A Regimental Affair (35 page)

Shirewood Camp

To those whom it may concern –

In consequence of the great suffering of the poor whose grievances seem not to be taken into the least consideration by government or the hirers of labour, General Ludd shall be forced to call out the brave Sons of Shirewood, who are determined and sworn to be true and faithful avengers of their country’s wrongs
.

And by night when all is still,
And the moon is hid behind the hill,
We forward march to do our will
With hatchet, pike, and gun!

Great Enoch still shall lead the van.
Stop him who dare! Stop him who can!
Press forward every gallant man
With hatchet, pike and gun!

General Ludd

‘The metre is very ill,’ Hervey pronounced. ‘I’ll warrant they’re tedious company.’

The artifice was as reassuring for the dragoons as it was for Sir Abraham, who sighed in some relief. Nevertheless, Hervey lost no time in ordering NCOs’ patrols to the hosiers on the watch-list. Sir Abraham had not specifically requested it, but it was clear that prompt action was needed lest fear turn to panic.

‘It is not for me to suggest it,’ Hervey said to him when the last of the patrols was gone, ‘but now is the time your posse would be of greatest value. I can’t think that undrilled men can have much effect once real trouble has begun, but a large enough picket at each house and workshop might well deter attack.’

Sir Abraham agreed, and, after a restorative, set off as quickly as he had arrived for the moot hall.

It was now that Hervey began to feel keenly the lack of any intelligence as to what was happening outside the borough. Doubtless he would know more by the end of the day, when the ‘usual channels’ conveyed intelligence to the moot hall, but what he really wanted to know was what was happening with the other troops, especially Barrow’s in Worksop and Strickland’s in Ollerton on which he would have to rely for immediate support. He therefore ordered Lieutenant Seton Canning and Cornet St Oswald to ride to the other troops to find out what they could, and then he returned to his map board.

Private Hopwood had made an enlargement of the Ordnance map by ten times, with colour and lettering so careful that it looked as if it were a piece of fine engraving. His skill with pen, ink and brush had come to light only through Caithlin
Armstrong’s diligence in visiting the infirmary with comforts (indeed, Caithlin’s attentiveness had done much to hasten the healing of Hopwood’s wounds, moral and physical). Hopwood’s was a skill that not only aided the recovery of his self-respect, but was of real value to Hervey, for after each patrol, the officer or NCO had come to the map to add the human detail gained in reconnaissance. And so by this, the seventh morning, Hopwood had drawn a remarkable representation of the borough – more complete, Hervey supposed, than at any time since Domesday.

‘Would you like some tea, sir?’ asked the draughtsman.

Hervey looked him in the eye. Hopwood held the gaze until Hervey smiled and said, ‘Yes.’ It had only been for a few seconds, but Hopwood could look his officer in the eye again. And he had asked if he would like tea – not waited to be asked, but offered it, and not out of servility, or fawning, but because that was what a dragoon should do. He was ready to
rejoin
the Sixth, instead of just mustering with the ranks.

It took him a full ten minutes to make the tea, however. Hervey didn’t notice, for he was rapt in study of the map. Hopwood at last brought in a tray, and poured. ‘Milk, sir?’

‘A little, yes.’

He added the milk, and then turned to leave.

‘Shall you not have any, Hopwood?’ asked Hervey, still peering at the map with a magnifying glass.

Hopwood looked hesitant. ‘Can I, sir?’

‘Of course. Go and get a cup and sit here while I continue to admire your work.’

Hopwood did as he was bidden, but said not a word.

In a few minutes Hervey put down the glass. ‘Where did you acquire such skill?’

‘When I left the workhouse, sir, I was apprenticed to a printmaker. I’d always liked drawing, but I could only do it on the slate before.’

‘If you were going to get a trade, why did you enlist?’

Hopwood smiled. ‘We made a lot of recruiting posters, sir.’

‘And you ended up believing them!’

‘Ay, sir.’ He smiled.

‘Go on.’

‘To tell the truth, I kept seeing soldiers in the town – it
were Maidstone – and in the end I kept thinking that . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I just kept thinking.’

‘That you’d think the worse of yourself if you didn’t put on regimentals?’

‘Ay, sir, just that.’

Hervey took another sip of the Honourable Company’s pekoe. ‘This tea’s good, Hopwood. I should be careful, or someone will claim you as a groom!’

Hopwood smiled. It wasn’t much of a joke, but he knew Hervey was trying.

‘You were in America, first, with the Fourteenth, weren’t you?’

‘I was, sir. But we didn’t see a lot of fighting.’

‘No. But I’ve learned you saved a man from drowning.’

Hopwood looked abashed.

‘And from a river with sharp teeth in it.’

‘I couldn’t very well leave him, sir.’

Hervey looked at the dragoon with admiration as well as pity. ‘When your time with the colours is up, Hopwood, the thing to remember is that you saved a man’s life, when no one would have called you coward if you hadn’t. Nothing else is worth thinking of, you understand – nothing. It will be the only thing that matters.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘No more “thank yous”, Hopwood. It’s just time to kick on now.’

‘Ay, sir. That’s what I’d like to do.’

‘Good!’ He drained the cup. ‘Then look at your map and tell me what you observe.’

‘More green than I thought I had ink for, sir!’ He smiled.

‘Yes. Green all over the place, and a few roads.’

‘Is that a good thing, sir?’

‘Not at the moment, but I’m trying to think of how it might be. It seems the hosiers and magistrates have all been threatened during the night. And either these Luddites are all like Robin Hood’s merry men and live in the forest – which I don’t believe for one minute, or why would they be so intent on breaking machinery which has nothing to do with them? Or else they’re travelling along these roads at night. And if they’re doing that then there must be a way to intercept them.’

‘It’s a big place, sir.’

‘I know, Hopwood; I know. That’s why we’re going to need exact intelligence rather than just beating around in the dark. I’m praying that the Bow Street men will not be too long.’

Later that morning, without notice, Lord Towcester arrived at the grange. Hervey’s heart, lifted by the independence of his situation, fell at once as it became clear that the lieutenant colonel was not come for any supportive purpose; rather, indeed, the opposite. He had spent the past three days at Welbeck and then Clumber, where their graces had left him in no doubt of their disapproval of the intervention of regulars. They were strongly of the opinion that events should be allowed to take their course, with the yeomanry called out only when the trouble threatened the peace of the county as a whole. ‘As, indeed, am I, Captain Hervey. I understand you have had patrols all over the north of the county.’

‘We have been patrolling the jurisdiction of the magistrates, your lordship – to discover the lie of the land and to show a deterrent force. I have been in close liaison with the chairman of the bench, Sir Abraham Cole.’

‘
Liaison
, Captain Hervey? Liaison? Your business is to respond to a properly constituted request for assistance. Nothing more. Where is your troop?’

Hervey explained.

‘And did a magistrate request this?’

‘Not exactly, your lordship.’

‘What do you mean “not exactly”, sir? There has to be exactitude in this business or else it will be the assizes for you!’

‘I mean, your lordship, that the association members received threats during the night, and I thought it best—’

‘Association be damned, Captain Hervey! Upstart tradesmen and Jews! I’ll not have my regiment ruin its appearance and name by chasing round after halfwits who put a torch to a few hosiers’ shops and their pretentious
residences
!’

Once again, Hervey boiled inside. He had seen more learning and good manners in one week from Sir Abraham than he had seen from Lord Towcester in six months – and he longed to say so. ‘My lord, these are honest men deserving of our protection. Sir Francis Evans said just that.’

‘Do not presume to tell me what is my duty, sir!’ hissed Lord Towcester. ‘Do not presume that you know what is the district commander’s mind better than I do!’

Hervey clenched his fists, bringing them instinctively to the stripes of his overalls so that, at the position of attention, he might better master his rage. He knew he had overstepped the mark, but he did not want to concede the fact. The trouble was, it was perfectly evident that Lord Towcester’s sole object was to get back to Brighton at the first opportunity, and with his regiment in as pretty a condition as possible. He cared not one jot for the peace of the boroughs or the safety of the manufacturers. ‘Your lordship, it was certainly not my intention to presume anything. But Sir Abraham Cole has told me in great detail of the fearful eruptions of violence in the borough not five years ago. If the Luddites got the upper hand, there is no knowing where they would stop, for the opinion is that their grievances go beyond frame-breaking. There is talk of general insurrection. And their graces in the Dukeries are members of parliament – the nearest ones at hand. They might well be the first objects of the mob.’

Lord Towcester remained silent.

Hervey pressed his point carefully. ‘And the militia, sir – they have not been embodied these last two years. You could scarcely count on them. The yeomanry is true, but—’

The lieutenant colonel seemed to calm himself a little. ‘I see.’ He turned towards the big coloured map. ‘What is this?’

Hervey explained. ‘It was drawn by Private Hopwood, sir.’

Lord Towcester looked at the dragoon standing to attention next to the board. ‘Indeed, indeed. It is very good, my man.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’

‘Have you been with the regiment long?’

Hervey rolled his eyes in disbelief. Hopwood remained steadfastly eyes-front. ‘Three years, my lord.’

‘Good. Good. Now, Captain Hervey,’ he said, turning back, ‘let it be strictly understood: I want no heroics. You are to withdraw your troop to these lines and await the properly constituted request of a magistrate. And it shall be for
limited
assistance, mind. The appearance of regular troops about the area is bound to fuel violent feeling. These hosiers must get up proper watches, dig into their Jewy pockets and pay for constables. I will not
have the hosiers of Nottingham kept at my expense!’

‘I’m obliged, your lordship.’

‘A Tory of the most boneheaded sort,’ wrote Hervey that night in his journal, though he could not claim the words as his own, for they had been Barrow’s one evening in Brighton. ‘The sort who believes the Garden of Eden was inferior to any English estate,’ Barrow had scoffed, in his cups – and Barrow was a man known for his forthright contempt for the Whigs, too. Thus could Lord Towcester unite opposites, rued Hervey.

Fortunately, Lord Towcester had not specified when exactly the troops were to be withdrawn to the lines, though it was perfectly obvious he intended it to be at once, Hervey confided to the page. He had therefore calculated that he could get away with sending orders for recall at first light next day, which would at least reassure the hosiers and magistrates during this crucial first night. Thereafter, the paid watches and the posse, properly stood-to, ought to be able to give some measure of reassurance and – he prayed it would never come to it – protection. Each house had at least three firearms, Sir Abraham told him, and as long as the others in the beacon chain were prompt and brave in relaying the alarm, it ought to be possible for each householder to ward off an attack long enough for Hervey’s men to arrive.

Three days went by without any further threats made to the association or the bench. Indeed, they were a very agreeable three days, for the autumn sunshine was warm, there was no rain, and the tradesmen of the town appeared welcoming of the dragoons’ custom, especially the innkeepers and owners of the public houses.

The Bow Street men had arrived – the same as had come to Longleat – and had begun their investigations at once. First they questioned the known witnesses to the attack on the steam-frame workshops, discovered there were more, took statements, compared them, began questioning the proprietors of the drinking places, and their taverners, and slowly but resolutely, like an industrious spider, they extended the range of their investigation until they reached the town limits. In this way, they explained, they hoped to establish what method there was in the Luddite activity, and the degree of support, active or passive, which they enjoyed in
the various parts. They would then go into the villages of the borough depending upon the results of this preliminary work.