Beautiful Star & Other Stories

by A D Swanston

  Happily, we soon learnt that Sir John had thought of this and had arranged for my grandmother to live in a cottage on the estate of his friend, Captain John Plummer. I think Sir John felt responsible for the outcome of the trial and wanted to make amends.

  Over the next five years I made many visits to see her there. She was comfortable in her cottage, bothered by no-one and quite happy to sit and talk. Had she but known it, her case was still talked about, although the pamphlets did eventually stop. Anne Thorn and Ann Street both married men who had testified against my grandmother. Sir Henry Chauncy admitted to having been much troubled by his part in the affair. His son Arthur, who had stuck pins in her arm, turned out to be a scoundrel and it was commonly agreed that most of the witnesses were liars. The others, especially the Reverends Strutt, Gardiner and Bragge, believed that Jane Wenham was a witch because they wanted to believe it.

  When Captain Plummer died, my grandmother moved to another cottage, this one on the estate of the Lord Cowper. In the same year, I was married and moved to Cambridge. Then I could only visit her rarely. When she died, I travelled to Hertingfordbury for her funeral. Only the parson, the Lord Cowper and I were there.

  The Button Seller and the Drummer Boy

  1815

  The Button Seller

  The button seller’s horse had gone lame just outside Waterloo and he had had the devil of a job finding a replacement – every charger, shire, Belgian draft pony and rundown old nag having been bought or appropriated by the regimental quartermasters. He was beginning to think that if he was to see the battle, he would have to walk.

  He had left Brussels a week earlier and ridden to the town of Enghien where the First Infantry Division under Major General Sir George Cooke was garrisoned. There he had managed to take orders for pewter buttons from the Second Foot Guards and the Coldstream Guards and would have stayed longer in the hope of more business had the news of Napoleon’s advance over the border at Charleroi not arrived by galloper in the early hours of Friday morning. By dawn the streets of Enghien were jammed with men and horses and carts and wagons hastening to block Napoleon’s road to Brussels. There would be no more business to be done in Enghien, so he had joined the throng of camp followers and artisans and ridden with them as far as the little town of Waterloo.

  It had occurred to him to ride back to Brussels and from there to Antwerp or Ostend to find a passage home, but something – the fear of being thought cowardly perhaps – had made him stay. A civilian he might be, but he was also a proud Englishman, who would not take kindly to being accused of fleeing in the face of the French. In any case, Napoleon had already been defeated once and would certainly be defeated again. And the button seller wanted to be there to see it.

  At the village of Braine-le-Comte his resolve had been tested by a procession of miserable, battered, wounded men heading north, some using their muskets as crutches, others leaning on the shoulders of comrades. Arms and legs and heads were swathed in blood-soaked rags. Few had the strength to speak other than to beg for water. It was the first time the button seller had seen for himself the terrible consequences of battle.

  He had dismounted and sat at the side of the road for a while beside a private wearing the badge of the Third Infantry Division. The young man had taken a sword cut to his shoulder. The wound had been roughly bound with a blood-soaked shirt and the button seller doubted he would last the day. From the private he learnt that the troops now retreating northwards had met the French at a crossroads known as Quatre Bras, from where, having suffered heavy casualties and spent a miserable cold, wet night with little to eat, they had been ordered to retreat. The button seller gave the wounded man the bread and cheese he had intended for his own lunch and wished him luck.

  In the town that evening the stories became more alarming with every telling. In the foul inn in which he spent an uncomfortable night on a narrow straw cot – beds, like horses, being in short supply – he heard that to the east Napoleon had routed old Blucher’s Germans, that Marshall Né, the one they called the ‘bravest of the brave’, having won a decisive victory at Quatre Bras, was now marching north with his invincible Imperial Guard, that Wellington’s army was hopelessly inexperienced and outnumbered and that the French would be in Brussels within a day. The button seller began to think that he might have made a mistake in travelling south.

  The reputation of the Imperial Guard preceded them. Napoleon’s habit of allowing them free rein after a victory had led to rape and plunder on a monstrous scale. Ask any Hanoverian or Brunswicker what he thought of the French Imperial Guard and he would spit and curse and call them defilers of wives and daughters and murderers of innocent civilians and vow revenge for what they had done. If Wellington could not halt the French, the women of Waterloo and of all the towns on the road to Brussels would be at their mercy.

  But, unlike Napoleon, the Iron Duke had never been defeated in battle, would have chosen his ground well and would have devised a plan to halt the oncoming French and send them scurrying, cowed and beaten, back to Paris. The button seller, despite what he had seen and heard, put aside his doubts.

  * * *

  He did not much relish the thought of walking on a morning already sweltering after the thunderstorms of the day before, so it was with relief that he at last found a stable with a single horse remaining and an owner willing to sell it. The sale was quickly agreed at about twice the usual rate; he loaded his bags, mounted, and set off.

  The horse was a stout cob, more accustomed to pulling carts than carrying men, and it plodded along not much more quickly than the procession of local townsfolk that snaked southwards along the road. Some of them pushed carts laden with barrels of ale and cuts of meat and huge round cheeses, others carried wicker baskets on their arms. Whether the baskets were also laden or were to carry souvenirs after the battle, he could not tell, but he supposed that after any battle there would be plunder aplenty, including silver and gold buttons taken from the uniforms of fallen officers. He tried not to think of that. His job was simply to sell the buttons, not to worry himself about what happened to them.

  Passing small groups of women and children heading north – no doubt ordered to leave their husbands and fathers and return to the town – the button seller made his way slowly down the road, wondering, as every other man and woman must have been wondering, what that day would bring.

  * * *

  The firm of Blinks and Blinks, established in the thriving jewellery quarter of the city of Birmingham, had been manufacturing and supplying buttons of excellent quality to military and naval officers and to the tailors who made their uniforms, for many years. The war in Spain and Admiral Nelson’s campaigns at sea had been undeniably good for business and the partners, two brothers, were keen further to enrich themselves by taking advantage of the unexpected opportunity presented by Napoleon’s escape from exile on Elba and his subsequent march to Paris, building his strength as he went. It was not that they had wished for this to happen, merely that it had done so and no businessman worth the name would ignore it. Belgium was awash with British officers who would not countenance a missing button on their uniform or that of a soldier under their command. Every colonel set great store by the appearance of his regiment. A ready supply of replacement buttons, obtainable from the regimental store, was essential if proper standards were to be maintained.

  Blinks and Blinks manufactured buttons in pewter and brass plate and, for officers, in silver and gold plate. Every button was made with a wire shank to facilitate its hanging correctly and carried the insignia of the wearer’s regiment. The button seller’s own favourite was not military but the crown and anchor on the gold-plated button of a naval captain. He sometimes wondered what life would have brought him had he followed the advice of his father and joined the navy. He had not done so because he could not see himself as a fighting man.

  The profit to be had from a single set of buttons was not great. There were other manufacturers and competition for the b
est customers was strong. He had been despatched to London and thence to Brussels with clear instructions from the brothers Blinks. ‘Make yourself known to the quartermasters and officers, speak to their adjutants, speak to anyone in authority. Many regiments are already our customers, some are not. Acquire them if you can. Reduce prices if you must, but do not let a competitor steal a customer from us.’ The brothers would not be happy to learn, for example, that an order from the First Foot Guards had gone elsewhere. The uniform of an officer in that regiment was incomplete without twelve large gold-plated buttons.

  From Brussels he had been able to send back to Birmingham orders not only for the Guards regiments but also for the Light Dragoons, the Grenadiers, the King’s Own German Legion and smaller orders for other regiments. His book of illustrations and the samples he carried had made his task easier but he felt nevertheless that he had done well and hoped for suitable recognition when he returned. Although you never knew with the Blinks. They might be pleased or they might look down their noses at the orders and demand to know why they were not larger. He supposed that was the way of successful businessmen.

  His samples – one for each officer and each private in every British regiment, over fifty in all – he guarded closely. His wife had carefully sewn each one through its shank on to a roll of soft calfskin spaced so that, when it was rolled up, no button touched another. He polished the buttons once every week and more often if needs be. He knew every regimental insignia – and of every naval rank, although he had not brought his naval samples with him on this trip – and could converse knowledgably about the history and honours of each regiment. The gold-plated buttons of an officer of the 19th Regiment of Light Dragoons, for example, were decorated with an elephant and the word ‘Assaye’, while an officer of the 6th Regiment of Foot now wore silver-plated buttons, decorated with an antelope, the regiment’s insignia having been changed a year earlier. And he knew that the way to tell a Third Foot Guard from a Coldstream was by the pattern of buttons on his tunic. There was very little the button seller from Blinks and Blinks did not know about military and naval insignia, most particularly the buttons. It was his job to do so.

  Although he was used to travelling, it was the first time that he had set foot outside England or Wales. His predecessor had travelled in Scotland and Ireland but, as yet, he had not. He had crossed the Channel with mixed feelings. It was a feather in his cap to have been entrusted with the task and he looked forward to seeing a new country, learning its ways, sampling its food and wine and seeing its sights, but he was heading towards the threat of gunfire and had little idea of how long he would be away. Most of all, he had left behind his wife and infant daughter.

  They had been married five years earlier when they were both in their twenty-first year, he a junior clerk in the factory of Blinks and Blinks, she a seamstress. Their daughter had been born two years later. It had been his wife who had urged him to apply for the position of salesman when the elderly incumbent could no longer manage, and had given him the confidence to do so. Without her he would have remained a clerk. ‘If you do not take the opportunity when it presents itself,’ she said, ‘it might never come again. If you put your mind to it, you will be good at it and who knows where it might lead.’

  Thus encouraged, he had presented his application to the partners, although deep down he did not expect it to be successful. But she had coached him well and when the time came he so impressed them with his knowledge of the economics of the manufacturing process and of the requirements of their customers, that they offered him a trial period in the position. Within two years, he had doubled the business of his predecessor.

  Yet despite this, he lacked the ebullient self-confidence of many successful salesmen. He succeeded through diligence and perseverance, never made a promise he could not keep and never let a customer down. Others might blow their trumpets and bang their drums, but his was a quiet way, efficient and, he liked to think, business-like.

  It was a way that reflected both his character and his appearance. At only five and a half feet tall, narrow in the shoulder, bespectacled, his hair already receding, he knew that he could never cut a dashing figure. Nor did he seek to. When on business he wore a tall hat, a black tail coat and a white stock. It had not occurred to him until he had seen him in Brussels that it was much the same manner of dress as that favoured by the Duke of Wellington himself. He had made a mental note to ask his wife’s opinion on the adoption of a different style. He would not want to be accused of copying the duke, nor would he relish being teased for doing so.

  * * *

  A little north of the hamlet of Mont St Jean, the sights and sounds of an army preparing for battle reached him. At first, smoke from camp fires spiralling into the sky, the crash of iron upon iron and the deep thunder of hooves as the cavalry regiments took up their positions; then, as he approached, voices raised in command or complaint and the squelching of boots on ground still wet from the unseasonal rain.

  Soon the road was a mass of troops and their paraphernalia converging on a crossroads from west and east as well as from the north. Carefully, fearful of getting in the way, the button seller dismounted and led his cob to the side of the road, away from the wagons and artillery pieces that were still hurrying south, and picked his way along a narrow strip of grass between the road and the mud of the fields to his left.

  He reached a farm which was being prepared as a hospital. A line of ambulances waited in the farmyard while medics bustled about with bundles of linen, heaps of bandages and wooden stretchers. Among the medics were a number of women – wives and daughters and locals with their strange dog-eared caps, pressed into service. From there he caught his first sight of the allied lines. Stretched out along a ridge, partly protected by its slope, was Wellington’s army. He halted the cob and checked his pocket watch. It was ten o’clock.

  As he came closer, he was able to make out some of the uniforms. To his left, the plumed helmets and red tunics of Inniskilling Dragoons, to his right the bearskins and blue jackets of the Royal Horse Artillery. Before long he had picked out Hussars, Grenadiers and the green-jacketed Riflemen.

  When he reached a second crossroads, he remounted. Below the high ridge on which he stood, the French army had taken up its positions. Its front line was perhaps half a mile away. To east and west, line after line of blue waited for the order to advance. Before them lay undulating fields, rising sharply nearest the ridge. Even to his unmilitary eye, the duke had chosen his ground well. To gain the road north to Brussels, the French would have to march down into the floor of the valley before climbing up to the ridge, and they would be bombarded by cannon every step of the way. At least that was how it looked to him.

  An ancient elm tree stood at the crossroads. Its canopy offered a little shelter from the sun and an excellent view of what would be the battlefield. Mounted on the little cob, he chose it as his vantage point. To left and right Wellington’s army were getting ready for battle. Camp fires were doused, artillery crews heaved their pieces into position, Horse Guards and Hussars struggled to keep their mounts steady, infantrymen checked their weapons and stood in lines abreast ready to fire down upon the advancing waves of blue. At the first threat of attack by cavalry they would form squares to present bristling lines of bayonets from which cavalry horses would shy away. He had never seen the manoeuvre carried out but he had heard it described by a cousin who had fought with Wellington in Spain. When properly formed the squares were a certain defence against cavalry but an easy target for artillery. The cousin had spoken of the terror of standing in square while the men around you were ripped to pieces by artillery shells. But it had to be done. If the square broke, the cavalry would be amongst them in a trice. Shell or sabre – take your pick.

  The button seller let his eye wander over the lines. This was not an army fresh from the parade ground. Boots were splattered with mud, uniforms torn and bloodstained. After the bloody engagement at Quatre Bras there would have been no opportuni
ty for mending or cleaning. Nor would there have been much for sleeping or eating. He could hope only that the French had fared no better.

  From his right a party of riders trotted towards him along the ridge. One he recognised instantly as the duke, in white breeches, white stock, dark blue coat and cloak and cocked hat, and mounted on his favourite chestnut, Copenhagen. Behind the duke rode ten others – eight officers, his aides, and two others in civilian dress, one of whom could not have been more than fifteen years old and carried his arm in a sling. As the party came closer, he could see that the duke had a writing slope attached to his saddle. Was it this, he wondered, upon which the man who commanded the entire army would write orders that might bring victory or – he hardly dared think the word – defeat? The party rode passed him without a glance, crossed the Brussels road and proceeded on down the lane on the other side.

  The button seller looked again at his pocket watch. It was fifteen minutes before eleven o’clock. Suddenly, a cheer went up along the lines. He looked about but could see no reason for it. He nudged the cob with his knees and trotted along the ridge to the nearest troop. ‘May I know what has occasioned the cheer, sir?’ he asked a young lieutenant.

  The lieutenant grinned. ‘You may, sir. A galloper has arrived. Old Blucher and his Prussians will be here by midday.’ So the Prussians had not been entirely routed by Napoleon and their arrival would surely ensure victory. The button seller sighed with relief.

  He thanked the lieutenant and turned to resume his vantage point under the elm. But the vantage point was no longer his. The duke and his party had returned from their inspection and had stationed themselves exactly where he had sat not five minutes earlier. He smiled. Better the commander-in-chief and his aides than an unarmed civilian should have the best seats in the house. He would have to find another spot. Seeking cover behind the lines or returning to the safety of the farmhouse they had passed did not occur to him. He had come this far and he was going to observe the battle for himself. And if the Prussians were close, victory would surely be theirs.