A Call to Arms

Hervey smiled as benevolently as he could. ‘Of course, Mrs Rudd. I perfectly understand. But we are light dragoons. You saw what sort of man my serjeant was, and those about him.’ It was perhaps fortunate at this exact moment that Armstrong had not been in charge of the party; there could be ‘misunderstandings’ with Serjeant- Major Armstrong.

‘We attend divine service every Sunday at the Minster, sir.’

‘I myself am a clergyman’s son, Mrs Rudd. And a bible and prayer book are provided for every soldier by the Naval and Military Bible Society.’ He sensed he was beginning to overwhelm her objections.

‘And he would be properly treated?’

Hervey could answer with absolute assurance. ‘The officers have as close a feeling for their men as any in the service, Mrs Rudd.’ He judged it now the moment to make a personal guarantee. ‘You would be most welcome to communicate with my father, the Vicar of Horningsham, at any time.’

Next morning, Hervey rode early to The Bell, to find Serjeant Collins looking troubled. ‘Have you seen the news, sir — about Manchester?’

Hervey had not. Collins handed him the Daily Courant:

Manchester, August 16th

SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENTS

This day in Manchester has been witness to scenes so infamous as to beggar description. At One o’clock p.m. a large but peaceable assembly of respectable men together with their families was at St Peter’s field to hear the Radical speaker Henry Hunt address them on the propriety of adopting the most legal and effectual means of obtaining a reform of the Common House of Parliament. The Magistrates had sworn in four hundred Special Constables to serve on the day of the meeting, and also had at their disposal a military force composed of Cavalry, Infantry and Horse Artillery. Shortly after One o’clock Mr Hunt arrived to great acclamation and bands playing, and began addressing the crowd which by various estimates were in excess of Fifty Thousand Persons, but no sooner had he begun but the Magistrates ordered a Troop of The Manchester and Salford Yeomanry to arrest the speaker, and thereupon the Corps charged the crowd with great violence so that within a short time there were many dead and dying on the field and divers more cruelly maimed, and the exigency was made the worse by the appearance soon afterwards of Troops of Regular Cavalry, namely the Fifteenth Light Dragoons, who disported themselves with no less restraint than the Yeomanry.

‘That is very ill news indeed, Serjeant Collins.’

‘Ay, sir. Half the town will think we’re heroes, and the other butchers.’

‘I cannot believe the Fifteenth would have behaved so. What does The Times say?’

‘I have not heard tell, sir.’

‘We had better get along to the Common before this becomes street tattle. Did the milliner’s son return yesterday, by any chance?’

Collins smiled. ‘He did, sir. He is coming here this afternoon to attest before one of the notaries.’

It was some consolation, at least. Hervey had still not seen the lad, but Collins’s recommendation was enough — that, and the respectability of the mother.

Thirty or so onlookers watched the recruiting party file out of The Bell’s stable yard, hooves ringing on the cobblestones beneath the arch. The little crowd seemed to no degree different from the day before, and Hervey was relieved that they could go about their business without abuse in the high street, for they would surely meet with it on the Common.

It took but ten minutes at the walk. Hervey had never been to the Common before, but the stench on this hot summer’s morning alerted him to the rank nature of the place from a quarter of a mile. As they neared the first dwelling, a dismal hovel with a broken roof and a wall which could never stand another winter’s storm, he saw that the Rehoboth stream, whose plentiful sweet water had first been the draw of the squatters, was now but a trickling midden. Children stood all about barefoot in filth. Dogs, cats, pigs, poultry, a cow and even donkeys wandered freely, adding excrement to the mud and ash that was the main street, a foul faecal mulch which the dragoons would curse when it came to boning boots that night. In what manner this was superior to the meanest villages he had seen in India, Hervey would have been hard put to it to say.

Serjeant Collins looked about disdainfully. What adult males were abroad at this hour did not impress by their appearance. ‘Over there looks about best, sir,’ he said, indicating the chapel, the only substantial building to be seen.

Hervey agreed. They halted and dismounted. ‘Calls, please, Trumpet-Major.’

Children appeared, some evidently delighted by the colourful sight amid the drabness of the settlement, others wary, recognizing perhaps the ingress of authority to their free and easy camp. A few women came, one or two owning to motherhood by taking charge of their offspring with a cautionary slap to the ear. Some of the children came closer, wanting to touch the horses. The dragoons received them willingly, but one by one they were hauled away. Before long the party was without an audience except for two young women who stood by the corner of the preaching house, and for a purpose which its sparse congregation of a Sunday would vehemently condemn.

‘Do you want me to begin looking for these three men Miss Hervey has named, sir?’ Collins’s voice carried neither enthusiasm nor reluctance.

Hervey sighed. ‘To tell the truth, Serjeant Collins, I little imagined squalor such as this. I can’t see how any half-decent recruit might come out of here.’

‘A good hosing and a week’s drill and any of these could look likely, sir. It’s all a question of whether they want to lift themselves out of this sink. You never know: there might be such as have been waiting the opportunity for years without even knowing it.’

Hervey nodded. ‘Well, we’ll take no recruits by waiting; that much seems certain. Sound off again, please, Trumpet-Major. And you and I had better begin visiting,’ he said to Collins, grimly.

The dwellings had no numbers, and although the streets had customary names they were not displayed. But Elizabeth had provided directions for each of the three. Good directions, too, for the first they found very quickly. Collins knocked at the door — closed, as were the windows, even on so warm a morning as this. It opened to reveal a single foul-smelling room with a dirt floor partly covered by furze cut from the edge of the Common, and on it a sleeping woman with, next to her, like piglets at a sow, half a dozen infants no older than three. Collins bent to the door’s opener. ‘Does Jobie Wainwright live here, love?’

The little girl stared, turned to seek assurance from her mother, who slept soundly the while, and then looked back at Serjeant Collins without a word.

‘Is Jobie Wainwright your brother?’

Collins’s tenderness was unpractised, but effective. The little girl nodded.

‘Do you know where he is?’

The little girl wanted to help — her expression said it — but she shook her head.

‘Will he come back soon, do you think?’

She nodded.

Collins stepped past her carefully to take a better look at the room. Hervey stepped forward gingerly and looked in too. The walls had no plaster, there was not a stick of furniture, and in the corner was a pile of ragged and filthy linsey, evidently the entire wardrobe of the brood — family seemed so inapt a name. ‘This is a job and a half, sir,’ said Collins as he came out. ‘She’s soused in gin by the look of it, and them babes is probably too sick to stir.’

‘My sister said it was a wretched household. They’re one step from the workhouse, I’d say. Did you see any food?’

‘No.’

‘Nor I.’

The little girl suddenly pointed and called out happily. ‘Jobie!’ Hervey and Collins turned to see a boy of seventeen or eighteen approaching with a small sack under his arm. His step did not falter as he approached the cottage. ‘Good mornin’,’ he said as he came to the door.