Nathan Fox- Dangerous Times, page 6
On the journey back to Robey’s school, Nathan noticed, for the first time, the massive bulk of the archer’s shoulders as he sat hunched over the horse’s reins.
‘Will I develop shoulders like yours, Nym?’ he asked.
Nym cackled with great amusement. ‘Nay, lad. I’ve spent a lifetime shooting a hundred-and-thirty-pound bow. I’m fit for nothing else. You have to be agile. You have to fight with a sword, climb a castle wall – in fact, you have to be a jack of all bleedin’ trades. You don’t want shoulders like sides of beef now, do you?’
Nathan laughed and then coughed and spluttered as the odours of the tanneries smacked him full in the face.
The next day was bright and crisp and Nathan felt chirpy as he sat down for breakfast.
‘What’s today’s lesson?’ he asked. Pistol shifted a little in his chair and cast a look at Robey, who made a small encouraging movement of his head. ‘You are to accompany me, young sir, to the ordnance stores in Woolwich,’ said Pistol.
Nathan opened his eyes wide with excitement. ‘Guns?’ he asked enthusiastically.
Pistol nodded.
‘Not just guns,’ Robey interjected. ‘Other weaponry too. Last year the queen’s advisors ordered the storehouses by the dockyard at Woolwich to be repaired so that they could store weaponry there in readiness for the Spanish invasion.’ He looked thoughtful for a moment and then motioned to the men to leave the room. Swiftly and silently Bardolph, Pistol and Nym obeyed.
‘Nathan,’ Robey said gravely, ‘Pistol is taking you to a place where the full horror of war can be seen – for those who can see it properly.’ Nathan frowned. ‘I’m sorry sir, I don’t understand.’
Robey looked distracted for a moment. ‘No, of course you don’t. Come with me.’ He left the kitchen and headed towards his private apartments. Once inside his room, Robey unlocked a small wooden cabinet and took out a snaphaunce pistol.
It’s beautiful, Nathan thought.
‘I’ve never seen a handgun before,’ he said breathlessly, as he traced a finger over the iron stock and barrel of the gun. The handle was covered in silver tracery, a web of flowers and leaves, and there were small-creamy white insets of horn. The mechanism for firing the gun gleamed tantalizingly in the early-morning light that was edging through the window.
Nathan looked up at Robey excitedly and felt the enthusiasm drain from his face as he met the master’s eyes.
‘It is a beautiful thing,’ said Robey quietly, and he sat down opposite Nathan, the gun in his hands. ‘Pistol made it about five years ago. He is a great craftsman and he loves his work – but he knows that these guns are the most dangerous weapons ever created.’
‘Surely all weapons are dangerous, sir?’ asked Nathan. Robey smiled ruefully. ‘So they are, my lad, so they are. But this requires no skill. Anyone – a child even – can pick up a loaded pistol and explode it in a man’s face, and that man would have no face left.’
Nathan winced.
‘All of these exploding weapons could blow apart humanity with ease. The killing is indiscriminate. In battle, when you have hand-to- hand fighting, a man can kill only one at a time. And there is some skill in such combat: the will to survive allied with the knowledge of how to handle a weapon. So, if the generals cry, “Halt!”, then many lives are spared. Those who have fought bravely and survived will carry on with their lives. But fifty men can be killed at once by firing a cannon. Twenty-five of those men could have been skilled enough to survive a battle fought in the traditional way. Each cannon shot needlessly takes lives.’ He sighed and looked dissatisfied with himself. ‘I know that I am resisting the march of time. I know that I am a mass of contradictions. I have lost count of how many men I have killed with the sword but, somehow, there was honour in that. I faced a man and he faced me. We knew why we were there; that we both had to fight for a chance to survive. When you fight a man, face to face, you have a great respect for the other man’s right to live – if he can. There is no honour in these handguns. You can wipe out a life without even looking into a man’s face. Besides . . . I fear them.’
Nathan was startled at this admission from Robey, whom he regarded as invincible.
‘I fear that these weapons may move away from the battlefield and on to the streets. They are easy to carry. Like the stiletto knife, they are an assassin’s weapon. This is why, apart from that one in front of you, which is never loaded, I do not keep guns here. Can you imagine such a thing in the hands of some drunken fool in the Southwark byways? I could disarm a man with a sword or dagger, but I could not disarm a man with a pistol.’
Robey stared out of the window for a while, lost in his own thoughts. Then he turned to Nathan with a more positive air. ‘Nevertheless, Pistol is a craftsman and he should be honoured as such. Today he will take you to the ordnance stores and show you all the weaponry there. It is a secret place and you must say nothing at all, to anyone, about what lies at Woolwich. England is storing up her arms in many unlikely places. God forbid the Spanish should find them out.’
Nathan swore that he would be silent. ‘You are a good lad, Nathan,’ said Robey. ‘You must make your own mind up about this weaponry, but I felt that I should give you my thoughts.’
As Nathan climbed into the horse and cart beside Pistol, he could not banish from his mind the image of a man’s face being destroyed by a gun. Pistol looked at him sideways. ‘Did he give you the talk?’
Nathan nodded.
‘Master Robey is a great man,’ said Pistol, as the horse pulled out of the yard and into the street, ‘but he’s too much of a philosopher. Don’t do for a soldier to think too much, lad. It makes ’em nervous, like. Me – I don’t think about nothing. I just make the guns. It may be wrong of me, but that’s the way I am. But Master Robey is torn between the old and the new. He would like everything to stay as it was, but he knows that you can’t stop change. He employs me because he needs someone who understands firearms. He don’t have no choice.’
They sat in silence in the cart as the horse plodded its determined way through the morning bustle of the streets. Nathan was lost in his thoughts and Pistol was silent. He knew the boy had been influenced by Robey and he was uncertain of what to say or do to remove this sudden awkwardness between them. Nathan finally snapped out of his reverie and pointed off into the distance at the barely visible masts of a great ship.
‘Look, Pistol!’ he cried ‘That ship! Is it the Queen’s?’
Pistol grinned. ‘It is now. Her Majesty bought it yesterday off Sir Walter Raleigh. Building that ship was one of his grand ambitions. It was going to be called the Ark Raleigh. But Sir Walter ran out of money. Now the Queen is renaming it the Ark Royal and it’s going to be a flagship of the Royal Navy. Would you like to see her up close, lad?’
Nathan’s eyes widened. ‘Really?’
‘Of course. I know some of the lads a-building her. We’ll have a good look at this ship that’s bankrupted Sir Walter, shall we?’ As he turned the horse towards the river, Nathan could hardly contain his excitement.
‘She’s a galleon,’ said Pistol. ‘A new type of warship, invented by the Portuguese. And there’s my mate, John.’ Pistol pointed to a man standing on the quayside.
‘Hoy there, John Bates!’ Pistol stopped the cart and jumped down. The man on the quayside squinted, and then broke into a big grin.
‘Pistol, me old mate!’ he boomed. Pistol introduced the boy to his large, loud friend.
‘Come to see the Ark, have you?’ bellowed Bates, looking at Nathan. ‘Come on then. But keep your wits about you. There’s a right mess on deck and no mistake.’
Nathan followed the two men up the gangplank and looked down into the curious dock where the ship lay. It was a hollowed-out basin, with no water in it. The mighty ship seemed to be balancing in the air, though, in fact, he saw it was held upright by an elaborate network of wooden props that were placed between the ship’s flanks and the walls of the basin. The sides of the basin were lined with wood and stone. Nathan craned over the sides of the ship to see more.
The smell of burnt wood and tar hung in the air. There were men hanging over the side of the ship on ropes, caulking – stuffing hemp in the cracks between the planks of wood and sealing them with boiling tar. Two men were up the main mast, attaching rigging to the spars. The deck was indeed a mess of coiled ropes that slithered slowly in all directions, as the men worked with them. They seemed alive, like snakes in a barrel.
‘She’s a hundred feet long on the keel by thirty-seven feet beam,’ shouted Bates proudly, ‘and she’ll carry a total of forty-four guns. Aye, she’s a fast and weatherly ship, that’s for sure. Come down below, lad. See the innards of the beast.’
They descended a short flight of stairs and Bates showed them various cabins.
‘How many men will sail in this ship?’ asked Nathan.
‘About a hundred and eighty mariners, thirty gunners and a hundred and fifty soldiers.’
‘Where do they all sleep?’
Bates laughed loudly. ‘Mariners sleep in shifts, boy, so three men can share one bed. The gunners sleep by their guns, and the soldiers sleep either down in the hold in hammocks or up on the deck, ready to fight.’
Nathan looked around and tried to imagine the ship crammed with over 350 souls and, for one brief moment, he felt a sense of panic as his imagination summoned up the scene at the height of battle.
‘Had any cannon delivered yet?’ Pistol asked.
‘Just the one so far,’ said Bates. ‘A thirty pounder on the main deck. Came up from the foundry in Sussex two days ago. She’s a beauty. Come and see.’
It was gloomy on the gun deck because all the gun ports were closed, but they could just make out the long shape of a cannon mounted on a wooden carriage. Bates opened up two of the gun ports and the light came streaming in. Nathan ran his hand over the gun and looked at the embellishments – the Queen’s crest and various heraldic animals had been cast into the iron.
‘This is a breech-loader,’ Pistol told Nathan, ‘which means the gunner loads the powder and ball from the rear. He doesn’t have to pull the gun back from the gun port to reload. Saves time. It doesn’t shoot as far as the muzzle-loaders, but this beauty is fast and lethal in close sea battle. Are they all to be breech, John?’
‘No. All different. The navy wants to hedge its bets. Them Spanish ships are bigger and slower than ours, I hear. The admiral will want some long-range muzzleloaders as well.’
Pistol seemed well pleased, but now he was anxious to leave. They had a few miles to go to Woolwich and this detour had been unscheduled. Nathan and Pistol took their leave of John Bates and set off again towards the bustling port of Greenwich and beyond that to Woolwich. Their conversation along the way was animated. Nathan had been impressed by the Ark Royal and Pistol found himself endlessly plied with questions.
The road to their final destination was desolate. The river lay, steely grey and calm, on their left. Nathan could see the far bank. There were a couple of small fishing boats bobbing about on the water, but no movement in the forests. On their side, all was marshy, strange and wild. Reeds grew in abundance, a flock of mallards circled in the air and, here and there, black moorhens were strutting about their business. It was an isolated spot but Nathan observed that the cart track was well used and that trees had been felled recently. As they rounded a bend he saw the masts of two ships above the trees.
Pistol slowed the horse down and the cart came to a standstill before a high palisade with wooden towers either side of huge, solid timber gates. A musketeer stood in either tower and as the cart came to a stop one of them shouted out, ‘Ho there! Is it Pistol, you old vagabond? Be you friend or foe?!’
Pistol grinned. ‘I’ll give you foe, you clapperdudgeon! A pox on you. Open the gates – I’ve got a terrible thirst on!’
The gates slowly rumbled open and the cart eased through. Inside the palisade, Nathan was amazed by the fever of activity. Men were unloading large cannon from the two ships berthed at the dock. In a thatched, openfronted building five or six blacksmiths were pumping fires, heating iron and soldering metal.
‘There’s much to see,’ said Pistol, leading Nathan towards one of the big storehouses. Nathan was completely unprepared for the sight that met his eyes when he stepped inside the building. Rack upon rack of gleaming metal glittered in the light coming through the open doors.
‘The daggers and swords you’re familiar with,’ Pistol began. ‘There are rapiers – standard length, mind – short swords, two- handed swords, daggers, parrying daggers (for use with rapiers), battleaxes, black bills . . .’ He took the long staff with its chopping blade at the end and turned it around in his hands. ‘I used to fight with one of these,’ he said, suddenly roaring into life, hacking and slashing an imaginary tide of infantrymen. Nathan laughed hysterically. Pistol returned the black bill to its rest and picked out a halberd. ‘I used to fight with one of these too,’ he said, thrusting its metal spike forward and up, into an imaginary mounted cavalryman. ‘Oh, you need a lot of strength to be an infantryman!’ he puffed. ‘Unhorsing an armoured rider takes muscle.’ He put the halberd back in its place and continued down the serried ranks of weapons, naming as he went. ‘There’s the short staff or half-pike, the forest bill – sometimes called the Welch hook – the partisan, the long staff, morris-pike, javelin . . .’ On he went, touching all the weapons with apparent reverence, and yet Nathan sensed some contempt in his expression.
‘What is it, Pistol?’ he asked.
Pistol smiled ruefully and shook his head. ‘Look at this,’ he said, taking a staff from a bundle. ‘A piece of wood. Granted, a strong piece of wood and a good weapon if you have nothing else to hand. But, in a battle, what use would this piece of wood be if I am being rained upon from above by arrows, or being slashed by the steel of swords from mounted cavalry? One blow of a short sword and this piece of wood is broken in two and I am defenceless.’ He warmed to his subject and grabbed a morris pike. ‘A pike can defend me from both horse and man – if I have room in the crush of battle to move it through its length. But a man who is swinging around a sword or axe will have a better chance of life.’
Pistol brought his face close to Nathan’s and spoke passionately. ‘Anyone who has ever been an infantryman in battle will tell you that to survive, you need the best, the strongest, the most powerful weapon at your disposal – otherwise you are just meat for the crows, boy, meat for the crows. This is what Robey does not understand. He’s a great swordsman, but he’s never walked on his own two feet into the thick of battle. Robey’s a fine horseman and has looked down on the likes of me, sweating and dying at his horse’s feet, with only my pike or halberd between meself and oblivion. But he has never felt the terror of being knocked to the ground, of wondering if you will be killed by a man or trampled to death by a horse. If he had, Robey would understand why the infantryman needs a gun – to give ourselves a chance, Nathan.’
Nathan felt terror – and pity. He saw the years of battle-fear in Pistol’s eyes and he could hear the note of vengeance in his voice when he spoke of guns. Pistol held Nathan’s gaze for a moment and then patted his shoulder reassuringly. ‘Don’t pay no mind to me, boy. I get above meself sometimes. Come, let me show you the armour warehouse, then the artillery.’
The next warehouse was filled with cannon, gleaming dully in the half-light, their cannonballs piled beside them.
Another warehouse was filled with long and short guns. Pistol lifted one of the long guns. ‘These are such beauties,’ he breathed. ‘See, the barrel is fire-blued to give it that dark blue colour. Protect it from corrosion. The barrel’s reinforced by something we call “damascene”. Strips of metal, size of my finger, are wound round the barrel, down the whole length, then heated, welded, hammered and forged. Makes it strong. You can pack the whole length of this barrel with gunpowder and fire it. Other gun barrels would burst open if they had just a quarter of that amount of gunpowder in ’em.’
‘What happens if a gun barrel bursts?’ asked Nathan, fearing the answer.
‘You might get your head blown off, but most certainly you’d lose your hands,’ said Pistol matter-of-factly. He held on to the musket and moved on to the short guns.
‘See, a flint is attached to a spring-loaded arm. When the trigger is pressed, the cover slides off the flash pan, then the arm snaps forward, striking the flint against a metal plate over the flash pan, producing sparks that set fire to the powder. That’s the idea, anyhow. . .’ he added, ‘but it don’t always work. You have to pull the arm back and reset it – have another go.’
Nathan nodded dubiously.
Pistol suggested that they went to the proving ground to try out a pistol and a musket. He led the way enthusiastically. Some distance away from the storehouses was a target range. There were four thick wooden targets set about thirty feet away from the firing line. Further along, some men were positioning a cannon.
‘They’re going to prove her, see if she works,’ said Pistol. ‘Let’s wait.’
In the distance Nathan could see a massive wall of wood, like a castle gate or the side of a ship. He assumed this was the cannon’s target. One of the gunners came over to them.
‘Keep back,’ he warned loudly, putting his hands over his ears. Nathan and Pistol followed suit. The gunners stood to the side of the cannon and the main gunner touched the breech with a red-hot piece of coal. There was a moment’s silence, then a mighty boom. The cannon recoiled several yards and smoke billowed from its muzzle. There was a crack and as the smoke cleared Nathan saw that the wooden target-wall had been smashed in half by the cannonball. The gunners made appreciative sounds and went to retrieve the ball.
