Pistoleer: Invasion

by Smith, Skye

  "Those sluts,” one of the other captains sneered. "Not a one of them showed any sign that they had struggled. No torn clothing, no bruises, nothing to indicate rape. All of them walked out of this castle on their own two feet. They whored themselves."

  Daniel stared at the well dressed pup, some son of some privileged bitch. "Yes they whored themselves, and do you know what their payment was. The promise that their kiddies would not be put to the sword. They did not walk out of here all haughty like whores looking for more business, now did they? No, they limped out of the gates with their eyes down and their shoulders slumped and their faces hidden. They were so embarrassed by what had been done to them that none of them even picked up a cobble to throw at the men who had used them."

  "Which is at the root of my current dilemma,” Waller told his officers. “ If I release the prisoners unarmed and on foot under oath that they will cease fighting and go home, I fear that they will not survive the vigilantes that have risen up since Brentford. It is not safe to leave them imprisoned in this castle, for eventually it will cause the villagers to rise up. I suppose I could allow them their horses and some light arms, but our own men will hate that. They will argue that other villages will suffer if the king's men leave here mounted."

  "I agree with the men,” Daniel replied quickly. "An oath that cannot be enforced is no surety.” He stared at the pup. "Even if it is given by the son of a lord. Shouldn't you hold the officers in case charges are brought against them for what they ordered in Brentford? And what of men from wealthy families? Shouldn't you hold them in case reparations are owed?"

  "You needn't tell me the obvious,” Waller replied softly, "but at least it shows that you understand my dilemma."

  Another captain, an older man who had served in the German wars, broke his silence. "If you let any of the prisoners leave with their horses or armour, then your own men will revolt. You would be depriving them of their prizes of battle."

  "You see,” Waller moaned. "Under what conditions would your skirmishers allow me to free most of these men?"

  "As I said, sir, they are simple men,” Daniel replied. "They want the officers executed, slowly executed, and their men beaten and then sent naked out into the night to suffer tonight's heavy frost and be forced to ask for pity and forgiveness from the locals."

  "An execution would be kinder,” the pup pointed out, "than any treatment they will receive from the folk hereabouts."

  "My men well know that,” Daniel pointed out, "and would argue that their fate was written by their own hand and not by ours."

  "And what do you, yourself think, Daniel?” It was the first time that Waller had ever called him by his first name.

  "In Brentford I was swayed by the words of an officer with a noose around his neck, one Captain John Lilburne. He made a good arguement that the mistreatment of prisoners would lead to vengeance and an ever widening cycle of violence. I was able to save him from that noose, so I hope he still lives."

  "So you would not object if I allow most of them to ride away free?"

  "I would object, and most strongly. You cannot sentence other villages and other women to their violence, so they must not leave here with weapons or mounts."

  "So we are back to my dilemma,” Waller groaned.

  Daniel was still very suspicious that Waller was a fence sitter waiting to cross over to the king's side. Letting his friend Sheriff Denham and his cavalryers ride away would keep that possibility open. Executing them would close it off. If this were a time of peace, they would certainly have been hauled in front of the courts charged with theft and rape and murder. A month ago Daniel would have pushed to have them executed, but Lilburn had spoken well from his noose. Escalating vengeance would weigh heaviest on the folk, not the nobility, and the biggest weight would fall on the women and children. "Perhaps, sir, it is only a dilemma for you because you are still a colonel and not yet a general."

  The back handed complement brought a smile to Waller’s face, and then he laughed aloud in relief. "Of course. I have no orders regarding the treatment of prisoners, and the Brentford massacre could very well end up in the courts. So, so, so, these prisoners are not my problem at all, but parliament's. All I need do is to provide an escort for them as far as London."

  "And hand them over to parliament,” an officer picked up on his thoughts.

  Waller grabbed one of the captains by the shoulder. "Have the prisoners taken inside to shelter them from the weather and to feed them.” Then to another captain. "Hire every fast cart in the area for a trip to London. Offer to pay the carters in advance so they will bring their carts and horses out of hiding. We'll move the prisoners by horse and by cart to London before any of the townsfolk along the way find out who they are and try to take their revenge.

  Daniel, go now and spread the word amongst my men. The prisoners are to be sent to London to stand trial for their violence. A fair trial as is the way of our lawful side in this dispute with the king. Go now. The rank and file hate surprises so I want them discuss it amongst themselves before I make the official announcement.” Waller continued in a mumble to himself, "Let parliament decide the treatment of prisoners, so I can get on with securing the south coast from a foreign invasion."

  With a click of his heels in salute, Daniel turned and marched away along the wall. A smile of understanding crossed his face. Now he knew that Waller was helping parliament because he feared a foreign invasion. Of course. The man owned a share in the Providence Island Company and so he would have no love of the foreign navies. So long as there was a threat of invasion, Waller would distance himself from the king. This new insight was worthy of passing on to Warwick. Waller was not about to cross to the king's side, after all.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Pistoleer - Invasion by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-15

  Chapter 2 - Marlborough sacked by Royalists in November 1642

  Daniel sent a message to Warwick that he would be staying with Waller to lead his skirmishers, because Waller’s plan was to send his mounted brigades out like whirlwinds galloping across the county to clear out pockets of royalists where ever they found them. Since his numbers would be thinned by sending a guard with the prisoners to London, and thinned again in order to leave a strong garrison at Farnham to protect the munitions and wealth they had captured there, he held back on sending out his whirlwinds. First he must move his regiments, the prisoners, munitions and treasure back to Windsor where others could act as guards and free up his men for the whirlwinds.

  While at Windsor they learned from the many spies who were reporting to General Essex, that the king had taken his army back to Oxford but he had left large garrisons at Reading and also at Basing House, which was the Earl of Winchester's fortress in Basingstoke. Reading was well garrisoned by 2,000 royalists under Arthur Aston, a man who had well learned the art of war under King Gustavus of Sweden. Basing House was reported to have a garrison of 1,500. Both garrisons were too large for Waller's regiment, so he ignored them and concentrated on weaker ones. Essex's full army could worry about the strong ones.

  Over the next few days Waller's mounted brigades rode in swift forays out from Windsor to dislodge the smaller royalist garrisons along the Thames. In front of them traveled the news of how easily he had defeated the strong garrison in the fortress at Farnham. One by one all along the Thames, the small royalist garrisons surrendered or fled. Once the Thames towns such as Marlow and Henley were controlled by parliamentarians, Waller sent out new orders to whirlwinds. They were to meet him in Newbury, to the west of both Reading and Basingstoke, to assemble for the march south toward Winchester.

  When Daniels skirmishers arrived in Newbury, all bone tired and filthy from long days of riding hard and camping rough, there was no rest for Daniel. He was immediately summoned to Waller's command room upstairs in the Falcon Inn on the London road. He knocked, entered, stood to attention, and was then ignored for many minutes.

  "Oh, it's you,” Wal
ler said as an afterthought to another conversation. He nodded to a pup of an officer and told him "Give him the message and let him read it before we roll out the map."

  Daniel took the rough scrap of parchment over to the window in hopes that the other officers would think that his slowness in reading it was due to the poor light and not to his poor practice of reading. The note said:

  "Lord Digbie, Lord Grandison, Commissarie Wilmot, and some others of their confederacie, having possessed themselves of Marleborough, and most basely and barbarously pillaged and plundered the same, and like so many traitorous and lustfull bloodie thieves ravished and abused the women and maids of the towne "

  He turned it over. There was no more, and no signature. "Bloody Digby!” was the sum total of his response.

  "You know Lord Digby?” Waller asked.

  "I know him as a viper,” Daniel replied, "but the last time we met I had the better of him and used him as an unknowing double agent."

  Waller raised an eyebrow at this. He was beginning to realize that this man was not just a rough peasant who knew pistoleering. He should have asked Warwick more about him. It was only two days ago that he had been told that the man's rank of captain was not from the militia, but because he was a ship's master. Master and commander. "Parliament had plans of creating a strong garrison at Marlborough,” Waller explained, "and use it to protect and rally Wiltshire. Another one of our good plans ruined by Essex's continual tardiness."

  "So what now?” Daniel asked and moved closer to the map which had been rolled out on the table in the room. Although it was a map of towns and roads, it was one of the new type of maps that was like an eagle's eye view of the lay of the land..

  "I will take the main force towards Marlborough,” Waller told all of his officers while moving his hand across the map. Colonel Urrey will take two regiments south to, um, here at Andover where he can send out scouts on all of the roads that lead from Marlborough to Winchester. Meanwhile Captain Vanderus will take his skirmishers to scout out the high roads near Wantage that lead from Marlborough to Oxford."

  "So do you hope that the royalists make a stand at Marlborough, or make a run for it?” Urrey asked.

  "I don't care which, Colonel, so long as they do not reach Winchester and strengthen the royalist garrison there. That is why you will be leading such a strong force. You must block any of them from reaching Winchester."

  * * * * *

  Daniel pulled his head down from the crest of the ridge and slid backwards so that he could speak quietly to his scouts, and especially to Burt. "What do you make of it?” Daniel spoke into Burt’s ear. Burt took the looker from Daniel's hand and crawled his great lump of a body the yard up to the edge. Burt had lasted less than four days on Waller's personal staff before his habit of speaking loudly - as do most hard of hearing, and speaking his mind - as do most miners, had got him transferred back to Daniel's company of skirmishers.

  After a good look, Burt crawled backwards away from the ridge and said in the lowest voice he was capable of, "I agree with the scouts. They've camped for the night.” Though it was Burt's lowest voice, most of the company heard his reply. "They are hoping that the road down the from the Ridge-Way and into Wantage will not be so slippery after the morning sun has melted some of the frost."

  They were perched on a high point above the hard road that crossed the Lambourn Downs between Wantage and Hungerford to the south. The king's men had camped blocking the road where it crossed the ancient path that for ever had been known as the Ridge-Way. From here to Wantage was all downhill. Steeply down hill for carts.

  "Frost,” another skirmisher, Jake, said with a chuckle. "You call two fingers of wet snow frost? It'll be worse tomorrow. Look at the sky.” He was speaking what they all knew. The clouds moving in from the west had that dark ominous look of being filled with more wet snow. "Their best chance of gettin' them carts down the slope is now, before they lose what is left of the daylight."

  "Well I for one don't want to spend the night on this ridge, not with that storm approaching,” Daniel told them as he took his looker back. "Let's disable the lead carts to block the road and then ride back to Newbury for some hot soup and warm dry beds. From there we can send our report by messenger to Colonel Waller, where ever he may be by now."

  "Marlborough,” Jake pointed out. "By now he is in Marlborough else why are these carts and them cavalryers camped along this road.” There was no response from Daniel so he got ready to say it again.

  "Shhh... I'm thinking,” Daniel told him with a wag of a finger. "We will use that gully to the west of us to get down to them for the attack. That way they won't see us until we are onto them. That puts their cavalry at the other end of the line of carts. I want a quick attack galloping along the line of carts and targeting the cart horses with the pistols. As soon as the pistols are empty we turn and come back up the same gully. We'll leave half the men on the ridge above the gully as an ambush in case we are chased by their cavalry.” He scrambled the yard back up to the ridge to have another look.

  "You mean, 'when' we are chased by their cavalry,” Jake sneered, "for they'll well know our guns are empty from shootin' the horses."

  "Shhh... counting ...” Daniel said. "Bugger. That's not the force that sacked Marlborough. There's not enough of them. Those cavalryers are just the guard for the carts. They must be hauling the loot from Marlborough to fatten the king's coffers in Oxford.” He stopped moving the looker and focused it on a well dressed man near the lead cart. "Digby,” he hissed. He motioned two grizzled scouts to come up beside him and then he passed them the looker. They were both hard men who wore Dutch armour that had seen a lot of use. "See fancy jack down there. Mark him well. If things go badly for us, make sure he doesn't survive, else he will give the order that will see all of us maimed and left for dead."

  "Why don't we just do for him anyway” one of them replied in a thick Billingsgate accent.

  "Up to you,” Daniel told him and then turned to the squat man below him down the slope. "Burt, what have you got in your saddlebags that will cause a bit of confusion in that camp."

  Burt chuckled gruffly. "Smoke bombs. We use them in the mines to trace air currents through natural caves and fissures. Small enough to fire with an arrow, but they make a lot of white smoke. I've got some bangers too, if our archers have enough arrows. Once the smoke blinds everyone down there, the bangers will make them think we are lobbing bombs or grenades into them."

  Daniel and Jake slipped back down the slope and walked amongst the two hundred skirmishers spreading the plan and splitting the company in two brigades of a hundred each. Burt went and found the four skirmishers who carried long bows, four of the country lads, so he could hand them the smoke bombs and bangers and explain how to use them. The four just nodded. They had worked with Burt's powder tricks before.

  Daniel made his way over to Burt and asked, "How long will it take you to prepare the arrows?"

  "We can shoot them into the camp from up here, so we'll be ready by the time the rest of you are in position for the charge and the ambush."

  "Well hurry. The longer we wait, the more chance that one of their firewood gleaners will see us or hear us."

  Within ten minutes the first of the smoke bomb arrows dropped into the camp behind the carts. Seconds later small plumes of smoke began to rise, and then more and more smoke until the carts began to disappear from view. That was when the banger arrows began to drop. The smoke had made all of the horses, cart and charger alike, very nervous. The bangers set them to stomping and complaining. Burt could only assume that the horses were kicking and rearing, because they were lost from view in the white smoke.

  With the men in the camp now blinded by smoke and with the panicking horses making the camp a dangerous place to walk about, Daniel ordered the charge. The charge was not at the gallop. The road was treacherously slippery so a trot was the best they could do, which meant that the smoke was already thinning before they reached the closest cart.
Now that they could see into the camp again there was good news. The men in the camp, all of the men, were all too busy dodging horses to have grabbed up their weapons and manned the carts to use them as barricades.

  There was no escape for the poor cart horses. With simple orders and a single purpose, the skirmishers emptied their pistols into them to cripple them, and as soon as their loads were spent, they wheeled off and around and got the hell out of their before the men in the camp regained their senses and returned the fire. It was a job well done. These heavily loaded carts would still be stuck here tomorrow morning when a larger regular force would surely be sent out by Waller.

  But it's never easy is it? They had expected, and even hoped, that Digby and his cavalryers would mount up and give chase into the gully ambush. Daniel was still riding hard when some of the men waiting in ambush yelled to him to draw up and stop the retreat and reform and reload. "They're not chasing you cap'n. They didn't take the bait."

  Daniel turned his horse up the side of the gully so he could take a look back towards the camp. The men following him slowed and then stopped, and they too were told by the ambushers to reload, so they did so. There was no sign of a hot pursuit. Digby's cavalryers were now all mounted, but they were certainly in no hurry to give chase.

  No one would have been more surprised than the carters and swampers when their brave guardians leaped into their saddles and raced away down the slippery road towards the safety of Wantage, thus leaving to face the attack alone. To Daniel, Digby's lack of concern for mere carters was typical of the man. He blew his whistle to gain the attention of his company, and then ordered the half who had waited in ambush to go on foot and challenge whoever was left in the camp. When they did so, a call came out from behind the carts, "Hold your fire. Lord Digby has abandoned us."