Peter Lovesey: Skeleton Hill

The tenth book in the Peter Diamond series, 2009

Two men lay dead on a battlefield and one said ‘Hey!’

The other stayed silent.

‘I’m talking to you.’

There was no response.

‘You with the head wound.’

Now the other one stirred. ‘I’m dead,’ he said through his teeth like a ventriloquist.

‘Me, too. So?’

‘So we’re not supposed to talk.’

‘Get real. No one’s looking at us. The action is all over there.’

Both were in the royalist army commanded by Lord Hopton. The re-enactment of the Civil War battle for Bath had moved closer to the spectators, some distance from where the pikemen had first clashed, leaving the so-called dead and dying as background decorations. The setting was spectacular, high on Lansdown, seven hundred feet above the city of Bath and with views across three counties. Unconstrained by even a breath of wind, the July sun belted down, catching the flash of pike, sword and armour but overheating everyone.

The one who had spoken first was on his back on the turf and the other was face down two yards away. The stage blood on his head wound was drying. ‘Some of us had to fall, I was told.’

‘You’re new to this, aren’t you?’

‘My first time.’

‘I thought I hadn’t seen you before. You’re a mess.’

‘When I was given my uniform, the officer told me it’s expected for a new recruit to get killed at least once, so I came prepared with a bag of blood. I’m trying to look as if I took a shot to the head.’

‘I’ll go for that.’

‘You can have some if you like.’

‘No thanks. I’ll be up again soon. The reason I’m dead is that I want to cool off. I’m Dave, by the way.’

‘Rupert.’

They didn’t shake hands, seeing that they were supposed to be slain.

‘ Rupert. For real?’

‘Of course.’ Rupert hesitated, then gave a forced grin. ‘Oh, I see. You thought the name was made up specially for this. Unfortunately, no. I’m stuck with it. Should we get up and join in again?’

‘You can if you want,’ Dave said. ‘I’m thirsty.’

‘It’s the armour, isn’t it? Makes one sweat.’

‘Fancy a can of lager?’

He smiled. ‘Don’t I just? I’d die for one – all over again.’

‘I got here early and put some by.’

‘Really?’ Rupert had raised his head off the ground.

‘It’s not far off.’

He didn’t hesitate long. ‘Which way?’

‘Follow me and keep your head down. Leave your pike. You can pick that up later.’ With that, Dave got up and with a stooping gait trotted further down the hill in the opposite direction from the fighting.

‘We look like deserters,’ Rupert called from close behind.

‘So what? You bet they had some in those days.’

Their raised voices caught the attention of a couple of women kneeling beside the wounded, but they were supposed to be camp followers giving comfort to their own, the despised parliamentarians.

‘See that fallen tree? That’s where it is.’

There was no question that they were breaking the rules by quitting the battlefield. Rupert had the sense not to mention any more of his anxieties to his new friend. With luck, no one had spotted them except the women. The spectators were massed behind ropes a few hundred yards away.

The fallen tree must have been blown down in one of the great storms of recent years. Its exposed root system, stark against the sky, formed a canopy ideal to hide under. They sank down in its shadow.

‘Should still be reasonably cool,’ Dave said. He burrowed in the earth and took out a can of Heineken and handed it to Rupert.

Rupert removed the ringpull and gulped some down. ‘This is a lifesaver.’

‘Brought you back to life for sure.’

Rupert laughed.

Dave raised his can. ‘To good King Charles.’

Rupert did the same. ‘The King, God bless him.’

Even though the lager wasn’t chilled it was bliss to drink. Dave explained that on battle days he usually found a spot where he could stow some away before anyone got there. ‘In weather like this you’ve got to look after yourself.’

‘I can see I’ve got a lot to learn,’ Rupert said.

‘I’m in the cavalry normally and we smuggle the odd tinny into our saddle holsters, but you can’t risk it as a pikeman. You wouldn’t get past the inspection.’

‘What are you doing on foot if you’re in the cavalry?’

Dave laughed. ‘Slumming. I’m a Captain of Horse.’

‘Wow.’

‘If you get a boil on your arse as I have, you don’t want to think about mounting a horse. Today I’m infantry and grateful for it.’

‘Some of the men have knapsacks, I noticed.’

‘That’s the first place an officer would look. If you were desperate you could stuff a tin down your breeches. I’d rather get here early and put down my own store.’

‘And you’re serious about joining in again?’

‘That’s why I’m in it, for the fighting. Aren’t you?’

‘Well, I’m a historian,’ Rupert said. ‘They had what they called a lecture day in October and I was invited to give a talk. I thought it would be interesting to come along and get a sense of what it’s like to re-enact a battle.’

‘And is it?’

‘Is it what?’

‘Anything like?’

Rupert the historian smiled. ‘Not if I’m brutally honest. This is put on mainly for the spectacle, so the audience has to have a view. The real point of interest in 1643 was Sir William Waller’s brilliant tactics.’

‘Waller? He’s the enemy.’

‘Yes, and in the real battle we outnumbered him by a couple of thousand, yet he moved his army in the night and outflanked us. When our side woke up, the parliamentarians had the high position along the top of Lansdown. You saw the little copse behind the Grenvile Monument?’

‘Yes.’

‘It wasn’t there in 1643. There were clumps of trees at either extreme, where some of Waller’s musketeers were deployed, but the main route of attack was a bare hillside. Our royalist army was on Freezing Hill, that one to the north. When we attacked we had to come down from there and fight our way uphill. We took a lot of casualties.’

‘But we saw them off.’

‘Finally, and at great cost. Not much of that is being shown here. I suppose a battle on a steep hillside wouldn’t work as a spectacle.’

‘Flat ground is better,’ Dave said, looking across the plateau of Lansdown to where the sound of the action continued. ‘Safer for the horses, too.’

‘And the scale is so different,’ Rupert said, his focus much more on the past. ‘We don’t have anything approaching the numbers they did. The royalist army had come up from the West Country under Sir Ralph Hopton’s command and they had upwards of six thousand men, against about four thousand defending Bath for the parliamentarians.’

‘Is that so?’ Dave said in a voice that was beginning to lose interest.

‘Yes, today’s turnout looks pathetic beside those figures. Hopton lost about three hundred in the real battle. I doubt if we started with that many this morning.’

‘This is only a minor muster,’ Dave said. ‘We do have bigger turn-outs.’

‘Each army had masses of artillery. According to the accounts, there was so much smoke from the cannon and muskets that they couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead.’

‘Hell on earth by the sound of it.’

‘Most battles were. A far cry from this little show.’