The Battle at the Inn

Preparation

Tom looked at the group of men busy with their preparations to leave the courtyard of the small inn and contrasted their dull, buff coats with his lurid yellow jacket. A sergeant earned a decent wage in Parliament's army, tuppence a day more than the rest, but only when his political masters thought to pay him, and he had had to buy his black, brimmed hat and sergeant's scarf as well as this buff coat that was only a third of the cost of a properly dun-coloured one. The dye must have been wrong. Anyway, the London mercer assured him one month on campaign would see it fade to a veteran beige.

The forty soldiers were split into one section of twenty four pikemen and one of sixteen musketeers. Pikemen wore a sleeveless leather jerkin, like Tom's buff coat, but of a faded yellow, almost neutral in colour as the dye slipped away and left weathered suede held together by stains, patches and woollen stitches. Beneath this coat most wore linen shirts, visible at sleeves, and collar.

Grey breeches hung limply down from the coats to the knees where leather thongs or linen ties pinched the material together. Linen or wool stockings covered the lower leg and the hobs of once-stout boots clopped loudly on the courtyard cobbles. The musketeers were dressed similarly, but their sleeveless coats were tabards with front and back stitched together so that they had to be slipped over the head. This meant no eyes, no buttons and less expense for the regiment.

Tom could see the chilled breath of each man being exhaled into the early morning air. It looked like the pall of smoke from muskets which had just fired a volley. The pikes, cradled in the arms of the pikemen lurched like the masts of ships bobbing at anchor, steel tips on sixteen foot poles. He strode up to the wagon and checked that the wooden money chests were all securely bolted to the metal slats across the wagon bed. The six wooden boxes were pale due to the freshness of the timber and around 3 foot by 2 foot by 1 foot in size. Each one, reportedly, had a carefully packed stock of pennies, shillings and sovereigns and was screwed tightly shut. Tom checked that none of the wax seals on the lids showed signs of tampering then he looked up to check the wagon team was fully awake.

'Come on, lads. Shake yourselves. I want every man fully awake right from the start. This is no time for daydreaming.'

'Right, Sergeant. But shouldn't we wait for Colonel Ward's cavalry to return before we set off?'

'We will wait, Myers. But I want to be ready to move at a moment's notice. There're too many Royalist sympathisers around here for us to be complacent.'

'Our Captain Tower seems pretty complacent, if you ask me,' came a voice from behind Tom.

'That's enough, Clark,' barked the sergeant. 'Just do as you're told and keep your trap shut.' Tom couldn't afford any insubordination when they were in such an isolated position.

The small knot of cavalrymen huddled around the stable was no help either. Their corporal didn't acknowledge Tom's authority over his men and just watched the scene with disinterest.

Captain Tower, as usual, was still at his breakfast, which was bound to take a long time as it was his practice to sample the full breadth of the food menu and quality of the wine cellar, both rustically basic this far from London. Tom was used to arranging the details for the day's march; often the Captain wouldn't catch them up until lunch time, but today he felt uneasy. Maybe he should speak to the Captain or his servant and try to impress on him the danger they were all in, but he'd never yet got any sense from his captain before breakfast.

Tom had spoken to Colonel Ward over an hour ago, just before the squadron of cavalry trotted out on to the track outside the inn. The Colonel was worried by the surly attitude of the innkeeper's staff and reports brought in by one of his scouts that there was a Royalist troop of horsemen in the area. The Colonel hadn't bothered to wake CaptainTower but entrusted the infantry and the wagon with the army's pay to the sergeant. It was clear he looked to Tom to see that it was kept safe.