by Sara Fraser
‘DRUM MAJOR, DO YOUR DUTY!’
The drum major signalled with his mace and a drummer hurried to him, carrying a large bucket full of brine water from which protruded the narrow handle of a cat o’ nine tails. The drum major lifted the ‘cat’ and whistled it through the air, causing it to swish a fine spray of liquid from its long plaited thongs. Drummer Morrison took off his mitre cap and yellow tunic, and in his shirtsleeves went to stand to the side of the trussed prisoner. The drum major handed him the ‘cat’ and then himself stood behind Morrison while Coventry, a slender rattan cane in his hand, positioned himself to the rear of the drum major.
Major Thomas Burd looked long and hard at the paraded troops, then shouted, ‘Each man present take heed. For if you should commit a similar offence, then as surely as the sun rises, you shall suffer the same penalty. Let the punishment commence.’
‘Make ready!’ the drum major ordered curtly, and Drummer Morrison, his brutish face impassive, drew the plaited thongs through his fingers, separating each from its fellow. He held out his thick arm to its fullest extent, so that the handle of the whip was a foot or more from the prisoner’s naked back. Another drummer stepped up to the triangle and thrust a scrap of thick leather between the prisoner’s teeth for him to bite on.
The drum major lifted his mace and tapped the ferrule on Drummer Morrison’s broad shoulders . . .
‘Begin!’ He shouted. ‘ONE!’
The drummer drew back his arm and brought the thongs slashing across the white defenceless flesh before him with all the strength he could muster. The cords bit deep and at the final instant of impact, Morrison flicked his wrist so that the thongs dragged viciously at the skin. The artisan’s body jerked horribly and his twisted face strained upwards to the grey pitiless sky. A collective gasp came from the watching troops and Jethro glanced at the men to right and left of him. The youngster to his right was deathly pale and beads of sweat stood out on his fresh face. The older man to the left had a peculiar expression half pleasure, half anger on his weathered features.
‘TWO! . . . THREE! . . . FOUR! . . . FIVE! . . . SIX! . . . SEVEN! . . .’
The drum major’s voice bellowed out the cadence and the ‘cat’ rose and fell with dreadful precision. The white skin broke at the sixth blow and the thin lines of blood welled jewel-like against the paleness of their setting. At twenty-five lashes, another drummer took Morrison’s place and the beating continued. Until now, no sound that was audible to the spectators had been uttered by the prisoner. Only the agonized jerks and writhings of his body showed the torments he was suffering. After fifty strokes, another drummer took over the ‘cat’, and now with the prisoner’s back and shoulders a hideous crimson jelly of torn flesh and blood, it was necessary after each stroke for the drummers to drag the lash thongs through their fingers to remove the scraps of human wreckage that stuck there. At the eighty-third stroke, the man screamed . . . a terrible wrenching bubbling scream that was torn from the very depths of his outraged being. The drummer giving the lashes halted and let his whip arm drop, appalled by the choking shriek.
‘God demmee, drum major! Make the dog lay on hard!’ The Hon. John’s petulant face flamed with anger and he beat the drum major furiously about the shoulders and hips with his rattan cane.
The drum major’s mace in its turn cracked over the drummer’s back. ‘Lay on hard, God blast your eyes!’ he bellowed, and the young drummer continued.
Now the blood sprayed out at every soggy-sounding stroke, and each drummer in his turn became splattered with the myriads of scarlet butcher’s badges.
At two hundred and sixty-three strokes, the prisoner’s continuous screaming reached an ear-splitting crescendo, and then halted abruptly as he collapsed. His head fell back showing the whites of his still-open eyes and his body hung slack by his trussed wrists. The surgeon beckoned his mate and went to examine the unconscious man. Jethro heard a sound of retching as a soldier in the centre rank to his left rear was violently sick. It started a chain reaction, and soon other men were vomiting helplessly, while one man fainted clean away. Jethro himself, inured though he was by years of poverty and suffering, felt an overwhelming pity for the tortured victim, and a terrible anger against the men who could order and carry out such punishments.
The administration of stimulants to the collapsed man brought him back to consciousness and the surgeon and his mate resumed their former posts. Major Burd nodded to the drum major.
‘Continue with the punishment,’ he snapped.
The blood-heavy ‘cat’ rose and fell once more and the prisoner shrieked in concert with the strokes. A muttering of rage came from the ranks and here and there anonymous voices shouted,
‘Let the poor bugger alone!’
‘Cut him down, damn you!’
‘Yes, cut him down!’
The company subalterns searched the faces of the men for the culprits, but could find no one to blame.
At the four hundred and third stroke, the prisoner collapsed once more and this time Jethro prayed for a merciful God to intervene.
The surgeon made his examination with a grave face. He felt the neck for a pulse and then held a small pocket mirror to the nostrils and mouth of the grotesquely crooked head. A minute elapsed and not a sound was to be heard except the fitful moaning of the wind. The flurrying snowflakes settled on the prisoner’s head and flayed shoulders and collected for brief moments on the blood-soaked seat and thighs of his trousers. The surgeon looked closely at the mirror, and shook his head. An explosion of released breath came from the troops, followed by a concerted growl of fury.
‘Goddam the bugger for a weakling!’ Major Thomas Burd cursed in temper, then shouted, ‘Officers, march your men to different areas of the parade ground and give them an hour’s hot drill. That’ll sweat the badness and malice from them, I’ll be bound.’
Commands rang out instantly and the deeply-instilled habits of disciplined obedience asserted themselves. Muskets were slapped and positioned and boots rang upon the ground in quick and double-quick time.
Four drummers each took an arm or leg and carried the limp, head-hanging dead man away with the surgeon and his mate following. Jethro watched them leave from the corner of his eye as he sloped, ordered, presented, and shouldered his musket without pause, and thought bitterly of what a tragic epitaph the drops of blood dripping from the lacerated body on to the snow-flecked cobbles made for the poor artisan.
Chapter Twenty-Two
In the first days of March orders came for David Warburton to go to London to appear before the Medical Board. At the fine old three-storied Blue Posts Inn in Broad Street, Portsmouth Point, Joseph Ward, his wife and Jessica had come to see the young officer off on his journey. It was six o’clock in the evening, and the post-coach, Royal, presented a glittering spectacle of polished panelling and shining brass-work under the spluttering oil-lamps of the inn’s entrance.
The black horses in their traces pawed at the cobbles, striking tiny white-hot sparks from their plated hooves, as if impatient to be away. The air was damp and misty and minute droplets of moisture collected on the fur edging of Jessica’s hooded cloak, framing her heart-shaped face in a shimmer of sparkling pinpoints. The guard blew his long horn and shouted for the passengers to take their seats.
‘Good-bye, my boy, and Godspeed.’ Joseph Ward shook David’s hands and Mrs Ward kissed his cheek.
‘Good-bye, sir, and you, ma’am . . . I cannot thank you enough for your kindness to me.’
‘Nonsense!’ the gentle features of Mrs Ward belied her scolding utterance. ‘Now remember that you are to return here immediately the Medical Board has given judgment on you.’
‘But they may order me back to the Peninsula,’ David joked.
‘Then you must take ship from here!’ Mrs Ward replied sharply, and her husband laughed.
‘You had best obey my wife in this matter, young man. For if you do not come back to see us before you go to your next posting, then you will
find her more fierce in pursuit than any Polish Lancer.’
‘I will obey her, sir, and gladly . . . I promise,’ David said, and turned to Jessica. Their hands met and clasped tightly. ‘And you, Jessie? Do you wish me to return?’ he asked softly.
For answer she brushed his cheek with her lips and her brown eyes glistened with unshed tears. Unable to speak for fear of weeping, she nodded her head.
‘Come now, sir . . . Hurry, for the coach is leaving.’ The stentorian shouting of the guard reverberated through the street and David, his own eyes suspiciously moist, entered the coach.
A blast on the horn and the journey began. There were two other passengers, both inside; a civilian, and another army officer who, like David, wore a long black cloak over his uniform, and whose green cockade on his shako showed him to belong to a Light Company. In the dim light of the swinging overhead lamp, the civilian’s appearance seemed curiously archaic to David. It was some time before the young man realized why that was. The man wore a white tie-wig with a tiny pigtail tied with a bow and very bushy about the neck-end in the style of the previous century, as were his dark coat and knee-breeches.
‘Of course,’ David thought. ‘He’s a member of the College of Physicians.’
The plump, pink-cheeked medical man was aware of his fellow passenger’s interest, and smiled at him.
‘Allow me to introduce myself, sir.’ His voice was rich and fruity and his eyes twinkled merrily. ‘My name is Thomas Marder, I am a physician and surgeon by profession.’
David felt somewhat embarrassed. ‘Forgive my rudeness in staring at you so, Doctor Marder,’ he hastened to apologize, ‘only my interest was aroused because even now I am on my way to pass before a Medical Board in London.’
‘Then we are travelling on the same errand, sir,’ the doctor bowed his head. ‘For I am to be one of the examining physicians on that board . . . This gentleman here, also goes before them, I believe.’ He indicated the other army officer, a man in his thirties who, when he turned towards his companions, disclosed that the right side of his face was a livid purplish-red mass of mangled flesh and was minus an eye.
‘Patrick Flaherty, gentlemen. Captain in the Eighty-eighth Foot.’
His introduction was delivered in a soft Irish accent, with a blurring of diction caused by his injuries which twisted one side of his mouth. David bowed his head and introduced himself in return. Marder produced a silver flask from his leather instrument bag.
‘Well, gentlemen, as an experienced doctor, I really must prescribe a tonic for you both . . . Will you join me in a nip or two of brandy . . . I carry it strictly for medicinal purposes, I do assure you.’
Cheered by frequent gulps of the fiery spirit, the three men chatted amicably as the horses laboured up the steep Portsdown Hill. The mist hung heavy on its bleak crest as the coach breasted the final rise and swung rattling over the rutted road towards the village of Havant. The doctor lifted the thin leather curtain on the window next to him and peered out into the foggy murk.’
‘Dammee! But it’s clammy weather,’ he observed.
At that instant there came from the road ahead a loud shout.
‘Pull up, or you’re dead men!’
The lead horses baulked and bucked, neighing in fright as a tall, cloaked horseman suddenly loomed out of the mist before them. The driver cursed horribly.
‘Whoaaa! Whoaaa! Steady yerselves, yer stupid silly barstards!’ he bawled, and hauled hard at the reins.
The guard, who in the absence of any outside passengers had been sitting dozing by the side of the driver, both of them swathed in blankets, gave a jump and, still half-asleep, let fly with his blunderbuss. The bell-shaped barrel jerked and roared and the rusty nails and bolts it was loaded with went hurtling far above the highwayman’s tall hat.
Inside the coach a whispered conversation was being carried on between the travellers.
‘It’s the Dandy,’ the doctor said, ‘and a most brutal and vicious dog, by all accounts. He served one poor fellow most cruelly. Not content with robbing him and breaking his head with a pistol butt, the rogue then shot him. It was only by the grace of God that he received merely a flesh wound. I treated his injuries myself. He was a foreign gentleman . . . Since then, this highwayman has struck several times more.’
‘Has he wounded anyone else?’ Flaherty asked.
‘Not seriously,’ Marder told him. ‘He’s cracked a few heads, nothing more.’
‘Why is he known as the Dandy?’ David wanted to know.
‘Apparently he has the speech and manner of a gentleman,’ replied the doctor.
The masked, cloaked man was guiding his mount with his knees. In his right hand he carried a cavalry sabre and in his left a long-barrelled pistol. Without hesitation, he spurred his horse forward towards the coach and leaning sideways he passed along first one side and then wheeling rapidly, the other side of the team. As he passed, he slashed the beasts free of their traces with lightning strokes of his sabre. The terrified team bolted up the track and were quickly lost to view in the mist, only the fast-fading thuds of their hooves marking their flight. Laughing softly in satisfaction, the elegantly accoutred highwayman sheathed his blade in the scabbard attached to the saddlehorn and drew another pistol from under his cloak. He hammered against the coach panels with its butt.
‘I’ll thank all those inside to get out one at a time, using this door.’ He looked up at the driver and guard who sat like two statues with their arms held high in the air. ‘What do you carry in your strong box?’ he demanded.
‘Just letters and a few packets, your honour . . . Nuthin’ o’ value,’ the driver quavered.
‘Toss it down on the roadway nevertheless . . . And no tricks, if you wish to continue alive.’ The pistol barrels moved to point unwaveringly at a spot directly in the centre of the guard’s forehead. ‘You owe me a shot, my bucko!’ the masked man snarled, ‘I’ve a mind to take it now.’
The guard groaned aloud, his eyes rolled up in his head and he fainted from sheer terror. His body tumbled from the seat and thudded head-foremost to the ground beneath. The highwayman’s horse skittered nervously.
‘Be still, blast you!’ he growled.
By now the three passengers had got out and were stood side by side on the track with their backs to the coach. The doctor felt such a storm of indignation that his body trembled with it. Before the masked man could speak, he blurted out,
‘You are a shame to the name of England, you damned rogue! These two gentlemen are officers wounded in the service of their country and they are now to be robbed by gallows’ scum such as you. You are not fit to lick their boots . . . Damn you for a worthless evil dog!’
The highwayman’s eyes widened behind their mask when he noticed David. Ignoring the choleric doctor the man pointed the barrel of his pistol at the young officer. ‘You there, take off your shako, so that I may see your face.’
Surprised at the unusual order, David obeyed. His face unshadowed by the broad flat peak was calm and unafraid as he looked steadily at the highwayman. From behind the full face mask came a sharp hiss in indrawn breath. His voice muffled, he went on, ‘Give me your name.’
‘Warburton . . . David Warburton.’ The answer was firmly given.
‘God rot me!’ The masked man cursed, then suddenly wheeled his horse and, spurring it to a gallop, was swallowed up by the swirling mist. The men by the coach gaped at each other in utter bewilderment.
‘What in Heaven’s name made him do that?’ the doctor exclaimed.
The others were equally at a loss and could only shake their heads in bafflement. A moan sounded loudly from the front of the coach, and the driver’s pock-pitted face peered nervously at them from behind the footrest.
‘Sir, sir, ’ud you come and see to me mate, I fear he’s bin sore hurt.’
The three men hurried to help tend the injured man, and as they busied themselves in finding water to bathe his bleeding head and trying to construct a makesh
ift stretcher to lay him on, the shock of the highwayman’s strange behaviour wore off. In David’s mind, as he worked, a chain of association of memories jerked into motion, and a bizarre notion as to the highwayman’s identity wormed its way into his consciousness. Thrust it from him as he might, this notion persisted, growing stronger and more certain with every minute that passed. . . . The elegant highwayman was his cousin, William Seymour.
*
Riding away from the coach, Seymour used one hand to remove his face mask and inwardly cursed the fate that had confronted him with his young relative.
‘I should not have reacted as I did,’ he castigated himself. ‘I should have robbed them all, but that would have meant the risk of him recognizing me.’ The picture of the young man’s calm gentle face swam into his mind’s eye, and Seymour realized with a sharp shock of resentment that in spite of himself, he could never take anything from Davy. ‘He is the only person in the whole world that I have any regard for.’
The cavalryman’s cold grey eyes momentarily held a warmth and softness that perhaps no one who knew him would have believed possible.
‘But now what is to be done?’ Seymour puzzled. ‘There is always the possibility that David will realize that it was me. And I need more funds.’
He was indeed desperately short of money. The banknotes and jewellery he had taken from Levi and da Costa were worth nothing to him here in Hampshire. He would have to dispose of them in a centre such as London, and the other robberies had netted him only comparatively small amounts. So far he had been unsuccessful in his search for Sarah, and the necessity of secure hiding places for himself and his horse meant that he paid heavily to ensure closed mouths and blind eyes concerning his comings and goings. At present, he had a hideout in a tiny fishing village close to Chichester. The hamlet was a notorious haunt for smugglers and, providing he paid the high prices they demanded for bed and board, he was safe with them, their hatred of authority being sufficient to ensure their silence when constables searching for the Dandy made inquiries about suspicious strangers in the area.