Hungry Harry: An Orphan in the Ranks

by Andrew Wareham

  “In the air, Odds fire! Evens fire! Pull back!”

  Harry brought the platoon back to the bend in the street, ordered the reload there. Turner joined them screaming his outrage and swiping at Harry with his empty pistol. Harry ducked.

  Sergeant Muldoon appeared at the run, in time to see Turner attempt to strike Harry.

  “Here, sir! That is not the way! Form the men in a single line across the roadway, Corporal Belper!”

  Ensign Turner shouted that Belper was a mutineer, must be placed in irons.

  “Yes, sir. Captain is coming, sir!”

  Captain Weightman appeared with the reserve company, sent them forward to clear the street using their musket butts. By the time all was done and the roadway was empty four more of the shops had been broken open and three of the soldiers were down, injured by flung granite setts.

  “What in Hell is going on, Ensign Turner? Has the Act been read? Who did so? I see no Magistrate, no Sheriff?”

  Turner ignored the question.

  “I charge Belper as a mutineer, sir. I ordered him to fire into the mob a dozen times and he disobeyed, sir. And when they did finally fire, it was into the air. I did my best, sir, but with just one pistol I could not kill the scum myself!”

  “Ensign Turner! Who read the Riot Act? Did you see it read? Were you informed that it had been read?”

  Turner was reduced to despair – the captain was trying to protect his favourites again!

  “There was a riot, sir! The mob was up! Look! There are shops broken open – the bakery is empty, and so are the wine shops.”

  “Until the Riot Act has been read in the presence of the mob, Ensign Turner, we must not intervene except we are first attacked.”

  “They threw stones at me when I went forward to discover what they were doing.”

  “You went forward, and then they threw stones?”

  “Yes, sir, that is what I said! They started it.”

  “You should not have gone forward. It was none of your affair in the absence of the civil power. I shall not place you under arrest, as such, Ensign Turner, but you will return to camp under escort. Give me your side-arms, sir. Now! Hand them to me!”

  Captain Weightman took the pistol and found it to have been recently discharged.

  “Did you shoot at the mob, Ensign Turner?”

  “Of course I did! That bloody Belper would not obey my order and I alone had to attempt to turn them back!”

  “I must change my mind, I fear, Ensign Turner. You are to be charged with disobedience to orders, sir. The colonel has personally instructed every officer never to open fire except under the protection of the Riot Act, and you have chosen to ignore him. You may well be charged by the civil authorities as well, probably with attempted murder. Your sword, sir! Give that to me as well.”

  Disbelieving, Ensign Turner surrendered his ornamental, dress sword, the symbol of his honour. He had, he knew, been the only soldier to have acted properly, yet he was under arrest; it was inconceivable, or would have been had he known so long a word.

  “Sergeant Muldoon! A corporal and two private soldiers to escort Ensign Turner to camp. Not Corporal Belper.”

  Captain Weightman set about securing the street, knowing that he had too few men to hand and that the mob might well be in the mood for revenge. Sergeant Muldoon interrupted his efforts less than five minutes later.

  “Sir, Corporal Fletcher has come back, sir, with Mr Turner. They hadn’t got two hundred yards before there were stones flying, sir. Too many to push onwards, sir.”

  “Damn it! I do not want that fool hanging about all night, the men seeing him under arrest and laughing. Where is he?”

  Weightman walked heavily across to the indignant boy, noted a graze on one hand, presumably flung up to protect his head.

  “Do you see, sir? The mob is up and trying to murder us all!”

  “Be quiet, man! If you must succumb to panic, then have the grace to hide your fear from the men! You must offer me your word that you will remain here tonight and be of good behaviour. I cannot afford to keep you in custody, for lack of spare men to do it. Go to the doorway of the big store across the road there and stay there, sir.”

  “But I have no weapon, sir! No means to defend myself.”

  Turner was almost whimpering, losing control.

  “Behave yourself, man! Show the face of an officer! You need no weapon, and I doubt you may be trusted with one in the case you are tonight.”

  Lieutenant Oxford appeared, reported that he had his half of the company deployed to cover the alleys out of the rookery; he glanced at Turner, raised an eyebrow.

  “Boy’s close to wetting himself, Lieutenant Oxford. A lot of bluster, a great deal of noise, and nothing behind it! Better to discover his nature here than in the field, perhaps, but too many of the men have seen what he is. And shopkeepers as well – they are watching, do you see?”

  It was horrifying that mere civilians should have seen their shame.

  “I see you have taken his pistol, sir.”

  “He shot at the mob, Lieutenant!”

  “Hell’s teeth! The fool! We could see the constables in camp in the morning with warrants for the arrest of Colonel Stevens for permitting the attempt of murder.”

  “Unlikely, but not impossible, Mr Oxford. Perhaps it is lucky that the shopkeepers saw Turner to lose his head.”

  “It will do the regiment no good, sir. There will be questions asked of Horse Guards, probably allegations in the more scurrilous newssheets. Might it be wiser to return his pistol, sir, with a single load?”

  “Not without I speak to the colonel first, Mr Oxford. Too much to take on myself, I fear.”

  The news of looting and more generalised disorder would spread quickly, or so Captain Weightman hoped, and would bring the remainder of the battalion into town, accompanied by the Bench of Justices of the Peace; all might be made tidy then.

  Two soldiers came running in from the streets to the south of the square, from A Company; there was looting and assistance was needed urgently.

  Weightman knew that there was a pair of large warehouses there, each filled with foodstuffs, mostly flour and rice and roots, which were sold on in smaller quantities to the stores in town; they must, he thought, be the targets of the mob, far more valuable to them than any single shop.

  “Mr Oxford, use the remainder of the company to patrol these streets – half in fixed post, the rest in squads on the move. I must take the reserve company to A’s assistance. You may shoot, but only in direct, aimed response to any armed attacker. Hold till dawn, sir!”

  Lieutenant Oxford turned to Sergeant Muldoon to locate the sentries.

  “Pairs, sir, looking out onto the square from each street. That will be six men. Single soldiers on each of the shops that have been broken into, so that we may be seen to be protecting the townsfolk’s property. That leaves just eight soldiers to walk the backs and the side alleys, sir. They cannot keep on the move all night, not with the better part of six hours till first light. So, sir, four to remain at your side as your reserve, alternating with the other four on actual patrol. A corporal and three, would be best, sir. I, with your permission, will take one man with me and will do the rounds of the sentries, both at the square and watching the rookery. I would strongly suggest, sir, that you are accompanied at all times by your four.”

  “I shall be, Sergeant Muldoon. Post the men now, if you please.”

  All was quiet for an hour; too quiet. The mob was reorganising, they feared, eating the bread that had been stolen, and was far too little to make a meal apiece, and deciding what to do next. They knew nothing of the ringleaders, could not even be sure that there were any – it was possible that the riots had simply blown up spontaneously, in which case they would be unpredictable. The decoy out at the mill made it possible that there had been planning in advance, but even that could have been no more than coincidence.

  “What of Ensign Turner, sir? When I arrived on the scene
I saw him attempt to strike Corporal Belper with his empty pistol. The men will be very upset, sir.”

  “So they damned well should be, Sergeant Muldoon! It will all be put in the hands of Colonel Stevens – and I doubt he will enjoy it! I must imagine that the Captain will look after Corporal Belper.”

  “He admits, sir, that he disobeyed the order to fire into the crowd.”

  “He was right to do so, but he did disobey an order, which can hardly be ignored, if a complaint should be laid. I suspect that Colonel Stevens will speak to Ensign Turner and advise him to send in his papers with no further ado, warning him that he risks being charged by the civilian authorities and stood before a judge at Assizes if he makes a noise. Even that fool must see the course of wisdom there.”

  Not much before midnight there was a sudden onset of stone throwing, all of the sentries looking out on the darkened square made targets of a score or more of rocks. They retreated, unable to see who was out in the darkness and themselves just visible against the lanterns still alight in the shops.

  The mob made no attempt to enter the streets and Lieutenant Oxford positioned the sentries nearly fifty yards further down the streets, away from the square so that any stone thrower must come into the pool of light if he was to hit them.

  There was shouting from the alleys between the shops and the corporal’s patrol came slowly back, two of them bare-headed and bleeding where they had been hit by stones thrown at close range.

  Harry reported to Lieutenant Oxford.

  “They were into the shops, sir, breaking down the back doors as we pulled back. They were bashing at the door of the jewellers, sir, but finding it hard to smash.”

  “Sergeant Muldoon! Take Corporal Belper, six patrollers and two replacements and make your way down the back alley to the jewellers and clear it. They have wounded our men and so you may use any force you find necessary, including live fire.”

  The nine soldiers followed Sergeant Muldoon into the darkness of the back road, used for deliveries, which were always made in the daylight hours, and so wholly without lighting. They could hear noise from the looters and a crashing where a determined few were still trying to break through the iron bars of the jewellers. As they walked closer they spotted a few glows of light from small lanterns, but the scene was mostly shadow with indeterminate flickers of movement.

  “Load, make ready your muskets. Do not take aim. Wait the command!”

  Sergeant Muldoon was determined that any civilian court must discover that he had acted wholly and solely in self-defence; there must be no slightest possibility for a judge to seize upon to condemn him.

  “In the King’s name!”

  Sergeant Muldoon’s shout brought a moment of silence.

  “You must stop what you are doing and go home! Any man found in possession of stolen property will be arrested and will hang! Any man found with a weapon will hang! Go home!”

  A single voice replied, almost as loudly.

  “Up yours, soldier!”

  There was a bellow of laughter and then the stones flew, followed rapidly by granite setts heaved out of the darkness at close quarters. A soldier fell, his musket clattering against the wall.

  “Open fire!”

  Sergeant Muldoon gave the command in a quiet, regretful voice; these people were hungry and it was far more likely that ordinary men and youths would be killed than that a fortunate round should strike a ringleader. Apart from that, Muldoon came from a background of hunger, his parents having fled Ireland in one of the minor famines and found a precarious living in Bristol where they had landed. Muldoon himself had left their home in search of work as a boy and had drifted until he had met a recruiting sergeant on a hungry day. These were his own people he was killing, or so he feared.

  Harry spotted movement in an alley a few yards away, a figure showing against the slightly lighter night sky in between two of the shops. He could not see clearly but he lined his musket onto the shape, dropped the muzzle to allow for the clumsy, unbalanced flintlock’s kick and squeezed the trigger. There was a howl and the figure disappeared, run in terror at a near miss or fallen with a ball in him. He reloaded, practice making it simple to do so in the dark; the army insisted that its soldiers should all train in loading blindfolded, one of its wiser habits.

  Three others spotted targets and shot at them; the remaining four stayed silent until Sergeant Muldoon had them shoot together in the general direction of the looters towards the back of the shops. There was one more scream and a sound of stampeding feet.

  “Reload… Now, form pairs. Corporal Belper, you and your second will proceed slowly to the end of the alley, arresting any you find hiding. Do not enter the square but report on anything you can see. Shout to me.”

  Harry tapped Private Tiler on the shoulder and led him slowly, cautiously down the alley; they found a body near the jewellers, its door finally hanging ajar, heard a rustle inside, as of a moving, probably crawling man. There was a faint light inside, possibly no more than a single candle.

  “Watch the door. I’ll go down and take a look at the square.”

  The open space was a little brighter and there were a few lights as well, sufficient to show that the mob might have run, but it had not dispersed. An unknown number of men remained; probably some were still running, but not all by a long way.

  Harry pulled back, called his findings to Sergeant Muldoon.

  “Two more men to take watch at the end of the alley, Corporal Belper. Enter the shops and discover any hiding there.”

  Muldoon had had the alley scoured the meanwhile, had discovered and brought in the body of a young man, curled up over a granite sett; the alley was unmade and the paving stone must have been a weapon brought in by the rioter.

  “Low through the guts. Good shooting that! Always remember, men, fire low!”

  There was a sudden outbreak of firing from the street behind them, followed by running feet.

  “Sarge! The lieutenant’s been ‘it by a bloody great lump of rock! Down and out, so ‘e is! The ensign, sarge, ‘e says ‘e’s the only officer left and ‘e’s in command.”

  “Is he buggery! The bloody fool’s under the captain’s arrest and that’s where he’s staying.”

  Sergeant Muldoon ran to take charge of the latest emergency, sending the runner down to find Harry and tell him to hold the back alley until further orders.

  Harry made his way from shop to shop, glancing quickly about him and shouting up the staircase to be found at the rear of most, leading up to the owner’s living quarters.

  “Army! Are you alive?”

  Various replies came back, most agreeing they were not dead and generally asking why the soldiers had not come before they had lost their livelihoods.

  “We came when the magistrates told us we could. They wouldn’t let us come no earlier.”

  It was not entirely true as an answer, but it turned the wrath and that was all that worried Harry.

  The jewellers was one of those whose owner had made greater profits and bought a house on the outskirts of town; the upstairs provided a room for a single shop assistant, an unfortunate whose loyalty had exceeded his common sense. Harry found the counter jumper curled up on the floor where he had crawled away from the back door he had tried to defend; he was not breathing. Some of the display cases had been smashed open; there was blood on the glass of one where a looter had thrust his hand in to grab hold of watches. Harry spotted a case that had contained plain gold rings, wedding bands, he supposed; they would not be easy to identify and could probably be passed on for their gold weight; half a dozen went into his pockets, a few left behind so that any officer taking a glance would see that the case had not been emptied.

  He ran outside, so that there would be no questions about him taking a long time to check the place.

  Harry showed himself to the private soldiers, checking that each pair was safe and in a sensible location, and also showing that he could not have had time to join in the looting.r />
  A soldier ran down the alley, calling in a low-pitched voice for Harry.

  “Sergeant Muldoon wants you, corp. Quick time.”

  Harry doubled up the alley, spotted Muldoon in the light of a tailor’s shop, evidently in use for casualties.

  “Lieutenant’s awake, Corporal Belper. He has orders for you.”

  Evidently they did not want those orders to become general knowledge.

  Lieutenant Oxford was sat on a chair, leaning against the counter, coat off and shirt open, heavily bandaged across the side of the head and face, much bloodied.

  “Corporal Belper, I need you to undertake a difficult task. Ensign Turner has disappeared. Find him if you can. We do not want him paraded in the hands of the mob, possibly set to hang from a lamppost like the French did with so many aristos only recently. Find him, bring him back here or escort him to the camp. He is under arrest and he has absconded, so I must order you to return him to arrest by whatever means are necessary. He is a deserter, I regret to say, and you will apprehend him despite any protest he may raise.”

  Harry caught Muldoon’s eye, was given a slow nod, nothing said.

  In effect, Lieutenant Oxford was giving Harry permission, encouragement even, to end Turner’s career, and his life.

  “Yes, sir. Best I should go on my own, sir, without any escort, so as not to draw attention.”

  It would also mean there was no witness.

  “Very wise, Corporal Belper. The regiment is depending on you to do your possible to avoid the scandal of a court-martial.”

  Harry saluted and marched out, followed by Sergeant Muldoon.

  “Did anybody see the going of him, Sergeant Muldoon?”

  “Corporal Twite said he spotted him running into the alley at the back of the bookshop, at the top. That should lead down towards the church, I reckon, and from there he’s on the road out of town. Twenty minutes ago, at least.”

  “That fat little bugger won’t be running fast, that’s for sure. I’ll go down the alley and cut back to the camp. If I don’t come across him, then I’ll work back here, looking about as best I can. There ain’t much chance of finding him if he’s hiding up in the dark, Sergeant Muldoon.”