The Iron Master (47 page)

Sincerely determined, but experiencing a
frisson
of delight at the adventure and the hour, the ironmaster rode sternly at the head of his civilian column on a white horse. And in front of them, bullied back to their senses by a furiously moustached sergeant, the reunited soldiers now marched briskly, looked round them alertly for signs of rebels, and once more shouldered their rifles with bravado.

That spur of land which Ernest Harbottle had rented so reasonably from Lord Kersall, and built into a swarming township of his own, was now surrounded. For every Luddite who shouted his battle cry there was a slave to echo him, an extra pair of hands to help him stack kindling round the mill. Some called for a battering-ram to break into the owner’s villa, and began to saw down noble trees at the end of Ernest Harbottle’s fine garden. Some picked up an iron bar or a wooden cudgel and prepared to avenge a private grievance, a personal injury. Many were the houses, that night in Wyndendale, which suffered professional visits from burglars who took advantage of the moment. Many were the little tyrants who recognised, under the mask of Luddism, a humble single enemy come to strike them down.

The Luddite army was being hindered by help. Ogden and his lieutenants called their forces together and bade them stay together, let the rest do what they would. Thirty years since, Jack Ackroyd and a mere fraction of these numbers had taken and burned down the first spinning-mill in the valley without loss of life, without a wound, without redress: quickly, quietly and efficiently. But this great mob screamed orders and countermanded them, fetched and carried away again, fought to be among the vanguard, snatched weapons even when they could not use them, and hampered those with cooler heads and more purposeful minds.

Not everyone was out of the Babylon mill. There were children sleeping head to tail in the crowded dormitories, overseers keeping feebler women back, men lying dazed where they had been knocked down and trampled in the rush for freedom. But there was no time for considering niceties such as these. The spearhead of Luddites thrust their way in, and the few defenders fled, hoping to be taken for rebels until they could creep away. Through the great clanking, clattering rooms ran the Luddites, yelling to everyone to get out of their way if they valued their lives. They had fetched barrels of gunpowder with them, oil and fuses, and they shouted that any who stayed would be blown and burned to hell. Still no one thought to clear the place completely before it was destroyed: the inmates because they were too stupid with excitement and terror, the Luddites because they had not time. So the majority of Babylon’s workers tumbled and scuffled outside, leaving the helpless and uncomprehending behind them.

‘Stand back!’ roared Jim Ogden.

His men forced the crowd back. The fuses were lit. They stood almost hushed. Then a great cry rose, for there were faces of fear at the windows of the mill.

‘Keep back, keep back!’ Ogden shouted, ‘Shoot down them as moves!’

The line of onlookers at the front swayed to and fro, curved, altered shape as they struggled to control those who had seen the victims call soundlessly for help. But one or two broke through the line and ran zig-zag, to avoid the gunfire, towards the doomed building. The fine trail of sparks ran faster, faster, gobbling up time.

‘Back, back! Further back! Let them go if they wants!’ yelled Ogden.

The gunfire ceased. The rescuers were almost at the entrance. The faces in the windows were all mouths crying. Then Babylon blew like one great cosmic powder-keg.

‘Dunnot leave me!’ cried Harbottle, clutching at the running servant.

‘Nay, look after thyself!’ muttered the man, and disappeared.

Mrs Harbottle and her daughters and their maids were all locked up in the servants’ attic. But Ernest had felt safer in the midst of his men, until they saw the mill go, and the army form into its head and horns again and march for Millside Towers. Now he ran up the stairs and banged upon the attic door, shouting, ‘Let me in! Let me in!’ A chorus of screams was his only answer.

The Luddites had brought a battering-ram, and they now took up their positions and awaited the word of command. They had been drilled for this moment in the past weeks, and so far everything had gone according to plan. They were exultant as they lifted the mighty oak trunk and began to swing it rhythmically, and as the handsome door started to give their chant grew louder.

‘Ba-by-lon.
Ba
-
by
-
lon
. BABYLON.’

Halfway down his staircase, no longer able to move backwards or forwards, Ernest Harbottle sat down and wept like a frightened child, and rocked to and fro in his fear and grief.

Ogden took charge of him. He was too precious a hostage to lose. The weaver smiled at the spectacle the mill-owner made, in his crumpled nightshirt, tasselled cap over one eye. And he ordered his men to get everyone out of the villa and set fire to it, while Harbottle watched.

They smashed and broke and mutilated everything that they would burn, in a frenzy of hatred: grinding little precious things underfoot, shattering glass, beating elegant chairs to pieces against the fine papered walls. And when they had spent their rage they threw their torches into the midst of the kindling, and watched it roar.

Then Ogden once again brought his forces to order, though all around them was chaos. And he looked upon the destruction he had wrought, and the people he had roused, and reckoned that one last coup would see him sitting in the Town Hall as head of a Radical valley.

‘We’ve had enough of him!’ Ogden shouted into Harbottle’s gaping face. ‘We’ll use thee instead!’

And he cast the man of straw into the flames, and told his men to strap the mill-owner to a pole. They set his nightcap rakishly over one eye, and slapped his quivering cheeks, and hoisted him up on to their shoulders. He perched there, slack-jawed and sawdust-limbed. They could not help but laugh when they looked at him.

‘Now,’ said Ogden, spreading his rough map upon a flat stone, and scanning it in the light from Babylon, ‘there’s three ways of getting into Millbridge from here. We can go scrambling up into the woods of Kersall’s estate and come down into the town, but that’s a hell of a long way round and we could easy get lost. So there’s the straight way, over the river and through Millgate, or else right down as far as the turnpike road and up through the middle of the town. What we want to do is to make them think we’re attacking head on, then they’ll fetch most soldiers to defend Millgate. But only the spearhead’ll be there. We’ll send the rest down to the turnpike road, and rush them. There’s nobbut five hundred redcoats in Millbridge, at the outside. There’s nigh on five thousand of us!’

*

Hurrying along the road past Flawnes Green, the crowd of valley soldiers, mounted magistrates with civil guards, and armed citizens heard the explosion of gunpowder and saw the sky flame on the hillside.

‘That’s Babylon!’ said Squire Brigge. ‘What on earth are your fellows doing about it, sergeant? Why isn’t Colonel Ryder there?’

‘He will be holding Millbridge,’ said William. ‘He can hardly march out for every diversion!’

‘Then, Mr Howarth, should we not engage with them?’

‘I admire your spirit, Squire,’ said William, smiling, ‘but with our numbers we shall have to rely upon wit rather than courage. No, we should join Colonel Ryder. If the Luddites take Millbridge God knows where we shall be!’

‘Colonel Ryder will be barricading the town north and south, sir,’ said the sergeant ‘Those are the weak spots.’

‘Then we’ll join him at Millgate,’ said Squire Brigge, riding forward again.

But as they rounded the final bend of the road they saw the insurrectionists preparing to cross the Wynden, and halted, seeing their way barred. From their vantage-point they watched Ogden divide his forces and send the greater part southwards.

‘We daren’t come up on them from behind, sir,’ said the sergeant to William.

‘No, but we can get into Millbridge by a back entrance,’ said the ironmaster, looking up to his left. ‘I dare say Lord Kersall would not mind our trespassing on his property for once, would he, Squire? And once there we can lend our support where it is most needed. For they look as though they intend to draw fire at Millgate but come up from the turnpike road!’

The going was awkward, particularly with the wagon, but they all scrambled breathlessly up through the woods, and terrified a gamekeeper on watch. The noble lord, though ill-equipped for modern warfare, had roused his household and disposed them round the estate. In the enigma of the night, William and the civil guard might have been shot before they could reveal themselves as friends, but the soldiers’ bright uniforms were better than an introduction and they all arrived safely at the house.

‘Tell me, Mr Howarth,’ said Lord Kersall conversationally, as the ironmaster joined him on the terrace, ‘do you think these damned things would fire? I have them trained in the right direction.’

And he pointed to a couple of ancient cannons and a pyramid of rusty roundshot.

‘I doubt it, my lord, and if they did they might inflict more damage upon you than on the rebels. We are a little too late to fetch anything newer from Snape. Perhaps you would like to put in a personal order, in case of future trouble?’

‘Are you serious, Mr Howarth?’ Testily.

‘Not entirely, my lord,’ said William, unable to disguise his high spirits.

‘This is hardly the occasion for merriment, sir!’ Sternly.

‘I beg your lordship’s pardon,’ William replied, courteous but unrepentant. ‘If your lordship would excuse us, we are bound for the south of the town, where the rebels will make their heaviest assault. We plan to surprise them there. They will not be expecting reinforcements from our quarter!’

‘Well done, well done,’ said Lord Kersall, bidding his manservants let the civil force go forward. ‘You may cut down through the Park, Mr Howarth!’

Which was most kind of him. For the tread of horses and men, and the wheels of the wagon with its load of firearms, made a mire of his greensward which would take months to put right.

*

The Luddites halted in the shadowy road, at a safe distance from Millgate barricade, and paused to consider the situation.

‘They’ll be waiting behind there, ready to cut us to ribbons!’ said one of Ogden’s lieutenants.

‘Nay, we’ve nobbut got to keep ‘em occupied, and the lads’ll come up from behind,’ said Ogden. ‘Here, let’s try owd Harbottle, and see what their trigger-fingers is like!’

They brought the mill-owner down from their shoulders and untied him. He mouthed at them, helplessly. Some felt uneasy. They could shoot in the heat of the fray, mesmerised by the chants of their fellows, but the thought of sending a man to his death in cold blood disturbed them. Ogden was different.

‘Here, Harbottle,’ he said. ‘Run over there. Run! Or I’ll pick you off myself!’ And he raised his rifle and pointed it at the man’s heart.

Obediently, Harbottle bolted from the shadows. The defenders opened fire almost simultaneously. He gave one shrill scream which was cut off abruptly. He spun, rolled, kicked in the spitting bullets. Then turned on his side and lay still.

‘Right,’ said Ogden coolly, ‘now keep ‘em busy, and keep out of range.’

His lieutenants obeyed without answering, but their appetite for battle had been sated. They were weary with emotion and exhaustion. In their ranks were murmurs of doubt and discontent. They had burned Babylon, which was what they came for. A siege of Millbridge was too much. Besides, it would be getting light in an hour or so and they feared recognition. And the body of the mill-owner seemed pitiable now, lying in the road with its knees drawn up and its nightcap set awry.

Now a white flag was waved from behind the barricade, and a request to speak with the leader of the Luddites was bawled out. In the ensuing quiet Jim Ogden and two guards stepped forward, and were rewarded by the sight of Colonel Ryder coming up like some be-medalled puppet, flanked by two redcoats.

‘I should warn you that you cannot win a fight with professional soldiers,’ cried the colonel, ‘and lives will be lost upon both sides needlessly, also the lives and property of innocent people endangered. We are expecting reinforcements at any time now, who will overwhelm you, but we can hold you for as long as you care to engage with us. Go back, and thank God for the chance I am giving you. You do not deserve it!’ Grimly. ‘And we shall continue to hunt you down! But, for the sake of Millbridge and its citizens, I ask you to disperse peacefully, and not a shot will be fired upon you as you withdraw.’

A murmur among the Luddites at the back seemed to indicate agreement, but Ogden was too near to total victory.

‘Now I’ll tell you summat!’ he shouted at the colonel. ‘You’re on the losing side, my lad, not us. You’ve sent for reinforcements, have you? Where to? Bradford? They’re too busy looking after our Yorkshire brothers there! Preston? They won’t get here in time. You know as well as I do that this country’s on the brink of civil war, and your lot’s fighting the French as well as trying to hold us, and some of you’d come over to us for two pins! We know how many men you’ve got, and we’ve got ten times that, and ten times ten’ll follow us when we’ve taken Millbridge. So look to your muskets, and watch that fancy moustache of yours — it might get blowed off!’