I moved gingerly into the field of corpses and then froze in my tracks at the sight of a dead woman, stripped and flung out on the field with the rest. She was young, and I wondered what had brought her to this end, whether she had come for love of a man, love of adventure, or love of Clayborne. Whatever dream had brought her here, it was to end in her being stabbed in a muddy ditch by pikes, drowned in bloody water, and then flung naked on the winter grass.
One of the other handgunners brushed past me, and it broke the spell. I lifted my eyes ahead, to the rebel batteries, and kept them there as I walked through the field of dead. The enemy, standing by their guns two hundred fifty yards away, were wholly occupied with firing up at our battery, and furthermore the wind was still blowing their own powder-smoke in their faces, and so they did not see us as we loped toward them across the sward. Gunshot howled over our heads. At a hundred yards the hackbuts were laid in their rests and aimed, and the calivers brought to the shoulder. I raised my own caliver, blew on the match till it glowed red as a cherry, and peered along the smooth round surface of the barrel, to aim at an officer holding a telescope.
“Mark your men!” I called, but some were already firing, and so I pressed the trigger. The serpentine dropped into the pan, the powder ignited, and the caliver kicked like a donkey against my shoulder. I didn’t see that officer again, but I doubt that it was I who hit him, as I had but little practice with shoulder weapons.
The scent of gunpowder clung to the back of my throat. I dropped the caliver’s butt to the ground and reached for one of the little wooden powder bottles dangling from my bandoleer, then opened the bottle and poured the powder down the muzzle. The box for bullets had compartments for steel and lead shot, and because the gunners wore no armor, I chose a lead bullet and dropped it down the barrel, then rammed all down with a wad on top. After which I primed the pan and lifted again the weapon to my shoulder.
Being unused to the weapon, I was slow in reloading, and the other handgunners fired their second shots before me, and as they loaded again, they laughed and catcalled our targets, who crewed such mighty bronze weapons yet could not reply. The rebel gunners ran back and forth, shouting and conferring, and then I saw frantic gunners driving the quoins beneath the breeches of their guns, to push the barrels low to fire at us.
“One more shot!” I called. “Then back to the hedge!”
I fired my final shot and so far as I could tell did no execution, and then I set an example by moving away from the enemy, trotting backward while still facing the rebels, and as the others took their shots, they followed. Certainly, it was time to retire, as I saw the gunners driving into their long barrels the canvas bags of hailshot.
Once the whole mass began to retire, I turned and ran, waving my caliver overhead as a signal, and we all ran back whooping, and had overleaped the dead and were at the hedge before the first shots came after us, the hailshot making wild, wailing cries in the air. Hailshot is any kind of small iron stuff, musquet balls, small iron balls such as are fired by falconets, nails, wire, or simply odd pieces of iron cut up or broken, then stuffed in canvas bags. The sound this odd iron makes as it tumbles through the air is eerie, and it raised the hairs on my arms; but at this range, none of us were hurt, and we leaped laughing back into the sunken road, almost drunk with our adventure.
All this time Lipton’s battery continued firing, the shot plunging among the enemy guns, and so we had bought him time, and had done harm to the batteries that would oppress him.
As for myself, I felt my heart afire in my chest, and my mind was alive to the possibilities inherent in the game of rock-paper-scissors. I wished I’d had the horsemen instead of the handgunners, for with a charge of our demilances I could have killed them all.
The rebel guns continued to fire at us, the weird, wailing hailshot clipping the leaves overhead. I felt in my exuberance that I was not done making mischief—I thanked the coronels who had let me use their men, and I joined Lord Utterback on the right. I reported to Utterback of my adventure, and told him what I intended to do next.
“Do you think that would prosper?” said he. “Well, go ahead.”
Frere’s dragoons were for the most part dismounted and in and around the east-west Peckside road, near the crossroads, ready with their bell-mouthed pistols to fire again into the flank of any attacker. Frere came with me as I took one company creeping down the road to the east, and we ended up right on the flank of the artillery line.
The enemy guns were still flailing the hedge with hailshot, and my heart lifted at the knowledge that they were not aware of their danger. “You lead this one company forward,” Frere told me, “and I will have the other ready to support you.”
As I and the first company bludgeoned our way through the thick-pleached blackthorn. I received more slashes on my face, and thorns even pierced the thick suede of my buff coat. I mopped away drops of blood from my cheeks, drew my sword, and led the dragoons, trotting in their heavy cavalry boots, across three hundred yards of ground toward the nearest battery.
We sped the distance so swiftly that we seemed to have taken wing, and suddenly we were there, the crew of the nearest culverin grouped around each to his task, the crew only beginning to become aware of us as the first fire from the dragons caught them. Some gunners fell, and other gunners stared at us in horror. Besides their inaccurate pistols, the dragoons were also armed with a miscellany of other weapons, hangers and bilbos, hammers and cuttles, and so without reloading, the dragoons drew these and ran at the enemy.
The surviving crew of the first gun broke and ran, and I dashed after them, and was then surprised to discover an enemy who had no intention of running. Instead, the gunner—a small, slight man my own age—had drawn his short sword and faced me with terror and determination warring for control of his features. I felt an alarm clatter in my blood.
I was running and could scarce slow down before I encountered him. I hacked at the sword that thrust at me and knocked it aside, and then I drove my armored chest straight at him. I was bigger, and stronger, and the armor added weight—there was an impact, and I knocked the man sprawling. I made a cut at him as I ran past, but I don’t think I hit him. I imagine one of the dragoons behind me finished him off.
I ran on, slashing at the backs of the flying gunners, but as I ran, I tried my hardest to keep my wits. I was all too aware that we were outnumbered—my company, counting its casualties and without its horse-holders, numbered about forty, and the full complement of the battery was nearly a hundred. But we were in a group, and they were scattered among their guns and completely surprised, and so we overwhelmed them.
But I was also aware that an entire army was standing just a few hundred yards to the east of us, and that they would react once they perceived my small party through the drifting smoke. And so I kept an ear cocked for the sound of hooves, or trumpet calls, or drums, for once Clayborne’s army began to move, we would have scant time to find safety.
While I listened, we overran the battery completely, cutting down anyone who tried to resist, and then ran in for the next set of guns, and now there was a pack of men in front of us, armed with short swords and their gunners’ gear, the ladles and rammers and handspikes they used in their craft. I slowed in my career to allow the dragoons a chance to catch up with me, so that we could attack in a mass. I took a few seconds to catch my breath, during which those who had not yet discharged their dragons took good aim and shot. Gunsmoke stained the air, men fell, and then I cried the dragoons on.