A Regimental Affair Read Online Free Page A

in accord. ‘There are many who believe his former service was not taken in mitigation, and that he was ill-used.’
    ‘What service?’ asked Hervey, now intrigued.
    ‘He had, it seems, served bravely for some years in the navy, and they’d discharged him without arrears of pay or prize-money. According to the
Morning Post
, he’d applied to the Admiralty for redress on several occasions, and he’d been there in person on the morning of the Spa Fields meeting. It’s at the very least apossibility that his actions that day were more in anger and frustration than in any spirit of revolt – such as the quantity of gin he’d consumed allowed them to be in any way his own.’
    ‘What a devil of a business then,’ Hervey conceded. ‘The court hangs a man for mutiny who has proved his loyalty under more trying conditions.’
    ‘I tell you, Hervey,’ said Howard, lowering his voice and glancing to left and right, ‘it makes a fellow ashamed the way these men are treated by a supposedly grateful nation. There are men with stripes on their arm cleaning out gutters for a few pence – Waterloo stripes, too. I can scarce look them in the eye.’
    As they came to Snow Hill they found the streets blocked by posts and chains, allowing only those on foot to pass, and in Skinner Street itself the pavements were railed off with sturdy wooden planks. A large press of people seemed set to topple the barriers at any moment, but somehow they were holding, the crowd brooding rather than clamorous – though there was no doubting the sympathy for the gallant tar about to be hanged. And the crowd was, indeed, a thorough mix of people, of both good appearance and bad, for to the clerking classes and the respectable poor of Hackney were added the sweepings of St Giles’s – the rookery of rookeries. The special constables from each of the City wards were here in force, though Hervey thought them hardly sufficient to deal with a crowd turned ugly. In Whisken Street there were firemen on alert, ready to assist with subduing disorder if need be. In the yard of Newgate prison were threescore militiamen, and in the streets adjacent to the route of Cashman’s procession were yeomanry cavalry, while in a nearby courtyard, out of sight, a half-troop of regular cavalry stood as the force of last resort.
    ‘There are rumours.’ Howard’s voice was hushed. ‘Plans to rescue him as he arrives, to bustle him away to Broad Street. There are so many Irish there he’d never be found.’
    ‘You didn’t mention he was Irish.’
    ‘No, I didn’t. That confounds things too, does it not?’
    Hervey sighed again.
    A great roar went up from the crowd, followed by booing and cries of ‘Shame!’ as workmen drawing the wheeled gibbet arrived from Newgate. The special constables looked about anxiously, tapping their staves nervously on a shoulder or hand. ‘I don’tfancy they might do aught but save themselves if this crowd makes ugly,’ said Hervey.
    ‘It will be the cavalry that has to deal with it. And they’ll get no thanks, no matter how bloodlessly they manage,’ Howard agreed.
    ‘I hate the business with magistrates. I had enough of it in Ireland. The sooner there’s a proper constabulary the better.’
    ‘My dear friend, I could not agree with you more. Our guardsmen are never so disquiet than when they’re deployed for the civil power. A company of Grenadiers who stood fast throughout at Waterloo were close to insolence when they were turned out during the Corn Law bill.’
    They pushed a little further up the street in the press of people still arriving, making for the scaffolding which the Newgate men had trundled to the front of Beckwith’s shop.
    Howard stopped. ‘Look here, Hervey,’ he frowned. ‘I’ve never seen a man hanged before, and I don’t think I care to.’
    ‘I’ve seen it not a great many times myself,’ Hervey assured him, ‘and though each time the man had committed the foulest murder I could take no