THE BATTLE OF TOWER HILL.
From that moment onward the rebels carried all before them. The first
encounter with soldiery was at London Fields, where a regiment of
militia, hastily summoned from a neighbouring barracks, was drawn
up. The militia showed more discretion than the police, for after
discharging one volley, and being raked by a withering fire from the
rebel sharp-shooters in return, they retreated in disorder.
This time the Dumpling was less merciful.
"They have deliberately raised hand against the people, to do murder!"
he said. "And by the God whose instrument I am, for every life they
have taken, a score of them shall fall!"
Instructions were given to the rebel riflemen to continue firing so
long as one of the soldiers remained within range. The result was
disastrous to the retreating troops. In an open space with no available
cover, they could be picked off one after the other by the Dumpling's
practised marksmen, with the result that scarcely a round dozen escaped
to tell the tale.
Flushed with victory, the rebels re-formed, and the march was resumed,
this time to Tower Hill, where the Dumpling scored his first great
success of generalship.
Anticipating that at Tower Hill serious military resistance would
be offered, he had laid his plans accordingly. An enormous empty
warehouse, commanding the open space in front of the Tower, had been
rented by one of his agents, under the pretence that it was to be
the central office and storage house of a firm of tea merchants. At
this warehouse, chests and packages, purporting to contain tea, but
containing in reality rifles and ammunition, had for some days past
been delivered, and a number of men--nominally clerks, packers, and
warehousemen, but in reality expert riflemen, disloyal Boers and
foreign mercenaries--constituted the staff, and were, on the Sunday
afternoon in question, concealed upon the premises.
The secreting of these expert riflemen in a position where they could
command Tower Hill and riddle with bullets any troops assembled below,
was, however, only one item in the Dumpling's carefully planned
campaign. Knowing that it would be from the east or north-east the
rioters would approach, the officer in command of the troops had placed
his batteries so that the guns could rake both the Minories and Royal
Mint Street--the thoroughfares by which the rebel forces must almost of
necessity come. Upon Royal Mint Street and the Minories the attention
of the soldiers was consequently riveted, and when the military scouts,
who had been sent out to ascertain the movements of the enemy, came
galloping back to say that one half of the Dumpling's forces was
approaching from the north by way of the Minories and the other half
from the east by Royal Mint Street--the command was:
"Now, boys, they're coming down the two streets upon which we've got
our guns trained. Keep cool! Be ready! But don't fire and don't move,
any of you, until I give the word." And to Royal Mint Street and the
Minories every eye was turned.
All this the Dumpling had foreseen, and had laid his plans accordingly.
Why he should have been so anxious to time his arrival at Tower Hill
almost at the moment of five, those who were not acquainted with his
plan of campaign could not understand. They did not know that, at that
hour, a huge contingent of armed rebels, recruited from Bermondsey and
South London and under the leadership of the Dumpling's most trusted
lieutenant, was punctually to cross Tower Bridge, to the dismay and
consternation of the troops, who had looked for no onslaught from that
quarter. Nor did those who were not in the Dumpling's confidence know
that, at the same time, yet another contingent of armed rebels, under
able leadership, would converge upon Tower Hill from Thames Street and
Great Tower Street, so that the soldiers were simultaneously attacked
from the north, south, east, and west, and that at a moment when they
were looking for danger only from two quarters.
Everything worked out exactly as the Dumpling had planned it. At
five minutes to five the vanguards of the advancing armies were seen
approaching from Royal Mint Street and the Minories. Almost at the very
moment that the soldiers were preparing to fire, the windows of the tea
warehouse were opened, and a deadly volley poured upon the unfortunate
gunners by the riflemen who had been concealed within its walls.
Utterly taken aback and dismayed, the soldiers turned to see whence
the attack came--only to find hostile armies, in each case with picked
marksmen in the van, approaching on every hand.
Then the Dumpling gave the word to charge. In ten minutes scarcely a
soldier was left alive, their guns and their ammunition were taken,
and the Tower of London, and its armouries, were in the hands of the
Dumpling.
Contrary to the expectations of his lieutenants, he announced that
he had no intention of remaining there, or even of leaving men in
occupation.
"Clear out the place--take all we want," he said to the half-dozen who
were entirely in his confidence, "and then evacuate it. That's the
ticket! To remain here would be telling the King's troops where to find
us. That they must never know. Ours is to be a guerilla warfare. We
meet on no two days in the same place. Each night, our day's work done,
we disband--to re-assemble next day and to descend upon our enemies
from North, South, East, or West, or possibly from all four corners of
the compass together, as the chances of war may make necessary. As a
strategic position, the Tower of London is of no earthly use to us. But
we haven't done all our work here yet.
"First, call up the string of forage vans which I have ordered to keep
well in our rear, and give instructions to the men to have a good meal.
The last three vans have red crosses upon them, as if to indicate that
they contain hospital requirements. So they do--two of them, that is.
The third contains the bombs and explosives which we carried away
that night from the opium den. Before leaving this place we have to
construct a secret mine--you must do the work yourselves--by which we
can at any time blow up the Tower and everyone in it, in case the enemy
should garrison it and use it as vantage ground against us. Get to work
at once and report to me when all is ready, for we have other business
on hand to-night, that London and England and all the world may know we
mean to carry out what we have begun."
Two hours later, the bugle-calls to re-assemble were sounded, and the
rebel army re-formed to march westward by way of the Minories and
Leadenhall Street to Cornhill, and so to the Bank of England, the Stock
Exchange, the Royal Exchange, and the Mansion House, all of which were
sacked and looted by the revolutionaries.
This--so the Dumpling had decided--was to end the work for that day.
The bugles of dismissal were sounded; and little by little the great
armies of Labour melted away.