that is holy, these bastards will pay for this.” With an effort, Connaught swivelled himself round with his back to the gravestone. To his right, he noticed the hats of some of his men protruding from behind the churchyard wall, where they were crouching, waiting for his instructions. A steely, determined look entered his eyes and he called over to them.
“You men, behind the wall,” he barked. “Cover us.” The response was instant. A volley of shots was fired, the musket balls sending chips of stone flying from the wall near the top of the tower. The heads of the villagers disappeared momentarily and Connaught was up and sprinting for the church door, followed by five others. This process was repeated until thirty Irishmen stood inside the church, inspecting the locked door to the turret stairs.
Inside the church, Connaught took in the nave with its oak ceiling and carved altar. A private chapel stood on the south side of the chancel.
“What are we to do, sir?” asked Mallon. “They’re not coming down and we can’t stay here all night.”
Connaught considered the question for a moment and then grinned. “Rip out the pews,” he said.
Curran looked horrified. “Sir, surely you’re not going to destroy a church?”
“This is a not a church loyal to Rome, Curran. God will forgive us. These people are nought but a bunch of calvinists. To put them on the right path will be a mercy.”
Some of the soldiers crossed themselves, but, nevertheless, they started to gather up the sweet-smelling rushes lining the floor and break up the pews, piling everything up against the door to the turret stairs. One soldier brought a book over and showed it to Connaught.
“Yes – the parish registers too,” he said.
Within a few minutes, a roaring furnace was burning with smoke, which billowed up the stairs in great clouds. Angry shouts and coughing were heard from behind the door to the tower.
Eventually, a cry rang out from the rooftop. “Quarter!”
Connaught smiled to himself in satisfaction and issued the order for the villagers to throw their guns from the roof and to descend one by one. Wood and rushes were brushed to one side at the foot of the stairs, and the door opened. One by one the men emerged and were lined up and made to strip naked. Any who resisted were hacked and stabbed and had their throats cut. Two men suffered this fate and collapsed against the wall, gurgling as they fought for breath. Most, though, had the sense to stand stock still and were unharmed.
John Fowler was the last to emerge from the smoke-filled staircase. When he did so, he stared in horror at the scene in front of him.
“You murdering animal,” he seethed, taking a step forward. “You would commit such a foul atrocity in the house of God? May the Lord have mercy-” It is as far as he got. Connaught, his face contorted with rage, grabbed hold of Fowler and felled him with a single axle blow to the left temple. The wound was only small, but the blow was instantly fatal, and Fowler slumped to the ground in a heap.
In the frenzy that ensued, nine more men were killed, five were injured, and only three escaped unhurt. In addition to John Fowler, among the dead were Henry Fowler, Richard Steele, and his two sons, Richard, William, and Randall Hassall, whose wife, as well as the younger Richard Steele’s wife, would give birth to sons the following summer, both named after their dead fathers. The men who were unhurt, and those of the injured who could still walk, staggered out of the church into the trees to fend for themselves in the cold of the winter’s dusk.
“Right, my friends,” said Connaught. “God’s work is done for today. I know where I’m going now.” The major strode off towards the village’s only inn, The White Lion. Curran stared in disbelief, but he and the remaining soldiers followed Connaught, leaving the bodies of the dead piled up against the wall and the door to the turret stairs.
Meanwhile, from the safety of the trees, two shadowy figures had been watching the proceedings with interest. They waited an hour until darkness began to set in and they were sure no-one else was about, before dragging a further body out of the undergrowth and into the church. They surveyed the scene with a mixture of horror and admiration.
“God’s teeth,” said the elder of the two men. “It has come to this. May God preserve us. One day someone will pay dearly for this. Let us hope that it is not the King.” The two men did not linger, but before they too
k their leave, the dead body they had been dragging behind them was propped up against the wall in the same manner as the rest of the corpses. The only difference was that the body had a crimson sash covering the gaping wound in its throat.
20
Nantwich – Tuesday, December 26, 1643
News that something was amiss at Barthomley had begun to filter through to the town by Christmas Day, but it was not until Saint Stephen’s Day that a first-hand account of the true horror of the terrible events in my home village reached my household, and it was a familiar face that brought it. I was still in my chamber, having just about recovered from my ordeal of five days earlier, when I heard a terrible clattering on the front door and shouting from outside. When I opened the door, Gabriel Broomhall, the young farm-hand from my parents’ farm in Barthomley, stumbled across the threshold. He was shaking uncontrollably from head to toe, which was unsurprising as he was not dressed in a winter cloak. Before I had the chance to ask him why he was abroad in such weather and so lightly-dressed, Mrs Padgett, who, as usual, was already up and pottering around the kitchen, ushered him over to the fireplace to warm up and plied him with a cup of warmed spiced ale. Clearly in shock, Gabriel was scarcely able to speak, so I left him to recover his senses by the heat of the fire whilst I returned to my chamber to dress myself.
Although it was a shock to see Gabriel, who I had known for years, in such a state, I had barely fared much better myself over the past few days. Shocked to my core after my experience in Chapel Wood, it had taken me a couple of days to fully recover my composure, and I had only now begun to realise how close I had come to death.
Staring at the manic grin on Hulse’s face, I had already given up hope and mentally begun to commit myself to my maker. However, just as the musketeer cocked his pistol, I heard a crack from the road behind him and Hulse pitched forward, landing across my chest, the pistol spinning away into the grass. I screamed in shock and pushed Hulse away onto his back. As I did so, I saw the huge gaping wound in Hulse’s chest where the fragments of musket ball had entered him. I looked at my shirt and realised that it was covered in blood and bits of Hulse’s innards. I leaned over to my right and vomited into the grass as Hulse’s body twitched in its final death throes. Seconds later, Skinner was at my side, having sprinted the few yards across the grass.
“That was a close one, Master Cheswis,” he breathed, as he threw himself on the ground and proceeded to reload his musket. “Quick, get your weapon, sir,” he added. “The other bastard is still out there on the road.”
I struggled to regain my senses and grabbed the musket that Hulse had kicked away. Fortunately, the match had not extinguished in the snow, so I was able to quickly reload it.
Prescott, meanwhile, had sat up and regained the carbine he had been using. The shot from Hulse had scraped his shoulder, and, although there was plenty of blood, it was clearly not a life-threatening wound. The three of us lay side-by-side in the undergrowth and stared at the other assailant who had retreated to where he and Hulse had left their horses, just out of range. I focused my vision and confirmed what I already knew, that the other man was Bressy, Hulse’s friend.
“That was impressive, lad,” grunted Prescott, as he tried to stem the flow of blood from his shoulder. “I’ll wager you’ll make a fine soldier one day soon.” Skinner beamed from ear to ear at the compliment, but Prescott was right. Skinner had surpassed all possible expectations of a youth of his age. He had shown no panic in the heat of battle – just ruthless efficiency.
“Right, lads. Here’s what we do,” whispered Prescott, under his breath. “We’ve all reloaded, right?... Good. Skinner, you take a shot at him to let him know we’re here. Then, if he comes any nearer, we take alternate shots at twenty second intervals, allowing us to reload, but not him. Do you understand?”
Skinner nodded and aimed his musket at Bressy, who was stood watching. The musket ball whistled harmlessly into the grass some yards short of where he was standing. Bressy did not move a muscle at first, but then he calmly untied the horses, mounted up, and rode away in the direction of Hunsterson.
“He’s no fool, that one,” said Prescott. “He knows he’s on a hiding to nothing. He’s better off withdrawing and living to fight another day.”
With Skinner quickly reloading and making sure that Bressy continued to retreat, I turned my attention to the body of Hulse, removing the dead musketeer’s coat and then his shirt, which I tore into strips and used as a makeshift bandage for Prescott, to ensure his wound didn’t bleed any more until I could get him to a physician. I then inspected the cart, which lay on its side. Unfortunately, the front axle had buckled and one of the wheels was broken beyond repair. It was clear that it would not be possible to get it back to Nantwich that evening, so I sent Skinner to find the farmer, who he eventually discovered cowering in a barn. After some persuasion, he agreed to help us get the cart and the cheese back to the farm and to store both until we could get a blacksmith out to mend the cart.
We then retrieved Cowper’s horse but unfortunately had to leave Cowper and Hulse’s bodies, with a promise that some soldiers would be sent out to bury them the next day.
Prescott rode his own horse back to Nantwich, whilst Skinner and I followed on behind on Cowper’s. Skinner was feted as a hero when we returned to the safety of the town and was still basking in the glory of his newly-found status several days later. I, however, apart from spending three days in bed with a fever, clearly brought on by the shock of the incident, was deeply disturbed by the involvement of Hulse and Bressy. It was clear to me that the two soldiers were involved in the murder of Ralph Brett and that the encounter in Hunsterson had been no chance meeting. They had come specifically for me. But why? What did they think I knew?
In the meantime, we had also heard that the royalist soldiers that passed through Audlem, a band of Irishmen, had carved a swathe of destruction through the countryside, raiding farms throughout the villages in the area, burning and looting without mercy. Victims had been stripped naked and robbed of all their possessions, women were raped, and any man who resisted murdered. I prayed that the farm in Hunsterson where I had left my goods would be spared. I dared not think what had happened in Barthomley.
It was with feelings of deep apprehension, therefore, that I returned to my fireside to receive Gabriel Broomhall.
My fears were not unfounded. Gabriel struggled to tell his tale, and, as he did so, I could scarcely believe what I was being told. What depths of depravity could this band of heathens sink to? The company of Irishmen had chased twenty of my friends and acquaintances into St Bertoline’s, desecrated the church by ripping out the pews and setting fire to them. They had then smoked the young men of Barthomley out of the tower, stripped them, and killed them in cold blood. I recoiled in shock as Gabriel recounted the names of some of those who had been lost: the Fowler brothers, my childhood friends James Boughey and Richard Cawell, Thomas Elcocke, the son of the previous rector of Barthomley, Richard Steele, and two of his sons. It brought tears to my eyes – friends of my youth cut down mercilessly by these barbarians, and in the House of God, too.
Gabriel was one of the lucky ones who’d escaped. He was among the last down the stairs and would surely have had his throat cut too, if the frenzy catalysed by Connaught’s slaying of John Fowler had not caused such confusion that he was able to slide out of the church door unnoticed. I had wondered how it had taken two days for details to travel the ten miles from Barthomley, but this was now patently obvious. The villagers had clearly been too terrified to leave their homes.
Gabriel related how he had managed to get out of the church and into my parents’ house nearby, where he was supplied with clean clothes. However, he had to leave almost immediately to avoid the rampaging troops. He would certainly have been killed, had he stayed. He had run across the road into Domville’s Wood, where he had hidden amongst the trees in the freezing cold for two days. On Christmas Day, he had managed to return to my parents’ ho
use to find my parents and brother George terrified but alive, albeit with many of their belongings stolen.
The rest of the village had fared little better. The soldiers had billeted themselves in the houses of the villagers for nearly three days, even in the houses of those whose men had been murdered, and proceeded to rampage around the surrounding countryside. My parents had said there was talk of attacking Crewe Hall. Seeing the state of my parents and knowing the soldiers would be back later that day, Gabriel had decided he had to seek help. For fear of being caught by any remaining soldiers, he had walked behind the farm due South to Balterley and then marched through the night to Nantwich, staying to fields and woods and avoiding settlements, in order to avoid any other royalist soldiers that were out and about. As my parents’ winter clothes had been stolen, Gabriel had, rather foolishly some might say, left his own heavy winter’s cloak for my father. Although he wore two shirts and a jacket and had moved quickly to keep as warm as possible, it was clear that he could not have survived much longer so inadequately dressed for the bitter winter’s night.
“We must return to Barthomley with all haste,” I said to Gabriel, “but first you must eat and warm yourself. I will give you my spare coat.”
“And what of Master Simon?” asked Gabriel. “Will he come too?”
“I’m afraid not,” I said, explaining about Simon’s disappearance the week before. “I haven’t seen my brother in over a week. I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on his disappearance.” As I spoke, I saw Gabriel’s features take on a troubled look.
“I can,” he said, hesitantly. “Simon arrived in Barthomley last Monday evening. He had a companion with him. A man called Nuttall, but we haven’t seen either of them since Saturday morning. We assumed they’d returned to Nantwich.”
I looked at Gabriel, and, as I realised the implications of what he was saying, a dark sense of foreboding began to overwhelm me.
The Winter Siege (Daniel Cheswis Book 1) Page 20
