Regular batches of Londoners marched out to grab the money. Gideon was tempted, but resisted.
He knew his brother, with an extra fifteen years and developing arthritis, did sometimes give in and hire a man to take his duties. Lambert was hauled before his captain, but once it emerged that he was suffering from the flux, he was designated sick and no more was said. He told Gideon he had applied for discharge.
Mistakes had been made. The town port at the Hythe was not secured by Fairfax quickly enough, enabling quantities of grain, wine, salt, fish, and worst of all gunpowder to be secretly carted into town. This lengthened the siege considerably. Early on, the Royalists were able to leave the town and cross no man's land — the dead ground that was called the leaguer — to forage for food. Later, the blockade was tightened both by land and sea, and Fairfax managed to secure the loyalty of the local militias in Surrey and Essex, with whose help he covered all possible escape routes, especially the roads to the north. By the end of June the trap was tight. Slowly it became clear to everyone that they still had a long way to go.
Through July the mood grew increasingly bitter. Fairfax brought in heavier guns to batter a Royalist observation post in the bell tower of St Mary's at the Wall, which stood on the highest point of the town. This sniper's nest right against the town walls had been occupied by a brass demi-cannon which did much damage in the hands of a superior gunner known as 'One-eye'd Thompson'. Colonel Rainborough was given credit for taking out 'One-eye'd Thompson'. At any rate the man was shot and the top of the tower destroyed. The gun, which was locally called Humpty Dumpty, was sent crashing down in smithereens and Parliamentary movements were no longer spied upon.
A fierce sortie by the Royalists through the East Gate caused loss of life, though plainly the besieged were now suffering from shortage of ammunition. They still had too much food. On the 22nd of July, Rainborough led his men in an audacious raid. They crossed the swollen river at night to storm the last working cornmill, which until then had continued to provide the defenders with bread. To succeed in starving out the town it was vital to put the Middle Mill out of action. Gideon was among the group that tackled the sluice; frozen and soaked through, they managed to cut it, while comrades tried to fire the mill building. The Royalists fought back with a desperate counter-attack and put out the fire, using their hats to bale water from the river. Rainborough's men suffered losses and were compelled to withdraw, but they had done enough damage to stop the mill from working. However, they did not know then that the enemy had other, horse-powered, millstones. The Colchester garrison imposed strict rationing, though the mayor seemed unwilling or unable to give similar orders to civilians; they were suffering so badly that they were ready to mutiny.
The Parliamentarians squeezed closer. They battered the abbey gatehouse on the south side. After demolishing part of it, they managed to lob in grenades, which happened to hit the Royalists' main magazine. An enormous explosion killed many inside, destroyed the gatehouse, blew soldiers asunder and traumatised any defenders who struggled from the smoke and rubble. Close by was the private house of Sir Charles Lucas. The Parliamentarians broke in, under cover of the old walls, and when they found that the house had been stripped during riots some years previously, they wrecked the family tomb, committing foul acts of desecration on the bodies of the Lucas ancestors.
A month later they were still waiting for the town to surrender, even though they reckoned Royalist ammunition had now fallen to a dangerous low and starvation was close. Both the defenders and the attackers had fired houses to prevent their opponents using them for cover. Defenders had been killed when they slipped out at night to cut grass for their horses, which were now so weak that a cull was ordered of one in three. All remaining salt in town was used, to preserve as many lean carcases as possible. The rest were cooked up in a communal roast. Outside, Gideon and his colleagues were tantalised by the meat cooking as its scented smoke wafted over the leaguer. Later Gideon, who had a sensitive nose, noticed that spices discovered in house searches were now being boiled up with oil and starch.
He was already depressed. The puddingy wafts reminded him of his mother's warm, dry kitchen, always full of rich baking scents. It was a moment between guard duties; he was resting in limbo, as soldiers learn to do whenever action is not required of them. He had known about his mother's death for almost a year, but this was when it hit home. Grief for Parthenope overwhelmed him. He had never bidden her farewell; now Lambert and he would never enjoy her Dutch pudding or her caraway biscuits again. She would never make his favourite jumbles.
The effects of bereavement can be put off for a long time, then some jolt catches people off guard. Gideon had grown physically and mentally tired. The benefits of army service — travel, new skills, camaraderie — no longer mattered. He had all the normal troubles of a soldier; he was bored, fearful, hungry, run down, resentful of the enemy, suspicious of those who had ordered him here, worn out by constantly watching for danger. Grief and homesickness came together, one last blow.
Unbearably restless, he found a grey pony, a beast so small that when he mounted, his feet almost kicked into the turf. Colonel Rainborough spotted him. He knew his man, and perhaps noticed Gideon's unusual desolation.
'Leaving us, Sergeant Jukes?' It was forbidden to be more than a mile outside the leaguer. A formal headcount was taken twice a day.
'Taking a scout around, sir.'
'Be back by roll-call.'
'Yes sir. True unto death!'
'Very good.'
Whatever he had subconsciously intended, Gideon did not go far. He was shocked to find that in the fields around the town many wounded Parliamentarians were being tended under makeshift tents. He asked why they could not be taken to safety in London. He learned that casualty numbers were being concealed. Fairfax wanted to prevent the City money-men feeling nervous about his losses; he needed to deter ditherers from throwing in their lot with the Royalist rebels.
Somewhere among the sick and wounded lay Gideon's brother Lambert, groaning and disabled by the flux.
While he was out riding, Gideon found a weary messenger from Lancashire whom he led in to Fort Rainborough. The man was bringing news that in a three-day running victory near Preston, Cromwell and Lambert had defeated and destroyed the Covenanters' army. Both their infantry and cavalry had surrendered. At last there was hope.
By now, August, the Parliamentarians had pressed so close to the walls that opposing soldiers could speak to and throw stones at each other. Starvation, lack of clean water, and resultant epidemics had made conditions inside the town intolerable. The civilians' plight was grim. Poor people crowded outside the commander's lodgings, wailing for relief. The garrison had suffered desertion and high casualties; the soldiers were saving pieces of their bread ration to attract passing dogs, knocking in their skulls with musket butts and then eating them. Horses were stolen from stables almost every night, then their meat sold on the black market from the Shambles. Civilians ate rats. When the rat supply dwindled they gnawed on candle-ends and even soap, trying to suck nourishment from the mutton fat in them. As commotions increased, a Royalist officer was alleged to have brutally told a woman who begged for food for her starving baby that the child would make good eating, well boiled up.
It could not continue. Recriminations were ghastly on both sides. Parliamentary news-sheets denounced the Royalists for using the townsfolk as a human shield and for parading their County Committee hostages on the ramparts where they believed artillery fire was expected. Parliamentarians even muttered that the town had brought about its own misfortunes by admitting the Royalists, as if this loyal place had betrayed the cause, or had had any choice when faced with thousands of fully armed fugitive desperadoes. Fairfax's men were accused of using civilians for target practice; they did confess to burning the fingers of a fourteen-year-old messenger boy sent out to take a secret message to the Scots, though they had tried kinder tactics first, offering him a bribe to tell the truth. The Parliamentarians fired arrows and over the walls, carrying offers of amnesty to the rank and file; these were shot back bearing the message 'an answer from Colchester: as you may smell' and were discovered to be smeared with turds.
Astrologers arrived. This failed to help anyone.
Elsewhere the situation had moved on. There had been various reports of Royalist defeats. Wales was subdued, both south and north, and the outbursts of rebellion that had run through English counties like fire underground through peat were stamped out. But now came the final blow for the Royalists. News of Cromwell's complete massacre of the Scots' army was passed into Colchester by writing details on a paper kite; it was flown
