The Passage to India

by Allan Mallinson

  C. PINNEY,

  Mayor

  Hervey read it without comment, but for a nod. The citizens of Bristol had certainly been warned.

  The mayor’s expression turned more anxious. ‘But I have had worrying intelligence of a threat to disrupt the supply of gas, which would plunge the main thoroughfares – and Queen Square – into darkness after sunset.’

  Hervey braced. ‘Where, and by what means?’

  ‘I don’t know. The intelligence was come by very indirectly.’

  ‘You will, I take it, post constables at the gasworks?’

  ‘Yes, at both the oil and coal works.’

  ‘But there’ll be other ways of disrupting the supply, no doubt. I think it best if you request that lights be placed in windows fronting the streets. That would have been the former practice, would it not?’

  ‘I’ll have handbills printed at once. With every shop and business house closed these past two days, however, I fear the results will be only very partial.’

  ‘But a show of defiance will do no harm.’

  He made to leave, but another reinforcement now presented himself, likewise brimming with resolution.

  At first sight the bearskin crest looked that of the Dragoon Guards, but the cap was leather, not brass (and its wearer not quite the cut of a regular).

  ‘Wilkins, sir, Charles Wilkins – Bath Troop, North Somerset Yeomanry Cavalry.’

  Hervey bowed by return. His latest reinforcement looked an active man, though he’d seen faces less childlike wearing captain’s lace. ‘Not come alone, I trust? I am Colonel Hervey, commanding.’

  ‘Colonel.’ Wilkins saluted again. ‘I have forty men. I regret I was not able to come sooner, but on receiving an express yesterday afternoon, I at once rode into Bath, but on going to my headquarters, the White Hart, the mob broke into the house and did much damage. In consequence of which the authorities were apprehensive of serious riots, and were obliged to keep the troop during the night.’

  This was troubling news. Hervey looked at the mayor. Did the mob act in union?

  ‘Bath is now quiet, we surmise, Captain Wilkins?’ asked the mayor. ‘It is.’

  Nevertheless, Hervey decided he could take no chances. ‘Captain Wilkins, I wish you to post a picket on the Bath road at the turnpike gate to prevent any but lawful entry – and, indeed, exit, for we’ll be springing many a ne’er-do-well in the coming hours. The mayor believes they’ll mostly fly west and north, but there’s a chance that some will be homing to Bath. Use what force you must, but judiciously. The mayor will issue authority in writing. And dispose yourself, if you will, so as to maintain the picket until this time tomorrow, when I’ll have fresh troops relieve you. My sar’nt-major will report as regards rations. I think that is all you have need of me?’

  ‘Yes indeed, Colonel.’

  ‘Very well, I shall visit the picket before last light. Depend on it, though: I mean to clamp down on the city tonight in such a manner that by this time tomorrow every law-abiding citizen may go about his business without hindrance.’

  Wilkins saluted. ‘We shall hold the Bath road, no matter what.’

  The mayor was already writing yet another letter of authority.

  Reinforcements continued to arrive – yeomanry from Gloucester-shire and Wiltshire, and more from North Somerset. By the middle of the afternoon Hervey was able to post videttes on every road. The Fourteenth had gained ascendancy in the main streets, though not without a deal of bloodshed, including, so rumour had it, the decapitation of at least one of the braggarts. Hervey was able then to send a number of dragoons to Kingswood and let the constables search for loot. Several of the coal owners were adamant their colliers were incapable of base conduct. (‘We judge only as we find,’ the cornet in command told them, proceeding to find plate and fine glass not usually associated with a miner’s table.) Meanwhile, he himself went aboard the Earl of Liverpool, brought up to the Basin, and with the master sighted her four 2-pounder guns, and a long 6-pounder, to command the Quay. He could not give him precise orders, but the master he found to be a sensible man, and thought it better to give him the mayor’s letter of authority and leave its application to his good judgement.

  He then began a tour of every vidette and standing patrol of constables. The streets were so empty of their normal custom that it might have been seven o’clock of a Sunday morning, which he took as a promising sign. Certainly he was well pleased with what he found on his inspection – men both in uniform and out eager to do their duty, intent on putting an end to the anarchy. He drank a great deal of tea, each post with its fire and boiling pot, the sentries keen to offer him hospitality – a sure sign, he always reckoned, of un bon état d’esprit.

  ‘I believe the city is yours, Colonel,’ said St Alban as they left the last of the posts, on the bridge before the New Gaol. ‘The most determined mob would not defy such a demonstration.’

  Hervey might agree, but he wouldn’t risk to. ‘We hold the ring, so to speak, but if the mob wishes to brawl within, I couldn’t vouch for the outcome. The dragoons are tired, and the yeomen soon will be. As for the constables, I’ve no idea of their resolution. Even the priest’s Irish – a very motley company if ever I saw one. You may do much with cavalry, St Alban, but without infantry you cannot hold what you gain. Just pray we may have some soon. Or heavy rain.’

  Beyond that, he would confide no more doubts, though he’d made up his mind that if they couldn’t hold the centre, they’d hold the docks – at any price. The Earl of Liverpool (so appropriate a name, for Liverpool had been prime minister at the time of ‘Peterloo’) would be their underwriter, though he shuddered to think how the discharge of case shot would be viewed in the comfort of a London newspaper office – or Parliament. (It would, of course, be preferred to the incineration of the docks, but the trouble was that if it succeeded, the alternative – their destruction – could not be proved. And who would be prepared to speak out and say that gambling on the consequences of inaction was unthinkable?)

  He sighed to himself. That was his bond, his contract. ‘We must trust the Cardiff men arrive sharp tomorrow morning – and that, meanwhile, word of the dragoons’ bladework reaches every nook and cranny.’

  They made yet another progress of Queen Square. It was dusk, and most of the horses were off-saddled, and many of the dragoons were sleeping – or at least lying on the ground. Hervey knew he must get them into stables before too long. He wanted them fresh if needs be.

  He himself was beginning to feel the want of some respite – not least for the doughty little mare that had carried him all day – and a plate of something that would see him through the night.

  ‘We shall repair for an hour to Reeves’s.’

  The streets remained empty, but as they neared College Green came the noise he’d feared: shouting, cheering, banging of drums – the sound of the mob as it gathered numbers and nerve. The whole of Park Street must be a tide of swagger and racket.

  How, though? How had they overcome the pickets at the top of the hill? And why no report?

  There were no troops to hand – just the vidette on Clare Street Bridge, and they must hold that defile come what may.

  He drew his sword. There was nothing other he could do. ‘Very well, gentlemen, we shall have to sell ourselves dearly.’

  Out came the three other sabres, and not a word. Wakefield’s was the third, and glad he was of it, but he sorely wished Armstrong’s was a fourth.

  Acton closed to his left side, St Alban the other, and then Wakefield.

  Four abreast: they’d hardly span the street. The mob might just suppose them the front rank of many more, though. Ruse was the art of the practised soldier. There again …

  He spurred into a canter towards the debouch onto College Green. If they didn’t make the street before the mob began to come out they’d have no chance. At least the streetlights were lit.

  Then rounding the corner he was never more astonished. Drums, cheering onlookers, e
ven bugles – but wholly benign, the drumming regular, the tide in the street not ruffian but red-coated.

  He sheathed his sword and sprang from the saddle. ‘Love? Love – is that you?’

  How the column came to so sharp a halt he couldn’t imagine, but halt it did, and at attention. Their colonel stepped forward to exchange courtesies in the way of men who’d shared past dangers.

  ‘Upon my word, but I’m deuced glad to see you,’ said Hervey, taking off his cap to wipe his brow with his sleeve.

  ‘And I you,’ said the field officer of foot. ‘I’d feared all we’d find was a bunch of frighted magistrates. But what do you do here?’

  Hervey explained.

  ‘Will you act under my orders?’ he asked, as if laying a prospectus for sale before a doubtful buyer.

  For in age, Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Love, commanding the depot companies of the 11th (North Devonshire) Regiment of Foot, was three or four years his senior. He’d been brevet-major at Waterloo when Hervey was still a cornet (and most grievously wounded with Colborne’s 52nd when they’d thrown back the Old Guard). These things were not lightly to be set aside.

  ‘Hervey, I read the Gazette as closely as the next man. Of course I will – must. And with pleasure. Only I ask one thing: don’t scatter us about the place in penny packets. We’re two companies, each eighty strong. I’d not be averse to disposing them thus, though I’d prefer they be kept under my single command. They’re good boys, but depot men, not yet fit for the line, and they’re dog tired.’

  Hervey nodded. ‘I want you to hold the cockpit of the trouble so far – Queen Square, and as one, so that I may withdraw the dragoons and have them for a ready reserve.’

  ‘Capital.’

  ‘And nor am I surprised your men are dog tired. How the deuce did you get here so fast?’

  ‘Hah! We’d have got here a damned sight faster if we hadn’t had to fight our way onto a steamer at Newport – well, as good as. A damned crowd of insolent fellows stood in our way, and I had to threaten them with ball. I don’t know what’s going on, Hervey, but the word on the streets is evidently passed a deuced sight quicker than official channels.’

  ‘It is so. There was the same trouble in Bath, it seems. But I’m sure now that we can quieten this place once and for all. I compliment you on your celerity nonetheless.’

  ‘Well,’ said Love, nodding to his adjutant to have the column ready to march again, ‘we covered the fifteen miles to Newport in four hours. My old Light Bobs couldn’t have done it much quicker. Just point the way to this square.’

  Hervey shook his head. ‘I’ll march with you myself.’

  The night passed quiet as a cloister – and as bright as the fullest moon. Not a gaslight failed, and in every other window an oil lamp or candles burned. Hervey made round after round, stopping at every post to enquire and encourage. He heard the midnight strike in company with Colonel Love beside a soldierly campfire in Queen Square, where they reminisced a little. Were you at Waterloo? / ’Tis no matter what you do / If you were at Waterloo. The old hands loved saying it, and with good reason. No sight, no sound – no sense of any kind – no sensation or sentiment, could compare with that day. A man might think his service nothing after Waterloo – and yet it must be, for what did the wretches who fired Bristol care of that day? Or those that broke the windows of the First Soldier of Europe? Soldiers in peace are like chimneys in summer … Oh yes, there was much on which to reminisce. Then as two o’clock chimed, and then three, with not a sound but the night noises of any peaceable place, Hervey decided at last to take some sleep.

  At six, so that he could be booted and spurred and stood-to-arms at first light, Corporal Johnson brought him tea – very sweet (for this was Bristol, where sugar filled the wharves) – and soon after, he began his rounds of the waking city, breathing a silent sigh of relief that on his watch it had at last slept soundly.

  At a quarter past eight a post chaise arrived at the Council House bearing none other than the Deputy Quartermaster-General, Sir Richard Downes Jackson. Sir Richard was not a Waterloo man but a Coldstreamer who had gained the respect of the Duke of Wellington, the whole army indeed, for his diligence on the staff in the Peninsula. Here was one of London’s best men come to take command; and as perhaps with any officer assuming command from a more junior one, and at the moment when ‘victory’ had been achieved, there was a certain aloofness in his manner. There again, having heard reports of evasion and dereliction of duty, it was perhaps unsurprising. Hervey thought the way he demanded justification for the ‘several hundred’ rioters killed (and there was really no knowing the figure) was … unfriendly. But, again, this was England, and the rule of law might not be suspended simply because an adversary broke it. All the same, he was glad when the major-general at last pronounced himself ready to take command. (He’d learn soon enough what a trial they’d had.)

  Leaving him to the happy mayor and corporation, Hervey withdrew to thank and say goodbye to the officers who had acted so readily under his orders – and to Colonel Brereton, who did indeed present a most dejected figure. He would confess that it was with considerable relief, as well as satisfaction, that he set off back for Hounslow.

  Meanwhile, in the offices of the Bristol Mercury, the type was being composed for the day’s editorial, secure in the knowledge that the King’s peace was thoroughly restored:

  We are sorry to have to record another piece of folly – wanton cruelty we would call it – if it had not, as we believe, originated in the utter ignorance of the Magistrates of the state of the city. The shops remained unopened and the military were ordered to clear the streets – an order which was fulfilled to the letter by a party of the troops which had experienced some rough treatment and had in consequence fired upon the people the previous day. The sight of this useless piece of duty was peculiarly distressing; nothing was to be seen on every side but unoffending women and children running and screaming in every direction while several men, apparently on their way to work, were deliberately cut at, several seriously injured and some killed …

  V

  Good Order and Military Discipline

  Hounslow, Wednesday, 2 November

  WITH ONLY A troop in barracks it was unusually quiet. The quarter guard turned out as Wakefield brought the chariot towards the gates at eleven o’clock, and Hervey returned the salute with a touch to the peak of his forage cap.

  Hounslow: the epitome of order and civility; and never more so than after the sights and sounds of Bristol in the hands of the mob. He knew he’d done his duty, and he’d relished – if perhaps more in hindsight – the exhilaration of doing that duty. Bristol stood intact and calm because of that. Strange, was it not, that all the habits and practices of command learned in distant parts had never served King and Country more than in that place not thirty miles from where he was born.

  He was entirely content.

  They’d got back the previous day a little before midnight, having taken the northern turnpike through Marshfield, Chippenham and Marlborough, rather than the faster road through Bath, for he was still uncertain of its temper. St Alban had offered to take Wakefield’s place in the saddle after Newbury, but Wakefield wouldn’t hear of it. He’d therefore risen to the trot a full twelve hours, relieved only for a few minutes at the post-houses while they changed horses, and yet this morning he’d looked as fresh as a young chicken when he’d brought the chaise to Heston. Serjeant Acton had posted with them, and Armstrong had taken the Mail a few hours earlier – an expense that Hervey trusted he’d be able to recover from His Majesty – leaving Johnson, Spink and St Alban’s groom to follow with the baggage in the fourgon.

  He’d been surprised to find lights burning at Heston, for he’d given leave of a week to Serjeant James and his wife, and even more surprised to find Annie waiting. Armstrong had sent word that he was returning, she explained, but she hadn’t known what time to expect him, and so she’d summoned the cook, but at eleven she’d sent her away
again, but there was a ragout keeping warm, and soup, and blancmanges. Hervey had thanked her kindly. She’d certainly kept a good fire in his writing room, where he liked to sit of an evening after dinner if there was no one else dining, and she’d put by a decanter of best burgundy and another of brandy. In truth he would have liked to bathe, but he couldn’t ask her to fill his bath – not without another of the housemaids to help – even if the copper were lit, which it probably wasn’t. (He wished he’d had the money to put in pipes, as at the United Service Club, but he had only a short lease on the house, and there were other calls on his pocket.) He often smiled ruefully that he was better bathed in India, where bhistis and bearers never slept. And so he’d contented himself with a hand basin, and then a tray brought to his writing table rather than the dining room, though Annie said there was a good fire there too.

  Annie had been a serving girl at the Berkeley Arms when Hervey and Fairbrother had lodged there before Lord Holderness, the former commanding officer, quit Heston. She’d served them well – friendly, without the least familiarity; honestly, diligently and with discretion. They’d lodged there many months, indeed, and it had been Fairbrother who said that if Hervey didn’t engage her for Heston, then he would for his own modest establishment, an honest housemaid being a pearl of great price. Fairbrother had also observed in Annie a particular devotion to his friend, but if that were so, it seemed entirely to escape his friend’s attention.

  But for all their closeness, Fairbrother did not see everything. There was no man Hervey would trust more in the field, and no man he would confide in the same. But if he was able to confide his fears to his half-bred boon companion, he was entirely unable to confide his sins – even those committed only in the heart. In fact, Annie’s presence was to him both a comfort and a trial. When she had brought him supper last night, she asked if the news she’d heard tell of was true, that Bristol was engulfed in tumult, with fire as great as that which had once levelled the better part of London.