Fire and Sword by Edward Marston Page B

they’d needed, they’d simply looted. From the ruins of the barn, a new one had risen, stocked with hay and straw.Animals penned behind the farmhouse were killed and roasted when the need arose. A pig was turning on the spit today, the tempting aroma of pork wafting through the air. The men were already licking their lips.
    There was another paradox. Soldiers who’d deserted from an army that imposed too much discipline on them had readily accepted an even stricter regimen. They knew that it was essential to follow orders now or forfeit their lives. There was, however, a difference. In the army, they were at the mercy of loathsome superiors against whom they had no redress. They were now part of a band that had elected their leader. Matthew Searle was one of them, a soldier from the rank and file, a strong-minded man who’d refused a chance to become a corporal out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Yet now he was wearing the uniform of a captain, albeit one that was stained with blood and ventilated by bullet holes. Searle was bold, cunning and decisive. He held the ragged band together by force of character.
    Edwin Lock was a short, skinny, rat-faced man with bulging eyes and a twitching moustache. Sucking on his pipe, he sidled across to Searle, who was seated at the kitchen table, counting money.
    ‘I need to speak to you, Matt,’ he said.
    ‘Shut up,’ ordered Searle.
    ‘We’ve been talking, you see.’
    ‘I don’t care what you’ve been doing, Edwin. You can just hold your tongue until I finish. Open that big mouth ofyours again and I’ll halve your share. Is that what you want?’
    Lock held his peace and waited impatiently as Searle put the money into a series of piles. It was the life savings of the family who’d occupied the last farm they’d raided. At the time, it had seemed like a reasonable haul. Divided between ten of them, however, it looked less substantial. Searle was a natural democrat. He expected no privileges because of his position as leader. Ten equal amounts stood on the table. His arithmetic lesson was over.
    ‘Well?’ he asked, glancing up at Lock. ‘What have you got to say for yourself this time?’
    ‘It’s really what the others have got to say, Matt. They get bored out here without women.’
    ‘The town is only two hours away. All they have to do is to ride over there and they can buy the juiciest slit they want. They have the time and the money.’
    ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to have the women here?’ said Lock with a sly grin. ‘The girl in that last farm, for instance. Why did we have to kill her? She’d have given us sport for days out here.’
    ‘Yes,’ conceded Searle, ‘but you’d all have been fighting each other over whose turn it was next. I want none of that here, Edwin. If they want to dip their wick, the men can ride into town. The whores are cheap and succulent there.’
    ‘Then why don’t we pay for some of them to come here?’
    ‘No, I tell you.’
    ‘They could cook and sew for us as well.’
    ‘They’d be too busy on their backs,’ said Searle, stroking his red beard. ‘I love my fucking as much as the next man but I know the dangers of having women under our feet. They’re a terrible distraction and they’d expect to be pampered.’ Rising to his feet, he towered over Lock. ‘We’re on the run, Edwin. Never forget that. There’ll be patrols out looking for us and it may be necessary for us to find another place to hide. That’s why I keep a man on top of that hill in daylight hours. We must always be on our guard.’
    ‘Women would help to pass the time.’
    ‘They’d encumber us and there’s an end to it.’
    ‘We miss them, Matt. It’s one of the reasons we deserted.’
    ‘You’ll have your share of cunny before too long,’ promised Searle with a grin. ‘I’ve picked out the next farm already. I went over there last week to get the lie of the land. There’s a buxom wife, two daughters and two servants. That’s five lovely