The King's Bounty

by Sara Fraser

  Jethro felt surprise. ‘But why, Sar’nt? I intend to continue to conduct myself well and attend to my duties.’

  The sergeant’s large brown teeth glistened in a savage grin. ‘That’s as may be,’ he chuckled grimly. ‘But you shouldn’t ha’ rogered Bertha Morrison.’

  The chuckle became a belly laugh as Jethro’s face worked in dismayed incredulity.

  ‘Nay lad,’ he went on. ‘Don’t take it so hard. You’m not the first drunken Johnny Raw to be sucked in by that whore, nor wun’t be the larst neither . . . But you take it from me, she’s got a hatred for you because you ’udden’t goo on rogerin’ her, and she’s poisoned Bert Morrison’s mind agen yer. He arn’t so thick-skulled as he seems to be, that ’un arn’t. He’ll wait and wait for his chance, and then he’ll put you right in the muck. He’d done it afore, lad, to many a good man . . . And then there’s that Irish barstard as well, Rourke . . . You upset him when you went wi’ Bertha. ’E was forever putting a tail on her until you come along, now she’ll ha’ nothing to do wi’ him.’

  ‘But he’s always been friendly to me,’ Jethro exclaimed.

  ‘Ahr, I know he has. That’s his way. But he’s a sly barstard, is that ’un. He’ll have his revenge sooner or later and get you on to the triangle if he can.’

  ‘But if I become a corporal, what happens to Turpin Wright? I’ve no wish to part from the rogue,’ Jethro said.

  ‘Doon’t you worry none about old Turpin,’ the sergeant reassured him. ‘For he’s gooing to the Bacon Bolters as well . . . And I’ve a bit more news for you. Captain Ward’s agoing to take the Grenadiers and two other companies across to Fort Cumberland next week to reinforce the garrison theer, so you’ll be well out of harm’s way . . . Now get on over to the tailor’s shop and get your chevrons on . . . Corporal Stanton.’

  After a few seconds of silence, during which Jethro digested fully all that the other man had told him, he smiled and said, ‘Thank you Sar’nt Turner, you’re a good man . . . I’ll not forget this kindness.’

  The sergeant patted him on the shoulder. ‘Mind you doon’t, young un, mind you doon’t . . .’ he laughed.

  *

  The reason for the reinforcement of the Fort Cumberland garrison was that extra convict labour was being drafted to work on its outer ditches and fortifications, and that extra labour was to be found from the French prisoners-of-war, as well as the civilian convicts already being used. Since the middle of the previous century, there had been earthworks on the site to prevent any invader landing troops in Langstone Harbour. Following the outbreak of the wars against revolutionary France, it had been decided by the authorities that the fort must become a major strongpoint. The mutinies of the fleets at Spithead and the Nore gave warning that England could no longer rely solely on her wooden walls, she must also have stone ones. Consequently, civilian convicts had been slowly rebuilding the fort for some years. Some hundreds of them were quartered on the hulks Ceres and Fortune in Langstone Harbour. The rest were in casemates in the fort itself.

  It was the noise of shouting men coming from some of these casemates that David Warburton could faintly hear as he walked along the unmetalled road that skirted the shoreline from Portsmouth right up to the Land Gate of the fort. Behind him, the Wards’ soldier servant grumblingly pushed a wheelbarrow on which the officer’s trunk and other possessions were piled. The morning was springlike with soft-breezes and to his right the sea was green and sparkling. The young man’s spirits were high, for the previous evening, following his return from his several days of absence in London, he and Jessica Ward had reached an understanding. She had promised to marry him when the war was over.

  David followed the road as it ran almost on to the beach then swung back northwards to pass into the fort. He halted and surveyed his new quarters. In front, lay the half-dug unlined dry moat and outer earthworks, and beyond them reared the high greystone walls topped by a layer of red bricks. It was a star fort, with great four-sided bastions thrusting out from the long curtain walls to form the points of the star. From the embrasures of the bastions frowned the rounded cannon muzzles, sixteen guns to a bastion which, well-served, could throw sufficient weight of metal to smash and sink any vessel that was foolhardy enough to challenge their might.

  On the tops of the battlements, David could see the blue uniforms of the Royal Artillerymen who manned the guns, but at the Land Gate stood the redcoats of the unit he was to join . . . The Eighth Veteran Battalion. The young officer grimaced . . . ‘Veteran Battalion!’ He felt almost ashamed. True, his right arm was stiff and without its full strength. But he didn’t feel that he was so infirm as to be posted to a battalion of men who were either too shattered by war or too old and feeble to guard convicts working on the fort.

  ‘Never mind,’ he told himself. ‘At least I’m near to Jessie here, and will be able to see her at times.’ A vision of her lovely face came before him and his heart swelled. ‘God! I’m a lucky dog!’

  ‘Be we moving on, sir?’ The servant was standing beside him, a sullen look on his miserable hollow-cheeked face. He moved his shoulders to ease the cutting edges of the leather strap which passed across them to each handle to take the weight of the barrow. ‘Only this bleedin’ barrow’s abreakin’ me back . . . sir,’ he added aggrievedly.

  David nodded, and passed under the arched tunnel of the entrance, returning the creaking Present Arms of the white-haired sentinels with a casual wave of his hand. The gravelled parade ground stretched before him, covering the entire inner area of the fort and nearly a quarter-mile in radius. On the near right, close to the broad platforms of the walls, were two terraces of brick-built officers’ houses. Before them was the triple-gabled men’s canteen and away over in the far left corner stood the cluster of tall-sided stable buildings. The troops’ and convicts’ barracks and all the storerooms and offices were in the rows of brick-fronted arched casemates that were set at ground level into every curtain wall of the fort’s perimeter. It was from a row of casemates near to the stables that the noises David had heard originated. As he passed under the gate tunnel, it came loudly to his ears. He saw two long lines of scarlet-coated veterans drawn up in battle formation facing the casemates at the ready position. On the incline that led down from the platform of the nearest bastion, sweating artillerymen were manhandling two long-snouted cannon, guiding the garrison carriages with steel crowbars, and hauling on ropes lashed about the guns to prevent their near three tons in weight from breaking free to career out of control down the incline.

  ‘Wait here,’ David ordered the servant and went towards the lines of troops. As he neared them, he perceived a small group of officers on the flank nearest him, engaged in earnest discussion. He approached them and coming to a halt took off his shako and stood to attention.

  ‘May I report my arrival, sir,’ he said loudly enough to be heard despite the tumult of shouting from the casemates.

  ‘Lieutenant Warburton, Twenty-Fourth Foot. Under orders to join the Eighth Veteran Battalion on temporary posting.’

  The men turned to him, presenting a gruesome illustration of what battle could do to human flesh and blood. A fine-built, soldierly-looking major bowed briefly. He appeared slightly incongruous since instead of a shako, he wore pulled down low on his head a bright blue stocking cap with a large bobbin dangling from it. He spoke with a strong north country accent.

  ‘That’rt welcome, Warburton. I command here, Oliver Caldwell, late of the Fifth . . . Captain Flaherty there told us thee wast coming.’

  David bowed to his erstwhile travelling companion in pleased recognition. The major performed the rest of the introductions.

  ‘Captain Cresswell . . . Thirty-sixth Foot.’ He was a swarthy man who wore a black eye-patch over an empty socket, as a memento of the plains of Salamanca.

  ‘Captain Picard of the Ninety-fifth.’ A short stocky ex-rifleman who had left his lower left arm in the breach at Badajoz.

  ‘Lieutenant Moorehead, Seventh Fusiliers
.’ A tall willowy person who could speak only in whispers and whose breath rasped painfully. The result of the four musket balls the French had lodged in his chest on the bloody slopes of Albuhera Ridge.

  ‘Thee’st arrived at a bonny time, Warburton,’ the major informed him.

  The noise from the convicts inside the casemates had started to die down, but now redoubled its intensity as the artillerymen ran the two cannon, wheels crunching over the gravel, and brought them to a halt, their muzzles trained on the doors of two of the casemates.

  ‘May I ask what is the matter here, sir?’ David questioned.

  ‘It’s them damned jail-rats in theer. The bastards ha’ barricaded theirsen inside and are refusing to perform their labour. They’ve heard that Froggie prisoners-o’-war are to be sent here from the Portsmouth hulks to help finish the work on the outer ditches. These buggers ’ull not wark wi’ the French, so they say. The difficulty is, that so long as they only stops in their quarters and diven’t make any attack on my men, or try to escape, then I darsn’t open fire on ’um . . . Them bloody reformers and mealy-mouthed Methodys up in London ’ud ha’ me on trial for murder if I killed one o’ these villains . . . I’m going to try and bluff the buggers out on it wi’ the cannon. But if they refuses to move, then I’ll ha’ to think agen.’

  There came a lull in the convicts’ howls. Immediately Caldwell left the group of officers and, going to the casemates, hammered on the door of one and shouted,

  ‘If you scum diven’t come out o’ theer in less than a minnit, I’m going to let a cannonball do the wark o’ getting thee out . . . D’ye hear me plain?’

  ‘Aye Caldwell. We hears yer,’ a solitary voice shouted back, and in a crack in the door’s thick planking could be seen a bloodshot eyeball staring out . . . ‘And I’ll answer yer for all on us,’ the voice continued. ‘We might be scum in your eyes, but we’em still King George’s loyal subjects and we’em not going to labour be the side of a load o’ bleedin’ Frogs.’

  ‘Why not, blast ye?’ The major’s face showed his temper to be warming fast. ‘Why dost thee object? The wark has to be completed, and what cannier way o’ using the King’s enemies than to have them toiling for him . . . Tha’rt just using this as an excuse to stop warkin’, ye idle dogs.’

  ‘That’s as may be.’ The speaker’s tone was surly. ‘But them-bleedin’ Frogs oughter stay wheer they be . . . On the bleedin’ hulks . . . Why, iffen they comes here, what’s to prevent ’um slittin’ all our bleedin’ froats one night, when old Boney comes to rescue ’um.’

  ‘Oh that’s it, is it?’ The major grinned contemptuously. ‘Tha’rt afraid, art thou . . . Well theer’s no call to be afraid. We’re here to protect thee, as well as stand guard o’er thee.’

  A wave of jeering laughter greeted his words.

  ‘Protect us from old Boney?’ The spokesman’s voice cracked, so high in scoffing disbelief was it pitched. ‘How could that load o’ bleedin’ walkin’ death you got wi’ you protect us? They’m only fit for the bleedin’ knacker’s yard, and well you knows it.’

  The convicts howled their sneering agreement with the words. David felt a surge of rage. He looked at the resentful faces of the Veterans, men who had given blood, youth, strength and health fighting their country’s battles, and he wanted to drag the convicts from their boltholes and force them to their knees in abject apology. If David’s reaction was rage, Major Caldwell’s was maniacal fury.

  ‘Tha’rt an insolent barstard!’ he roared, and tearing his stocking cap from his head, he threw it to the ground and stamped on it to vent his feelings. David drew in his breath as he saw why the major was in the Veterans. The top of the man’s forehead had been caved in and his scalp ripped from his skull, leaving a wide channel of grotesquely furrowed bone and livid skin behind his caved-in forehead. Abruptly the major’s shouted oaths changed to a scream of pain. He staggered and fell against the door, both hands clapped to his wound.

  ‘God damn their festering souls!’ Captain Picard burst out. ‘I feared this would bring on one of the major’s attacks. He always gets an attack like this when he is baited into fury.’

  The ex-rifle officer ran to the major and, supporting him with his one good arm about the waist, led the groaning man towards the officers’ houses.

  With the major gone, Captain Flaherty as senior officer was left in command. The situation was now at an impasse. The captain was also answerable to the Transport Office and to Parliament in London if he caused any convicts to be needlessly killed, so he in turn dared not open fire with the cannon. The windows of the casemates were small and high up in the brick fronts. They had closed-space grilles across them, which prevented the men outside from throwing in smoke bombs to force the convicts out . . .

  ‘Have you any ideas on what’s to be done, gentlemen?’ the Irishman asked the remaining officers.

  ‘Cannot we break in the doors and drag them out by force?’ David suggested.

  Flaherty shook his head doubtfully. ‘These poor lads are no match physically for the convicts,’ he said, referring to the war-shattered veterans. ‘And at this time there’s only a few artillerymen here in the Fort. There’s nigh on sixty prisoners in each casemate, and even one casemate full would outnumber all our able-bodied fellows . . .’

  ‘Well, what shall we do then?’ Lieutenant Moorhead whispered. ‘I don’t relish standing here and allowing those hounds to mock us with impunity.’

  The Irishman’s twisted mouth grinned. ‘I think that all we can do is to look up at Heaven and beg for a miracle.’ As if God had heard his rueful joke, at that very moment Captain Joseph Ward came riding through the land gate arch and on to the parade ground at the head of his company of grenadiers. The reinforcement for the garrison of Fort Cumberland had arrived.

  The situation was quickly explained to Ward by the veterans’ officers. He had dismounted and was standing with their group on the flank of the battle-line.

  ‘Well, gentlemen, I think that we must begin as we intend to continue. These rebellious dogs must be brought to heel and quickly. The other companies under my command are even now at the dockyard to collect and escort the first detachment of the French prisoners here. If those damned Frogs see fellows of this low calibre holding us at defiance, then I fear it will be impossible to control them. For at least they were soldiers of Napoleon Bonaparte once and undoubtedly retain some pride in that fact.’ Ward spoke directly to Flaherty. ‘Do I have your consent, sir, to deal with this matter?’

  The Irishman’s features were a study of conflicting emotions. At least the unwounded side of his face was, the disfigured part remained a motionless mask. He felt shame that the despised militia should have to be called upon to deal with something that he and his men, through no fault of their own, could not.

  Once more the convicts started to heckle and taunt their guards.

  ‘Why doon’t you fire they big guns, cully? Ain’t you got the bottom for it?’

  ‘Come on in and meet us man to man, you crippled barstards!’

  ‘Yerss, come in . . . Iffen you con walk this far!’

  ‘Come on, walkin’ death!’ one convict shouted, and the jeering cry was taken up by all of them.

  ‘WALKIN’ DEATH! WALKIN’ DEATH! WALKIN’ DEATH! WALKIN’ DEATH!’

  ‘God above, Flaherty! This is not to be borne!’ David exclaimed angrily, and turned to Joseph Ward. ‘Sir, by your leave. Give me the picking of a score of your strongest and most daring fellows, I beg you.’

  Ward smiled fondly at his prospective son-in-law. ‘I’m sorry, David, but it is not the custom of the Third to place our men under the command of officers from another regiment. Particularly when my own lieutenants and ensigns are straining at the leash to get at those rogues in there.’

  ‘Sir, would you add to the shame of the Eighth Veterans by forbidding us?’ Warburton asked quietly.

  The older man studied the despondent faces surrounding him and conceded the point.

 
‘Very well, David. You may select the men and lead them.’

  ‘I must insist, sir, that we all share with Lieutenant Warburton the honour of leading your men. For we must strike at different points simultaneously,’ Flaherty stated firmly, and his companions added their voices.

  ‘I too.’

  ‘And I . . .’

  Ward smiled and nodded agreement. ‘So be it, gentlemen, so be it. I shall watch with great interest, for I’m sure that you will demonstrate to my men how real soldiers conduct themselves in the face of danger.’

  ‘I doubt that there is much danger to be feared from scum such as these convicts,’ Cresswell said scathingly.

  ‘I own to the same feeling,’ Lieutenant Moorehead whispered.

  Ward and the veterans then walked back to where the Grenadier Company was drawn up. The grenadiers themselves were a fine-looking set of men. Not one was less than five feet ten inches in height and many topped six feet. Recruited for the most part from rural districts, their bodies were strong and muscular from years of hard outdoor work and their faces were ruddy with good health. The average age amongst them was around the middle and late twenties, with a leavening of older men.

  Corporal Jethro Stanton stood on the right of his subdivision next to Turpin Wright, who now wore the solitary white chevron of a Chosen Man on his sleeve, and watched the group of officers come nearer. Up until now, Jethro had found nothing to admire in his officers and a lot to dislike and despise. To him the overwhelming impression he had received of officers was that of callous rigidity and stupid inefficiency. He found within himself a cynical feeling of anticipation as to how badly these regular officers would conduct themselves . . . He was forced to admit, however, that from their appearances they were no strangers to desperate conflict.

  Ward and his companions came to stand in front of the centre of the company, and Ward shouted,

  ‘Grenadiers! I have a task for you . . . In the casemates are rioting convicts who refuse to obey the lawful commands of those set above them . . . In a moment I shall call for volunteers from among you to fetch the convicts out from their boltholes and restore order . . . These gentlemen from the Eighth Veteran Battalion will lead you who volunteer. Mind that you bear yourselves so as to bring honour to your company and to your battalion . . . Those men wishing to volunteer, THREE PACES TO THE FRONT . . . MARCH!’ Jethro had no intention of volunteering. His sympathy lay with the convicts.