by Smith, Skye
"His life was protected by a white flag,” Daniel interrupted with disbelief. "That common soldier was attached to Colonel Waller's personal staff. Besides which, it was not just murder. It was a sin against one of the few things that all soldiers hold sacred ... a white flag."
"You do not have the authority to hang this man,” Roberts told Daniel.
"Fine, then we'll shoot him,” one of the carbineers said as he raised his muzzle.
"I said HOLD,” Roberts called out. "This man's actions must be judged in a formal court, or by parliament. Until then he is my prisoner of war and as an officer and a gentlemen, he will be treated with courtesy."
Daniel saw the looks on his skirmisher’s faces and saw the hand signals passing between his men. They were going to shoot Burt's murderer and if that meant shooting Roberts as well, then so be it. They were tradesmen who had joined up with militia bands. From their point of view there was little to distinguish the gentry of either side in this war. To these practical men, 'gentlemen of quality' was just another way of saying 'as useless as tits on a bull'.
"Colonel,” Daniel interrupted, gambling that so long as he was speaking, these two officers would not be shot down. He had to keep speaking so he did not pause for thought. "My men are militia not regular army. Three quarters of my company have already quit this winter campaign to go home to their families. The rest of my men have stormed three castles in two weeks. During that time their main mission was to help Burt Miner,” he pointed to the smiling corpse, "to breach those castles and to keep him alive long enough to do so. With his death, their mission is over, finished, ended."
"So what is your point?"
"My men are due a leave and due their pay. If you want Sir Richard so badly, then buy him from my men. Divide all the silver coins found in the castle amongst them, and give them leave to return to their families."
"That is an outlandish suggestion, that ..."
As Daniel interrupted Roberts he wondered if the man understood how very close he was to death. "Not outlandish at all. They have handed you the castle with no loss of life, until that coward struck Burt down. If not for them, the silver would not be yours to claim for Waller. They deserve a leave, they deserve their pay, and Waller cannot and will not dispute that. So, for a cost of nothing to you, you have the castle and save the life of this knight. It sounds like a fair bargain to me."
Roberts looked all around him at the militia skirmishers. They had a half wild look in their eyes. A crazy look, a fanatic look, a dangerous look. "All right. So be it. Hand all prisoners into my care including Sir Richard, and in return I grant your men leave and a traveling purse. I agree to all of this, but not for you, Captain. You must return to Chichester with me to report this incident to Colonel Waller."
Daniel nodded in agreement. He would have much rather marched to London in the company of his honest, straight talking skirmishers than march to Chichester with Roberts and the prisoners, but it was true that Waller deserved a full and unbiased report of the taking of Arundel. He shook Roberts' hand in confirmation. At that signal, his skirmishers yelled out in glee and raced into the abandoned castle to search for silver. He did not join them. He trusted them to see that he got his fair share.
Instead he went over and collected the firewood that had been used to tip and camouflage the carts and organized it all into a pile to one side of the drawbridge. When the three prisoner sergeants realized his purpose they joined him in building up a funeral pyre on the bank of the moat beside the bridge. Once Roberts realized it was a pyre he came and expressed his concerns that pyre's were very un-Christian and that the dead man should be properly buried in the churchyard.
"Burt died smiling because he died topside in the sunshine, rather than down under in some black mine,” Daniel told them all. "I'll not be putting him underground. Never. Let his spirit soar up with the smoke to give him a head start towards heaven, for surely a man as wronged as he, will be chosen to walk beside the Lord of us all.” He had learned long ago that you could win an argument with weak Christians just by invoking the name of their god. Mind you, with strong believers that trick never worked, for they were always eager to argue the 'true' meaning of scriptures, or at least the meaning that served them best..
That night, in the cold comfort of a small stone room in the castle keep, he slowly and painfully crafted a dispatch to Admiral Robert Rich, the Earl of Warwick. Though his reading and speaking skills had improved greatly since falling in with the leaders of the Reform Party, his penmanship was still crude. Normally he would have dictated anything larger than a simple message to a scribe, but what he was writing this night he could not trust to a scribe. By the time he had finished the letter his charcoal brazier had been well fed by his crumpled drafts. The dispatch was to be safely delivered into Britta's hands by Jake who, on the morrow, was on his way home to London. He could trust his step-daughter, as Robert's mistress, to deliver it into his hands personally.
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The Pistoleer - Invasion by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-15
Chapter 6 - The Situation at Chichester in December 1642
"Skewered him while he held a white flag and no weapon, you say?” Waller confirmed as he paced the floor of the chapel that he was using as his headquarters for the siege of Chichester. It was the chapel of Cawley's Almshouses in the village of Broyle just north of the north gate of Chichester's grand city wall. Waller always paced while balancing his decisions. "Sir Richard Rochford you say?"
Daniel did not pace with him. He was too interested in the maps on the large table in the center of the room. One was a crude map of Chichester showing the cathedral, the great city wall and its four gates, East, West, North and South. It also showed the villages that had been built just outside of each gate, although two of those villages had been crossed out. That would explain the pall of smoke over towards the West gate. The defenders would have burned that village so that it could not provide cover for Waller's siege attacks.
"Daniel, you and your skirmishers have been instrumental in my successes and I owe you much,” Waller stated as he turned and smiled.
Daniel inwardly cringed. The only time Waller was ever polite to him or called him other than 'captain', was when he wanted something.
"I am going to ask a great favour of you,” Waller continued. "I want you to drop your charges against Rochford and to ask the forgiveness of Roberts for not consulting him before putting the knight on trial for murder."
In truth, Daniel had been expecting that Waller would want the charges dropped, and he had been ready to do that so long as it was William Waller or Arthur Haselrig that asked it of him, rather than their subordinate officers. But to apologize to Roberts, this was a nasty surprise.
"You must understand the wider consequences if you had hung the villain. The scandal sheets may have printed the story and glorified it. That would never do. Before long every low born militiaman in the kingdom would feel free to string up any of the king's officers they happened to capture. You just can't allow gentlemen of quality to be lynched by the rabble. That would never do."
"It was no lynching. Rochford's own men judged him guilty. Twelve good men and true. Besides, the man is a ...” Daniel had been about to say that the knight was a papist, but he did not. He would rather the man be hung for what he did, rather than for what he believed. "... never mind. All right. I will withdraw the charges, but I will not apologize to Roberts. The man is taking all the credit for capturing Arundel, yet all he did was to keep the villagers from sounding the alarm, whereas the man who did the most to capture the castle has been murdered."
"As a favour to me?” Waller asked softly. "If you do, I will forgive you the Arundel silver you cost me."
Daniel did not mention that his skirmishers had been owed the silver in back pay. Waller was one of those men who barked requests, but whispered threats. "As you wish,” Daniel growled. "I will ask his forgiveness.” The words almost stuck in his thro
at. The irony was absurd. He was to ask the man's forgiveness for saving the man's life. The Wyred Sisters of the Fates were having big fun with him today.
"Good. Now that is settled we can get down to the business of breeching Chichester's walls. I want you and that miner of yours to walk the walls and find all the places that he can breech using his French Farts. Oh, by the way, a Frenchman we captured told me that the French word is 'petard'."
"Me and the miner?” Daniel coughed out. "Didn't you read the full report. It was your precious miner, Burt, who Rochford murdered."
Waller stared at him openmouthed while his siege plans for the next two days crumbled into dust behind his eyes. "Damn that Rochford to Hell. Now I have no choice but to wait for the big culverins to be barged here from Portsmouth. Meanwhile the Chichester garrison is pounding our camp with theirs.” He smiled at the captain and said, "Daniel, you commanded Burt. You watched him work. Surely you must have seen how he made the petards and how he placed them."
"Aye, I know how to make them, and how to fuse them, and how to blow them, but as for exactly where to place them, well that was Burt's real skill. To place them so they will do the most damage, that I cannot do. Perhaps if I still had Burt's helpers with me, the apprentice masons and stone workers, we could give it a go."
"Why, where are they?"
Now Daniel was convinced that Waller had not read his report. The report that had taken him hours to craft. "I gave them your silver and my leave to go back to London. I had to. It was the only way of stopping them from lynching Rochford, and Roberts too if he got in their way. By now they will be in London spending your silver on a soft bed and a lass to warm it."
"Will you try? At least walk around the walls and gates and look for weaknesses.” Waller was pacing again. "They are refusing to surrender, no matter how lenient my terms. I fear that their spies are telling them the same thing that my spies are telling me; that Prince Rupert's flying army is again riding this way. I need to do something that will scare them into surrendering, and soon."
Daniel chuckled to himself at the thought of the two sets of spies. They were likely the same set of spies selling their secrets to both sides. "I'll need help but I no longer have a brigade, not even a company. They are all back in London. I'll need ten men to begin with, and perhaps twenty more to help us place the ... what was that word ... petard."
"You have it. Take the bravest of my horse guards. I will give you written permission to call on the help of any officer my army for men and supplies."
"Then get thee writing, sir, but it's not your officers I need. I need useful men ... tradesmen."
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Cawley's Almshouse may have been the headquarters of Waller's camp, but the men, or rather, the gentlemen were billeted in villager houses of Broyle. The infantry were camped out all around the city wall in any building that still had a sound roof Daniel's search was for men who were anything but gentlemen. Men experienced at standing their ground while facing a cavalry charge. That meant older men, poorer men, rougher men ... and he had been told of a man, the very man he needed. A man that other such men gathered around. A natural leader by right of being the meanest son of a bitch in the valley.
He walked west towards the village of Barts where there was a strange looking church that faced the west gate of the city. It was a round stone church, which was strange enough, but instead of having a tower built to one side, its round tower rose out of the center of the church. The great front door of the church was closed to keep out the bitter wind, and there was no guard at the door. He knocked on it. A peek flap opened in the door and a nose poke through just far enough so that the accompanying eyes could glance to each side of him to count how many were at the door.
"You billeted 'ere?” asked a gruff voice. "If not, then bugger off."
"I'm Captain Vanderus,” he replied calmly, trying not to shiver as another freezing gust swept across the estuary and hit him in the back. "I'm looking for Jack Lantern."
"Jack Lantern you say?” the voice coughed and then laughed. The voice from behind him called out something into the building and there were suddenly sounds of activity, a lot of activity, in the church.
Daniel stamped his feet and waited patiently. He shouldn't have identified himself as an officer because now all the men billeted inside would be madly trying to hide anything and everything they should not have in their possession. "Come on, open up. I'm not regular army. I don't care if you have women or rum or loot in there.” After saying the same thing three times, finally the door was cracked open just enough to have him slip inside, and then it slammed shut behind him to keep out the wind.
"So yer lookin' fer Jack Lantern, are yee?” a big, rough looking man wrapped in a blanket asked. "He's in the chapel off to the right side. When you get there just yell out his name.” The two lads beside him broke out into giggles.
Daniel walked down a central aisle, looking up at the ceiling rather than in front of him or to the side. The pews were being used as beds so the men could keep their backs off the stone cold floor. The scene around him was the typical army camp squalor of men making do with little while they bided their time. This was how men waited for the hour of absolute terror that may happen tomorrow or the next day, or whenever they were ordered to storm the walls. Looking up was wondrous in comparison. There was no ceiling in the center of the church, so the tower had the effect of putting a dome on the main room. Better still, the tower had large windows all around so the daylight flooded down from above.
He knew almost immediately what had caused the scurrying noises before he had been allowed in. These men had been scraping the gilt paint from the woodwork and columns. After all, guilt paint was made from gold, and gold was worth silver. In the center of the main hall, and therefore the center of the towering dome, he turned right and walked towards the drapes that had been hung to give privacy to one of the small side chapels. He didn't push through the drapes, but instead stopped outside them and called a warning to those on the other side of it. "I'm Captain Vanderus. I'm looking for Jack Lantern.” One of the drapes was pulled aside for him.
Directly ahead and sitting on a bench with a small table in front of him, and with his right arm resting on the table and holding a large dragon pointing towards the open drape, was an older man with a pitiful face. The face had two sides as all faces did, but the two sides were not separated by the nose, but by a long scar that ran diagonally through where the nose should have been from a corner of the mouth to a corner of an eyebrow. Daniel tried not to stare, so instead he stared at the gun. It was a run of the mill dragon except for one thing. Instead of having a cleaning rod slotted in under the barrel and running towards the trigger, the rod was pointing out so that it reached out beyond the muzzle, and instead of the rod being a length of round, it was a long thin dagger.
"Are you Jack Lantern?” Daniel asked.
The man's trigger finger twitched. "That's what my enemies call me. Who are you?"
"The nobs call me Captain Vanderus. My friends call me Danny.” Very slowly Daniel pulled his own dragon out of his sash and very carefully laid it down on the table in front of the man with the mutilated face.
The man flipped a small lever that locked the sprung flint dog of his gun and then laid it down beside Daniels. "That's a fine looking piece,” he said, as he reached towards the two flint dogs of the double barreled dragon. "I think I've seen it before, but long ago. Ten years at least and it was carried by a general. How did you come by it? Battlefield loot?"
"It was a king's gun. Gustav of Sweden. Were you in the Swedish army?"
"Nay, the Dutch. We were some of the first to reach Magdeburg, you know, after the slaughter. Gustav will always be my hero for punishing the army that did such a vicious thing. Is Ace Leslie dead then? Gustav gave this gun to him."
"Last I heard he was still a general in the Scottish Covenanter army. He gave it to me up on the River Tweed as a thanks for helping him with a tactic that saved the
slaughter of thousands of English and Scottish lads up on the River Tweed."
The mutilated man stood and offered his hand out in friendship. With his hand came a smile, and suddenly Daniel understood why the man was known as the Lantern. Because of the long diagonal slash across the mans face, and the damage that slash did to nose and teeth, when he smiled he looked as frightening as a turnip lantern. The candle lanterns that the folk carved for all hallow's eve. The smile turned his face into a hideous mask, but the smile lasted but an instant. They shook hands.
"Sorry 'bout that,” Jack apologized. "I try not to smile, especially not around women and kiddies. That's why my friends call me Smilin' Jack."
Daniel looked down at the man's gun again so he would not stare at the man's disfigurement. "Why the knife on your gun?"
"Oh that,” Jack replied as he sat down again. "I'm trying to work out how to have a knife blade stick out from my gun and yet not be in the way of loading. If I can work it out, then the gun can still serve as a weapon even after it is spent. I got the idea the last time I fought the Spanish on the border of Dunkirk. A diego musketeer was carrying a fancy hunting piece, and when he no longer had time enough to reload, he stuck a blade in the muzzle and kept on fighting as if the damn thing was a short lance. Here now, methinks. That is far better than turning your musket around and using it as a club. The problem is that it blocks re-loading so it can't just be left in place and at the ready."
"What did the Spanish musketeer call it?"
"Can you believe it, the rude bugger never lingered to chat,” Jack laughed, but he hid his face with an arm as he did so.
"Was he the man who nicked your nose?"
"You call this a nick? Him, nay. This was from an Austrian cavalry sabre when we wus retreating across Saxony seven years back. Just a glancing blow, but the blade was razor sharp, and then the surgeons made a dog's breakfast of cleaning it and sewing it. I'd'a been better off lettin' a local farm wife stitch me up, for I was in a lace making village at the time. The regiment had to pay me out and ship me home 'cause lads were desertin' so they wouldn't end up lookin' like me.” Jack thumbed at the blade on his pistol. "Asador de Jabali the diego's call it. Boar spit."
