Martin Hyde (20 page)

CHAPTER XVIII

I SPEAK
WITH
AURELIA

T
HE
next thing which I remember was coming out of the mob with the waggons just behind me, going at a smart pace to a position on the army's right. The road was pretty full of all sorts of people; but as we shouted for them to clear the way, they made a lane for us. I saw the Duke's little clump of staff-officers on a pitch of rising ground; but there was no firing; only a noise of many voices singing. Just as we were about to turn off the road into the fields behind our right wing, I saw the little old lame puppet-man sitting on a donkey by the ditch at the side of the road. I shouted to the drivers to pass on, which they did, at full tilt, while I drew rein by the old man's side. "Aurelia," I said, "this is no place for you. Do get away from here before they find you out."

"Why," she said, very calmly, in the broad burring man's voice which she imitated so exactly. "I be come 'ere to find you out. You'm going to your death, boy. You get out of this 'ere army afore you'm took. I tell ee thy Duke be a doomed man. Look at en's face. Why, boy, there be eleven thousand
soldiers a-marching to put er down. You've only a got a quarter of that lot. Come out of en, boy. Do-an't ee be led wrong." I was touched by her kind thought for me; she was risking her life for me for the second time, but in the hurry of the moment I could not put words together to thank her.

"Aurelia," I said, "I can't talk to you now. Only get out of this. Don't stay here. I'm all right."

"No, Martin," she said, in her ordinary voice, "you're not all right. Come out of this. Slip away tonight to Newenham Abbey. It be over there, not more than a couple of miles. Oh, come, come. I can't bear to see you going away to certain death. I
know
that this force cannot win."

"Yes, Aurelia," I answered. "But I'm not going to be a hang-back for all that. I'm not going to be a coward. You risk a horrible death, only to tell me not to do the same. You wouldn't give up a cause you believed in, merely because it was dangerous. I'll stick by my master, Aurelia. Don't try to tempt me."

She would have said more; she would perhaps have persuaded me from my heroics, had not the guns begun firing. That broke the spell with a vengeance; nothing could be done after that. I shook up my horse, hardly pausing to say "God bless you." In another minute she was out of sight, while I was cantering off to the extreme right wing with the Duke's orders to its officers to cut in on the road to Chard. As I rode along, behind the
scattered line of our men, I could see the rolls of smoke from the firing on the left. The men on the right were not firing; but being raw troops they were edging little by little towards the firing, in which I do not doubt they longed to be, for the sake of the noise. They say now that the Duke threw away this battle at Axminster. He could have cut Albemarle's troops to pieces had he chosen to do so. They made a pretty bold front till we were within gunfire of them, when they all scattered off to the town pell-mell. While they were in the town, we could have cut them off from the Chard road, which would have penned them in while we worked round to seize the bridges. After that, one brisk assault would have made the whole batch of them surrender. Some of our officers galloped from our right wing (where I was) to see how the land lay, before leading off their men as I had brought them word. A few of them fired their pistols, when they came to the road, which was enough to make the right wing double forward to support them without orders. In a minute about a thousand of us were running fast after our officers, while the Duke's aides charged down to stop us. He had decided not to fight, probably thinking that it would do his cause no good by killing a lot of his subjects so early in his reign. We know now that had he made one bold attack that morning, the whole of Albemarle's force, with the exception of a few officers, would have declared for him. In other words we should have added to our army about
a thousand drilled armed men who knew the country through which we were to pass. By not fighting, we discouraged our own army, who grumbled bitterly when they found their second battle as ineffectual as the fight at Bridport.

I remember next that I saw the whole of Albemarle's troops flying for their lives along the Chard road, flinging away their weapons as they ran. They had the start of us; but a resolute captain could have brought them to a stand, by pushing forward his cavalry. However "a bridge of gold to a flying foe" is a good saying. We let them go. When our cavalry advanced (to keep them on the move, not to fight with them) they passed the time in collecting what the militia had flung away; about four thousand pounds' worth of soldiers' stores, chiefly uniforms. I went forward with the horse on that occasion. I picked up altogether about a dozen muskets, which I gave to some of our men who were armed only with clubs. Then I rode back to report myself ready for service to my master, who was getting ready for camp, thinking that his men had done enough for one day.

It was a sad waste of time. A rough camp was formed. We went no further for that time. About half a precious day was wasted, which might have brought us nearly to Taunton under a resolute man, sworn to conquer. Some of our men went out to forage, which they did pretty roughly. It was theft with violence, coloured over by some little touch of law. The farmers who were unpopular
thereabouts had their cattle driven off; their ricks carted off; their horses stolen; their hen-roosts destroyed. We were like an army of locusts, eating up everything as we passed. Our promises to pay, when the King came to his own, were really additional insult; for the people robbed knew only too well how Stuart kings kept their promises. One strange thing I saw that night. The men who were cooking their newly stolen beef at the camp-fires kept crying out for camp-kettles in which to boil the joints. We had no camp-kettles; but an old man came forward to the Duke's quarters to ask if he might show the men how to cook their meat without kettles. The Duke at once commanded him to show us how this might be done.

Like most useful inventions, it was very simple. It was one of those things which are forgotten as life becomes civilized, but for want of which one may perish when one returns to barbarity, as in war. The old man began by placing stout poles in tripods over the camp-fires, lashing them firmly at the top with faggot-binders. Then he took the hide of one of the slaughtered cattle, gathering it up at the corners, so as to form a sort of bag. He cut some long narrow strips from the hide of the legs, with which to tie the four corners together. Then he lashed the four corners to the tripod, so that the bag hung over the fire.

"There," he said. "There is your kettle. Now put water into en. Boil thy victuals in er. That be a
soldier's camp-kettle. You can carry your kettle on your beef till you be ready for en."

Indeed, it proved to be a very good kind of a kettle, after one got used to the nastiness of it, though the smell of burning hair from the kettles was disgusting. To this day, I have only to singe a few hairs in a candle to bring back to my mind's eye that first day in camp at Axminster, the hill, the valley ringed in by combes, the noise of the horses, the sputtering of the fires of green wood, the many men passing about aimlessly, wondering at the ease of a soldier's life after the labour of spring ploughing. It was a wonderful sight, that first camp of ours; but the men for the most part grumbled at not fighting; they wanted to be pushing on, to seize the city of Bristol, instead of camping there. How did they know, they said, that the weather would keep fine? How were we to march with all our ten baggage waggons if the weather turned wet, so that the roads became muddy? The roads in those parts became deep quagmires in rainy weather. A light farmer's market cart might go in up to the axles after a day's steady rain. To march through such roads would break the men's hearts quicker than any quantity of fighting, however disastrous. Thus they grumbled about the camp-fires, while I bustled over the Duke's dinner, in the intervals of running errands for the colonel.

That evening, after the summer dusk had come, but before the army had settled to sleep, I heard an old
man, one of our cavalrymen, talking to another trooper. "Ah," he said, "I was fighting in the old wars under Oliver. I've seen wars enough. You mark my words, boy, this army won't do much. We've not got enough men, for one thing We could have had fourteen thousand or more if he'd thought to bring muskets for en. We've not got cavalry, that's another thing. When us do come face to face with the King's men us shall be sore put to it for want of a few trusty horses. Horsemen be the very backbones of armies in the field. Then, boy, we not got any captains, that's worst of all. The Duke's no captain. If he'd been a captain her'd have fought this morning. Them others aren't captains neither, none of them. Besides, what are they doing sitting down in camp like this when we ought to be marching? Us ought to be marching now. Marching all night, never setting down once, marching in two armies, one to Exeter, one to Bristol. Us'd 'ave the two towns by late tomorrow night if us was under old Oliver. It'll take us a week to get to Bristol at this rate. By that time it will be full of troops, as well as secured by ships. As for us, by that time we shall have troops all round us, not to speak of club-men."

"Ah," said the younger man. "What be club-men, gaffer?"

"You'll know soon enough what club-men are," the old man answered, "if there's any more of this drunken dirty robbery I saw this afternoon. Those thieves who
stole the farmer's cattle would have been shot in Oliver's time. They'd have cast lots on a drum in sight of all on us, drawn up. The men who got the low numbers would have been shot. The captains would have pistolled them where they stood. If this robbing goes on, all the farmers will club together to defend themselves, making a sort of second army for us to fight against. That is what club-men means. It's not a nice thing to fight in a country where there are club-men all round you. No, boy. So what with all this, boy, I be going to creep out of this 'ere army. I do-an't like the look of things, nor I do-an't like the way things are done. If you take a old man's advice you'll come too."

"Noa," said the honest oaf, "I be agoin' to vight. I be a-goin' to London town to be a girt sol-dier."

"Ah," said the old man, shortly, "you be a vule, Tummas. Wish ee good day, maister." Then the old man turned sharply on his heel to leave the camp, which he did easily enough, for he knew several of the sentries. Even if he had not known them, it would have made little difference, because our sentries were so lax that the camp was always swarming with strangers. Women came to see their husbands or sweethearts. Boys came out of love of mischief. Men came out of curiosity, or out of some wish to see things before they decided which side to take. Our captains were never sure at night how many of their men would turn up at muster the next morning.

After the old man had deserted, I sat down on the high ground above the camp, in the earthen battery where our four little guns were mounted. I was oppressed with a sad feeling that we were all marching to death. The old man's words, "we shall have troops all round us," rang in my head, till I could have cried. My mind was full of terrible imaginings. I saw our army penned up in a little narrow valley where the roads were quagmires, so that our guns were stuck in the mud, our horses up to their knees, our men floundering. On the hills all round us I saw the King's armies, fifty thousand strong, marching to music under the colours, firing, then wheeling, forming with a glint of pikes, bringing up guns at a gallop, shooting us down, while we in the mud tried to form. I knew that the end of it all would be a little clump of men round the Duke, gathered together on a hillock, holding out to the last. The men would be dropping as the shot struck them. The wounded would waver, letting their pike-points drop. Then there would come a whirling of cavalry, horses' eyes in the smoke, bright iron horse-shoes gleaming, swords crashing down on us, an eddy of battle which would end in a hush as the last of us died. I saw all these pictures in my brain, as clearly as one sees in a dream. You must not wonder that I looked over the misty fields towards Newenham Abbey with a sort of longing to be there, well out of all the war. It was only a mile from me. I could slip away so easily. I was not bound to stay
where I was, to share in the misery caused by my leader's want of skill. Then I remembered how my father had believed in the right of the Duke's cause. He would have counselled me to stay, I thought. It seemed to me, in the dusk of the night, that my father was by me, urging me to stay. The thought was very blessed; it cleared away all my troubles as though they had not been. I decided to look no more towards Newenham; but to go on by the Duke's side to whatever fortune the wars might bring us. Somehow, the feeling that my father was by me, made me sure that we were marching to victory. I went to my quarters comforted, sure of sleeping contentedly.

Like the rest of us, I had to sleep in the open, without any more shelter than a horse-cloth. Even the Duke was without a tent that night. He slept in camp with us, to set an example to his men, though he might well have gone to some house in the town. I liked the notion of sleeping out in the open. In fine warm summer weather, when the dew is not too heavy, it is pleasant, until a little before the dawn, when one feels uneasy, for some reason, as though an enemy were coming. Perhaps our savage ancestors, the earliest ancient Britons, who lived in hill-camps, high up, with their cattle round them, expected the attacks of their enemies always at a little before the dawn; so that, in time, the entire race learned to be wakeful then, lest the enemy should catch the slumberers, with flint-axe heads in the skull.
It may be that to this day we feel the fear felt by so many generations of our ancestors. On this first night in camp, I found that many of the men were sleeping uneasily, for they did not know the secret of sleeping in the open. They did not know that to sleep comfortably in the open one must dig a little hole in the ground, about as big as a porridge bowl, to receive one's hipbone. If you do this, you sleep at ease, feeling nothing of the hardness of the bed. If you fail to do it, you wake all bruised, after a wretched night's tumbling; you ache all the next day.