Ruthven raised his eyebrows. “Wherefore should the bands not play? Though I had in mind making sure the men had food and drink.”
“Yes. Of course. An excellent idea.”
Lord Utterback turned his horse and set off at once for the commissary, leaving a bemused Ruthven in his wake. I followed, along with the ensign and his flag. Utterback rode to the commissary and ordered a wagon loaded with biscuits and cheeses brought down to the field. From there we rode to the pond, where we waded our horses into the water and let them drink. Watering parties arrived from the regiments, men each carrying a dozen or more water bottles to be refilled, and so at least they had water.
I took off my helmet and rejoiced as the fresh air cooled the sweat that soaked my hair. I hadn’t realized until I’d come up the slope how heavy was the murk of gunpowder below, and I joyfully filled my lungs with crisp, bracing air.
While the horses drank their fill, I reported to Lord Utterback of the fight on the left.
“Were our casualties heavy?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think we did very well, and no one ran away.”
“That’s also what happened on the right.” He nodded at me. “The dismounted dragoons hurt them badly, firing into their flank. That was a very fine idea of yours.”
“They’ll be ready for the dragoons, next time,” I said. “We should try to think of a way to counter it.”
We stopped by our camp at the stone huts for some biscuit, cheese, and a crock of goose-liver pâté. We each took another glass of brandy, and after we finished he took my arm.
“I know not what I’m doing,” he said. “My mind is like an empty piece of paper, and I can’t think what to write on it.”
“You’re doing very well,” I told him. “No commander could do better.”
I spoke with perfect truth, for I could not see aught we could do but what we were already doing. But he seemed not to credit my words.
“I wish I were anywhere but here,” he said. His eyes stared into an abyss.
He went back to the lines, to speak to the commanders and congratulate the soldiers, and I returned to Lipton’s battery, where I could best spy the enemy. As I rode up, Lipton walked out to meet me. There was a streak of gunpowder across his face.
“You’ve stopped shooting,” I observed.
“The range is long,” he said, “and the supply of powder and shot is limited. I can fire some more if you insist, but the results will be dubious.” A grin broke across his powder-streaked face. “The shooting was fine while it lasted, sure. As a rule, after such rains as we have had, the shot would dig into the muddy ground when fired as we do from above, but the field falls away in the same degree as the course of the ball, and so we are knocking them down like lawn skittles.” He offered me his glass. “As you can see.”
I put the telescope to my eye, and I could see at once what he meant. Dead bodies were stretched out on the field in lines that seemed to radiate from the battery. The demiculverins were knocking them down six or eight at a time. The enemy regiment nearest the guns had suffered the most, but some of the guns at least had targeted the regiment in the center, with the result I had glimpsed from my position in the hedge.
I did not want to look at the bodies too closely, and I lowered the glass.
He laughed. “A heartening sight, is it not?”
I looked at where the enemy had stood, the lines of corpses stretching out where the artillery had found them, other rows of dead at the front of the pike formations where they had halted under fire.
“Why did they stand so long without charging?” I asked.
“Ah.” His mouth twisted. “I think each coronel wanted one of the others to charge first, and watch how he fared. It was their first good look at our position, and none of them liked it.” He gestured broadly with one hand. “They charged home first on our right. That was where the flank fire was galling them, and there they had to retreat or go ahead.”
I put the glass to my eye again and looked farther down the sett. The disorganized mob of men that had withdrawn were sorting themselves out into their companies again. Behind them, dark masses of men stood unmoving beneath bright flags.
Time passed. I got off my horse and sat on the brown grass. The wagon of cheese and biscuits arrived for the soldiers, and later a wagon of beer. The bands played again. The great royal banner flew over the Carrociro. Lord Utterback progressed along the line, as he had before, and the soldiers cheered him when he told them how brave they were. The bright sun warmed me and made me drowsy, and the entire world seemed to be drowsing with me.
The drowse ended with motion at the far end of the field, and still sitting, I propped Lipton’s glass on one raised knee and looked to see artillery coming up the lanes between the enemy soldiers. I rolled to my feet—the easiest way to rise in armor—and went in search of Lipton.
“Enemy guns,” I said.
He took his glass, looked briefly, and called an order to his men. “Stand by your pieces!” Then he looked again, and frowned, and lowered his glass.
“Three batteries of demiculverins, and another battery of culverins. Those last are properly siege guns and will make things warm for us, sure, and so you may wish to stand apart.”
“Can you defeat them?”
“I will try, but if those crews are trained members of my guild, most like I will have to run.”
I looked at him in surprise. “Oh, ay,” he said. “For what would you have, all of us killed at our stations, and for naught? We shall retire out of the enemy’s sight, only to return later, when we are needed. Our guild rules permit this.”
“Can you not bring up the horses and take the guns to safety?”
“Nay.” He seemed amused. “Know you not that the Guild of Carters and Haulers is not obliged to endure the enemy’s fire? They have placed our guns, and will retrieve them when the battle is over and the field is safe.”
“And yet we pay them full guild rates? No wonder the expense of wars is so ruinous.”
“I cannot speak against them. Guildsmen must stand together.” Though he said it without conviction.
I mounted and rode to report to Lord Utterback, and before the words left my mouth, the first of Lipton’s guns fired. It was the brave opening shot in an unequal contest, one that the rest of both armies could watch from their positions on the sidelines. For not another ten minutes had passed before the first of the enemy guns was firing, and soon solid shot was kicking up earth near Lipton’s battery. I could foresee the inevitable outcome, and I clenched my teeth.
“Can these guns not be suppressed?” I asked.
Lord Utterback looked at me. “But how?” he said. “Our own guns are outnumbered.”
“Rock-paper-scissors,” I said, and leaving my horse with Utterback’s party sought out Fludd and Colonel Grace. “Can we not send out our handgunners, and shoot us some of these gunners?”
“Those odious pizzle-brains have no supports,” Fludd said. “Ay, we may pink ’em, to be sure.”
“Presently, they are firing at our guns,” said Grace. “Should they drive in the quoins and lower the barrels to aim at you, you must fly before they cut you up with hailshot.”
I passed the word and spoke also to Ruthven and Bell, and all agreed to send their handgunners out under my direction. Captured armor and weapons, and those belonging to the wounded or the dead, lay on the grass behind the lines, and so I found a caliver for myself on the ground. I took a powder horn for priming, and a box with compartments for bullets and wads, put a bandoleer over my shoulder from which dangled the little wooden bottles holding a premeasured charge of powder, and placed myself with Fludd’s men.
The hedge that stood between the road and the enemy had suffered in that first contest and, though it still stood as a considerable barrier to a louting great host of men, was porous enough to take a small number through at a time. Still, passing the hedge was the worst moment of all, for all the dead rebels, naked or stripped to their small-clothes, had been drawn out of the sunken road and left to lie before the hedge, both to get them out of the way and to deter the enemy, who would have to pass a host of their own dead before they could attack us.