Black Tom's Red Army Read online

  “Aye, ‘appen. If we see any more of him,” the colonel said from the side of his mouth.

  “You’re welcome to fall in with my men here,” Sir George offered.

  “I have made my report, sir. I trust you will report to his Majesty that I did my duty. I shall return to my post with the baggage.”

  Sir George regarded him gloomily.

  “What did you say your name was?” he queried, a new note of suspicion creeping into his voice now.

  “Telling sir. Edward Telling.” Hugo clapped his hat on as low as it would go, pulled the rim down over his eyes.

  “I wish you good fortune sir.” He yanked the reins and spurred the bay away from the curious troop, wondering if there were other faces he’d recognise in that shabby pack.

  *************************

  The colonel watched him canter off down the slope, trying to match the cavalier’s profile to the image he’d carried in his head. He couldn’t have changed that much, in that time?

  Slow Georgey glanced at the troop behind, picked out his son Thomas fidgeting and fretting in the third rank.

  He’d ordered him to stay out of it, of course, but he had wasted his breath.

  Thomas had changed, these last months. Grown up into a strapping six footer. Probably followed after his father, whoever that might be.

  That Roundhead scoundrel Arbright, for one. The thought had gnawed at him since the boy had been born, bloody and mewing, Caroline gazing up at him from the soiled linen, imploring him to accept the babe was his.

  Arbright, hovering around their home ever after. The war had simply given him the handy pretext to act on the hateful rumours that had hung around Bernham Hall like a bad smell.

  Setting siege to their home the moment he had ridden out to join one of Rupert’s flying columns.

  Rupert had won fame and glory, Slow Georgey had lost his house and his honour.

  Humiliated by that cowering bastard Telling.

  Had it been him all the time, come to crow over the cuckolded fool?

  The old warrior’s florid features paled for a moment.

  Were they to sit here all day or were they going to draw sword and charge? Rage and resentment prickled and bubbled under his shirt like some vile, skin blistering plague. The battle was forgotten as he stared down at the baggage camp, trying to pick the mysterious captain from the growing mob of fugitives making their way to the rear.

  “Who was that, father?”

  Startled, Sir George turned to face his son. Wide-eyed, sweat running down his face. Helmet buckled tight making his cheeks bulge like a baby’s backside.

  “I told you to stay where you were,” the old man growled. “Get back to your position.”

  “It was him wasn’t it…Telling as burnt Bernham Hall?” Thomas croaked.

  “His brother,” Sir George growled. “He said. We’re not here to rake over that pit. Get back in line. Who gave you permission to…”

  “It was him, it was that Hugo,” Thomas accused, eyes smoking with tear-flecked rage.

  “It was his brother. Hugo fell at Newark, he said so,” his father insisted. But the lie turned to dust on his tongue before he’d said it.

  It bloody was him. Him all the long.

  “Now get back in line before I call the sergeant at arms.”

  Thomas seemed to swell inside his breastplate, rolling the reins in his gauntlets.

  “Go. Now,” Sir George ordered, turning back to the rapidly disintegrating ranks down in the valley. Thomas turned his horse and trotted back to the line, the troopers watching his every move.

  *************************

  One look at the chaos around the snarled coaches and baggage wagons told him there was nothing to be done. Dozens of soldiers were picking their way through the obstacle course, while the rest had scrambled up and over the verges, through the hedges and out into the open fields. More, hundreds more, were following the quickest route off the moor – running straight into the lobster pot lane.

  Naseby covert to their right rear would provide some cover – get them off that bloody ridge in any case. If they could get through or over the blocked path – jammed with the detritus of an entire army – they might get back to the hills and hedges to the north of the battlefield. The carefree route they had followed that dawn.

  The odd squad of formed troops were trying to draw off in good order – others had taken up position around an impromptu barricade of overturned carts and looted furniture. Telling imagined they might have remembered their duty, but it was more likely that having pushed and shoved their way in to Clipston lane they simply couldn’t get out.

  The logjam had penned in fleeing troops, and an energetic sergeant was busy turning the fugitives back around, clubbing and kicking them back into line behind their outworks - a tangle of fine coaches interspersed with dog carts, brewery waggons and wheel barrows. Telling recognised the old wretch he had bawled at earlier, surprised he had obeyed his desperate order.

  But there were already fifty or sixty men penned between the two obstacles, and new troops looked to be creating a third line behind them. Buoyed, Telling turned his horse toward them, picking his way through a muddy gate into the small breathing space they had created.

  He curbed his horse as sweating soldiers in their shirts manhandled a large waggon out of the flotsam and jetsam in the lane.

  “Get that cart out of there!” the elderly sergeant was shouldering his way through the mob, white whiskers bristling around the red maw of his mouth.

  “Arm them from the pikes and muskets in the field,” Telling called, pointing his sword at the littered moor. Hundreds of abandoned weapons had been scattered over the grass. Enough to re-equip an entire tertia of the King’s fugitive foot.

  The sergeant nodded, hurled a couple of musketeers toward the gate.

  “I will my lord! You heard the gennlemun, recover your arms. There’s pikes and swords for all!”

  Telling turned the horse, dismayed to see more troops clambering up and over the coaches, down over a staircase of broken carts and overturned barrels.

  Another waggon collapsed under the weight, spewing soldiers into the wreckage. The screaming and shouting unnerved the rest, triggering a fresh stampede toward the rear.

  “Stand fast! Stand fast!” Telling called.

  “We’ll get that cart out, form a half moon to protect the gate. We’ll need a way out my lord,” the tireless sergeant called.

  Fugitives were shouldering their way past them, pouring out of the gate. The cart was free now, another squad were struggling with a pair of snorting horses.

  Telling made up his mind, slipped his stirrups and slid from the saddle. In another moment the fleeing mob had surged past, carrying the panicking gelding with it.

  The sergeant grabbed him by the collar, hauled him through the brawling press toward the temporary refuge of their waggon. Soldiers in their shirtsleeves were walking prancing horses back between the shafts.

  “Leave that waggon, push it back to cover the lane. Recover your muskets,” he bawled, trying to free his sword from the crush. The sergeant had damn near boosted him from his feet, hurrying him out of the mad rush of the mob.

  “Leave off man,” Telling barked. The sergeant grabbed his wrist, pulled his sword arm back.

  “Don’t go waving your ironmongery at ‘em my lord. They’ll not thank ye for giving more orders while they’re trying to save themselves!”

  The ignorant ape had a grip like a vice. Telling tried to throw him off.

  “You’ve done enough my lord, come off now. We’ve got to get off this damned moor or the rebels’ll take us all else.”

  “Let go of my arm you jabbering prick!”

  Telling tried to hurl the sergeant away but his damned crew seemed more interested in pinning the captain against the waggon rather than recovering their arms from the verges.

  He froze, face to face with the old sergeant, mad blue eyes twinkling with agitated malice.


  “Take it steady now feller, or I’ll stick yer with this,” the sergeant leered, prodding a dagger into the small of his back.

  “What mutiny is this? Let go of me at once!”

  Ye Gods and little fishes, couldn’t the rogues recognise their own officers? It dawned on him the frenzied band had duties of their own.

  “Play the game sir, and you’ll ride away with the rest. Shout and bawl and I’ll stick yer with this, swear to God,” Cully advised in an undertone, his deadly intent crystal clear.

  “Time to go lads,” Cully Oates called out once more. Soldiers were scrambling up onto the running board. Others had hurled themselves at the horses heads to wrestle them under control. Still more were at the wheels, struggling manfully with the enormous spokes.

  Telling realised the waggon was the prize, not him. The waggon had been covered with canvas, stitched down with heavy lengths of rope to secure it from prying eyes and interfering fingers.

  “What’s in there, your damned loot from Leicester?” Telling snarled.

  “Ah don’t take on so matey. No doubt yours is wrapped away on a spare horse, being watched by a loyal groom,” Cully Oates observed. He saw Telling’s eyes widen then narrow.

  “Ah, hit a nerve eh? Get us off of here and you’ll be in one piece to enjoy it. Give me any more of your damned mouth and I’ll take me chances.”

  He rolled his eyes at the apoplectic cavalier. “They say I’ve a silver tongue, same as you fancy gennlemun.”

  “Get my horse,” Telling ordered. Pressed on all sides, it hadn’t gone far.

  Cully frowned. But a man on a horse carried more clout than another on foot. That was the way of things.

  “Aye, alright. Corporal Towser, get the man’s horse!”

  Time to go.

  Part Two

  Marked for Whores

  “The enemy left no manner of cruelty unexercised that day and in the pursuit killed about 100 women, whereof some were the wives of officers of quality.”

  The Reverend John Mastin “History of the Rebellion”

  By Dust Hill, Naseby, June 14, 1645

  The blow caught her on the jaw with the punishing shock of a culverin shot before she had even opened her mouth.

  A smile and some breezy banter usually did the trick with the common soldiery, especially if she let her tongue play over her lips a little, loosened the strings of her bodice a breath.

  But these animals hadn’t allowed her to deploy her usual tricks – the well honed array of simmering, eyelash fluttering helplessness that generally had them eating out of her hand before they had dared blink.

  She had barely inclined her head before the nearest plunder-hungry intruder had simply knocked her to one side with the upturned butt of his musket. The brass bound stock had caught her under the jaw.

  “Here’s another fancy whore, by Christ she must be officer squeeze, tits like that!”

  Poleaxed, Bella Morrison fell over a rifled trunk, head spinning, paralysed by shock.

  Before she’d had time to regain her wits one of the bastards had grabbed her leg below the knee and pulled it to one side, his mate grabbing her shoulder.

  “Come on luvvie, there’s no call to play the Puritan round us! We’re ordinary sorts aren’t we boys?”

  She tried to scream but her mouth was filled with blood and she coughed bile, wild-eyed she clawed at them as the bastard in the red coat pulled her around.

  “Now now my little honeyblob,” her attacker snarled, hideous breath playing over her averted face like an overflowing latrine.

  Nobody was going to hear her scream now – the camp had been turned into a shambles in an instant by the sudden, unexpectedly ferocious onslaught. Wild-eyed killers lashing out at terrified women and children as they fell on the abandoned baggage train.

  She had imagined she might talk her way out, the way she had a thousand times this past three years. Cold realisation – not this time. A catastrophic, possibly fatal miscalculation. She felt sticky hands pawing her breasts and more roughly up her thighs as the Roundhead knelt down between her splayed legs.

  Frantic, she punched the man crouching above her chest, catching him a glancing blow. She clamped her legs about the would-be rapist as he tried to hold her knee and free his breeches.

  The unexpected pressure knocked him sideways and Bella squirmed back, coughing blood. Hot daggers lancing into her brain. Hot tears splashed her cheek as the crouching man grabbed her hair and wrenched her sideways.

  From the corner of her eye she could see soldiers stride to and fro, lifting bundled clothing and bolts of cloth, turning out trunks and attacking locks with pistol and musket butt.

  Others were more concerned with the women they’d found, lost and anxious in the abandoned camp.

  By Christ girl, think!

  The men had recovered themselves in an instant, more blows raining on the side of her head. The one by her feet brought his fist down into her belly, doubling her up like a hooked fish.

  “You whorseons, you beggars! Enough! Off!” The first attacker went sprawling again, a tall man in black with an enormous hat towering above the screeching musketeer.

  A worn leather bible in one fist, a bloodied sword in the other.

  “Away with you priest,” the first man growled, frantically trying to recall where he’d dropped his weapon.

  “Priest?” The minister brought the good book around in an instant, catching the musketeer behind the ear.

  The second, younger, a bloody farm boy, on his knees, fearful now.

  “We meant no harm sir!”

  Bella sat up, brought her elbow into his throat with all the force she had left. The youth fell back over his heels, choking and clutching his windpipe.

  The musketeer swore, lifted a discarded goblet and hurled it at her. The goblet smashed against the side of her head, exploding in shards.

  “God damn you!” the chaplain cried, dealing him a vicious blow to the head with the flat of his sword. The blade cut deep anyway and the musketeer rolled into a tight ball, clutching his ruined ear.

  “The bitch had a knife!” he burbled. “They’re armed to the teeth!” He rolled aside, clutching his ear.

  “Look what she’s done to poor Mikey!”

  The chaplain growled in fury and kicked him, big square cavalry boot catching the crouching man in the lower spine. He shot to his feet and ran off into the chaos of the camp, leaving his companion to choke in the strewn clothing.

  “Can you stand? You’re not safe here.” Bella barely had time to catch her breath before the big man had boosted her from the floor, held her hard by the elbow. He stepped back as she looked up, showering him with blood.

  A moment’s dizziness, his florid image revolving slowly, right to left.

  “Edward?” She peered at him, trying to focus against the chorus of angry bells inside her skull.

  He bent, lifted a discarded shift from the trampled grass and held it to the side of her head. Blood was pouring down over her own shift, her gown ripped open, gaping.

  “Cover yourself for the sake of Christ,” he said, hoarse. “I’ll not keep every one of these rogues off,” he explained, glancing about the ruined Royalist baggage. An inferno of screaming women and leering men, locked in a hundred vile combats of their own.

  Others were too busy plundering the baggage to worry about the women with a run left in them.

  By now, precious moments later, sergeants and officers had caught up with the hotheads, kicked thrusting soldiers from half naked women – some barely more than children. Thrashing about them with the butts of their halberds.

  Squalls and shrieks, cursing men climbing up with breeches baggy about pale legs.

  She swayed, half fainting in his surprisingly formidable grip. Hugo? No. His leering brother. The monkish fathead with the wandering eye and moist tongue. Edward.

  Edward?

  Hugo’s brother had changed almost beyond recognition since the last time she had seen him, back
in his father’s home two summers before – what was that accursed tune they had been playing, the recital which had damn near put her to sleep in the narcotic warmth of the Rectory?

  She could hear it now, held the tune inside her head as if it would keep the monstrous onslaught out of her mind.

  Flow my Tears, Hugo had called it, she thought, closing her eyes at last.

  *************************

  The first Roundheads to arrive at the camp had been barely distinguishable from the departing Royalists. The King’s men had run off through the camp bare moments before, carrying anything they could conveniently slip inside their shirts.

  Bella had been trying to pick out coat colours as the first of them arrived, wolves to the fold. They had dropped pikes and discarded their muskets, adding to the heaped arms the departing Royalists had left behind. Pistols and swords were handier for opening chests. Or clamped knees.

  She had been watching out over the road with hundreds of others, scanning the moor when she realised the last of the fugitives had picked their way clear or scrambled over the verge and veered sharp east, out into the fields towards the long covert on the ridge.

  No sign of Hugo in the confusion on the moor.

  A couple of carts had been pushed out of the gateway but had been hastily abandoned.

  Waggons, carts and coaches, whole gun teams which they hadn’t managed to shift from the chaos in the lane. And before she’d had time to think, runners, panting for the loot the King’s men had left behind.

  Two miles and more of abandoned transport, the King’s baggage strewn like lost laundry. A tantalizing trail of coin and plate, finely wrought armour and discarded swords. A thousand fortunes just waiting for a new home.

  She cursed her own stupidity, getting caught in the midst of the battle while their blood was up. Soldiers from both sides after a fuck if they thought could get one. Bella Morrison, standing by like some wide-eyed virgin, what on earth had she expected?