A Call To Arms

by Allan Mallinson

  Hervey wore plain clothes this morning, and was doubly glad of it since he supposed he would not therefore be immediately barred entry from Mrs Rudd’s shop. She smiled at him, indeed, when he entered, and asked him to take a seat while she attended to another customer. He sat looking about him at the lace, the ribbons, and all manner of fancy goods that might brighten a townswoman’s day. There were hats, too, in various stages of construction. Here was a skilled and artistic trade, and it was evident that Mrs Rudd was a true proficient. He wondered if Elizabeth had ever come here.

  When Mrs Rudd’s customer was gone, Hervey made himself known at once. This put the milliner in a difficult position – as he had gambled – since in her trade she could ill afford to be abusive and dismissive of a gentleman, even if she were inclined to be. ‘Mrs Rudd – I may call you that, may I?’

  She nodded guardedly.

  ‘I understand that your son expressed an interest in joining my troop.’ He had decided to make his approach as personal as he could.

  ‘The boy is very young, sir, and does not know his own mind.’ Hervey saw how to deal with both objections. ‘My serjeant was most impressed with him. Although he may be young, my serjeant – who is but seven and twenty himself – believes he has the makings. And if you are in any degree troubled that he might not be suited to the profession, then I give you my word that he may have his free discharge at any time during his training.’

  ‘I am obliged, sir. But it has always been the intention that Stephen continued in this trade. He has made a very good start.’

  Hervey judged it better not to try to counter a mother’s hopes. ‘They are beautiful hats, Mrs Rudd.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ She managed a sort of smile.

  ‘And there seems no reason why Stephen should not continue in the trade after serving the King.’ He judged her loyalties to be firmly Tory.

  Mrs Rudd looked uncomfortable at the inference which might be drawn if she persisted. ‘May I speak freely, sir? And I mean no offence. And we are all grateful and proud of what was done in the wars. But you see, sir, to have a son go for a soldier is not … that is, families in respectable trades such as ours …’

  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.

  ‘Jobie! Jobie!’

  Jobie’s face was clean, unlike the little girl’s – or, indeed, any they had seen since arriving at the Common. And shaven, too. He had bright blue eyes and hair the colour of horse chestnuts, and a ready smile for his half-sister. He gave her the sack and she ran inside with it. ‘Only bread,’ he explained to the visitors. ‘I go for it evr’y mornin’.’ He showed no apprehensiveness on account of seeing strangers in uniform.

  ‘I am Serjeant Collins of His Majesty’s Sixth Light Dragoons, and am authorized to enlist young men of the best character.’

  Collins had not wanted to introduce confusion in the lad’s mind by speaking of his officer, but Jobie Wainwright glanced at Hervey and then back at the serjeant. Even to an uninformed eye the difference in quality of uniform was apparent.

  Hervey smiled. ‘I am Captain Hervey of the same corps.’

  ‘I reckoned as much, sir. I saw the posters in the town. And it’s your sister as comes here.’

  ‘Steady on, young ’un,’ said Collins, checking his instinct to bark that he would speak to an officer only when given permission.

  But Hervey saw an opportunity. ‘It was my sister who told me you might care for a soldier’s life.’

  Jobie did not hesitate. ‘That I would, sir, if only for a regular wage.’

  Serjeant Collins now sensed further opportunity. ‘Are there others who think the same, Jobie?’

  ‘Two or three, Serjeant.’

  ‘Well, if you bring them and they enlist, you are entitled to a bringer’s bounty. Will you do that?’

  ‘Ay, Serjeant, I’ll bring them. But I wouldn’t want the money for it. They must have that for themselves.’

  ‘You shall have the money, Jobie, and you may give it away as you please. For that is the procedure. Come to the chapel within the hour. We cannot be here all day.’

  ‘Ay, Serjeant, I shall do that.’

  Hervey and Collins walked back to the chapel pleased with their easy success, and after so unpromising a beginning. ‘As decent a lad as ever I saw,’ declared Hervey. ‘Clean, well-made, he reads, and he has an honest stamp. Or at least, he would not try to profit from his friends.’

  ‘Ay, sir. A very satisfactory sort.’

  ‘You sound unsure.’

  ‘Oh no, sir. I’m sure right enough. That little lass’s face told you he was a good’n. I was just thinking how contrary it all is. Here’s the filthiest place you’ll see outside a London rookery, and out of it comes a lad like that. Gives a lie to poverty being the breeding bed of sin, don’t it, sir?’

  ‘Don’t let’s begin on that, Sar’nt Collins. I had ample of it last night at home. You would not imagine so many opinions there might be in one family.’

  ‘Well, sir, there’ll be plenty more in the days to come, no doubt, after that business in Manchester.’

  ‘Oh yes, indeed,’ sighed Hervey. ‘You may be sure of it.’

  Three-quarters of an hour later, Jobie Wainwright and three others of his age came to the chapel and asked if they might know the bounty and pay if they enlisted.

  ‘Five pounds and four shillings,’ replied Serjeant Collins. ‘And pay is one and twopence a day. For the infantry a shilling only. And there is one penny a day beer-money too.’

  The potential recruits looked encouraged. Hervey, sitting in a corner, lowered his copy of The Times.

  ‘And all our keep is found, Serjeant?’ asked Jobie Wainwright on their behalf.

  Here was the rub, thought Hervey. And here was when an unscrupulous bringer would dissemble or even lie. Better that he himself speak to it than leave Collins to have to apologize for the subsistence and off-reckonings which would take away so much of their pay. ‘Three-quarters of a pound of beef and one pound of bread every day. That or its equivalent,’ he said, reassuringly.

  The four looked even more encouraged.

  ‘And for this you pay no more than sixpence a day.’

  They looked disappointed.

  ‘And you must, of course, buy that part of your uniform and necessaries which would be a man’s everyday working dress whatever. Serjeant Collins has a list of these. He will show it to you.’

  Only Jobie Wainwright made to look at it. To the others it would have been no more helpful than a page of Greek.

  £ s. d.

  Flannel drawers 5 11¼

  Flannel waistcoat 7 5¼

  Shirts 7 5

  Worsted stockings 2 6

  Stable trousers 7 9

  Forage cap 2 6

  Stock and clasp 2 0

  Shoes 8 0

  Boots 18 0

  Gloves 1 8

  Hair comb 6

  Razor 1 3

  Shaving box and brush 1 3

  Shoe brush 11

  Cloth brush 1 2

  Curry comb and brush 4 0

  Mane comb and sponge 8½

  Water sponge, per oz. 2 2¼

  Horse picker 1½

  Turnscrew and worm 1 0

  Corn bag 1 6

  Oil tin 1 0

  Scissors 1 6

  Black ball 10

  Valise 12 6

  Saddle blanket 18 11¼

  Braces 2 6

  Night cap 1 8

  5 16 9

  ‘Sir, it comes to more than the bounty,’ said Jobie anxiously.

  ‘The usual way is that a recruit is given twenty-one shillings at once, and the remainder is kept back for these necessaries. The difference is advanced to the man, and from his basic pay instalments are made until the advance is paid back.’ Hervey did not say that it was the troop captain who lent the man the cash, and on very disadvantageous terms to himself.

  Jobie looked a little relieved.

  Serjeant Collins judged the catch was ready to land. ‘You will receive a free issue of overalls, a stable jacket and a dress coat annually, and an allowance of six shillings for boots and three for gloves.’

  They seemed encouraged again.

  ‘There are other
clearings,’ said Hervey, ‘but you shall receive not less than three shillings each week. And in India you may live much higher than ever at home.’

  ‘India, sir?’ said Jobie, his voice suggesting neither favour nor otherwise.

  ‘Yes. The regiment is for India soon. I have been there. It is the place for adventure.’

  The four looked at each other. Jobie spoke for them. ‘If we enlist, sir, can we stay together?’

  ‘You will all serve in my troop,’ Hervey reassured them.

  Serjeant Collins sealed the affair. ‘Bring the measuring stick, Prax. Let’s see if these likely-looking lads stand sixteen hands and a half.’

  They all did, though Hervey could not suppose there was more than a leather’s thickness to spare with any of them. Not to worry; regular meat and riding school would do its work.

  ‘Here is a shilling each for you, then,’ declared Collins gravely. ‘The King’s shilling, that is. His token of trust in you. Come to The Bell at nine o’clock prompt tomorrow morning, and the magistrate will swear you in once the doctor has certified you fit for service.’

  ‘Jobie, Jobie!’ called the little girl from the other side of the street. ‘Mam says didn’t you get her gin?’

  Jobie looked uncomfortable. ‘Can I go now, Serjeant?’

  ‘Ay, lad. Be there at nine sharp, though.’

  ‘Jobie, are you going for a soldier?’ asked the little girl as he took her hand.

  Collins turned to Hervey. ‘Christ, sir. What do you do?’

  ‘I know, Serjeant Collins; I know. Try not to think about it, I suppose.’

  *

  The following day, a special edition of the Warminster Miscellany carried a further report of the disturbances in Manchester. The Herveys’ manservant brought it just before midday to the dining room at Horningsham, where Hervey and his father were sitting with the remains of a pot of coffee and a salted mutton ham.

  ‘PETERLOO’ CASUALTIES