Brothers' Fury (Bleeding Land Trilogy 2) (49 page)

‘They’ve seen us,’ Jonathan warned, the words barely out when two musket balls smashed into the oak’s trunk, spraying slivers of wood and causing them all to flinch or take cover. But Mun stepped out from the oak and looked across the hill’s plateau and saw that the rearmost rank of Major-General Skippon’s brigade had turned to face this new threat. They were firing independently, blooms of white smoke appearing sporadically before the percussion reached his ears, though for the moment they were not advancing back up the hill.

‘It’s those buggers over there that concern me, sir,’ Henry Jones
said, pointing his bloody knife across the sloping battlefield. There on the far side of Skippon’s musketeers, firing pistols at Lord Wentworth’s musketeers and looking as though they were forming up to charge, was a troop of horse. Or rather what was left of a troop.

‘They’re the stubborn bastards that were first up this hill and managed to kick our lot halfway back down it,’ Fitch said, fishing a ball from his bullet bag and thrusting it down his wheellock’s muzzle.

‘And they know we’re here,’ Mun said, for he could see one of the harquebusiers pointing them out to a giant of a man whose face was all beard. ‘But they’re committed on that flank.’ Another musket ball thwacked against the tree trunk and two more cracked amongst the brittle branches above their heads. ‘They’ll not trouble us yet.’ He looked at Fitch. ‘Cade?’

Fitch shook his head and pressed a hand against his own belly where the damp leather was a darker sand colour. ‘A hole the size of a hand-basin,’ he said. ‘Right the way through.’

‘Here they come,’ Jonathan said and Mun cursed because that rear rank of musketeers, some fifty men, had disengaged from their battalia and were being hustled into a separate company three ranks deep.

‘They know their business,’ Jones said, turning the spanner on his wheellock until it clicked, and Mun agreed, feeling a grudging respect for these outnumbered rebels who seemed grimly determined to keep this hill.

‘Come on, O’Brien, you sauntering Irish devil,’ Mun heard himself growl as he looked back towards the ditch up which they had crawled for any sign of his troop.

‘This what you wanted, lad?’ Jones asked Jonathan, watching the oncoming musketeers who were holding their fire now, saving it for one volley that would obliterate them.

Jonathan did not reply. He simply stood facing the enemy, a pistol in each hand, the poll-axe tucked into his cross belts so that its blade sat against his chest.

‘We’ve done what we came to do,’ Mun said, then nodded towards the foe, ‘but I’d have us draw those men further away from their colonel. I’d have them waste more shot too.’

The others nodded, understanding. For the further those fifty musketeers strayed from the relative safety of their battalia the more vulnerable they would be to O’Brien’s men when they turned up. But it was more than that. Mun knew what a good volley from fifty well-trained musketeers could do to men and horses, and if there was a chance that he could diminish that firepower, leach out some of its ferocity, then he had to try.

‘Jonathan, go back to the ditch. Tell me the moment you see them. Tell me again when they’re fifty yards from the top. We’ll make our stand here.’ He stepped back against the tree.

‘I’d rather stay here with you, sir,’ Jonathan said.

‘Do what I tell you,’ Mun snapped, and the young man pressed his lips together and dropped his head, then ran back to the ditch. Then Mun nodded towards the rebels, who were now one hundred yards away. ‘Fitch, haven’t you got anything to say to those men?’

Fitch grinned and stepped clear of the oak. ‘You merry-begotten, scab-faced jackanapeses!’ he yelled, pistols held out wide, spittle flying. ‘You couldn’t hit the ground if you fell over! Come on, you squint-eyed, pox-ridden fartleberries! You stinking treacherous bumfiddles! I’ll turn you inside out!’

A cannon roared to the south, the sound lingering and indignant like thunder. Beneath that fading rumble, thin as vapour in the air, came men’s cheers, which made Mun think the cannon, whosever it was, had done more than simply frighten men. Its iron ball had killed.

‘You think we’re winning?’ Jones asked, jerking his head towards the distant thrum of battle.

‘I think I’d prefer to think that,’ Mun said.

‘I see them!’ Jonathan called from behind them, but Mun kept his eyes on the musketeers coming towards them, on their
sergeant with his halberd whose spear blade was pointed at the grey sky.

‘Let’s give them something to aim at,’ Mun said and Fitch came to stand at his right shoulder whilst Jones drew level with his left. ‘No point us shooting from this range but no harm in making them think we will.’ The three of them raised six pistols towards the oncoming rebel company and held the weapons steady. ‘Wait for it,’ Mun growled.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ Jones mumbled. ‘Think I shat myself.’

‘Wait for it,’ Mun growled, his pulse racing, the sound of his own heartbeat thrashing in his ears. Every muscle and sinew screamed at him to turn and run for the cover of the oak.

‘Wait.’

The rebels were forty yards away now, the powder burns on fingers and cheeks visible, uncertainty or fear or efficient purpose readable in the eyes beneath their montero-caps. Ten more yards and they would halt and the first rank would fire.

‘Fifty yards!’ Jonathan called and Mun risked a glance behind him and saw Jonathan running to join them. It was too late to stop him now.

‘Bloody fool,’ Mun growled as the young man came to stand panting beside Fitch, his pistols raised like the rest of them.

Then Mun saw the rebel sergeant hoist his halberd, saw his mouth open and heard him give the command
present!
And saw the men move their matchlocks away from their bodies, muzzles pointing at the sky. Then the sergeant yelled,
give fire!
And those muskets’ butts came up to shoulders, their barrels levelling out, muzzles promising flaming fury.

‘Down!’ Mun screamed, and they threw themselves down as gouts of flame flashed, hitting the ground and turning their heads – else their helmets’ face guards would have kept them raised – and Mun heard the fierce hiss of musket balls tearing the air above his head. For two heartbeats he feared he had got it all wrong, but then he felt the ground tremble and vicious elation exploded in his blood. He wrenched his head round
and there was O’Brien and the rest of his troop, blades in their hands, spurring onto the field and shrieking like fiends.

‘Go on, lads!’ Fitch was up on his knees, waving his fellows on with his pistols, his eyes wild. ‘Get into ’em. Cut the bastards apart!’

‘Fine day for it, Sir Edmund!’ O’Brien bellowed as he galloped past, his poll-axe held wide, and Mun stood as the rebel second rank gave fire, plucking a trooper from his horse and sending a beast careening to crash to the ground, a musket ball embedded in its chest.

‘Here, sir!’ He turned to see John Cole and Farmer Goffe leading their horses and he considered taking Walter Cade’s horse as Cade wouldn’t be needing it now, but Mun’s saddle was on the colic-struck piebald mare and so he mounted quickly with the others, turned, and spurred across the field to join in the slaughter.

Tom looked at Trencher and Trencher shrugged. The two of them ran forward to be greeted by a sight that neither man had dared hope to see: Major-General Skippon’s brigade sweeping across from the left to pour a volley into Sir Nicholas Byron’s regiment before the King’s men had had the time to wheel fully to face the threat. Trooper Meshman had brought Skippon and the major-general had swept up the escarpment and into the enemy’s flank just below the spur of the round hill.

‘The good Lord has answered your prayers, lad,’ Trencher said. Tom said nothing. Trencher knew very well that whatever prayers had been offered up from that cursed hill, none of them had come from Tom’s lips. ‘Still, it’s going to take more than that,’ the big man went on, squatting to wipe his knife on a dead Cavalier’s breeches. ‘Someone has still got to deal with those whoresons.’ He pointed the knife at the other regiment, Colonel Wentworth’s men, who had halted seventy paces short of the hill crest to await orders. The ranks of musketeers were blowing on their match, refilling the powder flasks hanging from their bandoliers, or else
waiting patiently, matchlocks held across their chests. To their left a company of pikemen bristled in battle formation, ready to protect the musketeers against horse.

‘We could retire now that a proper officer has come along, slip away over yonder slope and let someone else have a turn up here.’ Trencher’s eyes were on the musketeers who were only a stone’s throw away, though they held their fire rather than waste a volley on just two men.

Behind Tom Haggett’s men were stripping the dead of weapons, powder and shot, or else relieving them of armour if it was better than that which they themselves owned.

‘But we’re not going to slip away, are we?’ Trencher said. A grey-bearded musketeer yelled an insult up the slope and Trencher returned a hand gesture that would have ruffled an innkeeper.

‘No,’ Tom said. ‘Not until Lord Essex puts cannon and another thousand men up here.’ The din of distant engagement, of cheers and screams, of artillery and musketry and cornets and drums, told Tom that battle had been joined as far north as the River Kennet and as far south as the River Enbourne. But none of that was his concern. He had told Colonel Haggett that they must hold that round hill, had convinced him that they must, even knowing that the cost would be high. And the colonel and many of his brave men had given their lives doing it. To ride away now would be to insult those dead men.

Trencher nodded towards the regiment facing them. ‘So we keep those gooseberry-eyed gingamabobs busy until the good Lord sends us another miracle. Another regiment or two,’ he said, ‘and General Skippon will thank us for it. If we’re still alive this afternoon.’

Corporal Mabb had appeared at Tom’s shoulder and was taking in the scene.

‘He’ll do more than thank us,’ Tom said. ‘He can send us enough ale to drown in and ensure these men get their bread and their pound of flesh.’

‘Aye and perhaps even some of the back pay we’re owed.’

‘Now that
would
be a miracle,’ Tom said.

‘Well? What now?’ Corporal Mabb said, avoiding eye contact. Tom saw that the corporal had tied a scarf around the top of his bloody thigh. But all three of them knew Mabb didn’t have long.

‘Can you ride, Corporal?’ Tom asked. The man’s face and hands were bone white. Almost blue, actually. There could not have been an ale beaker’s worth of blood left in his body and yet he was still standing.

‘For a bit maybe,’ Mabb said.

Tom nodded. ‘Then get your men mounted, sir.’ They turned to walk back towards the ragged knot of men who were still able to fight and Tom felt a hand grip his left arm just below the shoulder. Now Mabb held his eye, despite the rest of his features sagging and his head hanging low. He looked deeper into Tom’s eyes than Tom would have liked, but Tom did not flinch.

‘Don’t waste these lads,’ Corporal Mabb said. ‘You’re a fighter, Rivers, and God knows you’ve done well for us. But you’ve got a dark soul and I know you ain’t afraid of death. If it’s lost, if we can’t hold this ground, promise me you’ll get the lads away from this … damned place. They’ve done their best and neither God nor man could ask more.’

The hand on his arm clenched with a strength that surprised him.

‘I’d have your word, Thomas Rivers,’ Mabb said. There was a flintiness in the man’s eyes then that Tom had never seen there before.

‘You have my word,’ Tom said and the corporal took his hand away. ‘Now back in the saddle, sir, while you still can.’

Mabb nodded curtly and turned. ‘Colonel Haggett’s troop! Mount!’ he yelled.

And Dobson shook his head and cursed. Because the fight had only just begun.

‘
BACK!
’
TOM YELLED,
turning his mount and throwing himself flat against the mare’s neck as another volley thundered, some of the musket balls thudding into flesh or thunking off armour or helmets. They spurred back up the rise, back onto the crown of the hill.

‘Where’s Corporal Mabb?’ James Bowyer called, pressing his thumb into a new dent on his breastplate.

‘There,’ Penn replied, gesturing with his pistol back over the brow. Tom looked back to see Corporal Mabb still in the saddle, slumped over, his chin on his breastplate. He had been beside Mabb at the last advance and had not seen the man hit, and yet the corporal was clearly dead. Most likely his leg wound had quietly spilled his lifeblood down his mare’s flank until death had come for him.

‘Old sod did well to last as long as he did,’ Dobson said.

‘Who commands now?’ Jeffes called, wheeling his horse round and round. The animal was bleeding from its neck and shrieking with fear. Near by, a young trooper was cursing God with his last breaths, lying on his back spitting blood and bile. ‘Who commands?’

‘I do,’ Tom shouted. Trencher and Penn nodded their approval. Haggett’s men had ridden to just outside effective
musket range and were milling and keeping their horses moving, reloading pistols and carbines and steeling themselves to ride at the enemy again.