The Iron Master (46 page)

All along the valley nerves quivered, stretched, snapped under the strain. Paid informers found it easier to infiltrate the rebel ranks as numbers grew greater, and unpaid informers eyed the rewards offered and pondered how they could earn them.
The
Wyndendale
Post
brought no comfort to its readers, as force was answered with force. Notices appeared overnight, roughly chalked on walls and doors.

100 GINNY’S REWARD FOR HED OF PRINSE REJENT

The official notices betrayed their lack of knowledge, at least to the initiated. They were prepared to give fifty guineas for information Concerning the Person and Whereabouts of one Jack Straw.

Then the real raids began, executed with an impudence and daring which were far more terrifying than the show of arms. The lessons of the Red Rose had been well learned. No one knew from what part of the valley the next attack would come, and sometimes the rebels would start one attack to draw the troops and then concentrate upon another further away. And they knew the terrain as the military did not. It was mild weather, and the rain hurt no one. Luddites appeared and disappeared like wraiths in the Pennine mists, and used the hills and fells to their own advantage. And many a lad, full of adventure, would lie chuckling in his rough eyrie, watching the redcoats stumble and lose their way on the moors.

At the former headquarters in Millbridge Charlotte and Jack could only wait in sick surmise: swept aside now by the society they had formed and nursed for over a decade.

*

On a fine June night Garth was startled by the explosion of a rocket, which lit the countryside momentarily and dissolved into drops of golden dew: the familiar sign of an invading band. The majority of the troops had been garrisoned in Millbridge, and the few soldiers stationed in Garth considered themselves to be more in the nature of a deterrent than an instrument of war. Prudently, from the tower of St John the Divine, they scanned the territory and decided to stay where they were. And all the villagers doused their lights and barred their doors, knowing what to expect.

The Luddites were gathering in greater numbers that night than the redcoats had ever seen before: forming six abreast in a long column, flanked by guards with muskets, some bearing torches and all armed with stolen weapons of every description. At the front one tall fellow unfurled a red flag. Immediately behind him rose the effigy of Ned Ludd: a man made of straw. The leader gave words of command. They fell into line and began to march briskly through the village street, as precise and formidable as any of King George’s men.

A child woke, hearing the measured tread of many feet, seeing the flare of many torches dancing on the walls, and cried out in terror.

‘Mam! What is it, Mam?’

‘Hush, my lad, hush. It’s nobbut Jack Straw on the march.’

The footsteps passed into silence. Half an hour went by. Slightly ashamed, highly relieved, everyone reached for their tinder-boxes and tallow candles and consoled each other.

‘It’s not our turn tonight, seemingly!’

In Coldcote another rocket soared, and in Medlar, Childwell, Whinfold and Thornley. At each signal another group of Luddites formed into marching order, swelling the original number as they joined together. By the time they reached Flawnes Green an army of five thousand was marching on Millbridge, and as the local troops of redcoats surveyed the odds they drew back to consult with one another. Some suggested going back along the road to see how their comrades had fared, or to join up with them and follow the Luddites. But their ardour cooled again as they discovered that the valley was guarded all the way by riflemen, keeping a watch on the road. When they had been fired at once or twice, and helped a few wounded to safety, they changed their minds and stayed where they were: temporarily trapped behind Ogden’s forces.

As the Luddites passed through each place, the inhabitants breathed more freely, and fastened themselves up close, and would not have ventured forth for a hatful of gold guineas. For the moment they were content that King George’s soldiers should confront the forces of General Ludd, and let the contest come out how it might. Not a mouse stirred in the whole length of that dark valley. The flaming brands wound a golden trail to the town, unopposed, and as the Luddites marched they sang a doggerel verse which had caught their fancy, composed by a young weaver in their midst.

We’ve come to get thee, Master,

We’ve come to break thy loom!

Our steps march faster, faster,

They spell out words of doom.

We’ll take our vengeance on thee,

We’ll fire both house and mill.

And tho’ the world fought for thee,

We’d fight thee still.

We’ve done wi’ dirty dealing,

We’ve done wi’ being good,

It’s our lives tha’rt stealing,

And spending our blood.

But now we’ll even up the score,

So on thy knees, thou’lt rule no more!

LUDD! LUDD! LUDD!

The last line ended in a great shout, and all who heard it thanked God that they were in no way involved.

The soldiers on guard, across the river in Millbridge, took only a moment to make up their minds that this was a direct confrontation. Then they acted. The town’s citizens, hearing bugles blow and the cry ‘To arms! To arms!’ got out of their beds and hid under them. But they need not have feared for themselves. Jim Ogden, at the head of his army, was not at the moment concerned with peripheral sinners against the working classes. He was bent on the chief sinner, who was that instant peeping out of his bedroom window, in his grand house overlooking the town, quaffing at the spectacle.

To Ernest Harbottle’s left was the defending force, mobilising in the Market Square, apparently unaware that the Luddites’ target was not Millbridge. To his right, preparing to assault his property, was the armed mob. In a nightmare, he heard faint shouts of command, saw the mass of men fan outwards to form into two horns and an attacking head. They were coming straight for the most notorious mill of all.

Their song had ceased. A chant took its place which sounded even more outlandish, more terrifying, as it gained rhythm and momentum.

‘Ba-by-lon. Ba-by-lon. BA-BY-LON!’

He wanted to cry out to the soldiers, ‘Not there, you fools! Here!
Here
!’

But they formed ranks, and drilled, like toys in the Market Square, like dolls who were deaf and dumb and blind to reality. Then they took their posts, and waited, rifles cocked, for the invasion which would not come until Ernest Harbottle and all his possessions were in flames.

The mill was working full blast all night, in spite of Peel’s Act which had been passed ten years before. Careful of its profit-makers, Millbridge had contrived to overlook a few broken rules, to wine and dine inspectors who knew which side their wheaten bread was buttered, and to make certain concessions which looked good when printed. Officially, the three mills were working on special orders for the King’s forces, under strict supervision. This latter statement was perfectly correct. Their foremen were picked for discipline.

Jim Ogden, insurrectionist by conviction and profession, had fetched the Wyndendale valley to a pitch of comprehension unequalled in its working history. Rumour had run riot through the valley’s mills for weeks. The Babylon workers, from stunted child to stunted man and drudging woman, knew what Ned Ludd was all about. They were attuned to this moment, this very moment, when a flicker of fear crossed the foreman’s face, when they heard the shouts, when some dared to leave their looms and run to the window and look out, when they alerted their kind, when they shouted in unison with those outside.

‘Ludd! Ludd! Ludd!’

Children with red eyes winding bobbins; children treading cotton in tubs; children yawning and falling asleep on their feet; children whose hands were bleeding from piecing the yarn; children being slapped to keep them awake; children crying out of despair and bewilderment; children who had never been children and might never be adults; children with no future, who had better not have been born. These children paused, wondering.

But their parents, and those older and wiser, seized the moment. One man, bigger than the rest, leaped upon the overseer and seized the leather strap he carried, and began to beat him in a kind of frenzy as though he could not stop. Young women, who had no trace of youth about them, picked up their suckling infants, kept by them in old boxes, and ran for the main door. The mills poured slaves, the cobbles echoed to the clatter of a thousand clogs, and as they ran to freedom, to help the rebels burn the place which had enslaved them, they joined in the shout of ‘
Ludd
!
Ludd
!
Ludd
!’

Charlotte, in addition to her personal troubles, had been asked to house three officers, and was thus forced to watch the reversal of her former policies in company with the enemy. The requisitioning had come upon her so rapidly, and the situation had changed so fundamentally, that all her notes on the Red Rose Society — and enough evidence to hang several people — still lay in a locked box beneath the floorboards of Ambrose’s old room. There Colonel Ryder slept, and so far she had not been able to prise up the boards and burn the papers. The last weeks had been torment to her. The news had swung first one way and then the other. William’s account of the Battle of Snape had saddened her, for she recognised Willie Bowker as one of their people. The thought of Dorcas, old and resolute but privately afraid, concerned her. The story of Dick defending his family, and the house in which they had been born, caused her most grief, for suppose they had been hurt and Kit’s Hill burned? Whichever way she turned, she could find no relief from the thought that she was responsible for this, though it had turned out other than she had planned. And then the officers, courteous to her and grateful for the hospitality and cooking at Thornton House, she could not help but like. They were brave men, and some had been wounded in the long fight with France. They were human beings, having wives and children, or sweethearts and families, who awaited them. The only difference lay in their beliefs, which were not hers.

Now, as the night sky lit with the fires of Belbrook down the valley, she came from her sleepless bed and looked through the window on to the Market Square. The noise of the bugle, the knocking at the front door, had roused her lodgers. They were buckling on their sabres, preparing to mount their horses kept at The Royal George — clattering down the stairs, waking Sally and Polly and herself. Charlotte put on her wrapper, and hurried after them, with her maids following. William’s second footman had scrambled from his temporary bed in the kitchen, clutching his brace of pistols, ready to defend the house against a mad world.

‘Ma’am!’ said Colonel Ryder, saluting. ‘Fear nothing, ma’am. We have had the defence of the town in the forefront of our minds for long enough. You may sleep sound, ma’am!’

A little self-conscious in their role as protectors, the officers ran down the steps and into the melee outside. Sally was crying. It was many years since she had left her family in Garth, and she only visited them to show off her new clothes nowadays, but in the hour of war they became dear to her.

‘Oh, ma’am. Oh, Miss Charlotte!’ she cried, terrified. ‘Whatever will become of my poor mother?’

‘We shall have tea,’ Charlotte decided, as being the most comforting thing she could offer. ‘We shall sit up until all is over, and drink tea.’

At the school the headmaster quietened his assembled boarders. Mind you, they were only half afraid. The other half longed for blood and slaughter, so long as it did not come too close to home. He gave them permission to stay up, provided there was no panic or noise. And he, and the other masters, patrolled the building, keeping order. It was some small comfort to Jack Ackroyd that two members of the original committee were with him. Charlotte was entirely alone. She sat at the window of her front parlour, hands clasped in her lap, and silently prayed for forgiveness.

*

By two o’clock in the morning, at Kingswood Hall, William heard that several thousand Luddites had marched up the valley, and left single riflemen behind them to hold the rear. He acted at once, departing for the ironworks with half a dozen armed servants, leaving enough men behind him to guard his household. He called at Bracelet on the way, and knocked them all up, insisting that Dorcas, Nellie and Tom leave at once for the safety of the Hall, and seeing them escorted thither before he continued his journey. That they were all three old, shaky, and frightened by his urgency did not occur to him. He would have been better to let them alone, but he could not, and they were too feeble to resist him.

By this time Ludd’s army was well on the way to Millbridge, their guards at the rear were no longer upon their mettle, and the redcoats were sufficiently recovered to have thought of counter-attacking. Even as William reached Snape, the small local patrols were finding their way to each other, dodging through the trees and across the fields above the main road. Hearing nothing more, and being the braver for the silence, a number of male householders also reached for clubs, blunderbusses and the like, ready to be called into action should anyone think of doing so. William, now with small-arms and ammunition loaded into a wagon, his force augmented by a number of sturdy neighbours, began to follow the Luddites to Millbridge. At first there were exchanges of gunfire with solitary marksmen, but nothing very serious on either side. Then they met three or four groups of redcoats who had joined up together, which heartened them all. And, in his role as magistrate, William used Luddite methods to combat the Luddites, by knocking on doors and demanding men and muskets. But this time it was in the name of the King.