A voice screamed above the general din, ‘The hay-cart! They’re firing the hay-cart!’
The cart stood close to the ballista, its contents waiting to be woven into fire-balls to be hurled over the citadel’s walls. In the panic of the moment, it had been left unguarded, and suddenly its contents were aflame. Even I, hanger-on that I was, could now see that the sally had been a mere diversion to keep the English occupied around the main gate, while another party of Scots crept out by a postern door and set fire to the hay-cart, which they were in the process of pushing towards the huddle of dwellings nearest the centre of the town. A rainbow of sparks whirled and tumbled in the afternoon light. Smoke billowed and wreathed in choking clouds.
I could just make out my lord Gloucester, Albany and the rest, spluttering and coughing, smoke-blackened and sweating, laying about them with their swords as they struggled to overpower their opponents before the citadel gates were slammed shut in their faces. But it was no good. The heat of the burning buildings distracted and confused them, and the width of the barbican drawbridge made it impossible for more than two men to go abreast. The great wooden leaves creaked defiantly together, the last Scotsman disappeared, like a wraith, through the final crack and the whirr and clatter of the iron bar could be heard, even above the general din, as it was laboriously levered into place.
A chance to end the siege of Berwick by capturing the citadel had been lost thanks to the stupid error of leaving the hay-cart unguarded. I decided I wouldn’t care to be in the shoes of whoever was responsible for that.
No one was in a happy mood that evening; but then, as far as the common soldiery was concerned, that was nothing new. Albany was dining in the Duke of Gloucester’s pavilion along with the other commanders, while they no doubt apportioned blame for the afternoon’s fiasco, and I was left to line up beside the cooks’ great cauldrons of what passed for stew with the rest of the unwashed masses. For some reason best known to themselves, the cooks had elected to build their fires and set out their trestles within shouting distance of the hospital tents, so while we chewed on bits of gristle and choked on pieces of turnip that were so raw they cracked our teeth, we were entertained by the cries, groans and screams of the wounded and dying.
A little man, a Londoner by birth I reckoned, seated on the ground beside me, spat out several choice morsels of the caterer’s art and, lumping all army cooks and commanders together, blasted them to hell.
‘A bloody good chance to end this siege once and for all,’ he grumbled, ‘and what ’appens? Our lords and masters allows ’emselves to be diddled by a party o’ kilted savages. Disgraceful I calls it.’
A second man gave a throaty chuckle. ‘You ain’t surprised, surely, Dickon? Don’ you know by now that if anythink can be cocked up, it will be? Tha’s the first rule o’ warfare.’
There was a general murmur of agreement in the fire-studded dark and a general shifting of bodies. After a while, people began getting up and wandering away from the heat of the flames and the sound of their fellow men in agony. With full bellies, they sloped off to find their own or somebody else’s woman amongst the camp followers at the rear of the baggage waggons, and I found myself isolated in a little pool of shadow thrown by one of the cannon used earlier in the siege, but at present abandoned in favour of more old-fashioned weapons. It reminded me of Albany’s story of how his father, King James II, had been blown up and killed by a piece of his own beloved artillery …
‘Chapman!’
The apparently disembodied voice came out of the darkness, making me jump. I scrambled to my feet, staring wildly about me.
‘Chapman!’ The hoarse whisper came again, like the scraping of a fiddle bow across catgut. ‘Chapman, I say!’
‘Who are you? What do you want?’
I had, by this time, located the source of the sound as coming from the opposite side of the cannon, and moved purposefully to round it.
‘Stop!’ ordered the voice with such urgency that, against all my natural inclinations, I obeyed. ‘Don’t come any closer. Stay where you are on the other side of the gun. You’ll regret it if you don’t. I have a knife and I shan’t hesitate to use it.’
The man, whoever he was, sounded desperate enough to carry out this threat, so I retreated. The nearest fire was nothing now but a carpet of red-hot ashes. It was a clear night, the sky above swimming with stars, but moonless, the distance curtained by the shadowy outline of the town. The cannon stood in a pool of blackness.
I repeated my earlier questions. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’
A head was raised cautiously into view, but not an ordinary head. It was over-large and, as my sight adjusted to the darkness, I could see that it trembled with what seemed to be leaves. From the mouth drooped branches of foliage and where the eyes should have been were two glittering slits. In other words, the fellow was wearing a mask; the mask of the Green Man.
The realization gave me courage.
‘For heaven’s sake, take that stupid thing off and let me see your face,’ I begged. ‘If you have something to tell me, say it openly like a man.’
‘Hold your tongue,’ rasped the voice, ‘and listen to me. It’s for your own good and I haven’t much time. Watch your back, Chapman. You’re in danger.’
‘Danger? In what way?’
‘I don’t know exactly. If I did, I’d tell you. But I repeat, watch your back!’
I could feel little worms of fear beginning to crawl over my skin, but I answered jauntily enough, ‘Are you certain you have this right? Surely it’s my master, the Duke of Albany, who is threatened, not me. I have been hired to protect him.’
‘Albany?’ was the grim retort. ‘Maybe he is in danger. There are plenty of people who’d no doubt like to see him dead, his brother, King James, amongst them. But I do know you’re in jeopardy, as well. It’s no good asking me how I know this because I’m not allowed to tell. Just do as I say and be on your guard and maybe nothing will come of it.’
‘That’s not much use,’ I grumbled, adding violently, ‘I wish you’d take that damned Green Man mask off and we could discuss this face to face, man to man. Incidentally, was that you at Fotheringay who threw me against the wall and sent me sprawling to the ground?’
‘Yes. There was someone, I couldn’t see who, standing on the stairs above you. Whether or not he meant you harm, I’d no idea, but he could have done.’ Suddenly the Green Man flung out an arm. ‘Look behind you, Chapman!’
I whirled round, my right hand flying to the knife stuck in my belt, all my senses straining to meet whatever danger was threatening, and to meet it head on …
But there was nothing and nobody there, just a slight breeze stirring the darkness. The noises of the camp had grown muted; even the cries of the wounded had diminished and I realized it must be later than I thought. Albany would doubtless have returned to his pavilion and be looking for me. I turned back to address my companion …
He had vanished. I walked round the cannon several times, but there was no trace of him. He had deliberately misdirected my attention, and I had fallen into the trap like any green schoolboy. ‘Over there!’ we used to shout to unpopular school fellows. And while they were looking ‘over there’, the rest of us used to run away and hide.
Angered by my own stupidity, I made my way back to Albany’s tent and only just in time. A minute or so later, he walked in.
I lay tossing and turning on my straw mattress, listening to Albany’s snores which were loud enough to waken the dead. It was obvious that he had drunk too much of the Duke of Gloucester’s best wine, and it had taken the combined efforts of Davey and myself to strip him and get him to bed. If, I reflected sourly, the other commanders were all in the same state of inebriety, a surprise night attack by King James and his army could not only retake the town of Berwick, but drive us back as far as the River Tyne, if not farther. I wondered how distant the Scots’ army was.