by Maria McCann
A cracked bell chimed as the ground shook under us. That was the guns going off, and I thought at once of Ferris. Raising myself a little, I saw one of the attendants bent over a man nearby. At first with my dry mouth I could not raise my voice above a whisper, so I slapped on the ground with my hand. He came over at once, and I was just able to make myself heard.
‘Friend, what day is this?’ I croaked.
‘A great one, for you,’ he replied. ‘I never thought to hear you speak again.’
‘But how long is it since I came in?’
‘Three days, four.’ He went off and came back with a cup of some herb. As I wetted my burning throat, he added, ‘Your mate’ll be glad to see you come through.’
I stopped gulping. ‘Has Ferris been here?’
‘There’s a gunner came here every night. Is that his name?’
‘He’ll come tonight, then.’
The man smiled. ‘If not, you’ll be fit to seek him in a day or two.’
I drank the rest of the medicine and lay down among the cries of agony, to wait.
Hours passed. Part of the time I slept, and on waking remembered at once my friend was coming. There were tender places all over me from lying too long on the hurdle, and I fidgeted, trying to ease them. When next I woke it was night and the church roof a cave of darkness. Nearer me, candles shone here and there on the backs of pews. The wounded men were quieter, perhaps sleeping, but there was something else, something strange in the air. At last it came to me that the guns were silent.
Something echoed down the church: a hurdle banging against a door. At the other end of the nave I saw a small fair-haired fellow brought in, his face dripping blood.
‘Who’s that?’ I cried out to the bearers. They laid down their burden, looking to see who had called. One of them shouted over to me, ‘How should I know? His mother wouldn’t know him now.’
I stared at the mangled features. The other bearer examined the wounded man, shaking his head.
‘No friend of yours, I trust,’ called out the one who had first answered me. ‘He’s just died.’
I turned on my side and wept in a way I had never wept before, not for Caro, nor for my own brothers. I moaned like a woman; I cared not who heard me; I rocked back and forth.
‘Rupert? Do you know me?’
I opened my eyes. There was a split on his cheek where something had gouged it, the skin stiffening and all the side of his face bruised black. I looked over to the hurdle where I had seen the dead man. He was still there. I looked back at Ferris, and pulled him down to kiss him.
‘Mind my wound,’ he said wincing. I kissed his hands instead, and clung to them, unable to speak. He was warm and solid.
‘You’re a fine sight.’ He smiled on one side of his mouth to spare his injured cheek. ‘I did not think to find you so well.’
‘You were here before,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘I have brought you some pottage.’
It was hard to prop myself upright, and I had lost my spoon, or had it stolen while raving. Ferris gave me his. Without hunger, I began scraping up the food.
‘A man has been put to death,’ Ferris said. ‘In front of the entire army.’
‘A soldier?’ I asked between mouthfuls. ‘What for?’
‘Plunder. Cromwell wanted an example.’ He looked about him. ‘There are some sights here, Rupert—! You are lucky.’
‘Lucky in my friends,’ I said. ‘You’ll stay with me a while?’
‘Not now,’ he said. ‘They will want to talk soon to the artillery. Since we laid siege I have been here every minute I could. I will come back.’
I dropped the spoon and seized him by the hands. To my amazement, he prised off my fingers, breaking my grip.
‘See how weak you are? Eat. Keep the spoon.’ He patted my shoulder and walked off, hand to his torn cheek. I slowly finished up the pottage. Whenever I thought of him prising off my hands I felt like crying. It was the weakness. I was at his mercy; but then, he was a merciful man.
The fever once over I came on speedily. Ferris brought me extra food – beef now, butter, whatever I could take – and I found later that he had eaten almost nothing himself. After another two days I was sent back to the ranks, where I discovered that he had also managed to beg extra rations for me, on the grounds that I was a big man and had not eaten for some days, and a few ounces of cheese might save them a rare pikeman. I devoured everything I could get, and hoped there would not be hand-to-hand fighting before I had regained my strength.
In the event my luck still held, for there was none. It might be a week after we first arrived at the city gates that Ogle sued for terms. He was let to march out with a hundred men and given safe conduct, after which the rest of the garrison were disarmed and let go. The defences were blown up with the Governor’s own gunpowder, and we left for Alresford. What became of the wretches who had lain with me in the church, I never knew.
Things were not as they had been. I was glad that men willingly did things for Ferris, that they delighted in his friendship, and I knew full well that it was this comradely way he had that had got me the extra rations – but I liked his company best when I had him to myself, and during my sickness some of his old cronies had taken up with him again.
We were on the march from Winchester to Basing. I would have dearly loved to pass the time in private talk with Ferris, but had as usual to endure the others. There was Nathan of course, now talking constantly of Winchester. There was also Russ. I judged Nathan to be no more than nineteen, seemingly of good family, and Russ, a man in his thirties, turned out to be the very soldier who had saved Ferris from drowning in blood at the siege of Bristol. He never tired of bragging about it, as if to say, What had I ever done for Ferris that was half as good? As for Nathan, he was the merest prating youth; I could not see why he had enlisted at all, for he had little stomach for fighting. Though he interrupted everyone else, he never tired of hearing Ferris talk. These two, Nathan and Russ, gave me sideways looks but went on speaking when they remarked that I was listening, where at one time they would have fallen silent. They were squeezing me out; well, if they declared war on me, they would find me more than willing. If Nathan went on one side of Ferris, I made sure to go on the other, for I would not let them separate him and myself, even in walking. Ferris meanwhile tried to make peace, and to bind us fast friends.
‘Rupert was a manservant, in one of those big houses we passed,’ he said. I shook my head at him.
But Nathan was not interested in me. ‘Ferris, were you at Naseby-Fight?’ he asked.
Ferris said nothing.
‘What was it like?’ Nathan persisted. I waited to hear my friend reprove him as he had reproved me but Ferris answered simply, ‘What Cromwell said. They were stubble to our swords.’ He sounded weary.
I hoped Nathan would now ask about the women, thus bringing Ferris’s anger down upon his head. He went on, ‘Is it true that Jesus fought on our side?’
‘I didn’t see him,’ said Ferris.
We trudged through a sticky yellow clay.
Russ put in, ‘It didn’t seem such a sure thing at the time. It was the first real test the New Model had, and Rupert, the Prince I mean—’ he glanced at me, ‘he’s a cunning bastard. But in the end it was our men, not theirs, kept together.’
‘How was the terrain?’ asked Nathan.
‘Foul, uneven, a few terrible slippery runs, hopeless for cavalry. But we got onto a hill; that helped. And we outnumbered them.’
‘Two to one. And had Jesus on our side,’ said Ferris.
Russ laughed, while Nathan looked abashed. Blushing, he asked Ferris, ‘Did you fight bravely?’
‘I didn’t run.’
‘Four miles of corpses, arse-naked mostly,’ Russ said. ‘We had need of every stitch.’
I fingered the cap I had been given.
Nathan suddenly turned to me. ‘How do you find the pikes, Rupert?’
‘I missed Winchester.’
> ‘O aye, Ferris said but I forgot. Next time you’ll be right in the thick of it, eh?’
I did not reply.
‘Don’t you feel afraid?’ he insisted.
‘I make others afraid of me.’ I saw that Ferris, his back to us, was talking to Russ. Grabbing hold of Nathan’s arm, I pulled him up until he was on tiptoe and pushed my face into his. He flinched and a tiny squeak escaped him.
‘I’ve got more company than I want these days. Understand?’ I laid my hand on my knife, let him see it, then gave him the look which had sent the snapsack thief running.
‘Now make your excuses.’ I jerked my head in Ferris’s direction. The boy turned on me a pair of sky blue eyes, their colour sweetened by tears. He must have felt the shame of those tears, for he straightened himself. I saw that Ferris had turned, and like Russ, was watching us.
‘Martin said he would mend a strap for me,’ mumbled Nathan. ‘I’ll see if he be finished.’ He whirled about, bowed hastily to Ferris and Russ and nodded to me without looking at my face. Ferris met my eyes with a cold stare.
‘I’ll bear him company,’ said Russ and bowing to Ferris, but not to myself, he went off more slowly.
‘I saw that,’ said Ferris to me. His voice was jagged with anger; I flinched from his face as Nathan had from mine. We walked onwards in silence.
Behind us I heard one say, ‘Nat shogged off quick enough.’ There was brutal laughter, then another voice, jeering, ‘You’re the man for him, eh? Step up then, say the lad’s your friend, you’re come to do his fighting for him.’
They laughed again, but when a third man said, ‘Walk with that and you’ll find a knife in your back,’ they fell to muttering.
I began to feel afraid.
‘Do you know what Russ was saying to me just before the boy left?’ demanded Ferris.
I shrugged.
‘He spoke to me of a bad angel. And so did other men while you were lying sick.’
I kept on walking without looking at him.
Ferris cried out, ‘I stinted myself to feed you! Why are we fighting this war? Is it not for freedom, a man’s right to say what he wants?’
‘I only—’
‘And to whom he wants?’
‘Stop it. Ferris! You’re like – like—’
‘Yes?’
I was shaking.
‘I’m not your creature, Rupert. No matter who has been.’
‘You know nothing about it.’
‘But I begin to know you.’ Ferris tapped my clenched fist. ‘Want to hit me? Well, go on. You’re much bigger than me.’ He jerked his face up towards mine and shouted, ‘See if you can break me of having friends!’
Someone behind called out, ‘Well said, mate!’ I whipped round and saw all the men glaring at me. Until that moment I had not known how much Ferris stood between me and them. I crimsoned, and dropped my hands.
We went side by side in silence. Now I was the one with tears squeezing from my eyelids. When a soldier walked by I turned my head away for shame.
In time my breathing slowed. I kept looking at Ferris, but he marched on with a stride I had never seen him use before. It seemed I had gained some of his facility of reading the body, for I knew this gait was a way of shutting me out.
‘You must talk to anyone you like,’ I said at last.
‘That goes without your saying.’
‘I will go and invite them back. Courteously.’
‘Keep away from them,’ he snapped.
‘Will you still walk with me?’
‘Would you walk with a bad angel?’
‘I’m a man, seeking forgiveness.’
‘Say rather you are trying to keep ahold of me.’
As soon as he said this something tore within me. What had she said? Keep ahold of me till the betrothal.
Then we fought, and she left.
We camped that night at Alresford, where Cromwell’s old friend and comrade, Richard Norton, kept the manor. The talk was all of sieges. They said we might be over the walls of Basing-House the next day, and spirits were high. There was even the odd bawdy song, which one of the officers stopped to reprove. He was not a stern reprover. The young man pleading that he sang for the music only, he was given leave to hum the tune without the words.
I had no heart to sing. My sole thought was how to soften and win round my friend. He kept away from me, his face averted, and looked so unhappy I would almost rather he had hit me. Going to where he sat cross-legged tearing at a bit of cheat, I seated myself opposite him and put my beef, the best part of the ration, into his lap.
‘Here,’ I said, ‘I know you have stinted yourself.’
‘I don’t want your food.’ He took the meat, not unkindly, and laid it on the grass.
‘What can I do to prove I’m sorry?’ I turned my wrists towards him. ‘Here, I’ll cut them.’
Ferris stared at me.
I went on, ‘Anything you say.’
He shook his head and sighed. ‘This is just it, Rupert. This savage way of yours, it—’ He pinched his lips together as if keeping something back.
‘Take the food, then.’
He took it up, only to hold it out to me. ‘Here. What I would have of you is liberty.’
‘You have it.’
He went on, ‘I am sick to my soul, cannot bear more troubles. Friends, companionship – these are my only comforts. Would you take them from me?’
‘I am a friend.’
He sighed again.
I took back the beef. ‘Why are you sick?’ I asked. ‘Wound inflamed?’
‘That, and—’ He bowed his head and his hair fell forward; his body slumped like an unstringed puppet. ‘The assault, for one thing. Were we nearer London, I’d desert.’
‘You fear injury, death?’
Ferris raised his head and looked curiously at me. ‘Have you ever known pain, Rupert – not cut fingers, but pain that makes you scream out – and no help for it?’
I tried to remember.
‘No,’ he went on, ‘I see you never have. But you lay with the wounded at Winchester.’
‘They were calling for their mothers.’
‘Agony dissolves manhood like wax in a flame. This,’ tapping the torn cheek, ‘is but a taste.’
We were silent a while, then he went on, ‘Death can be kind. There are things I dread more—’
‘Infirm? I’d always help you.’ I took his hand.
‘More that – O, you don’t understand me.’ He sounded weary of my company. Offended, I loosed my grip.
‘None of my friends can help me, no, not Nathan,’ Ferris looked hard at me, ‘but brawling and jealousy are afflictions I cannot bear.’
‘Jealous – that I’m not. And I’ll brawl no more.’
‘No, Man of Wrath?’ There was sadness in his smile. Man of Wrath, Bad Angel: I was getting myself some ugly names. Though his anger seemed suddenly burnt out, yet something had changed between us two. Ferris must know that one good blow from me would lay him flat. If he would challenge me to strike him, rather than give up Russ and Nathan, then I must bear myself meekly towards them.
‘We’ll have our hands full tomorrow,’ I said.
‘Aye. With a place like that the artillery’ll be kept busy,’ Ferris agreed. His face grew less melancholy, more thoughtful. ‘They have it all worked out. We shall be finely placed – ours on the one side, Colonel Dalbier’s on the other, or so Russ tells me. I’ve been moved to one of the great guns.’
‘Why?’
‘They’ve got a bigger man for the cannon. He loads faster.’
‘You were never made for a soldier, Ferris.’
‘I hope God made no man for a sol—’ he faltered.
‘But you fear I was made for one?’
‘Tell me, Rupert, tell me truly. How did you come to be on that road, dressed as you were? Why can’t you go back?’
I considered. ‘Now is not the time.’
‘Will you tell me after the siege?’ He spo
ke softly, tilting his head, trying to win me over.
I rocked my body back and forth, longing to tell, shuddering at the memory of what befell me when I opened my heart to Caro. A hateful thought struck me: he might have heard it all from Tommy.
‘There should be no secrets between friends,’ urged Ferris. He took my band; I looked away from his eyes before he could beg it all out of me.
‘We’ll talk of it later,’ I said, feeling his moist palm against mine, and the long well-shaped fingers which had wiped my mouth. ‘Pray forgive me what I did today.’ I let go of his hand and stretched myself out to sleep.
‘I’ll tell Nathan and Russ you are sorry,’ said Ferris. He rose as if to go.
‘Aye, do. Beg their pardon for me. You have the gift.’ I crushed down the mistrust springing in my breast.
He gazed upon me without speaking.
‘Pray go to them,’ I urged.
Ferris smiled. ‘That’s the right good way. I’ll talk to them tomorrow.’
He lay down next to me.
‘You’re staying here?’
‘It may be the last time we see one another. Goodnight, my brother in Christ.’
He closed his eyes and seemed soon gone off into a doze. I watched him as he turned his head back and forth, pursing his mouth and brow. Plainly the cut cheek troubled. His hand came up to it repeatedly, and each time fell away: I remembered his wincing from my kiss in the church. Shortly after, I fell asleep.
EIGHT
Mistress Lilly
The next day we came to Basing, and I found that any talk of being in there at once was madness. Only to gaze on Basing-House was to feel the terrible power in the place, for it was as much citadel as house, with lookouts on every side. These were linked by a guard wall said to be eight feet thick and stuffed with rammed earth able to swallow anything we might throw at it. If no breach were made, then up that wall we must struggle, hindered by our weapons, their men comfortably picking us off from the ramparts.
