COMRADES IN ARMS
There were no dreams for Hugh after he had stretched himself out on a
bench in the hall as Strangwayes bade him. He was too exhausted in body
and spirit to question or speak; he only knew he was glad he had found
his friend once more, and the cushion beneath his head felt soft, so he
went dead asleep, and lost at last the remembrance of the sights of the
day’s carnage. He had no dreams and he was loath even to have a waking;
some one shook him again and yet again, but he only murmured drowsily,
with a voice that seemed far off to him, till he was pulled up sitting.
He screwed his knuckles into his eyes, turning his face from the
candlelight, and he heard Strangwayes laugh: “Look you here, Captain
Turner. This gentleman must have a clear conscience by the way he
sleeps.”
The thought that Turner’s sharp eyes were on him made Hugh face about
and sit blinking at the candles. The hall where they had that morning
eaten was quite bare now and dark, except for the two flickering candles
and the uncertain firelight. In front of the chimney-piece Turner, all
equipped to ride forth, was making a lunch of a biscuit and a glass of
wine he held in his hands, and the only other occupant of the apartment
was Dick Strangwayes, who, wrapped to the chin in his cloak, stood by
the bench. “Awake, eh?” he smiled down at Hugh. “Good morrow, then.”
“What’s the time?” Hugh asked, peering across the hall at the windows,
which were squares of blackness.
“Past two and nipping cold. Are you fit to ride back to the field with
us?”
For answer Hugh staggered to his feet, marvelling at the stiffness in
his legs, and tried to hold himself erect. “Here, on with this,” said
Strangwayes, throwing a cloak about him. “I judged ’twas yours, and if
’tis not, the man who left his goods so careless deserves to lose them.
And slip this sash over your sword-belt. It was Ned Griffith’s, but
he’ll not need—”
“He’s not dead?” Hugh broke out.
“No, no; but he’ll be of little more use than a dead man for the next
four months. Slash in the breast and his leg broke by some of our horse
as he lay. You’ll need to look you out a new cornet, Captain Turner.”
“They dropped my lieutenant, too, down by Kineton,” said Turner, putting
by his glass. “Gwyeth’s troop and mine, there on the flank, we suffered
for it. Do you judge those knaves will have the horses saddled ere
daybreak?”
“Is there more fighting to come?” Hugh questioned sleepily, as he tried
to tie the scarlet sash across his chest.
“Enough to flesh that maiden sword of yours,” Turner paused at the door
to reply. “By the bye, Master Strangwayes, is it true that Captain
Peyton was slain in the charge? He owes me five sovereign on my wager
that neither side could call the day theirs, and if he has got himself
killed!” Turner shrugged his shoulders and passed out.
“What has brought him hither?” Hugh yawned.
“Poor old lad! Eat a bit and try to wake up,” urged Strangwayes. “What
has brought Michael Turner? Why, his love for that poor little troop he
let get so wofully peppered in the fight. He has been ravaging the
country for a horse-load of bread with which to fill their stomachs, ere
the battle he is sure will come this day. And now, question for
question, what brings you here, so far from Colonel Gwyeth?”
Hugh put down on the table the piece of bread he had been eating, and
looked across at Strangwayes, then blurted out plainly the whole story.
He was glad to find he could tell it almost without passion now, with
not a censuring word for Colonel Gwyeth, and even with an effort to make
a jest of some of the happenings. He heard Strangwayes mutter something
like an oath when he described his first meeting with the colonel, but
there was not another sound till he told of the affair with Hardwyn;
then Strangwayes drew in his breath between his teeth and turned toward
the fire. Hugh concluded hurriedly and half frightened, and waited for
an answer; then broke out, “Dick, sure you’re not going to despise me
for it as he does?”
Strangwayes came to him and put both hands on his shoulders. “No, Hugh,”
he said, “I need all the scorn that’s at my command for that precious
father of yours.”
The jar of the opening door made them stand apart and face to the end of
the hall, as Turner looked in to say, “Do you ride with me, gentlemen?”
Outside, a chilly wind that stung the face was abroad, and the sky was
black with clouds. Hugh paused on the threshold to blink the candlelight
out of his eyes, then, peering into the dark, made out the dim figures
of Turner, already in the saddle, and of two of his mounted troopers who
held led horses, and, last of all, let his gaze rest on a half-wakened
groom who came up with two fully equipped chargers. At sight of them
Hugh jumped down from the doorstone, and, after one closer glance,
cried, “Why, Dick, will you suffer me ride the bay?”
“The bay?” Strangwayes answered from the black horse’s back. “Your bay,
you young fool! Why in the name of reason did you not keep the beast
with you, since you captured him?”
Hugh settled himself in the saddle and turned the horse’s head in his
companion’s tracks, too full of joy to heed anything, save that the bay
that had known him in the Everscombe stables, that Peregrine Oldesworth
would not suffer him even to stroke, was now his, all his. He put out
one hand to stroke the warm neck, and whistled softly to see the slender
ears erected.
“Hold up, man! You’re riding me down,” came Strangwayes’ voice beside
him, and he found he had pushed forward till they were crowding knee to
knee.
“Do you honestly mean me to keep this fellow?” Hugh asked.
“If you can,” Strangwayes replied; “I’m thinking you’ll keep him on
three legs if you do not spare talk and look to him over this rough
ground.”
Hugh laughed happily, then drew the reins tauter in his hands, and
strained his eyes into the dark ahead lest some pitfall open to swallow
up the bay horse from under him. The road was so short, as he traversed
it now, that he was sorry when the fires on Edgehill twinkled in the
distance, and, picking their way cautiously, they came to the rendezvous
of Turner’s troop. “I am keeping by the captain, do you see?”
Strangwayes whispered Hugh as they dismounted. “He has lost his
lieutenant, and Sir William has promised to set me in the first
vacancy.”
Of the rest of the night Hugh only remembered that his knees were very
warm with the fire by which he sat, and his back was cold in spite of
his cloak. The flames crackled bravely, and Strangwayes talked nonsense,
to which Captain Turner listened in deep and sober approbation. But
Hugh, crowded close up to Strangwayes, said nothing, just gazed at the
fire and closed his eyes once in a while, till at last he went
ignominiously asleep with his head on his friend’s shoulder.
Waking with neck stiff and arm cramped, he found to his delight the east
all pale in the dawn, so, slipping the bridle of the bay horse over his
arm, he went strolling across the encampment till he could find out
Frank and show him his new mount. But Frank, now confident in the
possession of The Jade, discovered many flaws in the bay, which he set
forth in horseman-like phrases till Hugh went sauntering back again to
Strangwayes. At Turner’s fire he found a newcomer, a brown-haired young
officer, who had once taken him for a horse-boy, whom Strangwayes now
made known to him under the name of George Allestree, guidon in Captain
Butler’s dragoons, and serving as a volunteer at Edgehill. Discreetly
ignoring their former meeting, Allestree was effusively grateful to Hugh
for the use of the bay, which Strangwayes had lent him to ride thither,
and altogether proved so pleasant spoken a fellow that Hugh ended by
putting out of mind the memory of his previous conduct.
With Allestree and Strangwayes Hugh passed the long day, now talking a
bit by the ashes of last night’s fire, then rising to stretch his legs
and look to his horse, then back to the fire again, where he ate such
rations as were dealt to him and felt rather hungry afterward. It was a
day of uncertainty and idleness beneath which lay a tense expectancy;
any moment a blow might be struck for the king, yet the moments passed
and nothing was done. About noon Turner stalked off to confer with Sir
William, but he came back whistling and non-committal; indeed, there was
nothing but the old story to tell: his Majesty’s army rested on Edgehill
and my Lord Essex’s army was drawn up in the plain below, and each
looked at the other, but neither moved to strike.
They were not up in action till mid-afternoon of the next day, when
there came word the rebels were retreating, and, right on the heels of
that, a definite order for the horse to form in the plain. Once more
Hugh scrambled down the slope of Edgehill, but this time his feet were
braced in the stirrups, his sword smote against his horse’s flank, and
all about him, in loud talk of the victory they were soon to gain, other
mounted men were descending. Once more he had sight of ranks of horsemen
marshalling for a charge, but now he was himself in the thick of it,
and, when the word was passed along, waved his sword with the rest, then
galloped forward amidst his comrades. Before him the plain swept into
the western sky, where the clouds were shiny with the sun they hid, the
wind came sharp in his face, and around him men shouted and horses
plunged till his own beast, too, catching the joy of movement, reared
up. This was war, Hugh thought, and only for a second recalled it was
the same bloody field over which he had tramped not eight and forty
hours ago. Then across the plain he saw a cluster of roofs, and, as they
spurred faster, made out the windows of the cottages, and men moving in
the street. At that the shouting in the ranks about him became a yell of
onset, and he, too, rising up in his stirrups, screamed, “For a king, a
king!”
Of what followed nothing was quite clear. There were houses, a woman
that ran shrieking in front of his horse, and a Roundhead soldier he saw
bleeding upon a doorstone. He heard shots to the front, saw some of his
side press past him in flight, and after that he was mixed in a
confusion of horses and men of both parties. He struck wildly in with
his sword, whereat a Royalist dragoon, swinging round in his saddle,
cursed him volubly in German and in English as not old enough to be
trusted with cutting tools, and crowding past the man he left him still
cursing. Then he was wedged into a lane, where was a baggage-wagon with
a teamster on it who tried to lash forward his four horses. One Cavalier
trooper slashed up at the fellow where he sat, while another was cutting
the traces. Up at the far end of the lane was a shouting, “The rebels
are coming!” Hugh urged the bay forward to the heads of the leaders,
and, bending from the saddle, cut the traces with his sword. Then a ruck
of the Royalist troops was about him, and, as men caught at the freed
horses, he judged it proper to seize one of them by the bit and hold to
him, while the crowd forced him back down the lane, past the wagon and
the teamster dead beneath its wheels. From the rear came shots, but
there was no facing about in such a throng, so with the rest Hugh swept
back at a gallop through Kineton out into the open country.
The pace slackening now, he slipped his sword back into the sheath, and,
taking time to look about him, saw some of those who rode near had been
cut, but he himself and his two horses were without a scratch. Turning
in the saddle to gaze back, he saw other bands of horse come straggling
behind them. “Is the fight all over?” he asked a trooper who trotted
beside him.
“Over?” swore the fellow. “What more d’ye want?” Then he looked pretty
sharply at Hugh, and ended by offering to lead the wagon-horse for him,
an offer the boy refused. Next the trooper, assuring Hugh he might have
no end of difficulties in maintaining his right in the capture, proposed
to give him ten shillings for the beast. What more he would say Hugh
never found out, for, as they rode at a slackened pace a little on the
flank, a horseman from the rear came charging into them, stared, and
cried Hugh’s name. It was Bob Saxon of Gwyeth’s troop, who, scenting a
matter of horse-dealing, voluntarily came in, and, falling upon the
other man, bepraised the captured horse till he clean talked the fellow
out of the field.
“Ten shillings?” Saxon repeated contemptuously to Hugh, “Lord forgive
the knave! The beast is worth fifty. Come along with me, sir, and I’ll
find you a market.”
They made a great circuit off to the north of the field and about dusk
fetched up in a hamlet to the rear of the army, whither Royalist troops
were now marching from Edgehill to seek quarters. Saxon gathered some
half score of dragoons and a petty officer or two in the street before
the village inn, where, with loud swearing and shouting, he showed off
to them the captured horse. There followed much chaffering and
wrangling, with Saxon’s voice loudest, which ended in the paying of the
money and the delivering over of the beast. “Fifty shillings, as I
promised you, sir,” Saxon announced, as he told them into Hugh’s hand,
with a suggestive look that made Hugh pass him back five for himself.
“You’re a good piece of a gentleman, sir,” the trooper said candidly, as
they rode out from the hamlet. “Be you never going to serve under
Colonel Gwyeth?”
Hugh winced and answered “No,” then, bidding Saxon good-bye, headed for
the manor house, which he was not able to discover till mid-evening. It
was a relief to find himself safe among his comrades, for he was so
conscious of the forty-five shillings in his pocket that he felt sure
every prowler and hanger-on of the camp must have marked them for
plunder.
From the field of Edgehill the royal army marched to Banbury, which
yielded to them unresistingly. To Hugh this was far pleasanter marching
than the passage through Warwickshire, for not only did he now wear a
sword and a red sash that marked him of the king’s men, but he had his
own horse, Bayard, as he had named him for his bay color. The animal
contented him very well, though Frank and The Jade distanced him
whenever they raced a piece. “Bayard is no ambler; he was built for
serious work in the field,” Hugh replied loftily to Frank’s jeers, and
betook himself to Dick Strangwayes, whose mere presence was comforting.
He trailed along at Dick’s side, ate with him, and shared his bed, and,
in return, would gladly have cleaned Dick’s boots and groomed his horse,
the horse that had once belonged to Captain Oldesworth. He knew better,
however, than to offer such service, so he satisfied himself with taking
their two horses to stable, and standing over the groom who cared for
them to see the task was done without shirking.
On the night they lay at Banbury he came in from such labor and in their
chamber found Strangwayes unbuckling his cuirass, and singing, which was
with him a sign of either very good or very bad fortune. “What’s to do,
Dick?” Hugh asked, lighting a candle at the fireplace.
“What do you say to a lieutenancy to the front of my name again, and
over seasoned fighting men this time, not Jacks such as I misgoverned in
the Scots war?”
“Sir William has given you the lieutenancy under Turner?”
“Ay, and on the heel of that comes better: Turner’s troop rides for
service into Northamptonshire to-morrow.”
“That’s well,” Hugh answered rather sorrowfully, as he put the candle on
the table. “Luck go with you.”
“Come along and bring it to us. Ay, you’re to go. I told my uncle we
could use you as a volunteer. You see, the troop is short one officer
since Griffith left.”
“Yes?” Hugh urged, with curiosity.
“I’m promising you nothing, remember,” Strangwayes continued soberly.
“But there’s that vacant cornetcy, and you’re a lad of a steady
courage,—I pray you, spare blushing,—and of a discreeter head than most
of your years. Now, first, you’re to ride with us and do all you can to
satisfy Captain Turner.”
“Dick, I cannot satisfy him,” Hugh gasped, almost bewildered by the
coolness and breadth of Strangwayes’ plan. “Captain Turner never does
aught but mock me; I’m near as unhappy with him as with my father.” He
could have bit his tongue for the ease with which it let slip such a
piece of the truth, but Strangwayes only gave him one involuntary look,
then changed the subject hastily to the matter of the raid into
Northamptonshire.
Next day, when his Majesty and his men rode south for Oxford, Captain
Turner, Lieutenant Strangwayes, and Volunteer Gwyeth, with some forty
troopers, got to saddle and went cantering eastward, to their own
pleasure and the discomfort of more than one Puritan of
Northamptonshire. It was partisan warfare, but Turner waged it
honorably; and Hugh, after he once got used to riding with his hand on
his hilt through villages of hostile, scowling people, had no quarrel
with the life.
They made their first dash for a country-house where arms and powder
were stored; there was slight resistance, a shot or two without damage,
a door battered in, and then Hugh was detailed with five men to ransack
a wing of the house where were the kitchen and offices. As they found
nothing they only wearied themselves with the thorough search Hugh
insisted on, and got laughed at for their pains by a fat kitchen wench.
But Strangwayes and his squad captured six muskets and a keg of powder,
though he came away grumbling. “No more work of that sort for me,” he
confided to Hugh. “You, you rogue, were safe in the buttery, while I was
rummaging the parlor, and the gentlewomen stood off with their skirts
gathered round them and glowered on me as if I were a cutpurse. I’m
thinking the time will never come that women understand the laws of
war.”
Afterward they struck into a small town where more powder was said to be
hid. Across the narrow part of the main street the people had built a
barricade of carts and household stuff, so Turner, after reconnoitring,
determined on a charge. “You had best bear the colors, Gwyeth,” he said,
as the troop fell into order outside the village. “Strangwayes must ride
at the rear, and, in any case, his two arms are of more profit to us
than yours.”
Hugh forgave the sneer as the cornet of the troop was put into his
hands. Like all Sir William’s cornets, it was a red flag with a golden
ball upon it, the prettiest colors in the world, Hugh considered, except
the black flag with the cross of gold that Colonel Gwyeth’s troop
marched under. Settling the staff firmly against his thigh, he glanced
up to see the folds of the flag droop in the still air, then took his
place by Turner at the front of the troop, and, a moment later, charged
in behind him. The stones clicked beneath the horses’ feet, the cottages
sped by, the barricade, whence came the hateful spitting of muskets, was
right before them. Hugh swerved for the left end, where the structure
was lowest, and Bayard, gathering himself up, cleared it at a leap.
Behind the barricade were men of all coats, some loading and steadily
firing, but more already scrambling down to flee. One, crying out at
sight of Hugh, broke away the faster; another levelled a pistol at him,
but before he could fire Bayard’s hoofs had struck him into the kennel.
Then the whole barricade seemed to go down as the Cavaliers, some still
in the saddle, others dismounted to scramble the better, came pouring
over.
Thus the king’s men possessed themselves of the town and took the
powder, which for some days to come supplied them. But there was a price
to pay, for in the encounter they had two men wounded, one of whom died
that night, and on the morrow before they marched was buried in an
orchard. Hugh never forgot the look of the leafless trees, the frosty
ground, and the silent men, who stood drawn up, with their breastpieces
strapped in place, all ready to mount. Each tenth man sat his horse with
the bridles of his comrades’ steeds in his hand, and there, at a little
distance from the horses, some of the townspeople, loitering with
curious, unsympathetic faces, peered and pointed at those about the
grave. They buried the dead trooper without his armor, but with his
cloak wrapped round him, and Strangwayes, standing with his helmet under
one arm, read the burial service. For the life of him Hugh could not
help thinking of that sermon Dick had once preached to Emry and his
friends, and there came on him an unbecoming desire to laugh, which
mixed with a choke in his throat so his lips moved till he was well
assured Captain Turner must think him no better than a child.
The morning sunlight was strong when they rode away from the orchard,
and half a mile out the troopers were swearing good-humoredly at each
other, and Strangwayes was jesting at the bravery of the town watch, a
single countryman whom he had hauled out, roaring for mercy, from
beneath an empty cart. Hugh laughed at the tale, and laid it to heart
that in war no man can hold regrets long, for his turn may come next,
and what little life may be left him is not given to be needlessly
saddened.
So he designedly carried a light heart under his buff jacket, and seized
what enjoyment he could from the small matters of everyday work. He was
happy when they had broiled bacon or a chicken for supper, which was not
often, and thankful for any makeshift of a bed; he took pleasure in
cantering Bayard at the head of the troop, and watching the red and gold
cornet flutter and flap above him; and he liked the fierce, hard knocks
of the skirmishes they had, in little villages and at lonely
country-houses, here and there through the shire. But when food failed
and there was no bed but the ground, when he was weary and sore with
much riding, even on that one wretched day when a troop of Roundhead
dragoons fell on them and sent them scampering with three saddles empty,
he got his best content from Strangwayes’ friendship, which made him
surer of himself and readier to face the world, yet humbler in his
efforts to keep the affection of the older man.
The thought that the winning of a commission in that troop meant more
such days of service with Strangwayes caused Hugh to redouble his
efforts to please Turner, and he succeeded so far that after the first
skirmish the captain suffered him to carry the cornet. For the rest,
Turner met all his honest efforts and prompt obedience with sarcasms on
his youth and simplicity, which made Hugh wince and go on laboring
bravely. Only one word of approbation did he get of Turner; that was on
a pouring wet night when Hugh came in from a watch with the pickets,
soaked to the skin, and, finding no food, lay down without a word on the
floor of the cottage where the officers were quartered, and went sound
asleep. Through his waking he could have sworn he heard Turner say,
“After all, Lieutenant, there’s the right mettle in this crop-headed
whelp.”
Though when Hugh opened his eyes and saw Turner standing over him with a
candle in his hand, the latter only said, “My faith, sir, do you ever do
aught but sleep?”
Thus with work and enjoyment of work the month of November passed, and
meantime his Majesty with the bulk of his army had marched to London,
and then marched back again. Afterward men said a kingdom might have
been gained upon that journey and had been cast away, but at that time
Turner’s troop had only rumors of marches and countermarches, till in
the early December a definite order reached them to repair to the king’s
headquarters at Oxford and join themselves to their regiment.
It was in the mid-afternoon that they at last rode into the city, where
the High Street was gay with bravely dressed men and sleek horses, and
the old gray buildings seemed alive with people. So many fine troops
were passing and re-passing that none gave special heed to the little
muddy band out of Northamptonshire. They passed unnoticed out by the
North Gate toward the parish of St. Giles, where quarters had been
assigned Sir William’s regiment, and there, in the dingy stable, the
officers parted. Hugh of necessity surrendered the cornet into Turner’s
hands with a last regretful look at its idle folds. “You made shift not
to lose it, did you not, sir?” the captain said with some kindness.
“Why, you’re no more of an encumbrance to a troop of fighting men than
most youngsters are.”
Then Turner and Strangwayes walked away to report themselves to Sir
William, while Hugh remained to see that Bayard and Dick’s Black Boy
were well groomed. To tell the truth, he was glad to linger in the
stable with the men among whom he had spent the last month; he wondered
if he was to have the chance to serve with them always, and the thought
made him nearly tremble with expectancy.
He was loitering by the stable door, when he caught sight of a familiar
blue jacket, and Frank Pleydall, in company with two lads of his own
age, came swaggering up. “So you’re back again, are you, Hugh?” he
cried, with a boisterous embrace. “And more freckled than ever, I swear!
Is that heavy-heeled horse of yours still unfoundered? Nay, don’t scowl,
I mean nothing. But tell me, is Michael Turner’s troop here or in the
stable across the way? I want to have a look at its fighting force.”
“Wherefore?” Hugh blurted out suspiciously.
“Why, I’m to hold Griffith’s cornetcy in it. Such labor as I had to win
it, Hugh. Talk to my father night and day, swear I had the strength and
discretion of twenty, vow to run away if he gave it not to me, so in the
end I secured it of him. Cornet Pleydall; how like you the sound? I told
you I’d coax a commission of him.”
“You will find Captain Turner a gallant man to serve under,” Hugh said,
after a moment. “Good-bye, Frank, I’m weary now. I’ll speak with you
to-morrow.”
With that he passed out into the street and headed aimlessly, he cared
not whither. He had not known till now how sure he had felt of that
cornetcy. And that a mere boy like Frank should be preferred over him,
because his kinsfolk gave him their countenance! For one instant he
almost had it in his heart to wish himself back at Everscombe, still
believing in his father, and still confident the world stood ready to
receive a man kindly for his own endeavors.
Too wretched to think or lay a plan for the future, he plodded up and
down the crowded streets till it grew dusk and pitchy dark, when sheer
weariness turned him to his quarters; at least Strangwayes was his
friend. The thought put more life into his step and made him hurry a
little with impatience till he had sought out the baker’s shop, in an
upper chamber of which they were to lodge. To his disappointment Dick
had not yet come in, so Hugh, without spirit enough to light a candle,
sat down on a stool by the fire with his chin in his hands and waited.
When he heard Strangwayes’ step outside, he endeavored to force a gay
tone and shouted him a greeting, but now he tried to use it his voice
broke helplessly. “There, I’ve heard it all, Hugh,” Strangwayes said,
and made no movement to get a light; “and I’m thinking Turner takes it
as ill as we do. He kept an assenting face to Sir William, of course,
but he blurted out to me that the deuce was in it that a little popinjay
like Frank must be thrust into our troop.”
Hugh forced a desperate laugh that ended in a choke.
“And I’ve another piece of news for you,” Strangwayes went on, sitting
down beside him. “Now you can take it as good or bad, which you please.
I’m not resolved yet myself. You’ll recollect Peyton was shot at
Edgehill, and we lost many men from the regiment. Well, they’ve taken
another troop that suffered much and used it to fill up the place. And a
new captain has been put over it under Sir William.”
“Is it you, Dick?” Hugh asked.
“Nay,” Strangwayes answered, with a chuckle; “’tis a one time
independent colonel, Alan Gwyeth.”