Simon (11 page)

Last night, the New Model had come up close on the heels of the Royalist Army, and bivouacked at Guilsborough, still in the driving rain. It had been creepingly cold, and in the black hour before dawn, when Chaplain Joshua Sprigg had offered up prayers for victory, and a meal of hard biscuit had been doled out to the troops, Simon had not wanted any. There had been a queer cringing in the pit of his stomach, of which he had been desperately ashamed, and the bare idea of food made him feel sick. He had not known what to do with his biscuit, for he could not give it to anyone else without owning to that shameful feeling, and had finally pushed it guiltily inside the breast of his sodden coat. Barnaby, who was beside him, had seen him do it, but most surprisingly had not laughed.

‘Scared?’ Barnaby had demanded in a low voice, close to his ear.

Simon had run his tongue over uncomfortably dry lips.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Well, why shouldn’t you be? It’s your first taste of field action. I’ve been in action a good many times now, and I’m scared stiff.’

‘No?’ said Simon, with a gleam of hope.

‘Bless you!—yes; and I’m not the only one. This is the worst part though, the part that makes your innards crawl; you’ll be as right as a trivet when we get going; we all shall. And look here, Simon—’ Barnaby sounded suddenly embarrassed, almost apologetic.

‘Yes?’

‘It doesn’t matter a straw
being
scared, you know. It’s only when you let it interfere with the job in hand that it starts being something to be ashamed of.’

Somehow that had helped quite a lot, and Simon had fished out his biscuit again, and eaten it with a determined effort, though it turned to sawdust in his mouth. After that there had been no more time to bother about anything save the business in hand. Still in drizzling rain, the camp had broken up and begun to move, column after column swinging away into the darkness. But when the grey dawn came, there had been a bar of sodden primrose low in the west. It had broadened and spread, changing to aquamarine, to clear-washed blue; and by the time they reached Naseby and the baggage-train was left behind, the rain had stopped, and the spirits of the wet chilled Army had lifted to the reborn sunshine of the June morning.

And Barnaby had been right. The waiting in the dark had been the worst part. Simon no longer had to be ashamed for his queasiness; he was filled with a queer eager expectancy, and nothing worse, as he sat his fidgeting mount between the troopers of his Standard Escort, awaiting the order to advance. On either side of him, and behind, were ranged the Regiments of the Right Wing, under Lieutenant-General Cromwell, holding as their natural heritage the place of chief danger and chief honour. To their left were the Foot Regiments of the Centre, under Daddy Skippon; and beyond, Ireton’s command of the Left Wing. The dragoons were out of sight along the curve of the hill; but a good
part of the main battle line was clear to Simon, and a thrill of pride leapt in him as he looked down the great line; seeing the Foot bravely scarlet between the buff and steel of the Cavalry Wings, the Colours and Standards lifting and flowing out on the light wind, brilliant as strange flowers in the sunshine that flashed here and there on the serried ranks of pikes, or a musket barrel or a steel cap.

As the waiting time lengthened, Simon began to notice little things with a crystal sharpness that he had never known before. Small details and oddities never noticed until now, about the backs of the Regiment’s officers out in front. The warmth of the sun on the back of his hand as he held the slender painted Standard-lance. The Standard itself, as he looked up at it, billowing against the sky with quick wind-ripples running through it as through standing wheat. Feathery wind-clouds flecked the blue above it, and a buzzard circled and circled on motionless wings. It was very quiet, up here in this country of rolling downs and shallow vales at the very heart of England. Simon could hear the quietness of it, through the sharp alien sounds of the waiting battle line; a quiet made up of country sounds, familiar and beloved; the mewing of the wheeling buzzard, the soughing of the wind over the hill-crest before him, the distant whit-whit-whit of scythe on wet stone. Somewhere, someone was haymaking. There might be a war in the next field, but a fine day was a fine day, not to be wasted at harvest time. They would be haymaking at home now, up in Twimmaways, Tom and Diggory and the rest; and Polly bringing them out pasties and rough cider in the shady corner under the maytrees. In the old days Amias had always been there too, to help get in the hay . . .

The quiet was ripped apart by the strident challenge of distant trumpets; and Simon tensed in the saddle, as the scouts appeared, falling back over the crest of the hill. Parliamentary trumpets blared in reply, and next instant the whole of Ireton’s Wing had swung forward over the skyline. Drums took up the challenge, and the Foot were moving forward, and the Right Wing with them, up and over the crest. And now for the first time, Simon saw the King’s Army. He looked instinctively for the Royal
Standard, and did not find it, for the King was with his reserves. But if the Lions and Lilies were not yet to be seen, there were other Standards in plenty: those of Sir Marmaduke Langdale on the Left wing, of Sir Jacob Astley in the centre and Prince Rupert on the right, and the flash and flutter of lesser Colours thick between them. For an instant Simon wondered if Amias was carrying one of them, and then there was no more time for wondering. The Royalist Right Wing was already advancing up the near hillside, led by the red-cloaked figure of the Prince himself, and a spearhead of his own wild young Cavalry. Ireton’s troops swept down to meet them, and the two wings rolled together with a formless crash that was more a sense of shock than an actual sound; and from both sides rose a shout that spread all down the lines: ‘Queen Mary! Queen Mary!’ cried the Royalists. ‘God our Strength!’ answered the New Model men, and the two war cries seemed to beat against each other in the air above the swaying battle line.

Cromwell was holding his wing in check, while the oncoming Royalist left drew near. Simon watched them, across the valley and coming uphill at a canter, the sun bright on their naked blades, the tossing plumes, the streaming Standards over all. Nearer and nearer yet! Simon’s Standard hand was clenched so tightly on the lance that the knuckles shone white as bare bone. Would the order to charge never come? What is he waiting for?—Now!
Now
or it will be too late!

The enemy were half-way up the slope when at last Cromwell loosed Walley’s Regiment down against them. The squadrons swung forward at the trot, their ranks curving a little, then straightening again. Simon saw them check to fire their pistols at point-blank range, and then fall on with the sword. Langdale’s Horse met them valiantly, and instantly a desperate struggle was in progress, and Walley’s reserves were charging down to join it.

Away to the left, a confused roar was swelling and growing ragged with the raggedness that means a running fight. But for Simon there was only the conflict directly below him; and there, the enemy were giving ground! And suddenly, above the ragged musketry and the roar of battle, the trumpets of Fairfax’s Horse were yelping.

‘Charge!’

‘This is it! This is
us
!’ The kettle-drums began to roll; Simon touched his heel to Scarlet’s flank, and felt the horse gather and slip forward under him as the long ranks quickened into life. ‘Oh, God of Battles, strengthen now our arms!’ his heart lifted in wild excitement. This was the real thing, the charge that had been practised so often in the meadows at Windsor. He felt his knees touch against those of the men on either side of him, as they moved forward and down at the trot. The ranks curved and grew ragged, then closed again. The ground before the Right Wing was mostly rabbit warren, hummocky and patched with gorse. Gruelling ground to charge on; but Cromwell had known that when the battle line was formed, and trusted them to get through somehow.

Forward and down at the trot—look out for rabbit holes and try to keep station—can’t fail Old Noll.

So with rolling kettle-drums and wind-whipped Standards, the Right Wing charged home. ‘God our Strength!’ Simon heard his own voice above the tumult, shouting at the full force of his lungs, as, following Barnaby, he drove straight into the reeling mass of the Royalist Cavalry.

But Walley’s charge had done its work, and already the Royalist Wing was crumbling. Now came this new charge, and before it, despite a valiant resistance, they began to fall back. Soon there was no longer a solid battle line, only a chain of skirmishes. Simon found himself and his Standard Escort cleaving into them, with the Troop thundering at Scarlet’s heels. ‘God our Strength! Follow the Standard!’ All around him were battling figures, upreared horses’ heads, and a raving, roaring turmoil that seemed to engulf him like a sea. There was a thick mingled smell in his nostrils, of burned powder and blood and sweating horses. He ploughed on holding the Standard aloft, and found, with a vague surprise, that the press was thinning out. The Royalists were falling back faster now. Langdale’s Horse was just about finished. Simon ranged up beside Barnaby, who yelled to him, ‘Done it, by the Lord Harry!’ before they were thrust apart once more.

Then quite suddenly the first stage of the battle was over.
Walley had been left to finish with Langdale’s Horse, and Cromwell was leading his remaining regiments against the King’s reserves. Simon was riding hard, close behind the Lieutenant-General himself. Corporal Relf, almost at his elbow, was shouting whole verses from Isaiah as a kind of battle hymn.

He saw the Royal Standard now. It swelled brilliant on his sight. But the shock of the charge-home never came.
Something had happened to the King’s reserves; they were falling into confusion, streaming away northward. Simon could not know that when the King would have led his troops in a counter-charge, Lord Cornworth had seized his bridle, crying, ‘Will you go upon your death, sire?’ He could not know of the strange confusion of orders that had caused the reserves to turn tail, sweeping the King with them into headlong flight. He only knew that the Royal Standard was in retreat, the Royalist chivalry gone like a dissolving dream.

Cromwell swung his squadrons back to the main business of the day.

Things had gone ill with the Left Wing; indeed they had come almost to complete disaster. Ireton had been wounded and taken captive near the outset, and Prince Rupert and his wild riders had broken clear through and charged away over the skyline, driving the remnant before them.

Daddy Skippon also was wounded, and though refusing to leave the field, was out of action to all intents and purposes; and the Foot, lacking their leader, and with their left flank exposed by Ireton’s break, began to crumble too. The Left Centre gave ground and could not be rallied, and the Royalists broke through and flung themselves against the three veteran regiments of Pride, Hammond and Rainsborough, in the reserve. Only the superb steadiness of those three saved the day; that, and the flaming example of Fairfax himself, who had by that time lost his helmet and most of his staff, and was fighting like any berserk trooper at the head of a valiant company who had somehow gathered to his reeling Standard.

The fight was still raging when Cromwell brought his flying squadrons down against the exposed flank of the Royalist Foot. At the same time, Colonel Okey’s Dragoons came against their other flank; and the remnant of Ireton’s Wing, which had by now rallied, led by Ireton himself, who had escaped within half an hour of being captured, took them in the rear. The Royalists fought gallantly, dying where they stood. Prince Rupert, who had allowed his charge to carry him as far as the baggage lines at Naseby and been driven off by the musket-fire of the Escort, returned with his blown horses to find the battle hopelessly lost.

Having been away too long, he did the best thing he could, joining the King and forming a new Cavalry line, north of the old one. But the heart was gone from the Royalist troops; and when Fairfax, also re-forming, charged once more with terrible cavalry-wings outspread, Simon saw again that oddly pitiful sight of a battle line crumbling as a sand-wall crumbles before the incoming tide.

‘They run! God our Strength! They run!’ The triumphant shout spread through the victorious army; and the pursuit broke forward, and swept yelling after them.

In the forefront of the chase, Simon was riding hard. He felt the wind of his going whip back the Standard on its lance, and send Scarlet’s mane spraying over his bridle-hand, as the horse leapt forward, snorting, in answer to the spur and the urging voice; he heard the hooves of his Troop drumming at full gallop over the downland turf behind him. But suddenly the exultation was gone. Simon had always disliked hunting anything, and hard-pressed fox or beaten army, it made no difference. He hated it now.

Behind them, in the wide upland valley that had so lately been a battle-field, the prisoners were being rounded up, and the Royalist baggage-wagons brought in to serve the wounded, and the camp-followers were busy. It was not yet noon of a day that was still lovely, and the June sun shone warmly, gently, on the dead of two English armies, who lay tumbled uncouthly among the thyme and the little white honey-clover of the downland turf, here at the heart of England. High overhead, the buzzard still wheeled, mewing, on motionless wings; and on every side the coloured counties fell away in shallow vales and hazy woodland, and little fields where the hay harvest was in full swing.

AFTER FOURTEEN MILES
of hard riding, Cromwell called off the pursuit. The Regiments turned aside and came, towards evening, down into a village in a hollow of the green Leicestershire hills: troopers who, now that the excitement of the chase was over, were utterly spent, on horses suddenly foundering. They descended upon the sleepy place like a swarm of bees on to an apple-branch, and dropped from their saddles in the fields all round it, too tired even to notice the presence of the gaping villagers.