Micah Clarke<br />His Statement as made to his three grandchildren Joseph, Gervas and Reuben During by Arthur Conan Doyle (best e book reader TXT) 📖

bought and paid for. One other thing! I have a trinket or two left which might serve as a gift for the pretty Puritan maid, should our friend lead her to the altar. Od’s my life, but she will make him read some queer books! How now, Colonel, why are we stuck out on the moor like a row of herons among the sedges?’

‘They are ordering the line for the attack,’ said Saxon, who had ridden up during our conversation. ‘Donnerblitz! Who ever saw a camp so exposed to an onfall? Oh for twelve hundred good horse—for an hour of Wessenburg’s Pandours! Would I not trample them down until their camp was like a field of young corn after a hail-storm!’

‘May not our horse advance?’ I asked.

The old soldier gave a deep snort of disdain. ‘If this fight is to be won it must be by our foot,’ said he; ‘what can we hope for from such cavalry? Keep your men well in hand, for we may have to bear the brunt of the King’s dragoons. A flank attack would fall upon us, for we are in the post of honour.’

‘There are troops to the right of us,’ I answered, peering through the darkness.

‘Aye! the Taunton burghers and the Frome peasants. Our brigade covers the right flank. Next us are the Mendip miners, nor could I wish for better comrades, if their zeal do not outrun their discretion. They are on their knees in the mud at this moment.’

‘They will fight none the worse for that,’ I remarked; ‘but surely the troops are advancing!’

‘Aye, aye!’ cried Saxon joyously, plucking out his sword, and tying his handkerchief round the handle to strengthen his grip. ‘The hour has come! Forwards!’

Very slowly and silently we crept on through the dense fog, our feet splashing and slipping in the sodden soil. With all the care which we could take, the advance of so great a number of men could not be conducted without a deep sonorous sound from the thousands of marching feet. Ahead of us were splotches of ruddy light twinkling through the fog which marked the Royal watch-fires. Immediately in front in a dense column our own horse moved forwards. Of a sudden out of the darkness there came a sharp challenge and a shout, with the discharge of a carbine and the sound of galloping hoofs. Away down the line we heard a ripple of shots. The first line of outposts had been reached. At the alarm our horse charged forward with a huzza, and we followed them as fast as our men could run. We had crossed two or three hundred yards of moor, and could hear the blowing of the Royal bugles quite close to us, when our horse came to a sudden halt, and our whole advance was at a standstill.

‘Sancta Maria!’ cried Saxon, dashing forward with the rest of us to find out the cause of the delay. ‘We must on at any cost! A halt now will ruin our camisado.’

‘Forwards, forwards!’ cried Sir Gervas and I, waving our swords.

‘It is no use, gentlemen,’ cried a cornet of horse, wringing his hands; ‘we are undone and betrayed. There is a broad ditch without a ford in front of us, full twenty feet across!’

‘Give me room for my horse, and I shall show ye the way across!’ cried the Baronet, backing his steed. ‘Now, lads, who’s for a jump?’

‘Nay, sir, for God’s sake!’ said a trooper, laying his hand upon his bridle. ‘Sergeant Sexton hath sprung in even now, and horse and man have gone to the bottom!’

‘Let us see it, then!’ cried Saxon, pushing his way through the crowd of horsemen. We followed close at his heels, until we found ourselves on the borders of the vast trench which impeded our advance.

To this day I have never been able to make up my mind whether it was by chance or by treachery on the part of our guides that this fosse was overlooked until we stumbled upon it in the dark. There are some who say that the Bussex Rhine, as it is called, is not either deep or broad, and was, therefore, unmentioned by the moorsmen, but that the recent constant rains had swollen it to an extent never before known. Others say that the guides had been deceived by the fog, and taken a wrong course, whereas, had we followed another track, we might have been able to come upon the camp without crossing the ditch. However that may be, it is certain that we found it stretching in front of us, broad, black, and forbidding, full twenty feet from bank to bank, with the cap of the ill-fated sergeant just visible in the centre as a mute warning to all who might attempt to ford it.

‘There must be a passage somewhere,’ cried Saxon furiously. ‘Every moment is worth a troop of horse to them. Where is my Lord Grey? Hath the guide met with his deserts?’

‘Major Hollis hath hurled the guide into the ditch,’ the young cornet answered. ‘My Lord Grey hath ridden along the bank seeking for a ford.’

I caught a pike out of a footman’s hand, and probed into the black oozy mud, standing myself up to the waist in it, and holding Covenant’s bridle in my left hand. Nowhere could I touch bottom or find any hope of solid foothold.

‘Here, fellow!’ cried Saxon, seizing a trooper by the arm. ‘Make for the rear! Gallop as though the devil were behind you! Bring up a pair of ammunition waggons, and we shall see whether we cannot bridge this infernal puddle.’

‘If a few of us could make a lodgment upon the other side we might make it good until help came,’ said Sir Gervas, as the horseman galloped off upon his mission.

All down the rebel line a fierce low roar of disappointment and rage showed that the whole army had met the same obstacle which hindered our attack. On the other side of the ditch the drums beat, the bugles screamed, and the shouts and oaths of the officers could be heard as they marshalled their men. Glancing lights in Chedzoy, Westonzoyland, and the other hamlets to left and right, showed how fast the alarm was extending. Decimus Saxon rode up and down the edge of the fosse, pattering forth foreign oaths, grinding his teeth in his fury, and rising now and again in his stirrups to shake his gauntleted hands at the enemy.

‘For whom are ye?’ shouted a hoarse voice out of the haze.

‘For the King!’ roared the peasants in answer.

‘For which King?’ cried the voice.

‘For King Monmouth!’

‘Let them have it, lads!’ and instantly a storm of musket bullets whistled and sung about our ears. As the sheet of flame sprang out of the darkness the maddened, half-broken horses dashed wildly away across the plain, resisting the efforts of the riders to pull them up. There are some, indeed, who say that those efforts were not very strong, and that our troopers, disheartened at the check at the ditch, were not sorry to show their heels to the enemy. As to my Lord Grey, I can say truly that I saw him in the dim light among the flying squadrons, doing all that a brave cavalier could do to