Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles (9 page)

They had spent the next day with full bellies and refreshed legs, drinking from streams, gazing out over the magnificent views, and comfortable that they would see an enemy approach from a long way off. And now, having vacated their makeshift billet in a barn at Ponsworthy, they were trudging onwards with a renewed sense of optimism.

‘And those nags are some of the best I’ve seen,’ Skellen’s droning voice cut across Stryker’s train of thought.

Stryker caught the hint in his sergeant’s tone. ‘No one rides, Will.’

‘Just thinking what a nice journey this’d be on horseback, that’s all,’ Skellen muttered, glancing back at the eleven magnificent mounts they had taken from Wild and his men. The beasts – eight bays, two blacks and a roan – were tethered in a line behind the cart.

Stryker shook his head. He had a horse, Vos, a big sorrel-coloured stallion, but he had taken the decision to leave him back in Launceston. ‘No man rides. I do not want us drawing attention to ourselves. Men on horseback are too conspicuous on these bleak horizons.’

By noon the column had reached a high point on the undulating terrain, affording an excellent vantage, and topped by one of Dartmoor’s many granite tors. Those rocky outcrops, grey-stone blemishes on the bleak plains, provided excellent shelter from the whipping wind, and Stryker ordered they rest in its shadows.

After setting a perimeter of pickets, Stryker went to where his most senior men had gathered. Many of them were lying on the damp ground, propped on elbows, but Ensign Chase was seated on a pale lump of granite. He vacated the perch on his captain’s approach.

‘Thank you, Matthew,’ Stryker acknowledged, and sat on the cold stone, his scabbard clanging against the granite.

Skellen, having lit his pipe, began to sing songs of home. Ditties speaking wistfully of Gosport and Portsmouth, of buxom tavern maids and of the crashing sea.

‘How did you know Wild’s regiment weren’t nearby, sir?’ Lieutenant Burton asked after a short time.

‘I didn’t,’ Stryker replied bluntly. ‘But it was a reasonable guess. They did not come from the Bovey Tracey garrison, for they’d have passed us on the road.’

‘They probably didn’t know there was a new garrison at Bovey at all,’ Skellen put in, before resuming his lilting tune.

A flock of small black birds raced overhead, changing direction in the blink of an eye, like a mass of speeding thunder clouds. Stryker watched them dart back and forth, amazed at the unison with which they moved. ‘So they’re a detached unit,’ he said when the birds had disappeared from view. ‘Mobile and sturdy.’

‘When it is’nae raining,’ Simeon Barkworth replied with a sharp-toothed smirk.

‘They roam where they may, watching the Cornish border, harrying our troops, carrying messages.’

‘Recovering arms caches,’ Burton added.

‘Indeed,’ agreed Stryker. ‘But if you were Wild, would you use your entire regiment for that task?’

Burton shook his head. ‘Not enough food and shelter on the moor to support that many men and horses.’ He paused in thought, taking the moment to scratch at his withered forearm with his good left hand. When he looked up, there was a new glint of understanding in his eyes. ‘Wild must be based in one of the towns on the moor’s fringe.’

‘That is my guess,’ said Stryker. ‘Newton Abbot. Exeter, perhaps.’

Skellen ended his song. ‘I’d have still used more than a dozen men though, sir,’ he said, with a rearward jerk of his head to indicate the wagon. ‘Given the size o’ this meaty old stash.’

‘They did not expect to encounter you.’

The voice was new to the conversation and the group turned to stare at the speaker. The man, the only one in the company dressed in the drab clothes of a common farmer, was sat, cross-legged, some ten or twelve paces away. It was the man who had driven the rickety cart for Colonel Wild, and who had been taken with his vehicle as part of the ambush. A man who had not met a gaze nor uttered a single word in the two days since his capture.

‘Speak, sir, if you have something for us,’ Stryker said when the carter suddenly turned away with a look of sheer terror.

The group watched and waited as the fearful man slowly forced himself to look back at the soldiers. He was of middle age and slight frame. A man whose hard existence of toil and hunger had stripped any vestige of fat from his bones. His hair was fair, though thinning badly, but his teeth and skin were in good condition. His bottom lip trembled violently as he spoke. ‘The Roundheads, sir. They had not imagined th—they would run into you.’ He swallowed thickly. ‘Y—you or anyone else, that is.’ He dug his hands into the folds of his threadbare smock and stared at the grass between crossed legs. ‘Beg pardon, sirs, I did not mean to pry. Forgive me.’

‘Speak plain, sir carter,’ Stryker replied calmly. ‘You are in no danger.’

The frightened man remained tight-lipped. Barkworth leant forward on the grass suddenly. ‘But you’ll be in rare bloody danger if you keep your mouth shut.’

The threat seemed to unlock the wagon driver’s jaw, for he forced his gaze up to meet Stryker’s. ‘The rebels, sir. They did not think to meet any king’s men hereabouts.’

‘Why ever not?’ Ensign Chase said in surprise. ‘The moor may be Devon land, but it nestles beside the most loyal county in England.’

‘And since Launceston,’ Skellen added, ‘old Hopton’s grip tightens daily.’

Stryker nodded agreement. ‘You may not have heard, master carter, but Chudleigh attacked us at Launceston on the
23
rd.’

‘And he scurried back over the blessed Tamar with two black eyes and his tail twix’t his legs!’ Skellen growled, eliciting a chorus of boisterous cheers. ‘The messenger spared nothing in his bloody account!’

The carter shook his head sadly. ‘I fear your messenger was sent out a day too soon.’

Stryker felt his guts begin to churn. ‘How so?’

‘You have not heard?’ the carter said, wincing as he spoke as though the revelation would somehow bring about his own demise. ‘There was—a battle. A big battle. Up at Sourton Down. Not two days since your victory at Launceston.’

Stryker and Burton shared a glance.

‘Well?’ Barkworth snapped.

The carter cleared his throat. ‘General Hopton – God protect him – was routed by Parliament’s forces. Driven back into Cornwall with mighty losses, I heard.’

And in that moment Stryker understood. He understood why a large rebel unit had strolled so confidently into Bovey Tracey; why Colonel Wild had not expected to encounter Royalist troops; why the furious cavalryman had been so confident that Stryker would never reach the Royalist lines. Those lines, he now realized, were all the way back on the River Tamar.

He cursed angrily.

The carter winced, holding up his palms as though Stryker was pointing a musket at his chest. ‘I am sorry, sir. I pass on only what I hear.’

‘Fret not, master carter,’ Stryker said. ‘You are not accountable for this.’

Sergeant Skellen scraped calloused fingers across his dark stubble. ‘Now we know why them horsemen were so bloody cocksure. Weren’t even checkin’ the road for us. Sounds like our boys took a thrashin’.’

‘Christ on His cross,’ Barkworth hissed.

Ensign Chase sat up straight. ‘Does that mean we’re alone on Dartmoor, sir?’

‘Not alone,’ Burton replied morosely. ‘We’ll be overrun by Parliament men before we reach home.’

‘And therein lies our problem.’ Stryker glanced at the wagon and its valuable bounty. ‘If we’re to make haste, we must abandon our prize.’

‘And yet,’ Burton replied, ‘the army will be in dire need of it now.’

Stryker inhaled slowly as he thought. His tawdry mission to watch a quiet rural road had transformed into something far more important. Eventually he exhaled slowly, meeting the gaze of each of his men. ‘We keep the wagon. Lieutenant Burton is in the right of it; General Hopton will want us – no, expect us – to deliver it to him, regardless of the danger.’

He paused to allow comment, but none came. ‘Of course, we cannot simply march back to Launceston now. If our new friend here speaks true—’

‘I do, I do, sir,’ the nervous carter blurted. ‘’Pon my very life.’

‘So the moor will soon be swarming with Roundheads. We cannot trust the roads.’

‘Roads?’ Skellen grunted scornfully. ‘There aren’t no tracks worth the bloody name hereabouts, sir.’

The group fell silent, and Stryker knew each must be pondering the days to come. It would have been hard enough to drag the heavily laden wagon across Dartmoor’s dubious thoroughfares without having to negotiate the bogs and hills of open country.

‘Forgive another intrusion, sir,’ the carter ventured, ‘but I know the moor as I know my wife’s face. I could—’

‘Hold your tongue,’ Simeon Barkworth rasped with sudden venom, the revelation of Sourton Down having evidently eroded what little sanguinity he possessed. He threw a slit-eyed glance at Stryker. ‘How can we trust this knave, sir? We found him with the enemy, did we not?’

‘Forced, sir!’ the carter bleated, once again fearing for his life. ‘Forced to drive their wagon, that is all, I swear it! I am a loyal subject of—’

Stryker held up a hand for calm. ‘I care nothing for professed allegiances, master carter. Simply know this—’

He made certain the carter’s gaze was on his. Transfixed by the single grey eye that, he knew, would appear silver as his expression hardened. The raised palm dropped to his waist and patted the swirling steel of his sword’s ornate basket hilt. ‘I have need of a new scabbard. If you betray me, it will be your skin I use for the job. Is that clear?’

The carter’s jaw dropped, eyes widening and Adam’s apple bobbing in a pronounced gulp.

‘He says yes, sir,’ Skellen spoke for the dumbstruck man.

Stryker’s stare did not falter. ‘Then we have an understanding that, in my experience, ought to suffice. You know the moor?’

The carter nodded.

‘Which route would you have us take, Master —?’

‘Bailey, sir,’ the carter replied. ‘Marcus Bailey.’

‘It is a bad idea, sir,’ Barkworth warned.

Stryker finally broke eye contact with the terrified carter and glanced at the fiery-tempered Scot. ‘Then you would have us stay on the road?’ He waited while Barkworth’s mouth worked for a moment, but no words were forthcoming. ‘I thought not.’

‘Over there,’ Bailey said, ‘less’n a mile thither, is the place where East Dart meets West.’

‘The rivers?’ Burton asked.

‘Aye, sir, you have it,’ Bailey nodded eagerly, desperate to please.

‘The confluence of two waterways can be a tempestuous place to cross,’ Stryker said, his expression sceptical.

‘But further up stream,’ Bailey went on, ‘there’s an old clapper bridge over the East Dart. I will show you. When we are over the river, I can guide you to the start of a small track. It runs due north beside the west bank.’

‘Taking us away from the West Dart,’ Stryker spoke his thoughts aloud, ‘and the road.’

Bailey nodded rapidly again, putting Stryker in mind of a small bird pecking the ground. ‘It is narrow, near impassable in winter, but not so bad now. Eventually it will sweep westward, taking us through the marshes at Bellever.’

Stryker gnawed his upper lip. ‘A difficult route indeed.’

For the first time, Marcus Bailey risked the merest hint of a smile. ‘But a safe one.’

CHAPTER 4

Near Bellever Tor, Dartmoor,
29
April
1643

The morning was bright, a welcome change from the recent oppressive gloom, and the sun’s first rays were quick to burn away the vestiges of dawn mist that lingered like a pale broth on the boggy terrain.

Stryker’s company had crossed the ancient stone clapper bridge over the East Dart without hindrance the previous day, and spirits were high as, sure enough, Marcus Bailey’s promise of a concealed route through the ancient marshes had come to pass. But the going had been slow after that. It had taken the scarlet-coated column till dusk to negotiate the narrow causeway, marching four abreast and fighting to keep their boots from sinking into the black morass. The presence of the ammunition wagon, placed near the very front of the column, had made things all the more difficult; its big wheels ploughed deep furrows in the viscous mud, which sucked at the vehicle, as if engaged in a tug of war with the horses that laboured to pull it along.

Now, having passed a thankfully mild night huddled around small fires, singing mournful tunes and eating some of the food they had taken from Ilsington, the infantrymen and their precious bounty were on the march again.

After an hour’s trudge the track began to zigzag, wending its way around impenetrable bulrush thickets that had been there long before people, and making it impossible to see more than twenty paces ahead. Stryker, setting the pace at the head of the column, stared left and right, ears pricked for any sound that might signal a threat. He had men scouting out in front, and others some distance at the rear, but still he felt uneasy. ‘How much further?’ he called over his shoulder.

Marcus Bailey, sitting atop the wagon, reins looped in gnarled hands, furrowed his craggy brow. ‘A few minutes only, I’d say, sir.’ He had promised the track would soon become wider and less suffocated by the maze of reeds and bog as the marsh gave way to one of the larger roads across Dartmoor. And, though the soldiers were nervous of crossing that thoroughfare, they were eager to pick up the pace, even for a short time.