Women of Courage (150 page)

At this point the laughter of the others got to him, so that he guffawed helplessly, unable to continue.

Ann smiled at him admiringly, wishing he were more often like this, instead of the big, solemn lad she knew. Yet she was slightly scared, too, by the heartiness of it all. “And?”

“And the marvellous thing was, that when we got there, there weren’t no field guns there at all. Just three girt tree trunks sticking through the brambles in a copse!”

“So they ran away from the tree trunks, because they thought they were guns?” Paul Abrahams could hardly believe what he’d heard.

“That’s right, lad,” chuckled William Clegg kindly. “And you should have seen their faces, when they went round pickin’ up the muskets they’d dropped. I near bust me sides!”

Amid the laughter, Ann saw her father’s dark, lined face in the flicker of the firelight, and wondered why he did not join in the hilarity of the rest.

“‘Tis the conscience of guilty men,” intoned Israel Fuller solemnly. “They know ours is the righteous cause, and the fear the Lord sends among them causes them to see our strength even greater than it is. In just the same way did He smite the Syrians with blindness in the time of the prophet Elijah!”

“But ‘tis good also that he sends so many men from the militia to join us.” Adam’s voice sounded oddly out of place amongst the heartiness of the rest, and in truth he found himself a little irritated by the humour. He understood it, yet could not relax enough to feel it. He had felt a shaky pride at having conquered his fear at Bridport, even though he knew he had nearly given way there. When he knew there was to be fighting again today he had prayed earnestly that he might control his fear again. But this time it seemed to him that his prayers had been ignored, even mocked. Certainly he had
felt
fear - that fluttering tightness in his stomach, the surge of panic only just held down - but then in the end there had been no danger, no opportunity to test his mastery over what he felt. So now he felt none of the relaxation which comes from conquest of fear, but only the shame of having felt it when there was no need. Instead of sharing the hearty, boastful confidence of his comrades, he felt instead a sneaking sympathy for the stumbling, panic-stricken militia; especially those who had not run, but walked in, surrendering, towards their levelled muskets.

“Surely, Israel,” he went on, “for every seeming coward that runs from the militia, it may be that a brave man comes to join our cause.”

“We brought you some, father, at any rate, and they are no cowards!” said Ann, proudly. Her mind was still full of her desperate ride, straight towards the steady muzzle of Robert’s pistol; and the long hour afterwards, caring for the wounded militiaman. She had held a bowl of water and a cloth, cleaning away the blood and trying not to faint as the same leather-coated farmer, his own arm in a sling, had helped to hold down one of his screaming friends, so that old Nicolas could probe and search for the bullet in his stomach. They had found the bullet, but the man had died.

“No,” Nicolas agreed, shaking his head sadly at the memory of the death. “You could not call them cowards. But I could wish they had more manners, for all that. Trying to steal my horse, indeed!”

“What’s that, Nicolas?” John Spragg asked; and the surgeon led away with the story of their ride from Colyton, and how things had been in the village when they had left. And although Nicolas had seen none of the bullying in his own home that Ann had, yet the news that the militia had been in Colyton at all began to turn the men’s mood of cheery triumph into a bitter, vengeful muttering about what they would do to the militia if they met them in battle again. Three times John Spragg asked to be reassured about his wife, Ruth, and many of the others looked equally worried.

Later, Adam spoke to Ann alone, to try to decide what she should do. All the time Nicolas had been speaking, Ann had felt her father’s eyes on her, and had been wondering what he would say. He too had asked about the militia in Colyton, and the family, and though she had tried to minimise the troubles they had had, she thought he imagined more than she said.

“‘Tis clearly no proper place for you to return to, on your own,” he said thoughtfully, running his hand through his thin, grey hair. “‘Twould be better if we could get you to your aunt in Lyme.”

“But how, father? The militia may be on the roads behind you too, and I wouldn’t like to go alone, on foot.”

“Nor shall you, girl. There’s no question of it.” Adam looked at his daughter sharply, knowing how wayward her impulses were, and the dangers they could bring. “‘Twas enough danger for you to bring these horses. I wonder what your mother was thinking of, to let you do it.”

“But you need them in the army, don’t you, father? And there was no-one else to come.”

“So you say. And so it had to be you.” Adam sighed, as he looked at those wide, appealing eyes, and despite himself a faint smile of affection played around his lips. He remembered how he had come home one day when Ann was eight or nine to hear from a farmer how she had dragged the largest of the man’s farm dogs half a mile home from a dogfight, smacking it on the nose with a stick every time it tried to bite, while Tom took care of the other one. Mary had been furious, but Adam had hardly been able to bring himself to be cross with the girl for such a thing, even though he had wished she had not done it.

It was the same now; he was almost glad to have her with him, despite the danger. And then his heart faltered, as he thought how she might witness his cowardice, if he showed it. If only he were as brave as his daughter! If only he could be the father she deserved!

Again he rubbed his hand though his hair, and looked away, up the hill, that she might not see the shame in his eyes. “So what am I to do with you now, my dear? The army’s hardly a safe place for a girl.”

“But you’re here, father, and Tom, to protect me. And perhaps I can help the surgeon, as I did today.”

“Perhaps.” Adam hesitated. He could think of no better idea, for the moment. “Will he have you?”

“He said I was a great help to him today, father. Though the man died.”

Adam sighed again. “Maybe that’s the best for now, then. I’d rather you did not see such things, but most men can do with a soft hand when they’re wounded, no doubt of that. And you’ve always had a way with the sick. But mind you stay out of danger if there’s any fighting, Ann. And don’t go wandering away from the surgeon or me the rest of the time. For all this is a godly army, there’s more than one sort of man in it.”

“Yes, father. Or Tom. He can protect me too.”

“Or Tom, yes.” But as she left him, smiling happily, a knife of bitter jealousy twisted in Adam’s stomach. He should be glad that she admired Tom, as she had seemed to do at the campfire an hour or so ago. After his fears of last week he should be pleased; it was what he and Mary - especially Mary - had always wanted. But as he saw her join Tom where he sat talking with some others. Adam felt not pleasure, as he had once done when he saw them together, but instead this absurd, despicable jealousy which sought for reasons even when he knew there were none.

The boy had always been sententious, he knew that. It was supposed to be one of his good points, that he was religious and clean-living, a steady balance to Ann’s waywardness, definitely one of the Elect. If only he had not suddenly become so boastful with it, since he had joined the army; as though he were now not merely a man among other men, but a better man - stronger and more courageous - than those twice his age.

Adam bit his lip as he stood alone by one of the tents in the darkness, watching the little group by the fire. John Spragg’s red face was smiling by the boy, laughing as he and Ann watched the skinny, wizened form of William Clegg telling one of his comic stories. John and Will were his friends; they did not seem to find anything strange in this new-found confidence of Tom’s that so offended him. It had begun at Bridport, Adam thought, when Tom and the other pikemen had swaggered down the street last of all, in the disorderly retreat in which so many had so nearly panicked. Yet in the talk they had had about it afterwards, none of the others had admitted to terror - it had been as though they had won a great victory. And now again today; the way everyone laughed and joked around the fire, as though they had felt no fear at all, only made it worse for him.

They were the chosen army of the Lord, they could not be afraid. But Adam knew that
he
was, and wondered how long he could continue to hide his fear. Laughter reached him from the group by the fire as he watched. He took a deep shuddering breath and let it out slowly. At least Ann should not see him run, nor Tom neither. Tom Goodchild should not see him run!

He walked quietly back to the camp fire, a slight, upright figure in his sober clothes and greying hair, his face grim and unsmiling amid the laughter of his friends.

18

“I
T IS as though we had marched into Heaven!”

Tom stood for a moment and gazed down the main street of Taunton, a smile of wonder on his face. Beside him, Ann shook her head, disbelieving, seeking some point of contact between what she saw and the humdrum, workaday town she remembered from her two previous visits.

Tom craned his neck to puzzle out the lettering that had been hurriedly sewn onto the sheet stretching across the street above their heads:

‘Ye Armie of Ye Lord Cometh; let Ye Hethene Tremble!’

There were several such hastily improvised banners, and dozens more streamers and ribbons and bolts of coloured cloth, hanging from windows and doors and fluttering between garrets all down the street.

“There are some more newcomers, look! Carrying those old matchlock muskets you spoke of!” Proud of what she had learnt, Ann pointed to a group of men marching past, looking about themselves curiously as though they had just arrived, and being cheered by some girls leaning out of a window. “Will they be deserted militia too?”

“It do look like that!” Tom agreed. “Though there were that many ran away to join us at Chard, I’d never have thought there could be more.”

“Will they be given a new musket, like you were, father?”

“I suppose so, my dear, if ‘tis possible.” Adam watched the deserted militia march past, thinking how similar they themselves must have looked when they first arrived in Lyme. “Though I doubt the Duke can have a lot left, with this number come in to join us now. How many do you think there be, Tom? I heard a man say ‘twas near four thousand.”

“Five, I heard.” But the numbers were too great - none of them had seen a tenth as many men before. Ann had perhaps had the clearest picture of what the numbers meant that afternoon, when, riding a cart with Nicolas Thompson at the rear of the army, she had suddenly come to the top of a rise and seen the whole line of the army before her as it marched towards Taunton. The entire valley had been black with people, as though a huge ants’ nest had been kicked and had erupted. The sight had touched her with awe and dread; awe, that so many people could come together in so short a time, to march so determinedly for the same cause; dread, because they no longer seemed like a group of men, but rather like a swarm, a plague of dark, hundred-legged caterpillars, bristling with pikes and scythes and banners, hunching themselves and then stretching or twisting sideways as the road bent or widened or narrowed, while small knots of cavalry hurried along the flanks like colourful, long-legged spiders. As she had watched the blue and gold banner at the head of the foremost spider hurry through the green fields and orchards to the walls of Taunton, she had shivered, despite the heat, and felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck, for it had seemed more like a plague of Hell than an army of God.

But the people of Taunton had thought different, clearly, for they had poured out of the gates of their city and lined their streets in hundreds to welcome the Duke. All the bells in all the spires and towers had vied with each other to ring out the peals of triumph, as some still did now, five hours later. Above the great tower of St Mary’s that same blue and gold striped banner now floated serenely, its confident motto,
‘Fear Nothing But God’
, rippling in the wind to remind friend and foe alike that in this war victory would be the wages of virtue, defeat and death the wages of sin.

Ann turned to her father and John Spragg, who was with them in the throng of the main street. She had begun to sense her father’s irritation with Tom, without fully understanding its cause. She wanted to heal it, if she could.

“Where do you think we can see the Duke, father? I’ve been with the army two days without a sight of him yet.”

Adam looked at her and sighed, wondering again what he was to do with a daughter in the army. “The Duke’s got more to do than parade around for maids to gawp at, Annie. Apart from which, ‘tis hardly proper for you to be out on these streets with the town so full of soldiers. ‘Tis no place for a girl.”

There were very few women on the street, it was true, in comparison to the large number of men; and some of these turned their heads to look at her as they went past, in a way she was not used to at home. But she did not feel afraid.

“Oh, father! ‘Tis a celebration!”

“I know, but ... “

“You can leave her to stay with me for a while, if you like, Mr Carter. I’ll look after her. And all these soldiers be godly family men enough, like ourselves. They won’t do her no harm.”

Adam glared at Tom, hating him.
You are not her husband yet
, he thought.
Remember that, young man, and take care!
His hands shook with the sudden violence of his emotion, and he clenched his fists to control them, wondering at the strength of his feeling. But being betrothed to a girl hardly gave Tom the right to give her father advice about his own daughter, as though he were a child or an old man. Tom, however, was looking away, across the street, and did not notice his anger. Adam felt John Spragg’s hand on his shoulder, and unclenched his fists slowly.

“Come along with me, Adam. ‘Tis just a step across the street to the White Hart, and I should like to see the Duke again too.”