I ran right at center of the enemy, and I found myself facing a swordsman who stood in a balanced posture, knees flexed, his right arm before him cocked at an angle to direct his point at my breast, the left hand propped on his hip—the very posture that Lance-pesade Stringway had sought to instill in me during our long hours of practice. And I knew, from the ease and confidence of the man’s posture, and the impassivity of his features, that he was a far greater master of defense than I. And I knew as well, from the powder-stained white sash over one shoulder, that he was captain of the battery, and that his defeat might well dishearten his crews.
I slowed that I might not impale myself on his point, and brushed his sword aside as I came on. He retreated, back leg first, front leg after, and his blade came into line again in just the manner that Lance-pesade Stringway had recommended. Then I ducked as one of his gunners swung a rammer at my head, then took a step back to slice that gunner’s arm to the elbow. The captain shuffled forward to thrust at me, and I beat his sword aside again and foined at him, then had to jump clear at a lightning riposte aimed at my throat. My heart leaped, but my enemy had in the next instant to parry a tompion that one of the dragoons had thrown at him, and before he could bring the sword back into line, I seized the enemy blade in my gauntleted hand, and stepped in to smash him in the face with the basket hilt of my sword. The impact went all the way to my shoulder. As he staggered, I hacked him in the head with all my strength, which brought him down dead or dying—for this was not a fencing match, but earnest combat, with fights broiling up all around us, and I using my sword as a bludgeon rather than a weapon of art. The enemy captain’s tactics were too dainty for this field.
When their captain fell, the gunners ran, and we cut half of them down as they turned. I plodded after, for my wind was gone and I could no longer keep up such a racking pace; and it was well that I did, for soon I saw that the enemy had turned one of their culverins about, and were crowing it around with handspikes to lay it on us. I saw the gun-captain with his linstock and match hovering over the touch-hole, and I saw an intent look blaze up in his face.
“ ’Ware the gun!” I shouted, and darted as fast as I could to the side while ducking my head so that the bill of my helmet should cover my face. The gun roared—spat in my eye, it seemed—and I was punched in the left shoulder while the eerie wail of hailshot fouled the air. Two escaping gunners in front of me blazed up in showers of scarlet, killed by their own side.
We were too close, and the hailshot had not the room to disperse.
“Charge!” I called. “Charge, charge, charge!” I ran for the battery before they could reload, and the dragoons followed and slashed the gunners down.
But then my half-deafened ears heard a trumpet call, and I looked eastward to see plumes bobbing as cavalry advanced through the thinning gunsmoke.
“Retreat! Retreat! Follow me!”
Two of the dragoons had been wounded by the hailshot, and their fellows picked them up and helped them from the field. Frere and the other dragoons were by now too far away, and so I led the dragoons directly toward the hedge, two hundred and fifty long yards away.
We ran. Even the wounded ran. I had been out of breath in the enemy battery, exhausted with chasing down the fleeing enemy, but when the air began to rumble with the sound of approaching horses, my weariness vanished, and I felt uplifted as if by great invisible wings. The hedge grew nearer, the hoofbeats louder, and I ran all the faster. Handgunners in the hedge fired, mostly on the flanks where we were not in the way. I dared to cast a look over my shoulder, and I saw a demilance right behind me, a towering figure in armor with his straight sword aimed at my vitals. I dodged first to the right, and then to the left, so that his horse’s own neck would be in the way of the rebel’s blade, and the rider would have to shift his sword up for a backhand cut. I did not give him the time, for as I ran, I flung out my own backhand to slash his horse in the mouth. The horse shrieked and turned away to the right, confirming all my prejudices against horses, and the horseman lost his seat and slid down his mount’s flank to strike the turf with a great clatter.
I wished I’d had time to finish him off, for I found his attempt to kill me a great offense. Instead, I just ran the faster, the hedge ahead of me blossoming with gunsmoke as the handgunners picked their targets. Bullets whirred past me, and behind I heard the cries of wounded men and injured horses. Then I was leaping over the enemy corpses stretched before the hedge, and the blackthorn whipped my face as I leaped into the sunken road.
“Lovely work, my beautiful assassins!” cried Coronel Fludd. “Pilgrim save us, but you have dealt a great knock to those soulless mechanicals!”
My knees were suddenly weak, and I leaned against the far wall of the road as the dragoons tumbled into the road around me. My heart felt as if it would burst, and my chest heaved inside my unfeeling cuirass. On the far side of the hedge I could hear and glimpse the cavalry reining up, in wrath and confusion. They milled about for a time, firing their pistols at us while the handgunners pot-shotted them, until in frustration they withdrew, leaving a score of their number lying on the field.
“My braves, that was a thing of glory!” rejoiced Fludd. “Never again will I view the dragoons as an ungainly chimera, neither one thing nor ’t’other, but instead will clasp them by the neck and call them ‘brother.’ ”
We had lost not a man, though some suffered wounds. After I recovered my strength, I led them down the sunken road to the crossroads, where Lord Utterback waited with Captain Frere. I returned to Frere his men, and praised them all as heroes.
“Are you hurt?” Lord Utterback asked me.
I’d had so much to occupy my attention that this question had not yet occurred to me, but upon inspection, I proved to be largely intact. There was a sharp pain in my left shoulder when I tried to move my arm, and my face seemed somehow constrained, as if someone had stitched up bits of my flesh that did not quite belong together.
“I seem sound enough, my lord,” I reported.
“Your face is bleeding,” said Utterback. I touched my face gingerly, and my gloved fingers came back scarlet. “Here,” said Utterback, and very courteously handed me a handkerchief.
I dabbed at my face. “You look quite the old soldier now,” Utterback said. “Bleeding, streaked with powder, and battered armor and helm.”
It would seem churlish to point out that my face had been cut by the hedge, not by the enemy. Now that the high excitement was over, I had begun to feel battered indeed. My entire body ached. Captain Frere fingered the dent in my cuirass. “You should go to the armorers,” he said. “Have this beaten out.”
I looked at the dent and realized that the bent metal was digging into my left shoulder and restricting movement. I looked up at Lord Utterback.
“Can you spare me for the while, my lord?”
Frere spoke first. “It will be some while before there is fighting. He may as well go.”
Lord Utterback gave permission, and I wearily climbed atop my horse and rode to the rear, where the armorers and farriers had set up their anvils. I was delighted to relieve myself of the weight of the cuirass, and I threw off as well the buff coat and doublet and stood in my shirtsleeves to let the mountain breeze dry off the clammy sweat that had soaked my linen. The armorers had broached a cask of barley wine which they were willing to share, and while I waited I drank at least three pints, and so spirited and high-fettled was my constitution at that moment that I felt no intoxication at all.