Family of the Empire

by Sheelagh Kelly

‘I’ll try and get a message through to Pontefract!’

  However, his endeavour at communication failed and before any further attempt could be made a stone crashed through the window showering everyone with glass, followed by another and another. ‘Soldiers out! Soldiers out!’

  The mood outside became increasingly frenzied. Someone had set fire to piles of timber and, as it took hold, fed the flames with barrels of oil. Amidst all this was the constant sound of breakage.

  There was more banging on the door of the engine house and inducements for the soldiers to leave. ‘Come out now and you won’t be harmed!’

  His nervous troops looking to him for instruction, a reluctant Captain Baker turned to the police inspector. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to do as they ask.’

  ‘You can’t leave us here, we’ll be massacred!’

  ‘Then you must leave under our protection. The whole situation is ridiculous! I refuse to be held prisoner whilst a magistrate decides whether to give us leave to fire our guns, and I will not subject my men to further humiliation. We shall withdraw and send for reinforcements.’

  Shouting to the rioters that they were coming out, Captain Baker relayed orders for his men to fall in ready to march, then unbolted the door. Warily, the troops began to emerge. A great cheer went up and the crowd parted to make way for them, dancing and singing and waving their banners in triumph. No sooner had the soldiers left the engine house than the mob took over, smashing and wrecking, looting workmen’s toolboxes for anything of value, whilst those who had been sent to quell them were forced to slink from the colliery yard, feeling totally powerless and dishonoured.

  Outside the gates, the captain called for his men to halt, then selected a messenger to go to Pontefract barracks for reinforcements. Stepping in with the offer of his pony and trap the inspector also despatched a man to find out what was keeping the magistrate. Those left behind could only stand in a pitiable state of helplessness and watch the orgy of wanton destruction as the blaze from the timber yard spread to an inferno, engulfing everything in its path, shooting flames and sparks hundreds of feet into the air and illuminating the district for miles around. It was, thought Probyn like a scene from hell. With every corf derailed and hurled down the pit shaft, every window smashed, the mob then attacked the manager’s house, smashing furniture, plates, chandeliers, anything they could lay their hands on came flying through the windows, whilst its owner and his terrified family fled towards the protection of the soldiers.

  Drawn by the raging beacon, the fire brigade and steamer arrived, its men making valiant efforts to douse the blaze but coming under an immediate hail of missiles. Police and soldiers who tried to assist them were also pelted with stones, some seriously injured. Probyn fell back, staunching a cut to his cheek. He became angry then. From the manager’s house came the discordant clamour of a piano in its death throes, books, clothes and family photographs were tossed into the garden and set alight, plants ripped from the greenhouse, every pane of glass smashed. Finally, only half sated, the perpetrators emerged with armfuls of food and beer which they began to consume with impunity, taunting the soldiers with chicken legs before cramming them into their own mouths.

  ‘Where the devil is that blasted magistrate?’ yelled Captain Baker, helping to deal with the injured.

  As if in response at that precise moment a pony and trap arrived bearing a Justice of the Peace.

  ‘Where in God’s name have you been, man?’ demanded Captain Baker. ‘We’ve been waiting six hours for you!’

  The other took offence. ‘I beg your pardon, sir, but it was not myself you were awaiting. I only learned of the situation some minutes ago and might I say I have forfeited a pleasant evening to—’

  ‘Never mind the twaddle!’ Captain Baker shoved him forward. ‘Just get on with it!’

  Confronted with the hellish scene the magistrate paled and tried to hold back but was firmly escorted to within earshot of the rioters. The flames reflected in the whites of his eyes he called for attention and began to recite the Riot Act, ducking frequently to avoid the hail of missiles but attracting several hits before his mission was accomplished and he was allowed to dash for safety.

  At last they were permitted to fight back! The soldiers’ spirits soared and were even more bolstered with the sudden arrival of reinforcements, not only military but police armed with cutlasses. Was Probyn the only one amongst them who struggled with his conscience?

  ‘Fix bayonets!’ A succession of clicks rippled through the night.

  It was then that Probyn saw his Uncle Owen carrying a banner, on the other end of which was his Aunt Meg. He balked in horror and tried to hold back but was perforce swept forward by the mass of bodies behind him as the order was bawled.

  ‘Charge!’

  Run! Run! he begged the rioters and mercifully they did as the company of scarlet thrust across the colliery yard sweeping back the violent tide that retreated before them. Previously helpless, the fire brigade were now at liberty to fight the blaze and rushed in with their steamer. But the mob were only driven back so far before regrouping to approach again with stones which they hurled in accompaniment to screams of malice, roaring with laughter as the soldiers unsuccessfully tried to duck and dodge the shower of missiles, lashing out with vicious clogs at those who had tripped and fallen, and managing to push their opponents back, blood flowing from both sides.

  The bayonet attack having achieved little, Captain Baker gave the order to fire a volley over the attackers’ heads.

  ‘This is more like it!’ yelled the crazy-eyed soldier to Probyn’s left, cocking his weapon with relish.

  Completely at odds with this sentiment, Probyn nevertheless raised his own rifle, took aim with the others and fired into the air.

  That had the effect of checking them, but only for a second and they came on as strong as ever, furious now in their missile throwing.

  Looking grim, the captain barked another order, one that Probyn had been dreading and which froze his blood. ‘Fire two volleys into the crowd!’

  Once more Probyn shouldered his rifle, repelled by the thought of firing upon unarmed people. It was then that he recognized that the person in his sights was Clarence Judson. In that split second all misgivings about his presence here were eclipsed by the anger he felt for the perpetrator of his father’s misfortune. Mercifully there was no time to think about whether he should shoot to wound or to kill for in a trice the order was shouted and carried out. There was the crack of rifle fire, the toppling of banners, the sudden collapse of several bodies, and a pall fell over the throng, all suspended by shock.

  His ears filled with the crackling of burning timber, the smell of cordite tweaking his nostrils, Probyn stood there breathing heavily, the blood pulsing through his veins as he awaited the backlash, noting to his dismay that Judson was unharmed.

  For a second it appeared that the rioters were defeated for they remained stock still, gaping at their fallen comrades, some half-dozen of them. Then, helped by his distraught wife and comrades, one of the wounded staggered to his feet. One hand gripping his banner, the other clutching his thigh, his face contorted in pain, he limped forward, urging the others to follow which they did in a rush, pressing around him to lend their support as he stood toe to toe with the front rank of soldiers and displayed the bloody rent in his trousers, haranguing those responsible.

  So blinded by fury was Owen that at first he did not see that the soldier upon whom he poured his vitriol was his nephew. When he did, a look of sheer contempt took over his face his black eyes gleaming with fanaticism. ‘You, you bugger! Well, we don’t have to ask whose side you’re on do we? So this is what you joined the army for to shoot your own relatives! You traitor! You’re worse than your bloody father, sitting pretty in his own house, no need to kow-tow to the master for a roof over his head!’

  ‘My father’s lying half-dead ’cause of your bloody union!’ Embroiled by conflicting emotions of fury and shame and guilt and f
rustration, Probyn lost his temper, slammed his musket across his uncle’s chest and screamed at him. ‘Aye, you didn’t bloody know that did you?’ he yelled at the sudden change in Owen’s expression. ‘Your mates came round and roughed him up in his own house! Not that you give a damn, all you’re bothered about is your blasted union!’

  Owen recovered from his shock quickly. ‘Away then, maister, shoot me!’ he goaded, and with others jostling around him, pressed his body to the weapon. ‘Do the boss’s dirty work!’

  At this precise moment Judson reappeared, springing like a hobgoblin out of the baying mob, lashing out with an iron bar and smashing it across a soldier’s ear, waiting only to see the blood spurt before vanishing into the crowd.

  Hampered by the squash of bodies, Probyn roared further frustration at his uncle. ‘You’d side with an animal like that over your own brother!’ He was given no chance to say more for with the rioters crowding dangerously in on them Captain Baker gave his soldiers leave to fire at will and they did so with gusto, scattering the miners once more, several of them falling in the panicked retreat.

  Demented by anger, Probyn unleashed round after round, uncaring where the bullets landed, thinking only to avenge his father. He did not see Owen or Meg again.

  For another hour the firing continued apace, succeeding in dispersing the mob but only as far as the wooden bridge over the road which they proceeded to set on fire. At the same time as this some eighty men and four officers arrived from Pontefract Barracks shouldering their way amongst their beleaguered comrades and immediately coming under a hail of stones. Not until a distant clock struck midnight did the crowd finally begin to diminish, only a few militant batches remaining to taunt and jeer, though the flames still roared high into the night.

  Consumed by a sudden weariness, Probyn heaved a sigh and flopped to the ground, others dropping all around him, exhaustion setting in. They had been battling for eight hours.

  A bunch of raw recruits came pelting into the yard then, eager for action but finding only the aftermath.

  ‘Trust the bloody KOYLIs to arrive when it’s all over,’ Probyn heard a Staffordshire man grumble, but was too tired to defend his fellow Yorkshiremen. Try as he might he could not rid himself of Uncle Owen’s snarling face, his words. How dare the man accuse him of being a traitor! He had joined the army to defend his country, could hardly be blamed if he was called to uphold the law of that same country.

  He closed his eyes, but there was to be no sleep that night, he and others remaining as sentries protecting the colliery premises, or what was left of them.

  To his great dismay, the next morning amid a pall of fog and smoke the strikers reassembled, though mercifully did not attack, their violence restricted to black looks and foul words. Replaced by fresh troops he was finally allowed to limp back to the depot, witnessing on his way the great outrages that had been perpetrated throughout the district, shops and pubs stormed, crops pillaged, the homes of scabs wrecked. Standing true and firm, the red turreted walls of the garrison received him, whence, weary and faded he threw himself onto his cot and slept through every bugle call until tea-time.

  Later, when the Staffordshire Regiment entrained for other regions, he departed with them, a state of tension remaining in his wake. Never had he been so glad to leave Yorkshire.

  11

  What had been the point of it? Probyn asked himself many times on his way back to the Cape. If the aim had been to put his mind at rest then it had been a total waste of time for he was as worried and uninformed as ever over his father’s condition. He had thought – it was a terrible admission, but he had envisaged the scene many times and in many different forms but all with the same outcome, the same sense of finality – he had expected to be returning to South Africa with some kind of relief, knowing one way or another if his father was going to survive, but he felt just as bad as on the way over, worse even, after his awful involvement with his uncle. Neither was there any bodily comfort to be had on board, for without cash he had to rely on basic rations, his only recourse being to peel potatoes in the galley to earn himself a little extra food.

  After an exacting voyage the ship anchored at Cape Town in early October. The gardens were vibrant, exotic blossom dripping from wide- pillared verandahs, the air sweet with its fragrance, enormous cream and carmine globes bursting into petal, pastel walls bright and clean against the vivid blue of the sky, the sands of the peninsular white as snow. Even the busy cobbled squares were in total contrast to the hellish crisis at home, all nationalities intermingling – English ladies parading the latest spring fashions, berobed Malays in red tasselled hats, brawny Dutchmen, slender-limbed Indians, plus the usual heaving mass of blacks. Eschewing the chance to become part of its tapestry his body weaved in and out and onwards towards the garrison where he would receive orders on how to get back to Natal, anxious to be amongst his comrades.

  No one seemed sure what to do with him at first. Told by a corporal to stand outside an office and wait, he drifted back into the pensive mood that had enslaved him throughout the voyage, and was glad when the sound of boots jerked him out of this unaccustomed melancholia.

  The newcomer who came to stand beside him was of similar build and age to himself but, wearing an ill-tempered scowl, appeared unapproachable. Probyn merely offered a wary nod then looked away. However, he had noticed that upon his wiry light brown hair the other’s glengarry sported the badge of his own regiment and he could not withhold his curiosity.

  ‘Are you with the Eighty-fourth?’ He used the 2nd battalion’s old infantry number.

  Retaining the bad-tempered glower, his unusually pale hazel eyes staring directly ahead, the other did not answer. Thinking he had not heard, Probyn was about to repeat his query when the answer was delivered in absent-minded drawl.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘So am I! What company?’

  Another elongated pause, the other seemingly miles away. ‘D. You’re in C aren’t you?’

  ‘Aye!’ Probyn frowned. ‘But I don’t recall seeing you.’ The other sported a much deeper tan than his own, suggesting that he had been here a long time.

  Another hiatus. ‘No, well … I don’t stand out like thee. That ginger hair.’

  ‘I’m Kilmaster.’ Probyn glanced approvingly at the other’s shiny boots and dapper appearance.

  ‘Greatrix.’ The voice was very deep, almost a growl.

  ‘I thought your lot were in Maritzburg?’ Probyn awaited the response. The other was still scowling but it did not appear to represent any threat, was probably only a natural feature. It would be effective, though, thought Probyn, in deterring any would-be attacker.

  Eventually came the answer. ‘I were … but then I got made servant to the colonel and he had to come back down here for summat or other.’ Another pause for thought, during which he nibbled on one of his fingernails which Probyn noticed were bitten down to the quick. ‘He brought me with him but then I got injured during manoeuvres and had to go to hospital so that’s my kooshi job up the spout.’

  Probyn sympathized, telling Greatrix of his own similar misfortune, including his father’s apoplexy. But the mention of hospital had evoked thoughts of Mick. ‘Don’t suppose you heard what happened to Melody?’

  Greatrix pondered for what seemed like an age, before finally growling, ‘Can’t say I know him.’

  Difficult though it was, Probyn upheld the conversation and discovered that Greatrix had joined only shortly before himself and had been born not a stone’s throw away from Ralph Royd. This sparked not only fellowship but the need to relate the dire situation at home.

  ‘Have you got relatives in the coal industry?’

  A long gap. ‘Haven’t got any relatives at all. I were left in a back lane as a babby and raised in an orphanage. Took the name of the bloke who saved me from freezing to death.’

  Probyn felt instantly humbled. Here he was grumbling about his family difficulties to a poor chap who had no one at all. ‘Bloomin’ heck,
it makes my troubles look nowt. You should have shut me up when I were yammering on about me dad …’

  Greatrix shrugged. ‘Not your fault.’

  Merely to fill the uncomfortable lull, Probyn began to recount the episode of the strike.

  In return Greatrix informed him that the spot of trouble in Matabeleland had escalated into a war. In his role of batman to the colonel he had overheard all sorts of information and now relayed it to his new friend, though at a painfully slow rate.

  They were disturbed then by the corporal who told them to entrain for Wynberg, there to await orders.

  Whilst not averse to a short sojourn at this pleasant venue, Probyn was confused. He had expected to return to his unit immediately. Faced with the prospect of being amongst strangers he was quite glad of Greatrix’s company, for already, despite the superficial belligerence, he had recognized a fellow traveller. Neither foul-mouthed nor a braggart, nor a defamer of womenfolk, a bastion of the regiment if his spruce appearance were anything to go by, apart from his terrible fingernails, Greatrix would make a worthy pal.

  He was even more glad of this back-up when, immediately upon entering their temporary barrack room, one of its inmates came swaggering up and announced, ‘I don’t like people with ginger hair.’

  Responding with a penetrating stare, Probyn was about to turn away but was surprised by Greatrix’s contribution.

  ‘I don’t like people with stooped posture.’

  The antagonist frowned. ‘I haven’t got—’ He broke off with a gasp as a fist took him full in the stomach.

  ‘You have now,’ drawled Greatrix.

  Uproarious laughter from others showed the newcomers they would face no further conflict, at least not from their roommates.

  The drill sergeant was not to be so accepting. After two months absence from the ranks Probyn found it tough to get back into routine, especially now as the temperature was rising. Greatrix was in an even more pitiable state, his long stay in hospital having drained his stamina, and both were relieved at the end of the week when they were summoned to the adjutant’s office, expectant of a return to their units.