Demon And Demeanour. Book 4 Of Poacher's ProgressChapter 8: The March To Taunton free porn video
The distance from Newark to Taunton by the route I chose is somewhere near two hundred miles, which under normal conditions a regiment would march in ten days, although allowance must be made for unforeseen events. I wrote to Horse Guards giving my intended itinerary — in case of any change of orders Horse Guards would know where to send the galloper— and my estimated time of arrival at Taunton as no later than the 15th of June.
Major John Dymoke, my second in command and King’s Champion, was granted furlough to practise his challenge speech, and remained in Lincoln. Before the regiment marched out of Lincoln I advised him to also brush up on the use of a mace, in case his challenge was accepted. Jonn Dymoke’s face paled, he had taken my mischievous remark as serious comment. “Do you think someone will take up my challenge, Colonel?”
“Well, John, there has to be a first time for everything, and as there has been no coronation in sixty years who knows what maniac might come hurtling out of the bushes swinging a sword, or more probably a claymore — there are many Scots who still favour the Stuart cause.” I know I should not have teased the poor fellow, but he was so gullible it was difficult not to take advantage of his weakness. I wondered how he managed as a teacher or lawyer – any rogue would easily pull the wool over John’s trusting eyes.
I appointed Captain Coleman Hawkins as temporary second in command until such time as Dymoke re-joined the regiment in Taunton, assuming he avoided being butchered by a wild-eyed Highlander.
The chosen course to Taunton led through some of the richest farmland and most prosperous areas of England, viz: the counties of Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, and Wiltshire. I elected to travel this route for several reasons. These prosperous counties could afford to keep their main highways in good repair, allowing us to march at a steady rate, without potholes or crumbling surfaces to impede us. It also meant the county would employ enough constables to prevent vagabonds, footpads, and any other form of rogue, from infesting the area, allowing for any deserters from the regiment to be apprehended quickly. The villages and towns where the regiment rested each night would have ample supplies and good quality accommodation to hand. I paid in cash for all supplies bought by the Regimental Quartermaster; the regimental funds accompanied us, locked in a sturdy oak timbered, brass bound, trunk.
Rape, and looting – which included poaching and the stealing of livestock – were persistent problems when the military traverses a region.
In Spain and France Wellington flogged and hanged men found guilty of any such crimes.
I would not be using such Draconian punishments, but even so would deal with instances of crime most severely. I made it clear to the rank and file any looting or rape would be dealt with in a most severe manner.
The first case of looting came four days into our march. One of the regimental drummers, who are always the most assiduous of pilferers in any army, was found with a rooster stuffed under his tunic. The rooster was dead, and destined to be the drummer’s supper. I decided to make the errant drummer an example of what to expect to any man caught looting, and had him run The Gauntlet.
I had seen this punishment meted out for thievery and similar behaviour in the King’s German Legion, and it was a most efficacious deterrent.
Two lines of soldiers, usually twenty men each side, face each other; they are armed with switches or canes, or sometimes horse whips, and the miscreant runs between them as they belabour him. So that the man does not run too fast, and escapes a good beating, his legs are tied together and is forced to hop or hobble along the ranks. I chose the forty biggest and strongest men in the ‘Imps’ to act as the beaters, and furnished them with rods of willow, which strike like knives. After the drummer had run, or rather hopped, the Gauntlet he was revived by a dousing from a bucket of water, and I docked the cost of the rooster from his pay, which really adding insult to injury as far as the drummer was concerned.
There were no more instances of looting, or of thieving or poaching, although with a regiment of Poachers I would have been surprised if some hares and pheasants did not find their way into the cooking pots of ‘The Lincoln Imps’.
I considered it best any case of rape by members of the regiment be dealt with by civil authorities, and warned the men anyone accused of rape would be handed over to the local Justice of the Peace for trial and sentence.
We did have one instance while staying overnight in Moreton-in-Marsh, when one of our regimental drummers — not the one who had stolen the rooster — was accused by a local woman of raping her.
According to the drummer he had paid sixpence for a tumble, and after a lively galloping his partner had demanded another sixpence.
He refused. She screamed rape. He was arrested.
Fortunately for the drummer he had paid for his pleasure with a newly minted coin, and provided the examining magistrate with the date stamped on the sixpence. The woman was searched and the coin discovered. She was found guilty of perjury, and placed in the pillory for twenty-four hours.
During the night all the regimental drummers took turns in having their way with her, and did not have to pay sixpence, or even a farthing, for the privilege. The perjuring hussy was held firmly by her head and hands in the wooden frame of the pillory, which caused her to be positioned bending forward. Consequently, there was nothing the slut could do to stop the vigorous, and continuous, violation of her madge by the eight lusty drummers. Nor was she able to identify the men, as they took great pains to approach unseen, before hoisting her skirts up over her head and entering her from the rear.
Do not ask whom it was suggested the method of retribution.
I know I am probably biased, but I declare there is no finer place in the world than England, especially the area we were traversing. The sun shone from an azure sky, brightly illuminating the green of the fields and woods, the sleekness of the cattle in the rich pastureland, the brilliance of the white fleeced sheep, and the glowing, red bricked, houses with their golden brown, thatched roofs. It was a pleasure to see the neat villages, and farms with tended fields and contented herds and flocks, and of course the ample bosomed, apple cheeked, females. They were of sturdy peasant stock, with devilment in their eyes and promises in their lush bodies.
I know many a sausage was shared, and many dalliances fermented.
The happy spirits of the men, with sated expressions of pleasure on their faces after spending a night in sweet smelling straw with a sweet smelling woman, gave the journey the appearance of an odyssey through the Elysian Fields rather than of a regiment marching to an unknown future.
Neverthelss, I suspected nine months after our march there would be a bumper crop of little Lincoln Imps throughout the area.
Lianne
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