As Meat Loves Salt (23 page)

That hour was now come very close. The 'practicable breach' of which Ferris had spoken was made at last and I daresay filled me with as much terror as it did those within.

The first sign was a deep crack snaking down the defensive wall. Few of us saw it at once, but then a wild yell rose from the men at the guns, spreading through all the ranks, and I wondered if he made part of that savage cry along with his mates.

But this was as nothing: the wall itself, cunningly cut away from the base, now took blow after blow, and began to split upwards between the stones. Our cannonballs continued striking low until the thing started to collapse onto itself. Ferris, I thought, would undoubtedly get us into the house. I pictured him frowning, ramming down the powder, and I prayed that no matter what he inflicted, all their shot and shell should fall wide of him.

'This is it, soldier,' said a man standing next me in the field. 'They'll never scrape that lot together. I reckon we'll go on smashing away until we can all get in at a rush, and then it's in the hands of Jesus!'

My mouth was dry. 'Will that be today?'

'Tomorrow first thing, more like. Have you seen action before?'

'This is my first.'

He laughed at me, flashing yellow donkey-teeth. 'You picked a cursed time to start, soldier. Nothing so bad as the end of a siege.'

If we came through alive then that mask, Rupert, must be lovingly talked with again, and so made flesh and blood. Ferris must be got away from Nathan. The boy was unnatural; Ferris's care of him only spurred evil tongues. Besides, Nathan had Russ, and Tommy. My need of my one friend was greater than his. And then I thought that, were I indeed one of the damned, friends were not my rightful portion, and God would surely kill or maim Ferris to spite me, and I felt a worse fear than if I myself were to be maimed: to think of him hurt was to hurt in my own flesh. Were he in need, I thought, I would do for him what he had done for the gunner with no face, though they should hang me for it, and he never know his deliverer.

There came a hammer blow upon the ear: a ball had struck the house from the artillery stationed on the other side. Our lads played their part also, and fired off a shell that hurt the Old House front. Those within gave back fiercely, and shot began to rake the gunners. There were screams, which made me feel sick; smoke blew back onto us, stinging my eyes as I strained to see who was hit. The guns fired off again and again, like a bully that rains blows on a beaten man, and methought they were faster than the day before.

'There!' exclaimed the man. 'That's it.'

'What?' I cried, for I could see nothing like a breach. 'Are we through?'

'Not yet. But when they keep it up, like that - they reckon on it not lasting long.'

Men were running back and forth, craning to see. A babble spread like a wave through the lines, from front to back: 'Going!' The great wall was sinking down into itself, and as we watched, a well-placed

ball carried away part of the top. A scream of triumph went up from the ranks. Once, being very little, I heard a drunken crowd run past my father's house to seize a witch who had blighted an orchard, and they had bayed like hounds. I remembered Ferris's
worse than dead.
We saw another cannonball widen the gap; stones and earth trickled down, and again there came that terrible scream.

The next cut a gash further along the defences; our men now turned the bombardment on that, and widened it. Stones flew through the air; clouds of dust arose and mingled with the smoke.

All around me soldiers were cheering on the gunners.
Brave lad,
I said in my heart to Ferris, as if this could keep him alive. To my companion I bawled, 'They do well.'

Aye,' he called back. 'Tomorrow look to be blooded.'

We watched, deafened by crashes and shouts, my new friend hunting lice beneath his shirt as the guns beat a path for us. At last it was too dark to continue, and the mass of soldiery began pressing back towards the camp. I could not help praying, though I knew my prayers to be worthless, that somewhere unseen by me Ferris was laying down the rammer and sponge, smokestained and weary, but unhurt.

That last night, before retiring to his headquarters in Basingstoke, Cromwell went round pressing the men's hands, putting them in heart for the morrow. I wanted to make one of those whom he spoke to or touched, for he filled me with admiration. Not a few of the men would likewise have walked through fire for Oliver Cromwell; like Fairfax, he could win folk's belief to a degree that I scarcely ever saw in a man elsewhere, unless the man were Zebedee, and Zeb's conquests were different entirely. But Cromwell was no lady-killer; his ways were manly and direct, and the love he inspired born of merit: he was a fine tactician, and one that would undertake much for his soldiers. He was known to write frequently to London, asking that his men might have this or that. Yet he would hang any caught pillaging against orders; there was iron within the man as well as without.

I pushed to the front for the privilege of being noticed by him. When at last he caught my eye, and took my hand with the square grip of a practical soldier, saying, 'You're a fine big fellow for the pikes,' my heart beat fast as if I were a boy.

'May I do good service,' I said, blushing at the fervour in my own voice. And what was he, this hero, this Christian Mars who had so reduced me? Why, the merest sloven, if one looked but on the outside, a man with thin, straggling hair, one whose inflamed nose glowed in many a soldier's joke. Nature had made our Nolly very plain, and he did not trouble barber or tailor to hide it, but this diminished him never a jot; rather, his valour and virtue made comeliness a paltry thing. I shuffled and hemmed like one in the presence of royalty. Then he turned to speak with an officer, and passed for a moment out of my view.

We had been instructed to wait, for he had particular instructions for all the troops. I looked about for Hugh Peter, Cromwell's own chaplain and a very holy minister, come all the way from Salem to help in our enterprise. He was another man I judged to carry the seeds of greatness in him, fertile in ideas, brimful of confidence in the power of God to direct our human works aright, so that I loved to hear his talk. In Salem, he had told the soldiers, there was neither wanton ease nor beggary, but for every man both work and food. This account greatly pleased me, but cost me also some pain, for to Salem had I once thought of taking Caro.

'Where is Hugh Peter?' I asked the man in front of me.

'Gone to tell Parliament that Winchester is fallen,' came the reply.

'Silence! Silence!' the officers were shouting. There was an immediate hush. Cromwell, mounted upon a platform that all might see him, was about to speak.

'Tomorrow,'he began, 'we fall on a nest of vipers.'He looked round him at the men. 'While you sleep, I will watch and wake, and think on the meaning of Psalm One Hundred and Fifteen, on heathen and idolaters. Know you that this man, John Paulet, has scratched
Aimez Loyaute
on every window of his Papish fortress, that is,
Love Loyalty;
but his loyalty is to crazed and brittle idols. Be the house never so

well defended, yet with God's help shall it be but scattered stones: think you on Jericho and Babel, and the cities of the plain, or if you still doubt it, look you to that Psalm I spoke of, One Hundred and Fifteen,' here he glanced round at the men, some of whom nodded fervently, 'before you lay you down to sleep. Every man to be up and ready before dawn. At six will be the signal for your falling on, four shots of the cannon.'

He raised his hand in farewell and dismounted from the platform. Sober, as men who were now about serious business, the soldiers began to wander away.

That four shots of the cannon
sounded in my ears like a death knell. I could not stay alone, but went on the prowl and discovered Ferris cooking some pease. Despite our falling out, happiness sprang in me to see him alive and unhurt. Going timidly up to my friend, and bowing, I asked if I might look in his Bible. That he had one I knew, for I had seen him read it sometimes while in camp.

'So Hugh Peter directs your devotions now, along with Cromwell's,' he said. I had never seen his face so weary. He groped in his snapsack for the Holy Book and handed it me before turning back to his cookery.

'He's a godly man,' I said, glad to be talking.

'Nay, say a god and have done.' He curled his lip. Steam rose and he shielded his cut face from it.

'May I not choose my own reading? Who's the tyrant now?' I asked. 'What has Hugh Peter ever done to you?'

'To me, nothing. He exults too much over the fallen.'

'But this is God's work. You said so yourself. If God's foes fall, we should exult.'

'Ah yes,' Ferris sang out. 'God's foes!'

I was baffled. Had he not spoken of the work which was to be finished?

Ferris looked hard at me. 'Well, at any rate I don't force my doctrines with fists. I leave that to Hugh Peter and those like him.'

'Not force doctrines! You are in the army!'

'I know it,' he snapped.

'Don't you put your hand to God's work any more?'

'O yes. I can put your hand to it, too,' and he took my hand and laid it on his cheek. The skin was hot, and crusted with dry pus and blood. 'Lovely, eh? Tomorrow I'll do God's work on someone else.'As he let go of my hand I saw that the locks of hair next his cheek were singed. 'God's work,' Ferris said, 'is living in peace, manuring the land, working by persuasion.'

'But some must be persuaded by force,' I said.

'Persuaded. Do you think I love the man any better who did this to me? That's not it. And Basing-House won't be it, either.' He smiled coldly. 'Don't you know it is to be a Golgotha?'

'You don't know it yourself

'I can see it. There's you reading your war songs, that one over there - he's ready to break up any idol, provided it's of gold—' He pointed out a lad shouting and gesticulating, surrounded by excited listeners. 'Just as well I fed you up, got your strength back. You'll do great execution tomorrow.' He turned to the cooking pot as if it sickened him to behold me, and this I could not bear. I put my hand on his arm. He knocked it off.

'What! To me!' I shouted. I pushed him in the chest. The pottage went flying into the fire and Ferris lay on the ground.

'Leave be, whoreson!'There was a crack, and a flash. Someone had hit me over the head from behind. Pain dazzled me. My mouth had bloody needles in it: I had bitten the inside of my cheek. Someone was twisting my fingers fit to break them; as I tried to pull my hand free something was torn from it. I looked down and saw my knife on the ground, and it came to me that I had drawn it on Ferris. Despite the twisted fingers I could still feel the slap of my palm on his coat. I lowered my arms. Men rushed up to help him, but he waved them away, coughing as if winded. I covered my eyes for shame. I heard Ferris get up and come towards me, as if to embrace me in forgiveness, but he stepped to one side and spoke into my ear.

'That's been coming a long time,' he panted into the silence that was grown round us. 'But to play those games, you must get a bigger friend.'

'I can't help it!'I cried aloud.

'The worst thing you've said yet.'

I heard him spit.

Pain battered at my skull; the murmur of men's voices swelled up again. I uncovered my eyes and looked about me, the other men avoiding my gaze. Ferris was gone. At last I saw him sitting some way off, with Nathan and Fat Tommy. The pease in the fire began to smoke and stink.

'Here,' said a voice. The man behind me was holding out my knife. 'Save it for the priests, eh?'

I bowed as I took it from him.

There was nothing to colour my loneliness and shame except Ferris's Bible. I lay down, feeling thus less exposed to men's stares, and turned to Psalm One Hundred and Fifteen. The firelight danced on the holy words:

Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God?

But our God is in the Heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:

They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:

They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.

They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.

They that make them are like unto them.
But Papists and other idolaters can hear and see and smell, though their idols cannot. I laid the book down to come, if I could, at the inner meaning. Then I remembered we were about to assault the house. I read on:
The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.

Go down into silence. We were to leave them like unto their idols, utterly unable to see, hear, smell, touch, walk. Ferris was proven a true prophet: Basing should be made a place of desolation, a Golgotha.

I knew what it was to send down a soul into silence. There was rage, and a violent flurry of the body, and water swirling over a boy's head.

Though I remarked prayer and Bible-reading all around me, I saw also that men were plucking up tenderness by the root. There was a new ugliness in them; as they passed between me and the fire their faces were hard. I wondered, with some dread, what I would see on the morrow. Ferris looked sad because he already knew it; his knowledge made him thin and weary. Philip was most likely looking forward to the assault. It was rumoured there were many noblewomen in Basing-House: a feast for him, and Hugh now unable to restrain him. My own friend had seemingly cast me off.