CHAPTER FIFTEEN. ATTACK
‘Sir! Sir! Beacon’s lit!’
Hervey woke slower than usual. He heard the banging on the door rather than the report. ‘Come in!’
The orderly serjeant held his lantern high. ‘Corporal Evans, sir. We’ve just seen the north beacon light.’
‘Have you roused the out-picket?’
‘Ay, sir, and Mr Canning.’
Serjeant Armstrong was at the door a few seconds later. ‘I’d just begun my rounds. I’ve told Lingard to saddle up for you.’
Hervey pulled on his boots and overalls, cursed as he broke the bar of a spur ramming it into the housing, fastened his jacket, wedged his shako on tight, took his gloves, seized up his swordbelt and carbine — almost forgetting the ready cylinder — and took the stairs at a run. In the grange yard dragoons were already leading out horses under saddle (both outlying and inlying pickets slept dressed), and the lance-corporal was numbering them off.
‘Mr Seton Canning!’
The lieutenant hurried across the yard. ‘Ready, Hervey.’
‘Stand-to second division, and follow on as soon as you can. Have St Oswald stand-by third. I’ll take the picket with Serjeant Armstrong.’
‘Sir!’
‘Trumpeter!’
‘Susan’ Medwell came doubling, followed by Hervey’s coverman.
‘I think this is it, Corporal Troughton. Stick close. Medwell, I’ll want “charge” when we’re near. It could scatter them without a shot.’
‘Sir!’
‘Well done, Lingard. Put this in the bucket.’ He passed the carbine to his stand-in groom as he took Gilbert’s reins and checked the girth.
‘Picket ready, sir,’ called Armstrong from the saddle of his big dapple bay.
‘Very well. Threes advance, at the trot!’
In fewer than ten minutes from first alarm, fifteen dragoons, their captain, coverman, trumpeter and serjeant were leaving the billet for the besieged house.
Hervey’s beacon system was in two lines, one for the houses north of the town, and one for those south. When a house was attacked, the watchmen on the roof were to light the beacon, and the watches on the other houses would relay the alarm by lighting theirs. Videttes, set at last light, observed the centre house of each line, and galloped the alarm back to the grange. The centre house had two beacons, so that if a house on the left of the line were attacked, and later one on the right, it could signal the subsequent attack. But the picket would not know whether the attack were left or right until reaching the centre house.
There was a three-quarter moon, giving enough light to the road to allow the picket a good canter for most of the mile and a half to Warren Hall, centre house of the north beacon line. There were men with torches at the gates as Hervey came up.
‘It’s down the line towards Pleasley, sir!’ they called. Hervey left one man as post and took the rest straight on, increasing the pace once his eyes had recovered from the torches. At each house it was the same: they had relayed the further beacon. As Hervey passed the last house but one he became suspicious of the Luddites’ chance attack on the furthest point of the line.
‘Do you want me to blow the charge yet, sir?’ called ‘Susan’ Medwell.
‘No. Let’s wait and see.’
Hervey’s instinct soon proved right. They galloped up the drive of Pleasley Grange to see torches all over the place, but no Luddites. The roof watch came down the escape ladders in haste and confusion.
‘What’s happening?’ shouted Hervey.
‘It’s queer, sir,’ said the chief watchman. ‘We was attacked for all of ten minutes — shots and all — and then they just went. As if they heard you coming. But that was half an hour ago.’
‘Did you fire the beacon at once?’
‘Ay, sir. I think it were that that frightened ’em off.’
‘Is anyone hurt?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Very well. I’ll leave two dragoons till morning. Threes about, Serjeant Armstrong!’
They galloped back down the drive as fast as they could. ‘Do you think what I think?’ shouted Armstrong, closing up.
‘I’ve been humbugged?’
‘I wouldn’t have taken it personal like that, but yes.’
‘How in God’s name did they know?’
They checked to a trot to take the turn back onto the road.
‘Well, they’d easily have known about the beacons. You could hardly keep them a secret. All they have to do is attack one house and then stand back to see how long it takes us to get here. “Sons of Sherwood”, they call themselves? Bloody Robin Hoods!’ Armstrong spat into the hedge at an imagined outlaw.
‘So they’ve watched us all the way here?’
‘Probably.’
‘Shit!’ Hervey felt like spitting too. ‘Surely it’s too much of a coincidence to be all the way this end of the line, though. What if they draw us to one end and then attack the other?’
‘That’s why you’ve got a second beacon.’
‘And what if the other line’s now lit, the south line?’
‘Well, we always knew we couldn’t be everywhere at once. And neither can they!’
‘No. That’s why we had to be at the right place, because
‘You mean it’ll be lit any minute now if they’re having a go at Clipstone?’
‘Exactly! Come on!’ They pressed back into a canter.
It took the best part of an hour to get within reach of Clipstone. They had turned round Seton Canning’s division within half a mile of Pleasley Grange, which meant to Hervey that the second beacon at Warren Hall could not have been alight a quarter of an hour before. But both beacons were well ablaze when they’d passed the house again, and now they could hear firing towards Clipstone from a mile off. Hervey ordered Medwell to blow for all he was worth as they galloped the last stretch, praying there were no trip ropes across the road.
From the top of the rise they could see the house plainly — more flames than just the beacon. Hervey barely checked to take the graceful curve of the park drive through the gates, his blood boiling at the sight of the flames as well as at his own deception. He shouted no orders, as there could be no plan. Luddites bolted in all directions before him, like rats fleeing a terrier. He chased after one towards the Jacobs’ meadow, knowing he’d run him up against the park wall. A report and powder flash from the beech hedge to his right made him swing his carbine and fire instinctively.
‘Oh sir! Oh God!’
He looked round. ‘Susan’ Medwell was clutching his stomach.
‘Hold up, man,’ called Hervey, circling and seizing Medwell round the shoulders to support him in the saddle. ‘Corporal Troughton!’
His coverman was already on the other side. ‘I’ve got ’im, sir.’
Hervey let go and turned to the beech hedge. ‘Come out at once with your hands up!’ He barely counted to five before firing into the hedge again, four times. A few seconds later a man stumbled out and fell to the
