Black Douglas (Coronet Books)

by Nigel Tranter

  “Neither. Northumberland is still at Berwick. He grows old. Young Percy, his son, commands here.”

  “Ha! That pup! The better, then, for an ambush. The Pease Dean?”

  “Percy may be young, my lord,” the still younger John Douglas gave back. “But he’s not a fool. He knows the dangers of Pease Dean. Who does not? I sent scouts down. He has men guarding both sides of it. He’ll not be caught there.”

  “Curse him! . . .”

  “Wait,” Will said. “If we could force him to take the high road south, by Penmanshiel and Coldinghame Moors — then there is another dean. At the Redheugh. Not so big or so deep as Pease — but it would serve, perhaps. It splits in two, if I mind aright. Home of Dunglass took me hunting there. If we could prevail on them to take that road . . .”

  “Aye. But how?”

  “If we could block the other. Block it sufficiently to turn them aside . . .”

  “Four thousand men are not lightly turned aside by a few hundred, my lord,” Cavers said.

  “No. Not by men.” Will looked away southwards, half-right, towards the upper reaches of the great trough of the Pease Dean, an enormous dog’s-leg bent cleft, hundreds of feet deep, which sliced down through the foothills to the rockbound coast. “See — if they go back by the valleys, they must thread that upper end of the Pease Dean, for a mile and more. It is thick grown with whins and broom and scattered pines. And the wind is in the south-west, blowing directly down that leg of the dean. Fire the top of it, the whins and the pines, and it will sweep down there as out of the mouth of hell! I’ll wager no host, of however many thousands, will take that road in face of the like!”

  “Saints of God!” Crawford roared. “Here’s a ploy!” He all but knocked Will out of his saddle by the force of his congratulatory slap on the shoulder.

  “They might wait, there,” Cavers objected. “Until the first dies out. Expecting an attack.”

  “I think not. Burning woodland will glow and smoke for days. They could not take that road. And none could attack down it. They will take the other road.”

  “Aye. To work, then!” Beardie cried. “Who lights the fires?”

  They moved off southwards, keeping always below the skylines of ridges. They worked down to near the head of Peace Dean, where amongst the golden gorse-bushes, the heavy-scented hawthorns and the resinous pines, they left John and the Master of Somerville, with a party, to play the incendiaries. But not yet. Then up the other side, the main body rode, and over the shoulder of Aikieside Hill beyond, making for Redheugh Dean, a couple of miles to the east. They left a watch in a niche of the shoulder, where they could observe the advance of the enemy into the Pease Dean from Colbrands path, to signal John when to set whins ablaze.

  Halfway to Redheugh they came to the hamlet of Aldcambus, nestling snugly from the sea winds in a hollow of the hillside. This may not have been on the main route of invasion, but it had not escaped all attention. At a farmery, smouldering still, they found three men, part burnt, in the ruins of their cot-houses; two old women tossed down a well; three women of middle years, naked, tied face-down and bent double over cart-shafts; and two young girls hanging by their heels from the barn rafters, hay-forks rising from their crutches. Only flies and a door that banged in the morning breeze, moved in that place. At the looted church, near by, the parish priest was crucified to his own door, with daggers.

  Only Earl Beardie seemed unaffected, as they pressed on.

  The Redheugh Dean was a plunging ravine, grown, like the Pease, with yellow whins and broom, but smaller in all respects. Nevertheless it was almost two hundred feet at its deepest, and comprised in fact two deans, save near the outfall to the shore, where two streams joined. Down one steep side and up the other the high Coldinghame route to Berwick ran, then down again and out once more, on its long climb to Penmanshiel Moor.

  Standing on the crest of the spine between the two ravines. Will and Beardie made a swift survey of the place’s tactical possibilities. They were very apparent — almost too much so, since any force passing through here would be bound to be on the watch. There were cattle scattered down amongst the young bracken and bushes of the lower slopes, no doubt hidden here from the invaders, and Will thought that he could use these. In a few minutes the force was being split up and sent to various hidden positions. Then, satisfied that the leaders knew what was required of them, he left Crawford in command and rode back whence they had come.

  Past the horrors at Aldcambus he went, to rejoin the watchers on the shoulder of Aikieside Hill. He found them debating whether or not to give the signal to the fire-raisers. Horsemen had appeared in some numbers at the far lip of Pease Dean, nearly a mile away, but it was not certain that these represented the main onward movement of the enemy.

  Will told them to wait, but when presently banners began to show amongst the riders coming into view, he gave the order for their own little signal fire to be lit.

  Quickly results were forthcoming, from a mile on the other side, southwards. Away to his left smoke began to billow up, shot with bursts of flame as individual bushes and trees caught alight. The whins in especial blazed like torches. The crackle of it came down on them on the breeze, quickly developing into a roar. The smoke commenced to pour down the trough of the dean.

  Although the fire swiftly became evident to the watchers up on the hill, there was no sign of alarm down in the lower end of the steep valley. At least, ranked horsemen continued to appear over the rise from the north, to dip down and be lost to sight in the trees and shadows. Will was astonished that this continued for so long. Presumably the sound of the conflagration was deadened down there by the noise of the rushing Pease Water. And there was this acute dog-leg bend in the great ravine. The smoke might take a little time to blow down through the woodland . . .

  Then, suddenly, there was the high-pitched shrilling of a trumpet. The advance party had no doubt reached the bend in the dean, and was loudly neighing the alarm. Promptly now the trumpeting was taken up from unseen points down the line. The track down there was narrow, on steep-sloping banks; three would be the most that could ride abreast. Major confusion must be rife, however invisible from this angle.

  The repercussions began to show at the northern entrance to the valley. The column of men and horses came to a halt, in orderly enough fashion. Then, as those in front came pressing back, order was lost. Something like chaos reigned.

  When pennons and banners appeared again on the top of the rise, indicating that the leadership had moved back, there was a pause. The banners halted, congregated, while men milled round. Obviously it was a council-of-war. Scouts rode off up to vantage-points to spy out the land ahead. Then trumpets brayed again, purposeful and prolonged now. The jostling confusion sorted itself out, and the banners moved on once more, down again into the cover of the trees.

  Smoke was now filling all the upper dean, thick rolling clouds. The noise of the fire was menacing. It was inconceivable that the English could contemplate trying to force a way up through that. Therefore they must indeed be intending to take the high road, which forked away from the other where the dean made its big bend.

  Will waited, however, to make certain, waited until he saw, through a gap in the trees, outriders spurring fast along the track towards Aldcambus, east of the fork. Scouts to prospect the route ahead.

  Ordering the watchers to ride to inform Johnnie and Somerville — for they would be unable to see any signals now, in the dense smoke — Will hastened back, unseen from the low ground, to Redheugh Dean.

  All now depended on his people keeping themselves completely hidden. To keen eyes there could be no disguising the fact that a fairly large party had passed through Aldcambus recently. But on their way to Redheugh they had deliberately swung upwards, southwards, away from the track, to enter the dean from above, it being hoped that this would give the impression that this party had headed over into the upper Pease Dean, and would be the people responsible for the fire.

  Wi
ll also had to circuit the dean and make a difficult approach from higher ground, in order to remain hidden. It took time, and he was anxious as to how far he was ahead of the English scouts. But he reached the central spine above the joining of the ravines, in time, and found Earl Beardie and Cavers awaiting him there, in a watch-point disguised by uprooted broom-bushes.

  ‘All is well,’ he reported breathlessly. ‘They come. Their scouts close. The fire burns mightily. Are all surely hidden? From the track? Well back?’

  Aye. They’ll no’ see any, unless they beat out the whins,” Crawford assured. “We’ve been over it all. We’re ready for them . . .”

  “Quiet!” Cavers interrupted. “I hear horses.”

  Listening, they heard the drumming of hooves. In groups, stretched along the flanks of the two ravines, for the best part of half a mile, five hundred men waited.

  Over the western lip of the dean a hard-riding group came, spurring fast, young men, but led by a bearded veteran. All the time, as they rode, they were glancing right and left — but they were going too fast for thorough inspection. Clearly they were hurrying to put the accepted and convenient distance between scouting party and main body. About forty men all told, they came thundering down the zigzags of the first long bank, scattering stones and gravel, across the ford at the foot, splashing high, and then up the near side. This was the spine between the ravines, and surmounting it, they passed only some seventy yards beneath Will’s hiding-place. But with scarcely a look in their direction they clattered on and down into the next gully. A little later they could be seen mounting the farther slope, speed unchanged and still unchallenged.

  When they were out of sight, Beardie slipped away to the left, and Cavers to the right, leaving only Will and a small party above the central spine.

  There was only a brief interval before the next company began to appear — the reason for the scout’s haste, undoubtedly. This looked like an advance-guard of seasoned soldiers, tough and well-armed and accoutred, but fairly heavily laden with personal booty. Will counted as they came on, three abreast. He was still counting when their leaders were passing directly below him, and had reached one hundred and thirty files of three. This was worrying, for too substantial an advance-guard, permitted to ride on unmolested, could be a real danger when it turned back to the aid of the main body. But there was nothing that he could do about this, meantime. Will reckoned that there were approximately as many, in this grouping, as in his own entire force, as they trotted on and past.

  Fortunately there was quite an interval before the next contingent of the English army — clearly the main array this. First came a galaxy of splendidly armoured and mounted knights, their heraldic surcoats, shields and horse-trappings, colourful in the dappled light-and-shade of the morning woodlands, under a forest of banners, foremost and greatest of which was the well-known golden lozenges on blue of Percy of Northumberland. There was a solid group of fifty or sixty of these high-ranking personages and their banner-bearers — and grimly Will Douglas cheered their preference for riding in their own lofty company rather than outspread through the host.

  Inevitably, however, Will’s glance kept coming back to the tall, slender, fair-headed and proud-featured young man, of approximately his own years, who rode beneath the blue and gold Percy standard. It was his first sight of one of the race with whom he was hereditarily and traditionally at deadly feud. He had, hitherto, done nothing to prosecute this, the most renowned family enmity in the two kingdoms — but undoubtedly it now added a spice to the thing that he attempted. The origins of the Douglas-Percy feud went far back, two centuries, war to the knife between the two great houses which so largely controlled the Border, on their respective sides. The Battles of Otterburn, or Chevy Chase, and Homildon Hill, were but extra dramatic incidents in an unending vendetta. Now the heir of the Earl of Northumberland came riding, all unknowing, to within a few yards of the Black Douglas.

  For all that, Douglas let him ride past, fierce as was the temptation to dash out and summon the other to single combat. Will was not here in pursuance of any feud, however hallowed by the centuries. Biting his lip with impatience, he held himself in, waiting until Percy and the other leaders were in fact down into the farther ravine and splashing across the second of the fords. Only then did he give the first signal — an arrow fired by one of his group, burning tow at its tail, which soared high into the air over the heads of the long English column, to fall far down into the low ground.

  With only a second or two of delay, shouts and trampling broke out away below there, and frightened cattle went surging off from their hiding-places, spreading out in a wide panic-stricken arc towards the coast. From four or five different points along the lowermost slopes of the double dean the beasts burst — and all along the line of the enemy’s march, higher up, heads turned and horses were reined back. To all these, Borderers almost to a man, cattle were wealth, the prime symbol of gain, success, prize. Even in war, indeed particularly in war, the sight of much readily available cattle could be guaranteed to at least distract and preoccupy the attention of men. It did not fail that May day.

  The cattle irruption was itself the second signal. As the creatures stampeded off, encouraged by hidden herders, everywhere along the upper sides of that road through the twin deans men rose out of their cover of whin-bush and brake and thicket. They required moments to run to their horses, count, settle themselves in their saddles, and hurl themselves downhill upon the English line — and these vital moments the distraction below provided.

  It was a total surprise, and the advantages all with the attackers. The English were thinly spread over a great distance, on a narrow track which gave no room for manoeuvre, with a steep slope below them. At this stage their numbers were no advantage. The Scots, yelling the dread slogan of ‘A Douglas! A Douglas!”, although they too were thinly strung out in little groups over the half-mile of the assault, had the weight of a downhill charge behind them. That first crashing impact did not so much cut up the enemy column as sweep it right off the road and down the hillside, with more men toppling by sheer weight of horseflesh and trampling hooves than by swordery. That came later.

  In only a few hectic seconds Redheugh Dean was a shambles of falling, rolling, cursing men and screaming, lashing horses. Only tiny pockets of the English remained on the roadway anywhere, and these so shocked and isolated as to present little threat. Everywhere the Scots drove down, swiping, trampling, shouting — and seeking to pull up their careering mounts on the steep slopes, to turn back and finish off their broken foes. This had been the burden of Will’s most urgent command — not to pursue fleeing individuals but to turn back and consolidate and despatch. And to remain a disciplined entity, able to obey further signals. For, of course, although this central half-mile of the enemy column would suffer almost inevitable disintegration, it would represent little more than a quarter of the whole — even though the most important quarter, with the leadership. The advance-party ahead, and fully a couple of thousand men behind, with the baggage and booty, had to be reckoned with.

  Once Will, alone now on his vantage-point save for an esquire and his trumpeter-standard-bearer, saw that the first stage was proceeding according to plan. he was able to relinquish his long-held-in patience. Sword out, he spurred down from that broomgrown spine. He did not head straight for the mêlée below him, however, but slanted off half-right, to join the zigzag road itself, at an angle, and pound on down it at full gallop, his two henchmen at his heels. He was, of course, making for Percy.

  That young lord, with his knightly group, had survived the first onslaught better than the rest of his people. This Will had anticipated, indeed allowed for — but it had been essential to his plan that at the moment of surprise the English leaders should be in a position where they could exert least control over their forces. So he had waited until Percy was crossing the second stream, in the gut of the eastern ravine, where he could see and be seen by few indeed of his men — even though, by
the same token, he was not in a position to be swept off the roadway like the rest.

  Percy and his chivalry, then, were still there, upright, horsed in a tight group straddling the ravine floor and the water, being assailed by a circling band of Douglases under Cavers and young Drumlanrig, rather like hounds around a stag at bay. They were plainly at a loss, bewildered — but by no means vanquished. Indeed, here they were in greater numbers than their opponents, and once they had recovered from the numbing effects of surprise, they would not be long in asserting themselves.

  As Will thundered down the long slope, cutting the corners of the zigzags, smashing through the bushes, he was waving and shouting to such of his people as he passed, to leave off their harrying of lesser men and fall in at his back. Some understood, and came pounding after him, so that by the time he had reached the bottom of the dean there were perhaps a dozen behind him, and he was gesturing them into a compact arrowhead formation with himself at its apex. With as little slackening of speed as possible for this manoeuvre, he drove on into the stream, heading directly for the centre of Percy’s group, lance levelled, sword weaving. Although he did not know it, he was shouting the Douglas war-cry as loud as any of his following.

  The English, of course, did not fail to perceive the challenge. The great undifferenced banner of Douglas would have warned them, if nothing else did, that here was the attackers’ leader — although whether they realised that it was the Black Douglas himself was another matter. The entire splendid knightly group swung round to face the threat, ignoring for the moment the circling Teviot men. They of course outnumbered Will’s arrowhead by five to one — but they were stationary, cramped together, without momentum or room to move, and based on the bad broken stance of stream-bed and high bank.

  Will’s headlong drive, without the least slackening of speed or change of direction, must have been unnerving to await, in the extreme. His couched lance and himself were as one, the steel-tipped point of an armoured wedge, with men close at either shoulder only half a length behind, and others protecting them in turn. It was an almost invincible formation, given utter fearlessness and determination on the part of the leader, complete discipline in his supporters, and the fierce velocity of a cavalry charge. Lacking these it could be self-annihilating, any faltering or indecision causing either an immediate disastrous pile-up or a break-up of the arrowhead which could then be encircled and demolished piecemeal by the attacked.