By the Sword (20 page)

Another evening at the Commandery had ended in bickering and Jonathan trudged wearily back up Friers Street to his billet. Tomorrow would be September 3rd, exactly one year since Dunbar. Cromwell was known to be a superstitious man and his incredible deliverance at Dunbar would point auspiciously to another success if battle were to be brought on the same day.

In the downstairs parlour of the large, half-timbered house, Giles played cards with an old companion from their younger days, a daredevil of an infantry officer called Kit Lovell, who had recently joined them. They were both fiendish card players and Jonathan declined their invitation to join them.

He left orders with his orderly that he was only to be disturbed if Cromwell attacked, undid his sword belt, took off his boots and fell still fully clothed on to his bed. Despite his utter weariness, sleep did not come easily as he played out the events of the morrow. The outcome of the battle seemed such a foregone conclusion that death seemed inevitable, and he knew with utter certainty that he did not want to die. For the first time he felt there were people in his life who would really mourn him. Not that he had been deliberately careless of his life in the past, but he had known that while his family would be sad and grieve for a while, his death would have been viewed with inescapability rather than a sense of loss.

When sleep came he dreamed of Kate in deepest mourning, weeping. He woke with a start and lay awake staring at the dusty bed hanging above him. For the first time in his life, Jonathan Thornton admitted to himself that he was afraid.

He rose and pulled his boots back on. Downstairs in the parlour Giles and Kit Lovell still played cards. Jonathan pulled up a chair, and Giles dealt him a hand.

"Can't sleep?” Giles asked.

"No.” Jonathan scowled at the cards. “Christ, Giles, did you deliberately deal me this hand or are you determined to take every last coin I own?"

Giles smiled. “Jon, I would never deal you a poor hand!"

No but fate might
, Jonathan thought as he set out his wager.

"Can I play?"

The men looked up at the eager youngster in an old buff coat that had been made for a much larger man.

"Only if you have a large purse and a resignation to losing,” Jonathan said. “These two are notorious at cards."

The boy pulled up a stool beside Lovell and picked up the cards Giles dealt him.

"I thought I told you to get some sleep,” Kit said tersely, addressing the youngster, without looking at him.

"Belong to you, does he?” Giles said.

"My brother, Daniel,” Lovell said and waved at Giles and Jonathan. “Viscount Longley, Colonel Thornton."

Giles rolled his eyes. “Why in God's name did you bring him, Lovell?” he said.

"He followed me,” Lovell replied. “His mother will hold me responsible if anything happens to him and, God knows, I fear her wrath more than Cromwell, but what could I do?"

"This may be my last chance!” the boy said eagerly.

"Your last chance for what?” Giles asked. “Getting yourself killed?"

"Everyone else has had their chance. I've always missed out. I've always been too young,” the boy said in an almost petulant tone as if he had been denied an outing.

Kit laid his cards down and fixed his brother with a hard look. “You don't see do you?” he said. “You're the last of us with any hope. Everyone else, as you so neatly put it, has had their chance and are either dead or ... look at us...” He waved his hand at the men seated around the table. “...what future do we have? But you can still make something of your life."

"You were my age when you went to war, all of you,” Daniel looked around the table.

"True,” Giles conceded.

"But we had hope,” Jonathan said.

"We're not going to lose!” Daniel declared. “We'll fight for the glory and the honour,” he continued, oblivious to the cynical silence of his audience.

Jonathan considered the boy for a moment, seeing himself in the youthful idealism, but wanting desperately to prevent the futile loss of another life. “Daniel, war has nothing to do with glory and honour,” he said slowly. “Have you ever smelt the stench of death? Have you ever seen a man with his guts hanging out and still living or a man with his face shot away? Have you watched a friend die of gangrene?"

He knew he his words were brutal and Daniel paled and swallowed. “I was there when they took our home,” he said. “I saw men die. I saw my father...” he tailed off.

Kit laid down his cards and put a hand on his brother's shoulder and said gently. “Dan, there'll be a battle tomorrow and you'll be more use to us well rested. Go upstairs and see what sleep you can get. I'll not be long."

The boy set his hand of cards down on the table. “Tomorrow?"

"For certes,” Giles said.

Daniel looked at his brother who nodded. “Tomorrow,” Lovell repeated with absolute certainty.

"I think I will try and get some sleep,” Daniel said. He stood and bowed.

"Do that, lad,” Giles said. “Tomorrow is going to be a busy day."

Jonathan awoke to the sound of bombardment as Cromwell's guns, positioned on Red Hill to the east of the city, sounded out. With practice born of long experience he was dressed and ready and halfway down the stairs as Giles emerged still half asleep.

They encountered Kit Lovell, fully dressed and armed, at the door. Beside him, his brother, looking pale and uncertain in his borrowed buff coat and unfamiliar breastplate and helmet, gave Jonathan a watery smile.

"The word is that Cromwell is throwing boats of bridges across the Teme and the Severn,” Lovell said.

Jonathan clapped the boy on the shoulder. “Ready, lad?"

Daniel nodded, his helmet slipping down into his eyes. Jonathan caught Lovell's eyes and saw the grim look of desperation. He would have given anything to have the boy as far from the battle as he could.

"This is it, gentlemen!” Lovell loosened his sword and stepped into the street. He looked back at them and tipped his fingers to his helmet in salute. “God be with us all this day!"

As soldiers dashed to their positions, the Scots’ guns on Fort Royal gave answer to Cromwell's guns on Red Hill. Jonathan and Giles and strode off down Friers Street in the direction of the cathedral where the King would have taken up his position. They found the King very much awake and eager for the fray, leaning over the wall of the Cathedral tower with a telescope trained on the action well to the south of the city.

From his vantage point the King had a clear view to all points of the compass. He handed Jonathan the telescope but even without it Jonathan could see that Cromwell had divided his forces; a manoeuvre that went against every precept of war. Half the forces had been set to cross the river and were engaged in constructing a bridge of boats to the south of the city. The other half waited on the heights of Perry Wood to the east of the city.

Jonathan scanned the fields for the King's forces. He saw part of the Scots army to the south, strongly positioned behind hedgerows, apparently waiting for the boat bridges to be completed and the army of Parliament to cross. The bulk of the King's forces appeared to still remain within the city walls.

"What do you think?” the King asked.

Jonathan looked around at the surly faces of those older and more experienced than he. “I think,” he said slowly, “that Cromwell is at his most vulnerable whilst he is crossing those bridges. Attack now and attack fast and we could push them back."

"Your Majesty is advised to wait,” the thick Scottish burr of David Leslie interposed. “My men will hold them back at the hedges."

Other voices chimed in with their own suggestions, and with dull resignation, Jonathan retreated to where Giles propped against the wall enjoying a rough breakfast of bread and cheese.

"The day is lost even before it has begun,” Jonathan said quietly, accepting the food Giles handed him. For once Giles did not have a sharp rejoinder. His eyes met Jonathan's in silent agreement.

Cromwell crossed the river without interference and by early afternoon all the Parliament forces had completed the crossing. Incredibly they were able to muster themselves for the first attack, throwing themselves at the Scottish defenders who had done nothing to that moment except watch as the enemy gathered against them. To their credit the Scots resisted stoutly, forcing Cromwell to deploy more of his men to assist in the fighting. This move depleted his force to the east.

A cheer went up from the watchers on the cathedral as they saw the parliamentary troops begin to move.

"Your Majesty now is your chance.” The Earl of Derby leant forward. “If we could sally out and take the guns on the hill, this battle could yet turn to our advantage."

The King looked from one to the other; for once they were all in agreement.

"I will lead the men myself,” the King declared. “Horse or foot?"

"Foot will be more effective.” Derby's response was assented to with a nod of heads.

"Very well.” The King turned to the grizzled Scot “Leslie, keep your horse in reserve and press home the advantage."

"As Your Majesty orders.” Leslie bowed low and was gone.

The King looked around his assembled officers and squared his shoulders. “Well, gentlemen, to the fray!"

The orders were given and, as is always the way with war, the inactivity in the city gave way to frantic commotion as the King's men flooded out of Sidbury Gate. Covered by their own guns on Fort Royal they charged, on foot, up Red Hill towards the parliamentary guns, with the King and his officers in the thick of the charge.

Once the action began there was no time for fear or any thought except survival. All that long, hot afternoon the Royalists pushed onwards; pike against pike, muskets used as clubs. Slowly, inexorably, they took the objective. But their triumph would be short-lived.

Cromwell left the now triumphant Fleetwood in the south, and his cavalry recrossed the river to attack the defenders on the hill in the flank. Cromwell's superb cavalry hit fast and brutally. The exhausted and insufficiently armed royalists were no match against the heavily armed and highly efficient cavalry. The King called for Leslie's horse but none came. Leslie, it seemed, had failed his King completely.

Any hope of rallying his men disappeared in the face of Cromwell's cavalry, and Jonathan's concerns now became two-fold: his own, and his King's, safety had to be assured and, he admitted grimly to himself, not necessarily in that order. Finding himself momentarily in a lull in the battle, he looked around for Giles and saw him, without his helmet, standing dazed in the path of a Parliament trooper.

Jonathan managed to reach his friend and push him aside just as the trooper slashed down with his sword. The razor-sharp blade caught Jonathan across the back of his hand, slashing through the heavy leather of his glove. The man turned, bearing down on them both. Jonathan seized a primed pistol from a dead Scot at his feet and fired. The trooper's face exploded in mass of blood and he toppled, screaming, from his horse.

Jonathan turned to look at Giles, who had recovered his feet and his wits, although bleeding profusely from a cut above his eye.

"We must find the King and get back to the city,” Jonathan yelled above the noise.

Giles nodded and pointed. “He's over there where the fighting is heaviest."

They forced their way through to the centre of the fray where the King still tried to rally his men.

"It's hopeless, Your Majesty. We must flee,” Giles said.

Charles looked from one to the other, reading his defeat in their faces. He nodded and turned for the illusory safety of the city walls. Behind him the royalists tumbled down the hill with Cromwell's troopers bearing down relentlessly upon them.

His breath searing in his throat, Jonathan ran with the others. The guns on Fort Royal thundered impotently as the scattered remains of the King's Army headed for Sidbury Gate from where they had come in such high hopes only a few hours earlier. The parliament guns were brought to bear on the gate, turning the retreat into wholesale slaughter.

Amidst the screaming of man and beast, the carnage of blood and guts and with shot pounding into the walls and the city, the King managed to get back through the gate. Jonathan followed through the confusion, scrambling over an overturned oxen cart to reach his King.

The King had called for a horse and, stripping off his amour, rode amongst his panicking men, urging them on. He was an inspirational sight but it was too late. The Duke of Hamilton's men had nothing left and of Leslie there was still no sight. Fort Royal had fallen and its guns were now trained on the city. Cromwell's exultant troops were at the gates and the King's men could not even be rallied to shut the gate against the invaders

Jonathan and Giles fought shoulder to shoulder, protecting their King, but after a hard day, they were tiring. Lord Wilmot, one of the King's closest advisers, hatless and dirty, tugged at Jonathan's sleeve.

"Thornton.” Wilmot shouted above the noise, his voice dry and hoarse. “You know this country; we have to get the King away."

"Go, Jon.” Giles rasped. “I'll cover your retreat."

Wilmot pulled at Jonathan and they both ran up Friers Street, towards the King's lodging. Jonathan took only one look back to see Giles, fighting like a virago, a small defence against the mass of red-coated soldiers who now flooded into the city from all gates except one: Martin's Gate stood close by the King's lodging and was as yet unbreached.

They found the King within his lodgings, watching uncomprehendingly as Buckingham burned papers on a hastily lit fire.

"We must go, Your Majesty,” Wilmot said.

The King looked up at his old friend and advisor. “Leslie will come,” he insisted. “We will rally again!"

"No, Your Majesty,” Buckingham spoke. “It's too late. Leslie has failed us, Hamilton is fallen. We must away while we still have breath in our bodies."

The noise of the fighting, drawing closer up the street, brought the King to his feet. With the Parliament's soldiers at the front door of the house, the King and his party left by the back. Taking the nearest horses they fled, at a hard gallop, through St. Martin's Gate, the gate that led the way to the north.