Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles (51 page)

He strode carefully over the legs of snoring men, past a pair of hounds growling at one another over a dead crow, and lifted his hat to a grim-looking sergeant-major wearing a broad red sash, billowing pipe stem propped in the hole left by a long-rotten front tooth. The camp was quiet as men considered the day to come, gazed out across the dark grey sea or eastwards to Stratton and its deadly hill.

He reached the deep, bramble-thick hedge that divided this part of the common from the next, and began to walk beside it. To his surprise, Stryker soon strode past a man he recognized, seated on the messy turf of compacted sand and grass. He was of middle age, with short hair that had once been dark but was now speckled liberally with shards of silver. He was carefully cleaning his musket’s serpent with a small piece of rag. ‘Abbott?’

The man, one of his musketeers, clambered smartly to his feet, leaning lightly on the tall gun, its wooden stock propped against the ground. ‘Sir?’

‘What the bloody hell are you about, man?’

Abbott looked nonplussed. ‘Don’t follow, sir.’

Stryker could not believe his ears. This was the man chosen, only hours ago, to travel beyond the enemy’s lines and search for Cecily Cade. It was all he could do not to crack the man’s jaw with his fist there and then. ‘Should you not be in Stratton?’

The redcoat displayed his evident consternation with a frown of deep lines that travelled all the way up to his receding widow’s peak. ‘L’tenant Burton told me to stay put, sir.’

Stryker’s heart almost stopped. He gritted his teeth, feeling his gums ache. ‘Why, Musketeer Abbott?’

Abbott’s gaze, hitherto fixed on some faraway point, suddenly focussed on his captain’s single grey eye. ‘’Cause he was goin’ down there ’iself, sir. Far as I could gather. Didn’t you know?’

Stryker’s mind began to reel, but, just as he had got to grips with his lieutenant’s rash insubordination, a solitary cry rippled out across the sandy encampment. Something about the sound jarred, because the shout, far from being the usual dawn chorus to rouse half-drunk or march-weary troops, did not ring true. It was louder and more shrill than those he had become inured to. Someone further along the dense hedge was desperately raising an alarm.

Stryker squinted to a point at the hedgerow where a man in morion helmet, breastplate, and jangling tassets was pointing frantically at the thick bushes. Some of his comrades were staring too, following his outstretched arm, and Stryker noticed that they, in turn, were beginning to echo the cry.

‘Jesu,’ a man muttered, appearing at Stryker’s blind left flank. ‘What’s the din?’

Stryker did not bother to look at the speaker. ‘Something’s happening down there, Will.’

Sergeant William Skellen belched, casually tapped a fist against his sternum, and spat a globule of mucus on to the sandy earth. ‘Can’t be the Crop’eads. We’d have seen ’em before now.’

But Stryker wasn’t so sure. An ink-black night had given way to murky daybreak, and he imagined a determined and disciplined force creeping down from Stratton Hill without word or lighted match. Could they have reached this far west without being spotted? He could see nothing definitive at the place where the rapidly frenzied pikemen were gesticulating, so allowed his gaze to rake its way along the hedgerow, resting finally on the portion of tangled branches that ran adjacent to his own company’s section.

‘Oh no,’ he whispered, catching a flash of what looked to be steel through a tiny gap in the foliage.

‘Sir?’ Skellen prompted cautiously. ‘What d’you see?’

Stryker stared at the hedge for what seemed a long time, but could only have been seconds, searching for movement not thirty paces away.

There they were again. Shapes shifting quietly on the far side of the green barricade. He wondered if they were animals at first. Horse or deer or cattle. Perhaps the metallic glint had been a bridle or bit. But then the distinct glow of smouldering match penetrated the tangled branches and his guts began to churn. The shapes were men. Two, a dozen, then a score. Perhaps as many as fifty; snaking along the far side of the natural barrier as though they were part of the mist, their very bodies made from the white miasma. Another shout went up from the Royalist side, someone at the other end of the hedge had seen them too. More shouts. More alarm. But now there were more specks of burning match appearing through the hedge like a sudden swarm of flaming wasps. And then the firing began.

It was a single, hopeful shot that punched through the hedge, whistling harmlessly across the encampment. But then it was joined by a brace more, then half a dozen, then too many to count, crackling in a sporadic volley along the enemy’s side of the deep obstacle, turning leaves and branches to flying mulch, vomiting a new, dirty smoke cloud to overwhelm the mist.

Stryker, like many officers all the way down the Royalist line, began barking frantic orders at his men. There was no cover on the common, save a few sandy dunes, and he quickly understood that his options were limited. Fight or run.

But they could not give up the ground so easily, for if the Parliamentarians held the flat terrain between Bude and Stratton, Hopton’s proposed attack would be over before it began, so he stepped forward, knowing that a lump of lead could burst through the hedge at any moment and hammer the life from him, and began snarling at his men to return fire. A line of wide-eyed musketeers in the red coats of Sir Edmund Mowbray shuffled up on his command, and he berated them for their sluggishness as he set about preparing his own weapon.

Loading the cumbersome long-arm with powder, ball, and wadding may have been a slow process, but it was mercifully uncomplicated. Some drill manuals Stryker had seen would teach up to four-dozen postures, and these would often be taught ad nauseam to raw recruits, but they were designed to show the mechanical prowess of a company. In reality, when a man stood in line with his comrades and was ordered to spit very hell at the enemy, any musketeer worth his salt would know how to prepare and fire his weapon without the need for postures or drill sergeants. He would know – as a matter of pride and of instinct – how to load and prime his piece, to blow on his match till it glowed red, to pick a target and pull the trigger. Anything more complex was unnecessary, and would likely see a man finish the day in a cold pit, dusted with lime. Sure enough, the musketeers arranged to his right and left began offering regular fire. They slammed bullets straight into the hedge, never knowing if the shots found flesh, but always aware of the enemy scuttling this way and that behind the clawing curtain.

It was a strange fight. Muskets were not accurate at the best of times, but here the redcoats could not even take aim. There was nothing for it but to level the barrel at the hedge, ease back the trigger, and hope a Parliament man was unlucky enough to be standing in the ball’s path. The odd disembodied scream told them a toll was being taken. But men fell on the Royalist side too.

Stryker shouldered his musket, trained his eye along the length of the barrel. Blood rushed in his ears, and he felt a thick pulse appear somewhere below the broad mess of scar tissue that cast mottled shapes over the left half of his face.

There it was. Movement. Fleeting but certain on the far side. He let the shot fly, never to know if it had found its elusive mark.

Scores were involved now. Perhaps even hundreds. The musketeers of Devon and Cornwall pouring fire through the hedgerows in a skirmish of pure attrition. The air, so fresh just moments earlier, now stank of sulphur as more and more powder charges ignited to throw lead forth with tongues of flame. It might have been impossible to pick out a definite target through the accidental breastwork, but men died nonetheless, plucked back by shot as it shredded the dense foliage in a shower of greens and browns.

Stryker reloaded his musket, wincing as the air felt suddenly hot beside his cheek. There was no protection here, only the hope that a ball would strike the man next to you, and Stryker tried not to flinch as more bullets spat low and high. Two hit the grass barely more than three paces away, another went clean between his legs and a fourth clanged on the billhook of a halberd wielded by a man some distance to the rear. The pole-arm skittered from the fellow’s grip, bounced as it hit the ground, and he scurried to retrieve it, only to take a musket-ball in the rump. He screamed. No one listened.

Stryker fired his weapon, blinking quickly as his eye was spattered with grit. When his vision cleared, he saw that the huge Royalist line was falling back on the command of bawling officers. He followed suit, drawing his redcoats back so that the range was not deadly, and called for his pikemen to form up into solid blocks. They would charge the hedgerows, slash gaps through which the hard men of Cornwall would stream, and force the rebels back to their looming hill. And then they would follow, surging up the western face in their great columns, cutting the Devon army to bloody pieces and throwing the survivors into the sea.

The Battle of Stratton had begun.

CHAPTER 21

Stratton, Cornwall,
16
May
1643

On the flat summit of the formidable Parliamentarian position, Major-General James Chudleigh, de facto commander of the day’s rebel forces, listened to the distant sounds of musketry from atop his skewbald gelding. It was a surreal experience, to be positioned on the huge vantage point, surrounded by thousands of fresh troops, and clothed in full battle regalia. For the crackling exchange of fire was shrouded by mist and trees, and only a dark pall of gun smoke could be seen to pinpoint the bitter skirmish. It was like being within the battle and yet outside of it. Part of him yearned to be down below, on the unseen common, bloodying his blade as a leader should. He said as much to an aide reining in at his right hand.

‘There’ll be plenty opportunity for that, I fear, General,’ the aide replied dourly. ‘The enemy advances o’er the scrubland to the west.’

Chudleigh stared at the drifting smoke. ‘We have men out there, do we not?’

‘Aye, sir, that we do,’ the aide agreed, ‘but not enough to hold them. Our musketeers have fought well, but the malignants deployed pikes to cut through the hedges and simply overwhelm us. The musketeers fall back even now.’

‘Then Hopton comes.’

‘He does, sir.’

‘It is a brave thing.’

‘A stupid thing, sir.’

Chudleigh hoped so. Prayed so. His position was certainly formidable, demanding that the Royalists fight uphill, carrying pike and musket along the steep, wooded lanes to face the waiting Roundhead ranks on the summit. But the Cornish were a strange breed: one step away from savagery, and ever relishing a fight. He removed his helmet, propping it on his lap, and glanced at the aide. ‘How does Hopton proceed, Cripps?’

Cripps pursed his lips as he totted numbers in his head. ‘Four divisions of foot, sir, each p’raps six hundred strong. A mix of pike and shot. Each appears to have a brace of brass cannon.’ He wrinkled a nose that was crooked from an adolescent break. ‘Nothing to concern us.’

‘Horse?’

‘Seems they’ll loiter in the rear. They’re useless against this hill, so one can only presume Hopton has ’em watching for Sir George.’

Chudleigh nodded gravely. ‘Pray God my father returns swiftly.’ He twisted, saddle creaking, and scanned the land to the south and east. ‘And where is the earl, by Jesu’s wounds?’

Cripps visibly winced. ‘I know not, sir.’

‘My apologies,’ Chudleigh muttered gruffly when he read the discomfort on his aide’s face. ‘You are of the Puritan thought, are you not? Then I will curtail my oaths.’

Just then a rider Chudleigh recognized as one of Stamford’s servants spurred on to the summit from the direction of Stratton, slashing at men with his whip if they stepped into his path. The major-general wheeled his mount round to greet the newcomer. ‘My lord Stamford arrives?’

The servant hauled his grey steed to a snorting halt, doffing his cap. ‘He will be here soon, sir. He is indisposed.’

Chudleigh thumped a fist against the crown of his helmet, making his own mount whinny in complaint. ‘Indisposed? Christ, but he has an escort of seven-score seasoned harquebusiers. I would have them on the field.’

The horseman grimaced. ‘It is the gout, sir.’

Chudleigh spat. ‘A pox on that, sir.’ He patted his right thigh. ‘We all have gout.’

‘But he says to inform you, sir, that he will be on the field in a matter of hours.’

‘Hours?’ Chudleigh exclaimed incredulously. He cupped a hand to his ear, turning the skewbald back to face the west. ‘Do you hear that, you blithering dolt? Musket fire out on the common. The enemy advances now. Not tomorrow, not even this afternoon. Now.’

‘Sir, I—’

‘Be gone with you,’ Chudleigh ordered with a derisive wave, ‘back to your gouty master. Go on! Get out of my sight, sir! Lest I hand you a musket and send you down there!’

Lord Stamford’s servant followed Chudleigh’s outstretched finger to gaze upon the mist-smothered common where small bursts of light flared a fraction of a second at a time within the miasma. For a while he simply stared, unable to tear his gaze away from the strange scene, knowing a battle raged beneath the white blanket. But then he looked back at Chudleigh, nodded briskly,
wrenched hard on his mount’s bridle, and kicked for the south-east.

Chudleigh shook his head scornfully. ‘There is nothing for it. I will assume command.’ He bent to snatch a small flask from his saddlebag, twisted open the cap and tilted back his head to take a lingering draught. The wine, good-quality claret he had taken from Okehampton, brought instant warmth to his throat, reinvigorating him like a mythical elixir. ‘Now, let us prepare to receive these Pope-turds, eh?’