Black Tom's Red Army Read online

  Red enough now.

  Sir George peered along the front ranks, officers and nobles twitching and wondering what to do.

  But the final, fatal charge they had expected had not been ordered. The cluster of senior officers around the King had trotted this way and that, pointed and whistled, waved hats and brandished swords.

  But they hadn’t come down off that damned ridge.

  A quarter of the army, horse and foot, forming a fidgeting breakwater around which the rest of the army ebbed and flowed.

  And flooded away towards the woods and coombs to the rear. He could see the rogues running for their lives.

  Slumped in furious despondency, leaderless, riders began to peel away from the rear ranks. Officers, awaiting orders, apparently unable to hold their crumbling companies together.

  The reserve was falling apart before it had even been engaged.

  Slow Georgey seemed as paralysed as the rest, crippled by the creeping indecision radiating from the King and his closest advisors.

  But he had more excuse than most. In the middle of the battle, Slow Georgey had other things on his mind.

  He ran a gauntlet over his face, held a hand over his mouth.

  The florid old warrior had been in the field for getting on two years now. There was no point in pining about home – he didn’t have one anymore.

  He remembered the old place. Bernham Hall. His fortified manor house had survived a three month siege, the local Rebels finally driven off by Prince Rupert’s lightning march toward Newark. The iron-willed Prince had delivered them from the Roundheads, but broken their hearts before they had even begun to clear the mess the bastards had left behind.

  By adding the tiny garrison to his marching army he would leave the house defenceless. Rather than leave a handy strongpoint for the enemy the house would be burnt to the ground. Simple as that.

  And Rupert, in the saddle, brooked no argument.

  Raised and reared in the German wars, one man’s house was either a useful place to stay and defend, or a liability waiting to fall into the hands of or give succour to the enemy.

  Therefore it would be burnt to ash.

  His wife and son had been there while the draconian order had been carried out. Slow Georgey hadn’t - like as not the cruel betrayal would have broken his heart.

  Caroline had grabbed what she could of course. Plate, jewels, odd heirlooms. But the house and all its contents had been burnt to the ground.

  Random, spiteful, remorseless war.

  Instead of being rewarded for their fine service on behalf of the King they had been turned out of house and home like broke-backed hounds. Ruined on a whim.

  And the strutting bandit who had delivered the order?

  Hugo Telling.

  He had stood by and watched Bernham Hall burn down along with the furniture and fittings as couldn’t be moved.

  And rather than hang his head in shame at his Judas goatery household gossip maintained the bastard had heaped insult on injury by bedding his bloody wife.

  Not that Caroline had ever been too choosy who she screwed, he mused.

  Slow Georgey, admitting the identity of the impudent intruder, turned the memory over inside his head, picturing the scene as they waited for some word from the King to move forward.

  The image of that young runt slipping in and out of his own bed chamber knowing full well it would be reduced to ashes by the morning... by heck, he had nerve.

  And he’d thought on his feet too, drawing rein before the Northern horse like that, ready with more orders.

  He bristled up again, furious at his own humiliation.

  No doubt Telling had ridden off, laughing all the way back to his position with the baggage.

  Sir George felt his body chill as if he’d stepped into a winter slaughter pen rather than a summer battlefield.

  He had been taken in, distracted. In the midst of battle, cannon belching, horses screaming. Dumbly frightened, frighteningly confused, little wonder he had taken Telling’s ridiculous posturings at face value. Swallowed his infantile stage whispers like some damned halfwit from a Shakespearean comedy.

  It wasn’t me, sir. It was my brother? Like some urchin caught stealing apples from his orchard. He swallowed hard, appalled at his own stupidity.

  A stupid cuckold, a laughing stock.

  Worst of all, he had caught the look of recognition in his son’s eye.

  Thomas had recognised him straight off. It was Telling right enough. But why hadn’t Slow Georgey ridden out, struck the cur around his ridiculous moustaches and challenged him right there and then?

  Confused by his father’s reluctance to confront the author of their ruin, young Tom could only sit and wonder whether it was sheer stupidity or cowardice that had stayed Slow Georgey’s hand.

  By then, the battle had rolled back at them, swarmed across the valley and up the slope, a churrning, burning, screeching tempest. Rolling them back from the forward slopes like a wild spring tide.

  More shouting on all sides as officers and men drowned each other out. Hysterical now. A brazen trumpet ringing in his ears to match the tumults in his head.

  Slow Georgey gripped his reins and prayed for a quick death. A good end - the only shred of honour he had left. Were they going to charge or what? He’d go himself if he had to, aye.

  Better that than endure their laughter.

  Cuckolds we come - sewn upon one of the ragged banners they had carried back in the early days of the war. The glory days when the Roundhead horse had fled like sheep every bout. Now their rakish boast might be his own epitaph.

  *************************

  Thomas was staring at his father’s bent back, willing him to get a grip and do something, anything. Turn them off the moor and ride into the gloom. Or charge into the snarling chaos in the valley. He could sense his father’s dishonour from here, noting the uncharacteristic seat, the way he slumped sideways on his horse, beating his bunched reins against the creature’s twitching mane.

  “Are we goin’ then, or owt?”

  The murmurings in the ranks behind and beside him were building. More outriders, feigning injury, turning their horses and cantering away from the desperate remains of the King’s reserve.

  Aye. There was nowt to be done now, down in the shallow valley where the King’s foot regiments were piling their arms one by one. Thomas could see that clear as day.

  By God they’d looked moments away from victory precious hours earlier. A lull, like a tide before it turns. And then the majority had fallen apart like boys caught scrumping apples in an orchard. Heart knocked out of them in a moment.

  He could see the King and his bodyguard, clustered about the monarch like mating lobsters all strung up in their fancy armour.

  They had moved back and forth on their trampled eerie on but never so much as a man had left the reserve to join the battle below.

  Odd regiments of foot retreating then turning, retreating then turning as they tried to get away off the moor. Turning at bay on higher ground and then dissolving away all over again, so many sandcastles along the strand.

  And then Telling had turned up.

  He hadn’t recognised him at first. Another straggler looking for glory, or lost his troop. Last he’d heard the captain had been killed before Newark.

  Good bloody riddance, he’d thought at the time.

  And then, in the middle of the bloody battle, he turns up again. Brawnier, aye. A full, virtually full beard. Different suit maybe.

  His father hadn’t placed the face. But Thomas had. Oh yes. He’d recognised him alright. The bastard as burnt down Bernham Hall.

  By the time his father had unpicked the cavalier’s cock and bull story about being his own bloody brother Tellling had taken himself off, smartly like, back to the safety of the baggage. Or beyond.

  By the time it had occurred to him he’d been duped it was too late. Telling had scampered back under the rock he had crawled from.

  Had his fathe
r lost his mind or misplaced his balls?

  Was he as daft as the troopers maintained, or hadn’t he the courage left to confront the bastard?

  Telling the younger or Telling the bloody older or Telling returned from the grave - he had disappeared into the logjam of wrecked carts and carriages down the slope there. Leaving the old cavalier and his bristling son chewing over their memories.

  And memories were just about all they did have with Bernham Hall gone.

  Thomas tugged his lip in agitation. It struck him his mother Lady Caroline was down there and all, stuck in the blocked lane. Entertaining one of her gentleman callers no doubt.

  Renewing her torrid acquaintance with that lairy dog Telling?

  Telling was only a few years older than he was. What had she been thinking?

  Leaving her husband a cuckold and a fool to boot.

  Well it was too late to go after the lying bastard now.

  Too late for the King and all, high tailing off the field with his lobstered Lords clustered about him.

  The northern horse had turned at last, tried to remain in formation at first. Imagining they were being pulled back for a counter charge, holding the collapsing flanks while the King got away from the stricken field.

  Thomas was waiting for his father to give the order to wheel about. But he didn’t.

  He was lost in his own miseries.

  By then they were too late to do anything anyway. Instead of moving off in good time they were engulfed by fugitives - Royalist horse from a dozen regiments. Mounted officers from a dozen more. Spurring by while they had a gallop left in their sweat-foamed mounts.

  “Stand fast, hold your horses!” Slow Georgey had called, roused from his spineless lethargy at last.

  Not that the rogues paid any attention to the white haired old buffer.

  *************************

  The King’s party had disappeared over the brow of the hill, along with Rupert’s horsemen. Returned at last from their adventures around the Roundhead baggage. A mass of fugitives on blown horses, struggling to keep up. Useless now.

  The Newark boys, well mounted and fresh, had cantered up and over the hill. By the time they had reached the higher ground the retreat had become a rout.

  It was like Newmarket races in the valley, clumps of horsemen scattering like crows, some sticking to the road, others veering toward the coombs and valleys which dropped away off the moor toward the distant river.

  Slow Georgey caught up amongst them, barely able to dig his heels into his horse in the mad crush. He saw his son peering back at him from the compact band behind him, eyes wide with fright and frustration. He was opening and shutting his mouth but Slow Georgey couldn’t catch what he was calling.

  In another moment, before he could collect his wits, his men dug in their heels and spurred down the long, littered slopes.

  Bumped, bruised, trying to get his bearings, he looked around for his captain, his cornet. Young Thomas trying to pull his horse around but blocked in by the anxious rear rankers. He’d ordered him to stay at the back when they charged. Now he was being carried away by the supposedly steady front rankers as they routed off the moor.

  “Father!”

  Sir George yanked his reins to try and bring the horse back but the beast was caught on the rump by a wedge of stampeding horsemen. His horse reared sideways, jolting him half way out of his saddle. The bone-jarring impact turned its head in toward the grass, knocked down the beast on its haunches.

  The colonel lost his stirrups and cartwheeled into the grass, wind knocked out of him, breastplate flying loose and cracking him on the side of his head.

  They might be living on handouts but it hadn’t had much effect on his girth. He’d loosed the straps as far as he’d dared. The worn leather had let him down and all.

  He groaned, rolled on his back as the horse plunged, hooves raking the turf missing him by inches.

  More riders careered about the prostrate knight, propelling his horse to its feet and away in an instant. Sir George covered his head, blood filling his left eye where his own stray armour had caught him.

  He cursed, drawing up his legs to make as small a mark as possible in the ruin of the King’s horse.

  Earth shaking, stones dancing as the cavalry turned and galloped off the hill in one headlong rush for safety.

  Thomas saw his father’s horse go down, red face white hair and flying helmet. Then he was gone, swallowed up in the stampede. Rank after rank peeling away from their position on the hill, every man for himself up the ridge and down the other side.

  His legs were jammed against the riders to either side. He could barely move, balls crashing into the saddle as he tried to regain his seat and hang on for dear life.

  “Father!”

  *************************

  There were no foot now, none of them had got this far. The road meandered right, the trees falling back from a row of narrow-waisted cottages. Riders were slowing as they clattered into the village, horse shoes striking sparks from the cobbles.

  A moment later Telling’s horse skittered and slid into the rear markers, the narrow street choked with stalled riders. Horses went sprawling. Riders toppled over their horses necks. One went sailing through an open doorway.

  Hugo wrenched the reins back but it was too late. The gelding lost its footing and collapsed in a flurry of hooves. Telling cartwheeled into a trough, cracking his shoulder, all the breath knocked out of him. His scabbard snapped beneath him. The gelding thrashed to its feet but was hurled aside by more horsemen, riding too fast to avoid the logjam ahead.

  “Get back, get back! It’s a dead end!”

  A dead end? In the middle of the damned High Street? A Roundhead barricade maybe, overturned waggons?

  Telling thrust himself to his feet, ignoring the lancing agony in his shoulder but was knocked right back by a rearing grey, toppling him into the chill green trough.

  The water brought him to his senses in a moment and he vaulted over the rim and threw himself into a narrow alley between two of the cottages. He clutched his right shoulder, knew he’d broken or dislocated something.

  The next instant the rebel horse charged into the street, smashing the survivors aside, trampling the dead and wounded, leaping the sprawled horses like a steeplechase through a shambles yard.

  Telling fled down the alley, paused to catch his breath by a rain barrel. He tried to lift the heavy barrel away from the wall to seal the narrow passage but his shattered shoulder wasn’t up to the effort.

  Wild eyed, slow shock seeping through his exhausted body, he ran on, ducked into a small cottage garden, leapt rows of cabbages and radish, vaulted the wall using his left arm. He stumbled on the far side, saw a stone wall stretching toward a row of poplars.

  More horsemen were already trotting along the treeline, hemming them all in. Odd troopers turned their horses in toothless caracoles - but the fight had gone out of them.

  He ran on.

  Stumbling over vegetables and curling brambles, he knew he hadn’t gone far. Not far enough. He wondered, fleetingly, where Bella had got to.

  Pistol shots.

  He tripped, fell, and sprawled exhausted.

  *************************

  Telling prised himself to his feet, taking all his weight on his good arm. Then he heard the horse panting and felt the blast of warm air as the rearing beast was curbed hard. Digging its hooves into the turf precious inches from Telling’s boots.

  He half saw the sword from the corner of his eye. Felt the sudden jabbing thud in his collar.

  The rider ducked by, skewering the fugitive and extracting the blade in one skillful movement. Hugo coughed, collapsed to his knees as the trooper straightened in his saddle and spurred on into the open field, rumbling hooves lifting small stones and grit like peas on a drum.

  Hugo, oddly surprised, fell sideways into the stones and moss. Propped up by the simple garden wall he’d been trying to hide behind. Looking down the wrong e
nd of a perspective glass as his attacker – no more than a lad by the size of him in that fancy red doublet – as he ducked down low over his horse and galloped into the slowly constricting tunnel of his vision.

  Roundhead horse, fresh troops brought up from the reserves, cantered out into the meadow, a revolving band of cavaliers defending themselves as best they could against the buff-coated killers. Blown chargers collapsed, incapable of the caracoles their desperate riders demanded.

  A captain trying to free his pistol from the holster, skewered under the armpit. An ensign without his guidon, pierced by a well aimed war hammer. More riders, scrambling away from the wreckage, pistoled and run through.

  More riders brought to bay by the church, cut down as they tried to scramble away over the gravestones. Others taking temporary refuge in the cool chancel.

  More Parliamentary horse pushed in over the stranded survivors, forcing some up against cottage walls, gasping quarter. Swords loosened and thrown to the floor.

  In another moment the trumpeter was blowing the recall. Not more than a hundred or so had escaped, diverting about the village and galloping for the safety of the river – half a mile beyond.

  Pudding Poke lane, the locals called it. A neat main street running straight to the village church.

  And no further.

  By Naseby and elsewhere, June 14, 1645

  The field had emptied of all but the dead. And the country folk had stripped them to the bone, their silent shift illuminated by shouts and the odd shot.

  Most of the horse and advanced guards of foot had marched on, keeping their swords busy about the fleeing Royalists’ backs and bowed heads miles beyond the battlefield.

  Odd clumps of King’s men had turned at bay, delivered a warning volley if the pursuing Roundheads pressed too far. Parties of horse had swooped in and fired their pistols, ushered the lonely rearguards on again as if they were troublesome cattle reluctant to get to market.