Our line was breached on the left, and I rode out to bring up a reserve company and seal the rift, but the truth was that we were in danger everywhere. Our men were worn down by their long day, and they were too few.
The enemy’s first true success was on the far right, where Ruthven’s pikemen broke and fled. Frere’s dragoons fired into the advancing enemy from the saddle, but could not stop the advance, and the dragoons fell back. Under pressure from the right, our whole line peeled away from the hedge and staggered back as the enemy cheered and came on. Drums beat, trumpets called, and I saw Lord Utterback, beneath his blue flag, galloping up the slope ahead of a thicket of pursuing pikes.
He has left us behind again, I thought. Well, he could scarcely do aught else.
I managed to rally our soldiers at the foot of the knoll just below Lipton’s guns, and there we held on while the demiculverins fired their balls right over our heads. The field before us was filled with enemy troops swarming up the slope toward our camp, their eyes alight with the prospect of plunder. Few of the enemy seemed interested in fighting those of us clustered below the guns, not when there was loot to be found in the camp; but some of the enemy officers raced over the darkening field, trying to maneuver unwieldy formations of pikes so as to assault us from front and flank. These bulky squares suffered greatly from the fire of Lipton’s guns, but those before us managed their change of front, and I saw the first ranks of pikes come down to the charge as they readied themselves for an attack.
“Ready, men!” I had shouted myself hoarse. “Hold them! Hold on till nightfall!”
Trumpets called, and I readied myself to dismount and fight on foot with my pollaxe. The earth rumbled, and I rose in the stirrups and readied one leg to kick over Phrenzy’s back and drop to the earth, and suddenly I saw Utterback’s blue flag again, this time coming down the slope, and behind him Utterback’s Troop, a long dark line of dire troopers riding out of shadow, their long, straight swords pointed at the enemy. Captain Lipton had been wrong, and our horse were game for a second charge.
Clayborne’s men had no chance, for in their triumph and their greed to get to our camp, they’d broken ranks, and they turned and ran and died howling. The enemy formations preparing to charge my position were barely aware of the approach of danger before the horsemen struck them in flank and rear, and their formation dissolved into a mob, hundreds strong, all clawing at each other in panic as they fled back across the sett.
“Hurrah for Lord Utterback!” I shouted. “Cheer, you tawdry knaves!”
As we cheered, Lord Utterback’s advance continued, and left a trail of sprawled corpses behind. Utterback pushed the enemy all the way back to the tattered blackthorn hedge, and then as the enemy flight continued, our troopers crossed the road, re-formed, and pressed their advance. Behind came Lord Barkin with his own troop cantering over the grass, ready either to throw himself at the enemy, or to be a firm wall for Utterback to rally behind.
Lipton’s guns fell silent, for in the growing darkness he could no longer see an enemy to fire at. Frere’s dragoons, obscured by the falling twilight, advanced on the far right, and then drawing their miscellaneous cutlery hurled themselves against the enemy’s flank and broke them decisively. A great distant roaring, like the tumult and thunder of a furious ocean, sounded across the field, as the thousands of fleeing pikemen overwhelmed their supports, and the entire mass of Clayborne’s army was thrown into confusion, despair, and terror.
“Back to the hedge!” I shouted, and waved my pollaxe overhead. “Re-form our line! We shall advance.”
Drums beating, we crossed the hedge and the road filled with dead and dying, and re-formed again on the far side. We advanced to the enemy battery, which we found deserted. There was no reason to stop there, and so we marched forward into the growing night, our banners turning black against the shrouded sky. On the ground we found nothing but corpses, some wounded trying to crawl to safety, and abandoned standards dropped by their bearers. We collected the banners as trophies, and ere long we found the Carrociro, the cart and its white oxen abandoned, the royal banner flapping listlessly overhead. I dismounted and lowered the flag, and rolling it up, tied it over my shoulder. With its heavy silk, gold thread, and bullion fringe, the standard was a weighty mass, and must have neared twenty pounds.
Captured guns and standards, the two marks of a victory. We had both in plenty.
We marched on in silence, half a league or more, as the world darkened around us. The road turned to the right and the sett narrowed. The hedge dwindled away to a few unkempt blackthorns standing alone by the road, and the pasture gave way to scrub and falls of gravel from the cliff above. Stars appeared overhead, and in their uncertain light we discovered our cavalry madly engaged in looting the enemy train. Abandoned wagons stood crowded on the road, a line of vehicles that stretched on for a league or more, all abandoned by the teamsters, quartermasters, and camp followers who had brought them to the field. All I could see was our troopers, hundreds of them, plundering the train of everything they could find.
No officers recalled the men to their duty, for the officers led the looting. And no sooner had the foot soldiers seen what was toward, than they broke ranks and ran to seize their share of the booty. I soon found myself commanding nothing at all.
I rode along the train, asking for Lord Utterback. Half the men were already drunk of wine or spirits looted from the train, and these barely understood my words. Some ill-tempered louts threatened me with violence; and the rest had no answer to my question. I wondered if Utterback had simply ridden on, so centered on the pursuit that he left his whole army behind, a possibility that did not seen entirely out of character. At last I found an old Lance-pesade, so drunk that he had to be supported by a wagon wheel, who waved an arm in the direction I had come.
“There, in the field where it narrows. Though you will not like what you find.”
“What mean you by that?”
He gave me a scornful look. “I mean what I mean. I am not a man to teach a babe to suck his mammy’s tit, nor a jackass to ride a pony.”
In a temper, I wrenched Phrenzy around and returned the way I had come. By now, the moon had come up and cast its opal light on the field. I reined up, seeing nothing but bodies lying dark on the sere grass, and then I saw the moon glimmer on Lord Utterback’s flag, which was planted in the ground near the foot of the cliff to the northeast. There I saw two horses standing, and recognized one as Utterback’s courser; and as I came close I saw Purefoy, the ensign, bent weeping over the body of our Captain General.
I dropped to the ground and looked at Lord Utterback’s face shining pale in the moonlight, his eyes closed, his expression suggesting that he had already accommodated himself to the demands of Necessity. I pulled off Utterback’s glove, took his hand, and found it already cold. Between sobs the ensign told me that there, where the way narrowed, the flying enemy had slowed and grown close-packed, so terrified and helpless that the pursuers’ arms and shoulders ached with the trouble of killing them; and that but few tried to resist, but one of these had fired a pistol and shot Lord Utterback in the throat. Utterback, choking, had then ridden madly through the press to this place of partial shelter, and here pitched out of his saddle dead. Purefoy had stayed by the body to prevent it from being looted by the baying mob that had once been our army.