Devil Water (25 page)

James listened attentively as he always did, and his heart was suddenly lightened, while the herald finished and the Stuart standard was run up on the pole prepared for it. He stared at the great green taffeta flag with its creamy silk fringe and lavishly embroidered emblem of charity -- a pelican feeding her young. As James and all the hundred in the crowded square uncovered their heads, brilliant sunlight gilded the flag, which rippled proudly in a breeze from the sea. “God Save the King!” came the thunderous acclaim. It echoed down the crowded streets, and rang from the windows of the surrounding houses. James in that moment felt a vast surge of happiness. He
has
landed, he thought with joyous certainty. I feel it. A messenger will come to tell us so. Today, tomorrow. We have won! Jemmie, we’re ready for you, Cousin. From now on I shall renounce all melancholies or forebodings -- how dared I so doubt God’s goodness.

James turned smiling, to look from Charles’s intent young face back over the faces of his own Northumbrians. Tom Errington there leading Widdrington’s troops, since that nobleman had stayed in bed. The Widdrington brothers, the Claverings, the Shaftoes, the Swinburne boys, Jack Thornton of Netherwitton, and George Collingwood, his special friends. But they were all his friends, down to the servants, to the little drummer boy, and how could he have been so laggard once in summoning them to the rightful, the glorious cause!

“You look very merry, James,” said Charles astonished, as he waved his sword in signal that their troops might disperse. “Aye. I feel sure our King has landed, and was thinking how soon I would be seeing Ann. And you, Charlie -- ah I see --” said James laughing ruefully. “Yes, that’s a handsome wench yonder in the doorway!”

“I was not looking at her,” said Charles. “But at the child beside her. It resembles my Jenny.”

James was startled. The brothers had never mentioned the Snowdons since the moment weeks ago when Charles confessed to having seen his child while at Rothbury, and his intention of educating her in London. A course which James approved of as a gentlemanly obligation. That Charles might have love for the child never occurred to him; it was plain that he had no love for the mother. “Well,” he said, still puzzled by Charles’s unwonted gravity, and the almost yearning note in his voice, “you’ll soon be in London to find a place for her, and in the meantime I expect we’re off to Manchester!”

But it seemed that they were not yet off to Manchester. Forster found Preston much to his liking. The inn was comfortable, the ale and brandy excellent. And the ladies were charming. Lady Anderton and Mrs. Chorley, whose husbands had just presented their services to the cause, wished to give a ball that night. Besides, said Tom, it was wiser to stay here a day or so to await further recruits, especially turncoats from the Government troops. “For they’ll all be coming to us,” said Tom comfortably. “Patten says so.”

James, true to his recent optimistic resolutions, was convinced. The Scottish lords were not consulted and Mackintosh grumbled mightily. He had trouble enough controlling his Highlanders as it was. Still there was nothing he could do. The Jacobite army settled down for two days of carousing, love-making, and general festivity.

James neither caroused nor made love, yet he clung to the mood of joyous certainty which had come on him in the marketplace, and refused to be daunted by several unpalatable questions which were asked by Lord Winton. If it were true that King James had landed in Scotland, why did no messenger come from there? And where were the hundreds of High Church Tories they had been told would flock to the standard in Lancashire? The new recruits were all Papists.

And why, if the Government forces were so anxious to change sides, did no message come from
them,
nor any inkling of their precise whereabouts?

James was inclined to share Forster’s annoyance at these questions, and therefore avoided the Scottish earl.

On Saturday morning, November 12, the weather still being fine, James and Charles decided to exercise their troop in a meadow on the far side of the river Ribble. They extricated their men from the various lodgings, bawdyhouses, and taverns with some difficulty, and here Alec Armstrong, Charles’s knowing valet, was useful. By ten o’clock Alec had rounded up the last straggler and Charles, galloping back and forth, had got the foot into fine and ready to drill when James called, “Hark!”

Charles rode up to him and listened. Faint on the south wind they heard in the distance toward Wigan the tramp of marching feet, and a drum beating. “‘Tis the Government army come to join us!” James cried happily. “We’ll go meet them!”

Charles frowned, uncertain, and felt a tug at his boot. He looked down to see Alec standing there. “Don’t go, sir,” cried the valet vehemently. “Don’t let his lordship go!”

“Why not?” asked James sternly, wheeling his horse to face the valet. “What’s wrong?”

“I believe they’re coming to
attack
us, my lord. There’s a whore in the White Bull was boasting this morn that she’d been in Wigan the night before, and General Wills was planning to surprise us. I didn’t believe her, but--”

James swallowed. Before he could speak, Charles cried “Wait here!” and was off in a flash, galloping across the meadow and into a sheltering copse. He came back in twenty minutes. “They’re
against
us, James!” he cried, his eyes aglow. “I got near enough to see them -- the vanguard of the Royal Dragoons near Walton-le-Dale -- marching slow but sure, and they saw my white cockade and shot at me.”

James swallowed again, then his small erect body stiffened. “Hurry! Flee back to town!” he shouted to their men. “You, Colingwood and Thornton, come here, ride with me to protect the foot. Charles, go on ahead, give the alarm!”

Charles nodded and sped off, across the bridge into town, and galloped to the Mitre, where he found that Patten had already given Forster the news. Forster was slumped in a dressing gown, his nightcap askew, for he had been dragged out of bed. As Charles ran in, Brigadier Mackintosh was standing rigid, while Patten was shaking Forster’s shoulders and crying, “I tell you ‘tis true, sir! Wills is marching to attack Preston -- another of our messengers just slipped in!”

“Aye, ‘tis true!” Charles shouted into Forster’s gaping, pop-eyed face. “I’ve just seen ‘em. In the name of God send men to the bridge! Block the bridge!”

Forster swayed his head slowly like a bewildered bull. “But ye said they
wouldn’t
attack!” he muttered, glaring at Patten. “Everybody said so. They’ll not fight for Geordie. We was
told
that.”

“They
are
attacking, you fool!” Charles shouted. “Get off your fat bum and give orders. Or I will!”

Tom transferred his bloodshot glare to Charles. “How dare ye speak --” he began, then the meaning of these warnings penetrated. He sat up, beads of sweat dotted his forehead. “Where’s Oxburgh?” he cried in a high, squeaking voice. “Get me Oxburgh!”

“Nae time,” said Mackintosh grimly. “I’ve some o’ m’Scots outside. I’ll to the brig wi’ ‘em. How fast’re they coming?” he said to Charles.

“Slowly,” said Charles. “I saw only the vanguard. I suppose they’ll wait for Wills. We’ll have an hour anyway.”

Mackintosh glanced at Forster, who nodded shakily. “Do as ye like,” he mumbled. The Brigadier and Charles ran out of the inn together.

In the ensuing desperate confusion, and lacking any orders from their commander-in-chief, it was each officer for himself and his troops, though Mackintosh took charge and directed the tactics as best he could. And they had time, mercifully, for their preparations. The enemy did come slowly. General Wills expected a battle at the Ribble Bridge, which was a mile from Preston, and he waited far from the riverbank until all his mounted and foot dragoons were assembled. Then he formed his troops into a wedge and prepared to assault the bridge. His dragoons fired several shots and ran up to the bridge with bayonets fixed.

The bridge was totally undefended, which greatly puzzled General Wills. Nor was there any sniping from the hedges which lined the narrow lane that led to town. Unopposed, the Government forces marched towards Preston.

Earlier Brigadier Mackintosh had changed his mind about defending the bridge, saying that his Highlanders were no good at a mass maneuver against heavy horse, also that holding the bridge was futile, since there must be fords, downriver. So, to the anger of Charles and the tight-lipped dismay of James, he ordered the Jacobites to stay in town, where they might barricade the streets and force the Royal Dragoons to dismount for hand-to-hand fighting.

“My God!” Charles cried to James, after they had been told to withdraw into town. “This old Scotchman’s as big a fool as Forster! We could’ve held the bridge.”

“Mackintosh at least
is
a fighting man, and may know what he’s doing,” James answered. “Never mind that now. Here, give me a hand with this stone, and pile that table here! Faster! Faster!” he cried to his men. His Northumbrians were scurrying about in the street below the church, building a barricade of anything they could find in the neighboring houses -- tables, chairs, bedsteads, sacks of grain. James had flung off his coat, waistcoat, and peruke. In his frilled white shirt, panting a little, he shoved, pushed and hauled with the rest of them. As did Charles.

While they worked Mackintosh dashed from this barricade to the three others he had ordered built across the streets at different sites. Presently he galloped back to James’s barrier. “Guid!” he shouted. “That’ll do! Post some o’ your men i’ the houses, m’lord! They’ll shoot frae the windows, when I gi’e the signal. I’ll see to
this
barricade m’sel.”

James nodded, and nodded again as Mackintosh told him to go to the churchyard, which was on high ground, to build entrenchments there, and to maintain as replacements a force of men not already stationed elsewhere.

In the churchyard they found the Scottish lords Kenmure, Nithsdale, and Winton. “So ye’ve brought shovels!” cried Winton, when he saw the Northumbrians. “And can use’em too!” His face broadened in a grin, as he noted the Earl of Derwentwater’s dishevelment, his torn white shirt, his dirty sweat-streaked face, his small scratched and bleeding hands, and saw also that Charles Radcliffe -- even sweatier and dirtier than his brother -- was stripped to the waist.

“Aye, we’re to dig fortifications here,” said James.

“That
I
can do,” said Winton seizing James’s shovel. “Having blacksmith’s hands. Ye’d do better to encourage the men!”

They were two hours in the churchyard before anything happened, though they heard distant scattered shots. By tacit consent James took command. He went from one trench to the next, praising, cajoling, exhorting the workers as they dug. Once a lad from Hexham turned hysterical and flung down his shovel and gun, blubbering that he wanted none of this, that he wished he was home with his mother.

James clapped him on the shoulder, crying, “Back to work! And when you’ve dug your stint, I’ll give you a sovereign to soothe your mother!” The boy quieted and went to work. There was not one of them in that churchyard, noble or commoner, who did not look to, and derive strength from that small active figure in the torn white shirt. Charles did too, as the tension mounted. The scattered shots came nearer, they watched the Highlanders dragging up a cannon to Mackintosh’s barricade. “And much good it’ll do ‘em,” observed Winton grimly. “I’ll warrant there’s not a soul there knows how to fire it!”

“Look!” cried Charles, pointing. “Strike me dead if it’s not our brave General!” They all stared at Tom’s stout figure in a steel cuirass astride his huge black horse, the cock plumes waving on his laced hat. Forster had fortified himself with several brandies, dressed, and sallied from the Mitre. From the churchyard they watched as Forster, brandishing his sword, approached Mackintosh and shouted something in obvious fury.

“Go see what’s ado, Charles,” James said, and his brother ran to obey. He soon came back and reported. “Forster’s trying to countermand all Mackintosh’s orders. Wants Mackintosh to lead a charge
now.
Mackintosh refused. Says it would be mad. Cut him off from the body of his horsemen in the marketplace. Forster said he’d have him court-martialed when this was over.”

Nobody said anything. Silently they watched Forster shake his fist, then gallop back towards the Mitre. James went off again to inspect the earthworks, which were nearly ready. Lord Winton went to join his fellow Scottish peers in the church porch. Old Kenmure’s eyes were shut, his lips moving in prayer. Lord Nithsdale was seated with his naked sword across his knees, staring into space. There was a lull.

Charles was carefully inspecting his pistols, when Alec came up to him carrying a large bundle. “Your clothes, sir,” said the valet gravely. “ ‘Tis not meet for a gentleman to look like a scullion.”

“I expect you’re right,” said Charles, allowing Alec to put on his shirt, ruffled cravat, brown braided coat, tie-wig, and hat. “I’ve his lordship’s attire too,” said Alec pointing to the remaining contents of the bundle. “Since Wesby couldn’t mind them.” James’s servant, Wesby, had been posted at the window of a house overlooking the barricade.

“You’re a good man, Alec,” Charles said suddenly feeling the whole worth of the loyalty he usually took for granted. “We’ve been through many a merry bedroom romp together, but this is different.”

“I was born to serve Radcliffes in any way I can, sir,” said Alec with a moving sincerity quite unlike his usual blitheness. He walked off to find Lord Derwentwater, who was relieved to be properly dressed, now that the strenuous preparations were over. And they waited.

The dragoons charged Mackintosh’s barricade at two o’clock. In the churchyard they could not at first see the onrushing regiment of foot, who were screened by the barrier and the turn of the street, but they heard an outburst of wild battle cries from the Highlanders, and Mackintosh’s bloodcurdling shouts in Gaelic. Then there was a volley of shots, and the red-coated dragoons began assaulting the barricade. “There they are!” said Charles under his breath. His heart pounded with a triumphant excitement. He stood up behind the earthwork, and a bullet whizzed past his head to bury itself in the church wall.