Women of Courage (146 page)

“Steady now, my boys! Hold your line! They’ve fired too soon!” But the sergeant’s words of encouragement were lost in a volley of screams and curses. A horse had been hit, and it was rearing and plunging in terror, pushing others out of its way, before throwing its rider on top of a group of pikemen and careering crazily right across the front of their line. Musketeers and pikemen stumbled to an uncertain halt, huddled together against their own maddened horse rather than the enemy.

“Come on, boys, let’s give ‘em a volley!” said Roger Satchell as the wounded horse galloped back up the side of the street, and the others reined their clattering beasts out of the way. “Set your muskets in rest!”

Adam, his eyes fixed on the sergeant, saw him frown for a second, but then he joined in, his loud, bullying voice calming them in the turmoil, giving them something definite and clear to do. “Cock your muskets! Guard your muskets! Present! Aim!”

Which one? Which one should he take?
Adam’s barrel wavered uncertainly between two men in the line in front, men who were bending, scouring their muskets, as he had done ...

“Fire!” The kick, the
boom
!, the smoke, the singing in the ears; and then, as the smoke cleared, the same two men were still there, hesitantly drawing out their scourers, looking fearfully up the road. Too late Adam remembered - he must aim low! New recruits always aim for the head and fire too high! He felt disappointed and relieved both at once, and then there was no time to feel anything, because of the rearing and careering of the horses beside them - horses totally frenzied by the noise echoing all around them in the confined space between the houses. Then there was another ragged, crackling volley from the militia, and Adam saw Lord Grey waving his sword and pointing back up the hill, and he himself was nearly knocked over by a horse, and then there was quiet, and their cavalry had fled.

Not really quiet. There was still the confused yelling and irregular shooting from behind them –
what was that all about
? – and the voice of the Welsh sergeant shouting through everything like a foghorn in a storm. “Half-cock your musket! Come on there, wake up, you’re still alive! Clean your pans!”

Adam began to stumble through the drill again, but all around him men were drawing back in confusion, one or two even throwing down their arms to run. What had happened? What had they seen that he had missed?

“Hold your line! For the Lord’s sake, hold your line!” But Roger Satchell’s desperate cry was ignored. Adam felt himself drawn to go back up the street - not by himself only, but as part of the crowd. All around him people were moving back - not running, mostly, not yet in panic, but with a slow irresistable surge, like a wave that has reached the height of its journey up the beach, and must withdraw. He looked to his left and right at the men still left in the front line; John Spragg was still there, and Tom Goodchild and Philip Cox, and Roger Satchell and the sergeant and a few others, but they were looking at him, as he was at them, and then with a sudden unspoken decision they turned as well. The tide was too strong; it was suddenly impossible to stand here in the middle of the street, reloading your musket and waiting to be fired on, when your own horsemen, and friends from your own line, had turned back.

Yet once they had turned their anxiety grew, rather than fell. Adam’s back tingled as he thought of the militia musketeers behind him, shortening their scourers, setting their muskets in their rests, checking the slowmatch was still burning in its holder. John Spragg was somewhere ahead of him, further up the street. Where was William? A man began to run – two men – and Adam lengthened his stride, feeling the panic well up inside him. If only there were someone else between his back and those muskets! Then, just as the retreat began to break up into a rout, there was a check. The men in front of Adam stopped amid angry shouting. He heard the voice of Colonel Wade above the din.

“About face, you men! Come on, sirs, we’ve come to help you! In the name of the Lord, you cannot run away now! Pick up that musket, man! Mr Satchell, turn your men around!”

The young man’s voice was stern and chiding, like a father disappointed in his children, and quite devoid of fear. Adam felt his panic fade, to be replaced by shame. He had tried so hard not to show himself a coward, but he had been about to do it. But now Nathaniel Wade was here like an angel to save him from his own frailty. He turned, shaking, desperate. But he was not alone; John Spragg and William Clegg and several others around him turned too. Somehow they encouraged the rest to reform into some sort of ragged line, with pikemen and musketeers all mingled. Adam found himself with Tom Goodchild and another pikeman – Israel Fuller – beside him.

“Why haven’t they fired yet?” he muttered, looking down the street at the militia. Most of them had finished reloading, and their muskets were set and ready in their rests. Yet now he had time to look, he saw that the militia’s line was not a steady one either: there was a considerable amount of movement and confusion amongst them too.

“Perhaps they’m going to come at us,” said Tom. “But I shall get a few of ‘em with this pike if they do. Is that musket of yours loaded?”

“No,” said Adam, and fell quickly into the drill, irritated that the boy should remind him. But it was done quickly this time, with no fumbling; he heard the sergeant’s words clearly in his memory as he went through each stage.

When he had finished, he saw Colonel Wade and Roger Satchell arguing fiercely with a pale, elderly man in a green coat, who bent forward oddly as he spoke, holding his side.

“Looks like Colonel Venner’s hurt,” said Tom, and Adam suddenly recognized the man, their leader of foot. His green coat was stained with blood all down the left side from his stomach where he was holding it, and his waistcoat was torn open inside and replaced by a ragged red and white bandage that looked like it had recently been someone’s shirt.

Wade spoke, and pointed eagerly down the street to the east bridge, where the militia still hesitated, but Venner shook his head as he answered. Adam thought how pale his face had become under the wig, like a death’s head almost. Then the argument was over. Venner called for a horse which a trooper was holding for him, mounted it painfully, and rode back up the street, bent awkwardly in the saddle.

“Better follow ‘un, boys, that’s our leader,” called someone from behind, raising a nervous laugh. Adam felt the panic break loose inside him again, and looked urgently to Colonel Wade and Roger Satchell to see what they would do. If they ran too he would have to run after them. He could not stay here alone!

“Right, Mr Satchell, we can’t stay here when we’re being attacked from the rear. If you draw off your men in good order, I’ll arrange for the company in the cross street to cover your retreat.” Wade’s voice came over clearly in a sudden lull, as perhaps he had meant it to, and then he too was gone.

Roger Satchell tried to instill some order. “Right, lads, we’re drawing back. But let’s do it with a bit of dignity, this time! I’ll shoot the first man that runs, myself! Now, we want a rearguard of pikemen. Pikemen, two paces forward – ho!”

It worked, more or less. Tom and a dozen of more pikemen stepped forward, their pikes and billhooks ready, and dressed into some semblance of a line, to present a prickly hedge to any militiamen who might be ready to advance. Behind them, the rest were bullied into ranks by the sergeant, and faced about towards the crossroads which they had gained in such triumph such a short time before. There was no running, although they started to march back well before they had any order to do so. After a few minutes Roger Satchell and the pikemen followed, swaggering slightly in their courage at having stayed behind for so long; and then as they marched down the street towards the west bridge, Colonel Wade brought his troops from Axmouth, who had been guarding the crossroads, across to cover their rear.

As they passed the centre of the town and began to make their way down the main street to the west bridge, the Colyton men stared about them in amazement. While they had been facing the militia, bedlam had broken loose behind them. The peaceful street they had marched into had been wrecked. Windows were smashed, doors hung loosely off their hinges, a cart was overturned, and four or five bodies lay jumbled in a heap at the side of the street where they had been thrown.

Two men were hurriedly carrying another out of the way of the marching troops. Adam tried to look away, but a violent fascination dragged his eyes back. The body was well-dressed, in a rich red coat and tooled leather boots, an officer perhaps; yet the red of the coat could not hide the darker red of the blood that had spurted out of his neck and all over the white of his cravat and shirt, and the dull fawn of his waistcoat. He was quite dead, there was no doubt about that. The body slumped limply in the two men’s arms like a rag doll, the wig fallen foolishly over the white face, one hand dragging uselessly in the dust. The men tossed it like a sack on top of one of its friends, and hurried down the road after their own.

They halted when they reached the bridge, whilst a group of men in front of them herded some prisoners across. Then Colonel Wade came running up, full of ideas and energy and that wonderful lack of fear which made more men than Adam turn to him like a fountain of life at which they could replenish their own courage. He and Roger Satchell disposed the musketeers in strong positions around the bridge, ready to meet the militia. Adam was on the western side of the bridge with the main force, facing straight up the street, but two other groups of musketeers, and some pikemen from Colyton, were hidden in the side streets on the east side, ready to ambush the militia in the flank when they came too near.

“Looks like a proper shambles, don’t it,” muttered William Clegg to Adam, staring back up the street.

“It surely does, Will, though it looks as though our lads had the best of it, thank God. But how did they manage to come round behind us like that, when we had all the roads guarded?”

The Welsh sergeant heard him, and answered. “It’s not behind us they came, see, it was from the side. They’ll have been in the houses, boyo, fast asleep. Specially in that Bull Inn, up there on the right - that’ll have been where the officers were. You saw the bodies, didn’t you?”

Adam nodded, feeling sick at the thought. “You mean they never woke up until they saw us outside the window? They didn’t keep any guard at all?”

“No.” The sergeant spat. “Shows what kind of soldiers they are, don’t it? But then it shows what kind of soldiers we are, to let them get away with it. We should have been in there, straight away, and dragging them out of bed, instead of waiting for them to pop their pistols out of the window at us.”

“Here they come!” said William Clegg, pointing up the street. And over the crown of the hill came a tide of militiamen, marching in confused order down the street. They halted when they saw the bodies, and Adam could hear their officers shouting at them ineffectually.

“What a rabble!” said the sergeant scornfully. “Half a dozen bodies and they want to go home to mother! One good charge by a decent troop of horse would scatter ‘em like rabbits!”

“So where
are
the horse?” asked John Spragg. “Where’s our fine Lord Grey and all his hunting friends? Halfway to bloody Lyme, that’s where!”

It was true. The only horses left in their army were a dozen or so that had been captured, and were mostly being ridden or led by the officers of the foot regiments. Lord Grey’s panic-stricken flight had not stopped at the bridge. The Colyton men stood silently for a moment, glumly watching the militia as they restarted their reluctant march down the street.

“‘Twill be a good thing in the long run,” muttered the sergeant reflectively. “For my Lord Monmouth will have to kick the coward out, and get us a decent general of horse. And right now those silly buggers are going to walk right into our trap. Watch this!”

The militiamen shambled on down the street, until they were only thirty yards or so from the ambush. There they stopped, still out of musket range of the enemy they could see, beyond the bridge. And there, despite the not very energetic efforts of their officers, they stayed.

“Great fools! Come on forward! Come on!” William Clegg started to make little clicking noises with his teeth, as though he were enticing a shy horse, or a sheep.

The others laughed and followed his example. Gradually the shouts became more and more cheerful.

“Come on, boys! We’ve got a nice hot dinner waiting for ‘ee! Lead pie to fill your bellies!”

“Come and join your friends yer! We’ll take ‘ee to the Duke!”

“Come to mother!”

“Hey, you’d better go ‘ome boys! The cows are out!”

“‘Tis a beautiful view down yer — ye can see all the way to Rome!”

The militia were shouting too, though no-one could hear what they said; but they did not move. After nearly an hour of this, the men waiting in ambush crept down by back alleys to the bridge, and then marched onto it, to loud laughter from their friends, and returned over the bridge to rejoin the main force. Even then the militia showed no sign of moving, so Colonel Wade, having ordered a party of musketeers to go ahead of them and form another ambush to shield their line of retreat, ordered them all into line of march. There was a final volley of catcalls, and then they swung into step on the long road home, lustily singing psalms and feeling, oddly enough, that they had won a great victory.

And to the extent that their fear had been routed, they had. For most of the long march home, Adam sang with the rest, and felt his heart high within him, especially when, two miles out of Lyme, they were met by the Duke of Monmouth at the head of a troop of horse, hurrying out to their aid. He had clearly expected to see them bedraggled and beaten, but when they swung smartly to a halt in from of him, and Colonel Wade presented him with the captured horse and the prisoners, he took off his hat to them in a gesture of unfeigned gratitude and admiration which earned him a mighty cheer from the ranks.