by Sara Fraser
He was half-way up the hill when thirty yards to his left a bird burst out of the heather. Seymour smiled his satisfaction.
‘You’re there, are you?’ he muttered, and wheeled his horse. Even as he did so, a man leapt up from cover and began to run down the hillside, bounding over the heather and battering straight through the thick clumps of gorse bushes. Almost immediately a second man jumped to his feet in the same spot and, shaking his fist, hurled imprecations at his companion’s retreating back. Seymour heard the words as his mount neared the man.
‘You yellow-gutted barstard, Smith! You poxy coward!’ Nearly sobbing with rage the shouting man turned to face the dragoon. ‘You’d a never sin us if that bugger ’adn’t lorst his nerve,’ he bawled. ‘You’d a never sin us.’
Raging wildly, he came at Seymour whirling his fetter chains about his head. The captain didn’t even bother to check his mount’s easy canter. He drew one pistol from its holster, cocked it and fired. A small black hole appeared in the top of the convict’s head and he toppled face downwards into the heather, his chains wrapping their links around his neck and shoulders as he fell.
At the sharp crack of the pistol shot, the running man dropped to his knees, holding his hands high above him. ‘Doon’t shoot, yer honour! Please doon’t shoot!’ The man’s face was a torment of terror and the sweat of fear lathered his head and neck. Seymour halted in front of the fugitive, he raised the empty pistol, cocked it again and aimed. The convict’s eyes widened in horror, his mouth gaped in a silent scream and across the front of his ragged breeches a dark flush of urine spread itself. Seymour clicked the trigger, then threw back his head and roared with laughter. Moaning incoherently, the convict rocked his body backwards and forwards while tears streamed from his bloodshot eyes.
Seymour dismounted and, grabbing the man by the scruff of his thin neck, he hauled him bodily to his feet.
‘Stop snivelling like a snot-nosed brat, you scum.’ He shook the convict, who was a small man, fiercely. ‘I’m not going to kill you . . . Not yet anyway . . . There’s a few questions I want the answers to . . .’ His voice became almost jocular. ‘Who knows? If you give the right answers you might even live long enough to be hung from a gallows tree . . . Now! What’s your name?’ The small man drew a great hiccuping breath. ‘It’s Smith, yer honour . . . Jackie Smith,’ he answered.
Seymour released him and stepped back so that he might see his man more clearly. Before he could put another question, the convict began to babble out a torrent of pleas. The captain cuffed him across the side of his head.
‘Slow down your words, you dirty little animal, I cannot understand you when you splutter so.’
Smith’s mind raced, he caught his breath and his furtive eyes intent upon the other’s face, said, ‘I can tell you who it was led the escape, yer honour, and who stuck the trooper and what’s more, yer honour, I can tell yer how to get yer ’ands on a pile o’ rhino . . . God strike me if I lie, sir . . . I knows about Turpin Wright’s rhino, I swears it!’
‘Who is Turpin Wright?’ Seymour demanded.
‘The cove that led the escape, yer honour; and give the sodger the blade in ’is guts.’ Smith had caught the reaction in Seymour’s eyes at the mention of money. Quickly he pressed on. ‘Turpin Wright’s got a load o’ rhino and jewels and suchlike hid away, sir . . . On me mother’s grave! I could ’elp yer to get hold on it.’
A small muscle at the side of Seymour’s left eye began to twitch. ‘You are trying to bribe me!’ he spat the words. ‘I am an officer of the King’s army, and you, you gutter filth, dare to try and bribe me.’
He stepped forward and kicked Smith viciously in the stomach, using the flat of his boot. The convict’s breath was smashed from his body. He doubled over and rolled in whooping agony upon the soggy ground, crushing the heather flat beneath him.
‘I should kill you for that insult!’ Seymour hissed.
Jackie Smith pressed his face into the fragrance of the broken heather tufts and despite his pain felt utter relief.
‘You’ll not kill me now, you barstard!’ he exulted silently. ‘You’m too interested in that bloody rhino o’ Turpin Wright’s. I saw it in yer bleedin’ eyes . . .’
Chapter Two
It was almost dusk when Jethro Stanton walked up to the door of the lonely alehouse, and the air was becoming cold as the pale November sun sank rapidly from view. He came to a halt, shuffling his feet in the white dust of the road and lifted his slung blanket-roll from one aching shoulder to the other. His parched tongue flicked across his dry cracked lips and after a moment’s hesitation, he went through the low open doorway of the inn.
A woman was lighting an oil lamp as he entered, but she ignored him, busying herself in trimming the lamp wick until she was satisfied with the result, before she looked directly at the young man. He came farther into the room so that the soft light shone fully upon him. He was tall and strongly built, wearing the rough, brown moleskin suiting and heavy boots of a labouring man. Taking off his wide-brimmed felt hat he smiled at the woman, his white teeth gleaming in his weather-darkened face.
‘Good evening, mistress, I’m wanting ale and a bite to eat, if that is possible.’ His voice was soft and cultured, contrasting oddly with his clothing.
The landlady’s hard, middle-aged exterior hid an impressionable heart. She thought the young man was very handsome and his smile charmed her.
‘Set ye down,’ she said. ‘I’ve good fresh-brewed ale and some bread and cheese . . . unless you wouldn’t mind waiting for a while. I’ve got a rabbit aroastin’ for my man’s supper . . . There’ll be enough for both on you, I reckon, it’s a fine big buck.’
Jethro nodded gratefully. ‘That’ll stick to me ribs, mistress,’ he told her. ‘Is there a pump that I may wash under? I’ve been walking all day and I’d like to clean myself.’
‘Goo out and round to the back theer, young man,’ the woman instructed and bustled away into the rear regions of the inn. From a vantage point behind a tiny unglazed window, she watched the muscles of Jethro’s lithe hard body writhe and bunch like coiled snakes beneath his smooth tanned skin, as he clanked the pumphandle up and down and laved the dust of travel from his head and body, gasping under the gouts of cold clear water. After drying himself on a strip of rough towelling he had taken from his blanket-roll, Jethro dressed once more and made his way back to the taproom. Smoothing his thick black hair with his fingers, he seated himself on one of the crude benches that flanked the long scrubbed wooden table.
The landlady placed a pewter tankard full of foaming ale in front of him. Lifting it, he tilted back his head and drank deeply until it was all gone. Sighing with satisfaction, he put the empty tankard on the table.
‘You spoke truly, mistress . . . It is indeed good ale that you brew.’
The woman smiled her gratification at the compliment and going to a row of barrels standing on trestles at the rear of the room, she refilled the tankard. She stood across the table from Jethro and eyed him speculatively as he sipped from the fresh pot.
‘You’m not from these parts, young man?’
Jethro shook his head. ‘No, mistress, I’m what you would call a travelling man. Is there work to be found in this district?’
The woman shook her head. ‘Not now, I shouldn’t think. Though mind you there was work aplenty when the harvest was got in, there’s so many o’ the young lads away at the wars from these parts . . . Ahh! and a lot of older ’uns too, come to that.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘The silly buggers sees a redcoat and lets the recruiters fill their bellies full o’ drink and their empty yeds full o’ tales o’ glory; and then nuthin’ matters to ’um, but to take the shillin’ and leave the plough . . . Orf they goes and follows the drum. Ahh!’ She shook her head once more. ‘Theer’s a good many poor mothers aggrievin’ for their sons in these parts, and young girls aweepin’ for their ’usbands and sweethearts . . .’
Jethro nodded but remained silent. The silence length
ened and the woman, sensing that he wished to be alone, left him at the table.
The darkness deepened across the heavily wooded heath and later the moon rose. Under its cool light, a man came stumbling over the tussocks of grass and brush, his hands straining against the shackles that fettered his wrists in an effort to stop the chain clinking as he ran. The runner sighted the white-washed walls of the inn and halted, cocking his head to listen for sounds of his pursuers. But all he could hear was his own rasping breath and the soft wind rustling the grasses. He grinned to himself and went cautiously towards the building.
‘Pssst! Master!’
Jethro was startled out of his reverie by the sharp sound.
‘Pssst! Master!’
He looked at the door, but could see no one. The sound came yet again.
‘Pssst! Master!’
Jethro got to his feet and went outside the door. The moon was well risen by now and Jethro could see clearly that the ground around the inn was empty. There was a hoarse whisper.
‘Over here, master!’
Jethro looked to his left, and saw in the shadow cast by the overhanging eaves a darker shadow which moved towards him and became a man.
‘What do you want with me?’ Jethro demanded.
‘Shhh! Not so loud, master. For the love of God! Not so loud,’ the man begged, lifting his hands in supplication. As he did so, there came a jingle of metal and Jethro stepped back, feeling for the knife he carried in his coat pocket. The man quickly lowered his hands.
‘Take no alarm, master,’ he begged. ‘I mean you no harm, I swear it! I’m looking for your help that’s all.’
Jethro let the knife fall back into his pocket and said quietly, ‘Step into the light, so that I can see who I’m talking with. I don’t fancy conversing with shadows.’
The man did as he was bidden. He was middle-aged and shaven-headed. As tall as Jethro, but gaunt and ragged, his wrists were fettered by chain-joined manacles. His bare feet and calves had been torn in his flight across the heath and trickles of blood, black in the moonlight, oozed down into the dust. From inside the inn came the landlady’s voice.
‘Are you theer outside, young man? Is anything the matter?’
Jethro opened his mouth to answer, but before he could do so the man ducked back into the shadows, slumped on to his knees in the dirt and shook his head pleadingly, holding his fingers to his lips. Jethro stared hard at him, then made his decision.
‘I’m just enjoying the night air, mistress, I’ll be in in a moment.’
He went to the other and lifted him to his feet.
‘Now listen carefully,’ he whispered. ‘Go and hide in the scrub over there, later I’ll see what’s to be done to help you.’
Surprisingly the man grinned at him. ‘Can I trust you?’ he questioned.
After a moment Jethro grinned back. ‘Do you have any choice? Now go! Quickly!’
He watched the stranger scuffle away, then re-entered the inn. On the table was an earthenware bowl filled with smoking meat and also a fresh loaf of bread. The landlady smiled at him.
‘’Ere young man, theer’s your vittles, all nice and hot. If theer’s anythin’ more you’ needin’, just call.’
Jethro nodded. ‘My thanks to you, mistress.’ He waited until the sounds of voices and eating from the back rooms of the inn told him that the woman and her husband were busy at their supper, then taking his kerchief from his neck he wrapped half of the bread and meat in it. He stole out of the door and went to where the fettered man was hidden.
‘Here’s some food.’ He pushed the small bundle into the man’s hands and, not waiting for a reply, ran back to the inn. The man tore open the kerchief and grabbed the food, using both hands to cram bread and meat into his mouth. A small spring near by served to quench his thirst. With his ravenous hunger appeased, he lay back on the grass and belched contentedly.
‘Well, young Jethro Stanton,’ he murmured, ‘I doon’t know what you’m dooin’ here, but thanks be to God, I run into you. You’m a true son o’ Peter Stanton’s, that’s for sure; and youse made a friend for life in Turpin Wright; and that’s as sure as Turpin Wright is the name I was born wi’.’
He closed his eyes and rested as easily and peacefully as if he were a king on his royal bed.
No sooner had Jethro finished his meal than from outside the alehouse came the thudding hooves of hard-ridden horses and the jingling of metal. Commands were shouted and through the still open doorway Jethro saw a troop of cavalry galloping past. Even as they passed he saw two or three men rein in their horses directly opposite the door and dismount in a flurry of dust.
One of the horsemen stamped and jangled into the alehouse. He was short and wiry, smartly uniformed in the crimson and dark blue tunic, white crossbelt and white chevrons of a corporal of Light Dragoons. He rested his left hand on his low-slung sabre and his eyes were hard beneath the stiff peak of his cockaded shako.
Disturbed by the commotion, the landlady and her husband came out from their quarters.
‘Yes, soldier? What can we do for you?’ The landlady’s tone was hostile.
The dragoon didn’t answer. Instead he called over his shoulder, ‘Timpkins, is Macarthy at the rear?’
The other, a big trooper, came to the door carrying a cocked carbine in his hands. ‘Aye,’ he grunted in reply.
The corporal nodded. ‘I’ll thank you to stand aside,’ he said to the landlady, and drew his sabre. Steel glinted in the lamplight and the landlady’s husband whimpered in fear and pressed back against the wall. The woman was unafraid, her face flushed and she retorted, ‘You’re not chasing rebels in Ireland now, soldier, nor in the bloody Peninsula neither. I’m a freeborn subject of His Majesty, God bless him! And I’ll not be ordered around by gutter-sweepings in my own home.’
The dragoon extended his sword arm until the point of the sabre was only a fraction of an inch away from the plump throat of the woman.
‘Now you listen to me, you fat cow!’ he warned. ‘This morning a convoy o’ prisoners was going along on their way to Shrewsbury, and most of ’um were gallows-bait . . . Well, they turned on their escort and a score o’ the scum got away. One of our lads is lying at death’s door this minute, because one o’ the bastards stuck him wi’ a blade. Now we’ve recaptured all on ’um but one, and he’s the bloody ringleader, and a worser son of an whore never breathed . . . Our orders are to search every inch o’ these parts until we get him . . . So out o’ my way! Or you’ll find yourself on the road to the gallows for helping the bastard.’
The landlady stood her ground. ‘I don’t blame the poor buggers for escaping!’ she blurted angrily. ‘I reckon that most of ’um were in gaol for next to nothing anyway.’
The corporal sighed heavily and lowered his sword.
‘That may well be, woman,’ he said wearily, ‘but it’s not my place to question my orders. I’ve no wish to go to the halberds to meet the Drummer’s Daughter, and have the skin stripped from my back wi’ her kisses.’
He pushed her to one side and went into the rear of the house. They heard his boots clumping across the floor over their heads and then down the stairs. Joined now by a man who had been at the back of the building, the corporal came into the taproom once more.
‘Timpkins!’ he shouted. ‘Come in here.’ He turned to the landlady. ‘Draw three pots of ale. And give us a quartern o’ rum.’
Her temper rose again. ‘Have you money?’ she snapped. ‘There’s no free drink for the likes o’ you.’
The dragoon took coins from his belt pouch and threw them contemptuously on the floor, where they bounced and rolled across the dark stone slabs.
‘I don’t doubt but there’s enough there to pay for the piss you serve in this dunghouse,’ he sneered.
The woman made no movement, but her husband, a stoop-shouldered wreck of a man, scrabbled for the money and ran to fetch the drink. The dragoons took off their shakos, and settling their carbines and sabres on the benches, sat
down at Jethro’s table. When he had taken the edge from his thirst, the corporal turned his attention to Jethro.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen anythin’ of our runaway, have you?’
Jethro shook his head. ‘No, I’ve not. What was he wanted for?’
The soldiers looked at each other and laughed.
‘What was he wanted for? What wasn’t he being hung for, more likely,’ Macarthy, an Irishman, answered. ‘He calls himself by a dozen names and he’s the one and only first-born son o’ Satan. He comes straight from the pit of hell, does that one. Murder, highway robbery, sham coinin’, burglary, forgery, false enlistment, desertion . . . Be God! T’would fill the Newgate Calendar for a year just to list what he’s done. They say he was even a pirate once, not to mention a mutineer . . .’
The corporal broke into the recital. ‘Paddy’s exaggeratin’, but he’s right when he says that the bugger should ha’ been hung years ago. They say he was one o’ the Nore mutineers, a big mate o’ Richard Parker’s. But he managed to get away before they could get a rope round his neck. The bastard garrotted a marine sentry wi’ his own ramrod and swam about five miles through a bloody gale that even men o’ war could hardly ride out. They thought for years that he’d bin drowned, but the bugger showed up again in a militia regiment. I’d like to get my hands on him. He’ll not live to see the hangman if I do, I can promise you that.’
Timpkins, the silent one, nudged Macarthy with his elbow and they both laughed aloud.
‘Oi’ll tell you why the corporal’s so bitter against the man, shall I?’ the Irishman choked out between gusts of laughter. ‘You see our noble corporal won’t be a corporal much longer. He was one o’ the escort this morning, under the lovely Captain Seymour, who’s the purest bad bastard that ever walked. Every man jack on the escort stands to have the balls tore offa him if we don’t catch the bugger.’
The two troopers rolled in their seats with laughter, while the corporal cursed and swore at them to no avail. Suddenly Macarthy’s laughter stilled and he held up his hand.