XVI
‘Emanuel, God With Us!’
THREE DAYS LATER, Simon had gone down after the midday meal to see that all was well in the lambing-pens. Sanctuary was very full of new life, and the air shrill with the babble of newborn lambs and the song of a triumphant blackbird in the topmost branch of the budding spinney; and Simon, turning to look for the singer, saw a tall, fantastic figure with a fiddle under one arm, leaning on the gate into the lane.
He flung up his arm in greeting, and whistling Ship to heel, headed for the gate where the other waited for him very peacefully, leaning on the top bar. ‘Pentecost! What are you doing up this way?’
‘Come looking for you,’ Pentecost Fiddler said. There were a few pale dog-violets stuck in his battered hat, and he stooped to fondle Ship’s woolly head.
‘But how did you know I was here? I haven’t exactly shouted it from the tree-tops, like the blackbird yonder.’
‘There’s precious little happens a’twixt Beaford and Hartland that I don’t know about,’ said Pentecost, simply. ‘And I’ve got some news for ’ee.’
‘Yes?’
‘Parlyment troops gathering in Stevenstone Park.’
Simon, who had opened the gate and joined the fiddler in the lane, closed it behind him and dropped the iron pin into place, because it had been inbred in him, as in all countrymen, that one does not leave field gates open, though the heavens fall.
‘Horse or Foot?’ he demanded as they turned towards the house. ‘You’re sure they are Parliament men? When did they get there, Pentecost?’
‘Horse,’ said Pentecost. ‘But there’ll be Foot to follow, or I’m a Don; and they’re Parlyment all right, leastwise they drove out Hopton’s Dragoons that were holding the house. Not much above an hour gone, that were, and I come straight to tell you.’
‘What were you doing in Stevenstone?’ asked Simon, when they reached the gatehouse and came to a halt before it.
‘Playing me fiddle.’
‘To the Royalist Dragoons?’
‘They pay,’ said Pentecost, with his old mocking smile curling his long mouth. ‘Sometimes they pay, anyhow.’
Simon laughed. ‘You’re a disgrace. Come in and have something to eat.’
‘No. I’ll be on my way back. You’re off at once, I reckon?’
There was an instant’s pause, while Simon made his decision. He had received no recall, but it was not at all likely that he would, and he could do no good by remaining here any longer. Major Watson had said that in such a case he was to make his own decision. ‘Yes, I’ll be off at once,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the news, Pentecost.’
The fiddler’s mocking smile narrowed his eyes. He turned away, calling back over his shoulder, ‘Good luck to ’ee. You’re going to have fine weather for your battle, seemingly,’ and he pointed up at the clear milky blueness of the February sky.
‘Oh, aye; heron was flying downstream this morning,’ Simon called after him. Then he turned into the courtyard, shouting for Tom to get Scarlet saddled up; and went indoors, to be met by his mother coming from the still-room with Mouse behind her.
‘Was that Pentecost Fiddler I saw you talking to just now?’ asked his mother.
‘Yes, he came to tell me our Horse are gathering at Stevenstone. Tom is saddling Scarlet for me now, and I’ll be off as soon as he’s done,’ Simon said, and ran upstairs without waiting for any reply.
A few moments later he came clattering down again, carrying his pistol-holsters in one hand and his spurred riding-boots in the other. Mouse and his mother were awaiting him in the hall, Mouse holding his grandfather’s sword, and his mother in the act of setting a well-filled wallet on the chest by the door.
‘You’ll need some food, my dear,’ she said.
‘Thanks, Mother.’ He sat down on the chest to pull his boots on. ‘Oh, Jillot, go away!’
‘There’s Scarlet. Tom’s bringing him round now,’ said Mouse, who had gone to the door; then, as Simon got up, ‘Here’s your sword—stand still and I’ll put it on for you.’
In an unbelievably short time he was ready to go, and had turned about beside Scarlet to take his leave of them. ‘Good-bye, Mother, good-bye, Mouse.’ He hugged them both, and his mother drew down his face and kissed him on the forehead.
‘God speed you, Simon,’ she said. ‘We shall be praying, Mouse and I, for you, and for our Army’s victory.’
‘Yes, do,’ Simon said eagerly. ‘Pray for all you’re worth; we shall need it. The Royalists haven’t much discipline, but there are a lot of them, and they’re in a strong position. Bless you, both of you.’ He turned away, and taking the reins from Tom, swung into the saddle. ‘If Father gets home before I do, give him my love and my duty; and tell him—and tell him I’m hidjus proud of him,’ he called.
Scarlet, not having been out that day, was only too eager to start, and sprang forward as soon as he was given his head, sidling and prancing like an unbroken colt. Simon swung him out through the gatehouse, turning in the saddle to wave to the two in the doorway, who waved in return. Then he sent Scarlet at a canter up the wagon-way, and never looked back. The queer quiet-surfaced weeks were behind him, and he was riding out into the open storm again; and in time to the beat of Scarlet’s flying hooves, his heart seemed to quicken into a jumping expectancy.
Up on the high moors, when he reached them, the light wind came soughing in from the sea, cold and thin, smelling of bog and wet moss and the thin February sunshine. From the edge of the ridge-road, the land dropped away, rising and falling in moor and coppice, brown plough and green fallow, to the ten-mile-distant sea. And looking seaward, as he always did when he passed that way, Simon saw the whole sweep of the bay from Morte Point round to Hartland, and Lundy floating cloud-wise, dream-wise, where sea and sky came together. He wondered when he would see that sweep of coast again.
After half a mile he turned off down a by-lane, and the distant bay dropped away behind the skyline, and the moors were left behind. Presently he turned in between the granite gate-posts of Stevenstone Park, and instantly ran into a vedette of Ireton’s Horse posted just inside. He reined in, as one of the two men wheeled across his track and demanded his business.
‘I am an officer of Fairfax’s Horse, returning to duty. But first I have to report to Major Watson. Can you tell me where I shall find him?’
The man looked him up and down, taking in the homespun doublet, and the ancient sword at his hip, and said doubtfully, ‘That may be, sir; but you don’t look much like it.’
‘Look.’ Simon pulled off his hat. ‘I have been recovering from this gash, at my home near here, and now I am returning to duty. I was wounded at the assault on Okeham Paine, on December the twelfth. Now will you tell me where I can find Major Watson?’
The second man urged his horse a pace nearer. ‘What was the watchword for that night, sir?’
‘The Lord shall deliver Israel,’ said Simon, ‘and the sign, a white kerchief round the left arm.’
‘He’s all right, Jerry,’ said the second man. ‘I’d go straight up to the house, sir, if I was you, and ask again. He’s bound to be about there somewheres.’
The two men reined back into the shadow of the oak spinney beside the gate, and Simon rode on. He had never been in Stevenstone before, for Lord Henry Rolle was an ardent Royalist, and even in the days before the war he had had no truck with the Puritan gentry of the country round. But the paths were clear to follow, and he had not gone far when he came upon two troops of Walley’s Regiment, and a few yards farther on, rounding a dark mass of holly and ilex, he saw the great house before him, its mellow red brick warm as a ripe apricot against the darkness of the trees, and the sloping turf round it alive with men and horses under the great oaks of the deer park. Evidently the Foot had begun to arrive, for their red coats flecked the wintry turf with colour, among the drab masses of the Horse. He rode on, followed here and there by a glance of curiosity or recognition; and asking his way again, first from a passing com
missariat sergeant and then from a dragoon, finally ran Major Watson to earth in an outhouse, where he was questioning a prisoner about the town defence.
He raised his brows and blinked mildly at Simon when he appeared. ‘Yes, Cornet Carey?’
‘I had word an hour ago that you were here, sir,’ Simon said hurriedly. ‘So I came to report, and for your orders.’
‘So I see. Well, you have done the job I sent you to do, and done it efficiently. I’ve no further use for you, and your report can wait a fitter season. Get along back to your Regiment.’
‘Where shall I find them, sir?’
‘Half a mile west of here, towards the townward gate.’
Simon collected Scarlet from the dragoon in whose charge he had left him and set out once more. He was thankful not to have to make his report until Podbury had had time to make his. Until that happened, he was not sure what to say; and it might even be that Zeal would change his mind and come in with the scout, after all. But he knew in his heart of hearts that that would not happen.
The General’s Horse, when he found them, were bivouacked in the lea of a great curve of ilex, and looked as if they had been there for some time, for the horses were picketed and cropping contentedly at the grass which belonged by rights to Lord Rolle’s deer; and each troop, gathered about its own Standard set upright in the ground, was checking equipment in readiness for action.
Simon picked out Disbrow’s Troop easily enough, and dismounting, saluted his Lieutenant. ‘Cornet Carey, reporting back for duty, sir.’
Barnaby Colebourne swung round on him. ‘What the—Simon!’
‘Reporting back for duty, sir,’ Simon repeated.
A broad smile spread on the other’s face. ‘This beats cock-fighting! I hoped you’d turn up, but—’ Then he too looked Simon up and down. ‘You look like Guido Fawkes, or Don Quixote! You can’t go into action like that; you’ll be cut to pieces, or shot by one of our own men, and I wouldn’t blame them.’
Simon grinned. ‘It can’t be helped.’
‘Yes, it can, though. Nothing is going to happen for hours yet, and you’ll have plenty of time. Trooper Wagstaff was hit in the leg this morning, and he’s out of the fight. Go up to the house and take over his equipment. We’ll see to Scarlet.’
So back to the house went Simon, hotfoot, and mounted the steps of the terrace, where the winter jessamine sent a cascade of yellow stars over the low stone parapet, and Fairfax himself with a group of senior officers stood talking earnestly and watching the mustering troops in the deerpark below. A sentry passed him through, and told him where the wounded were bestowed; and a few minutes later he was out again, wearing Trooper Wagstaff’s buff coat, luckily not much too big for him, and steel cap, and knotting a borrowed crimson sword-scarf about his middle as he went.
By the time he had rejoined his Troop, where Scarlet was now unsaddled and picketed, and enjoying his measure of corn with the rest, most of the troops had arrived, and were making an evening meal of the usual hard biscuit and strong yellow cheese which each man carried in his knapsack. Simon, investigating the wallet his mother had given him, found two large pasties in it; and he and Barnaby ate them, standing under a group of slender birch trees that were already flushed with the purple bloom of rising sap.
‘What about Exeter?’ Simon asked.
‘Siege abandoned for the moment,’ said Barnaby, with his mouth full, ‘except for a few regiments left to watch like a terrier at a rabbit-hole.’ He took another large bite of pasty. ‘We marched from Chulmeligh at four o’clock s’morning, and there hasn’t been much time for eating since.’
Simon had laid down his pasty and was fastening into his steel cap the sprig of furze which one of his troopers had given him. ‘Why furze?’ he demanded. ‘A kerchief round one arm shows up better and doesn’t—make one’s fingers bleed,’ for one of the sharp prickles had stuck into him.
‘Question not the wisdom of your superiors,’ Barnaby told him. ‘We might have had to go into action with our shirts hanging out behind. I did that once. The idea was that if you turned round, your white scut didn’t show any more, and your own men shot you in mistake for one of the enemy. Ingenious, that.’
They finished their meal in leisurely fashion talking over the prospects for tomorrow’s engagement. They were sure that it would be tomorrow’s, for at four o’clock on a winter’s afternoon, with an Army tired after a full day’s march, it did not seem likely that the General could have planned anything more than an advance skirmish for that night. The whole Army was mustered by now, and all across the deerpark the regiments were bivouacking, drawn up in battle order; and as the light thickened and faded, and the cold increased, many watch-fires began to glow, sending up great plumes of smoke into the sky, that was now clear and colourless as crystal above the bare trees. Here and there a man laughed or called to a comrade, or a horse whinnied. The rooks were flying home, cawing as they flapped overhead on lazy wings.
It was a peaceful scene, and nobody, looking out over it as Simon and Barnaby were doing, could have guessed that within a few hours one of the last battles of the Civil War would be raging round the barricades of Torrington.
In the first stage of the fighting, when it came, the General’s Horse had no part. About five o’clock some scouts—a Forlorn of Foot—was sent out towards the town to reconnoitre and were met half-way by Royalist Foot. There was a sharp skirmish across the fields in the deepening twilight, and Lord Hopton, finding he could not hold the outposts, ordered his men closer in to the town defences.
Fairfax, judging that nothing more was needful for that night but to strengthen the positions gained, moved his men down into the townward end of the deer park, and stationed them in readiness for a general assault at dawn. Quietness settled down over the park and fields, save for the regular coming and going of the sentries between the watch-fires, and the low exchange of the watchword, ‘Emanuel, God with us,’ when patrols met.
But an hour later, through the frosty quiet, came the distant sound of a tattoo beating in the town. Attack, or retreat, which did it mean? Fairfax ordered a company of dragoons forward to the barricades to find out. The dragoons advanced down the road to the first barriers, and were met by a sharp volley from the Royalist musketeers lying in wait for them. Two more dragoon companies galloped down to their support, and the reserves of Foot, without waiting for orders, charged cheering after them. It was a valiant charge, but quite hopeless; and if more help did not quickly reach the troops at the barricades, they were going to be cut to pieces.
All this Simon heard afterwards, but at the time he knew only that something unexpected was happening; that dark regiments had gone past him at the double heading for the town, and that now the whole Army had been stood to arms. The quietness over the deerpark had frozen into a tense waiting silence, broken from time to time by the faint rattle of musketry from the town defences. And Simon, standing beside Scarlet in the midst of his Troop while the slow minutes crawled by, heard his own heart drubbing slowly, and the silken whisper of the Standard above his head as the light wind stirred it. It was very cold, with a bitter smell of frost in the air; overhead the sky had changed from crystal to a wonderful clear green, splintered with stars, and in the east the pearly glimmer of moonrise was spreading behind the black shapes of the trees.
‘Parish Lantern’s getting up. We’ll have plenty of light presently,’ Barnaby muttered over his shoulder.
‘Yes,’ Simon murmured back. ‘Hullo! what’s that?’
‘Only an owl. Call yourself a countryman and don’t know an owl when you hear one!’
‘No, not that—it’s a horse—someone in a hurry. Listen!’
They listened, and a few moments later they could all hear it: the sound of a horse being ridden at a furious gallop. They heard the hoof-beats ringing nearer and nearer up the frost-hardened bridle-way, until the wild rider swept past them on towards the house. Silence followed, a tingling silence that ended in another burst of hoof-be
ats, this time from the direction of the house, and a knot of horsemen loomed up through the darkness. One of the riders gave an order; and at the sound of his voice, the General’s Own knew that Fiery Tom himself was at their head. Next instant the trumpets sounded monte cavalo!
Moving as one man, the troopers swung into the saddle. Simon felt the familiar balance of the Standard in his hand, and settled his feet into the stirrups, conscious of Scarlet’s excitement thrilling through them both, as the troopers of his Standard Escort closed up on either side of him. Then the trumpets sang again, and five troops of Horse, with Fairfax at their head, were sweeping down at a purposeful trot towards the town, while three regiments of Foot, their drums rolling, swung forward to join them.
The park palings had been levelled on either side of the townward gate, making a wide gap for the advance of troops, and in a few minutes the whole force was out into the road and the open fields on either side. The moon was clear of the trees now, and sailing up into the glimmering sky, and hedge and tree sparkled with thickening hoar-frost, and the shadow of every man’s head was blotted darkly on the moon-silvered shoulders of the man before him. A clear white night, and a moon that seemed disdainfully remote from the battle which was now raging all along the town defences, where King’s man and Parliament’s man struggled for every fortified hedge.
And into the conflict plunged the three regiments, with Fairfax at their head, the Cavalry wings spreading out on either side. Simon, in the main Cavalry wing, swung north to engage Lord Wentworth’s Horse, which had swept round the town from the Commons; and for a while he knew nothing but a wild wheeling and flurry of Horse across the moon-drenched field, and the shock of charge and counter-charge, and had no idea how the main battle was going.
But after a time it seemed to him that the whole fight was drawing inward; and he realized that the Royalists were being driven back. Slowly, from hedge to hedge, from barrier to barrier, fighting for every yard of ground, they were falling in on their last lines of defence. The final barricades were reached at last, and without any clear idea how he got there, Simon found himself and most of his troop caught up in a fierce struggle for the barrier of piled tree-trunks across the mouth of Calf Street. The moonlight here was quenched, and the sky above the roof-tops darkened by contrast with the leaping light of flames, for somebody had fired the barricade, and the faces of defenders and attackers alike were lit by a fiendish red glare. The fighting was too close and quick for shooting now, and the men surging to and fro fought with their musket-butts, which rose and fell club-wise among the thrusting pikes.