Pistoleer: Edgehill

by Smith, Skye

  He began to slow Femke because the field guns were now in her way. Even a deaf gunner would have heard his whistle and now they looked up at him just in time to get the full load of his dragon into their faces. Is there anything more useless than a blind gunner. Femke leaped over the last of the gunners and finally came to a stop not ten feet from a brace of pike points, and these weren't held by his clansmen. Daniel swung her around and headed her back to the field guns.

  Now instead of whistling he was yelling. "Freiston, Freiston, to me, to me." His six clansmen were the first to break ranks and rally to him with their pikes. That act caused massive confusion on this small part of the battlefield, right in the middle of the king's infantry formations.

  What caused even more confusion was the thunder of hooves coming from the center of the field. One of the red sashed pikemen in the clot that had almost skewered Femke was yelling "incoming cavalry" so Daniel looked around. Balfour was racing towards him leading his cuirassier reserve. Muskets began to shoot in volleys, so Daniel slid out of the saddle so he was less of a target and led Femke towards his clansmen. They came together at the two field guns.

  The gunners, those that could still see, were running away from their own pikemen, at least twenty of whom were now threatening them from behind. Daniel tripped one of the gunners, sat on him and stuck a pistol barrel up his nose and asked him. "Where is your spiking kit? Tell me and I will let you flee."

  "Under the right wheel,” the frightened man replied, "always under the right wheel."

  Daniel had no more use for the gunner so he rolled away from him. Musket balls were singing around him. He rolled and crawled to the closest gun and dived towards the right wheel. There it was. A mallet and a spike. He grabbed it up, crouched up, and moved towards the breach of the gun to drive a spike into the powder vent. He was concentrating on keeping his fingers safe from the mallet when a rider leaped off a still moving horse and hopped to a standstill right beside him.

  "Do you have another spike?" Balfour asked. In his breathless excitement he had asked it in Scottish but Daniel knew what he was trying to say.

  "Under the right wheel,” Daniel told him as he finished ruining the cannon until another vent hole could be drilled. He gave the spike one last hit and then he looked over at the other gun. Balfour was sitting astride it pounded the spike into place using both hands on the mallet.

  By this time there was a standoff between Daniel's pikemen wearing red, and Balfour's cuirassiers wearing orange. Balfour had been yelling to his men to ignore all pikemen, so most of them were taking prisoner the officers who just moments ago had been seeing to Lindsey's wound. All this while everyone was ducking nervously every time a musket went off.

  Confusion had been Daniel's best friend, but now it was becoming deadly dangerous. Daniel called Femke to him and took out the orange sashes from one of her saddle bags and tossed them in handfuls to the closest Freiston men. They needed no instructions to rip off their red sashes and don the orange. There was a bloody scream from behind Daniel he spun around while dropping low behind the cannon. For a horrible moment he feared that he had waited too long to hand out the sashes, but he was wrong.

  One of his six clansmen was just wrenching his pike out of a musketeer's chest. He stared back at Daniel and gave him a stubborn grin. "He stole my pistol in Freiston. I was just taking it back." He held up a hand to show the liberated dragon to Daniel and then searched the squirming man for the matching powder flask and shot purse. As an afterthought he liberated the musketeers steel helmet from him. "Oye,” he yelled out to the other Freiston men. "Grab yourselves some pistols and helmets."

  The red sashed musketeers had been busy reloading after firing salvos at Balfour’s cuirassiers, but now they panicking and beginning to back up the steep slope of the ridge. The very pike men who were supposed to protect them while they reloaded, were attacking them. Some dropped their weapons as a sign of surrender. Every time a pistol or a blade hit the ground it was picked up by a pikeman, but the muskets were mostly ignored as too clumsy and water was being poured down their muzzles to make them useless.

  Balfour was mounted again and yelling, "To me! To me!" to his cuirassiers. Once he had their attention they swooped through the hole in the lines caused by the Freiston men, and then charged along behind the line of musketeers slashing out at them with their sabres. To save themselves the musketeers were scrambling for their lives up the slope. The center of the kings line had been good and thoroughly breached and there were no longer any officers to get it re-organized, or field guns to defend it with grape.

  "Danny, what now?" Nick, one of the clansmen, yelled out.

  Daniel leaped up into Femke's saddle so that he could have a good view all around.

  "Well while you're thinking, can I borrow that bow?" Nick asked, already moving towards Femke's bed roll to untie the bow and quiver from it. Once he had it in his hand he sneered at it. "It's a kiddies bow. What you carrying a kiddies bow around for."

  "It's no kiddies bow. It's Teesa's hunting bow. And those are steel tipped fishing arrows so don't prick yourself."

  Nick grunted with effort while stringing it and then he played the string like a harp. Once he had the quiver slung around his waist so he could reach all the flights, he nocked an arrow and tested the draw. Teesa must be stronger than she looked, he was thinking as he took a quick look at the point. It was like a tiny knife blade with barbs filed into one edge. He suddenly felt very sorry for fish.

  "To me! To me!" Daniel yelled. "Form a pike square. There is only one way out of this and that is up the slope." The men who had been off marauding for pistols and helmets ran back to him, most of them now armed to the teeth and looking pleased with themselves. They had left a lot of broken musketeers and wet muskets on the ground behind them.

  "Why up the ridge? Why not across the empty battlefield to safety?" Nick asked.

  "Because that battlefield ain't empty no more,” Daniel told him. "Take a look."

  To see out of the forming pike square, Nick had to gain the outer edge and poke his head out. The empty battlefield was now filled with orange sashed infantry running towards them. Everyone in the center of the orange line had seen this gaping hole in the red line, and had seen the cannons being spiked and now this was the safest place to charge to. Everyone on the field was running this way. Nick immediately yelled out. "Quick march. Up hill. Keep the square. Pikes up until we are attacked. Like we did in practice."

  Daniel had expected to have to fight their way up hill against the red infantry, but that was not the case. The reds must have all decided that the Freiston square was a part of an organized retreat off the flats and up the slope to a better defensive position. At first they had formed their own squares for the uphill march, but when they saw the orange army flooding across the battlefield, the broke ranks and it became an every man for himself scrambled up the slope.

  The Freiston square was no longer just Freiston men. Men from other villages around Boston were joining the square. The numbers had increased to more than fifty, far more than Daniel had orange sashes, but at least they were smart enough to rip off their red sashes. With Daniel astride Femke in the middle of the square he stood out like a watch tower above a fort.

  From the height of the saddle he could see the red officers that had fled up the slopes with the red infantry. They were trying to get their men to stop running up the slope and create a new line. For the moment they were all so disorganized that they were not a threat to him and his men. The only threat, the only time they were attacked was not from above on the slope but from the southern side.

  They were attacked by about twenty red musketeers and it was a bit of a surprise because there was nothing to be gained from their attacking a larger company that was clearly not interested in fighting them. Especially since the pikemen at the edge of the square were protected from musket fire by the woven packs they were now wearing forward to cover their chests and groin. The officer was a colonel who
Daniel recognized right away. Colonel Thomas Lunsford, the cannibal of the Tower of London. Unfortunately Lunsford also recognized him, for he was easy to see while mounted on Femke and a full head and shoulders higher than the men of the square.

  The clansmen on the south side of the square were the first to recognized that the squad of red musketeers meant to attack them and they called all of the gunmen forward from inside of the square to shoot at the buggers and make them change their mind about the attack. Within moments the entire square was shrouded in sulphurous smoke as all of the guns on both sides were emptied. For all of the spent balls there was little effect on either side other than a lot of noise and choking smoke.

  Those from within the pike square had been aiming at the red musketeers while the red musketeers had all aimed at Daniel who was sitting heads above the rest of the men. Daniel, however, had been watching Lunsford's eyes and lips and the sabre held high in his hand and just as the sabre came down and Lunsford yelled 'shoot', he leaped down from Femke's saddle while pulling her neck and head down with him.

  It looked like this skirmish would turn into a hand to hand fight between the men on each side. It was a fight that the Freiston men would win, but at what cost in injuries. Worse, it would slow down their escape from this battlefield. Instead the fight was decided by Nick using Teesa's bow. He yelled at his own pikemen to keep to the square and not get drawn into a hand-to-hand fight, and then he yelled at those in front to duck low so he could shoot over their heads. While all those with firearms on both sides were busy reloading, Nick loosed aimed arrow after aimed arrow at short range into the red musketeers. Since few of the musketeers were wearing any kind of armour, not even homemade boiled rawhide armour, the fish arrows did their grisly work well.

  Before they could fully reload, ten red musketeers were wounded by one archer with one bow. If Nick hadn't run out of arrows he would have hit more, but ten injured was more than enough to convince the red musketeers to desert their officer and run away, without even finishing the reload of their muskets. Lunsford cursed at them as cowards but that did not stop him from running away with them.

  "Why?" Nick asked Daniel as they allowed the musketeers sporting Teesa's arrows to hobble away from them. "Why with all the orange men coming up the slope would that colonel decide to make a stand here against us."

  "I know the man. He hates me,” Daniel replied.

  Nick went off to collect back some of his arrows, at least the three that had missed flesh, but he soon came running back towards Daniel. "It wasn't because he hates you,” he said between puffs of breath. "It's the magazine. The magazine is just south of us and down the slope a bit. It must be the magazine for the entire south wing of the infantry. That is why the colonel attacked us. Since we were the only enemy coming up the slope in a formation, he must have thought we were on a mission to destroy the magazine."

  Daniel climbed back onto Femke so he would have a better view. Nick began pushing his hands into the various pockets and holsters in the saddle leathers. "What are you looking for?"

  "Yer bloody aqua vitae,” puffed Nick. "Are you out of it?"

  Daniel passed him the flask. He had refilled it at breakfast from Balfour's supply of foul Scottish stuff. "It's raw scotch so it's not worth drinking. It'll burn your tummy and give you a headache. I carry it only for cleansing wounds."

  "I don't want to drink it man, I want to splash it on this rag. Has anyone got a lit match?" Nick called out. A man from Boston handed over his musket. It was a match lock and its matchcord was still glowing."

  Daniel wasn't paying attention. He was trying to figure a way of blowing up the magazine and hopefully Lunsford with it. The next thing he knew Nick was pulling on his leg and telling him to get off the effing horse and to get her lying down on the ground. It seemed a strange order until Daniel fathomed what Nick was up to. All the other men in the pike square were now crouched low. Nick trotted through them in the direction that Lunsford had retreated. In his hands was Teesa's bow and an arrow wrapped in a flaming scotched rag. Finally a good use for the foul stuff the Scots drank.

  While Daniel convinced Femke to lie down, Nick trotted only far enough to be within gentle range of the magazine. Gentle range so the flames would not blow out. His flaming scotched rag flared as rose into the air and then sputtered a bit as it fell straight down. Nick didn't bother to watch its graceful arch but instead flattened himself on the ground and covered his head with his arms. Anyone foolish enough to be watching the graceful arch immediately had a face full of dust and smoke as the magazine blew sky high with a tremendous wooomph and another and another.

  The silence after the multiple explosions was deafening. Or perhaps all around it were just deaf. Men of both sides were looking around with stunned looks on their faces. All over the battlefield, thousands and thousands of men were staring at the plumes of grey smoke that were drifting ever higher like mushrooms in the sky. Within moments the entire battle changed. No longer were any of the companies of red infantry to the south of Daniel even trying to hold their line. They were now all scrambling up the slope. Who could blame them. How long could musketeers fight without a supply of powder. It only made sense to go into defensive mode, which meant creating a new line high up on the steep slope.

  The battlefield now belonged to the orange infantry. There were still no red cavalry to be seen, but Balfour's reserve cavalry were attacking the flanks of the northern wing of the red infantry who had the longest retreat because they had ventured all the way across the field during the initial attack by Rupert's flying army. Any deaths in the northern red infantry could all be blamed on that bastard Rupert, for he had ridden off and left them unprotected even though he knew that they were outmatched by the orange infantry.

  Although it was much safer for the clansmen to stay in the pike square formation, it was far slower to march up a steep slope while keeping to formation. All around them there was an every-man-for-himself scramble to get up it. It was inevitable that the retreating red infantry would stay ahead of them going up the slope and that the orange infantry would catch up to them. When that happened Daniel saw a familiar face in the lead.

  "Arthur, you're doing well,” Daniel called to him. "If you can reach the top of the ridge, you can race north along it until you are behind the king's headquarters. They won't be expecting an attack from behind so you will have a good chance of capturing all the royals. Don't be afraid to cripple or kill them if they resist."

  "Cripple or kill a royal?" Ensign Arthur Young yelled back. "Is that allowed?"

  "Only on the battlefield. Capture them and victory is ours, and not just this battle but the kingdom."

  Perhaps it was too soon to claim a victory but everywhere he looked the red infantry was in full retreat. The clansmen pike square continued slogging up towards the top of the ridge but Arthur and his men found a sheep path that traversed the slope it about half way up and they turned along it and began scrambling north. It was a faster way to get behind the king's headquarters than fighting the red infantry above them to gain the ridge top.

  "They have no reserve cavalry,” Daniel yelled after Arthur. "not even the king's horseguard. The king is yours for the taking. There, ahead of you. Do you see the royal standard and the marquee beyond it?"

  Arthur was now being pushed along to the north by his men, all of whom were eager for the prize money that surely would be paid to those who captured the headquarters. Daniel was surrounded by the pike square and even though the men were slogging away uphill, the pace was frustratingly slow. "Let me out of the square,” Daniel called out, and it must have been one of the maneuvers that they had practiced for almost immediately a gap opened up for Femke to move through and they were free of it.

  He rode Femke back down to the traverse path in order to follow Arthur along it and give the lad a bit of advice, but when he did that some of the clansmen broke from the pike square to follow him. "Nay, not this way,” he told the Freiston men. "I promised your women
that I would bring you home alive. Your route home lies south not north, and not on this side of the ridge. Go up and over the ridge and down the other side to the lower slopes and then turn south towards Banbury. The castle will give you shelter if you show them those orange sashes. It is a hundred mile march east from Banbury to Boston. You will be home in four days at most."

  "You must be jesting,” called Nick, who was leading the men who had broken away. "Charlie's headquarters is right there. I can see it. It must be stacked with silver coin, and ours for the taking."

  "Nick, don't argue. Even though Charlie has no horse guard on this ridge he still has his personal lifeguard." Daniel told him.

  "Yeh, but we'll have lots of help. Look at all those orange sashes climbing the slope."

  "Get off this battlefield while you have the chance,” Daniel told them all in a loud voice. "Somewhere out there is Rupert's cavalry. Thousands of the sons of bitc... er ... manor ladies. This battle could turn in an instant and become a bloodbath."

  They were still having none of it, so he retrieved the pieces of eight he had hidden in his saddle and gave them out. "Here, take these to get you home,” he told them. "I brought them in case I had to bribe your way out of the king's service." They still looked skeptical so he had no choice but to tell them the true reason they had to go home to their women ... that Earl of Lindsey's men had savaged their village.

  It was enough to stop them in their tracks but still not enough to get them to climbing the slope again. Instead they began arguing amongst themselves. Daniel had done his best but now it was up to them to decide, so he left them all arguing and hurried Femke along the traverse path to catch up to Arthur.