Simon (20 page)

‘Poor devil!’ said the Escort Lieutenant.

‘Aye, poor devil. If you had had the man under your eye, as I have done, you would have good cause to say so. He was bitter as gall against the Parliament Forces; but he hated the Army of the King. He took some pains not to show that; but I happen to be something of a student of men, and I saw plainly enough. And most of all, he hated himself, because in joining our ranks he had broken faith with the things he still believed to be right. He had paid away his self-respect, and though he clung all the more fiercely to his revenge in consequence, maybe it was dear at the price.’

‘You seem to have taken a most uncommon amount of interest in this unhappy wretch,’ said the cuirassier.

‘Did I not say that I am a student of men? I find the study absorbing.’

‘How did such a man come to be accepted into your ranks?’ asked the Escort Lieutenant. ‘Even to a less discerning eye than yours, he can’t have seemed a very promising recruit.’

The Royalist made a small, hopeless gesture with the hand which hung lax across his kness. ‘We need men,’ he said; and suddenly his face was bleak and haggard in the firelight.

‘If it come to be the fashion, slingin’ yer hook and going off to get yer own back on coves wot helped theirselves out of yer pockets,’ ruminated the pikeman, grinning at the Royalist, ‘I’ll wager there’d not be many of your coves this side o’ the Channel tonight; and yer’d be able to walk across to Spain on the boats making the trip.’

There was an awkward silence; for a few weeks since, Lord Goring had deserted his command and fled to Spain with every penny of Royalist funds that he could lay hands on. Between the men around the fire there was a kind of unspoken truce; they did not use the slighting nicknames of Cavaliers and Roundheads, they did not speak of King Charles as the Man of Blood, nor of Fairfax and Cromwell as accursed rebels; and they felt that the pikeman’s gibe was untimely.

‘I may have my own opinion concerning My Lord Goring’s conduct,’ said Captain Weston, after a moment. ‘But in my present rather unfortunate position you can scarcely expect me to discuss it.’

The pikeman, who was a friendly soul, grinned more broadly. ‘No offence meant, yer know.’

‘And none taken,’ said Captain Weston.

Someone put another turf on the fire, and the talk wandered in a more cheerful direction; but Simon took no part in it. He sat, elbow on knees and chin on fists, staring into the warm up-leap of flames, and thinking about his old Corporal. But if the older men noticed his moodiness, they thought maybe the lad was homesick—Christmas time, even when it had been abolished, was apt to turn the heart homeward.

AFTER A WET
autumn the winter had turned bitterly cold, and from early December the West Country was deep in snow. It was weather for hugging the home fireside and leaving the roads to the north-east winds and the deepening drifts; but neither army went completely into winter quarters, as they had done each year before. This year, the end of the struggle was coming, and King’s men and Parliament’s men knew it, and faced each other warily, like two wrestlers watching each other’s first move. The New Model was encamped around Exeter and Tiverton; one part of the Royalist Army covered the country between Dart and Teign, while the other was strung from Okehampton to Tavistock, where the young Prince of Wales was quartered. North Devon had become a sort of Tom-Tiddler’s ground, where the patrols of both armies skirmished and foraged and made life generally difficult and dangerous for the folk of the countryside.

Soon after Christmas the scouts began to bring in news of preparations for a strong Royalist attempt to relieve Exeter: Cornish train-bands were daily expected at Tavistock, five hundred of the Barnstaple garrison and all the troops that could be spared from the siege of Plymouth were to join them, and the Prince of Wales, with his own Guards, was to lead the whole lot
to Totnes, where a magazine was being made for them with stores brought by sea from Cornwall. After that would come the relief of Exeter, and the beleaguered garrison would sally out to join forces with their comrades.

Fairfax and Cromwell bided their time while the Royalists gathered; and when the right moment came, they struck. The young Prince was on the very eve of marching, when news reached him that Cromwell had surprised the main body of his Horse under Lord Wentworth, and scattered them to the four winds. And at the same time, though word of this did not reach him until a day or two later, Fairfax and a Brigade of Horse and Foot, with the straining gun-teams in their midst, were heading across the moor in a snowstorm, to attack Dartmouth, which fell within a few days.

The whole Royalist plan for the relief of Exeter had become hopeless; the blockade had to withdraw from around Plymouth lest it should be cut off, and Tavistock was no longer safe for the Prince, who withdrew to Launceston, taking the Foot with him, and leaving only the remaining Horse to guard the Tamar. The Cornish train-bands began to desert, on the excuse that their first duty was to defend their own homes; and by mid-January the whole army was falling to pieces, while the generals fought among themselves.

Meanwhile, Simon was facing a stiff fight of his own. He had been so glad to rejoin his Troop; in a way it had been like coming home, and to outward seeming he had slipped back at once into his old place. But from the first, something had been wrong. If he had come in for active service just then, it might have been easier, but Fairfax’s Horse did not form part of the Dartmouth expedition; and the slow, grinding business of the Exeter blockade did not help in the least. To begin with, he was desperately worried about his mother and Mouse, alone in Lovacott with his father still in the north. There had been no word from them for some while past, and knowing that his home countryside was overrun by Grenville’s troopers, he could not get much comfort out of Barnaby’s suggestion that in the present upheaval many letters must be sent that never reached the people they were meant for. Denzil Wainwright was being a pest too, never
missing the least chance for making life difficult, goading him by every means in his power. In the months since he joined the Regiment, Simon had learned to bother about Denzil no more than if he had been a gnat; but now, quite suddenly, his carefully planted stings were maddening, and it was all Simon could do not to let him see when they reached their mark. Above all, and at the root of all the trouble, he could not forget about his encounter with Amias at Okeham Paine. Something in him had been hurt, that night, before ever his head was broken, and though his head mended, the deeper hurt remained raw and aching. Even his old joy of his Troop seemed dulled in him, and he carried out his duties doggedly, but with little pleasure in them.

That was an unhappy time for Simon, but it ended with a most surprising suddenness, when, one evening about three weeks after he rejoined his Troop, he received orders to report for special duty to Major Watson of the Scouts. Half an hour later, wondering very much what it was all about, he was standing in the low-ceiled back parlour of the Hand-in-Glove, breathing the warm throat-catching reek of tobacco-smoke and Hollands, and gazing inquiringly at the man who sat at a littered table before the fire.

Major Watson was a meagre man, who peered at the world through mild blue eyes behind fluttering sandy lashes; a most unlikely-looking individual to have charge of the bunch of brigands who made up the Intelligence Service of the New Model Army. Only his clipped voice gave the lie to his lamb-like appearance.

Having nodded amiably to Simon when he entered, he put the tips of his fingers together and blinked at him over the top of them; while Simon, knowing that he was being sized up, gazed levelly back.

‘I could have wished for an older and more experienced man,’ said the clipped voice at last. ‘However, you have a good record. I am glad to see your head has not completely healed yet.’

‘Sir?’ said Simon in bewilderment.

‘Cornet Carey, I understand that your home is in North Devon.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Where, exactly?’

Simon told him, and he listened with close attention, putting searching questions about distances and communications; then nodded above his joined finger-tips, as though satisfied with the answers.

‘So. You have a good knowledge of your own countryside. That may be a help.’

‘Am I to go home, then, sir?’

The Major regarded him consideringly for a few moments, then, as though making up his mind, abruptly parted his fingertips and sat up. ‘Yes. I am arranging that you shall be transferred for a few weeks to my—shall we say to my family? I am sending one of my men up to Torrington tomorrow, and you will ride with him. Officially, you will be going home on sick leave, and that is the reason that you will give in the Regiment; also I think you would be wise to give the same reason to your family. The less they know of the matter, the safer it will be for them.’

‘And—the real reason, sir?’ Simon asked quickly.

Major Watson blinked mildly at the young officer’s eagerness. ‘The house we have been using as a meeting-place and clearing-house for dispatches, in your part of the world, was occupied by the enemy, three days ago. Now we need another house—and another man; and you and Lovacott together have the needful requirements. The house, from what you tell me, is in a good strategic position, easy of access from the three main towns and the country between, and with good communications with the Exeter road behind it. You know the country, and your recent wound gives you a reason for your return home, which is above suspicion.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Your job, so long as nothing goes wrong, will be simple. You will act purely as a go-between. You will receive dispatches from the man you ride with tomorrow, or from others, and you will pass them on to a man who comes for them later, and who you will know by a password I shall give you presently; and while they are in your care, you will guard them as you never yet guarded anything in your life. Understood? Very well, then.
The details you will arrange for yourself, through Podbury, your travelling companion.’

‘Yes, sir—is that all?’ Simon said blankly.

‘That is all for the moment. The job may not be as dull as it sounds, for if you run into Royalist soldiery you will have only your own wits to depend on; and Grenville’s troopers are not likely to take the fact that you are on sick leave into account, if they once discover they have a Parliament Officer in their hands.’

Simon hesitated. ‘Sir, may I ask you something?’

‘You may certainly ask. I make no promise to answer.’

‘Is something goint to happen in North Devon?’

Major Watson shrugged. ‘I make you a present of three facts, all of which are common knowledge: since Dartmouth has fallen, South Devon is in our hands. North Devon is still open and the three main towns are Royalist held. There is a Royalist Army—of a sort—across the Cornish border, which may yet be pulled together again. There are your facts; marshal them together, and perhaps you will find the answer to your question. It may of course be the wrong answer, but it is best to take no chances. Oh, and Cornet Carey, the password is “There’s many a good cock come out of a tattered bag”, to which the reply is, “And a good tune played on an old fiddle”. You have that?’

Simon repeated it, and Major Watson nodded. ‘The messages you receive will sometimes be by word of mouth, in which case you will take them down accurately and send them on in the usual way. Your signature will be the number 7, and under it the number of the man who brought in the information. We do not put names into writing in this game.’

‘Yes, sir; the number 7. Can you give me any idea how long I shall be away from the Regiment, sir?’

‘None whatever. But you will not leave your post for an hour,
whatever happens
, until you are recalled; or until battle actually joins, in which case it will probably not be possible to recall you, and you must make your own decision.’

Dinner was already begun in the long upper room of the castle which served the officers of both Fairfax’s Regiments for a Mess when Simon slipped into his place far down the crowded
table; and he glanced about him with the eye of leave-taking, wondering what would have happened before he sat among these men again. They were discussing a piece of news that was fresher than the fall of Dartmouth, their faces alert in the candle-light that fell warmly on scarlet and blue, and the sober black of the surgeons and chaplains.

‘Well, Lord Hopton will have his hands full, with that precious lot of lambs,’ said a crop-headed captain of Foot.

‘There’s been no Royalist Commander-in-Chief since My Lord Goring sailed for foreign parts with his boots full of other folk’s guineas,’ put in Ralf Marjory, farther up the table. ‘Perhaps that’s why their army has fallen to bits.’

‘Has anyone heard who is to command under him?’ asked a late-comer.

Several voices answered him. ‘Wentworth the Horse and Grenville the Foot.’

‘Skellum Grenville! Phew! The Skellum will be more of a handful than all the rest combined. I wonder how Hopton will deal with him.’

Captain-Lieutenant Meredith leaned forward to help himself to more salt. ‘In dealing with a rogue,’ he said, ‘Lord Hopton is at a disadvantage, being an honourable man.’

All down the table men were deep in the discussion, and Simon, left to himself, sat with his elbow on the table, staring down into the tawny depths of his beer mug, and thinking about his interview with Major Watson and the task that was ahead of him. Odd, to think that in two days’ time he would be at home again; odd, that it really would not be a home-coming at all, but just going somewhere to do a job in the Army, and the somewhere happening to be Lovacott. There was a queer mingling of feelings inside him: relief that at last he would be able to see how things were with his womenfolk; interest and excitement at the prospect of this new kind of danger; and a queer distaste for the idea of bringing the hidden beastliness of war into Lovacott. And yet, for the very reason that Lovacott meant so much to him, standing for all the things that he was fighting for, the beloved place could not be grudged to the fight like a fine lady who must not be allowed to soil her hands. Deep in this confusion of thoughts
and feelings, he did not notice that the air was thickening with tobacco smoke and men beginning to lounge up from the table and make for the fire that burned at one end of the room.