by Smith, Skye
"Nay, we're from villages all over the south coast, but you know how it is. You come home after seeing grand places like Rotterdam, and after living the grisly life of a soldier, and you don't stay long back where you grew up. Your new shoulders no longer fit your old coat, so to speak. Your eyes have been opened and your interests have moved on, whereas not much has changed with those you left behind. We all kept in touch. As each of 'em went home, it didn't take long for them to get into trouble. I had to bail four of 'em out of local gaols.
The coin from being bought out of my regiment was enough to latch onto a small farm, and one by one they dropped by to help me with the farming. This last year we formed a plantin' an' harvestin' gang and sold our services to the big estates all around us. With so many men called up to the trainbands or pressed into the king's service, we made a good livin' at it. Kept movin' on from estate to estate and they wus always glad to see us. While we were finishin' the harvest we heard about the Brentford slaughter. When Colonel Waller sent the call out for men to rescue Chichester, we decided to answer it. What about you? How did you end up here?"
"I suppose you could say that I am on loan to Waller from Admiral Rich,” Daniel replied as they turned a corner and followed the cart towards the round church tower in the distance. "When Waller decamped from Windsor, I was put in command of most of his skirmishers. We were the wrecking crew who were blowing down castle gates and walls for him. The last of that crew made for home after we did for Arundel Castle, so Waller wants me to recruit and train a new wrecking crew."
"Sounds dangerous."
"Not as dangerous as you would think, so long as you keep your head on your shoulders. None of your men smoke backy do they? When there's a lot of powder about, open flames are a no-no. It's safer to fumble about in the dark than to light a candle."
"Keep your head on your shoulders, like as in, don't blow the fool thing off,” Jack replied with a chuckle. "Nah, can't afford backy, not since King Charlie taxed the bejesus out of it. Filthy habit. You wouldn't have any to spare, would you?” All he got in reply was a shake of a finger.
"So, if your men were standing in open ground and were charged by cavalry, what would they do?” Daniel asked. In the armoury these men had shown their hands to be steady, but there were other things he needed to know about them.
"Depends on what weapons they had at hand. They all came up through the ranks of the Dutch army. First as go-fers, then as pikemen, then as musketeers. Most of them made it into the mounted infantry before they were de-mobbed and sent home."
"Say they were in an open flat field with no cover and their guns were empty,” Daniel proposed, "and all they had at hand was them Frenchie haches we've got in the cart?"
"Them haches is bloody marvels, they is. Let me think. The men would stay low to the ground and split up into working pairs. When a pair was attacked, the man nearest the rider's sabre hand would dive to the ground and slash at the legs of the horse with that hache, or even jab the point of it up into the belly. The other man would slash at the rider's leg on the rider's cack side. Quick attacks, then role away and come up ready for the next rider. The more horses and riders they can cripple, the better their chances of getting off the open ground."
"Talk is easy,” Daniel replied. "Would they actually do that, or would they just run?"
"No they wouldn't actually do that,” Jack said defensively. "They wouldn't be so stupid as to be caught out on open ground in the first place, and they most certainly would not commit suicide by turning their backs on cavalryers to make a run for it."
"Good enough,” Daniel told him. "From now on you are my second in command. Remind me to put you on the rolls as a sergeant the next time we go anywhere near Waller's headquarters."
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The Pistoleer - Invasion by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-15
Chapter 8 - The Seige of Chichester in December 1642
Waller shivered, couldn't stop shivering. "Are we there yet?” he asked as he pulled his fur cloak closer around him and sunk his head further back in its hood. Despite the shivers from the late December cold, he did feel safe walking amongst Daniel's latest company of ruffians. The man had a knack for building a company of chosen men. Half of them were obviously men of the building trades. You could tell that by their brawny backs, barrel chests and rough hands the size of plates. The other half were all dangerous looking men, disfigured men, experienced fighting men. The kind who would give a good accounting of themselves using any weapon that came to hand. Each of them carried a carbine, but not any old carbine. A rifled carbine.
He had been told by his armoury quartermaster that this captain knew more about pistols and muskets and sparking locks than any man had any right to know. That this captain had hand picked the weapons his company would carry. For each man he had requisitioned one rifled carbine, one fat dragon pistol, one horse pistol, one set of shaped steel chest armour, and one short handled hache. He himself knew enough about weapons to realize the power of this combination.
The head of the hache was a combination of dagger, hooked axe, and hammer and was such a formidable weapon that even when their guns were spent, these men would be a match to anyone in hand to hand combat, even swordsmen. The fat dragon would be loaded to create stinging smoke and confusion. The rifling of the carbines gave them an aimed range long enough to worry any musketeers up on the walls. Waller was so buried in his fine furs and in his thoughts, that he bumped into Daniel's back when that man stopped just in front of him.
"There,” Daniel pointed. "At some time in the far past there was a fifth gate through this city wall. Gerry, here, is a local bricklayer and he says it was cut through so that the Dean could connect his garden inside the wall, to his orchards and pastures outside. He also says that when they closed the wall again, they bricked it up rather than used stone, and that except for the foundation, the closing is but a curtain wall one brick thick.” He took Waller's arm and steered him away from the wall and towards the Lavant river, which was completely frozen over to the point where even horses would not break through the ice. "That's enough time here. I just wanted to show it to you, but we don't want to warn the defenders, do we?"
Waller tested the ice on the river before he started across. "So the same plan as Winchester then. We pretend to attack a far gate to draw the defenders away while you blow through a breach."
"Aye, we could do that, but it won't be as easy as in Winchester. I've been watching their wall guard through my looker. I've counted at least two hundred Scottish mercenaries armed with carbines like my men carry. These aren't the king's gentlemen armed with pistols, or their retainers carrying muskets. Far from it. The Scots will have experienced the German wars, so they will be hard, capable men every one. Worse, when that curtain wall falls it will be like opening a gate. The collapse won't leave any pathway up to the top of the wall. To take it will require the same hand to hand slaughter as if you breached one of their main gates."
"So there is no advantage to farting a hole through this wall instead of farting through one of the gates?"
"Exactly ... but I have another plan. It came to me when I was counting them Scots. I remembered a tactic of a Scottish gunner I once knew. Come with me and I'll show you."
They crossed the frozen river without incident and walked towards the 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. "This church is called Saint Sepulcher but we have one just like it in Cambridge that we call the Temple,” Daniel told Waller as they walked towards the front door. "The tower creates a dome over the main hall, but it has an upper balcony all around it."
It was gloomy inside the church, for the building was so old that it lacked the tall windows of most churches. A beam of sunlight from a window in the tower shone down and lit up the alter. They climbed the staircase to the upper
balcony and walked over to the sunny window to look out. It faced the city wall.
"While you are waiting for some big culverins to arrive from Portsmouth,” Daniel told the colonel, "your gunners are making a lot of noise with your light field guns, but to no effect. The balls are too light to damage the gates or the walls, and they travel too fast to be lobbed over the walls and drop down onto a target within the walls with any accuracy. Instead the balls tend to fly completely over the walled city and take down some farmer's shed on the other side of the city."
"Not quite. We only fire the field guns to remind the defenders that we do have them,” Waller explained defensively. "You know. So they won't try to sortie out again like they did on the first day. They almost took me prisoner on that first sortie."
"This tower is just a bit higher than the wall,” Daniel explained and then stomped his foot, "and the balcony is of solid oak and wide enough to allow the recoil and loading of your smallest field guns. If we hoist your field guns up onto this balcony, then their shots will be better aimed. We still can't use bombs, mind you, for they would fire the thatch roofs of the houses. Still, if we keep hitting the Bishop's palace with rounds, that should put the wind up the backside of the officers who are billeted there. Better still, if we do it in the black of night, then the officers won't get any sleep."
"I like this plan. I like it a lot,” Waller said with a gleam in his eye as he began to pace. "But how will we get the guns up here. Even the smallest of them weighs most of a ton."
"Leave the how to me. I've gathered some useful men about me,” Daniel replied and pointed to three men down below who looked more like pirates than soldiers. "Those three have worked on the Portsmouth docks. They'll rig up a beam and blocks and tackle enough to hoist the guns up. Say the word and the king's men will not be doing much sleeping tonight."
"Then do it. It's certainly worth a try. I'll go and have a map of the city copied for you, so you can mark your targets. I would love it if our first few shots hit their headquarters in the bishop's palace."
"We'll be using the cathedral spire as the landmark for the sighting of the guns, so all we need to know is the direction and roughly how many paces your chosen targets are from the spire."
"Well what are you waiting for. Do it man!” Waller told Daniel. "The faster they surrender these walls, the faster we will be inside the walls ourselves and safe from any surprise attack by Prince Rupert.” Waller turned and hurried off down the staircase to return to his own headquarters at the almshouse. Daniel signaled down to the five chosen men who had escorted Waller to the wall, where they were trying to get comfortable stretched out on the pews. They signaled a confirmation back up to him. Message understood. They were to make sure that the colonel got safely back to his headquarters.
* * * * *
The team of gunners gathered at the pried out windows of the church tower and took turns with Daniel's looker as they scanned the rooftops over Chichester's city wall. The roof tops of the largest buildings were all visible. They kept looking down at a rough plan they had been given so as to match the roofs to the names of the buildings on the plan. The plan was stretched out on the ancient oak planks of the balcony. Their talk was all about shooting angles and range.
"I don't like it,” the gunnery sergeant eventually told him. "The aiming is all guesswork. Our balls are more likely to hit women and kiddies than the king's officers."
"Aye, I am beginning to agree with you,” Daniel replied. The brilliance of his plan to haul these two field guns up onto this balcony so that they could shoot over the wall, had now dulled to the point where he no longer believed in it himself. There could be too many unintended consequences. Chichester was, after all, a city most friendly to parliament's cause. It had only recently been captured by the royalists.
The city men who had tried to defend the walls against the king's army were being held prisoner within those walls, which meant that all of their families were now at risk during any fighting. At Brentford the royalists had used their prisoners and hostages as shields. He tried not to let his mind dwell on the hardships and disgrace that would have already been pressed upon the women. Thinking about such things just made him angry, and when he was angry he tended to react rather than act.
"Most of the folk's houses have thatch roofs,” Daniel continued, "which is why there are to be no bombs. We don't want to start a great fire."
The gunner with the looker called out, "Oye, see that buttress on the wall beside the bricked up gate. It ain't a covered palisade like it looks. At least not all of it. It's part of a big manor house behind the wall. From the number of Scots I can see coming and going, I'd guess that them mercenaries are billeted in the manor. If we do breach them bricks, it'll be a bugger to charge the breach with so many troopers livin' close by."
"That house is the Deanery,” Daniel called back after looking down and finding it on the rough map. "That makes sense. A local told me that the old gate was pushed through long ago by some Dean.” He bided his tongue while the gunners discussed and finally decided that a Dean must be the manager of the cathedral properties.
"The colonel has marked the Deanery as a target,” the sergeant barked after checking the map himself. "Well praise be, that's the answer then."
"What?"
"It's a sure target,” the sergeant was smiling, "so no guesswork. When the order comes to open fire, we'll pound that palisade and the manor connected to it. I'd much rather hurt some Scot mercenaries than risk hurtin' some kiddies. If the colonel questions why we hit the Deanery rather than the palace, I'll just tell him that we were worried about the Scots bein' a danger when we storm the breach."
"Perfect,” Daniel's worried look had also eased into a smile. "With luck some of the officers will be billeted there. May I suggest that you aim your first balls low. If they miss I'd rather have them hit the wall than spin off into some houses.” The gunnery sergeant glared back at him as if to say, 'Who are you to teach me my business' , but the barrel chested man did nod in agreement.
Perhaps an hour later the order to fire came from the colonel, and the balcony of the round tower became a fury of noise and smoke and flame and grunting men. After a dozen shots, the Dean's tower had become a twisted wreck of post slivers and brick chips and falling slate. Soon afterwards the order arrived to cease fire. Apparently the king's officers had decided to resume surrender negotiations. When word then reached the church that the sheriff had agreed to release some of his prisoners in return for these field guns being silenced, a cheer went up all around the church. Not just for the victory, but because it meant that finally everyone could nap without being woken by the roar of the field guns.
Daniel left his looker up in the tower with the gunners, so they could keep an eye on the closest of the city gates, the west gate. If there was any trouble, such as a sortie, it would come from there. Meanwhile everyone else made themselves comfortable in the church. It was not a warm place, but at least the walls protected them from the raw wind that was whistling up the estuary.
That evening the orders came to open fire again. They assumed that the negotiations had been called off again by the king's men. With this salvo they felt confident enough to send some balls towards the great roof of the bishop's palace. After the cathedral, it had the largest and highest roof, so it was hard to miss. Even their first shot hit the damn thing and sent roofing materials flying. Within the hour the order came to cease fire and again prisoners were released from the city gates.
At first light the next morning, they watched the weak sun come up from behind the city. Weak as it was, it blinded them from looking towards the west gate, so they had no warning when a heavy cannon ball slammed into the church. The ball reached them at the same time as the boom of the cannon that had fired it. Immediately every gunner was scanning the walls. The watcher with the looker spotted the cannon first by tracing back along the plume of smoke that was drifting above the wall. "They's hoisted a bloody big gun up beside the west
gate,” he called out.
Though it was two field guns against one culverin, which meant that the church's gun crews were shooting six balls for every one from the wall, the culverins balls were not six pounders, but fourteen pounders, so the walls of the round church bore the worst damage from the gun fight. By the time one of the field guns got lucky and crippled the culverin's carriage, the church tower had lost its roof, every window was smashed, the balcony on the back wall had collapsed, and the front wall of the church was crumbling.
Once the culverin was silenced, the gunners changed their aim back to the palace and sure enough within the hour they were ordered to cease fire, and once again prisoners were released. This time the prisoners numbered in the hundreds. When the lad with the looker mentioned to his sergeant that the king's men must fear them and their field guns to release so many prisoners, the sergeant replied gruffly, "Don't be daft lad. They are under siege and short on supplies. Them prisoners were just extra mouths to feed, and by the looks of them, they were angry enough to rise up and help us once the battle was on."
That afternoon, a change in the wind, combined with higher moon tides, had finally allowed the barge from Portsmouth to reach the Chichester end of the estuary and tie up to the closest quay where its cargo of culverins could be unloaded. The gunners up on the half ruined church tower, and the gunners above the East Gate, both had marvelous views of the huge guns being drawn through the streets on log rollers. The rumble of the heavy logs on frozen cobble was ominous, like continuous, rolling thunder.
Negotiations continued and each day the royalists released more of their prisoners to ensure the field guns in the round church remained silent. Over a thousand prisoners had now been released, and all of them were ragged, filthy, and hungry. They were angry at their treatment by the royalists, who had used them and their families like slaves for the grunt labour involved in defending the city. It was no surprise then, when they asked to be armed so that they could swell the ranks of Waller's army. That army was now numbering perhaps six thousand, because it was also being swelled by the arrival of many small companies of men from all over Sussex. Small companies like Jack's.
