Women of Courage (175 page)

Later, Ann had been in a crowd watching the strange invention of a man who said he was the brother of the master gunner of England, and who had a machine which he said could devastate the enemy by firing a dozen muskets at once. He had been in the middle of his demonstration when the news had come in that the council of war had broken up, and decided to march north that night, to attack Keynsham and Bristol again.

She remembered how the men had sighed at the prospect of another march, but accepted it, for they were rested, and at least it was attack. But then a rumour had spread that there was a change of plan. A countryman was said to have come to Monmouth and told him a hidden path to Lord Feversham’s camp, which they were to attack secretly that night; and the rumour was confirmed by the sight of Monmouth, Grey and Wade standing on the very church tower Ann was on now, conferring urgently with one another, and staring south-east through their perspective-glasses.

Then came the orders to prepare for attack. Ann and surgeon Thompson were told to stay behind with the wounded, but to be ready to move. Ann remembered the urgent thrill that had gone through the whole town, and the eager buzz of talk and scurry of preparation. Later, she had slipped away to join the army, as they formed up in the fields to the north of the town. As the sun slowly sank behind them, she watched her father standing quietly in line with the others, his seamed face quite still, shadowed under his helmet, impassive.

He was such a small man, she thought, and old; too small and frail and old to be a soldier. Once he had seemed so strong to her; a father who could travel miles every day through the country, and then lift her on his shoulder or bounce her on his knee when he came home. She wished she could say something which would give him back that youth, that strength, then he could survive any battle, she was sure. On that evening when he had decided to go and fight she had thought she understood him and could help him, better even than her mother; but he did not listen to her now. He sought strength only in his mind, in his belief in the rightness of the cause and his faith that they could win.

The silent lines of soldiers stood, occasionally checking their equipment, and listened to chaplain Ferguson’s earnest sermon at the drumhead, on the text of Joshua 22:22
“The Lord God of Gods, He knoweth, and Israel he shall know: if it be in rebellion, or in transgression against the Lord, save us not this day.”
Then they marched softly away, and Ann watched them, until the dusk and her tears hid them from sight.

Now the sun was long gone. The little group of watchers shivered in the tower, waiting and wondering as they stared south-east, to where the tall tower of Weston Zoyland church could sometimes be seen white in the moonlight. Ann wondered if there were watchers on that tower too, and what they could see. There were a few clouds, though much of the sky was clear, and it was a full moon; but the flat peat moor in front of them was covered with a cold, white mist, higher than a man, so that she wondered how her father and the others would find their way. Still, they had the countryman to guide them; he would know.

The church clock below them chimed loudly, shaking the boards beneath her feet. One o’clock. They had been gone over two hours now. Still no sign of movement from Weston Zoyland. Perhaps it would be a surprise. Perhaps they would really win. Ann saw the lips of a woman beside her moving quietly, and folded her own hands together to join her in silent prayer.

42

A
DAM WAS behind William Clegg in the column. The little man’s thin shoulders seemed hardly wide enough for the great musket he carried, and the old helmet made his head seem strangely huge and unreal on the wiry, intense little body. Adam had been concentrating on the helmet a long time now, for sometimes it was all he could see in the mist. Once the mist had swallowed Will altogether, and sudden panic had welled up in Adam as he feared he was lost. Then he had seen the pale gleam of moonlight from the helmet floating like a marshlight to his right. He had stumbled desperately after the light, unspeakably glad to see it turn into a helmet with the little body plodding stolidly forward beneath it.

A few minutes later he bumped into Will as he stopped. John Spragg trod on his heels from behind, and there were suddenly a dozen or more men jammed together in the tiny scope of his vision, waiting for the obstruction ahead up the lane to clear.

It had been the same for hours, now; each man following the one in front down narrow, winding lanes. Sometimes the lanes were sunken low between hedges, sometimes out on the soft peat turf with the grey mist swirling about them, where each direction seemed the same as any other. Once they must have been on a little rise, for their heads suddenly came out above it and Adam had looked out over a grey moonlit sea of mist, with the church tower and houses of Chedzoy close upon his right, and the heads of his friends all around him.

It was a strange, holy feeling, as though they were alone in the night, detached from their bodies, blessed by God. Adam remembered a night like this many years ago, when he had been a young man coming home alone at night with his pack-horses. He had been hurrying because Mary was near her time, and tired because he had been walking all day. The mist had risen near the river Coly, and he and the horses had walked home with just their heads above it, bathed in white moonlight. The moon and stars had been wonderfully clear that night, and he had believed, all alone as he was under the immense sky, that he had heard the angelic music of the spheres. Then he had come home to his house, stabled the horses, and found Mary by the hearth, cradling the new baby that they were to call Ann.

But the sergeant was worried by their exposure. He feared that they would be seen and signed urgently to them that they should duck their heads quickly below the surface of the mist again. For a while, until the track led down again, they walked with their heads bowed and shoulders hunched. Adam wondered what Mary was doing now, and whether Simon and Rachel and Sarah and little Oliver were sleeping peacefully, or whether they would wake in the night and know that their father was going into battle in the darkness.

Once, when they stopped, they heard the clatter of hooves on the road in front, and when they had gone the whisper came back that there had been royalist troopers crossing the road. But no-one had moved and they had not been seen. The order had gone out that any man who spoke or shouted was to be clubbed down or knifed by his neighbour; but there was little need for that. Another time one of their own horses started at something it thought it had seen; but even then the men stepped aside as quietly as they could, while the rider held the beast and stroked it calmly so that it did not neigh or give them away.

Adam was beginning to think they would make it. They had waded through one of the wide, black drainage ditches which he had heard the locals call the rhines, and they were well out on the open peat moor. The soft, springy turf soaked up the sound of the men’s footsteps, and there were no stones for the horses hooves to clatter against. It could not be far now, he thought, if they were not lost; and they had been going forward for some time now with an easy, swinging stride which suggested that someone at the front knew the way. He knew Colonel Wade was there, out of sight ahead of him, and Roger Satchell at the rear. Earlier he had even seen Monmouth himself striding along with them, a half-pike in his hand, and that old look of eager daring in his face that made every man love him, and stride out a little more proudly for his sake. They really would do it, Adam thought; if the royal army did not hear them soon it would be too late. They would come upon them while they lay in their tents, and then ...

There was a check and then a splash ahead, horses and men crossing another rhine. A heron croaked indignantly as it flew away. The column stood still for a moment, Adam watching the drips forming among the beads of condensation on William Clegg’s helmet. And then, as they began to shuffle slowly forward again, there was the loud
crack!
of a pistol shot.

Adam froze, then fumbled his musket forward, ready for the attack; but none came, only a splash, and a barrage of furious muttered curses from Colonel Wade and the others in front. It must have been one of their own men who had fired. Everyone seemed to stop, even those crossing the rhine, to listen ... and Adam thought he heard a faint drumming of hooves going away ahead of them, but it was hard to tell. It could have been nothing, or the drumming of fear in his own ears.

They crossed the rhine after the cavalry and marched on, but Adam’s confidence was badly jolted. After all their silence, all this long march, to be betrayed by some fool of an officer! What could he have been doing with a pistol in his hand in the first place? Surely the royal troops must be drunk if they had not heard that!

The panic began to rise in him, stronger, worse than ever before. He had held it down so far, but now they had been betrayed, and it was not his fault! They were all marching to be shot down like dogs, because of some fool officer, and he, Adam, would go to Hell! Why had he not taken the King’s pardon? What were all those fine words he had spoken then compared to this reality, this Hell? If only they would stop this marching, this endless inescapable marching, with only the dim shadows of other men in front of him.

Perhaps it was not too late, even now, to run and hide on the moor! No-one would find him - a few steps into the mist and he would be lost. But that thought terrified him too. It would be like Hell already at one step; alone in the darkness, outcast from his friends, unable to see or hear anything but the reproaches of his own conscience. He could not bear to step aside into Hell, but he could not bear to march on towards it either. He stumbled, and felt his arms shaking so that he thought he would drop his musket.

Trembling, he looked at William Clegg, who had stepped back and was marching beside him now. Two dark eyes looked back at him out of the old, familiar wrinkled face, grey and cold in the misty moonlight. Then William put a hand on his shoulder, and smiled. “Steady, Adam, old friend,” he murmured. “Have faith now.” The hand felt warm and real on Adam’s shoulder, and as his panic died down a little he realised his mouth had been open and his whole body tender with fear.

He forced the open mouth into a smile, and then closed it firmly, taking a deep, calming breath as he did so. Unable to speak, he nodded at his old friend solemnly, and clasped the hand on his shoulder with his own, remembering the compact they had made at Pedwell. It was absurd how much warmth and comfort he could draw from a hand, but so it was; for nearly five strides he held it, feeling his panic fade. When he let it go he was master of himself again, and had forgotten his fears of Hell in the steady strength of his friends all around him.

He smiled his thanks at William.

“Be warm soon enough, I reckon,” he murmured quietly, to show his confidence.

“I reckon so, “murmured William, patting his musket affectionately. “Not just for us neither. “

As they spoke they heard a shout ahead of them, repeated again and again as though by a lunatic
: “Wake up! Beat your drums! The enemy’s here! Beat your drums! Wake up! For the Lord’s sake, beat your drums!”

There was a shiver all down the line, and they unconsciously quickened their pace. John Spragg laughed softly behind Adam. “‘Tis too late now, me boys! We’m yer! Us’ll put ‘ee back to sleep again!”

Adam felt a momentary return of his panic, but then lost it in the urgency of the quickened pace. He checked carefully to see that the pan of his musket was closed, and his powder and bullets in their proper places, though he knew they were, for he had checked them twice before the march.

Then there was no more shouting but instead the sudden urgent rub-a-dub rattle of drums, no more than a couple of hundred yards away, and he felt, not fear, but a sudden glorious relief that the battle was here at last, and that they still had the surprise, and were going to win!

Colonel Wade was leading them to the right, across the moor, so that the sound of the drums came from their left rather than ahead of them. As they marched and came closer the mist cleared, and they could see the splutter and spark of slow matches being lit, and the figures of men stumbling hurriedly out of tents and running into lines to their left. They halted, faced left and dressed their line, ready to advance.

“Come on now, boys, quick about it! Space your lines carefully! Check your muskets now. Don’t fire ‘til you get the order!” The Welsh sergeant’s voice was sharp and clear as it always was, drilling order and purpose into their excitement.
This is where it begins,
Adam thought,
I’ve got here and I’ll not run now.
He grasped his musket and rejoiced to feel his hands quite firm, without a trace of shaking. The line facing them was still forming hurriedly. He saw the pikes lowered on either side of him.
We’re going to march forward - any second now!

He looked up and saw cavalry riding across their front from the left. Their own horsemen - he recognised Lord Grey at their head. Why were they doing that? Why weren’t they attacking?

A voice from the enemy lines called out to the horsemen.

“Halt! Who are you for?”

“The King!” a rider shouted back.

“What King?”

“King Monmouth, and God with us!”

“Then take this with you!”

There was a sudden mighty
crash!
and sheets of flame split the darkness as the royal musketeers fired into Lord Grey’s horse. The sound was followed by screams of wounded men, the high terrified neighing of the horses and the yells and curses of their riders trying to control them. The field between Adam and the royal soldiers became a dark mass of careering horses and riders, rearing and plunging this way and that, hopelessly out of control.

A second volley poured into them from the left, splitting the darkness again, and suddenly the horses were bolting madly in every direction
away
from the noise and flames. Adam saw one horse coming straight towards them and prepared to duck; but then at the last moment it saw them, and swerved violently to the right, hurling its helpless rider out of the saddle at the feet of William Clegg.