The Killing Man

by Andrew Wareham

  They put the three under guard and then inspected the stables. There were riding horses there, but they showed no evidence of hard and long work.

  Sergeant Wright separated the three youths, spoke to each, came back shaking his head.

  “No telling, not for sure, sir. Don’t think these three have been out, sir, and there’s no way of knowing where the father might have gone. Might be he’s been off on business, sir, or even down to London, like they do when they got money to spare. They all say they don’t know where the men ‘ave all gone off to. Seems queer, to me, if the men from the village went to war and the Squire did not, sir.”

  “Too queer for my liking, Sergeant Wright. He took them to the war, that’s a certainty, but there’s no reason to suppose that he has brought them back. He could be dead, might still be in the Highlands. They had not caught the Pretender when last I heard, and he will have some sort of escort or army with him.”

  Captain Wakerley told Sam to take the stable lad to the side, out of sight, and there he offered him four crown pieces, a whole pound in easily spent silver. Had the boy displayed gold, he would have been taken up before the magistrates to explain how he had come by it, but he was paid in silver, even if very little of it, could use a crown anywhere.

  “Two pound, sir. One don’t pay what I needs. Wants to take ship to Americky, sir, so I do. Don’t like it ‘ere. Can’t go nowhere else for bein’ taken up as a runaway servant. Got to go over the seas.”

  Captain Wakerley understood the problem. The boy had signed as a servant, probably until the age of twenty-one; in all likelihood, his father had bound him over to the Squire, probably being paid a few shillings a year for so doing. The boy-servant received pocket money rather than a wage, but would learn a trade, in this case, the stables. If he ran, he was committing a criminal offence, one which would earn him a flogging and possibly a sentence of imprisonment, perhaps even transportation to the Sugar Islands.

  “Three pounds, if you tell me everything…”

  The boy talked. Working in the stables, he knew who came visiting, and sometimes he would ride out himself carrying letters. He had heard names of local dignitaries, and he gave them to Captain Wakerley.

  The captain rode into Lancaster with the information, sufficient to arrest a dozen of local squires and to escheat their lands to the Crown. The Rebellion had been expensive, and the sudden gain of ten thousand acres, lands to be sold, or granted, to the loyal, would be very welcome.

  Sergeant Wright remained with his section, the remainder of the troop going as escort to Captain Wakerley.

  There was still an hour of daylight, time to walk a horse around part of the estate, to see whether there were men out of sight of the manor house.

  “Sam, you and one man to go straight down the hill for a mile and circle round to the right, back here before dark. I’ll go down and swing left. Simon, you stay with Smithy and Henry, get the kitchens to put a meal together for us.”

  Sergeant Wright explained to Sam that Simon was next on his list for promotion to corporal, could take charge of little jobs for the while. He would be able to keep the dubious pair under control – it was better than allowing them out of sight among the farmsteads and villagers.

  “Got to be a village of some sort, Sam, in a place this big. Tucked away under the hill, sheltered from the winds and storms, so I reckons.”

  They parted ten minutes later, Sam riding off to the right and finding a steep and narrow river valley running off the Pennines and blocking further progress. He turned uphill and was back inside another quarter of an hour. He swung down from his horse outside the barn, heard a muffled scream and swore, turning to the pair of troopers behind him.

  “Pistols.”

  He drew his sword and marched into the half-light of the barn.

  There was a naked girl, held down by two of the men while the third mounted her; all three of the troopers had their breeches around their ankles. Sam swung with the flat of his sword, caught Simon round the head, knocking him off the girl, half-conscious.

  “Let her go! Get over to the side.”

  “We was only…”

  “Shut up and move, Smithy. Now.”

  “But…”

  Sam turned to the man on his left.

  “Shoot the bastard, Johnny.”

  The pistol cracked, loud in the enclosed barn, and Smithy fell, clutching his guts and starting to howl. Henry ran to the side. Sam kicked Simon across to join him.

  “Johnny, go to the kitchen, get two of the women out here to look after this poor little sod.”

  The girl was barely grown, still flat in the mud of the barn floor, wailing.

  The women came running, took in the scene, picked the girl up and helped her away. One, the oldest, stopped in the doorway, pointing at the three.

  “That one’s going to die, soldier, slow. What about the other two?”

  “Up to the Captain when he gets back. Either they swings from the rafters in here, or he takes them into Lancaster, to the court there – then they hangs on the local gallows. He’s the officer, he decides.”

  “That one you shot – he started it, but they others was quick to join ‘im.”

  “I reckoned they might try summat, the two of them, but I thought the bloke who was left with ‘em would stop it. I didn’t reckon on ‘im joinin’ in. Mate of mine, used to be. Now, I’m goin’ to laugh as ‘e swings.”

  Simon was listening, only two yards distant, still with his breeches down. He bent to clothe himself, fell to Sam’s swinging backhand.

  “You took ‘em off. Stay that way till the officer sees you, bastard!”

  Simon started to weep, blubbering that it wasn’t his fault, he hadn’t started it.

  “You was supposed to end it…”

  Smithy started to scream again, made further speech impossible.

  “Shall I finish the poor sod, Corporal?”

  Johnny had reloaded, pointed his pistol down at Smithy. Sam put an arm out, stopped him.

  “No. Let him die slow, Johnny. For me, ‘e can scream ‘is bloody ‘eart out, the dirty good-for-nothing whore’s son!”

  Johnny shrugged.

  “No skin off my nose, Corporal Heythorne. Asked for it, so ‘e did.”

  Sergeant Wright returned, was quickly told what had happened by the others, came into the barn forewarned.

  “Put ‘em into irons, Corporal Heythorne. Full shackles. Captain will see them in the morning.”

  They had three sets of leg-irons and handcuffs, ankles and wrists joined by an iron chain; they decided that Smithy did not need full restraints, locked one wrist to a post in the stable in case he was less wounded than it seemed and might try to escape in the night.

  There was a stew ready in the kitchen; they ate silently until the cook came in with a loaf of fresh bread, sliced up six ways for the remaining men of the section.

  “You want them fed out in the barn?”

  “Sod ‘em.”

  “That’ll do me, soldier. Waste of good food – they won’t ‘ave time to get it through them, will they?”

  “Not if I ‘as my way, missus.”

  Sam was bitter that Simon should have let him down so badly – he had trusted him as an old friend, but he had shown vicious, given the opportunity. He had thought, hoped even, that maybe Simon might have taken up with his sister – they had been good friends. He was glad now that nothing had eventuated.

  They waited through most of the morning, Captain Wakerley reappearing close to noon at the head of a full squadron of regular light dragoons, escorting a bunch of civilians, some of them in chains.

  “Sheriff and his officials, Sergeant Wright. Arresting the named traitors and taking possession of their estates. They will take over here, as well. What has happened? Why so few?”

  “Three in irons, sir. Attacked one of the maids, sir, while we was out looking over the village and farms, sir, to see what was what. Smithy’s almost dead, for being shot, resisting when
we stopped what was happening. Henry and Simon both as they were taken, sir.”

  Sergeant Wright pointed to the half-naked, chained figures. Captain Wakerley nodded and turned to the best-dressed and bewigged senior civilian.

  “Drumhead court-martial, or will you prefer the Assizes for them, Sheriff?”

  The Sheriff shook his head gravely – the Assizes was going to be very busy at its next sitting, would have a dozen and more of traitors to be sentenced and then taken to execution, dragged on a hurdle in the most traditional fashion. There would be no space for vulgar criminals.

  “Summary justice, Captain. They have been taken in the act, it seems. Has the victim laid complaint?”

  Sergeant Wright answered.

  “She’s no more than a girl, Your Honour, and in no state to be saying anything yet.”

  The Sheriff shook his head again, genuinely angered now – he had grandchildren.

  “I can act as a magistrate when the need arises, Captain Wakerley. Guilty as charged, Captain; a capital offence. Write your report of the proceedings, sir, and send it to me for the record. Carry out the sentence at your early convenience, sir.”

  “Is Smith still alive, Sergeant Wright?”

  “He was last time anybody looked, sir. Half an hour back.”

  “Three ropes then. There’s a tree with thick branches, I see. Better than doing it inside the barn and making the locals feel it might be unlucky.”

  Sam provided the ropes, having searched through the stables earlier in the morning. He did not know how to tie the traditional hangman’s noose, made do with a simple slipknot. The branches pointed out by Captain Wakerley were ten to twelve feet off the ground in an old yew, the ground underneath full of surface roots, impossible for a wagon.

  “Stick them on their horses, bareback, Corporal Heythorne.”

  “Sir.”

  It took an hour to climb the tree and fix the ropes; after that it was no more than ten minutes to haul the three up onto horses and lead them to the noose.

  “Ready, sir.”

  “Well done, Corporal Heythorne. Turn them off.”

  The men holding the halters led the horses forward, let the three fall back over the rumps and swing. Smithy gave one final howl of agony as he was stretched out straight; the other two died silently.

  Sam tidied up in the barn, collecting the possessions of the three. Simon’s knapsack was heavier than expected; glancing inside he found a pair of dragoon pistols, wrapped up in a piece of sheepskin, greasy and protecting them from rust. He wondered where they had come from, transferred them to his own bag – they might come in handy, one day.

  “Three carbines; three straight swords; six pistols, Sergeant Wright.”

  “Give em here, Sam. There’s a cart in the stables, which is going with us when we leave. Bit of grub from the kitchens as well. Put their saddles on board. Smithy’s horse in the shafts and the other two on leads behind. Johnny says he drove a wagon for his master before he joined, so he can sit on the seat, and put his horse on a leading rein too.”

  There was a lane leading down from the manor house that connected with a real road that ran south from Lancaster. They walked slowly down, away from the troubles of the northern lands and back towards their own part of the country. Three days later they were given places in the Militia barracks in Derby, the sole Yeomanry unit present.

  Captain Wakerley paraded them and told them they had done well. Then they returned to barracks and waited for whatever might come next.

  Nothing happened for a week – they were ignored, forgotten, left to fester in a dark corner, it seemed. Sergeant Wright marched them to the kitchens to pick up rations each morning and brought them back to their barrack room to eat – all separately from the three companies of militia also in occupation. He explained briefly.

  “They need orders for us, lads. We are no more than a small troop what has taken losses on campaign and ain’t of a size to do anything useful. They can’t send us away to join another county’s yeomanry, because we are recruited to the Derbyshire allotment; they don’t want to go to the extra expense of getting a full regiment of yeomanry together, because the Rebellion is over and we ain’t needed. They can’t simply pay us off, not without authorisation, because we signed on for two years. We are what is known to the Army as ‘a pain in the arse’, because we don’t fit in. So, they must have sent off to the Lord Lieutenant of the County first, and he won’t know what’s best to do; he’ll have written a letter down to Horse Guards in London, asking what to do with us, whether we should be disbanded, and they won’t know, because the Duke of Cumberland has named us in his despatches as doing a good job. So, they have to make a decision, but they can’t. It will have to go higher up, might be to the Duke himself, and that will take time. I reckon we’ll be lucky to hear anything inside of two months.”

  “So, we just sits here and waits, Sergeant Wright? What about pay? We ain’t seen a penny piece since we signed on.”

  “Captain Wakerley knows that, Sam. He will be talking to them as well. Don’t you say a word about nothing outside of this room. You got money tucked away, that I knows – keep it hidden! If, just perhaps, they don’t know that they bought your horse off you, well, either you rides away on your own nag one day, or they pay you, all official like. Same for the rest of your equipment. I’m looking to get me hand on issue straight swords, so as to lose these buggers what you’ve put a point on. If I can’t find any, then you supplied your own swords, what wasn’t official pattern, but close to. Then they got to pay you for them. Then there’s the bounty what you was promised at the end of service – how much was that?”

  Sam shook his head – they had never specified an exact sum.

  “Neither they did, and now they got to work out what it ought to be, the more because you been promised extras for doing good service in Scotland. So, young Sam, the thing to do is keep your trap shut – not a word to any bugger! Let them work it out. They might try to fiddle you – but the Duke of Cumberland knows who we are, and he might be upset if they did. Keep silent and wait. There ought to be a pay parade soon – though they ain’t come to me for pay dockets yet, and I got to write them out for each of you, that being a sergeant’s job.”

  They all had coins on them, more than sufficient to buy extra food or to eat in those inns that would permit a scarlet coat through their doors. They had enough to amuse themselves as well and enjoyed what amounted to a holiday – neither soldiers nor civilians, with neither duty nor work to interfere with their pleasures.

  Captain Wakerley appeared after nearly three weeks and brought them together in the room.

  “We laid our hands on an amount of goods stolen by the Jacobite rebels from unknown people in England. That was mostly silver plate that they had stolen, as you know, but also some personal belongings of the richer clansmen. That has been valued by the Army, put into the official Prize Fund. It was safer to do it that way rather than attempt to carry the valuables away and risk being caught as looters.”

  They nodded; there had been a number of massive floggings, men beaten almost to death and crippled for stealing from the wrong people, which had left them inclined to be virtuous.

  “The tickets have been written out and will be in the paymaster’s hands when he arrives here. That won’t be for a few weeks, I expect. The matter of a bounty is under discussion and will be decided within the next month. There is also the question of a reward payable for your meritorious service – that will be decided very soon. I have been granted one of the estates that escheated to the Crown as a result of our uncovering the names of the traitors in Lancashire. It is only the smallest, but that amounts to many years of pay, as you will realise. I think that the intention is to be generous to you as well. I believe – I am quite certain, in fact – that one at least of those discovered to be a traitor was by way of being an opponent of the Newcastle interest. As a result, the politicians love us.”

  Captain Wakerley stopped as he realised
that the faces of his audience were utterly blank – they knew nothing of political affairs, did not know the names, certainly had never been informed that the Prime Minister was the younger brother of the Duke of Newcastle.

  “Well, let us just say that we were lucky. Four or five weeks from now, I expect, and you will hear of what is to be done for you. For the while, I am to go to half-pay, having much to do now with a new estate to bring together. Sergeant Wright will remain in command until all is tidied.”

  Sergeant Wright explained later that Captain Wakerley had come into his family’s land four years previously, only a few hundred acres but down in the lower part of Derbyshire and cropping well. They were, or had been, lesser members of the County, gentry, but only on the fringe of the powerful.

  “Got to be worth two quid an acre, cash in hand every year, and the better part of four hundred acres.”

  An income of eight hundred pounds was vast, in their opinion. Sam knew that his father managed to keep the family in food and pocketed perhaps ten pounds a year on top of subsistence after he had paid his rent and tithes and Poor Law.

  “Now he’s got another estate, Sam. Won’t be so rich, for being further north and higher and colder, but it’s still going to be worth a good few quid a year. On top of that, they’ll want to look after him for being loyal – they’ll give him jobs that don’t involve any work but pay an annual stipend. Time they’ve done, he’ll be taking in two thousand a year, I don’t doubt, and he’ll find himself a comfortable wife as well, with a few quid of her own. Fallen on his feet, has the Captain. Good chance that a son might make a title, or something.”

  They agreed – the Wakerley family had had a good Rebellion.

  “Being a decent sort of an officer, he’ll want to look after you blokes, for working with him and making everything come right. So, just keep quiet and wait, lads. Don’t get too drunk, don’t make a riot.”