Traitor's Blood (Civil War Chronicles) (44 page)

Men on both sides went down to musket butt, fist or blade and, as Hampden stood high in his stirrups to order his men to disengage, many small duels flared up and down the great skirmish line. A pair of young men were scrabbling on the rapidly freezing turf, rolling back and forth as if engaged in a childhood scrap. It was only when one fell still that the knife could be seen jutting from his guts. Two more men stumbled across the still warm corpse, locked in their own private struggle. Neither held weapons any longer and their bodies clung together in a snarling, hateful, spittle-showered bear-hug. The bigger of the two seemed to be winning the upper hand, his sheer brute strength wearing his opponent down with every passing moment, but then the smaller man jerked forward, sinking his teeth into the
end of his enemy’s nose, and the former favourite released his victim with a shrill cry of pain and outrage. The lower half of his face gleamed beneath a spreading sheet of red and his hands went instinctively to protect his torn appendage. But his opponent did not relent. He kicked the bleeding soldier in the crotch and then, as the reeling man doubled forward in agony, kicked him again in the face.

Hampden had seen enough. If they did not withdraw in good order now, they would be outflanked by the far larger force. Better to hit the Royalists in rapid bursts, bloody the Pope-loving bastards and regroup for another sally. ‘Disengage! Hampden’s; disengage!’ He was already cantering back to where his regiment had been arrayed before their charge when he spotted the three drummers, who stood awaiting orders behind the colour-bearing ensigns. ‘Sound an orderly retreat! Regroup on me!’

The drums beat out their colonel’s orders and slowly – painfully slowly – the melee dissolved into two disparate groups as the men in green broke away from the Royalist force. Hampden watched as his regiment retreated in good order, and was elated to see that far fewer of his men had been left dead or wounded in amongst the enemy formation than he had feared.

‘That’s it, my lads!’ he bellowed while his men filtered past him to reform in their original units. Many were without pikes or muskets now, having lost them in the frantic chaos of the skirmish, but Hampden felt a swell of pride as they drew blades and dirks, already preparing for the next inevitable charge. He harboured no wish to send these men to their deaths, but he knew that Essex and Skippon were already making hasty preparations for the defence of London, and they needed as much time as he and his men could provide.

Hampden waited. He gave his ranks time to regroup and check their weapons, to tend to superficial wounds and to take innumerable and well-earned lungfuls of air. He took a deep breath for himself, and then said the hardest words he’d
ever spoken. ‘We charge again, boys! They’ve tasted our steel and they’re on the back foot! Join me and drive our victory home!’

Eli Rushworth Augustus Makepeace thought his very heart might burst through his chest as he galloped headlong through the fields east of Old Brentford. The River Thames was to his right, London Road to his left.

It had not been easy to prop the wounded, whimpering Sir Randolph Moxcroft on to the bay stallion, but the terrible urgency gave Makepeace a reserve of strength and he had somehow managed to lift the spy to the saddle. Moxcroft had flopped across it, legs on one side, head on the other, while Makepeace had shoved at his rump to get him properly centred. Sir Randolph, still bleeding profusely, was now bent, face first, across the horse’s back.

As they got nearer the capital, the Thames began to sweep away southward in one of its many vast bends, and the ground began to become boggy. The horse, already labouring under the weight of two men, started to slow to an arduous canter, and Makepeace decided to veer left, towards the road.

The road itself was masked by a row of tall trees and he could not see beyond them, but he was careful not to spur too close to the broad highway, for cries and drumbeats and musketry emanated from that direction.

‘What’s that noise?’ Moxcroft moaned. From his position he could see nothing but the blurred ground as it sped by.

‘The king’s men have found more rebels to kill,’ Makepeace replied bluntly. He squinted as, through the tangled trunks, the shapes of men and horses became apparent in the adjacent field. ‘We ride parallel with the road, and we are passing the next fight, it seems. Greencoats, by the looks of things. Hampden’s perhaps. No matter.’

Let them fight it out, Makepeace thought. His purpose was on a higher plane. He would deliver Sir Randolph safely to
Parliament and demand an audience with John Pym himself. He would be handsomely rewarded by his master, and feted by the new regime. He had done it. All the hardship and the danger had been worthwhile. It irked him that Stryker still lived, and that Bain had evidently fallen foul of the one-eyed bastard, but all that really mattered was that Eli Makepeace would become a hero of the rebel cause.

He was startled from the glorious images that danced across his mind by a splinter of bark. A musket-ball bounced off a tree trunk nearby. They were still some distance from the fighting, and yet it seemed that the shot had come from close by. With a sickening feeling in his guts, Makepeace twisted around.

Captain Stryker cursed viciously as his shot flew wide.

He had dashed up the road to Old Brentford upon hearing the news of the traitors’ escape, and had come across a lone despatch rider.

‘Are you carrying despatches now?’ he had asked the bewildered junior officer.

‘No, sir.’

‘Excellent,’ Stryker had replied, before reaching up to haul the lad from his saddle. ‘I apologize,’ he said, as he manhandled the struggling rider, ‘but I am duty-bound to commandeer this horse. You shall have it returned.’

The young officer’s hand twitched at his sword hilt for a moment, but he had heard stories of the deadly one-eyed captain and, on facing that cold grey gaze, did not wish to discover if the rumours were true. He removed his hand and kept silent.

Stryker had leapt up into the saddle and raked savagely at the horse’s flanks, only glancing back to call over his shoulder, ‘You have my word!’

He had left the road and struck out toward the Thames. Sure enough, he had spotted a large bay stallion up ahead. It had not been difficult to close the distance between them, for the leading horse carried two men – one of them slumped awkwardly
across its back – but he wanted to end the chase quickly, and had taken aim while the range was still ambitious.

Now, as Makepeace spurred on, safe, Stryker was furious at himself for risking that lone ball. He was no dragoon, and did not have the skill to discharge such a weapon from horseback. Now, for the sake of his own arrogance, his advantage was gone.

‘Head toward the river,’ Sir Randolph Moxcroft urged between yelps of anguish as he was buffeted by the galloping horse.

‘You wish to swim?’ Makepeace replied sarcastically.

‘There may be a boat.’

‘Has the loss of blood drained your wits, Sir Randolph?’ Makepeace snarled. ‘There’ll be no boats. If the rebels have any sense, they’ll have set ’em ablaze as soon as Ruthven’s army appeared. No, we stay near the road, where the ground is firmest. It will be night soon and we’ll lose him in the darkness.’

‘Nightfall? He’s gaining, Makepeace!’ Moxcroft cried. ‘We can see him out the corner of our eye!’

Makepeace thumped the spy’s back, provoking an anguished cry. ‘Then shut your fucking eyes, damn you!’

But his anger only concealed panic. Stryker was gaining. Makepeace knew he would have to act quickly. He leaned to his left, feeling the saddlebags for signs of a weapon. Nothing.

Then Makepeace leaned to the right. His fingers met hard, cold resistance. He almost shrieked with triumph as his hand felt the butt of a pistol. He yanked it from its leather holster, and, without warning, wheeled the horse around.

Moxcroft screamed, but Makepeace ignored him. As their Royalist pursuer drew ever closer, he rummaged in the saddlebag’s other pockets for ammunition. As he had hoped, it was all there, and he rapidly loaded the flintlock short-arm.

Makepeace watched Stryker come close, feeling triumph course through his veins. He
would
deliver Moxcroft. He
would
defeat this most troublesome of enemies. He thought of his
brother. And he saw himself riding up to the grand house on a fine stallion, befitting his newfound wealth and status.

‘Hello Eli,’ said Captain Stryker.

Makepeace fired.

Stryker had felt a rush of confidence as the horse carrying Makepeace and Moxcroft slewed to a halt. He watched Makepeace jump down from the saddle and kicked his horse on, eager to prevent the traitor from attempting an escape on foot.

And then there was no distance at all to cover, for he was but a few paces away. But he could not see Makepeace well, as the turncoat was concealed on the far side of the saddle.

At first his horse did not seem to react to the gunshot. Stryker peered into the dusk air, clouded now with acrid smoke, and wondered how on earth he had not been hit. But then his mount began to whinny, a high-pitched noise speaking of extreme distress, and its legs wobbled beneath its muscular bulk.

Beyond the smoke, Makepeace, pistol in hand, was grinning, and then the weapon was tossed aside and he was drawing an already bloodied blade. Stryker watched but could do nothing, for his horse was staggering, pitching forward. He saw a great gush of blood at the animal’s neck and realized then that the pistol ball, aimed at him, had hit the horse instead.

Seconds later, the beast was on its knees, and, before it crashed sideways into the long grass, Stryker leapt from the saddle to roll clear of the heavy body.

When he looked up, he could see Makepeace’s grinning face emerge from the grey dusk. He looked around, praying there would be a discarded musket lying close that might miraculously be primed and ready to fire. No such miracle was forthcoming.

Makepeace loomed over him. ‘Lovely to see you again,
mon Capitaine
.’

The skirmish still raged in the adjacent field, Hampden’s greencoats withdrawing to their side of the enclosure, taking a breath, and then charging again. But here, not more than three hundred paces from that anarchic scene, all was calm in the gathering dusk.

‘You look well,’ Makepeace said, letting his sword hover above Stryker’s head. ‘Considering I shot you back at the bridge. A remarkable recovery.’

‘That was you?’ Stryker whispered, an image of a smoke-wreathed assassin resolving in his mind. He remembered the musket shot and the searing pain as the ball clipped his temple. He also remembered that, from such close range, the shot had been a poor one. ‘You need practice, Eli.’

Makepeace held up his blade, smiling thinly. ‘Not with this.’

Colonel John Hampden was exhausted. He had sent his men into the fray for a fifth time and this, he conceded, must be the last.

The greencoats had done their duty. Two regiments of fine men had fallen by the wayside this day, obliterated by the king’s swarm, and yet his, the third to stand before this irresistible force, had held their ground and kept their form.

Hampden turned to a bearded sergeant-major. ‘It’s damn near dark, George. Our duty was to cover the retreat of Holles and Brooke, while stalling the Cavaliers long enough for night to do our job for us.’

The sergeant-major nodded. ‘Sir.’

‘You hear that?’ Hampden went on. ‘Ruthven’s orders.’ The sound came from the dozen drummers standing at the opposite end of the murky field. From Royalist command. Hampden did not comprehend the exact orders issued forth from those tight, thunderous skins, for they sang out in code, but he understood their implication right enough.

He grinned. ‘The buggers are retreating.’ He turned to the dishevelled ranks at his command. ‘They withdraw from the field, men! It’s back to Brentford for the night!’

The men of John Hampden’s Regiment of Foot gave their heartiest cheer of the day.

‘Sound the order to disengage!’ Hampden called to his nearest aide-de-camp. ‘We’ll remain at Turnham ’til dawn.’

In the grand house at the west end of New Brentford where the road curved toward the River Brent, Chirurgeon Ptolemy Banks was busy tending to the wounded.

The chirurgeon did not turn when the large door swung open, nor did he look round when a pair of burly pikemen staggered in under the weight of the man carried by shoulders and ankles between them.

‘I may be Parliamentarian by persuasion,’ Banks was saying through gritted teeth as he pulled at a grimacing man’s bare chest with a pair of pliers. ‘But the Royalists have requested I take care of you men too, and I ain’t the kind of spiteful bastard to deny a man treatment for political reasons. Besides, they’d have shot me if I’d refused.’

The man currently receiving Banks’s ministrations was seated on a high-backed wooden chair, his hands gripping the seat below his rump, while another soldier stood stoically behind, holding firm hands at the patient’s shoulders so that he could not move.

The patient screamed as Banks gave the pliers a sharp twist and jerked them free.

‘There you go, son.’ He held up the bloody pliers, which clasped the flattened remains of a musket-ball. ‘Looked like the hole was clean in your shirt too, Corporal, so, God willing, you don’t have any scraps of fabric to turn your blood bad.’

Banks turned to a small lad, his assistant for the day’s action. ‘Patch him up, Billy. Don’t let it fester.’

Chirurgeon Banks placed his pliers in a little bowl of cloudy red water and picked his way across the wide sheet of linen on which his various tools were laid. ‘Who’s next?’ he said. Just then, he noticed the newcomers. His jaw dropped.

One of the soldiers spoke, ‘Found ’im up the road, sir.’

Banks looked at the wounded man, his own face tinged with horror. ‘He lives?’

‘Aye.’

The chirurgeon waved a scarlet-stained hand at the floor. ‘Lay him down, man, lay him down.’ He went to stand over the still patient. ‘His face is badly smashed, but I’ll do my best.’

‘It ain’t the face so much,’ the burly soldier said. ‘Poor bugger’s ’alf drowned.’