Major Jevons was pleased with himself and his men.
“Prisoners, Captain Slater. I have it in mind that Captain Connor will march them to Guildford again, knowing the road as he does and being skilled in the task. He will take the strongboxes you discovered as well, all still unopened.”
“That is good sense, sir – which does not surprise me, I might add; my fellow officers include some very able men. The sole proviso I must make is that many of the prisoners have not got a march in them. Some few are elderly and others are wounded. I would beg that you might release three, even four waggons to Captain Connor’s use. It will do us small good in the eyes of the local folk if we are seen to be whipping old men to walk, stagger rather, the distance.”
“That would be outrageous, Captain Slater! Enemy they may be, but we are not to treat men in such a fashion. There will be waggons and we shall line them thick with straw.”
“Wise, sir, and no less than one might expect from a Christian gentleman.”
Major Jevons nodded and preened, basking in Micah’s approval.
“Do you have a number for those to go, Captain Slater?”
“Almost, sir. The great bulk of the ordinary folk, the servants and the few farm hands who were here, have begged to remain in their employ. I am of the opinion that they should be indulged in their desire, sir. It were cruel, I believe, to cast them out to starve, and we need a harvest, which they will provide. I do not believe they can fairly be called King’s men, who did no more than obey their masters.”
“They should have stood for the right – but that is easier for a gentleman to say than for a hind who has neither money in his purse nor food in his larder except his master provides it. You are in the right, Captain Slater, and show again that the true warrior nonetheless has a tender heart for the weak of this world. You are a good man, sir!”
Micah bowed his head in thanks but wondered if Jevons was in the right. Was he truly kind-hearted or simply unable to stomach the suffering of others – was it goodness or weakness that motivated him? Whichever, he was not about to oppress the poor and the vulnerable; he was not a man such as his father.
“Of the remainder, sir. There are six of old men, one of whom is hurt, who are true malignants and have sworn they will name me to the King’s people and that they will dance at the gallows when the Red Man is hanged for his treachery to his King. Best they should go to their trial, sir. Jasper Palethorpe has been taken and is in irons, having tried to hide among the servants in skirts and a shawl!”
Major Jevons was much amused, said he would make mention of that in his letter to Parliament – that would make him a figure of mockery rather than any sort of hero!
“There are a score of wounded who should be taken to the care of a surgeon in Guildford, sir. We cannot look after them here. For the rest, I have it in mind to ask of them whether they will forswear the Man of Blood and come to arms in our Regiment. We lost many men last night, sir, and could make use of a score or so of strong country boys spread among the companies that have taken losses.”
Major Jevons thought that sensible – they would have joined at their masters’ urging rather than through any wish to serve the King.
“Finally, sir, I lost my young man, Mr Walsh, last night and wish to replace him. There is a youngster, a gentleman born, who has his letters and shows willing and who used matchlock and sword to great avail during the fighting. I would wish to show Mr Eglinton to you and have your approval of his commission in the Regiment, sir.”
Major Jevons was inclined to be kind to Micah, said he would be glad to speak to the young man.
“Sergeant Fletcher! Would you bring Mr Eglinton to the Major, please.”
“You are uncommon courteous to your sergeant, Captain Slater?”
“A ‘please’ is easily said, sir, and does harm to no man.”
“You may well be correct, Captain Slater.”
The tone of voice suggested that Major Jevons did not think so; courtesy was too valuable to be wasted on the peasantry.
Eglinton appeared and showed himself to be of eighteen or so years and strongly built, a boy who had been used to country sports rather than sitting at a school desk. He made his bow and showed respectful and eager to become an officer and mentioned that his father owned more than a thousand acres. Major Jevons gave his formal acknowledgement of the young man’s commission in the Regiment in place of poor Mr Walsh.
“Look to the example of Captain Slater and you will not go far wrong as an officer and fighting man, Ensign Eglinton.”
“Thank you, sir. I shall do my best to show honest and hard working. I shall write my father that I have taken the first step in the career of arms. He wished me to read at Oxford, sir, and that I could not bear when there was so much for a young man to be doing. I trust he will be proud of me.”
“I am sure he will be. For the while, you must equip yourself as an officer.”
Micah intervened, said he would see to that.
Major Jevons took himself off down the hill and Micah grinned at Eglinton.
“No need to tell him that you have inherited Mr Walsh’s sword and breast-and-back and helmet. His servant will look after you as well. He has pistols, which you also need. You are much of a size and may take on some of his clothing, though the stuff he was wearing is beyond salvage, soaked in his blood. Talk to Sergeant Fletcher and he will set out the duties that Mr Walsh carried out. If in doubt, always go to your sergeant first, Eglinton. What is your given name? I am Red Man, as you will know.”
“I am Jedediah, sir, my father, who is a God-fearing man, being much of a Biblical turn for a name.”
“And quite right too, Jedediah. Now I must see to settling our people into the garrison here. I must also deal with the pair of young females.”
“Pretty girls, sir. Are they to go?”
“Not wise that they should stay in the middle of the better part of two hundred soldiers!”
The two young ladies did not seem to comprehend that fact.
“We have no other close relative, sir. None that we have ever met. I believe, sir, that the Palethorpes are more to be found in Virginia than in England, and we can hardly cross the seas to them.”
The same was to be said of the Philipps family, it seemed.
“If you remain here, ladies, who is to stand guard over you? Is there a grandmother or aunt or such?”
There had never been a spinster daughter of the family and Grandmother Palethorpe had died young.
“We have been in the company of Miss Girton, the daughter of my grandfather’s sister, sir, she acting as chaperone, one might say.”
“Will she continue in that role?”
“No. She left three weeks since, saying that her conscience would not permit her to stay in the King’s camp.”
“Who has looked after you since?”
“We are not children, sir! The housekeeper has been the sole lady of any consequence since Miss Girton left.”
“Do you know where Miss Girton went?”
They shook their heads.
“If you remain here, in the company of soldiers, who are by their very nature, rough and uncultured men, you may find your names smirched in local society. There are many who will think you are no longer good girls and you would find it difficult to discover a husband.”
The girls flushed bright scarlet as Micah’s words sank in.
“Oh! But, I am, we are no such thing! We would never…”
“Two girls, on their own with neither parent nor brother to protect them. You cannot expect to remain here except with a man to take care of you. If that is not to be one of your kin, then no doubt it will be one – or more – of the soldiers. You should go. If you stay… Well, you know the likely consequence.”
“Where are we to go, sir?”
“I do not know. I have nothing to offer you. If you remain, then I suggest you very quickly make friends of one of the officers. Captain Carew is unwed and might well be pleased
to enjoy the company of one of you. For me? There is a young lady who might be waiting for me in London town. There are two lieutenants and a pair of ensigns besides who are single men and might be very pleased to look after you. If you stay, there is small alternative to becoming the kept woman of one of them. I must advise you to go.”
“Do you mean that the officers might wish to marry us, sir?”
“No. Not take you to wife. You would be better advised to go with the prisoners in the morning. Now, I am busy, have to look after my men. I cannot spend more time on you.”
The casual dismissal hit home – they realised that in his mind they were not young ladies to be cosseted but silly girls to be sent off to look out for themselves.
Micah made his way to the barn.
“Daniel, will you remain with the garrison? If so, better to carry you upstairs to a bedroom than have you lying in the barn.”
“I am sure I can walk so far, Red Man. A hole in a leg is not so great a thing as to make me a cripple!”
“No gain to walking when your men would be happy to look after you, Daniel. A few days on your back and the wound will heal the quicker. Take the big room upstairs, that was used to be Palethorpe’s – I am sure it will be the most comfortable. Send your servant up to make it ready for you.”
“The Regiment is to march tomorrow, is it not?”
“Major Jevons feels the need to take them away to carry out his orders, or so he says.”
Daniel laughed.
“Perhaps he wishes to be his own man, no longer outshone by the Red Man and Dan Carew?”
“There is that, Daniel. It is difficult for the poor man. You are a gentleman and he has no difficulty in bowing to your advice. I am no more than the son of the owner of a small quarry – and yet he has had to listen to my words, and him a squire born! Better he should march off and be his own man. There is no great army for him to fall foul of – he should be safe enough, and, besides, he has learned a little about the military existence, he may not make too many errors.”
“Pigs may fly, too, Red Man! What is this young Jack tells me of two pretty young females hanging on your lips, Red Man?”
Daniel’s junior, Lieutenant Jack Capel, grinned at Micah’s discomfiture.
“It is no such thing, Daniel! A pair of very foolish girls, relatives of Palethorpe and with nowhere to go and expecting me to find them a safe place of some sort. I have told them either to go with the prisoners to Guildford or to find a protector here – I cannot look after them.”
“I’ll send Jack to find them, Red Man. He is a fine enough young fellow to turn a young girl’s eye and no doubt the other may be persuaded to look after me, the poor wounded hero on his bed of pain!”
“You are a wicked man, Daniel – but they will end up in the bed of one man or another for sure and lucky to be able to choose whose! No doubt worse will happen to many another young lass in this war.”
There were too many men to fit conveniently into house and barns, especially as the fifty horses had prior claim on the available accommodation. It was dry and there was no sign of rain in the skies. Micah put the bulk of the companies to sleep outside on their leather groundsheets that night. He called the sergeants to him.
“We are to stay here for some weeks – how long, I do not know. First thing in the morning, take parties down to the woodland and cut trees and brush to make huts up here. If the men lean branches against the stone wall they will be able to make a dry roof and will have a protection against a buffeting wind. There is straw to hand they can lay to make beds of a sort and they will not be cold in the summer months.”
“We can show them how if they don’t know, sir. Keep the muskets and powder dry in the barns – we shall not be attacked by surprise up on the hill here, sir. We can have a comfortable few weeks, sir.”
“Not too much so. Find out who can ride. We will want to send out patrols on horseback to discover any other nests of malignants in the locality and to show our presence. This part of the country is ours, and it guards the doors, as you might say, to the Sussex Weald where the iron founders of the country are located. Muskets and big guns both are made not so far from here and we do not want the King’s armies to take them. This is our back garden, not theirs.”
“Foolish of the King not to attempt to take this part of the country, sir.”
“He believes that he must control London, Sergeant Fletcher. In his mind – or so I am told – the war will end if once he returns to the Tower and Westminster. He might be right – I do not know.”
“If he took the ironworks, sir, he would be more likely to win in London.”
“I agree – but, luckily for us, he is a foolish fellow. If he was not, he would not be facing this war. For the horses, I have it in mind to use all fifty. Our companies are large, oversize if anything, and a troop of dragoons would make good sense.”
The two young ladies dined that night in the company of the officers and were persuaded that they might stay in their ancestral home in safety. Micah did not approve, but he was not to play spoilsport – they were not his responsibility. He had no doubt that they would be warming the bed of one of his officers within a day or two, but the alternative was that they should be sent with the prisoners to Guildford where they would be left to their own devices and soon be swept up into a brothel; he could do nothing for them.
“What room have you selected for me, Rootes?”
“Front of the house, up one flight of stairs, sir. On the right. Captain Carew has the bigger room on the left and the lieutenants have the single bedrooms on either side, sir. The sergeants are at the back, but they have single rooms to themselves. Servants have kept their own rooms in the attics what they had before and us officers’ servants have fitted ourselves in where there’s space remaining upstairs. The downstairs rooms is all in use for stores, sir, and for the magazine except for the big one what’s for the officers to eat in. Outdoors, there’s the stables what has got the grooms in what have all stayed with their ‘osses, the beasts being more important to they than any King or such, and quite right too! Besides that, there be a pair of big barns, with straw down and taking a half-company apiece in comfort. Then there’s the pigsties, what have got pigs in and they ain’t being discommoded for being a pork dinner once a month. The half of the men what’s left is going to set themselves up with lean-tos against the wall, like you said, sir.”
“Very good. What of sentries?”
“Them blokes what had the place before us, sir, set up a guardhouse by the front gates, big enough for four men to sleep in and two to stay awake, taking it in turn. Besides that, there’s a ladder what goes up to the rooftiles, sir, and places for men to stand front and back and keep watch up high, day and night. Sergeant Fletcher have seen to that tonight and Mr Carew’s men will take guard tomorrow, turn and turn about, all arranged, sir.”
“Good. Where are the prisoners locked up tonight?”
“Down in the cellars, sir. There are wine cellars – one of them – and cold stores for provisions down there, and a big cellar what is dry and lined with good oak boards and that be for the flour and barley for brewing. Full, they are. Besides that, there is the one place what was empty and was the other grain cellar what has been used up over the winter and that’s where the prisoners has been put, those that wouldn’t join us or wasn’t allowed to. They won’t come to no great harm down there for a night – they got a bucket to piss in and a water barrel and some loaves of bread so they don’t starve, not that they would overnight.”
“Well organised. I must have a word with the sergeants in the morning, tell them my thanks for their work.”
“No need, sir. That’s their job – they knew you was busy like. Sergeant Fletcher says as how he has taken on six prisoners for the shot company and given Captain Carew’s lot a dozen of local boys what’s strong in the arm and thick in the head for his pikes, they not needing much in the way of know.”
Micah said nothing, sitting down on
the big bed and finding it comfortable.
“Good old bed, that one, sir. Oak framed and thick sail canvas for the underpart, laced around the sides to hold it firm and flat. Thick mattress on top stuffed with horsehair and she’s real soft to lie on. Got a linen sheet as well, and two blankets on top. And a bolster to set your head on. All it needs is a missus as well and you’d have all a man might need for a good night’s kip.”
“The only missus I fancy is still in London, Rootes.”
“Good thing, too, if you asks me, sir. Don’t hold with these sorts what just wants a warm armful and nothing more. Not the proper way of going on, not like these King’s men do.”
“We are better men than them, Rootes. That is why we stand against them.”
Micah fell asleep considering those last words and wondering just how true they were. There was a kernel of honesty to them, he decided – the men of Parliament were fighting for a cause, to make England better. He hoped they might succeed, and not forget their aims in the day-to-day needs of fighting.
Breakfast was fresh bread and a mug of milk.
“Where did we get this from, Cook?”
The house servant smiled and curtsied.
“Beg pardon, sir, but us got ‘er up from village, like what us was allus used to, like. Old Henry Pooley, what ‘as the dairy ‘erd, like, and what do sell milk and butter and cheese to them what ain’t got they own, do come round in ‘is little cart six o’clock in the morning as ever is, six day a week, like. Old Master Palethorpe was used to take it for the rent of the land, like, so there ain’t nothin’ to pay, acos of ‘e needs to look after the rent even when Master ain’t around no more. Got butter and cheese in the pantry, so we ‘as.”
“Come the middle of the day, put some bread and cheese up for the officers, Cook. What will you do for dinner?”
Red Man Page 12
