The Passage to India

by Allan Mallinson

  As for the infantry … ‘Have you sent a steamer to bring them from Cardiff?’

  The mayor looked suddenly deflated. ‘I’m afraid I have not. I confess it didn’t occur to me. I suppose I imagined they’d have recourse to ample shipping of their own.’

  Hervey frowned again. That was as may be, but a Bristol packet would have speeded matters – and they would need every bayonet they could find when the cavalry had done their work.

  He looked at his watch. Ten minutes past six: first light in another quarter hour or so, though it was still overcast. ‘Now, with your leave, Mr Mayor, I have Queen Square to reclaim.’

  Pinney held out his hand. ‘I pray your men will come to no harm, Colonel.’

  Hervey took it, then pulled down his cap and gathered up his sword. If any of his men came to harm, it would not go unpunished – but he thought better of saying so.

  Two minutes later he was surveying the troop of the 3rd Dragoon Guards from the saddle. All things considered, they showed well, the red of their tunics splendid even in the half-light, facings canary yellow, crossbelts well whitened. These were not men to be discouraged, he was sure. The horses were of a good stamp too, full sixteen hands or more. His own dragoons, and the Fourteenth, might be nimbler, but heavies might do the job by mere show. Just as were the horses, their troopers were sturdier too, and the great bearskin crest atop the helmet made them twice the height in the saddle. If only they were twice the number.

  He need only be brief in his exhortation, though: ‘You have been sorely tried these past days. It is now time to end the disorder that has befallen the city. We shall make a beginning with Queen Square. The Riot Act is read; the rioters are to be dispersed or apprehended. The troop shall form line at the west end of the square and proceed east at the trot, taking the statue of King William as the centre mark. The flat of the sword will be used to hasten, the edge only to check resistance. Carbines solely for return of fire. Captain Warrington, carry on!’

  Warrington had them draw swords and turn to the right in threes, and led them across College Green at the trot, troop serjeant-major to the rear, Hervey and his party – Brereton, St Alban, Armstrong and Acton – following. They met neither brickbats nor abuse, which might have been auspicious had it not been for the fires on every side of them, testimony to the work of the mob and opportunism of the ‘low-life sorts’ drawn into the city like jackals to a great beast brought down. Here and there Hervey could see them in the shadows, out of range of a sabre-swipe, but he was determined their time would come. He could with confidence count on several hundred more sabres soon, and as many bayonets. He intended – as he was sure did Mayor Pinney – not simply to restore order, but to bring the perpetrators to justice, for there could otherwise be no true peace.

  Having been so roughly handled by the mob, however, and then withdrawn – against the will, no doubt, of every one of their rank and file – the dragoons would be zealous in their work, perhaps even over-zealous, he reckoned; and despite the Riot Act, which in the event of death or injury indemnified anyone assisting with the dispersal of rioters, there would be a hue and cry in some quarters, no matter what the outcome – the corresponding societies, the Radical press, the houses of parliament. He would therefore make sure the Third did not exceed themselves … excessively. What that excess was, he could not yet judge – only once they’d begun their work.

  Tricky business, aid to the civil power; but not impossible.

  They surged across Clare Street bridge like the river bore, sweeping aside roughs and their plunder, trampling those who thought themselves faster runners and sending many leaping over the side. More than one who fancied himself a good swimmer forgot the weight of loot in his long pockets and fetched up downstream in a watery grave.

  Wheeling right onto the quay, they overran half a dozen others scuttling from a lighter like rats, before coming on the rear of the assembly rooms and slowing to a walk to squeeze between the gutted Excise Office and what little remained of the handsome houses beside it. They then turned left and right by divisions into line at the end of the north side of the square – Warrington leading the first, Brereton the second.

  The scene was yet worse than before – steep banks of flame, great palls of smoke, tumbling walls, seared trees and jagged ruins which a Piranesi might have made picturesque had not the debris revealed what their interiors had recently been. As crept in the dawn, Hervey could scarce believe there were so many keeping the square still – hundreds, many hundreds. The noise was as bad as battle except there was no shot – yet; and as bad indeed was the smoke and the flame.

  The dragoons took no pains to dress, inclining left and right as soon as they were extended, kicking straight into the trot. They would not be humiliated a second time. There would be no Brereton forbearance. There would indeed be no quarter.

  Sabres began to swing – with the flat to begin with, but in a while there was no scruple, and in the middle of the square those who defied the Riot Act, whether stupefied or not, received the edge.

  At the far side – a couple of hundred yards off, if that – a desperate pack of jackals now hurled themselves at one of the stouter houses, bursting the locks as if nothing at all, frantic to escape the retribution, but only to meet with an equally determined fight inside, led by a doughty negro. The troop serjeant-major drew his carbine, put his horse at the steps and fired into the narrow hall, then reined back hard to cuff the first of the pack as they bolted. Between servants and dragoons, none of the jackals escaped, and three were cut so badly that an hour later they were still immobile.

  Brereton began trying to cool the dragoons’ blood, but the square had only been ridden through, not cleared.

  ‘Line about, Captain Warrington!’ shouted Hervey, cantering the length of the south side signalling direction with his sword.

  The dragoons needed no telling. Back they went with a will. Any man on his feet now was a defiant, a felon – and a good many felons there were still. Doubtless they’d thought the charge was over and not to be repeated. Sabres swung without restraint, with a savage ferocity indeed, and the sound of revelry and wrecking was now become that of terror. Scarcely a sabre reached the north side without new blood.

  Brereton called on Warrington to hold – but Hervey wasn’t done. This was the moment he must judge the margin between necessity and excess. They’d dispersed the riot in Queen Square, but the ‘scum of the earth’ – as the duke had called the class from which his army was drawn – once they’d tasted the pleasures of riot, could never be quelled entirely by bluff. Sanguinary though the dragoons had just been, they were small in number. If but a quarter of the ‘scum’ returned, armed perhaps with staves and iron railings – or, God forbid, a firearm or two – they’d be sorely pressed. They might even have to dismount and hold with the carbine, in which case a great many of their assailants would die – and even then it would be touch and go. When the Gloucester men arrived and those from Keynsham, he’d be able not just to hold the entire square but to proceed beyond; exploit – scatter the various rabble more effectually, in every direction and progressively until he reached the city limits. For then and only then might the constables be able to go to their work with confidence and result, restoring calm, arresting fugitives, recovering property. For the moment, though, all he could – and must – do was maintain a deceit: he must show that the military was in incontestable command of what his ‘Prussian mentor’ would call der entscheidender Punkt – the crucial point, the place of decision. And he could only do this by the application of such force as shocked the army of felons into believing that the forces of the Crown were many more, and overwhelming.

  ‘Go again!’ he cried. ‘Don’t give them opening to recoup. Not a man must be allowed to keep the square!’

  He risked firing them up too much, but he couldn’t risk the mob thinking they were blown. And the troop was under good regulation, Armstrong making certain of it, cracking about as of old …

  Ba
ck across they went, this time at a canter – and remarkably well in hand. He reckoned the Sixth themselves couldn’t have done it better. At the far side he called Brereton and Warrington to him and said he wanted the troop now to patrol the roadway bounding the square, and at a good lick: they’d cleared the turf; now he wanted a display on the perimeter till there were none but lame singletons afoot. He rattled out the orders: videttes posted in pairs at each entrance – ten in all – with rosters to hold the square till the middle of the morning. And the reliefs to form reserve in case an entrance was forced, and ready to meet it with fire. He was sure the Fourteenth would be here from Keynsham soon, and perhaps even Gloucester.

  That was supposing the whole of the square hadn’t caught light by then. So far the drizzle had perhaps kept the flames from spreading, but now it was no more – and not a fire engine in sight. He certainly hadn’t the men to spare, nor had he any notion how the fire companies might be got to help if they were not of a mind. That was for the civil power. He must hope that the householders – those who hadn’t fled the mob – would now find mettle enough to tackle the flames (and that the dragoons would have the wit to distinguish them from the miscreants). He would stay until there was full daylight and calm, and then go to the Council House to concert the next moves.

  St Alban offered him his flask.

  Hervey took a good measure of brandy, though he would have preferred it mixed with strong coffee. ‘I tell you, this is the worst business I saw. I doubt Gordon’s men did greater destruction. I can’t account it political.’

  ‘No, Colonel. And no Radical, even, would seek to justify it.’ (St Alban only hoped they would not condemn the manner of its overthrow either.)

  ‘That, we shall see.’ Hervey did not sound sure they would.

  It was now just before eight o’clock, and St Alban thought it the moment. ‘With your leave, I’ll repair to Reeves’s and get away the letter. The surgeon, Goldney, told me there’s a mail leaves at ten.’

  Hervey nodded, handing back the flask, conscious now of how prescient St Alban’s advice had been, and wondering if his own powers were failing. He’d always reckoned he possessed the cavalryman’s jugement d’affaires – the coup d’oeil both in the field and out. Perhaps it was arrogance – a disdain of having to explain himself as if a supplicant – but prudence demanded …

  ‘Yes, go to it.’

  Another letter for Lord Melbourne was already London-bound by the Bath coach:

  My Lord, — I have the honour to represent to your lordship that in consequence of a requisition from the mayor of Bristol, between two and three o’clock yesterday, I collected my troop of Yeomanry with as little loss of time as was practicable. When your lordship considers that I had to send some miles in different directions, you will, I think, admit the alacrity of my men when I state that we were enabled to march from hence (Dodington), with scarce a man missing, by seven o’clock. Having, however, fifteen miles to go, and the night being very dark, we could not reach Bristol till after nine, when, I lament to say, we found the city on fire in many places, the gaols emptied, and the town in the greatest confusion. Having paraded through the principal parts of the city for more than two hours without being able to find a magistrate – hearing that they had, in fact, left the town, after withdrawing both his majesty’s troops and the police – finding ourselves thus unsupported, and without a hope of being in any way serviceable – the city being actually in the uncontrolled power of the populace, I had no alternative but that of withdrawing also my men, and we returned home about five o’clock this morning.

  Feeling it my duty to make this statement to your lordship, I should ill perform it towards the brave men I am proud to have the honour of commanding, if I did not further state that no men could have come forward with more alacrity; and, although they might not have acted with the discipline of his majesty’s regular troops, they would not have been exceeded by them in zeal, loyalty, or a determination to have done their duty; and had they had an opportunity of acting, they would have shown themselves not undeserving of his majesty’s approbation.

  I have the honour to be, my lord, your lordship’s obedient servant,

  C. W. CODRINGTON,

  Captain of the Dodington and Marshfield

  Yeomanry Cavalry.

  Dodington, October 31st.

  At the Council House – a handsome building, with a classical exterior that spoke of the old wealth of England’s second city, but which stood now with most of its windows put out, the glass swept into piles in the corners of its elegant rooms – Hervey found the mayor active, having assembled the ward sheriffs and a dozen magistrates and aldermen, telling him that several hundred special constables were mustering at this moment in churches about the city, a good many of them out-pensioners of the Chelsea Hospital (and therefore men of stout heart), and a good few former officers of the army and marines. They were eager to do their duty, said the mayor, and variously armed, some with pistols, and would wear white armbands signifying their authority. As soon as there were troops to furnish them a minimum of support, he would have them secure the gaols and begin rounding up the absconders.

  Hervey nodded. ‘Is there sign of the Fourteenth yet?’

  ‘Major Beckwith, their commanding officer, arrived from Gloucester in advance not ten minutes ago. He has gone with his adjutant to the recruiting office to arrange a depot. His squadron follows in about two hours.’

  Hervey frowned at the delay, though he would acknowledge that Gloucester was some distance, and turned to Serjeant Acton standing exaggeratedly at attention two paces behind. ‘My compliments to Major Beckwith, and would he attend on us at once.’

  ‘Colonel!’ barked Acton, turning to his right and saluting with a vigour that made the aldermen start. (It did no harm to remind them what a man was a serjeant of light dragoons.)

  The mayor cleared his throat. ‘I can’t suppose the troop at Keynsham can be very long in returning.’

  Not only was Hervey feeling the want of gallopers – he would not as a rule have sent his covering serjeant even as far as the recruiting office – he now chafed at the absence of men for videttes. There ought by now to be pickets on every one of the roads into the city, and dragoons for intercommunication. He would then know at once who entered and left, and be able to direct his reinforcements accordingly.

  Instead he must wait, and while waiting discuss with the mayor what other means were available to extend the peace and order that he’d won – for the time being at least – about Queen Square.

  In a quarter of an hour they’d made what he reckoned was a serviceable plan – two plans, indeed, subject to when and in what strength the infantry arrived from Cardiff. It seemed unlikely, but if they were here by evening the cavalry could be rested ready for the morning, which, depending on the success they had today in breaking up any further assemblies – which in turn depended on what time the Fourteenth’s troop arrived from Keynsham – would either be a day of renewed charges or one of pursuit of the subdued rioters. The mayor and his aldermen were unanimous that not to recapture escapees from the gaols, not to apprehend the readily identifiable perpetrators of the felonies in Queen Square and other public places, and not to recover stolen property (which at this moment could hardly be well concealed), would only give incentive to the underclass of citizenry to rise again and plague the city’s honest rate-payers.

  Having made his plans, Hervey now felt he could accept the mayor’s offer of hospitality – excellent coffee, exemplary in its heat, and ‘Bath bunns’, a feast at any time.

  A few minutes later, Major Beckwith came, and it was all hearty salutes, bows and hands.

  ‘My dear Beckwith, how glad I was to hear it was you who came. It’s been many years, has it not?’

  ‘My dear Hervey – Colonel Hervey; forgive me – it has indeed. Had I known you were here I could have slept soundly in the chaise!’

  ‘The charge against the Polish lancers, I think it must have been?�
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  ‘Yes, yes, indeed it was. My mare was wounded – not badly, but I was sorely grieved.’

  ‘My gelding was killed,’ said Hervey ruefully. ‘Mr Mayor, Major Beckwith and I stood in adjacent brigades at Waterloo.’

  The mayor looked ever more reassured.

  Hervey began explaining his intention, and what he wanted of the squadron – five dozen sabres, said Beckwith. Before long, however, Major Mackworth arrived with the captain of the Bedminster troop – another dozen and a half sabres.

  Again there was hearty greeting, as well as more formal exchange between Hervey and Captain Shute of the yeomanry. For there were now three officers in the mayor’s chamber to whose names in Hart’s the elaborate ‘W’ was attached – the Waterloo Medal: Officers actually present in either of the actions of the 16th, 17th or 18th June, 1815.

  Hervey had first known Mackworth (then an ensign) at Talavera when he’d carried the 7th Fusiliers’ colour and he himself had galloped for Lord Hill; and then again at Albuhera, that bloodiest of bloody Peninsular battles. Now he was in the personal service of that noble lord.

  ‘The Keynsham troop’s in the street behind,’ he announced, as their captain came into the chamber and presented himself.

  The mayor looked like a man delivered.

  Hervey was exhilarated. He was certain he could now restore the peace. The only question was precisely when, and at what further price in blood. ‘Captain Gage, I understand you to believe you have been illused. That is for a later date. For the moment you are to act under the orders of Major Mackworth.’