Chapter 5: Wiltshire

Rising food prices, and the local gentry enclosing common land, had sparked sporadic unrest in the county over the past few years.
Troops of cavalry from the Wiltshire Yeomanry had been mustered to contain the disturbances, but their numbers were insufficient for the task, and so the regular army was deployed to assist the civil authority. Curfews could be imposed, and property and persons searched by the army, in those areas thought to be particularly factious by the district magistrate.
Unfortunately for the local population the magistrates were mainly recruited from landowners, the very people who were attempting to force their tenants to give up their holdings, so that the land could be enclosed.
Acting on behalf of landowners is not a duty that many soldiers enjoy, as the vast majority of the rank and file of the regiment were countrymen themselves, and were in sympathy with the locals, who were being dispossessed of their common rights. However a soldier has to do his duty, and we did what we had to do, albeit unwillingly.
As for the behaviour of the local magistrates; a rhyme of the time puts it better than I could.

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The headquarters of the battalion, consisting of Lt Col. Sir Edmund Bywaters, Major Boothby Graffoe, Adjutant Frederick Bywaters (Sir Edmund’s son), and the Grenadier company with the Colours, was set up in Devizes. The Light Company, and the eight centre companies, were billeted in those villages which were suspected of being centres of the unrest. Most of these villages were situated on the northern fringe of Salisbury Plain, tucked into the small narrow valleys that nibbled into the great plateau. Our task was to patrol the area, and by a show of strength dissuade any hotheads from burning barns or smashing farm machinery, or carrying out any other lawless behaviour. However it was not our job to act as gamekeepers and stop poaching, or the taking of wood from the coppices or woods belonging to the local landowners.

Here I must make mention of Major Graffoe and Adjutant Bywaters; it was these two men who actually ran the battalion. Sir Edmund had little grasp of either tactics or logistics, nor had he the skill in organization required to run a battalion of infantry. Happily all these functions were more than adequately handled by ‘Gruffo’, as Major Graffoe was known, and ‘Black Fred’, as the adjutant was referred to in the battalion. Both men had been with the 69th since Lincoln; Major Graffoe was a fighting soldier through and through, and the high reputation the battalion achieved in Spain and France was due in no small part to his leadership, and the training he had put us through. Black Fred, so named because of his swarthy appearance and foul temper, kept the battalion fed, clothed and informed, and during the campaign supplied with necessities of war.

We marched into our assigned village of Market Laverton one sunny morning in late June, and it appeared to be a pleasant and peaceful enough place, nestled in a fold of land on the edge of the great Plain. The company was billeted on land belonging to the Rector of Laverton, and I was invited to reside in the Rectory during the company’s stay in the village. I declined the offer as I did not want the locals to gain the impression the army was here solely to guard the Church lands, of which there were plenty in the county. There was a disused school house, formerly the church school, in the grounds of the Rectory and I elected to stay there, with my men. However I did accept dinner invitations to the Rector’s table from time to time, to express my gratitude for the offer.

The Rectory household consisted of the rotund, red faced, Rector and his slim, shy, timid looking wife, who was at least twenty years younger than the cleric. Added to these was a curate, a spindly looking youth, who laboured under the twin evils of the unfortunate name of Gethsemane Goosepath, and of being Welsh. He had a room in the Rectory but seemed to spend most of his time on his knees in the church. There was also a cook, whom I never met, but the food she provided was the best I have ever tasted. Her name was Mrs. Lawson, and had been the housekeeper at the Rectory before the advent of the timid looking wife. The only house maid I ever saw in the Rectory was an ungainly looking lass, with a cast in one eye and a hairy mole on her chin. There were also sundry rustics who acted as gardeners and sextons, but they did not venture into the house and lived somewhere in the village.

Three miles to the west of Laverton Captain Parslow’s company were the ‘guests’ of the villagers of Cheverall, while Wedhampton, the village four miles to the east of Laverton, was occupied, and I use the word advisedly, by the company commanded by Braxton-Clark.

It was during our stay in Wiltshire that the disdain I had first felt for Braxton-Clark, which then had grown into dislike when I heard the background to the duel where poor Charles St John was killed, finally developed into a loathing, not too far distant from hatred. Braxton-Clark seemed to revel in hunting down the poor ragged men who burned fences to warm, or poached game to feed, their families. This was not what we had been ordered to do, but he was the son of a local landowner and took the law into his own hands. I did remonstrate with him about the actions he was carrying out, which were quite contrary to our orders, but he just ignored me. He was living in his family home at Braxton Hall, which was located just outside Pewsey, a good two hour ride north from Wedhampton, and he seldom visited his men in the village.

His Lieutenant, Swithin Blaydon, was a fussy little man, who held a greatly inflated opinion of his own abilities but was completely ineffectual as an officer. He allowed the men of the company to do much as they pleased, which seemed to consist mainly of drinking, fornicating and indulging in looting and plundering. One morning, as I was riding on the east of my area, I saw a group of Braxton-Clark’s men ransacking a cottage. I suppose the dwelling was in Braxton-Clark’s district but I arrested the men, and sent them under guard to Devizes, charged with looting, which merited a flogging of twenty five lashes if found guilty.

Blaydon must have sent off a messenger to Braxton Hall as quick as lightning, for later that day a galloper from the Yeomanry bore me orders to present myself at regimental HQ at my earliest convenience — which can be broadly interpreted as NOW.

On my arrival at Devizes I found an irate Braxton-Clark, accusing me of going out of my own area of supervision, countermanding his orders, and undermining his authority. When I replied that looting was a crime no matter where carried out, Braxton-Clark came up with the story that his men had been ordered, by him, to search the cottage for evidence of lawlessness being planned by the occupant, a well-known malcontent. Naturally the men who I had arrested backed up his version of events, but I knew it was a complete cock and bull story, fabricated to save Braxton-Clark’s face, and to rub mine in manure. When I asked if any evidence of wrong doing had been found Braxton-Clark, smirked triumph.

“Unfortunately my men were arrested and marched away before they could find any such evidence, which of course by now would have been destroyed.”

All complete nonsense of course. What I had seen was a band of his men plundering, without any control being exercised by their so called officers. Quick thinking by Braxton-Clark had put me in the wrong — but we both knew it was plain looting and pillage his men were engaged in. Even so, Colonel Bywaters had no choice but to give me a rebuke.

“I know he is ruthless sort of fellow, Jack, but even so it is frightfully bad form to countermand his orders to his men, don’tcha know.”

None of the above endeared me to Braxton -Clark, and from that day on I knew I had a slippery, underhand enemy to contend with.

One good thing about our stay in Wiltshire was that I was allowed to take furlough during August. It had been five years since I had left England, and eight since I left my home. My return to Lincolnshire was long overdue, and I spent the month re-establishing links with my family, and getting back to the soil, as my father had me out most mornings at sun up doing farm work.