Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles (47 page)

With prayers done, the Royalist army marched on towards Stratton.

The terrain was mostly flat, with long tufts of grass in abundance and the odd wizened tree casting macabre shapes at the sky. It allowed for a reasonable pace, with the horse and dragoons out in front and the blocks of pike and musket stretched out like a vast eel, the small wagon train placed at the centre.

Burton, afforded due honour for bringing the news of Stamford’s raid to Hopton, rode at the head of the progress with the general and his illustrious staff. They were Cavaliers all, well dressed, brash, and confident. Despite having little practical military experience between them, they had already built a reputation as a group of fearless young commanders.

‘Sir Ralph tells us you were at Stafford in the winter,’ commented one of the men at Burton’s side. The lieutenant glanced across to see Sir Nicholas Slanning. He had long, wavy hair that seemed like lengths of coke against his bright yellow doublet, and a face that was unshaven and remarkably fresh for a man known for being an uncompromising fighter. Slanning was in his early thirties, but had already served in the Scots War, and had built a solid reputation as one of Cornwall’s leading military lights.

Burton caught the interest in the colonel’s owl-like brown eyes. ‘That I was, sir. The battle was fought on a sloping heath between the villages of Salt and Hopton.’

General Sir Ralph Hopton rode at the head of the group, and he twisted back to brandish a wry smile. ‘Hopton Fight. I always wanted a battle named for me, and I am honoured with one at which I was not present!’

The group broke into warm laughter, surprising Burton with their easy camaraderie.

‘It was a hard scrap,’ Slanning spoke again, ‘or so the pamphlets have it.’

Burton nodded. ‘Aye, Colonel, that it was. Gell’s foot held a wide ridge—’

‘That base scoundrel,’ Hopton muttered at the mention of the name.

‘And Northampton’s horse,’ Burton continued, ‘charged straight at ’em.’

‘God rest him,’ Hopton intoned sombrely. ‘Spencer Compton was a brave man.’

‘One of the bravest, sir.’

Colonel Trevanion, loping easily on his big destrier, cleared his throat. ‘Did he really take many rebels to the grave with him?’

Burton let his mind drift back across that bloody expanse, to the forest of pikes crammed on the heath’s God-forsaken ridge and the fetlock-snapping coney holes that had unhorsed so many of the king’s finest cavalrymen. One of those had been Spencer Compton, Earl of Northampton, and that man had refused quarter and been slaughtered for his stubborn bravery. Another man had been with Northampton that day, Burton knew. Cleaved his own blood-soaked passage through the armour and flesh in a forlorn bid to rescue the lord, but never found fame in the printing presses. Captain Stryker had come so close to saving Northampton’s life, and nearly perished in the attempt. The ban-dog of the aristocracy, Captain Forrester often called Stryker. That was too true, thought Burton, and he stifled a smile.

‘In the end he was swamped,’ the lieutenant said. ‘But he fought like a lion.’

‘You fought with the horse that day, Lieutenant?’ Slanning enquired with surprise.

‘A strange twist of fate for an infantryman, sir, I grant you.’ He shrugged. ‘It is a complex tale.’

‘Never fear, sir,’ Trevanion announced brightly. ‘We have ample time for the telling!’

‘What the devil?’

It was Hopton who had spoken, and the sheer tone of his voice was cause enough for alarm. Burton and the assembled colonels stared after the general, mouths gaping, as he pointed frantically up at a low ridge to the west.

‘There! See?’ Hopton spluttered, standing in his stirrups as he fished for something in his saddlebag. In moments his hand came away with a battered little spyglass, and he trained it on the place that had so ensnared his attention. ‘Horsemen on the right flank!’

Already many of the non-commissioned officers stalking along the army’s right side had spotted the threat and were instinctively arranging evasive action. The column juddered to an abrupt halt amid a storm of snarled instructions.

‘Get Digby back here!’ Hopton called to his nearest aide. The five hundred mounted Royalists were some distance up ahead, obscured by a dense stand of trees, and it was not certain they would have noticed the men on the ridge. The aide kicked his horse into thrashing life, racing away down the road with his dire news.

‘Whose are they?’ the general snapped, tossing the spyglass to Slanning.

The huge, owlish eyes pressed against the brass rings for a second as Sir Nicholas slowly replied. ‘I believe that is Chudleigh, sir.’

‘Which?’

Slanning lowered the glass. ‘The elder, sir, to judge by the cornet.’

Hopton pursed thin lips and ground his teeth. ‘Meaning we face only the horse, for young James commands the foot on Lord Stamford’s behalf.’

‘We will hold,’ Slanning said confidently.

‘Have to pay them their dues, I suppose,’ Colonel Trevanion said, seemingly as unflustered as Slanning, though all about him the pikemen shuffled into position. ‘They risk a great deal by sending their horse against us, but it is a bold move.’

‘There is no deliberation here, John,’ Slanning muttered derisively. ‘They were travelling south, I’d wager, and blundered into us. Sir George is compelled to give battle, though I guarantee he’d rather not. When he sees this will be no Sourton he will disengage.’

‘Then what in Jesus’ name are they doing here?’ General Hopton replied absently, but no reply came. The enemy were coming.

Lieutenant Burton was staring at the advancing cavalry with a mix of trepidation and awe. It was a large force, comfortably more than a thousand, and they swept down from the high ridge in a whooping, silver-crested wave designed to smash into the Royalist right flank. But they had attacked early, giving credence to Slanning’s guess that they had been as surprised to find the King’s Army as Hopton had been to see them. There was still a good half-mile to cover, giving the Royalist officers, sergeants, and corporals ample time to prepare a defence with shrill orders and bawled threats, and the men on the right flank turned smartly to face the ridge, blocks of pikemen stepping to the fore, musketeers arranged, three ranks deep, in between.

Burton watched in stunned silence as the Roundhead wave coursed across the damp turf with a growing roar. He instinctively adjusted his arm strap, as he always did before battle, though he knew his position with General Hopton would probably negate the need to fight. Sure enough, a group of heavy-set men, pikes facing outwards in a protective ring, moved into position around the general and his young commanders, ushering them towards the safer left flank.

The first horsemen were soon in range, and the rapidly barked orders to
fire by introduction
were spread along the threatened flank. The foremost rank of musketeers snapped back their triggers, tongues of flame lashing out in front. Immediately the rank behind moved between that forward rank and fired, followed in quick succession by the third, thereby offering an almost continuous fusillade. A great storm of smoke and flame pulsated across the Royalist force, belching violence towards the encroaching peril.

The range was still great, and only two Parliamentarians were knocked from their saddles in that early barrage, but the Cornish cheered their defiance like a horde of Celts facing the might of Rome, and they snarled and spat and cursed at the advancing enemy.

The first rank fired again. A few more of Sir George Chudleigh’s cavalrymen went down this time, and the Royalist jeers grew like a Penzance squall, but time was against them and they stepped rearward as pike blocks shuffled to the fore, great shafts of ash angled upwards, braced against each man’s instep, presenting a glinting barrier of razor points for the white-eyed storm to drench.

The wave broke with a clash of steel that rippled all the way along the human storm-break. The noise of man and horse, musket butt, pike, halberd, and sword mingling in deafening crescendo, echoing like a thunderclap all the way back up the ridge.

But the momentum had gone from the charge. The musket volleys had slowed the Roundhead attack, and the pikes, thrust into the faces of Chudleigh’s horses, had made the frightened beasts shy away from the fight. They wheeled back almost as one, understanding that their beating broadswords would not cut enough holes in the Cavalier defence to lever a breach.

Burton was leaning across his own mount, whispering softly into the pricked ear to sooth the animal’s frayed nerves. His eyes, though, were still fixed over the heads of the Cornish infantry to the chaotic front line where the last of Chudleigh’s attackers were extricating themselves from personal duels, desperate to be free lest they become isolated and abandoned. Somewhere to his left a trumpet screeched, all eyes shifting to meet the new sound. Burton peered too, searching the dark tree line for the origin of the startling note. There, bursting out on to the road like so many avenging angels, were more horsemen. This time, though, the Royalist column did not have to brace itself for action.

‘It’s Digby,’ Sir Nicholas Slanning announced from somewhere behind Burton. ‘About bloody time, eh?’

Another cheer went up from the grizzled foot, but its tone was rueful rather than joyous. Slanning grinned. ‘The horse can chase Chudleigh into the hills, but our lads know who won this day.’

Sure enough, the Roundhead force, so irresistibly large, was already making for the safety of the ridge, desultory pot-shots sent whistling in their wake by optimistic musketeers. And there, on the top of that gentle slope, they regrouped. But this time there was no malice in their movements, no drawn blades or screamed challenges. There would be no repeat of the attack, it seemed. No relentless charges like those Burton had witnessed at Hopton Fight. The enemy were leaving.

All around Burton staff officers nodded congratulations to one another, though their eyes remained warily trained on the horizon. It was a hollow kind of victory. They had survived with only minor casualties, and yet the direction in which the Parliamentarian party were headed seemed to be cause for concern. They were not waiting around to watch Hopton’s army, nor racing north to the main rebel hub at Stratton, but filing quietly away to the south, funnelling on to the road that would lead them deeper into Cornwall.

The Royalist column took pause for around two hours after the skirmish below the ridge. They had come through it relatively unscathed, but burials had to be organized and land had to be more thoroughly scouted.

‘What the devil were they about?’ a pink-jowled Hopton snapped when relative calm had returned. ‘What was Chudleigh doing here, damn his hide? And where did they vanish to?’

For answer, a barrel-chested horseman in full harquebusier armour cantered up to the group. He lifted his hinged visor, revealing pock-rutted cheeks, bulbous eyes, and a syphilitic nose. ‘Captain Newbury, sir. Compliments o’ Sir John Digby, an’ I’m to tell you we took a couple o’ the scrofulous villains, if you’ll pardon m’ language.’

‘Well?’ Hopton replied impatiently.

‘Their treasonous tongues flapped readily enough, General.’ Newbury rubbed a gloved forearm across his disease-ravaged face, mopping up the beading sweat that clung to his bushy brows. ‘They weren’t here for us, sir. They discovered us by accident and gave steel, but we were not his target.’

‘Oh?’

‘What did I tell you?’ Sir Nicholas Slanning whispered as he caught Burton’s eye.

‘Sir George Chudleigh,’ Newbury went on, ‘is charged with the blockin’ o’ Bodmin.’

Hopton frowned. ‘Blocking?’ He shot a wary glance at Slanning and Trevanion. ‘They know about the militia?’

The cavalryman nodded, sweat running from his chin to speckle his breastplate and the waxy hem of his coat. ‘They do, sir. Chudleigh is tasked with preventing the posse’s muster.’

Slanning spat a clump of powder-spotted phlegm on to the hoof-spoiled grass. ‘And with that many troopers I’d wager he’ll succeed. He must have had fifteen hundred men.’

‘If Chudleigh rides to prevent the raising of Bodmin, then Stamford’s thought remains bent on Stratton,’ Hopton mused. ‘And without the Bodmin posse, we must be about our business with half the men he has.’

Burton coughed nervously. ‘General? Is there no time to gather more troops?’

Hopton’s round head shook. ‘We will rendezvous with Grenville imminently, which will bring us to full strength.’ He grimaced. ‘Barely three thousand.’

‘Against Stamford’s near six,’ Slanning added grimly. ‘With a thousand and a half horse roaming Cornwall.’

‘And that,’ continued Hopton, ‘is why we must break him soon, before his horse return. We know Sir George Chudleigh will be a goodly while at Bodmin, so there is time.’

Andrew Burton could feel the colour drain from his face, but was powerless to prevent it. These brave, reckless men were marching to war against insurmountable odds, and he was marching with them.

To his surprise a fist thudded sharply into his left shoulder, and he looked across to where Sir Nicholas Slanning perched atop his muscular charger. The colonel’s lips pared back in a wolfish grin. ‘Do not fear, Lieutenant. Without his cavalry Stamford will be forced into a straight fight between armies of foot.’ He swept an arm out in front to indicate the solid lines of rough-hewn infantry. ‘And for such a task, sir, there are none better than the Cornish.’