Black Tom's Red Army

By Nicholas Carter

  Rival soldiers face off in the final battle of the First English Civil War in this historical adventure.
 
It is more than a year since printer’s apprentice turned Parliamentarian soldier William Sparrow and his royalist rival Hugo Telling last came to blows. Parliament’s armies, bruised beaten and humiliated despite their ever increasing numerical advantage, have been reconstituted as the New Model Army. Sparrow, veteran of a dozen battles, sieges and scrapes, is expecting to be offered a commission in “Black Tom’s Red Army”—but his past has caught up with him.
 
As the political and religious divides which have convulsed the country for three years grow more bitter by the day, the New Model Army heads north to challenge the King’s field army, commanded by the brilliant but dangerously compulsive Prince Rupert. Two worlds will collide at Naseby, where history will be made . . .
 
Black Tom’s Red Army is the final thrilling installment of The Shadow on the Crown series.
 
Praise for the writing of Nicholas Carter:
 
“Ringing to the clash of blades and the roar of cannon and pungent with the whiff of gunpowder . . . A storming read.” —Peterborough Telegraph

“Carter’s stories are in a league of their own.” —Bristol Observer
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781788632409

Nicholas Carter

General Sir Nicholas Carter KCB, CBE, DSO, ADC Gen commissioned into The Royal Green Jackets in 1978. At Regimental Duty he has served in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Germany, Bosnia, and Kosovo and commanded 2nd Battalion, The Royal Green Jackets, from 1998 to 2000. He attended Army Staff College, the Higher Command and Staff Course and the Royal College of Defence Studies. He was Military Assistant to the Assistant Chief of the General Staff, Colonel Army Personnel Strategy, spent a year at HQ Land Command writing the Collective Training Study, and was Director of Army Resources and Plans. He also served as Director of Plans within the US-led Combined Joint Task Force 180 in Afghanistan and spent three months in the Cross Government Iraq Planning Unit prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. General Carter commanded 20th Armoured Brigade in Iraq in 2004 and 6th Division in Afghanistan in 2009/10. He was then the Director General Land Warfare before becoming the Army 2020 Team Leader. He served as DCOM ISAF from October 2012 to August 2013, became Commander Land Forces in November 2013, and was appointed Chief of the General Staff in September 2014.

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Black Tom's Red Army by Nicholas CarterCanelo

Dramatis Personae

Mentioned in History

King Charles II

Prince Rupert of the Rhine, his Commander in Chief

Prince Maurice, his brother

Sir Richard Crane, Rupert’s deputy commander

Sir Francis Ruce, Rupert’s inept Scoutmaster

Lord George Goring, Maverick Royalist commander in the West

Colonel Gorge Porter, his brother-in-law and field commander

Sir Thomas Bridges, Governor of Bath

General Thomas ‘Black Tom’ Fairfax, commander of Parliament’s New Model Army

Lt General Oliver Cromwell, his commander of horse

Major General Philip Skippon, his commander of foot

Hugh Peters, New Model Army chaplain

Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, New Model Army regimental commander

Colonel John Okey, commander of New Model Army Dragoon regiment

Unmentioned in history

Royalist

Captain Hugo Telling, officer in Rupert’s Lifeguard

Bella Telling née Morrison, his common law wife

Sir Gilbert Morrison, her father, Bristol merchant and arms magnate

Colonel Scipio Porthcurn, Royalist commander

Sir George ‘Slow Georgey’ Winter, commander of Northern Horse regiment

Thomas Winter, his son

Cully Oates, self-serving Royalist corporal

Parliamentarian

William Sparrow, now sergeant, Hardress Waller’s Regiment, New Model Army

Mary Keziah Pitt, his sweetheart

Captain Archibald McNabb, Scots officer of horse – Sparrow’s mentor

Captain Hereward Gillingfeather, Hardress Waller’s Regiment, New Model Army

Elder Sergeant Colston Muffet, Billy Butcher, Nicodemus Burke, the same

Captain John Rondo, Okey’s Dragoons, New Model Army

Francy Snow, corporal, the same

Simon ‘Miller’ Arbright, Commander of Parliamentarian regional militia

Edward Telling, Hugo’s elder brother, chaplain in Montagu’s Regiment, New Model Army

Master Nathaniel Eagleton, Chief clerk to the New Model Army

Unaligned

Thomas Blunt, Butcher and leader of Clubmen

Godspeace Lamb, school teacher and leader of Clubmen

Matilda Dawkins, Ammunition whore

Lady Caroline Winter, Sir George Winter’s wayward wife

Prologue

I think the New Modellers knead all their dough with ale for I have never seen so many drunk in my life in so such a short a time.

Sir Samuel Luke, Parliamentary Governor of Newport Pagnell, on seeing troops from the New Model Army for the first time

By the Drum and Monkey

Windsor, April 5 1645

The Army of the Saints was in town right enough.

Take that back, you Roundhead whoremonger!

Curses which would have raised eyebrows in a Cavalier cathouse followed by a volley of ale and the soft thud of fists in flesh.

Who you callin’ Roundhead?

Indignant, cropheaded louts from the Tower Hamlets auxiliaries. Lured to Windsor by the promise of a portion of their back pay dropped their mugs and piled in.

Plates flew, ale spilled.

Long-haired Northerners – boys from the pike block by their matted locks and lank ponytails – closed ranks and tumbled them back across the hearth.

A red-coated musketeer cartwheeled across the room taking a stockade of ale-laden tables with him.

His mate swung his tankard, connecting with an ale-addled corporal’s jaw and propelling him into the arms of the crimson-cheeked goodwife hurrying to save what was left of her plate. Blood and foam splattered shirt and bodice.

A tooth skittered across the table trailing a thin string of blood.

William Sparrow flicked it away, tilting his head trying to pick the Scotsman’s drift over the increasingly rowdy inn.

You’ll have to speak up Archie, never mind who might be listening! Sparrow encouraged.

Windsor, melting pot for Parliament’s underachieving armies.

Thousands had obeyed the call and reported for duty with the new army. An army made up of the drunks and dregs from every regiment in the land, if the clientele at the Drum was anything to go by. Maybe they ought to form another damned committee especially for all the pot-wallopers who had obeyed Parliament’s fevered appeals.

The Scots cavalryman straightened his legs, long black boots splattered to the knee, squared toes turned toward the hearth.

As I was saying. It’s politics laddie. Have ye not worked out it’s why we’ve been at it hammer and tongs these last three years?

The boys from Essex’s old army had been at it hammer and tongs and all. Arguing the toss whether they should sign up with the new army or go home. Candle wasting pricks should have saved their energy.

Sparrow narrowed his eyes, trying to concentrate. He had lost the thread somewhere. They’d been talking about his appointment. Or demotion.

He’d petitioned McNabb to appeal to the army secretariat on his behalf – hoping the Scot could persuade them toward leniency.

He’d fathered a child not sold his soul to Satan. And they had banged him down to captain.

His old friend had been in the middle of telling him how he had gotten on when the fight had broken out behind them.

They were all supposed to be on the same side!

Major Archibald McNabb, red-bearded cavalryman turned professor of political science at the university of civil warfare, put down his pot and slapped his hand on the table. The morose youth jumped.

Well, maybe not youth, not now. The war had knocked all the youth out of William Sparrow, left a glaring, resentful great pock pudding of a Sassenach. McNabb studied his old friend, the youth he’d mentored through his first formation, skirmish, battle and campaign.

He’d taken a few too many knocks to the head in the pike block, judging by his apparently wandering reason.

He repeated:

Politics laddie. It’s the same for you and I, aye, the same for your fine Princes and gentlemen. It’s all politics these days.

Tell me something new, Sparrow thought glumly.

Or religion. Don’t forget religion now Archie, he countered, swilling the ale in his tankard. He’d brooded and rolled it long enough to drive every bubble out of his beer.

McNabb raised his bristling red eyebrows. We’ll leave religion, if ye don’t mind. I’ve no wish to fall out with ye and all laddie.

Sparrow studied his old comrade. He’d not changed much since they’d ridden into Bristol before the storm. Two, no, going on three years before. Sparrow though – he was barely recognisable from the hulking youngster who had followed him under Redcliffe Gate on a wall-eyed piebald, mooning over his sweetheart.

He wondered for a moment what had happened to the old nag. Glue by now, he guessed.

The horse, not his sweetheart.

Bella would be set up somewhere nice, married to some cavalier toff in all likelihood. That rat-scut Telling for instance. He’d heard a dozen rumours from various unreliable witnesses. One turncoat dragoon he’d spoken to had sworn she’d had twins. To a captain in Rupert’s lifeguard. Runty feller with a stringy moustache.

Aye, that’d be him. Twins? His fist curled around the tankard, squeezing beads of moisture from the tired leather handle.

McNabb let him be, casting a professional eye over the packed tavern. The fight was forgotten and they were all making up now. Red coats not quite all but close. Aye, fresh cloth, or it had been until they’d fetched up in the Drum. Blue turnbacks had been stained with ale and spilled wine. And blood.

They toasted their generals, their regiments and one another.

Hey for Robin – Essex’s old crew. Veterans from London and the South East.

And a louder hey for Black Tom Fairfax – the Yorkshire professional who’d run the King’s men out of the North and was headed down south to do the same.

God and the West! that was Sparrow, the voice from the wilderness. Well, the settle in the corner at any rate. They’d turned and stared, wondered he’d had the nerve to raise his glass.

Fancy bit of cloth but he was no more a gentleman than they were. Sparrow had kept his fine grey suit with the black and blue tabbing, the roll-top boots and heavy Walloon sword. The best dressed pikeman in the New Model, McNabb thought, although the damned noodle didn’t appear to have been told the full details, not yet at any rate.

He’d better break it to him gently.

Well, did you pull strings with the commissariat? Sparrow wanted to know.

Well aye, that is, yes, and no.

Mainly no as it goes, McNabb thought, disguising his discomfort with another swig of ale.

Archie had sent word he was in Windsor on his way north. Sparrow and ten thousand like him were in town, mustering for the summer campaign. Their old armies broken up like stale bread to form one shiny new bun.

Sparrow’s boys were in a minority now. Barely 600 left from Sir William Waller’s foot. The rest had buggered off home most likely. God knew they had been singing from that particular hymn book long enough.

Home, home, home!

Their new regiment would be topped up with drafts – village idiots, farm hands, Royalist turncoats and substitutes from the cities. They’d be off over the fields before they were out of sight of the tower.

Worst of all, the hasty recruiting programme meant they would be taking the field half trained against the King’s veterans. Beady-eyed, be-whiskered old soaks who knew how to handle themselves in a scrap.

The King’s armies, though always smaller than their own, seemed to have a tougher kernel.

No wonder Sparrow was in such a foul mood. McNabb had no time for the idlers, drunks and boasters who laughed and japed around the encampments as if it was a summer revel, but Sparrow clearly needed cheering up.

Not that McNabb’s news was guaranteed to improve his mood.

Sparrow looked up, studied the cavalryman’s familiar features, the rust coloured stubble about his chin and neck, the grimy tide mark around his shirt collar. Bright brown eyes roving about the tavern as if he was expecting trouble – or avoiding his gaze.

By Christ he’d only just been out of his teens when he’d first made the acquaintance of the bow-legged horseman. A mere boy compared to McNabb, who had already fought a handful of battles.

That summer in Bristol, at the ford outside of Bath. A baptism in blood.

Sparrow had fought his fair share since then – and not finished on the winning side in any of them, he remembered with a frown. Well, Cheriton had been a victory of sorts.

Get a grip man, you’ve been here before. That time you got chucked out of…

Alright Archie, kick me when I’m down why don’t you?

Well there y’are! You bounced back last time. Busted down and out, why the next I heard you were in charge of that Dartland’s regiment, cocking your beaver at Cheriton Field in all your finery! He lifted the lawned sleeve of Sparrow’s expensive shirt on one stubby finger and flicked it aside in disgust. The stern Roundhead abhorred lace as cavalier pretension and had told Sparrow so on many occasions.

Sparrow sighed. No sooner had he been set up nicely as busted back down again. By Christ, just because he’d lain with poor Mary Keziah, cuddled up in that stable before Roundway. One, well, maybe three times. Three times and she’d taken a stone for her trouble.

Trouble, aye.

Camp gossip had gone before him, reached the ears of the commissioners and cut-throats charged with forming regiments for this new-fangled army the nobs were putting together.

Well the others were little enough use, that was for sure.

He’d recognised Master Nathaniel Eagleton, the squinting, russet-tufted clerk who had shifted the paperwork when they had put Dartland’s regiment into the field back in Portsmouth a year since. He hadn’t seemed too troubled by the suitability of the officer candidates back then. If you could show a pulse you were in. If you could scrawl an x beside your name on the muster list you got a captaincy.

Sparrow had been major. Major mind you.

Second in command to young Dartland, the wide-eyed nobleman they had been so keen on recruiting to the cause. With most of the West lost to the Royalists they needed any local figurehead they could get and Dartland had proved amenable. Aye, and brave enough.

Sparrow had reminded Eagleton of his rank and good service since, but the balding busy-body seemed rather more choosy about the company they kept in their fine new army.

He’d ‘let Sparrow know when the list was presented to the Commons.’

That had been two weeks ago.

I’ve sent money back to her, care of Sir Gilbert, Sparrow went on. Archie’s eye narrowed at the mention of the Somerset turncoat. Five pounds to start with, another two as soon as I was able, Sparrow exclaimed, warming to his theme. Along with a letter promising to make good. To marry her the moment I can get back. McNabb nodded wearily. I’ll go back, petition Eagleton again if I have to.

The New Model seemed to thrive on paperwork.

I’d copied in Dartland. Before he… you know. I’d got a letter of recommendation from Colonel Birch, vouching for my service at Cheriton.

Cheriton, yes yes.

But Cheriton hadn’t made any difference to the price of fish, despite all their huffing and panting.

Seconded by Dartland. An Earl mind you.

Until he was killed. Far from home. Archie sighed. What a waste. The lad had been the black sheep of his family – he had a heart, conscience and courage. The rest of them? Bandits masquerading as Royalist sympathisers.

The promising young Earl had been lost in the confused rout at Cropredy, caught in the open by charging Royalist horse. A hoof to the head had finished his promising military career in a blink – and placed a huge question mark over his apparently over-promoted major.

Sparrow flicked his wrist, straightening the lace McNabb had tugged. Getting home – it was all he’d thought about these past three years.

Fat chance of that, stuck with Waller’s Western army the other end of the country. He couldn’t even be sure she’d received the money – not if Gilbert Morrison had anything to do with his cruelly constricted financial arrangements.

Archie’s stern Presbyterian features softened momentarily.

Aye lad. Well, at least you’ve promised that.

Which is why they haven’t thrown me out completely? Sparrow reasoned, deluded as ever. They need good captains.

The House of Lords has the list of captains, Archie said carefully, taking another swig of his beer. Sparrow paused, eyed the veteran.

Meaning?

I put a word in for you my’sen. But Holbourne’s not inclined to serve, even if they ask him. If Holbourne doesn’t take on your old crew… it’ll be one of Cromwell’s cronies.

Meaning? Sparrow repeated.

They’ll try and get the Eastern Association men, the men they think they can control, if not trust. They’ll not be swayed by the likes of me.

Sparrow considered this for a moment.

Ensign then? He could carry the colour. Archie grimaced.

I had it from a quartermaster’s clerk at headquarters. They’re still short, thousands short, he lowered his voice, leaned closer over his cups. Sparrow held his gaze.

Meaning what, bloody pikeman? Haven’t I served enough, aye, front rank mind, he said heatedly.

The quartermaster’s clerk owed me one. I got him a horse, cheap. Aye, you do and all. Sergeant.

Sergeant? Bastard sergeant after… Archie reached over the table and pushed the furious soldier back into his seat. The inn, packed with soldiers from a dozen regiments, looked up as one imagining another good fight. The Big feller and that Jock horse soldier.

Is the best I could do for ye.

Sparrow crashed back into the settle, ale slopping over the table.

Sergeant? After three years of shambling through shit? Two years in charge of every set of scoundrels they put together! That Cheesemonger feller, on the way to Gloucester. And Dartland’s lot, by Christ most of them were Royalist prisoners, the rest cut-throats from Portsmouth jail!

Archie nodded. I know laddie. I told the quartermaster all about it. But this damned crew, they want to know the ins and outs of a cat’s arse. Soon as they heard about the bairn, you might as well have taken yourself over to join Prince Rupert. They don’t mind a few bastards lying around, over the hill.

Sparrow snorted at the prospect. Or lack of them.

I’ll marry her, the moment they allow me a week’s leave. I don’t even know exactly where to find her Archie, he protested, more miserable than ever.

Aye well, McNabb lowered his tankard. You’ve put a few shillings aside, nae doubt.

A few shillings is about right. Sergeant? In Holbourne’s?

No, not Holbourne’s, Archie snapped. I told ye, he’s away for the North and all. He won’t serve that crew any more than you would Rupert.

Holbourne, a Scot and a Presbyterian to boot, had told the commissioners to stuff the regiment they had offered him. Waller’s castoffs plus five hundred cannon fodder? Sparrow could hardly blame him.

It’s the same army isn’t it? Sparrow protested. A few new generals down from the North. That Fairfax feller. Reward for Marston Moor. It’s the only battle we’ve managed to win so far, save Cheriton. And Cheriton was a damned sideshow in comparison, by all accounts.

McNabb signed.

Now you’re being naïve, he said shortly. This isn’t the same old crew. This is, this is something all new. And your man Cromwell will be in the mix somewhere, mark my words.

And we don’t like Cromwell, Sparrow offered, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. You couldn’t be too careful these days, with all these bastards from the Eastern and Northern Associations in town to join the newly forged army. Aye, and take over his company and all no doubt, he thought, bristling.

I’m surprised they haven’t got a committee for bastards and all, Sparrow snarled.

Yer wrong laddie – I think they have. Cromwell’s on that and all.

Cromwell. What’s he done for us anyway? Running around some marsh in East Anglia?

He’s a good soldier, I’ll grant him that. But it’s his politics. His religion. All rolled in to one as if he’s… God’s own trumpet. And by Christ does he blow it. McNabb pursed his lips, eyed the noisy crowd. The Drum and Monkey was doing brisk business, with the remnants of three armies in town, all waiting to be re-assigned.

It’s the same old crew with new chiefs, Archie, Sparrow argued. Fairfax…

Fairfax is one thing, Cromwell’s another, and they’ve men with them as make both look like newborn babes. Independents, republicans, Archie hissed. Whatever on earth they were.

Some throwback to Roman times, Cicero and Mark Anthony. Only they had a senate, not a stack of damned committees. They had used up more paper and ink than gunpowder these last few months, setting up this new crew.

Yes well, as you say, politics.

Politics. Politics the like we’ve never seen. Mark my words. This new crew, they’ll stop at nothing.

So Holbourne’s said no… and you’re off too?

McNabb shrugged.

Back home?

Home? Cah! I barely recall where home is I’ve been out so long. Away. North. Newcastle, York, wherever Leslie’s taken himself off.

The Scots had moved back north after the allied triumph at Marston Moor. A titanic victory summoned in a thunderstorm, and yet the victory seemed to have gone off half cocked – neither the Scots not Parliament’s northern armies following up their advantage.

Another lost opportunity.

But they’d never drop you, Arch, not after all your service? Waller would vouch for you, Birch, Haselrig, Carr… the names tripped off his tongue. Good officers who looked after their men. Loyal officers who’d stood by through thick and thin. Mostly thin.

Aye. But they’re all off. New assignments.

Not all of them. Sparrow wondered. Carr had been sent south, to Portsmouth. Haselrig had always been a political appointment and had barely balanced his account after the abject failure at Roundway. Birch? A maverick. He’d been banished to an independent command in the Midlands, last Sparrow had heard.

All of them. They’ve picked who they want, every officer from ensign up. You’re lucky I was able to pull strings for you, laddie, otherwise it would have been the pike block for ye, aye.

Damn them then. I’ll pack up, head west, pick up Mary Keziah and follow… what? Archie was shaking his head, looking around the smoky inn at the assorted soldiery. Whores and doxies, drunks and daubs.

Well ye can’t come north with me laddie, Archie reasoned.

You came south! I’ve a yearning to see Loch Ness, the mountains and those isles you’re always on about.

Oh aye, they’d love you. Archie looked pained, turned his bright amber fox eyes back on the grey-suited officer. Ex-officer.

We’ve fought together Archie, Sparrow countered. Lansdown, Cheriton. The Scots practically won the day at Marston Moor, so they reckon. The joke fell as flat as his ale.

What, do you think, Sparrow went on, wondering at Archie’s unusually subdued counsel. Do you think we’ll all fall out over it? The Royalists newsbooks were full of it. Claiming the alliance between Parliament and the Scots wouldn’t last till Christmastide.

Archie sat back in his chair saying nothing. Sparrow paused, the Scotsman’s nods and hints finally making sense. He shook his head.

You’re reading too much into it. Fair enough, they’ve pensioned off a few fainthearts. Formed a new army for the summer, but that’s all. It can’t undo all the times we’ve shared. The battles we’ve fought, Parliament and the Scots. The Covenant.

McNabb snorted. The Covenant was a marriage of convenience. The English signed it knowing they’d left themselves enough wriggle room to get out any time they liked.

You’re wrong Archie. You can’t undo everything just like that.

Politics laddie. And since when have you cared two hoots for the Covenant? They can do what they like in God’s name like. And have, aye.

Well that’s as maybe, Sparrow continued, obstinately. They can fall out, the generals, Leslie and Essex and Manchester. Cromwell and Fairfax. But the men won’t be drawn in to their little games. You know, the soldiers like you, and me, he trailed off, examined the bottom of his tankard.

Aye, we’ve no argument laddie.

Nor will we have, Sparrow tried to sound cheery, failed.

Nor will we have. Sparrow took a deep breath, the sour fumes of the inn tightening around his throat.

It won’t come to that, he said flatly. I’d not draw sword on you Archie, no matter all the politicking and religion in the world. Even if we did end up at opposite ends of the field.

Archie’s ‘cah!’ sounded as hollow as Sparrow’s assertions.

It will not come to that, McNabb repeated.

Never.

Politics laddie.

Politics.

Part One

Naseby Field

I could not, riding out alone about my business, but smile out to God in praises, in assurance of victory because God would, by things that are not, bring to naught things that are.

Cromwell before the Battle of Naseby

By Guilsborough and Elsewhere

Northamptonshire, June 12–13, 1645

For two pins he would have chucked the whole lot in.

Two and a half years he had been at it. One end of the country to another. Hardly more than a week in one place. And if he had spent more than a few days in the same billet ipso bloody facto they would have been enduring a siege – inside or out the walls it hardly made any difference.

Rampart or ditch, tower or trench, the bullets flew the wounded shrieked and the shit still stank.

Two and a half years denied any sort of home or family comfort. Prisoners in the Tower had an easier ride. Cold scraps, small beer and no pay worth mentioning.

Arrears which would have made the most criminally contemptuous commissariat officer blush for shame.

The cold comfort of soldiers and strangers. And as for the supposed perks of service? Half an hour with an ammunition whore beneath a dripping waggon. The occasional, button twisting fumble in a stable, outhouse or under a bloody bush with some red cheeked farm wench if they were very, very lucky.

And if battle or galloping pox didn’t get you the camp fevers would. Sure as eggs were rotten.

Bloody flux, plague, typhus. Epidemics that swept away entire regiments before they had even taken to the field.

Digging latrines or fighting through them, the stink clung to clothing, rimed your nails, dug into your skin so no amount of scrubbing was like to remove it.

And for what? Who had ever cared two hoots for their martial endeavours?

Who had ever, ever, expressed the slightest gratitude for the sacrifices they had made during this unhappy civil war?

Had they been thanked, praised, honoured?

No. Humbled, hounded, overlooked. Ignored at best.

Knight, Bishop, King or Queen, had anyone of them ever deigned to thank them for their service?

Had any precious Lord General, squinting commissioner or pamphlet waving radical bothered to stop for a moment, pat them on the back and send them back to their troops with an encouraging word? Had they bugger.

---

Busting him back down to sergeant of pike had been bad enough, William Sparrow mused for the ten thousandth time.

Reducing all his months and years of good service to miserable mitigation.

He’s had to sell his horse but he could get another. He’d sold on several of his suits, but kept his favourite – the grey with the black tabs. And he’d hung on to the heavy officer’s sword – they’d have to lift that from his broken body so help him.

As for his arrears, well, they might as well owe him for serving as sergeant as captain or colonel of bloody horse. Late was late whether you were up with the nobs or trolling along in the foot.

No, they had saved the best till last. Not even Archie McNabb had dared tell him to his face.

The powers that be had decided to take away his company, but the real red hot poker up the rear end had been their choice of replacement.

Sparrow squeezed his eyes tight shut, imagining it had been a bad dream.

Only it hadn’t.

They had only gone and given it to Gillingfeather.

Gillingfeather!

The swivel eyed fanatic who had quarrelled and cajoled them since the black days in Bath, waiting for Prince Maurice to emerge from the murk with his murderous bloody cut-throats.

Hereward bloody ranter Gillingfeather. Captain of foot, Sir Hardress Waller’s regiment, Parliament’s army new-modelled.

It was enough to make a cat puke. And plain old pike pusher William Sparrow wasn’t the only soldier feeling sorry for himself that summer eve.

---

Thirty miles to the north His Highness Prince Rupert of the Rhine, finest and most steadfast soldier in the country, in Europe even, had troubles, aye, of his own.

After Newark they had hailed him as the new Caesar. After Marston Moor they were queueing up to stab him in the back. His miraculous march across the North, his masterful relief of York forgotten in a moment. Blame, rumour and accusation stalked the towering Prince like crows about a haunted tower. His enemies at court, despairing of his fame after Newark, preying on the leftovers after Marston Moor.

He shuddered to think of it, cowering in a bean field as squadron after squadron of enemy horse thundered by. Scots lancers on shaggy ponies like blue-bonneted Mongols.

Cromwell’s Ironsides – they weren’t even men but some manner of infernal, mass produced machine sent to destroy him and his King. It wasn’t normal, a troop, a regiment, a brigade turning on an instant as if guided by one supernatural thought. A pack of hounds didn’t stay in formation to run down a deer.

It was every dog for himself and the devil take the hindmost.

Cavalry should be as hounds unleashed, not chessmen pushed across a board. Patient, professional, terrifyingly precise. The Prince bit his lip, coldly aware that somehow those inhuman fiends carried the keys to his uncle’s Kingdom.

Coldly aware he would never, could never command such a force given the pick of all the cavalry in the land.

Marston Moor. The dreary name plagued and pricked his consciousness. He’d wager it was raining there still. Perhaps it never stopped. He pictured the bodies and bones washed whiter than ivory by endlessly revolting weather. The Marquis of Newcastle’s white-coated regiment dying to a man in that bloody enclosure. White coats stained red and then bled white again by the constant bloody rain.

He pictured it on his headstone.

Rupert, defeated at Marston Moor.

Irresistible Rupert, until Marston Moor.

Magnificent Rupert. Until Marston Moor had routed his reputation.

If it hadn’t been for that snivelling rat Telling turning up with a loose horse he’d be there yet. Lying in the clay alongside his poor old dog.

Poor Boy.

He’d apologised to his uncle but the Prince sensed the change in the King’s mood. The sudden lack of faith in everything he did and said. By Christ he’d fought hadn’t he? As the King had bidden him.

Rupert kept the letter in a pocket under his doublet, in case anybody asked him why he had dared fight an allied army – three allied armies in fact – which had outnumbered him more than three to two.

Let his critics make of that letter what they could. Childish, petulant gibberish a professor of law wouldn’t have been able to make head nor tail of. By God’s wounds he’d read it over again and again, finding clauses justifying his decision to fight.

Aye, Rupert had fought alright, and lost. And he had been fighting a rearguard action since, not just in the field.

And here they were again.

The King’s quarters. Another damned cottage, the goodwife and children bundled outside to make room for their majesties.

The usual clownish capers and preposterous posturings. The promises and boasts and grand strategies which looked fine, on paper at least.

Councils of war had ever been a trial for Rupert. Blunt, angry, unforgiving – he’d never suffered fools gladly and there were fools aplenty around Charles. It was widely reported he had more enemies in the Royal camp than he had in Parliament, aye and the camp wags had it about right and all.

He’d heard the scurrilous banter around the camp – how the embattled English would put him on the throne instead, him or his elder brother. Pick any one of the darling sons from the beloved Palatinate. The newsbooks claimed the London mob called his name as if he was Pompey or Anthony or Augustus himself.

Their very own Caesar, if only he would come in from the cold and leave his wretched uncle be.

A place might be found… something might be arranged. Scores could be settled or put aside. The English had loved his mother and father, sent troops to fight for the Winter King at the very start of the German wars going on thirty years before.

They could learn to love Rupert just as well, if he, if he, if he…

My Lord?

Rupert clenched his fists, dismissing the thought. Unworthy wondering. He pinched his nose between long fingers. He was more exhausted than he imagined. God’s bones – he’d endured three years of almost constant combat. He’d barely slept in the same bed twice.

And what does His Highness think?

He’d ridden from one end of the country to the other a dozen times in his uncle’s cause, fought a dozen battles and ridden through a hundred hack and slashes without as much as a scratch.

But his nerve… God damn him he’d hold his nerve. He’d think and plan and counter Digby’s trickeries.

Do we detain you overlong with affairs of state my Lord? Rupert opened an eye, glared at the nodding courtier. Digby.

Always Digby.

Manoeuvre. Find better ground. Reinforcements. He snapped.

North, Digby raised his colourless eyebrows. North, always north. Have we, he weighed the word carefully, Have we not lost the North?

The North remains the North. Loyal to its King. The principal component of the army that won the day is here, he jabbed at the map. At the Midlands at any rate.

Nobody could tell where the damned New Model had got to.

Ten thousand men lost with all guns, colours and baggage, and yet His Highness advises another of his near legendary marches. By night, perhaps?

Rupert turned to his uncle, busy chewing the wisps of his beard.

Fairfax is here. Cromwell reported nearby. We need not concern ourselves with the rest of Parliament’s damned crew, nor their fair weather friends the Scots.

Please God that were true, Charles murmured.

And on it went. By the light of flickering candles, armies and brigades conjured and transported from one end of the country to the other.

As if armies were sacks of sugar beet or barrels of beer.

Rupert shifted his finger across counties, traced meandering river lines.

We must reduce Taunton, clear the West coasts once and for all. Bring all the men back here, here in the Midlands, to face the enemy’s main force.

Rupert straightened, chronically tired but keenly aware he dare not allow this jabbering cabal to set his majesty’s strategies.

He, Rupert, would destroy the rebel army, this new Noddle the pamphlets hadn’t stopped crowing about.

And he would restore his name, aye, and fame besides.

---

That night at least, the bone-tired Prince could feel fractionally reassured. He had managed at last to overrule the court, shout down lords and earls, silence his critics and dare his enemies to gainsay him. He had succeeded in prising one precious piece from the board. Remove one of the crowing cocks from this court of cocks.

Goring. Reckless, boastful and suicidally brave, found the intrigues of the court more stimulating than his most provocative whore. He would leave his precious bottle in his tent, swagger and strut before his majesty promising the moon and stars for breakfast.

Rupert, who had never been one for idle chit-chat, out of his depth in comparison.

There were plenty of silver-tongued courtiers who could get the better of him in a debate, but none who could have taken him or his regiment, sword in hand.

But Goring was different. He could have won the war in a twelve month, if he laid off boozing for an hour or two. But for every stroke of genius he played a dozen jokers. For every brilliant victory a blindly stupid mistake.

Goring had set the west afire with his antics, but for every blow he landed the enemy returned three, with interest.

Not that you’d know it, listening to him blabber on.

Rupert couldn’t compete, tongue tied before the stammering monarch.

Charles would have changed his mind, ignored his counsel before an hour was out.

So he had got rid of him. Recommended he return to his precious West Country with a new commission placing him in command of the squabbling whoresons who had spent the past three years carving out their own little empires without reference to the over-riding demands of the cause at hand. His uncle’s throne.

But the price had been heavy. Heavier than he would have liked.

Three thousand horsemen, veterans who could have helped balance the scales here.

Three thousand horsemen who might second his charge.

Goring, tickled at the prospect of ruling the roost, had ridden off with his precious regiments – one of the finest assets at the King’s disposal that miserable summer.

Goring was fully capable of beating up respected commanders like Waller and Cromwell as if on a whim. To him it was nought but a game, an idle pastime between bottle and bawd.

Charging around the countryside he was irresistible. But Goring was wholly incapable of settling down to a siege. Incapable of taking the most meanly defended town. Incapable of sweeping up the last Rebel garrisons along the coast and setting the men free to march north and reinforce the King’s field army.

Taunton, Lyme, Plymouth – thorns in the side of the King’s Western counties. Thorns which should have been pulled long since, if they were to concentrate the force necessary to bring the rebels to one final, crushing defeat. By God, the King had more men south of Bristol than he had around Oxford. And Oxford was where the war would be won, aye, or thereabouts.

Goring, not expecting any support from the high and mighty Rupert, hadn’t thought twice about his latest mission. He had galloped off without a second thought, bottle in one fist sword in the other.

Leaving Rupert to counsel the King. With Goring out of the way he stood a fair chance of shouting down the whispering coven of dukes and lords and minor gentry who accompanied Charles on his aimless anabasis about the Midlands.

Digby, his most ferocious critic, in league with the swaggering Goring? It was not to be borne.

Digby, sensing the subtle demonstration, demanding Goring should weld his three thousand cavaliers to the King’s main force, let the West rot!

For once, he had been right.

For once, Digby had been out-voted and overruled.

Rupert, returned to his quarters at last, allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction at his strategic victory.

With Goring gone and Digby isolated, he would be free to direct the King’s wayward attentions. He knew Charles would sway and stutter and shift his ground, but at least Rupert would be at his side to guide him back to the path.

The path that would lead him, Rupert, to victory.

---

New faces everywhere. Seven thousand strangers.

Precious weeks since the ill-starred rendezvous in Windsor, and McNabb, Holbourne and the vast majority of the mightily experienced Scots had gone home. Well north at any rate. Away from them.

The sudden departure of so many good officers had been hard felt, particularly in the ill-assorted rabbles which made up the new model’s regiments of foot.

Well they might well have been short but that didn’t mean there was a place for William bastard-fathering Sparrow, printer turned ensign turned major turned fornicator and now sergeant of the pike.

Back to the ranks! The fanciest turned out sergeant in the entire army, even if he had been obliged to sell his horse to one of the chinless wonders drafted in from the South East.

A couple of weekends carousing with their local trained band and they imagined they were Wallenstein.

Sparrow had cursed and fretted for weeks, almost oblivious to the ridiculous distances they had force-marched.

By Christ’s bones they had done some sightseeing that summer.

They had even marched past Stonehenge at one point, though no one seemed quite clear as to the whys or wherefores of the broiling anabasis.

Some of the preachermen and loudmouths had called for the brigade to be put to work dragging the pagan slabs to the ground and smashing them with picks, obliterating an ancient monument which had been there long before the disciples had put pen to parchment to write their precious gospels.

But there hadn’t been time. They had been hurried on down the great West road, then turned back and marched straight back the way they had come, heading direct for Oxford, according to the smart-talking musketeers, who always seemed hours better informed than their colleagues in the pike.

And before they had time to dig as much as a foot or two of trench the generals had packed them all off again, north this time.

---

God’s bones, Sparrow growled, picking his breeches from between his cruelly frayed buttocks. I hope the King’s men are as worn out as we are, he complained. One of the mounted officers had drawn alongside the column, lifting his wide-brimmed hat to waft cooler air over unfamiliar, flint-sharp bronzed features. Sparrow tipped his hat, forgetting it was no longer his place to address remarks to senior commanders. When we catch up with ’em, I mean, sir, he modified smoothly.

He had mistaken the quizzical look for an invitation to elaborate and been halfway through his explanation before he remembered his place.

Well, that is, well my lord. We’ve chased them up country and they chased us down country. Now they’re off to Newark and we’re after them. It’s as if we’re all playing catch-as-catch-can, he added by way of lame explanation.

My Lord General has received his orders, I am sure they will be passed down to the common soldiery in good time, the mounted officer retorted.

Common soldiery?

Oh yes. Him.

No sir. Indeed sir, Sparrow replied smartly, tipping his hat. He slackened his pace a little, hoping the officer would pull off ahead, but he seemed content to pass the time of day with Sparrow, marching on with halberd slung over his shoulder.

The committee has let him off the leash at last, he confided. My Lord General is instructed to take the fight to the King how he sees fit, rather than being marched from pillar to post as you say.

Sparrow studied the anonymous officer, didn’t recognise him from Waller’s old crew. Not that there were too many of the Western boys left now.

Have you served with the Lord General before sir? he inquired.

In and out. Eastern Association mostly.

And how about you? Over from Massey? I hear he’s losing a dozen a day.

I served at Gloucester sir, but with Essex’s army. Mercer’s.

Mercer’s? Never heard of ’em.

We got rolled into the Earl of Dartland’s. In Waller’s army. With him ever since.

The officer took a longer look at him. He had a thin beard, piercing blue eyes beneath that enormous, wide-brimmed hat.

Unlucky fellow, Waller. One of our best. Strict Presbyterian of course, means well I dare say.

He always looked after us, looked after the men sir, Sparrow replied loyally. The officer nodded.

I wouldn’t argue with the care he gave his men. The officer leaned over his horse conspiratorially. But if we’re to bring the war to an end, we need generals prepared to press our advantages. To bring the King to heel.

To heel? By Christ had the big chiefs in London actually thought this through? What were they intending to do with Charles, if the much vaunted new army did corner the King in some castle somewhere?

Some of the hotheads claimed they would share the land out so every bugger got an acre, aye, and had a say in where his taxes went and all.

Ha! Every musketeer and pikemen with a vote – just fancy.

Some of the regiments and brigades had even set up their own damned committees, soldiers’ forums to liaise with the big nobs.

Sparrow couldn’t contemplate such lunacy. Running an army by committee? It would never happen. Just get the bloody war finished, worry about the politics afterwards had always been his personal motto.

More riders had caught up with them, fallen in line a short distance behind. Quality suits in grey and green with black and gold trim. Good swords and paired pistols. This army was certainly better equipped than the previous forces Sparrow had served in.

They saluted the mysterious officer, fell into line behind. The officer tipped his hat.

Ah. Duty calls, he sighed. Don’t fret about playing catching up with the enemy sergeant, the officer advised. We’ll be renewing our acquaintance any day now. Good day to you sir.

And to you sir, Sparrow called, unusually cheered by the unknown officer. His stained buff coat marked him out as a veteran, whatever association he had hailed from. Talked sense and all, not the blather the senior commanders usually relied upon. The sort of fellow a man could follow.

Sparrow raised his hat as the mounted party spurred on, bypassing company after company of trudging musketeers.

There was a waft of strong tobacco as Muffet fell into step beside him, puffing on a short stemmed clay pipe. The musketeer moved the pipe to the other side of his mouth.

Building bridges with the big nobs then Will?

Passing the time of day. Did you recognise him?

Nah. Eastern Association I imagine.

Aren’t they all?

Sparrow wiped the sweat from his brow, wiped his hand on the back of his breeches. Not one of ours though? I heard Sir Hardress has gone off to collect recruits. I don’t even know the Major he’s left in charge.

Smith? Smith or suchlike. That’s handy then. We’ll have to look out for ourselves, as usual.

Aye. Got away with it so far I suppose, William remarked, reassured by Muffet’s sheer implacability. The Londoner had been with them from the early days outside Bath, taught Sparrow most of what he knew about soldiering. Use a bit of common sense and never, never do anything hasty.

Sound advice had kept them alive so far.

Where we headed anyway? We must have marched twenty miles today.

More like fifteen. North. As far as I can make out.

Trapping the King before us and the Scots.

Muffet blew another puff of smoke.

"I imagine his majesty has left himself a few ways out of the woods. Yorkshire, Newark, North bloody Wales. It’s a question of trying to guess which road he