Chapter 38

PROVOST MARSHAL EDMUND Pinkney was in a dark humour. It had been a long and difficult sea crossing, in which three men had disappeared overboard, probably trying to swim to the English shore. At last, the fishermen from Weymouth dropped anchor off a wide expanse of beach, which, they said, was two miles from Paimpol, the English-held haven where all levies were supposed to muster. It was late at night, and dark. There were no town lights and no landmarks. Pinkney remonstrated with the hoy skippers, but they were insistent.

‘Can’t take you into port. Rock shoals, undertows – we’d need a local pilot. It’s a two-mile march from here to Paimpol, nothing more.’

Reluctantly, Pinkney agreed to disembark his remaining thirty-eight men. They waded ashore, carrying their meagre equipment, arms and provisions through the surf. A two-mile march come morning would be nothing, but Pinkney felt uneasy. Something was wrong.

At first light, they started a slog through mudflats, sand and rock. After an hour, he realised Paimpol was a good deal further than two miles; after another hour, he became certain they were nowhere near the port. The hoy skippers had tricked them deliberately, in retribution for the trouble caused in their home port. God burn their miserable souls.

All day, they marched westward. Finally, in the distance, they spotted a fortified town and the men’s hopes rose. Pinkney was less happy. By now he was certain they had been landed a great distance from Paimpol.

Nor could they gain any information from the local people they saw. All fled at the sight of their armed column. They cornered an old man, whose feet would not carry him fast enough. At the point of a sword, he put them right.

Paimpol? Non, c’est St Malo!

Pinkney cursed. He wished very badly to kill the hoy skippers and their crewmen, but they were long gone. Well, he would not forget their treachery. He never forgot a bad turn. For the moment, though, he had to make the best of a bad situation.

If the fortified town was St Malo, he gauged from his crude chart that they must be eighty to a hundred miles east of Paimpol, and the going would be slow. At the best of times, a company of men could not march more than twelve miles a day, and these were mostly raw conscripted men, unused to marching. The march would be a great deal more difficult because caution would be necessary; the lines here were blurred between royalist French and Catholic French. Some of this country was held by the enemy, either the Duc de Mercoeur’s Catholic League French forces or their Spanish allies. Each step of the route had to be measured and thought through; that meant avoiding defiles, river valleys or any terrain where they could be surprised. There would be rivers to cross and towns to pass. It was a march that would take all his soldierly skill. In truth, he doubted very much whether they could manage it.

He looked at his troops with scorn. They were the most incompetent, ill-disciplined rabble he had ever commanded. Simply getting them to understand commands such as ‘Charge your pike’ as an order to prepare for an attack on enemy infantry had been difficult enough. To go further and make them understand the order ‘Charge your pike against the right foot and draw your sword’ – for defence against cavalry – had been nigh on impossible. Matters had been made considerably worse by losing Cordwright, his quartermaster sergeant, to the Weymouth gaol.

By nightfall, they were camped outside a small market town, just inland from the coast and a few miles from St Malo. The French townsfolk had welcomed them with loaves and wine, but Pinkney had fought too many wars in the Low Countries and Normandy to be deceived by such shows. They would be off to tell the nearest French soldiers of the English presence as soon as night fell. These people greeted you with one hand and stabbed you with the other.

‘You two,’ he ordered Andrew and Reaphook. ‘Take the first watches at the southern corners of the camp.’ He handed halberds to them both. ‘If you sleep, I will shoot you dead.’

These two vagabonds seemed to be among the better recruits. At least they were reasonably strong and able. He didn’t trust the one with the sickle, though, not since his attempt at desertion while they awaited passage at Weymouth. Pinkney had caught him quickly because a local smithy had spotted him hiding in his backyard. ‘Twelve stripes with the cane,’ Pinkney had ordered. That seemed to suffice. He had made it very clear that if there was another such attempt at desertion, he would be hanged.

Pinkney looked at the man now with amusement. He called himself Reaphook and carried a sickle in his belt; he thought himself a hard man, and thought he could do a deal to win the captaincy of his vagabond band in return for twelve pressed men. Pinkney suddenly laughed aloud at the memory of the man’s bewildered expression when he had decided, after all, that he, Reaphook, should be one of those pressed into service. That had taken the shine off his afternoon of carnal pleasure with the vagabond girl.

The sun was about to set. Pinkney wondered, could they hold this camp for a few days? These men were in desperate need of training. No more than three of them could fire an arquebus and he had only four archers left. The remainder were poor creatures who would scarce be able to defend themselves in an alehouse knife-fight, let alone survive a battle. The two small wagons they had were packed with supplies: two barrels of ale, one of beer; salt beef; peas; two sacks of oatmeal; a keg of fine-corned gunpowder; six arquebuses; thirty pikes; twelve bills; six halberds; twelve longbows; two hundred arrows. It was little enough if they had to survive in this country for more than four or five days without resupply. They would be easy meat for a well-armed and battle-hardened enemy.

He had a cup of ale in his hand and drained the last drop. He looked into the young sentry’s eyes. ‘What do you do if you are approached, Mr Woode?’

‘Demand the watchword, sir,’ Andrew replied instantly, stiffening his shoulders and standing to attention.

‘Good man. We’ll make a soldier of you yet.’

The man sidled up to Ivory as they stood in line for their food in the ship’s galley. ‘How about a few hands of primero, Mr Eye? The lads say you like a game.’

Ivory looked around. Boltfoot was being served his food. He was out of earshot and did not seem to be watching him.

‘When?’

‘Second dog-watch. Lower gun deck.’

‘No, that’s too early. End of the first watch, beginning of the middle.’

‘As you wish. We’ll still be playing then. My name’s Trayne.’

Ivory moved forward away from the man. A porridge of oatmeal was slopped on to his tin trencher and a quart of ale was poured into his jug. It would taste better today than it had in a long while.

An hour before midnight, Boltfoot tapped the dead embers from his pipe and gazed at the sleeping form of William Ivory, curled up close to the bulwark. The Vanguard rose and fell with the swell. Though Boltfoot had had his fill of seafaring, he was still soothed by a racing wind and the roll and dip of a well-built ship.

Ivory snored loudly. A deep, unpleasant, pig-like sound emanated every few seconds from the back of his throat. Around them, soldiers and marines slept, packed like pilchards in a Cornish pie. Boltfoot put his pipe in his jerkin and lay down on a tarpaulin, so close to Ivory that he could almost feel his breathing. He closed his eyes. Sleep came readily.

Ivory opened one blue eye, then two. At the stern, the ship’s lantern swayed and guttered. Above them, a half-moon and the starry heavens lit the billowing sails. Clouds scudded past. He watched Boltfoot, certain he was asleep. Silently, Ivory rose to his feet. Instinctively, his hand went to the pig-hide tube strapped inside his jerkin against his chest, then to his money pouch. He felt a sudden surge of irritation that he no longer had his beloved tobacco pipe and thought bitterly that some peasant in Suffolk might even now be puffing at it. He looked about him warily. The watch was nowhere to be seen. Stealthily, he moved through the ranks of militia being transported to the war.

At the top of the companion way, he glanced about once more. No one was watching. He descended the ladder quickly to the gun deck. Among the guns, balls and powder kegs, there was scarcely room for a man to stand, yet men slept, curled into whatever space they could find or push into. The game would be in a quiet corner, between casks, lit by a single lantern. He had enjoyed many such games over the years, in ill-lit corners of decks. He narrowed his sharp eyes in the dim light.

He thought he saw a lantern and stepped carefully between the sleeping gunners, his gait rolling with the ship. Somewhere up here, towards the bow. The game must be hereabouts. Surely they would have waited for him, certain that they could relieve him of his money; how little they knew.

The blow came as if from nowhere. A gnarled hand clutching a six-pound cannonball descended and connected with a skull-splitting strike. Ivory crumpled and fell without even realising he had been hit. His head cracked against the decking, but by then he knew nothing.

Boltfoot looked at Ivory’s prone body with horror. He lay on a wooden board in the surgeon’s cabin, his face covered with blood. His jerkin had been cut open and his chest was bare. The pigskin tube was missing.

‘I rather think the bandaging that was already around his head saved his life,’ the surgeon said. ‘It softened the blow somewhat.’

Frobisher bristled with anger. ‘Didn’t save the bloody instrument he carried, though, did it? Will he ever wake up?’

‘He has already woken, admiral, but so far he hasn’t spoken. He is merely sleeping now. We do not know yet whether there is permanent damage.’

‘Well, I may still have some use for him. Keep him alive, sir.’ He turned to Boltfoot. ‘What in God’s name was he doing on the gun deck, Mr Cooper? And where were you?’

Boltfoot did not rise to Frobisher’s bait. ‘He seemed to be asleep, admiral. I was at his side. I do not know why he was below decks, though I could hazard a guess.’

‘Yes. I know all about Mr Ivory and his taste for games.’

‘The attacker must still be on the ship, admiral.’

‘What do you want to do about it, Mr Cooper? We dock in one hour. We cannot hold Norreys and his troops back while every man is searched.’

‘No, I understand. But there might be another way, admiral.’

Frobisher turned to the surgeon. ‘Keep Mr Ivory under close guard at all times.’ Then, to Boltfoot. ‘Come to my cabin. We will discuss these matters further.’

In the woods, when he was running from Oxford, Andrew had felt alone and terrified. The trees harboured sounds and shadows that threatened him. He had seen wolves, though reason told him there could be none. He saw snakes and ghosts, and felt his throat burning for lack of water. Yet his fear and thirst then were as nothing compared to this terror.

Here, in this outlying post some fifty yards from the camp, reason could not tell him that the threats were only imaginary, because he knew that they were there. There were enemy soldiers out there: hard, merciless men who slit throats without blinking. What was this company? Nothing but a lost, isolated band, poorly trained, ill equipped and surrounded on all sides in a small pocket of France. What good would his halberd be against an arrow or musket-shot? What if a man crawled on his belly through the grass with a short sword to thrust up into his throat? This danger was horribly real.

He felt – or heard – breathing. He wasn’t sure which. It was behind him. He stood back, then swung his six-foot halberd in a great arc, at knee level. He heard a low laugh.

‘Good man, good man.’

He breathed a great sigh of relief. It was Provost Pinkney.

‘Watchword?’ Andrew demanded, suddenly recalling what he had been told.

‘Even better, Mr Woode. The word is Agincourt.’

‘Sir.’

Pinkney moved on into the night, to check on the other watches. Andrew’s blood pulsed through him as if he were a hunted hare.

Boltfoot stood on deck at the top of the ship-to-shore ropeway. At his side were two marines, armed with drawn swords and loaded pistols.

One by one, Norreys’s soldiers trooped off the ship, down the perilous gangway on to the bustling quayside. They went in orderly fashion, clattering muskets, shields, helmets and pikes as they went. Each had his right sleeve rolled back to expose the wrist and forearm. Boltfoot grasped each arm and examined the wrist, looking for the wound-scar caused by his knife on the harbour-front in Portsmouth.

Then came Sir John Norreys himself, with his exotic consort on his arm. He looked about at the scene on land, where thousands of men milled about and formed into companies, with their mass of equipment. This was his army preparing for battle, not just another of the inconclusive skirmishes that he had fought in the past four years. No longer was he the forgotten general. At last he had the numbers of men necessary to take on the Spanish armies.

On these ships, he had two thousand soldiers, with more in transit from the ports of southern England. In all, there would be more than five thousand four hundred men, and not just unblooded recruits. His most valuable asset was the thousand-strong detachment of hardened fighting men from the Low Countries. And the siege train; that would stay with Frobisher for the time being. He could carry it quicker by sea, and land it where and when required.

Boltfoot bowed to him deferentially.

‘Don’t you wish to see my arm?’ Norreys said, thrusting it forward.

‘Thank you, general.’

Boltfoot bowed again. He understood why Norreys had acted thus; it meant that none of his gentlemen officers would have an excuse to refuse.

‘And mine,’ the woman said.

‘Thank you, my lady, but that will not be necessary.’

‘What do you seek? The mark of the devil?’

Her accent was foreign and she had a chattering monkey on her shoulder.

Norreys laughed. ‘Come away, my dear Eliska. This is a serious business. Let the man do what he must do.’

‘Perhaps he would like to examine my monkey’s little furry arm, though she might give him a bite if he tries.’

Boltfoot watched them proceed past him with their retinue, all of whom made a great show of baring their forearms for him. Frobisher approached him.

‘No sign of your scarred man, Mr Cooper.’

‘No, admiral. Perhaps he is among the members of your crew.’

‘Then we had better examine them.’

Boltfoot gazed at the wound-scar on the man’s wrist. It was still red and new. He looked up and met the man’s steady gaze. ‘Name?’

‘Able Seaman Trayne.’

He nodded to the marine guards. ‘Search this man.’

Trayne held his arms in the air and the guards began to pat him down.

‘No,’ Boltfoot said. ‘Remove his apparel. Search every inch of his body.’

‘What are we looking for, Mr Cooper?’

‘You’ll know if you find it. Send two men to search his berth and belongings.’

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