The Killing Man

by Andrew Wareham

  There was a sudden musket shot; Jim fell, silently, chest spouting blood. Sam, about to fire, spun round, saw a soldier, breeches around his ankles, standing out of the bushes where he had retired for his morning performance. Sam fired, hastily, hit him in the exposed thigh, saw the artery gush, turned to his reload, knowing that one was finished.

  Jim was dead, he thought, there was just too much blood surrounding him. He took careful aim at a soldier who was reaching towards a musket, hit him square in the chest.

  ‘Three. Add Jim’s two. Then the one with the bust leg, he ain’t doing nothing. One more.’

  He looked about, saw threshing in the bushes, a man staggering, falling and rising again. He ran, grabbed up a musket in passing, came within a yard of the one trying to escape, saw that a rock had hit his head, had caved in a cheekbone by the look of it. He pushed the musket forward, almost touching the man’s back, pulled the trigger on the off chance it was loaded. The soldier was thrown forward, a great hole opening through his spine. Sam dropped the musket, not ready for the recoil. The soldier had one of the long spear knives at his waist – bayonets, his Da had called them; Sam took it, turned to the fire.

  The man with the broken-up leg was still, weeping almost silently. Sam looked at Jim, checked that he was not breathing, walked across to the soldier and cut his throat, just as he might finish a rabbit.

  “Seven blankets, Sam. There weren’t no more.”

  “Roll ‘em up, Simon. Might come in ‘andy over winter. What else they got?”

  They made a collection of the soldiers’ possessions.

  Each had a knapsack, with small pieces of silver plate and cutlery wrapped up inside.

  “Sods! They thieved these from someplace, Sam.”

  “Ours now, Simon. Split ‘em four ways – Jim’s dad can ‘ave ‘is share.”

  Bob burst into tears.

  “Jim’s dead, Sam. What we goin’ to do?”

  “Come back with one of they ‘osses, tomorrow, bring ‘im back to bury ‘im proper-like. Can’t carry ‘im ourselves.”

  “The foxes and the crows will get at ‘im if we leaves ‘im, Sam.” Simon tried to be practical, not to break down as well.

  He was right, Sam knew. He thought quickly.

  “Lift the poor bugger over beside the loose rocks over there.”

  There was a scree, fist-sized rocks in a long slide on the northern side of the old pit. They mounded rocks a foot deep over Jim, sufficient to protect him for a day, until they could come back for him properly. They wrapped the heavy muskets up in blankets, put them next to him, to be collected at the same time.

  They set off downhill, driving the sheep slowly in front of them. All had worked with sheep occasionally; Squire had had a flock and they had given a hand shifting them up to summer pasture and back down at the start of winter.

  They turned the flock towards the south as soon as they could, using the open moorland when they were off the tops, away from the threatening snow clouds. The sheep pottered along slowly, little more than a mile in an hour, and they knew it was pointless to try to hurry them.

  “We ain’t getting them back before dark, Simon. What do you reckon to trotting off and telling they what’s ‘appened?”

  “Bob’s faster on his feet than me, Sam.”

  Bob agreed.

  “I’ll do it, Sam. I ain’t done nothing worthwhile yet.”

  The pair were just able to keep the flock together, moved them on steadily.

  “There’s a bloke down the dale, Sam. Do you see ‘ee?”

  Sam looked where Simon pointed, saw a man walking uphill.

  “Who is ‘e?”

  “Never seen ‘im before, Sam.”

  “Thass a fowling-piece ‘e’s carryin’, Simon. Did you load that old pistol again?”

  “Aye.”

  “Give it to me, then. Just in case.”

  Sam held the pistol out of sight, behind his back. The man came closer. He was dressed in cast-offs, looked like a poor labourer, a casual worker with a bit of a shelter of his own, working at harvest and spring ploughing and sowing and poaching and scraping a living as he could the rest of the year.

  “What you boys doin’ wi’ them sheep?”

  “Bringin’ they back, mister. Bloody soldiers stole they.”

  The man started to smile, sneering at them.

  “So they did. From me. They’s my sheep.”

  “Who says?”

  “I bloody do, boy! And I’s the one what’s got a gun, so shut your bloody mouth and bugger off!”

  Sam shot at him and did not miss.

  “Pick up the old fowling-piece, Simon. Could be useful.”

  Their fathers met them next morning, took over the sheep and drove them the five miles remaining while they led Jim’s father with his horse back up the moors. Sam made sure their route avoided the location of the extra body.

  They split the flock between the four farms. They would end the winter better off than they had started, apart from the loss of Jim, and he had brothers.

  Sam sat down to a rich stew that evening, his Ma having cooked up dried meat from the soldiers’ rations with barley and onions and hunks of turnip. They rarely ate this well in winter.

  “Da, ‘as you done anything with that ‘oss I brought back?”

  “Market next week, Sam. The four of us going with the ‘osses and they old cows you brought back, and the muskets as well.”

  “Suppose you shows me ‘ow to load and point a musket, Da. Then I goes out with Simon and Bob, if they’s willin’, ridin’ on the ‘osses. Might be we can find summat else on the way north.”

  Mr Thwaites shook his head, it was far too dangerous for a farm boy; then he thought deeper and agreed. Sam was lost to the farm now, and he was no longer a boy, he realised, but, as a younger son, he would want to find something better than to be a labourer to his elder brother when he reached manhood. He corrected himself – Sam was a man already, he had killed like a man and now he saw a chance to lay hands on a man’s money.

  “Grab a lantern, Sam. Us two can go and talk to the others now.”

  They set out in the dawn, Sam leading Simon and Bob, and Jim’s brother Eddie, who was a year younger but big built; four horses in the dawn, each with a musket in the saddle boot and with powder and ball at their belts, as well as a long knife or bayonet. They headed onto the tracks across the moors, thinking it wiser to keep clear of the roads where the redcoat army should be marching, and possibly disapproving of local initiatives.

  Chapter Two

  The Killing Man

  The track kept to the lower reaches of the dales, part way up the sides often, above the muddy bottoms, but never on the tops, except when crossing from one dale to another. The horses made good time, faster than a man could walk, and far more comfortably.

  “Not been many folks using the track, Sam. Hardly worn down at all.”

  Sam peered at the track in front of them, agreed that there was nothing by way of hoofprints and little of boots cutting up the turf.

  “Ain’t that many people hereabouts, Bob. No soldiers, that’s for sure. You reckon we should be up on the tops, Bob?”

  “Not yet, Sam. Get a few miles in afore we do that. Soon as we sees a place, before we gets to it. What’s around this part, Sam?”

  “Not much. There’s three lead workings, so Da said, but I ain’t ever seen they meself. One place what knocks out a bit of silver as well. Most of the workings is a bit over on the west of ‘ere, so Da says.”

  “My old man says the same, Sam,” Eddie contributed. He was normally silent, never spoke unless he had something useful to say. He did not seem much upset by Jim’s death, Sam had noticed, possibly because it had made him eldest of the surviving boys. Eddie was now the one who would take over the family holding and would be able to marry and raise a family, something that a younger son could not do without leaving the farm and finding well-paid work, which was thin on the ground.

  “I were g
oin’ to go lookin’ for work in one of they places, Sam. Thass why my Da talked about them.”

  Bob listened and knew that silver was valuable.

  “You reckons they soldiers knows about the silver, Sam?”

  “They’ll pinch it, if they do, Bob.”

  “Suppose we was to catch they, Sam…”

  “Then we takes the silver off ‘em, Bob. Well and good, so long as they ain’t too many of they. Add to that, what do the likes of us do with silver? It ain’t goin’ to be tanners and shilling pieces – it’ll be silver in lumps, in bars of metal. What do us do wi’ it? Go to the market and set out our stall there? Farmers got no business wi’ silver. We goes to market in Leek or Buxton and sells a cow, well, thass all ‘ow it should be. We tries to sell a lump of silver and ‘ow we goin’ to say we grew that in the back field?”

  The three pondered Sam’s question and realised that what he was saying made simple sense. If they tried to sell silver, then they would be announcing themselves as thieves.

  “What about the plates and knives and spoons we took off they soldiers, Sam?”

  “They stays at ‘ome, Simon. Come weddings and buryings, they comes out to be seen – been in the family since forever. Can’t sell ‘em.”

  That made sense, they agreed; their mothers would be happy, having something special in the dresser, just to be shown off sometimes.

  “We don’t need to go near they old mines, Sam. Askin’ for trouble.”

  “Thass what I reckons, Bob. Go up to the tops and take a look about. If so be we sees nowt, what is likely for a day or two, we drops back down to the track ‘ere and keeps on goin’. I reckons three days is most we ought to go on. If we picks up a cow or two then, take the better part of another week to bring ‘er back ‘ome.”

  They nodded uneasily – Sam was talking about going far foreign. Three days travelling was the better part of sixty miles, maybe a bit further; none of them had been as far as ten miles from home, nor had expected to in all of their lives.

  “Worth it if we picks up more beasts, or turns out the pockets and bags of they thieves and takes back some of the stuff what they got.”

  They agreed it made sense to venture so far, if they were careful. They geed up the horses, keeping an eye out for movement above them and to the front.

  In mid-afternoon Sam decided they had travelled as much as fifteen miles and that it was time to go up high and look about them.

  They were on high moorland, a little lower than the Peak, they thought, but still wild and thinly populated land.

  They spotted the line of a bigger dale than most, angling back to the south east, leading down to the lowlands. They did not know its name – it was too far from home.

  “Be a roadway there, Sam.”

  “Likely, Simon. Coming up and cutting across the top and then dropping down again to the north of here. Likely to be the way an army would want to follow.”

  They turned the horses away, more directly to the west where they were less likely to be disturbed by redcoats.

  An hour of travelling brought them to a smaller dale leading down to the lowlands, the head of a small river going west; there was a farm in sight, well sheltered in the valley, a few trees giving extra cover.

  “They burned that place, Bob. Roof’s gone, look.”

  They rode down the slope, needing a place to lay up for the night and hoping to find a bit of cover, even though there would be no people, they expected, or not alive at least.

  There had been a small farmhouse, no bigger than any of theirs, two rooms and a loft divided up into bed spaces, and a barn and a pigsty. All was empty.

  “Burned out yesterday, Sam. Some of the thatch is still smokin’.”

  “If they wasn’t killed, they must have run off to find family someplace else, Simon. The bloody soldiers will ‘ave took the animals.”

  There was no sign of the farmer or his family and the larder and barn was empty of all foodstuffs, for people or animals.

  “Ain’t no cellar they could ‘ave ‘idden away in, is there, Sam?”

  There was no sign of any such.

  They lit their own cooking fire and stirred up a hot porridge to go with their bread and dried meat. Thin fare, but sufficient for their needs for a few days. They used the last light to look for a road or lane – there had been a cow or two and the swine, should be some sign of them.

  They found a broad drover’s way, leading down to the lowlands, with marks in the softer ground that might have been made recently.

  “Maybe gone down the track, Sam. Ain’t worth chasin’ after ‘em, is it?”

  There must be a village within a few miles. The farmer would have gone there, possibly had got his stock out in time, having seen the soldiers in the distance. If the soldiers had left him and his family alive they would have been able to find shelter, and the village men might well have gone out to hunt down the marauders. There was no gain to running into them and possibly getting into a fight.

  They went back up to the tops again at first light, spotted movement within an hour of setting out.

  There was a lane, able to take wheeled traffic and showing ruts, probably leading down to the big road they thought ran to the southeast.

  “Roadway out, I reckons. Might be a village or two up ‘ere, close to the tops. People what works mines, maybe, and got to live close to ‘em. They have to have a road to take the metal down, as well.”

  There were no farming villages up on the tops, but there had to be a reason for carts.

  “That’s a wagon up ahead, Sam.”

  “Go and say howdo, I reckons, Simon. If so be it’s local folk, they can tell us if they seen owt.”

  Sam had no need to finish the statement, to say what they would do if it was Scottish soldiers.

  They trotted at the side of the lane, on the turf rather than the rough stones of the surface, protecting their horses as well as they could. It also made them far less noisy.

  The wagon was four-wheeled, drawn by a pair, which was rare in their experience, almost all transport in their area was no more than two-wheeled one-horse carts. It had a canvas tilt over the top, open to the front but with flaps tied over the rear. There was a pair of men sat on the front board, one of them cradling a musket.

  “Bob! You and Eddie get over the other side of ‘em, a bit to the back. If they starts into fighting, you put the driver down and bring ‘er to a stop. Simon, with me, mate.”

  Sam circled out to the left, brought himself into sight of the two drivers, his musket out of the saddle boot and held across his lap as he walked the horse towards them. The guard with the musket watched but did nothing; he had one shot only, must be killed by the second man even if he managed to hit one. He nodded to Sam as he came close.

  “Who’s you, mister?”

  “Goin’ back to Manchester, peaceful-like. Got three wounded men, officers, in back. Takin’ them ‘ome.”

  “You with them Scottish men?”

  “Not no more. We buggered off from they sorts. Just lookin’ after the men what’s got ‘urt.”

  That hardly made sense to Sam – using a big wagon just for three wounded men, even if they were officers. If they were badly hurt, then they would be better off in a bed somewhere rather than being bounced about on the roads for three or four days. He rode closer, almost within arm’s reach, trying to look into the back. He could see no men laid out inside. There were boxes and sacks, but no pallets with wounded officers.

  “Put the musket down, mister. You’s bullshittin’ me.”

  The guard swung the musket hard, trying to rap the barrel across his skull, possibly then to shoot at Simon. Sam triggered his own short-barrel carbine, blew his chest apart at a yard’s range, knocking him down to the ground between the wheels. The driver shouted and jumped off the seat, directly into the path of Eddie who rode him down and quickly dismounted and stuck him with the bayonet held in his hand.

  Simon grabbed the reins up at the bit of the n
ear horse and the wagon stopped.

  “Daft sods. They could ‘ave walked off for me, Simon.”

  “Their choosin’, Sam. They didn’t ‘ave to fight.”

  They shrugged, having discovered in the space of a few days that it was easy to kill soldiers, and meant very little.

  Bob had climbed up into the wagon.

  “Sacks of flour, Sam, six of they. Cor! Flitches of bacon, Sam, eight big buggers, more nor I ever see before, even down to the market. Crates wi’ bottles in ‘em – that wine stuff, I reckons. Couple of barrels, smells like liquor, so it do. Cheeses, all wrapped up proper-like in they cloths. Some sort of leather bag, a box sort of thing, Sam, what is bloody ‘eavy. All tied up with a bit of chain.”

  “You knows what this lot is, don’t you? They pinched the grub off they officers, all the good stuff what they keeps for themselves, and they was goin’ to sell it off in the market in a big town, for money. We can take this lot back ‘ome to Hucklow, I reckons. The wine, well, vicar will take that offen us – ‘e drinks that stuff. Sell the ‘ard liquor to the boozer down Tideswell way – Da says the gaffer there keeps all sorts acos of it’s an inn, like. Might sell it to my Uncle Abe, what got a pub of his own, but ‘e’s a good few miles distant. Bacon and flour and cheeses goin’ to give us a bloody good old winter.”

  They turned the wagon and started back towards home.

  “What about that big leather bag, Sam?”

  “Dunno. Take a look inside when we gets down into the dale and out of sight. Got to be somethin’ worth the bother, or they wouldn’t ‘ave kept it.”

  Shifting the wagon downhill on the rough track was hard work, Eddie driving and the other three walking their horses alongside and frequently needing to dismount and free a wheel or clear rock from the track, occasionally having to put their shoulders to the bed and push. It took two full days to bring the wagon to the road leading south and home, then half of the next morning to get back to the farms. They were too tired to bother with the leather bag in the evenings.