War Game

'So when Monson laid siege to Standingham Hall, then Steyning sent to Parliament for help. And they sent him these supplies?'

'That's right. And when Monson heard about it he appealed to the King, and the King lent him two regiments of cavalry, and he rode back hell for leather to head off the supply column. Also, at the same time, he ordered up 300 of his best men from the siege lines to block the old road at the top of this valley.' Mitchell pointed upstream. 'He probably planned to rendezvous here before the Roundhead convoy arrived. But they arrived ahead of schedule and ran into the road-block first, and they were just about to deploy against it when Black Thomas reached the ridge here with the cavalry.'

'I see. And being a good cavalier he charged straight in and beat them?' Audley stared down the hillside. The question was almost unnecessary; if the country had been anything like this in 1643 then the unfortunate Parliamentarians wouldn't have stood a chance, caught deploying in the open by the Royalist horsemen on the ridge above them. Charging at the gallop was the one thing the cavaliers did well from the start of the war, he remembered.

The problem was to stop them from charging too far, right through the enemy and off the battlefield altogether. But here on Swine Brook Field, the Swine Brook itself would have prevented them from doing that. Plus, no doubt, the prospect of plundering the wagons.

'Yes, that's just about it,' agreed Mitchell. 'Most of the dummy5

convoy escort ran away, but the Royalists butchered a couple of hundred on the banks of the stream. It was all over in a quarter of an hour.'

'It all sounds rather dull,' said Audley.

'It sounds rather nasty to me,' said Frances.

'The gentry killing the peasantry, you mean?' Mitchell raised an eyebrow. Then he grinned at Audley. 'She's a proper little Roundhead at heart, you know. A Puritan maid despite appearances.'

There was more truth in that than Mitchell intended, thought Audley.

'I simply don't find killing attractive,' said Frances coolly.

'Or military history interesting.'

That was one deliberately in Mitchell's eye, for that had been his chosen career before Audley had tempted him into one even more suitable for his talents, as Frances well knew.

'Well, as a battle so-called it was rather dull,' Mitchell nodded at Audley, wisely ignoring her challenge. 'But it did produce one celebrated anecdote that lost nothing in the telling. A real bloodthirsty story—literally bloodthirsty.'

'Literally?'

'Literally, it's the exact word for once. You see, Black Thomas was so desperate to get here before the Roundheads did that he wouldn't let his men halt. Kept them going non-stop after they'd run out of water, and it was a hot August day—hot and humid, because it had rained during the night before. So by dummy5

the time they reached this ridge they were pretty damn thirsty, and they'd been grumbling about it.

'So when he finally got them here he pointed down to the Swine Brook—which was beyond the enemy, of course—and told them there was plenty of water there, and they could drink to their heart's content when they'd reached it. All they had to do was to remove the base, vulgar fellows who were in their way.

'At least, that's the story according to Royalist propaganda as told by Mercurius Aulicus in Oxford afterwards. But the Roundheads had a different version— according to Mercurius Britanicus in London. He claimed that since Black Thomas had sold his soul to the devil, water couldn't quench his thirst, only blood. And when he reached the stream it was running red with the blood of the slain, so he ordered a trooper to bring him a helmet-full, which he promptly drank, thus proving he was in league with Beelzebub.'

'Yrch!' exclaimed Frances. 'You are disgusting, Paul.'

'Not me, Frances dear. This is straight Mercurius Britanicus.''

'And what really happened?' asked Audley.

'A bit of both, I'd guess. They would have been thirsty right enough. And he could well have said 'There's water down there', or some such thing.'

'And did the stream run with blood?'

dummy5

'That's the story. There were a lot of men killed along it, so there's no reason why it shouldn't have. It wouldn't be the first time it's supposed to have happened either—didn't the River Cock run red at Towton in the Wars of the Roses?'

'But would they have drunk from it then?' asked Frances.

'You bet they would. Thirsty men have drunk a lot worse than that—and been grateful for it.' Mitchell nodded towards Audley. 'David'll quote you Gunga Din in support of that, if you like—how does it go?

It was crawlin' and it stunk,

But of all the drinks I've drunk

I'm gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.

That right, David?'

Word perfect, thought Audley suspiciously. Paul Mitchell had done his homework on Swine Brook Field; or it might be that with his military history background, and his eerie faculty for total recall of every fact he had ever encountered, no homework had been needed; but by the same token he wouldn't have forgotten Audley's own weakness for quotations, particularly from Shakespeare and Kipling, and that he was now deliberately and