The Darkest Walk of Crime (10 page)

As they moved through the
settlement, a silent phalanx of men formed in their wake. Aged from their late
teens to their early thirties, some wore fustian clothing, others moleskin
trousers and smocks, but all looked painfully undernourished. Some were
wide-eyed innocents; others had the solid maturity of married men while a few would
certainly have cut their mother’s throat for a shilling or a free drink. The
only unifying factor seemed to be the universal determination with which they
marched.

Armstrong led them to the meadow
behind the church.

“This is our training ground,”
he announced with a short gesture of his arm, “and Trafford land begins inside
that belt of trees.” He grimaced, twisting his back. “Somebody once said that
the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Well, we have no Eton,
but we do have this field, and in place of the Duke of Wellington, we have Mr
Eccles here.” He indicated a wiry, swarthy man who was looking penetratingly at
Mendick. “And we now have you.”

“I’m hardly Wellington,” Mendick
said.

“Maybe not, but you fight for a
better cause. Wellington fought to maintain the status quo in Britain and to
return the monarchical system to Europe. You will fight to create a fairer
world. This will be
your
playing field, Mr Mendick, and
this
is
the vanguard of the Chartist army.” Once again there was pride in Armstrong’s
voice as he presented his collection of agricultural labourers and mill
workers. “These are the men you are to train.” He stepped back and watched
Mendick survey his command.

More like a forlorn hope than a
vanguard, they stood in ragged rows, fifty men in tattered clothes, looking at
Mendick through patient eyes. Most carried broomsticks or tree branches, some
carried blackthorn cudgels, a few carried pikes, and a handful, a desperately
pathetic handful, held a musket.

“Good God in heaven.” Mendick
shook his head. He remembered the recruits trickling into the 26
^th
:
young men, old men, men in need of food, men who only desired drink, men who
lacked the mental capacity to load and fire a musket and men who had slithered
down the social scale to the ranks, and he shivered. Whereas there had always
been an organisation to care for the Johnny Raws - a hierarchy of veteran
soldiers who had grown old and wise in the ways of the British Army - he had
only himself.

Armstrong grunted and touched
the breast of his coat, where the bulge was a reminder of the threat he had
made.

“Have you been throwing the
hatchet, Mr Mendick? Have you been lying to us?” His eyes exuded detestation
for anybody who stood in the way of his Chartist dreams.

“Stand aside, Mr Armstrong,”
Mendick advised. “I know little of politics, but this is work I do understand.”
Walking slowly along the front rank, he looked into each face, watching as the
chins stiffened and the mouths hardened under his gaze. He nodded slowly.

“Right, lads,” he addressed them
quietly, foregoing the bullying rant that so many drill sergeants considered
necessary. “We have a lot of work to do, and I’m just the man for the job.”
These men were volunteers for a cause, not a variety of misfits to be hammered
into regimental unity; rather than raving, he would encourage.

“You don’t know me yet, but I am
James Mendick, late sergeant of the 26
^th
Foot. I am here to turn you
into soldiers fit to fight for the cause, men who will turn the tide of
history, remove injustice from the country and ensure that everybody has a fair
chance.”

The volunteers were listening
intently, some craning forward to hear better, others stepping closer. When he
paused, one volunteer raised a thin cheer.

Mendick stopped that nonsense
with an uplifted hand. About to blast the man’s impertinence, he thought of the
pitiful streets from where these people came.

“It’s not time for celebrations
yet, my friend. Let’s achieve something first.”

Shocked at his own mildness, he
realised he was sliding from his real purpose and beginning to empathise with
the Chartists. He had already gathered enough information to have Monaghan and
Armstrong hanged and these poor deluded fools transported to the other side of
the world. Forcing himself to look at them through the eyes of a policeman,
rather than victims he saw potential rioters and revolutionaries, miscreants
and murderers. And then Eccles approached him.

“Thank you, Sergeant Mendick.”
Eccles thrust forward his hand, ducking in a nervous bow. “Please teach us how
to fight.” He hesitated for a second. “I lost my sister to the fever last year,
and my mother died the year before.”

His face was drawn and pinched,
yet Mendick recalled Armstrong’s words about the short life span of men in Manchester
and guessed that he was not above twenty years.

“I’ll do what I can,” he
promised, suddenly hating Eccles for his pathetic gratitude. He must push his
primary mission aside to concentrate on the present task, which was to turn
this tatterdemalion mob into soldiers. If he convinced Armstrong of his
commitment, he might learn who was financing this rabble.

Raising his voice, Mendick
addressed the Chartists, “Right then, let’s get started. Has anybody here got
any military experience?” They looked at him blankly.

“No? All right then, let’s see
you march around this field. Keep moving until I stop you.” He watched them as
they marched like Johnny Raw recruits with clumsy limbs and stiff bodies.

Armstrong tapped his shoulder.
“Most of these men have never been out of their parish before,” he said
quietly, “but we’ve been looking for a reliable drill instructor for some time.
The last man was a lush. We had to get rid of him before he got in his cups and
spoke too much.” Again he tapped the bulge in his jacket.

The tramp of shuffling Chartists
was suddenly sinister. They trailed in front of him, their boots thudding in
the mud and their faces taut with concentration. The setting matched their
appearance, with the trees stark in their nudity, gaunt branches clawing at a sour
grey sky.

“How did you get rid of him?”
Mendick tried to make the question sound innocent.

Armstrong dropped his hand.
“Peter was a prize fighter; he took him for a walk and came back alone.”

“I see.” Mendick attempted
indifference although Armstrong’s words hung in the air like a verbal shroud.
He remembered Peter’s light tread and the width of his shoulders. Despite his
obviously limited mental capacity he would be a formidable adversary. He
watched as the volunteers reached the edge of the field, tried to turn and
collided in a confusion of arms, legs and frustrated curses.

“Let’s hope I come up to the
mark then.”

“Let’s hope you do,” Armstrong
said.

The volunteers straightened
themselves out and reformed their lines to straggle back, with those most
impatient to impress outpacing the slow and stolid.

And now Mendick had his chance
to impress. The ragged ranks halted in front of him, hoping for some magical
spell that would transform them from an underfed rabble to a disciplined force
capable of defeating the British Army and toppling what was probably the most
stable government in Europe.

“Right, then.” Mendick mentally
pushed Armstrong’s pistol and Peter’s mighty muscles aside. “Let’s get to
work.”

The men were as enthusiastic as
any recruits he had ever seen, driven by desperation to muster together and all
the more determined because of the knowledge that discovery would mean certain
transportation. They responded willingly to his commands, coming fiercely to
attention as soon as he showed them how, presenting their puny arms with near
savage force and marching with such concentration that he sighed in empathetic
sorrow.

Did these fifty forlorn men
genuinely hope to challenge the government? Mendick shook his head, and his
volunteers immediately looked downcast, as if they had made some cardinal
error. These men were so responsive and eager to please that any line regiment
in the British Army would have welcomed them.

“There’s a sight to frighten the
Whigs,” Armstrong commented sarcastically.

“Let’s hope that they’re not
spying on us,” Mendick said, sincerely. He was already growing strangely
attached to his volunteers. “At least we’re secluded here.” He nodded to the
trees that formed a backdrop to the field. “How far does that woodland extend?”

“About a hundred yards, but
Trafford’s policies start half way through.” Armstrong sounded casual.

“So close?” Mendick looked
around. A buzzard keened overhead, the call intensely lonely as it patrolled
its territory. “Is it wise to train beside Trafford’s land? Any inquisitive
gamekeeper can poke his nose in.”

“Believe me, there is no need to
worry about Sir Robert Trafford.” Armstrong smiled. “You concentrate on the
training and leave the politics to us.”

Mendick shrugged. ‘As you wish,
Mr Armstrong.” If Trafford reported the Chartist gathering to the police, his
job would be made much easier.

Within a few hours most of the
volunteers had the knack of marching correctly, their right arms and left legs
moving in approximate unison, and Mendick called them to what they imagined was
attention.

“Right, lads, you have learned
the basics of marching. Let’s try something more advanced.” He grinned at their
sudden surge of interest. “Before I’m finished, you’ll know all the tricks of
the soldier’s trade, and today we’ll have a small taste of skirmishing,
scouting and all the excitement of standing sentinel.”

Mendick had already decided it
would be best to teach only a simplified version of each military skill, for he
did not know how much time he had. The volunteers listened as he sketched the
outlines, and followed his lead immediately. There was no doubting their
willingness, but they lacked stamina and were pitifully thin.

“How are they?” Armstrong had
been standing at the edge of the woodland, watching Mendick’s progress.

“Weak. They need decent food.”

“They shall have it,” Armstrong
promised, “when they have earned it.” He raised his voice. “You hear that,
lads? Sergeant Mendick wants to feed you more, although there are women and
children starving in the streets. Do you want to take the food from their
mouths? Or do you want to take the food from the tables of the landowners who
oppress our people?”

The reply was less of a roar
than a whimper, but the message was clear. The Chartist army would continue to
drill on short rations and fight with hope rather than strength.

“There you have your answer.”
Armstrong sounded satisfied.

“We’ll see,” Mendick said. He
had no desire to aid the cause of revolution, but having experienced hunger, he
would not see men suffer needlessly.

Armstrong combined a sour shrug
with his poisonous glare. “Will we indeed?”

When the dull day faded into
dismal night, Armstrong permitted the training to end.

“Enough for today,” he said, and
nodded to Mendick. “Come with me and I’ll show you where you’ll sleep.”

Mendick was surprised at the
size and quality of the cottage Armstrong had allocated to him. The spacious
living room was lined with shelves for books, one of the two bedrooms even
boasted a real bed, and the privy was separate and moderately clean. Emma would
have loved the splendid tiled floor of the kitchen, and she would have clapped
her hands in ecstasy over the magnificent Welsh dresser and pine table. The
iron grate, oven and boiler for water completed what was undoubtedly the finest
cottage Mendick had ever seen.

“Impressive, eh?” Armstrong
noticed Mendick’s surprise. “Mr O’Connor and Mr Monaghan want only the best for
the people.”

“Utopia indeed,” Mendick agreed.
If this was the quality of life that the Chartist leaders planned for the people
of Britain, it was no wonder so many gathered to the cause. “This must have
cost something to build.”

Armstrong’s response was so
savage Mendick knew he had touched on something important. “That’s hardly your
concern, Mendick! You attend to the training and nothing else. Do you
understand?”

“Of course,” he agreed
immediately.

“Good. You’ll be snug here,”
Armstrong promised, pausing at the door with his last words, “and safe as the
bank. After tonight I’ll instruct Peter to stay with you, and Eccles sends out
regular patrols to make sure that no nosey gamekeepers come a-calling.”

Or to make sure that newly
arrived drill instructors did not stray, Mendick realised.

“I’ll be back at seven tomorrow
morning. Have a good night’s sleep, for I want the men hard at work by dawn
tomorrow.”

As soon as Armstrong limped
away, Mendick moved to the lock-up. He could hear Peter whimpering from three
yards away, and when he opened the door the ex-prizefighter scuttled out at
once, his face wet with tears.

“I’m sorry, Mr Armstrong, I
won’t drive like that again, I promise, only . . .”

“Mr Armstrong is not here,”
Mendick told him. “He wants to leave you inside all night.” He watched Peter
glance over his shoulder at the crowding dark. “But I don’t agree.”

Peter looked up, his face
crumpled as he waited for orders.

“So this is what we’ll do,”
Mendick told him. “I’ll let you out, and you will stay in the cottage with me
tonight, but tomorrow morning, before Mr Armstrong arrives, we’ll put you back
in the black hole and pretend that you’ve been there all night.”

Peter nodded eagerly. “And we
won’t tell Mr Armstrong?”

“No, we won’t,” Mendick said,
“or he’ll put us both in the black hole.” He held out his hand, knowing that if
Armstrong put him in a hole, it would be with a shovelful of dirt on his face
and a pistol ball in his brain.

For a moment Peter stared at
Mendick’s hand, and then he smiled as innocently as a baby and extended his
own.