Pistoleer: Roundway Down Read online

  "Is there somewhere close we can take you? Some friends who will care for you?" Rob asked.

  "I'm not from around here," the man replied. "I told you, I was traveling north."

  "Despite knowing that Rupert's scouts were north of here?"

  The man looked around at the men he was beholding to. They had the look of scouts, but for which side? He said nothing.

  His silence spoke volumes to Rob. "The closest surgeon will be in Bristol," Rob told him. "But we can't take you there. We'd be arrested at the gate," he lied.

  "You are army scouts?"

  "Aye, and not welcome in Bristol."

  "Then my luck is improving," the man said with a sigh. "There'll be surgeons riding with the prince. Take me to him."

  "That suits us fine," Rob lied, as he gave a hard stare to the lads, "but it suits you not at all. You'll be dead before you get that far, even if we make a litter to carry you on. I suppose we could go and fetch a surgeon, if we didn't have other orders."

  "The wound is that bad?"

  "Aye. Moving you miles and miles by horse will keep it open wide and blood with spew out. I'm not sure your kidneys or gut haven't been sliced, that the inner wound will be tearing wider and wider. Nay, you need to be sewn up before you are moved."

  Sam was catching on. He spoke to Rob with urgency, despite the hard stare his brother threw him. "Sir, may I remind you of our mission. This man is none of our concern. We've done the decent thing by seeing if we can help. We can't. Leave him."

  "Nay, don't leave me. I carry important news for Prince Rupert."

  "Then best give us the dispatch," Rob told him. "Even if you can't reach the prince, your news will."

  "It was too important, too secret to be set to paper. I must tell it to him in person."

  Sam said. "It's just a trick so we won't leave him."

  "Aye," Rob said. "and a poor trick because he'll be dead before he reaches the prince. For all I know he could be dead within minutes. With such a wound, the man must be in agony." He had to turn away to stifle his smirk. The man's wound was nothing, but long abrasions always stung like hell, and so did bramble scratches. Most of the man's pain, however, would be from the genever spirits he had been cleansing the wound with. "Mount up lads. We've wasted enough time."

  "No!" the man cried out. "My message must reach the prince." He began to bargain. "If I tell you the message, then will you take me with you? In that way the message will surely get through, and if I survive the ride, I will be saved by a surgeon."

  "He makes a good point, sir," Sam interrupted. "We have to make our own report anyway."

  "I suppose," Rob said, trying to sound unconvinced while stifling a smirk.

  "The prince is to gather his army in Durdham Down beyond Clifton Gate tomorrow morning," the man told them, almost eager to pass on the secret message. "Sheriff Yeamans has assigned George Boucher's troop to the night watch on that gate. They will open the gates for the prince's army. The Sheriff’s own men will be on watch at the inner Frome Gate and bridge. The prince will be able to ride right through the new town and into the old town before anyone can be organized to stop him. Bristol will be his by tomorrow midday."

  Everyone stared at the injured man in disbelief. Rob gave the lads a signal and they pounced on him and pinned him down while they tied him up. As he was loaded over the back of their pack horse, he yelled out, "No, you'll kill me. Please be gentle. At least bandage my wound."

  "That wound?" Sam laughed in the mans face. "I've suffered worse in a friendly football match."

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Pistoleer - Roundway Down by Skye Smith Copyright 2014-15

  Chapter 8 - The Defenses of Bristol in March 1643

  Nathaniel Fiennes, parliament's governor of Bristol, walked slowly around Sheriff Robert Yeamans. The sheriff had been denying any treachery on his part, repeatedly. Fiennes gave up and signaled to Colonel Alexander Popham, his second in command, who was standing beside the private door into the office. Popham opened the door and a short but well armed trooper marched into the office dragging a rough looking farm hand behind him. Yeamans moaned and stared at the floor to hide his shock and fear.

  That was enough of a sign of guilt for Fiennes to order the Colonel to take the Sheriff into custody and to call out the guard and arrest all of the Sheriff's bailiffs, as well as George Boucher and the men of the Boucher merchant family. Within minutes a troop of guards arrived to haul the royalist traitors away, and they were none to gentle about it for the Sheriff was not well liked. This left Rob alone with Governor Fiennes in the grand office.

  Rob was furious with him but kept his temper in check. "I still think that you should NOT have warned Yeamans that his plotting had been discovered, and instead used the plot to set a trap for Prince Rupert."

  "You are beating a dead horse, sir," Fiennes replied. "It is done. I would rather keep Bristol safe than risk it on a toss of the dice. The courier you caught told us that Yeamans had promised the king that two thousand men would rise up to help Prince Rupert when he arrived. With four thousand of Rupert's flying army outside the walls and two thousand royalists within, any trap would have required thousands and thousands of men. What would be the chances of keeping both plots a secret. The royalists were sure to learn of ours and would have turned it against us to succeed at theirs."

  "I didn't mean trap his entire flying army, just the prince," Rob seethed. When was Parliament going to start promoting officers by ability rather than by bloodline.

  "Use a trick to capture the prince? But that would be dishonorable?"

  Rob couldn't believe his ears. "But he was going to use a trick to capture you. And how can you speak of honour about the man who is looting, pillaging, raping and slaughtering his way about the kingdom. For what he did at Brentford alone, he should be strung up.” He walked to the desk and grabbed up the latest London news sheet. "Have you read this yet?"

  "Not yet. I have been a bit busy," Fiennes said dismissively,.

  Rob read from the sheet, "Officials in Westminster have admitted that Robert Greville, the Lord Brooke, has been killed at Lichfield."

  The news hit Fiennes like a fist. He wobbled on his legs and then searched out the closest chair to sit in. "Oh my god, poor Catherine and his boys. The eldest is but twelve," he moaned with his head in his hands. He eventually looked up and said, "His family and mine are great friends. Greville was my father's business partner for a dozen years. Does it say how he died?"

  Rob nodded, partially because he knew about the connection between the Grevilles and the Fiennes. They, with John Pym were partners in all of the Earl of Warwick's companies, including the Providence Island company. He again read from the sheet, "He was shot through the eye by a sniper in the church tower, while telling his men that they must under no circumstances loot the surrendering town."

  Fiennes clenched his fists and hammered the top of his desk. "Treachery. We have both sides in this war calling the other side traitors, which makes the charge of treason redundant, but treachery is something different. Treachery must be punished else the rule of law will completely break down."

  "My point exactly. So why didn't we set a trap for Rupert?" Rob asked.

  "Because, sir, Rupert was not being treacherous. The treachery was with Yeamans and Boucher who have been living a lie, and I mean to make an example of them.” Fiennes stared at the short soldier standing in front of him. His belt was bristling with weapons. If Popham had not vouched for Captain Blake, he would not even have given him an audience today. In hindsight, it was a lucky thing he had taken the time for this short upstart, but he truly did not like the man's attitude. He was one of the 'new age' commoners who did not know their place.

  "By which you mean that after they have been charged, tried and if they are found guilty, that you will hang them."

  "They will be found guilty, and then I will have them hung, drawn and quartered."

  "Sir," Rob forced calm into his o
wn voice. "They are men seduced. Seduced by the king with promises of knighthoods or nobility. The evil is in the seducer, not the seduced. You are unbalanced, sir, by the death of Lord Brooke. At least let them sit in goal for a month before you try them. By that time your own balance will be restored."

  "You dare to give me advice. First about Prince Rupert, and now about Yeamans. You, a mere dragoon captain."

  "Sir, I too am grieving the loss of Lord Brooke, though not so personally as yee. To me he was the obvious successor to the Earl of Essex as the Lord-General of our army. With him as general, the war with the king would be over by summer. With Essex, well, it may last for years. Let me read you another report from the news sheet.

  General Fairfax has been unable to halt the march of Queen Henrietta and her invading army. They are being taken to York by the Duke of Newcastle. General Fairfax is in retreat. What a terrible time to lose Brooke. The Duke of Newcastle already has the benefit of the munitions the queen brought with her from Holland, and soon enough so will Prince Rupert. Then what? I do not belittle your personal grief on hearing of Lord Brooke's death, but soon all of us will have cause to grieve his passing."

  "That newssheet is a wealth of bad news," Fiennes said grumpily. "Is there more?"

  "Only that in the king's latest response to offers of peace, he demands that he and he alone may name the governors of fortified towns and the commanders of Navy ships."

  "Terms he knows that parliament would never agree to!" again Fiennes pounded the desk. "How his tune has changed since Henrietta landed to Bridlington with a foreign army. I wonder if he sent those terms before or after he was told of poor Robert's death."

  "Sir, by your leave, I would like to visit the northern fortifications of this city to see if there is any sign of Rupert's flying army. He would have sent scouts to meet any messengers from Yeamans. Will I need a pass to do so?"

  Governor Fiennes opened a drawer and pulled out a card of stiff paper, and wrote on it, and then stamped it. With a flourish he handed it to the captain. "Here. Rupert was supposed to wait at Cotham for the gates to be opened, so it is Prior's Hill Fort that you will want, for it is furthest north. This pass, however, will allow you the entire wall. Return here for dinner and we will discuss how I can best use you in the defense of Bristol."

  "Thank you sir," Rob said with a flourish of salute, mostly aimed at getting back into the governor's good graces, "however I am only in Bristol to find Colonel Waller. I assumed that with Prince Rupert ranging nearby, that Waller would be here also."

  "Waller, would that he were here. Nay, my last dispatch from him was from Salisbury. He has been forced to back track and re-take both Winchester and Salisbury from local royalist councilors. May a curse fall on all such duplicitous politicians."

  Rob kept his lips closed. In his own experience all politicians were duplicitous, but that he could not say to a man who gained the Governorship of Bristol through political connections. Instead he clicked his heels and left Fiennes reading the two day old London news sheet.

  * * * * *

  Rob and the lads decided to ride along Bristol's outer defenses, for they were five miles in circumference. As they were leaving headquarters in Bristol Castle a man yelled out, and they stopped and waited for Colonel Alexander Popham to have his own horse fetched so that they could join him on his rounds. Popham was, after all, in charge of the ongoing building effort.

  "Rob, I am sure my brother Ed told me that you were badly injured at Plymouth," Alex said as they waited for his horse to be brought, "and that you would likely be one legged the next time I saw you. You seem remarkably agile for a stump foot."

  "I still have both, as you can see," Rob replied while pushing both boots to the fullest extent of his stirrups. Both Alexander and Edward Popham were Colonels in parliament's army, and Robert had served as a captain under each of them at one time or another. Ed came to the army from being a naval lieutenant so he was the more knowledgeable about military tactics. Alex came from the pulpits of church and parliament, and was a colonel only because he was the MP for Bath, which explained his presence in Bristol.

  Rob and Alex rode together in the fore so that Alex could explain how he planned to defend Bristol. "The old city and castle is built on an island where two rivers join. The castle guards the eastern end, the sea end. The water courses protected the city well enough, so the walls around the old city were never modernized. Most of the city now lies outside those old walls on the northern bank of the rivers, all of it lies within a great bowl surrounded by hills.

  Since the king has modern cannons, we must keep the high ground around that bowl out of his hands, else he will simply bombard the center from above. That is why our outer defenses are so long. Five miles long, and us with barely two thousand willing men to hold them. Come, we will ride along the Avon to the first fort and then follow the outer wall from west to east."

  The defensive ditch that was being dug seemed to stretch for ever, but there was nothing unusual about it. The soil dug from the ditch was being piled up to form the dyke on the Bristol side so that the defenders could hide behind it, or stand on it and fight with a height advantage. Any attacker would have to first enter the ditch and then scramble up the steep slope from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the dyke. "Your ditch is not deep enough," Rob told the obvious to Alex.

  "We are trying to dig it out as evenly as possible so that there is no place that is shallower than any other place. We have no choice since the royalists will attack at our weakest place. Every week the entire ditch will be deeper and the entire dyke higher."

  Rob nodded but could not help to think of the cost in man days of digging this long ditch. This while so many farm fields had yet to be ploughed or planted. "I like how you are building a redoubt wherever the ditch crosses high ground. I notice that you have already moved some cannons into them.” The redoubts were small gun forts with elevated gun platforms protected by a low tower that would be manned with musketeers.

  "Yes, the cannons already in place should be safe enough because we keep the redoubts garrisoned all day and all night. If we are ever attacked, the dragoons and the reserves will report to the redoubts and wait there until we know which part of the wall is under attacked. Then will be deployed accordingly." He listed his redoubts from West to East, "There is the Water Fort, Brandon Hill, Michael's Hill, Colston, Prior's Hill." As they rode down a slope he pointed ahead to a bridge over the ditch. "My biggest worry is that gate halfway between these two hills. It there because the Clifton road is there, and the road is there because it runs through the valley between the two hills. We've spanned the ditch with a drawbridge, and we'll station extra musketeers there, because it will be a temptation for the royalists."

  "Ah, so that is Clifton Gate," Rob said thoughtfully staring down at the small drawbridge. That was the outer gate his prisoner had mentioned, which royalists were to have opened tomorrow morning. The closest gate to the village of Cotham where Rupert was supposed to wait.

  Of all of the redoubt gun forts, Prior's Hill was the largest. Not only was it the furthest from the center of Bristol and from reinforcements, but it also guarded the North east gate at Stoker's Croft, which was the furthest gate from reinforcements in the town centre. Therefore not only did Priors need to be the strongest, but also the most independent of the gun forts.

  "I would like you to command this fort," Alex told Rob.

  "Must I give you an answer right away? You see, a month ago I sent a message to Colonel Waller offering to join him, and I have yet to see the Colonel or have his answer. Besides, I would want my own trusted men about me at this fort, and they are all at home doing the planting and lambing. It would take some time to round them up."

  "You can take as much time as you need, right up until Rupert arrives," Alex replied.

  "Oy, m'lord." Samuel spoke up. "That may be sooner than yee think.” He pointed out over the wall to a small group of riders coming through a valley about a thousand yar
ds out from the fort.

  "Ah ha," Rob growled. "This could be what I was hoping for when I delivered my prisoner this morning. A chance to turn the royalist treachery inside out." He looked along the ditch that rolled with the hillside. "Sam, if you wanted to slip through these defenses, unseen, and meet with those riders, where would you do it from?

  "The best cover is there, halfway to Colston Fort. The bushes come close to the outside of the ditch and the ditch is not deep because of the rocky outcropping. Those rocks also give cover. Better still, there is no gate nearby, so our own riders can't give chase."

  "Then take the lads and have them gather some muskets, just in case there is trouble. Alex, be a friend and make sure no one complains when my lads help themselves to muskets from this fort's armoury."

  This jolted Alex back from staring at the riders. "But you have a pass signed by the governor. You don't need me. You can give the order about the muskets by yourself."

  "Nay I can't, you see, because I'm going down there to the that rocky outcropping, where I can slip through your defenses and go an have a chat with those riders."

  * * * * *

  "Oy," Rob called out to the two of the four riders who had come to investigate his waving scarf. "Pretend I'm not here as you speak to me. Don't let on to the wall that I am out here. Walk your horses slightly beyond me and pretend you are inspecting the wall."

  After the two royalist scouts had done as he had asked, Rob scolded them with, "What are you doing here? You could undo all of our planning. Our messenger must have told you not to pass within view of the redoubts until after dark. You don't need to be at Durdham Down until after midnight. We won't be opening Clifton Gate for you until first light."

  "There was no messenger. That is why the prince sent us to have a look on his behalf," one of the scouts replied. He sorely wanted to turn in his saddle and take a good look at the speaker now pressed against the rocky outcropping.