“We are at war, Red Man. The first is no more than six miles south and east. March down to Petersfield and then take the road towards Midhurst, this side of Rogate village.”
They left early on the following morning, a bright day, cloud free and promising to be warm later, the new officer commented.
“It will be actively hot if they show hostile, Mr Peveril!”
The new officer was not sure that was so clever a joke; he did not lower himself to respond in kind.
“The Pulteneys live in an old house, sir, sprawling and low. It is built of the local ragstone under thatch, just the two floors and the eaves drooping to half way down the upper storey. There is one great front door but no fewer than three exits to the rear, leading to stables, home farmyard and orchard respectively. It would be as well to place detachments to all three, sir. There are cottages in the home farm for ostlers and labourers and keepers.”
Micah raised an eyebrow to that last category.
“The keepers will have guns?”
“Hunting crossbows, sir, and a stonebow, I know. They have at least one big fowling piece, used for duck hunting down on the marshes.”
“A platoon of firelocks to the rear. Pikes as well to the stables. The remainder at the front with me. Mr Eglinton, Mr Capel, to the rear. None to escape or offer violence. Match lit.”
They showed themselves at the house, shouting for the owners to come forth and disclose themselves.
The front door remained shut.
Micah dismounted and walked forward, empty handed but ready to draw pistol and sword. He banged on the door and shouted.
“In the name of Parliament, Mr Pulteney is ordered to open his house and show himself to answer charges of treason. Failure to obey this summons will result in his doors being broken and all in the house being placed under arrest and his goods and chattels being seized.”
A window cracked open.
“Go away! In the King’s name, I bid you begone!”
The voice was thin, elderly, irate.
“Parliament has the mastery of this land, sir. Show thyself, or accept the consequences of thy malfeasance.”
“You have no right under law to summons me to your bidding.”
“I have the authority of Parliament and more than a hundred of muskets and pikes. That offers all of the right I need. Open up.”
A loud boom from the rear ended the discussion, the sound of a small cannon firing.
“Corporal Frobisher! Your axes to this door!”
Micah levelled his pistol at the barely seen figure of the old man.
“You, sir, hold or die!”
There was a burst of musketry from the back of the house as Frobisher shouted.
“Door’s tough, sir. Old oak!”
“Through the windows.”
The casemates smashed in seconds and men scrambled through. Frobisher had the door unbolted and Micah was inside just behind the leading men. He ran down the hallway - tall and wide in the old way – towards the rear, to the sound of the guns.
He met his own men bursting in, trampling over four shot through bodies.
Jack Capel was with them, blood stained across his cheek and left arm.
“They fired small shot at us from a big duck gun in the cottages, sir, and then tried to sally from there and the back door towards the stables. Got to be a dozen of them down, and twice as many of our men hurt, some bleeding so hard they must die, sir.”
“Did any reach the horses?”
“Not and live, sir. They met my sergeant, sir.”
“Well done. I will see to the big house. You and Mr Eglinton clear the cottages and stables and farmyard. All horses and beasts to be brought to safety and to be herded back to Palethorpes. Some will victual us, others may be given to the villagers – they are good folk and can be rewarded for their virtue. Empty the cottages of people. Let the families have an hour to pack their little and get out.”
“Mr Eglinton is down, sir. Shot in the face and bloodied in the eyes – I did not see whether he was blinded or cut on the brow.”
“The man who fired that gun from ambush will be hang if he has survived.”
“He is dead, sir. I put my smallsword through his belly, all the way to the hilt.”
“Oh, good man! I am truly pleased with thee, Mr Capel!”
“A sword for the Lord and Gideon!”
The call came from behind them, was met by cries of amen.
The house was in chaos, screaming women and children being hustled downstairs, none of them with clothes torn, Micah was relieved to see.
“All from the house out onto the front driveway. Men to one side if they are of an age to go to war, master and servants alike.”
Micah ran through into the stable yard.
“Are there carts or wains here?”
“Both, sir.”
Eglinton was stood, giving orders.
“Are you fit to serve, Mr Eglinton? I feared for thee.”
“Cut across cheek and forehead, sir, but my sight unharmed. I am luckier than three of ours, sir.”
Eglinton pointed to three bodies laid out respectfully in the shade of the stables.
“What of prisoners?”
“None, sir. They came at us bearing swords and billhooks and an old halberd. Eleven of them.”
He pointed to a pile of naked bodies, stripped and dumped next to the dung heap.
“Quite right, Mr Eglinton.”
“It was done while my head was being bound, sir.”
“The men were right. We came prepared to give quarter and they attacked us without warning. Our wounded who cannot walk – if there are any – to a cart.”
“No severely wounded, sir. The small shot either ripped open the blood vessels or no more than lacerated the flesh – dead or scratched, sir.”
“Lucky, in a way, Mr Eglinton. You will be scarred on the face, I doubt not – honourable wounds gained in battle. The sign of a man, sir.”
Eglinton was still young, was much heartened by Micah’s words.
“Strip the barn and stables of saddles and all of value. Put any fodder up in the wains. There may still be sacks of oats or grain for the horses. Chickens and hogs and goats as well, if there be such. Strip the yard and stables bare. Let the poor folk from the cottages salvage what is theirs before we burn out the big house – their small places will not survive the blaze so close to them. When you are done, empty the pantries and cellars and pick up all of value from inside. Then bring the waggons round to the front. They will victual our companies for the summer and its campaigns.”
Micah entered the house, glancing into the rooms, all of them occupied by men busily ripping out all they could find of any worth. He had no doubt they would have found the master’s offices and strongbox and would have emptied it.
Sergeant Driver called to him from a doorway off the hall.
“Over here, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Estate offices, sir. Mr Halleck spotted the room and set me on guard.”
“Well done, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir. We found a box with a bit of silver, sir, and a big desk, sir, all locked up. I brought Corporal Frobisher in with his axe, sir.”
Micah surveyed the smashed piece of furniture.
“He did a thorough job, it might seem.”
“So he did, sir. Down in that big drawer at the bottom, sir.”
There were six small but heavy leather bags, fist sized.
“I’ll take these back to Palethorpe’s and open them with Captain Carew to confirm the count. It looks as if we shall be paying the men’s wages, Sergeant.”
“Some of them got hold of the lady of the house’s rings and pins and brooches up in her room, sir. Gold.”
“Get them to share fairly when they manage to sell them, Sergeant. What they have pocketed must be theirs – we cannot search them and take it back.”
Sergeant Driver showed relieved – he had not fancied trying to strip t
he men of their spoils.
“Right it is, sir.”
By mid-afternoon the house was a bare wreck, everything of value other than the furniture on the farm waggons and the draught horses harnessed up.
“Set the fires.”
The men scattered inside, tinder boxes ready. They had smashed the tables and chairs in each room, piled them in bonfires in the open doorways and next to the wooden staircase. The rear doors and windows were broken open to ensure a through wind. Smoke came billowing out within minutes. The first tendrils of flame licked onto the thatch within a quarter of an hour.
“God curse you, barbarian savages that you are!”
Old man Pulteney was in tears, his wife and daughter and grandchildren and servants next to him, wailing for their dead fathers, husbands, sons and brothers.
“The choice was thine, old man. I bade thee to surrender all. None would have died. Thy house would not have been plundered. Go to thy King and beg him for recompense – thou hast lost all in his Royal name!”
Micah turned away and called his orders.
“Form column of route. Officers, lead your men away.”
The smallest cart, at the rear, carried the three bodies, being taken to the chapel in the village below Palethorpe’s for proper burial.
“Not as we had hoped, Mr Peveril, but there is a nest of malignants that will harbour no more treason.”
“So be it, sir. War is cruel, it seems.”
“It will only become more so, I suspect.”
“Three dead, Red Man?”
“A duck gun, so they called it. I have never seen the like, Daniel. A long-barrelled but small cannon, firing perhaps a pound weight of birdshot. We destroyed it.”
“A punt gun. The hunters pole silently through the reeds until they are close to a flock of feeding ducks then fire their single shot. They may take a score of birds at a time. It is hunting for the pot, not sporting.”
“I see. Not to be found near Collyweston… No letters from them, but there is no way they could send them sensibly. I hope all is well.”
Daniel shrugged – a man who travelled as much as fifty miles from home might never hear of his family again. They were twice that distance and more from Stamford.
“What is in those heavy bags, Red Man?”
“I do not know, Daniel – I have not opened them, said I would do so in your presence.”
“You inspire me to avarice, Red Man! Let us see.”
They were sat across a desk in the room they had designated as the company offices, none others present.
The leather bags were tied by drawstrings, waxed cord knotted tight, soon succumbing to a sharp knifepoint.
“Gold pieces, Red Man. Spanish coins. Doubloons, in fact. Each worth something in the nature of twenty silver shillings. Fifty in each bag at a guess. Let us count them!”
Three hundred shiny gold coins; thirty piles of ten glittering on the tabletop.
“One for me and one for thee and one for the company pay chest, Red Man. Ten piles apiece – fair shares for all.”
“But…”
“Pirated gold, taken from the Dons and now brought to honest use. One hundred pounds added to your savings, brother!”
Micah could do a lot with one hundred pounds…
He carried his loot up to his room and tucked it away in his saddlebags.
They announced the takings that evening.
“One hundred in gold coin and twenty in silver. All in the chest for payday! As well, flitches of bacon that mean we shall all eat well this week. Beans and peas and sacks of flour for the kitchens. We have given the chapelgoers of the village the cattle and pigs we brought away, and the chickens. We shall benefit from them, no doubt.”
There was a general agreement that the good people of the village should profit from the fortune that had befallen the soldiers. It was only right that the riches amassed by the malignant should be dispersed among the virtuous.
“Captain Slater, there is a gentleman ridden in to speak to thee, sir.”
The corporal on gate duty, one of the pikemen, waved the rider forward.
It was two days since the firing of Pulteney’s house and Micah was discussing where they should march next.
“My name is Billingshurst, sir.”
Micah was surprised; that was one of the houses on the list given by Peter Peveril, a King’s Man by declaration.
“What can I do for you, sir?”
“I spoke to several of my neighbours yesterday, Captain Slater, after the news of the Pulteneys became known. It seems to us that such atrocious events should not become commonplace.”
“Pulteney turned a punt gun on my men without warning and then attacked with sword and halberd and bills. Three of mine died and a score took wounds. It should not have occurred, Mr Billingshurst. It was not of my choosing.”
“So I hear, Captain Slater, the servants telling one tale, Pulteney another. Whatever the case may be, it must not happen again. To that end, I have a writing, a paper of commitment from all local men of affairs, pledging and signing their names not to attack Parliament or to send men, money or arms to the King. Additionally, they have put together a subscription in silver to be given to Parliament. For safety’s sake, we have sent the sum – which is not small - to Portsmouth, which is near to us, to be placed in the hands of Parliament’s captains there.”
Micah expressed his applause for that course, though he might not have objected to the sum being placed in his hands, and those of Daniel.
“May I see the paper, sir?”
Micah pulled out his map of the locality and located the names upon it.
“You have my solemn word, sir. We shall protect each of these houses and families as honest folk who support the right. I will pass this engagement to my colonel, who will no doubt tender it to Parliament as testament to your virtue.”
Billingshurst gave a sickly smile – the pledge was a possible death warrant if the King won.
“We are forced to this expedient, Captain Slater. We would hope not to suffer for it.”
“It is to your advantage now that Parliament shall win this war, sir. I trust to receive your unalloyed backing. It might be thought wise for you to send men to our ranks. I would add that we are well off for officers but in urgent need of men to carry pike or matchlock. We are forming a troop of horse soldiers as well – horses, saddles, fodder – all would be welcome.”
Horses were not so easily found surplus to the needs of the land, it seemed.
“It might not be impossible to send some young men to your ranks, Captain Slater.”
“They come cheaper than horses, do they not, sir? Strong young farm lads will be more than welcome. I will look forward to your bringing them in.”
Micah escorted the gentleman to his horse and then walked through to Daniel, sat with his leg up, resting in a window and enjoying the sun.
“Got them, Daniel! They have signed a pledge not to support the King in return for being left unmolested. They will push some of their young men into our ranks and have sent silver to Portsmouth, to the Parliamentary ships there. Having signed their name, however unwillingly, they have made themselves traitors to the King, with written evidence to the fact. They must be enthusiasts in our cause now, for not daring to risk the return of the King.”
“A good return for a day’s house-burning, Red Man!”
“A pity to destroy any man’s house, Daniel, to leave him destitute in his old age and his family in rags around him, the females, that is.”
“The wages of sin, Red Man?”
“Perhaps the reward for picking the wrong side.”
“Maybe so, but they suffered less than our people at Brentford. The king’s people cannot complain that they receive what they themselves offered our folk.”
It was true, Micah admitted – but he did not have to like the actions.
“What do we do now, Daniel?”
“Not a great deal, Red Man. I shall stay here for anoth
er two weeks, I suspect, before I try to sit my horse for a day. An hour or two is all I can manage yet. I can watch as the horsemen learn mastery of their trade and give advice. For you? The best is to be seen and to keep the men active. March out for two or three days at a time. Fifteen miles out, a night in camp and back next day, in a circle will be best so as to be seen in different villages. You may pick up men. You will certainly bring the malignant to a sense of caution. You may even act as tax collector where you see the prosperous who should make a donation to our cause.”
There was an air of corruption to such actions, Micah thought. Considering the business of taxation, however, he was soon able to persuade himself that those who would not risk their blood for Parliament should certainly offer money to its great cause. If, as one might say, some of that money stuck to his hands – well, he had fought for Parliament, was not undeserving of reward.
Men trickled in, twos and threes together generally, youngsters who had no work, no future in their home villages mostly. A few were older and they smacked of the ne’er-do-well, driven out for being drunkards or petty thieves or bad men who beat their wives and children; they would probably not make good soldiers, but they could hold a pike and obey orders – the whip had been invented for that sort.
“What would they have done otherwise, Daniel? If we had not come to bring them to our ranks, what would have happened to them?”
“The boys would have drifted away, probably to sea, most of them. A few would have ended up in town as villains there, for there being no work for them. Some might have stayed to squat on waste land and scratch a living as they could. For the older men, the nasty sort, eventually the Bench would have taken them in hand – some to the noose, more to go to transportation as convict labourers. There are stone docks and moles to be built in our ports and convicts will do the hard work demanded – and die within two or three years normally, well-flogged and half-starved and dressed in rags in mid-winter. Truly, Red Man, we offer a way of life better than the village has to offer to the useless mouth.”
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