Fourpenny Flyer

by Beryl Kingston

  ‘Manchester Yeomanry,’ Rosie echoed admiringly.

  ‘Then he is a fool,’ Mrs Clarke said, tickling Will under the chin. ‘’Tis a peaceable crowd and will stay so left to its own devices.’

  ‘Own devices, yes,’ Rosie said.

  ‘The Yeomanry are a pretty poor set of hotheads, too,’ Mr Murgatroyd said, smiling amiably at Rosie. ‘Local tradesmen, Mrs Easter, cheesemongers and ironmongers and suchlike, who fancy themselves as gentry. Ain’t accustomed to horseback, though, not like the old squires. Hard put to it to keep their seats at the best of times.’

  ‘They’ll be more hard put to it than usual this morning,’ Mr Clarke said, ‘if the gossip is anything to go by.’

  ‘How so?’ his wife asked. ‘What gossip?’

  ‘Gossip?’ Rosie said hopefully.

  ‘Our Deputy Constable, Mr Nadin, has had ’em in the alehouse since eight o’clock this morning,’ Mr Clarke informed them. ‘So they’ll be rolling drunk by now, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ Rosie agreed.

  In the field outside the window another marching column had arrived with yet another band, and the squeal of pipes and the thudding of drums set Will bouncing on Rosie’s ample lap.

  ‘Will you look at that child!’ Mrs Clarke exclaimed. ‘Such strength on those legs, me dear. A fine boy!’

  Harriet was looking down at the crowd. The field was already thronged and yet still more people were marching into it, their arrival marked by bands and banners but soon becoming nothing more than a ribbon of white faces swirling forward into the mass. There were so many faces, thousands and thousands of them, and all so pale and pressed so close together, and all of them turned towards the house because the hustings had been erected directly in front of it: round white faces topped with dark caps and dotted with dark eyes; round gentle faces, Harriet thought, like a meadow full of daisies. And all those flags and banners fluttering above them were like flowers too, huge, brightly coloured flowers, hollyhocks, perhaps, or lilies, red and gold, green and scarlet, yellow and orange and black and white, their poles topped with bright red caps of liberty. She was pleased by the image she’d found because it was peaceful and homely, and well suited to this meeting in a green field that could have been a garden.

  On the opposite side of the field there were several fine oak trees with a pile of loose timber and logs left beside them. A group of women and children had climbed up onto the logs to get a better view, and now they sat in the sunshine as though they were at a picnic. The large plain building behind them belonged to the Quakers. Harriet could see the words ‘Friends’ Meeting House’ painted on the front of it in tall, clear letters. And immediately to her right there was a beautiful walled garden, full of roses and honeysuckles and ivies. It looked very green and welcoming after the harshness of all that unrelieved red brick in the centre of the town, and it was another indication of how peaceful the place was.

  By now Will had bounced himself red in the face and Mr Murgatroyd’s landlady had arrived with a pot of tea and a plate full of honey cakes, which Mr Murgatroyd urged on his guests. It was well after one o’clock before the refreshments had been eaten and Will had been rocked to sleep on Rosie’s lap, and by then the field was full and several men who seemed to be officials of some kind were gathering the banners onto the hustings.

  Harriet and Mrs Clarke stood at the open window to read what was written upon them. ‘Universal Suffrage’, they said, ‘Hunt and Liberty’, ‘Unite and be Free’, ‘Vote by Ballot’, and on one very splendid red and green banner, which proclaimed that it belonged to the ‘Female Union of Royden’ were the ringing and inappropriate words, ‘Let us Die like Men and not be Sold as Slaves’.

  ‘Why look, Mrs Easter my dear,’ Mrs Clarke said, ‘there’s Mr Taylor, I do believe. Look! Look there! Beside the gentleman in the red hat.’

  And sure enough, when Harriet looked, there was Mr Taylor, striding into the crowd in his smart blue jacket, talking in a most animated way to the gentleman beside him. And standing directly behind him, watching the crowd, was the man who had travelled with her from Leicester, Mr Richards of the fair hair and the ginger whiskers. Well, fancy that!

  But there wasn’t time to tell her companions about him because the crowd had begun to stir. Hands were foresting upwards to point and wave. She could hear a band playing somewhere close at hand, and a rolling cheer began on the left side of the crowd and spread like a wave all across the field. It was obvious that something was about to happen.

  ‘There they are!’ Mr Murgatroyd shouted. And the crowd to the left of the hustings parted to make way for a barouche. It was full of passengers and bristling with blue and white flags and it was being drawn not by a team of horses but by the people themselves.

  ‘There’s Mr Hunt,’ Mr Murgatroyd said. ‘The man standing up, in the white top hat, d’ye see? He always wears a white top hat. And there’s Mr Carlisle from London, who sells the penny press so cunningly when he ain’t supposed to. And Mr Saxton of the Manchester Observer. Oh, how splendid!’

  And splendid it certainly was, for Mr Henry Hunt was an imposing looking man and when the coach reached the hustings he sprang up onto the canvas in the most athletic and dramatic way, like a prizefighter, turning to the crowd to wave and bow. And the crowd gave him a long full-throated cheer and waved back. ‘Good old Hunt!’ ‘Hunt and Liberty!’ ‘Hooray! Hooray!’

  Then a band began to play the National Anthem and Mr Hunt took off his fine white top hat and held it before his chest respectfully and sang in a deep booming voice that Harriet could hear quite clearly from her window. And the men in the crowd doffed their caps, too, and the movement of their action was like the wind rippling a field of corn. How respectful they all are, Harriet thought, as they stood to attention and sang. And the sunshine gleamed on Mr Hunt’s white hat as he returned it to his head and began to speak.

  ‘Friends and brothers’ he said, and his voice rang out across the field, ‘we are gathered here this morning, in St Peter’s Place, not to break the law, for that we would not do, nor to cause an affray, for that we would not do either, but to consider the propriety of adopting the most legal and effectual means of obtaining reform of the Commons House of Parliament. To this end we have come, unarmed and in good faith….’

  There was a movement on the edge of the crowd, an alarming movement, quick and fluttery, that made Harriet and Mrs Clarke look away from the hustings to see what it was. A woman’s voice called out, ‘Soldiers! Soldiers!’ on a high-pitched panicky note and the next minute a troop of cavalry, all very bright and smart in their blue and white uniforms, trotted round the corner by the beautiful walled garden, sabres in hand, and reined up in a line against the garden wall. At the same time half a dozen well-dressed men emerged from the house beside them and began to walk importantly through the crowd towards the hustings. Now Harriet noticed that there was a double line of constables keeping a way open for their importance and she looked back at Mr Murgatroyd to see if he knew what was going on.

  ‘Those are the magistrates,’ he explained. ‘They’ve been waiting in Mr Buxton’s house, I do believe, for that is where they came from. The gentleman in front is Mr Nadin, the Deputy Constable.’

  ‘He means to arrest Mr Hunt,’ Mr Clarke said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Now we shall see some sport. Those fellows in blue and white are the Manchester Yeomanry. Didn’t I tell ’ee?’

  ‘Stand firm, my friends,’ Mr Hunt boomed at the crowd as those nearest to the soldiers glanced fearfully over their shoulders at those flashing sabres. ‘This is a trick. Give them three cheers.’

  And to Harriet’s amazement three cheers were given.

  The last was dying away as the magistrates reached the hustings. And then a great many things happened all at once and in great confusion. One of the magistrates made a grab for the nearest banner and snapped the pole in two across his knee, and then there were several seconds’ confused argument. Punches were thro
wn, voices raised, and the people nearest the hustings surged forward, waving their arms in the air and shouting. The platform party were jostled down onto the ground, arguing violently.

  And then without any warning the Manchester Yeomanry galloped into the growd, slashing as they went. Their onrush was so sudden and precipitate, nobody had any time to get out of their way. People yelled warnings and screamed in terror, and many fell and were trodden underfoot, but the Yeomanry pushed forward, red-faced with excitement, using their spurs cruelly, sabres flashing in the sunshine as they cut to right and left, at pleading hands and unprotected heads, with a crunching of bone and blood spurting into the air and running red and terrible down white arms and white dresses and white, white faces.

  The watchers in Mr Murgatroyd’s dingy sitting room were so shocked they couldn’t believe what they saw. Harriet was frozen to the spot and Mr Murgatroyd was galvanized into frantic and useless movement, running from window to window, wringing his hands and moaning.

  ‘Good God alive!’ Mr Clarke said, pulling his wife backwards from the sight. ‘They can’t do this! Stop it, d’ye hear? This is England, damnit. We don’t do things like this in England. Stop it!’

  Rosie ambled to the window, with Will still asleep in her arms. ‘Stop it,’ she echoed.

  And Mrs Clarke burst into tears and covered her face with her hands. ‘They cannot do this. They mustn’t! Oh somebody make it stop!’

  But the terrible screams went on and on and on. At the edge of the crowd people were running away in every direction, scattering like mercury, but in the centre they were still too close packed to be able to move at all. And there were more soldiers arriving. Oh, please God not more! Make it stop! Make it stop! Horses stamped and snorted right underneath the window and a contingent of Hussars waited for orders in front of Mr Buxton’s house, their colonel looking up to the first floor where a stern face watched and didn’t speak. Some of the Yeomanry had reached the hustings and were slashing at the banners, screaming abuse. Others were marooned among the crowd. One or two had been disarmed and were taking a beating from the fists below them.

  And then the horror intensified as the Hussars plunged into the crowd. There was so much movement and so much noise and such clouds of dust it was impossible to take it all in. Voices yelled, ‘Break! Break They are killing us! Break!’ And then sound and sight took on the kaleidoscopic quality of nightmare as images of horror emerged from the dust with brief and terrible clarity. Two small hands streaked with blood clinging to the shawl of a woman running like a deer. A wound gaping like a red mouth in the shocking whiteness of a living, moving skull. A man falling backwards from the hustings with blood pumping out of a great bloody hole where his nose had been.

  ‘Oh stop it!’ Harriet begged, ‘for pity’s sake!’ It was impossible to look away and the sight of all those sabres rising and falling, hacking and cutting, in such steady, remorseless rhythm was paining her with a familiar pain that she recognized but could not remember. It was as if the long blue blades were cutting into her own chest, over and over again. ‘They are children,’ she wept. ‘They have done no wrong. They are innocent children. You are killing innocent children!’ But in the turmoil of screams and neighs and the blur of terrified movement and the nightmare roar of hooves and feet, nobody could hear her. She saw that Will was awake and crying and she took him in her arms and held him close, knowing she ought to comfort him. But she was shivering with terror and pity and she only made him worse.

  ‘Take him away from the window,’ she said to Rosie, putting her mouth close to her ear to be sure of being heard. ‘Hide him if you can. Oh Mr Murgatroyd, is there anywhere he can be hidden? Is there anywhere anyone can be hidden?’ The tears were streaming down her cheeks. And the mass below her was loosed at last and the people scattered and ran, pell-mell, torn hair flying, babies screaming, without hats or shoes or hope, pursued by those enormous horses and those terrible, bloodstained, hissing blades.

  And suddenly it was all over. The crowd was gone and the field was empty and so silent that Harriet could hear her own heart beating. She realized that she was hanging on to the curtain, and that she’d been hiding her face in its folds. Mr Murgatroyd was leaning on the windowsill, panting as though he’d been running a race, the Clarkes were in the furthest corner of the room clinging to one another and weeping, and Rosie and little Will were nowhere to be seen. ‘In the bedroom,’ Mr Murgatroyd explained seeing that she was looking for them, but then he went on gazing at the field.

  ‘Oh my dear God, the place is full of dead bodies.’

  I must look, Harriet thought. It is cowardice to look away. Terrible though this is, I must look.

  The rough grass of the field was littered with fallen bodies, some hideously and totally still, some trying to crawl away, or sitting head in hand in the swirling dust too stunned to move, or gasping and grey-faced and calling for help, and some heaped together in an ungainly pile as though they were of no more account than rubbish. Around them the ground was strewn with debris of every kind: broken drums and shredded banners, hundreds of hats and caps and bonnets trampled filthy, bloodstained shoes, some pathetically small torn clothing, smeared scarlet and brown. And at the edge of the field the Yeomanry were calmly easing girths and adjusting accoutrements and, oh most horrible!, wiping the blood from their sabres, and all just a few feet away from the men and women they’d killed and injured. It was a battlefield.

  And in an instant the sight of it brought all Harriet’s beliefs and fears into sharp inescapable focus. Every Sunday of her childhood the preacher had hectored her about good and evil and the dangers of sin, and she had listened obediently but without understanding. Now she knew what he’d been talking about. This was evil. Totally, incontrovertibly, hatefully evil. To take a sword and kill unarmed men and women and children was evil. To inflict pain and terror and injury on anyone smaller or younger or less powerful than you were was evil. And evil had to be opposed, with all your strength and all your wit. That was the simple duty of a Christian. That was why God had brought her to this place.

  ‘I must go and help them,’ she said.

  Mr Murgatroyd was horrified. ‘Out there?’ he said, his voice squeaking with disbelief. ‘With soldiers on the rampage? You can’t! What would Mr Easter say?’

  But she was already at the door. ‘Look after little Will,’ she said. She was perfectly calm, as though she were going for a promenade.

  ‘They won’t let you,’ he called after her as she ran down the stairs.

  There was a constable on guard just outside the house. He turned as she opened the front door and put out an arm as though to prevent her, but she was too calm and too quick for him.

  ‘I am going to attend to the wounded,’ she said and walked straight past, him into the field, while he was still estimating her social position and considering what he ought to say.

  There were people moaning all about her. So many men and women lying hurt. Where should she start among so many? Then she saw that there was a man walking from group to group. He seemed to be examining wounds and he was urging those who could stand to get up and walk away from the field. Four hands are better than two, she thought, and went to help him.

  He was kneeling beside a young man who had been cut through the shoulder and was lying on the ground grey-faced and shivering with his head in the lap of a girl who was rocking to and fro, moaning ‘Oh God! Oh God!’ over and over and over again. The boy was bleeding profusely, his fustian jacket dark and damp with blood and a red pool of it on the grass beneath him.

  ‘It’s Caleb Rawson, Tommy,’ the man said. ‘Canst sit up, lad?’

  ‘Caleb is it?’ the boy said, opening his eyes.

  Harriet knelt beside them on the scrubby grass. ‘How can I help?’ she asked.

  The man called Caleb wasted no time in introductions. ‘Hold that arm,’ he instructed, ‘while I ease t’ sleeve away. Hold on, lad, an’ we’ll staunch tha’ wound. Tek his head, Molly lass, he’
s in mortal pain.’

  Between them they eased the sodden cloth away from the cut, which was long and angry but less deep than Harriet had feared. The girl was still rocking.

  ‘If I’d a bandage I could bind this clean,’ Caleb said.

  Harriet was tearing a strip from her petticoat before he’d finished speaking. ‘Bind away,’ she said. ‘’Tis good clean linen, I assure you. Use it and welcome.’

  John Easter had inspected the property and decided upon it and was discussing terms with the solicitor in Salford when the clerk ran into the room bolt-eyed with his exciting news. ‘There’s been a riot, across t’ river, sir. Hundreds and hundreds killed. They say St Peter’s Field is full o’ corpses.’

  The shock was so profound that for a few seconds John could hardly breathe or think. But although the colour drained from his face, he kept control of himself. ‘I fear this matter must be deferred until tomorrow,’ he said, and was proud of himself to be speaking calmly. ‘My wife is visiting in St Peter’s Field. I must return to Manchester immediately.’

  The solicitor said he quite understood and sent his clerk off at once to find a flyer, which he did after an interminable time. But the driver was none too happy about his commission. ‘I’ll tek thee as far as t’ old bridge at Blackfriars,’ he said, ‘but no further. Nobbut a fool would go further with t’ Yeomanry afield.’

  ‘You shall have twice the fare,’ John offered.

  But it was refused. ‘T’ Blackfriars’ Bridge. No further.’

  So to Blackfriars’ Bridge it had to be, because he didn’t have the strength to argue in his present state of anxiety. And then a long, fraught walk between the old timbered houses of Deansgate, which was alarming empty and made him feel worse with every step he took, particularly when he saw three mounted men galloping down a side turning brandishing swords. By the time he reached Windmill Street his heart was beating so violently it was shaking his jacket.