The Darkest Walk of Crime (27 page)

“Thousands of angry and stubborn
men, some of them trained and armed, highly organised and led by unscrupulous and
ambitious murderers.” Mendick put another interpretation on the Chartists. “As
you know very well.”

“And who is to blame for that?
You helped train them,” Jennifer quickly altered her angle of attack.

“Perhaps so, but we still have
to warn the government.” He steered around a series of half-hidden potholes.
“And that means reaching London as quickly as possible.”

“If you want to be quick, then
you had better be careful,” Jennifer said acidly, “for there’s a fire ahead.”

With all Mendick’s concentration
on the driving, he had not seen the droplets of light. Now he saw them, a
score, a hundred, a thousand tiny flames merging together to form a single mass
about a mile ahead and to the right.

“What in God’s name is that?”

“How should I know?” Jennifer
sounded irritated. “But we’ll soon find out. Drive on.”

Instinctively slowing down, he
saw more of the lights, some in untidy groups, and others in regular columns,
all gathering at a central point, spreading over the countryside in an
impressive incandescent display.

“James.” Jennifer pointed to
their left where more flickering flames bounced toward them.

“They’re torches,” he said,
“dozens and dozens of people carrying torches.”

“Oh, my eye.” Jennifer craned
over him to look. “Oh, my eye, whatever next?”

A group hurried beside the
carriage, panting men marching side by side with their hands aloft and torches
sputtering in the air. Mendick looked downward, about to ask what was
happening, until he saw the face of the nearest man.

Eccles was leading his volunteers,
his swarthy face set, body moving lithely and relaxed as he had been taught,
and with his musket carried at the trail. At his back were Preston and Duffy,
each with a torch and musket, and the others followed in the regular infantry
march in which he had trained them so well.

“Sweet God in heaven, Jennifer,
they’re Chartists. It’s a gathering of the Physical Force Chartists.”

Jennifer pressed to his side,
momentarily forgetting her reluctance to be close to a man as she watched the
assembled hordes. “But why here?”

“Why not?” Mendick shrugged.
“It’s away from any centre of population. They must have taken the train to the
nearest station and assembled on this moorland.” He swore, lifting the reins.
“Jesus, Jennifer, if they recognise us, they’ll kill us dead.”

“Keep your head down then,
James, and drive like the wind.” Jennifer spoke quietly, as if the Chartists
could hear her above the drumming of the horses’ hooves, the growling of the
wheels and the steady tramp of their own marching feet. “There must be hundreds
of them.”

About to whip up, Mendick
realised he had delayed a fraction too long. The road ahead had filled with
marching men, some carrying muskets, others pikes or stout staves or
agricultural tools, bill hooks, scythes, even a pitchfork – anything they
imagined might make a useful weapon.

“It’s like something from the
Middle Ages,” Jennifer said quietly. “The peasants gathering against the
lords.”

“Aye, except that it’s today,
and they’re gathering against us, and people like us.” Mendick tried to push
forward, listening to the slow snarl of the wheels as the brougham lost speed
among the myriads of marching men.

The Chartists were congregating
on a patch of rising moorland to the right of the road, group after group
forming together until the torches formed an array that stretched far into the
dark. Mendick eased to a halt as a column crossed in front of him then cracked
his whip so the horse increased speed to a moderate crawl.

“Hey!” Somebody held up his
torch so the light illuminated the coach. “Is that not Josiah’s coach?”

More torches were raised aloft
and somebody set up a cheer, which hesitated and died as Eccles hurried up.

“That’s not Mr Armstrong! That’s
the Sergeant!”

The news spread, passing from
man to man and group to group. “That’s the fellow in the poster! Over there!
It’s James Mendick, an enemy of the Charter!”

“Whip up, James!” Rather than
revealing fear, Jennifer sounded excited as she grabbed hold of his arm. “I
don’t think we should be here!”

Cracking the whip, Mendick
pushed the coach through the crowd, watching the bravest men stand in front of
the horse only to leap away when it became obvious that he was not going to
deviate from his course. Men cursed or yelled and some threw their torches, the
flames flickering in the air as the missiles rose, curved and descended rapidly
toward the coach. One landed on the coach seat, and Jennifer snatched it up and
threw it back.

“Come on, James! Use the whip!”

Glancing at her, Mendick nodded
and stood up to spiral the eight-foot lash in the air before he swept it down
on the Chartists surrounding the coach. He caught one man a resounding cut
across the shoulders, heard him yell and slashed again, sideways, aiming at
faces and bodies indiscriminately as he allowed the horse to trot uncontrolled
along the road.

“Take the reins, Jennifer!”

Shifting his stance, he hefted
the whip like a weapon, trying to ignore the barrage of missiles now hurtling
towards him. He knew how difficult it was to face a speeding horse or stop a
rolling coach, but should any of these stones or torches hit him, he would fall
among the Chartists, who would kick him to pieces. He winced as a stone bounced
off his arm and swore as he saw his hat topple from his head to be crushed to a
shapeless mass by the rear wheels of the coach.

“You’ll pay for that,” he
promised and swung the lash, grinning as it cracked across the back of a man’s
knees and brought him yelling to the ground.

“James! Clear a space in front!”

In a line two deep across the
road, a dozen Chartists were frantically loading their muskets. Mendick watched
and shook his head. Even the best regiments in the army could not load and fire
in less than fifteen seconds, and these Chartists had nothing like their level
of experience. However good they had been in training, he doubted they would
stand against a rapidly advancing brougham.

The Chartists worked in unison,
spitting the lead ball down the long barrel and ramming it in place.

“Come on, James!”

Folding his whip, he eased
himself down from the seat onto the footboard and looked forward where the
horse was moving at a spanking pace, its head tossing to and fro as Jennifer
sawed at the reins.

The Chartists hefted their
muskets, slamming them against their right shoulder.

“James!” Jennifer screamed, and
Mendick balanced on the coachman’s step and eased onto the wooden thill, the
shaft to which the horse was attached.

The Chartists aimed, twelve
muskets pointing at the advancing coach. Each muzzle was three quarters of an
inch in diameter but appeared as wide as a six-pounder cannon when the
Chartists cocked and aimed.

Taking a deep breath, Mendick
rose again, balanced for a second then jumped onto the back of the horse. He
landed with a painful thump and grabbed the horse’s mane for support. He saw
the Chartists altering their aim until every musket was pointing directly at
him as he shouted and swung the whip.

“That’s the way!” Jennifer
yelled, snapping the reins. “That’s the way, James!”

Mendick heard the order to fire,
but before a single finger squeezed the trigger, the frantic horse had
scattered the Chartist ranks. Only three men stood their ground, one falling
beneath the horse’s hooves and another yelling as the whip sliced across his
forehead. The third fired, but the ball zoomed harmlessly skyward.

“James!” Jennifer screamed. “I
can’t keep control!”

The brougham was rocking from
side to side, the horse pulling desperately right and left as Jennifer fought
the reins.

“Hold on!” Mendick backed from
the horse and reached the driver’s seat, hauling himself over to Jennifer’s
side. Dropping the whip, he grabbed hold of the reins.

“James! Watch out!”

A fresh group of Chartists had
appeared in front, raising crude weapons and shouting threats.

“Oh, sweet Lord!” Mendick
ducked, and a fist-sized stone missed his head by an inch.

“My turn.” Jennifer lifted the
whip. She balanced for a second; half rose, then straightened up and flicked
out the lash. “Get out of the way! Move you blackguards!” Suddenly she was
screaming, unleashing her fury at the Chartists, slashing at legs and bodies
and arms.

“You!” Pulling back her arm, she
unleashed a vicious blow that cracked across the buttocks of a tall Chartist,
making him caper and yell.

“That’s for Nathaniel! Now, get
out of my way!” Her whip knocked a second man off his feet, opened a gaping cut
in another’s face, and then they were through, and the road stretched clear
before them.

Jennifer collapsed back on the
seat, allowing the whip to fall from her fingers. She began to sob, dragging
the back of her sleeve across her eyes and shaking her head.

“Well, Jennifer, you certainly
were not useless there!” Mendick tried to jolly her along, but when he realised
she was shaking with reaction, he reached across and touched her lightly on the
arm. “You’re a spunky little yahoo, Jennifer, a regular trump.”

She lifted her head. “Bar that,
James. Anyway, you didn’t do too badly yourself.” For a moment they grinned at
each other in complete accord, then they came to a tight bend that took all
Mendick’s skill to negotiate.

“Thank God this is a brougham,”
he said. “It’s got the best turning circle of any coach ever made.”

Jennifer’s laugh rose wildly as
the coach balanced at a precariously angle. “We showed them, didn’t we, James?
Did you see that man jump when I caught him right across his . . .
unmentionables? Delicious! We showed them!”

“We certainly did.” Mendick
eased the speed a little, and they crashed back onto all four wheels. “My
volunteers did well though, didn’t they? They stood their ground until the last
moment.” He grinned across to her. “Those were some of my boys, you know. I
trained them myself.”

“You did a good job,” Jennifer
said solemnly. “They were as good as real soldiers.”

The words sobered him enough to
contemplate the Chartist actions with a more professional eye.

“They were keen enough,” he
said. “I did not see any drunkenness or any squabbling amongst them. Indeed,
they seem to be better disciplined than many regular regiments, and I cannot
fault their courage, but I doubt they’d stand against the Army.”

“Why not?” Jennifer had been
watching the array of torches, and she indicated the impressively silent swarm
that spread over the moorland, becoming ever more visible as the dawn light
strengthened. “There are plenty of them.”

“Yes, but they’ve only got
infantry,” Mendick said. “The cannon would pound them from a distance, and then
the cavalry would come in from the flanks and finish them off. They don’t have
any artillery, and there’s not a single horseman amongst them.”

“Yes, there is,” Jennifer
contradicted. “I saw two, one on a grey and the other on a great white
stallion.”

“A white horse?” Mendick looked
at her, momentarily ignoring the road ahead. “Are you sure?”

“I know what a white horse looks
like! The rider was leading a whole host of men.”

Mendick swore as the coach
rumbled on to the banking beside the road. He laid the whip across the rump of
the horse so it straightened up and increased its speed. Holding the reins
tight, he guided them around a deep hole, with Jennifer grabbing hold of her
hat and ducking as a low branch flicked at them.

“What are you doing? You’ll have
us over next!”

“The white horse! Rachel Scott
and Trafford were always talking about a white horse; that must be the leader!
They said they’d kill somebody called Drina, and then there was something about
a white horse getting into its own stable.”

Jennifer shrieked softly when
Mendick misjudged the next corner and the carriage veered alarmingly to one
side. For a moment he thought they would overturn, but the brougham righted
itself, and they pulled on, with Jennifer staring at him.

“Slow down, James! And tell me
that again! They said what? They’d kill Drina?”

“Something like that,” he
agreed.

Jennifer shook her head. “They
can’t do that! You can’t let them do that!” She grabbed hold of his arm,
shaking it until he looked at her. “You must stop them, James!”

“I’ll try,” he said, “but who’s Drina?
I don’t know who Drina is!”

“What?” Jennifer looked at him.
“Drina is the Queen’s pet name! Queen Victoria! They’re going to murder the
Queen!”

London: April 1848

The sun finally broke through a
misty horizon as Mendick stared at Jennifer, his mouth open while the full
impact of her words sunk in.

“Are you sure? How can Drina be
the Queen?”

Jennifer tutted, shaking her
head.

“It’s a short version of her
name, James. Her full name is Alexandrina Victoria, and her family always
called her Drina.”

“Drina.”

Mendick looked over the enclosed
fields of the Midlands, the tall chimneys of a distant factory smearing foul
smoke across the sky and a shepherd wearing a smock staring at them as he
guided his sheep into their spring pasture. The mix of ancient pastoral England
and modern industrialisation was a reminder of the oxymoronic nature of the
times in which they lived. Only the monarchy had seemed a fixed star in an
ever-altering firmament, but now even that was under threat.

“God in heaven! They’re going to
murder the Queen.”

Planning to murder the Queen
seemed more shocking than the Chartists’ plan to wage rebellion on the country,
perhaps because it was such a personal thing. It was also foolish. Queen Victoria
was not responsible for the condition of the people in Manchester or for the
excesses of the industrial age even though her lifestyle did provide an example
of the stark contrast between the privileged and the poor. Mendick shook his
head.