Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [477]
They began to move. His heart thrilled with excitement. He watched them with fascination and with longing.
It was as the troops passed under the gateway into the High Street that two ten-year-old boys beside him moved out and began to follow them. No one tried to stop them; after all, the street ahead was empty. Nor, when the excited little boy a second later began to dog their footsteps, did anyone take particular notice: they assumed the little fellow must belong to them. So it was that quite unknown to Margaret, as the dusk fell Samuel left the close with Ludlow and his men.
Fifty yards up the High Street the two boys turned into a house. Samuel, well contented that he was marching with the soldiers, continued on his way.
To right and left people were pulling the shutters tight and barring their doors. No one had time to concern themselves with the curious little figure in his solitary march up the echoing street.
The High Street was not long; at the top of it the soldiers turned right towards the Poultry Cross and the entrance to the market place.
Soon Samuel too was nearly at the Poultry Cross.
The plan of Edmund Ludlow was daring. Although he did not know the numbers of Royalist troops advancing, he guessed that they must be considerable. His own total contingent in the city numbered only sixty. His only hope therefore of halting the Royalist advance was by a brilliant bluff. Leading a handful of men, he intended to make a spirited charge into the market place against the enemy’s vanguard, while a trumpeter stationed by the Poultry Cross would by his bugle calls give the wholly erroneous impression that a much larger body of Roundhead troops were following close behind.
Shots were being fired ahead. There were almost three hundred Cavaliers forming a line in the market place. But with his thirty men gathered in the alley by the Poultry Cross, Ludlow gave the order and they charged. By the Poultry Cross, the bugler sounded wildly.
Nobody thought of looking behind them, where they might have seen a little figure lurking in the shadows.
Samuel stared. They had left him behind. Not understanding what was happening, the little boy followed after them.
How big the market place seemed. He could see the men running ahead of him and his legs struggled to catch up with them. He waved his arms excitedly. The line of Cavaliers in front of him held no terror.
Then the two groups clashed, and he stopped in astonishment. It was not what he had expected.
For a short time, Edmund Ludlow’s plan worked. The Royalists saw the eager troops issuing from the broad alleyway in front of the Poultry Cross, led by young Ludlow himself on his splendid horse. It never occurred to them that he only had thirty men. Taken by surprise, they scattered and were driven across the open space. In the gathering darkness and confusion, nobody noticed the small figure standing hesitantly in the middle of the market place.
Men were running everywhere. Ludlow himself had taken out his sword and was locked in hand to hand combat with a Royalist officer. Their two horses wheeled and clattered not fifty yards from where the child was standing. On his left, Samuel saw a group of three foot soldiers engaged in what seemed like a crazy dance. They were shouting. He heard the crash of steel, then saw one of them fall. There was a huge red gash in his side from which blood was pumping. The two Roundheads who had struck him turned and ran past him to their next quarry.
The excitement he had felt vanished. Suddenly the huge heavy figures seemed very threatening, and they seemed to be on every side.
So this was fighting. He did not like it at all.
Suddenly, he