by Edward Cline
“Major Leigh, of the Middlesex Brigade.”
Pannell said, “We’re here to give you a chance to surrender, Mr. Skelly. You and all your men. The choice is to stand trial, and take your chances with the courts, or to die here, miserably.”
“Then there’s no choice to make,” said Skelly, “except in the manner of death we prefer.”
“I should advise you that Mr. O’Such, or Mr. Smith, or whatever he calls himself, is in custody,” said Pannell. “We received word early this morning that he tried to break into the Gwynnford jail. He succeeded. He is in it now.”
“Who are you?” asked the major abruptly, pointing to a man dressed in the resplendent uniform of a senior sergeant of the Coldstream Guards. The man stood respectfully at a distance behind Skelly, and held a halberd.
“Charles Wilford Ambrose, sir,” said the man. “Formerly of the Coldstream Guards. How are they, these days, sir?”
“A deserter!” spat the major.
“In appropriate company, Major,” mused Pannell. “I don’t know why you’re so surprised.” To Skelly, he said, “Let us not dawdle, Mr. Skelly. Will you and your men submit to arrest, or not?”
“Your breakfast is getting cold, Mr. Pannell.”
Pannell snorted. “Not as cold as Warren Pumphrett’s corpse,” he said with a grin. “Remember him? A cousin of mine, for your information. And while it’s quite incidental to me and the matter at hand — he was a bounder, wasn’t he? and your wife wasn’t the only one he dallied with — that piece of work of yours hasn’t been forgotten. It will be up to the courts, of course, if you come out of this alive.”
Skelly’s face was expressionless. “By God and my country, let justice be done,” he replied.
Pannell was disappointed that he got no argument from the man. But now that he had met Skelly face to face, he had a change of mind as he studied the figure in black. He saw no fear in the man’s face, nor concern, nor regret. Nor even defiance. There was a priestly air about him, together with a vibrancy one did not associate with priests. The man exuded self-assurance of a kind Pannell had never encountered in other smugglers he had caught. The self-assurance had nothing to do, he was certain, with whether or not the man expected victory or defeat today. This was no wily criminal he was talking to, but someone more threatening. He was a rebel. And now Pannell wanted him alive. An idea was taking shape in his mind, a radical idea, though he did not realize it. He sighed. “Major, we have no further business here.” He reined his mount around and moved away.
“One moment, Mr. Pannell,” said the major. He pointed to the flag that fluttered over the cave entrance. “By what right do you… men… presume to display that?” he demanded of Skelly.
“The right of free Englishmen,” said Skelly. “We have altered it to suit our republican sentiments, you may have noticed.”
“You will kindly remove it!”
Skelly shook his head. “It’s as much ours as yours, Major Leigh. Perhaps more ours than yours.” He turned his head to address the man in scarlet behind him. “Thank you for the point, Mr. Ambrose. It was well taken.”
“And ably parried, Mr. Skelly,” replied Ambrose.
The major jerked his mount around and cantered back onto the path through the brush, followed by his lieutenant. Pannell turned once in his saddle, without looking at Skelly or his men, and with a desultory wave of his hand, said, “Good morning to you, gentlemen.”
For two hours, Major Leigh’s howitzer and two cannon pounded the hill. Residents of Marvel and neighboring villages came to watch, and were astounded by two things: that this was Skelly’s hideout, and that it had been here for years; and the ferocity of the military action to destroy the gang. Some residents came to watch with sadness or grief; these were mostly women whose secret husbands or lovers were inside the caves. Most of the spectators were Whig families, who brought picnic baskets and parcels of food for the troops.
Inside the caves, dust and fine grains of stone fell intermittently from the caverns’ ceilings. Skelly had recalled his men from outside for the duration of the bombardment. He sat peacefully in his quarters, a glass of burgundy at his side, reading Hyperborea. The other men waited in the main hall. Elmo Tuck, nervous but determined, fixed the men what he knew would be their last meal here, goose a l’orange, baked potatoes, and a dessert of blanc mange.
At nine o’clock, Jude Hockwell, a former goldsmith, ran in from his watch post at the sole western entrance to report that troops were forming up in the Talbot fields beyond the thicket on that side. A moment later the howitzer, also stationed in those fields, scored a hit directly over the portal. Rock and dirt collapsed over the entrance, and with a roar half of the passage leading from it caved in.
“Well, that leaves us just one flank to cover now,” said Ambrose to Skelly. “They won’t be climbing that hill on that side. It’s too steep.”
Skelly inspected the collapsed passage, and on his way back to his quarters stopped to accept a plate of Elmo Tuck’s fare. “Mr. Tuck,” he said, “you’ve made living in these caves an absolute delight.”
“Well, Mr. Skelly,” said the cook, “you see, it’s a sort of Christmas dinner.”
Skelly did not ask him why he chose to prepare such a holiday meal in November.
* * *
Major Leigh, astride his horse behind one of the busy gun crews, watched the cannonade for a long while, then lowered his spyglass. “All we’re doing is raising dust, Mr. Pannell! That damned hill is solid rock! And there’s not a man in sight! There’s smoke, but it looks like chimney smoke!”
Pannell, watching through a glass borrowed from one of the major’s aides, said, “I was hoping for a more spectacular consequence. The boy didn’t say what the hill was made of. But your gun crews are superb. They hit the hill every time.”
The major raised his glass again. “Pshaw! This is pointless, Mr. Pannell! We’re beginning to play snooker with the ordnance we’ve already dropped up there!” He lowered his glass and said to an aide, “I’m ordering a cease-fire, Mr. Craddock. All guns. Tell Captain Massie and Captain Ramsome to prepare their companies to advance on the eastern flank, straight to that flag!”
The aide rode off.
“If you don’t mind, Major,” said Pannell, “my men and I will accompany your grenadiers. I want Skelly alive, if he isn’t foolish enough to get himself killed first.”
“I thought you hated the man, Mr. Pannell, and wanted him dead.”
“I do. But he prefers one kind of death, and I prefer him to wait for another kind. He’s tormented me for years. It’s only fair.”
Major Leigh gave Pannell a withering side-glance. He could not decide whether his dislike for this man stemmed from his reluctance to take orders from a civilian, or from being in the proximity of a species of malignity. “You may follow the companies in, Mr. Pannell, but not accompany them. Then you may salvage what you may.”
* * *
At ten o’clock the muted thudding on the walls ceased. Skelly marked a page, and put his book in a pocket inside his coat. It was Redmagne’s book. He had not given him a proper farewell. He wanted it with him. It was an enchanting story. He buckled on the sword he had taken from Warren Pumphrett, and took a last look at his painting of the Thames, which sat now on the easel in a corner. Then he joined the men who were threading their way past his door to the main east entrance. He paused to look at the inscription of Giles Kincaid.
Three cannon balls lay in the clearing outside the portal, among rocks, splinters of stone and pulverized vegetation that had fallen from above. The clearing itself was rock, once covered by a thin layer of earth that had been worn away by years of contraband traffic. The men looked up and saw that the Customs jack had not been hit, except by flying debris that had torn a few holes in it.
Skelly drew his sword, but let Charles Ambrose command the men, as they had agreed the night before. At Ambrose’s word, the eleven men formed double ranks, first rank kneeling, the second standing
behind it. They were armed with a miscellany of “firelocks,” from 46-inch-long Service muskets with wooden ramrods, to shorter versions of these taken from Customs warehouse guards, to fowling pieces, to an ancient matchlock and blunderbuss. Two of the men, Elmo Tuck and John Greene, the cook and former highwayman, had a pair of pistols each.
Charles Ambrose stood to the right of the lines, his halberd in one hand, the fingers of his other worrying the knot of his crimson waist-sash. When he joined the Skelly gang years ago, his tattered uniform was all he possessed. Early this morning he dug it out from the bottom of a chest of the things he now owned, which included a box of one hundred golden guineas, on which he had hoped to retire some day.
Autumn had stripped the brush of most leaves, and they could see what was approaching, to the beat of a pair of drums, through the tangle of bare limbs. First it was a clot of red, then a stream of it following one of the paths. The morning sun flashed off white belts, cap plates, and fixed bayonets.
“Grenadiers, Mr. Skelly,” said Ambrose. “There’ll be no shooing them off. They’ll give us a volley, then charge.”
“How do you know that, Mr. Ambrose?”
“They can’t reload with them stickers on the muzzle.”
The grenadiers emerged quickly from the taller brush not fifty yards away. Two lieutenants on foot separated and marked the far ends of the line with their spontoons. Sergeants barked orders and hustled the privates into formation. A captain on horseback lingered in the background, overseeing the positioning. There was only enough clearance in the low brush between the two groups for a single field of fire. Skelly and his men saw another clot of red hovering in the brush behind the first.
“Two companies, Mr. Skelly,” said Ambrose. “Tough-looking boys, too. Second company of regulars hanging back in reserve. Well, look at that!” he exclaimed. “Steel ramrods in their pieces! The Duke’s been busy!”
“Excuse me, Mr. Ambrose?”
“Cumberland. George’s favorite. He was made Captain-General a year after dear Jack joined us. He’s been overhauling the army. Good idea, steel ramrods.”
“Oh, yes,” mused Skelly. “I read something about him.” He sensed that Ambrose was not just making conversation. He noticed an unshed tear in the eye he was able to see from profile, but did not draw attention to it. The man was afraid. Curiously, he thought, his own eyes were dry, and he was unafraid. He patted the man on his shoulder. “Mr. Ambrose, this is your show. Thank you for everything.”
Without waiting for a reply, he strode to the front of the two lines of his men. He doffed his hat to them, then turned to address the grenadiers. Pointing with his sword, he shouted, “We are all Skelly men! We, standing here, and you, out there! Those of us man enough to cherish our liberty!” Then Skelly stepped through the ranks to the rear, and pointed to the Customs jack above them. “Fire on us, if you dare!” He lowered his sword and held it, one hand on the hilt, the other on the end of the blade.
There was a moment of silence as the two lines faced each other. Skelly and his men scrutinized the faces of the men they could see fifty yards away. The grenadiers, standing “under arms,” stared back at them with grim, closed expressions.
A calm, masculine voice said, “Cut them down, Lieutenant.”
“Poise firelocks!” shouted the lieutenant. A sergeant repeated that order and every order which followed. The line of scarlet raised forty muskets in the air.
“Cock firelocks!” shouted the lieutenant. “Cock firelocks!” shouted Ambrose in unison with the grenadier sergeants. The Skelly men pulled back the cocks of their weapons.
“Present firelocks!” shouted the lieutenant. Forty muskets swung down with their gleaming bayonets. “Aim firelocks!” shouted Ambrose. The Skelly men brought their weapons to bear.
“Fire!” shouted the lieutenant. “Fire!” shouted Ambrose.
With an ear-splitting crackle of ignited powder, tongues of flame leapt from the two lines, punctuated by screams and gasps from both sides. The staccato musketry lasted only three seconds. There was little wind, and the acrid white smoke from fifty-two discharged guns did not drift away immediately, but clung to the lines like gloating entities savoring the carnage they hid.
When it was clear enough for each side to see through it, there were three vacancies in the line of scarlet. Five of Skelly’s men were down. Elmo Tuck was dead, as were John Greene and Jude Hockwell. Rudolph Early, an instrument maker, took a ball in his collar bone and was knocked unconscious. Isaac Lightburn, a warehouseman, was hit in his right knee, and was struggling to prop himself up on the back of John Greene. He picked up one of the highwayman’s pistols.
Charles Ambrose, the most conspicuous target, stood with his halberd, unscathed. Such was the erratic accuracy of eighteenth-century weaponry.
Skelly lay on the ground, a gash on his forehead. Ambrose shouted, “Close ranks, reload, and prepare to meet a charge!” He walked over to Skelly, and saw a hole in the chest of the greatcoat. But before he could stoop to determine whether the man was dead or alive, the lieutenant shouted, “Charge bayonets!” The line of grenadiers answered, “Huzzah!”
Ambrose rushed to stand at the end of the line of surviving Skelly men. “Cock firelocks!”
“Charge!” shouted the lieutenant, abandoning his spontoon and brandishing his sword. The drummer boys in the rear beat the charge.
“Aim firelocks!” shouted Ambrose. He waited until the advancing line of red was twenty yards away. “Fire!”
The Skelly men delivered a second volley. Two grenadiers stumbled in the brush and went down.
There could be no real contest between thirty-five veterans with bayonets, who had fought the French, and seven men with no bayonets, who had fought no one. The Skelly men managed to rush forward a few feet and use their weapons as clubs, but each was instantly cornered by two grenadiers and brought down. Other grenadiers bayoneted the men felled in the original volley, dead and wounded alike. It was the custom then. The fallen men were criminals, not soldiers.
Only Ambrose was able to keep the grenadiers at bay with his halberd. One of the sergeants dueled him staff to staff, and it was only when he had knocked the grenadier’s halberd aside and struck his face with the end of his own, that two privates found the chance to run him through with their bayonets. The sergeant drew his sword and thrust it into the dying man’s chest, for the impudence of wearing the King’s scarlet.
“Search the caves, clean them out,” ordered the captain, who had ridden in behind his men. He reprimanded the young lieutenant for leaving his spontoon behind, then rode up to the figure in the black greatcoat. The other lieutenant knelt and examined the man. “He’s still breathing, sir.”
The captain said, “That Revenue chap wanted him alive, if possible. Fix a stretcher. But first remove that.” He raised a gloved hand and cocked a finger at the Customs jack hanging limply on the pole. “It is offensive to my eyes.”
The second company of regulars swarmed in and was put to work scouring the hill in search of other smugglers. Pannell and his men rode up to the captain. “Fine work, Captain,” said the Commissioner. “It’s always a thrill to see our troops in action.”
The captain regarded the Commissioner for a moment. “Thank you, Mr. Pannell. But I think your compliments do not suit the occasion. This was no fight at all.”
Pannell was not certain by the captain’s manner whether he was being advised or snubbed. He leaned over in his saddle and said quietly to one of his men, “Mr. Craun, everything inside is Crown evidence. You and the others see to it that none of it is… disturbed. Looting, you know.” Craun and his colleagues dismounted and followed the grenadiers into the caves.
Pannell himself jumped down and leaned over Skelly. “Good. He’s still alive. Not too much damage.” He rose and laughed. “Behold a man who had an elevated sense of himself, Captain. And look at him now!” He waved a hand to indicate the other dead men. “Look at all of them!”
The captain ask
ed, despite his reluctance to continue conversation with the Commissioner, “What did he mean by that? Being ‘Skelly men,’ I mean. Strangest ranting I’ve ever heard.”
“It was just cheap rabble talk, Captain. Pay it no mind.”
The lieutenant returned with the Customs jack on its staff and offered it to the captain. The captain’s nostrils contracted and he nodded to Pannell. “It’s the Commissioner’s, Mr. Brown.” The lieutenant handed the staff to Pannell.
Pannell held it for a moment. “See this, Captain? Soon I’ll be able to trade this rag in for a great house and land with lackeys to work it for me. I shall call it Pannell Hall, and this will hang in my dining room! I invite you and Major Leigh to dine with me.” He threw the staff down so that it draped over Skelly. “Thank you, Mr. Skelly!” Then he wandered away, laughing quietly to himself, kicking the bodies of the fallen gang-members.
The captain and lieutenant exchanged discreet glances. They thought the Commissioner was mad.
Chapter 25: The Prisoners
JACK FRAKE WAS DREAMING THAT HE WAS IN LONDON, IN THE FRONT ROW of the King’s Theatre, and that Redmagne was appearing in an opera set in ancient Rome. Redmagne, he knew, had written the opera himself, and of course had cast himself in the hero’s role. Skelly was in it, too, even though Jack Frake knew that the man could not sing. They played Roman noblemen who conspired to avenge the death of John Fineux, who had been murdered by henchmen of Emperor Nero, whose role was played by an actor who resembled Henoch Pannell, but was not the Commissioner himself. Fineux’s body lay on the stage, in the incongruous garb of breeches, frock coat and cocked hat. When Nero gestured to his spear-bearing soldiers to slay the noblemen, Redmagne and Skelly drew their stage swords, and suddenly the whole gang appeared as if by magic behind them, some in Roman costume, others in English dress. Redmagne waited for the great orchestra in the pit to complete the overture, and then his tenor voice, in a heavy Scots brogue, pierced the hall with “The Death of Parcy Reed.”
