Morgan's Run Page 24

  Richard reached for him, held him close, kissed his cheeks. Then he pattered away, head bent, and did not look back.

  But Richard’s eyes followed him down the path between the vegetable patches, through the castle gate. He turned a corner, and was gone. And I will pray for you, Cousin James, for I love you more than I love my father.

  Lizzie Lock draped around his shoulders, he gathered his troops at the table in the felons’ common-room.

  “It is not that I wish to lead,” he said to his five chosen companions—Bill Whiting, Will Connelly, Neddy Perrott, Jimmy Price and Taffy Edmunds. “I am seven-and-thirty, which makes me the oldest amongst us, but I am not the stuff makes leaders, and ye should all know that now. Each of us must look for strength and guidance within himself, as is fit and proper. Yet I do have some learning, and a source of information in political London as well as a very clever druggist cousin in Bristol.”

  “I know him,” said Will Connelly, nodding. “James Morgan of Corn Street. Recognized him the moment he came in. Thought, phew! Yon Richard Morgan is well connected.”

  “Aye, enough. First I have to tell ye that the men on the hulks are divided into groups of six who live and work together. An it pleases you, I would have the six of us form one such group before some hulk gaoler does it for us. Is that agreeable?”

  They nodded soberly.

  “’Tis our good fortune to be twelve to London from here. The other six are young save for Ike, and he seems to prefer their company to ours. So I am going to advise Ike to do the same thing with his five. That way, there will be twelve of us on the hulk to form up as mutual protection.”

  “You expect trouble, Richard?” asked Connelly, frowning.

  “I do not honestly know, Will. If I do, it is more because of what my informants have not said, than said. We are all from the West Country. That will not be so on the hulks.”

  “I understand,” said Bill Whiting, serious for once. “Best to decide what to do now. Later might be too late.”

  “How many of us can read and write?” asked Richard.

  Connelly, Perrott and Whiting held up their hands.

  “Four of us. Good.” He pointed to the five boxes standing on the floor alongside him. “On a different note, these contain the things that will enable us to stay healthy, like dripstones.”

  “Oh, Richard!” Jimmy Price exclaimed, exasperated. “Ye make a fucken religion out of your wretched dripstone! Lizzie is right, ye’re like a priest saying Mass.”

  “It is true that I have made a religion out of staying well.” Richard looked at his group sternly. “Will and Neddy, how did ye manage to stay well through a year in the Bristol Newgate?”

  “Drank beer or small beer,” said Connelly. “Our families gave us the money to eat well and drink healthy.”

  “When I was there, I drank the water,” said Richard.

  “Impossible!” gasped Neddy Perrott.

  “Not impossible. I filtered my water through my dripstone. Its function is to purify bad water, which is why my cousin James imports them from Teneriffe. If ye think for one moment that Thames water will be more drinkable than Avon water, ye’ll be dead in a week.” Richard shrugged. “The choice is yours entirely. If ye can afford to drink small beer, well and good. But in London we will not have families on hand to help us. What gold we have ought to be saved for bribing, not spent on small beer.”

  “Ye’re right,” said Will Connelly, touching the dripstone on the table reverently. “I for one will filter my water if I cannot afford to drink small beer. It is good common sense.”

  In the end they all agreed to filter their water, including Jimmy Price.

  “That settles that,” said Richard, and went to talk to Ike Rogers. He was sorry that he did not have twelve dripstones, but not sorry enough to share six of them among twelve. Ike’s group would have to manage as best it could, and at least Ike always seemed to have plenty of money.

  If the twelve of us stick together as two groups, we stand a chance to survive.

  PART THREE

  From

  January of 1786

  until

  January of 1787

  The wagon to London and Woolwich arrived at dawn the next day, the 6th of January; exactly a year since his last wagon trip had commenced, Richard realized. But this was a gaol parting of higher magnitude and much sorrow, the women weeping desolately.

  “What will I do without you?” Lizzie Lock asked Richard as she followed him to Old Mother Hubbard’s house.

  “Find someone else,” said Richard, but sympathetically. “In your circumstances, a protector is essential. Though ’twill be hard to find another like me, willing to forgo sex.”

  “I know, I know! Oh, Richard, I shall miss you!”

  “And I you, skinny Lizzie. Who will mend my stockings?”

  She grinned through her tears, gave him a shove. “Get away with you! I have shown you how to use a needle and ye sew well.”

  Then two gaolers came and took the women back to the prison, waving, howling, protesting.

  And back to the iron belt around the waist, the four sets of chains joined together at its front.

  In appearance this wagon looked the same as the one from Bristol to Gloucester—rawn by eight big horses, covered with a canvas semicircle. Inside it was quite different, having a bench down either side long enough for six men to sit with plenty of space between each. Their belongings had to be piled on the floor between their legs and would pitch and slide every time the vehicle jarred, thought the experienced Richard. What road was smooth, especially at this time of year? Dead of winter, and a rainy one.

  Two gaolers traveled with them, but not inside with them; they sat with the driver up front, which had a fine shelter built over it. No one in the back was going to slip out and escape; once seated, a length of chain was run through an additional loop on each man’s left fetter and bolted to the floor at either end. If one man moved, his five companions had to move.

  The pecking order was now established. Muffled in his warmly lined greatcoat, Richard sat at the open end of the wagon on one side, with Ike Rogers, leader of the youngsters, facing him.

  “How long will it take?” asked Ike Rogers.

  “If we cover six miles in a day we will be lucky,” answered Richard, grinning. “Ye’ve not been on the road before—in a wagon, I mean, Ike. I do not know how long. It depends which way.”

  “Through Cheltenham and Oxford,” said the highwayman, taking the joke in good part. “Whereabouts Woolwich is, however, I do not know. I have been to Oxford, but never to London.”

  Richard had conned his first geography book, a text on London. “It is well east of London but on the south bank of the Thames. I do not know if they mean to make us cross over—we are going to hulks moored in the river, after all. If we go through Cheltenham and Oxford, then we have about a hundred and twenty miles to travel to Woolwich.” He did some calculations in his head. “At six miles a day, it will take almost three weeks to get there.”

  “We sit here for three weeks?” asked Bill Whiting, dismayed.

  Those who had already been on the road in a wagon laughed.

  “No need to worry about sitting idle, Bill,” said Taffy. “We will be out and digging half a dozen times in a day.”

  As indeed proved to be the case. Wayside hospitality, however, fell far short of that extended to Richard and Willy by John the wagoneer. No barns, no warm horse blankets, nothing to eat save bread, nothing to drink save small beer. Each night saw them bed down in the wagon by transferring their belongings to the seats and occupying the floor to stretch out, greatcoats for covers, hats for pillows. The canvas roof leaked in the perpetual rain, though the temperature stayed well above freezing, a small mercy for damp and shivering prisoners. Only Ike had boots; the rest wore shoes and were soon caked to above their fettered ankles in mud.

  They did not see Cheltenham or Oxford, the driver preferring to skirt both towns with this cargo of felons,
and High Wycombe was no more than a short row of houses down a hill so slippery that the team of horses became entangled in the traces and nearly turned the wagon over. Bruised by flying wooden boxes, the prisoners were set to work righting the perilously leaning vehicle; Ike Rogers, who had a great affinity with horses, engaged himself in calming the animals down and sorting out their harness.

  Of London they saw absolutely nothing, for one of the gaolers fixed a shield over the open back and blinded them to what was going on outside. Soon came a trundling motion rather than a lurching one; they had reached some paved main road, which meant that their services would not be needed to dig the wagon out. Noises percolated inside: cries, whinnies, brays, snatches of song, sudden babbles which perhaps meant they passed by an open tavern door, the thump of machinery, an occasional crash.

  When night fell the gaolers pushed bread and small beer in through the shielding flap and left them to their own devices; he who needed to urinate or defecate was now provided with a bucket. More bread and small beer in the morning, then onward through that confusing racket, joined now by the cries of vendors and some very interesting stenches—rotten fish, rotten meat, rotten vegetables. The Bristolians stared at each other and smirked, while the rest looked a little sick.

  For two nights they lay somewhere within the reaches of the great city, and on the afternoon of the third day—their twentieth since leaving Gloucester—someone yanked the shield away and let in the London daylight. In front of them lay a mighty river, grey and slick and bobbing with refuse; judging from the position of the sun, a pale and watery brilliance in the midst of a whitish sky, they had crossed the stream somewhere, and were now on its south bank. Woolwich, Richard decided. The wagon stood alongside a dock, to which was moored a dilapidated semblance of a ship which bore a barely discernible name on a bronze plate: Reception. Most appropriate.

  The gaolers removed the chain which had linked them together and told Richard and Ike to get out. Legs a little shaky, they jumped down, their companions following.

  “Remember, in two groups of six,” said Richard to Ike softly.

  They were marched up a wooden gangplank and onto the vessel before anyone had a good opportunity to take in much of the river or what lay upon it. Once inside a room they were divested of their chains, manacles, belts and fetters, which were handed back to the Gloucester gaolers.

  Boxes, sacks and bundles around them, they stood for some time aware of the guards at the door of this ruined wardroom or whatever it might have been; escape was impossible unless all twelve of them made a combined rush—but after that, what?

  A man walked in. “Dowse yer nabs n toges!” he shouted.

  They looked at him blankly.

  “Nabs n toges orf!”

  When nobody moved he cast his eyes at the ceiling, stormed up to Richard, who was closest, knocked his hat off and yanked at his greatcoat and the suit coat he wore beneath it.

  “I think he wants us to take off our hats and coats.”

  Everybody obeyed.

  “Nah kicks araon stampers n keep yer mishes orn!”

  They looked at him blankly.

  He ground his teeth, shut his eyes and said, with a very odd accent, “Britches round your feet but keep your shirts on.”

  Everybody obeyed.

  “Ready, sir!” he called.

  Another man strolled in. “Where are you lot from?” he asked.

  “Gloucester Gaol,” said Ike.

  “Oh, West Country. Ye’ll have to speak something akin to the King’s English, Matty,” he said to the first man, and then to the prisoners, “I am the doctor. Is anybody sick?”

  Apparently assuming that the general murmur was a negative, he nodded and sighed. “Lift your shirts, let us see if there are any blue boars.” He inspected their penises for syphilitic ulcers, and having found none, sighed again. “Bene,” he said to Matty, and to them, “Ye’re a healthy lot, but all things change.” About to leave the room, he said, “Put your clothes on, wait here, and keep quiet.”

  They put their clothes on and waited.

  It was a full five minutes before Bill Whiting, the chirpiest of the twelve, recovered enough of his cheek to find speech. “Did anybody understand anything yon Matty said?” he asked.

  “Not a word,” said young Job Hollister.

  “Perhaps he was from Scotland,” said Connelly, remembering that no one in Bristol had understood Jack the Painter.

  “Perhaps he was from Woolwich,” said Neddy Perrott.

  Which silenced all of them.

  An hour went by. They had subsided to the floor and leaned their backs against the walls, feeling the slight shifting under their legs as the ship moved sluggishly against its moorings. Rudderless, thought Richard. We are as rudderless as this thing that was once a ship, farther away from home than any of us has ever been, and with no idea of what awaits. The youngsters are dumbstruck, even Ike Rogers is unsure. And I am filled with dread.

  Came the sound of several pairs of feet thumping on wooden planking, the familiar dull clinking of chains; the twelve men stirred, looked at each other uneasily, got up wearily.

  “Darbies f y dimber coves!” said the first man through the door. “Fetters, ye pretty hicks! Sit down and nobody move.”

  Six inches longer than the Bristol or Gloucester versions, the chains were already welded to the cuffs, which were much lighter, flexible enough for the heavily muscled smith to bend apart around a man’s ankle, then close until the holes in either end overlapped. Then he pushed a flat-headed bolt through the holes from the ankle side, grabbed the prisoner’s leg and slipped the long tongue of an anvil between it and the fetter. Two heavy blows with his hammer and the rivet ends were smashed flat against the iron band forever.

  I will wear these for the next six and more years, thought Richard, easing his aching bones by rubbing them. They do not do that for a mere six and more months. Which means that even after I reach Botany Bay, I will wear these until I finish my sentence.

  Another smith had fettered the second six from Gloucester, and just as competently. Within half an hour the two of them had the job done, prodded their assistants into gathering the tools up, and left. Two guards remained; Matty must have belonged to the doctor. However, Matty had passed the message on, for when one of the guards spoke, it was in that peculiarly accented English, not in what time would inform the prisoners was “flash lingo”—the speech of the London Newgate and all those who had dealings with that place.

  “Ye’ll mess and sleep here tonight,” he said curtly, tapping the knobbed end of his short bludgeon against the palm of his other hand. “Ye can talk and move about. Here, have a bucket.” Then he and his companion moved out, locking the door.

  The two Wiltshire lads were wiping away tears; everyone else was dryeyed. Not in a mood for talking until Will Connelly got up and prowled about.

  “These feel better on the legs,” he said, lifting one foot. “Chain must be thirty inches long too. Easier to walk.”

  Richard ran his fingers over the cuffs and found that they had rounded edges. “Aye, and they will not rub so much. We will go through fewer rags.”

  “Proper working irons,” said Bill Whiting. “I wonder what sort of work it will be?”

  Just before nightfall they were given small beer, stale and very dark brown bread, and a mess of boiled cabbage with leeks.

  “Not for me,” said Ike, pushing the pot of cabbage away.

  “Eat it, Ike,” Richard ordered. “My cousin James says we must eat every vegetable we can get, otherwise we will get scurvy.”

  Ike was unimpressed. “That muck could not cure a runny nose.”

  “I agree,” said Richard, having tasted it. “However, it is a change from bread, so I will eat it.”

  After which, windowless, womanless and cheerless, they lay down on the floor, wrapped their greatcoats about them, used their hats as pillows, and let the gently moving river rock them to sleep.

  The next morning, a
mid a drizzling grey rain, they were taken off Reception and loaded into an open lighter. So far nothing hideously cruel had happened to them; the guards were surly brutes, but as long as the prisoners did as they were told at the pace demanded, they kept their bludgeons to themselves. The wooden boxes were a source of curiosity, obviously, yet why had no one inspected them? On the dock they learned why. A short, rotund gentleman in an old-fashioned wig and a fusty suit came hurrying down from the ship’s remnant of a poop, hands outstretched, beaming.

  “Ah, the dozen from Gloucester!” he said brightly, with an accent they would discover later was Scotch. “Doctor Meadows said ye were fine specimens, and I see he was right. My name is Mr. Campbell, and this is my idea.” His hand swept the soft rain aside in a grand gesture. “Floating prisons! So much healthier than the Newgate—than any gaol, for that matter. Ye’ve your property, yes? Good, good. ’Tis a black mark for anybody does not respect a convict’s right to his property. Neil! Neil, where are ye?”

  A person who appeared enough like him to be his twin rushed from the bows of Reception down onto the dock and came to a halt with a puff. “Here, Duncan.”

  “Oh good! I did not want ye to miss setting eyes on these splendid fellows. My brother is my assistant,” he explained, just as if the prisoners were real people. “However, he is responsible for Justitia and Censor at the moment—I am too busy with my dear Ceres—she is superb! Brand new! Of course ye’re going to dear Ceres—so convenient that ye’re the round dozen and in such good condition. Two teams for the two new dredges.” He actually began to prance. “Splendid, splendid!” And off he galloped, his brother bleating in his wake like a lost lamb.

  “Christ! What a quiz!” said Bill Whiting.

  “Tace!” barked the overseeing guard, and brought his bludgeon down with a sickening thump on Whiting’s arm. “Nah hike!”