Читать книгу Cromwell’s Blessing - Peter Ransley - Страница 8

I could not stop shivering. That February morning in 1647 was the coldest, bleakest morning of the whole winter, but it was going to be far colder, far bleaker for Trooper Scogman when I told him he was going to be hanged.

Most mornings I woke up and knew exactly who I was: Major Thomas Stonehouse, heir to the great estate of Highpoint near Oxford, if my grandfather, Lord Stonehouse, was to be believed. Now the Civil War was over, sometimes, in that first moment of waking, I woke up as Tom Neave, one-time bastard, usurper and scurrilous pamphleteer.

That morning was one of them.

I should have left it up to Sergeant Potter to tell Scogman, but he would have relished it: taunted Scogman, left him in suspense. At least I would tell him straight out.

My regiment was billeted at a farm near Dutton’s End, Essex, part of an estate seized by Parliament from a Royalist who had fled the country. The pail outside was solid ice. The dog opened one eye before curling back into a tight ball. Straw, frosted over in the yard, snapped under my boots like icicles. A crow seemed scarcely able to lift its wings as it drifted over the soldiers’ tents.

More soldiers in their red uniforms were snoring in the barns, where horses were also stabled. We were a cavalry unit, the justification for calling Cromwell’s New Model Army both new and a model for the future. Whereas the foot soldiers were pressed men, who would desert as soon as you turned your back, the cavalry were volunteers. They were the sons of yeomen or tradesmen, who brought to war the discipline of their Guilds. They joined not just for the better pay – and the horse which would carry their packs – but because they were God-fearing and believed in Parliament.

Except for Scogman.

I approached the wooden shed which was the camp’s makeshift prison. I half-hoped Scogman had escaped, but I could see the padlock, still intact, and the guard asleep, huddled in blankets.

Scogman on the loose would have been worse. The countryside would have been up in arms. Villagers resented us enough when we were fighting the war. Now it was over, and we were still here, they hated us.

Six months had passed since the Royalist defeat at the battle of Naseby. Yet the King was in the hands of the Scots. We were supposed to be on the same side – but the Scots would not leave England until they were paid and there were rumours they were doing a secret deal with the King. In spite of the stone in his bladder, his piles and his liver, Lord Stonehouse was in Newcastle, negotiating for the release of the King.

‘We could not govern with him,’ he wrote tersely to me. ‘But we cannot govern without him.’

The guard, Kenwick, was a stationer’s son from Holborn – I knew them all by their trades. I prodded him gently with my boot. ‘Still there, is he?’

Kenwick shot up, turning with a look of terror towards the shed, as if expecting to see the padlock broken, the door yawning open. He saluted, found the key and made up for being asleep on duty by bringing the butt of his musket down on a bundle of straw rising and falling in the corner. The bundle groaned but scarcely moved. Kenwick brought the butt down more viciously. The bundle swore at him and began to part. Somehow, I thought resentfully, even in these unpromising conditions, Scogman managed to build up a fug of heat not found anywhere else on camp.

I waved Kenwick away as, with a rattle of chains, Scogman stumbled to his feet. His hair was the colour of the dirty straw he emerged from, the broken nose on his cherub-like face giving him a look of injured innocence. Trade: farrier, although sometimes I thought all he knew about horses was how to steal them.

‘At ease, Scogman.’

He shuffled his leg irons. ‘If you remove these, sir, I will be able to obey your order. Major Stonehouse. Sir.’ He brought up his cuffed hands in a clumsy salute.

Kenwick bit back a smile. I stared at Scogman coldly.

He was about my age, twenty-two, but looked younger, thin as a rake, although he ate with a voracious appetite. Scoggy was the regiment’s scrounger. He stole for the hell of it, for the challenge. In normal life he would have been hanged long ago. But when a regiment lived off the land he became an asset.

It only took one person to point out a plump hen, and not only would chicken be on the menu that night, but a pot in which to cook it would mysteriously appear. There were many who looked the other way in the regiment, except for strict Presbyterians like Sergeant Potter and Colonel Greaves, but in war the odds had been on Scoggy’s side. In this uneasy peace his luck had run out. Scoggy had been caught stealing not just cheese, but a silver spoon. Not only that. He had stolen it from Sir Lewis Challoner, the local magistrate.

I chewed on an empty pipe, knocked it against my boot and cleared my throat. Scogman could read my reluctance and in his eyes was a look of hope. I cursed myself for coming. I should have sent Sergeant Potter. Scoggy would have known, however Potter taunted him, there was no hope. I struggled to find the words. In my mouth was the taste of the roast suckling pig Scoggy had somehow conjured up after Naseby. Even Cromwell had eaten it, praising the Lord for providing such fare to match a great victory. Cromwell believed in the virtue of his cavalry to the point of naivety, but when they sinned, he was merciless. I must follow my mentor’s lead.

‘You know the penalty for stealing silver, Scogman?’

‘Yes, sir. Permission to speak, sir.’

‘Go on,’ I said wearily.

‘Wife and children in London, sir. Starving.’

He knew I had a son. We had talked over many a camp fire about children we had never or rarely seen. ‘You should have waited for your wages like everyone else.’

‘We’re three months behind, sir. There’s talk we’re never going to be paid what we’re owed.’

It was true Parliament was dragging its feet over the money the troops were owed, and a host of other problems, like indemnity and injury benefits. Meanwhile soldiers scraped by on meagre savings, borrowed or stole.

‘That’s nonsense. Of course you’ll be paid. Eventually. You should tighten your belt like everyone else.’

Scogman glanced down at his belt, taut over the narrow waist of his red uniform. Again Kenwick repressed a smile. I took the spoon from my pocket. My breath fogged it over. It looked a miserable object to be hanged for. ‘Why the hell did you steal a silver spoon?’

He couldn’t resist it. ‘Because I never had one in my mouth, sir.’

Kenwick showed no sign of laughing, after looking at my expression.

‘You will go before the magistrate.’

Even then he didn’t believe me. ‘I’d rather be tried by you, sir.’

‘I’ll bet you would. Sir Lewis may be lenient. Lock him up, Kenwick.’

I turned away, but not before I caught Scogman’s cockiness, his bravado, shrivel like a pricked bladder. Outside, while the crows flapped lazily away, I tried to do what Cromwell did when he ordered a man’s death. He prayed for his soul; it was not his order, he told himself, but God’s will. Then he would unclasp his hands and go on to his next business. Rising over the thud of the door and the rattle of the padlock came Scogman’s voice.

‘Lenient? Sir Lewis Challoner, sir? He’s a hanging magistrate! Major Stonehouse!’

I put my hands together but could not find the words to form a prayer.