Word was passed about that we were going to surprise the militia at
Bridport at dawn. We were told to keep quiet on the march, after passing
Charmouth, as the night was so still that we should be heard far off. We
did not know how near the Bridport outposts might come to us under cover
of the night. “You come with us, Martin,” said Lord Grey: “Take a horse.
If we win Bridport you'll have to gallop back with the news.” I was
made a little nervous by the thought of going into battle so soon; but
gulping down my fears I mounted a marsh-mare which stood near the inn
door. I hoped sincerely that no militia bullet would find any part of
either of us. Then the drums began to play us out of the town with their
morning roll. A fife whined out, going down to our marrows with its
shrillness. Lights showed at the windows. We saw dark heads framed in
yellow patches. People called to us. In the door of the great inn stood
Monmouth; his face seemed very white in the glare of the torches. He
raised his hand to us as we passed him. The last thing I noticed of the
town, for I rode in the rear with Lord Grey, were the ranks passing the
lamp on the town hall. They came up to it in waves, their cloaks showing
in glimmer for an instant. Then they passed on into the night, sliding
forwards slowly with a steady roll, like the moving of waves to the
shore.
We were a long time riding; so long that the dawn was on us by the time
we were within shot of the enemy. I don't remember very much about the
ride, except that it was unreal, very unreal; for the mists came down,
blotting the world from us, so that we rode in a swirl of cold grey,
amid a noise of dropping. When we got to the top of the long hill after
Chideock I was bidden halt at a cross-roads, with a waggon full of
ammunition, while the force moved on to the attack. The hills were
showing up clearly above the mist; but the valley lay like a sea, a
great grey formless level, like some world of the ghosts. The troops
passed down in it, moving pretty briskly, lest the mist should lift
before they were in position. Most of them knew the country, so that
they could well walk confidently; but their quickness had something
nervous in it, as though they were ill at ease. Very soon they were out
of sight, out of hearing, swallowed up in the fog.
I waited a long time (as it seemed) up there at the cross-roads. After a
long wait I rode a little down the hill, from sheer anxiety. I pulled
up in a bank of cloud, through which I could see dimly, in the growing
light, for about a dozen yards. I was leaning well forward, listening
for the sound of shooting, when something made me look down. Someone
was standing at my side, slipping something into my pocket. It gave me a
start. I clutched at the person. It was the old lame puppet-man who
had been at Lyme the day before. “Latter for ee,” he said in a whisper.
“Read en, unless you'm a fool.” His hand pressed lightly on my bridle
hand for an instant; then he ducked sideways swiftly into the wilderness
of ferny gorse at the side of the road, where I could not hope to
follow him, even if the mist had not hidden him. Something in the voice,
something in the lightness of the touch startled me into the knowledge.
As he ducked, it came over me that this old man was Aurelia disguised,
come to spy upon us, but bent, also, on giving me a warning, some little
kind word of advice, at the beginning of my lord's war. I ought to have
recognized her before. I had been blind. She had been under my eyes the
whole day, yet I had never once suspected, no one, of all that army, had
suspected. She had been disguised by a master-hand. She had played her
part like a great actress. It was terrible to think of the risk she was
running. One man's suspicion, in a time of war, would have been enough
to give her to a horrible death. I tried to follow her into the jungle
into which she had vanished; but my horse would not face the furze. I
tried hard to see her, but it was no use; the tangle was too thick; she
had gone. I called out to her softly; but I got no answer; only, at some
little distance away, I heard a twig snap under a passer's foot.
In a momentary clearing of the mist, I pulled out my letter. It was
written in a fine, firm hand, with signature. It was a short, purposeful
letter, which kept sharply to the point. It only contained two lines.
“Your Duke's cause is hopeless. He has no possible chance. Take the
Axminster road to safety.” That was the whole letter. It gave me a
feeling of uneasiness; but it did not tempt me to desert. I thought that
if I deserted I might very well be tortured into betraying all that I
knew of the Duke's plans, while I doubted very much whether the Duke's
body-servant would find mercy from the merciless, frightened King. What
was I to do, even if I escaped from the King's party? I was too young
for any employment worthy of my station in life. I had neither the
strength nor the skill for manual labour. Who would employ a boy of my
age on a farm or in a factory? All that I could hope would be to get
away to sea, to a life which I had already found loathsome. As to going
back to my uncle's house, I doubt if I would have gone, even had I had
the certainty of getting to it safely. When a boy has once taken to an
adventurous life, nothing but very ill health will drive him back to
home-life. Yet there was the thought of Aurelia. Somehow the thought
of her was a stronger temptation than any fear of defeat. I would have
liked to have seen that old enemy of mine again.
I was thinking over the letter, wondering what would come to the Duke's
cause, when the valley below me began to ring with firing. A heavy
fire had begun there. It thundered in a long roll, which died down,
momentarily, into single sputterings through which one could hear
shouting. About twenty minutes after the beginning of the shots, when
all the party on the hill-top were edging nearer to the battle, taking
a few steps at a time, on tenter-hooks to be engaged, we heard a great
gallop of horses' hoofs coming to us at full tilt. At first we
were scared by this, for the noise was tremendous, too great, we
inexperienced soldiers thought, to be caused by our little troop of
cavalry. We thought that it was the Bridport militia charging down on
us, after destroying our friends. The mist by this time was all blowing
clear, though wisps of it clung along the hedgerows in unreal rolling
folds. The day above was breaking in the sultry blue summer dimness. We
could see, I suppose, for a quarter of a mile, straight down the road.
We had swung round, facing towards Lyme, when the noise of the hoofs
first came to us. When the turn of the road showed us a squad of cavalry
coming to us at the charge, led by half a dozen riderless horses, we
waited for no more. We spurred up our nags in a panic, till we, too,
were going full tilt for Lyme, shouting out as we went any nonsense
which came to our heads. We were in a panic fear; I believe that the
horses in some way felt it too. We galloped back to Chideock as though
we were chased by witches, while the gun-firing at Bridport steadily
grew less, till at last it stopped altogether. At Chideock, some of the
cavalry came up with us. They were our own men, our own troop of horse,
not an enemy after all. The riderless horses were a few of the militia
charges which had been seized from a cavalry outpost to the west of the
town. We had bolted from our own crazy terror. But we were not the only
fleers. Our cavalry had bolted first, at the first volley outside the
town. It is unjust to say that they were afraid. Lord Grey was not a
coward; our men had stout hearts enough; but they had not reckoned
on the horses. The first discharge of guns scared the horses almost
frantic. They swung about out of action in a couple of seconds. Another
volley made them all bolt. It was when they were bolting that the men
began to grow alarmed. Fear is a contagious thing; it seems to pass
from spirit to spirit, like a flame along a powder train, till perhaps
a whole army feels it. Our horsemen pulled up among us in Chideock in
as bad a scare as you ever saw; it was twenty minutes before they dared
walk back to find out what had happened to the foot at Bridport, after
their retreat.
Our foot came back very angry with the horse. They had fired away a lot
of powder to very little purpose, before orders reached them, bidding
them retire. They had not wished to retire; but at last they had done
so sullenly, vowing to duck Lord Grey for deserting them. We had
taken about a dozen horses without harness, instead of the two hundred
equipped chargers which we had promised ourselves.
We had killed a few of the militia, so everybody said; but in the
confusion of the powder-smoke who could say how many? They were certain
that none of our own men had been killed; but in a force so newly
raised, who could say for certain which were our own men? As a matter
of fact several of our men had been taken by the royalists, which is as
much as to say that they had been killed. Altogether the affair had
been a hopeless failure from the very beginning. The foot had learned to
despise the horse. The horses had learned to be afraid of gun-fire. The
cavalrymen had learned to despise Lord Grey. The militia had learned to
despise us. The only valuable lesson that our men had learned was that
a battle was not so terrible a thing. You knelt down, fired your gun,
shouted, borrowed your neighbour's drinking bottle, took a long swig,
then fired again, with more shouting, till somebody clapped you on the
shoulder with orders to come away. But this lesson, precious as it was
did not console our men for their beating. They were cross with the long
night-march as well as with Lord Grey's desertion. We dragged our
way back to Lyme very slowly, losing a good fifty of our number by
desertion. They slipped away home, after falling out of the ranks to
rest. They had had enough of fighting for the Duke; they were off home.
The officers were strict at first, trying to stop these desertions; but
the temper of the men was so bad that at last they gave it up, hoping
that some at least would stay. That was another evil consequence of
fighting for the crown with an undisciplined mob; they could sustain
defeat as ill as they could use victory. We did not trail into Lyme
until after noon; for we marched like snails, fearing that the militia
would follow us. When we got into camp, the men flung their arms from
them, careless of the officer's orders. All that they wanted was sleep
(we had eaten a late breakfast at Charmouth), they were not going to
do any more soldier's foolery of drill, or sentry-go. As for Lord Grey,
whom everybody called a coward, the Duke could not cashier him, because
he was the best officer remaining to us. Poor Fletcher, who might have
made something of our cavalry, was by this time far away at sea. The
other officers had shown their incapacity that morning. For my own part,
I chose out a snug billet on a hearthrug in the George Inn, where I
slept very soundly for several hours. While I slept, the Duke held a
melancholy council to debate what could be done.
They say that he ought to have marched that morning to Exeter, where
Lord Albemarle's militia (all of them ripe for rebellion) would have
joined him.
Exeter or Bristol, one or the other, would have been a fine plume in
his cap, a strong, fortified town, full of arms, where he could have
established himself firmly. I do not know why he decided against
marching to Exeter. He may have had bad reports of troops being on the
road waiting for him; or he may have thought that his friends (who
were plentiful on the Bristol road) would rally to him as soon as he
appeared. He was deceived by those protesting gentry, his friends, who
had welcomed him so warmly only a few months before. He thought that all
the countryside was ready to join him. He had been deceived, as perhaps
a cleverer man would have been deceived, by the warmth of his welcome
on his earlier visit. An Englishman is always polite to a Duke when he
meets him in a friendly gathering. But when the Duke says, “Lend me all
your ready money, together with your horses, or rather give them to me,
since I am the King,” his politeness leaves him; he gets away to London
to warn the police as fast as his horse will take him. Thus it was with
the Duke's friends scattered about along the main-road from Lyme to
Bristol.
I know not who persuaded the Duke to march; probably it was Grey; it may
have been Venner; it may have been a momentary mad resolution caused
by a glass of wine. They say that he was solemn about it, as though he
expected to fail. Perhaps he would have gone back to Holland if the ship
had been still in the harbour, but of course she had gone away. He would
not go in La Reina; for she was sluggish from barnacles, having been
long un-careened. The Channel at this time was full of ships looking for
him; how he escaped them when he sailed from Holland I cannot think. He
hesitated for a long time, poor man, before deciding; no man could have
acted more like a Stuart, at such a time. When the decision was made he
gave word to start early on the following morning. But this I did not
know till one A.M, when Lord Grey routed me out from my berth on the
hearth-rug, so that I might go from house to house, calling up our
officers.
I suppose that all our officers were out of bed by two o'clock, yet
it took them eight hours to get their men together, into some sort of
order. We were hardly ready for the road at ten A.M. when the drums
beat up to play us out of the town. As I was the Duke's servant, I was
allowed to ride by my master; I daresay people thought that I was the
young Prince. We marched up the hill gaily, with a multitude flocking
all about us, but there were many of that crowd who looked doubtfully
at my master's sad face, thinking that he looked over-melancholy for a
conquering king.
We marched out of Lyme into a valley, through a sort of suburb called
Uplyme. After that we marched steadily up hill, a long climb of two
miles, having a great view of the countryside on our left hand. Our
right was shut from us by a wooded hill. It was a warm, sunny June day:
the grass just ripe for hay harvest; the country at its best; everything
at its full flower, so that you wondered at the world's abundance. We
sent out scouts, when we were about a mile from Lyme; but when we were
at the top of the hill we could see for ourselves, without putting
scouts abroad. We could see horsemen on the high ground away to the
left, two or three hundred of them. Besides these there were some
companies of foot drawn up in good order in the fields outside
Axminster, at some distance from the town. When this army caught sight
of us, it began to file off towards the town, as though to dispute it
with us, so our advanced guard pushed on to drive them out of it.
The sight of so many men in order, was a very moving one. To see them
advance their colours, to see the light on the shifting steel, to hear
the low beating hum of the feet was stirring to the heart. Word ran
along the line that there was going to be a battle. Our foot left the
road, so as to spread out into line in the open, where they could take
up positions behind hedges. I was sent back to the rear at this instant,
to order up the ammunition waggons, so that I missed some part of the
operations; but I shall never forget how confidently our men spread out;
they marched as though they were going into the fields for partridges.
The drums began again, to hearten them, but there was no need for drums
in that company; they began to sing of their own accord, making a noise
which drowned the drums altogether. I gave my orders to the ammunition
waggons, which were blocked in a jumble of sightseers, camp-followers,
etc., etc., so that they could hardly move. The drivers got me to charge
my horse through the mob to make a path, which I did, with a good deal
of pain to myself, for the people thus thrust aside struck at me. The
drivers struck out at them in return; we had a little fight of our own,
while Axminster was being won.