The Wreck

by Meg Keneally

  Sarah was no good at keeping questions to herself. As a child she had been beaten by the parish priest for asking how he knew the wine had turned to blood when it still tasted like wine. This had seemed to her a reasonable question, and ever since she had wondered if those who objected to questions did not have reasonable answers.

  ‘And why shouldn’t we talk?’ she said now.

  Briardown raised an eyebrow at her as though a chair had started speaking.

  ‘You’ve seen them, Mr Briardown. Likely stepped over a few on the way here. Those who can’t pay even for scraps. The Prince Regent – well, the King now – and the prime minister might view them as human waste, but we do not. And you’ve been given no reason to doubt our sincerity.’

  ‘Whether we have, or have not, is immaterial,’ Tourville said, assuming a right to speak for Briardown that the leader did not correct. ‘The point is, though, your chance has arrived. Your chance to prove that all that rum-soaked talk has done more than foul the air.’ He took a scrunched newspaper cutting from his jacket pocket. Slowly, as though enjoying the process, he unfolded it and set it on the table.

  Tully picked it up, squinting. His eyes, daily focused on the slicing of meat and splintering of bone, did not do well with small print and low light.

  Henry reached out to snatch it. He cleared his throat. ‘A dinner to accommodate secretaries of state from His Majesty’s British Cabinet is to be held at the home of the president of the council, Lord Hargreaves, in Grosvenor Square.’

  Briardown smiled. ‘You see? Now I will be damned if I do not believe there is a God. I have often prayed that those thieves may be collected all together, in order to give us a good opportunity to destroy them, and now God has answered my prayer.’

  The table, suddenly, was engulfed in the murmurings of the men.

  Such events were not unheard of, nor was their public announcement. This dinner was, in fact, the kind of event Briardown had been waiting for: a gathering away from Westminster of those who had created the miasma of hunger and suffering that now hung in the air for so many of the governed.

  Sarah had transferred the note from the baker’s boy into her breeches. She extracted it now, stood up and cleared her throat. ‘I received this today.’ She opened it and was about to read it aloud when Briardown snatched it from her hand.

  He glanced at it briefly and looked up. ‘I had been expecting this. Preparations are being made. Orders are being placed.’

  ‘Is this intelligence any better than the announcement in the newspaper?’ asked Sarah.

  Her question quieted the men. Briardown glanced at her, then away. She knew she was an annoyance to him, only here because of Sam – so she might as well be as annoying as possible.

  Tourville aimed another kind of smile at her. He had a collection of them, none of which was called forth by genuine joy or amusement. This one was probably intended to be indulgent, as a parent would smile at a child using a stick as a musket.

  ‘One generally finds,’ said Briardown, ‘that receiving the same information from two distinct sources tends to make it reliable.’

  ‘Oh, does one?’ Sarah asked. ‘Does this information not seem a little too . . . fortuitous?’ She had selected the type of word that Briardown would use – half in mockery, half in hope it would soften him to the message delivered in a female voice. ‘It’s unusual to have such luck, Mr Briardown.’

  Sam smiled at her and nodded upwards. Their mother would have approved.

  ‘Perhaps someone is sympathetic to our cause,’ Tully said. ‘And highly placed – high enough, at any rate, to know things others don’t. Of course, they’re not going to introduce themselves. They’d be no good to us if they did.’

  ‘Well, it does seem rather a confirmation, I must say,’ said Tourville.

  ‘Confirmation? It’s a clarion trumpet!’ said Tully. ‘Begging for us, they are, all of those exposed necks, red from baths drawn by their servants, waiting for the caress of my knife.’ He slapped Henry on the back and laughed, then withdrew a sharpened blade from his jacket and fiddled with it, deliberately pricking his thumb so a bead of scarlet emerged.

  Sam laughed and said, ‘We can’t just send Tully in to swing his chopper around.’

  Sarah closed her eyes against the sudden wave of pain she knew would break over her. She had seen men swinging blades above their heads before, and their shadows came galloping back far too easily.

  ‘We have a week,’ said Briardown, ‘and we should use every second of it in planning. Both the attack, and what comes after.’

  ‘But the people will take care of what comes after,’ said Henry.

  ‘The people,’ said Sarah. ‘You all seem to believe they will rise up as easily as they exhale. But if they haven’t done so by now—’

  ‘They will,’ said Tully. ‘They haven’t heard the rallying cry till now, is all. They’ve shown themselves willing, though. They have rioted for food. They have emptied storehouses.’ He looked at Sam. ‘They have broken frames in cotton mills up North. When they see those heads they’ll know it’s time, and they will break over Westminster until it is rubble.’

  CHAPTER 5

  After the others had left, Sarah and Sam sat side by side in the loft, their legs dangling over the edge.

  ‘To hear them talk,’ said Sarah, ‘every fishmonger and cooper and cobbler is sitting around with half an ear cocked for a signal to grab a cosh or a pitchfork and take to the streets. But do people know they’re supposed to rise up?’

  ‘They know things cannot be borne as they are,’ said Sam. ‘Nothing has changed. It’s grown worse. When did you last taste meat?’

  Sarah frowned. They were better off than many; Sam brought in enough money for oatmeal, occasionally flour for bread. They were poorer than they had been in Manchester, but free use of the loft meant they were able to survive.

  Meat, though. She could smell it sometimes as she walked past some of the finer houses, tendrils of cold from the cobbles reaching up to envelop her foot through a hole in her shoe. Her mouth would fill with moisture that trickled down her throat in cruel mimicry of the juices from a roasted lamb leg. Every so often she worked as a laundress in the bowels of one of those houses, where she sometimes scrubbed gravy out of tablecloths. She chose to believe it was gravy she was scraping off the bedsheets, too, and distracted herself by pretending her mother had spun the threads and her father had woven the cloth.

  ‘Meat,’ she said longingly. ‘Not since long before Ma and Pa . . .’

  Sam squeezed her shoulder. She squeezed his, and he winced. She grimaced; sometimes she forgot that he had been beaten at the cotton mill when he was barely ten years old, for the supposed crime of dropping a handful of bobbins. His shoulder had never fully healed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I keep forgetting. So much has happened.’

  Sam shook his head. ‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt so much anymore.’

  She knew he was lying, had heard him grunt when he rolled over in his sleep, clutching as he always did a now-grimy ribbon that had belonged to Emily.

  Running towards a spinning mule, Sam had tripped, and spilled the armful of bobbins he had been carrying, which rolled towards the skirting boards and under the machines. When Mr Harris, the gaffer, discovered the mule was no longer spinning, Sam stammered out an apology. Harris listened until the boy stopped speaking. Then he raised his cane. When it connected with Sam’s shoulder, the boy let out a yelp and tears sprang from his eyes.

  As soon as Sarah heard the thunk of the cane, she darted forward. But she wasn’t quick enough; the gaffer brought the cane down on Sam’s other shoulder, the strength of the blow forcing him to his knees.

  Sarah knelt and put her arms around her brother. ‘Please, Mr Harris, he didn’t mean it.’

  Emily, who had been out of the room, hurried in. She marched over to stand between her children and Harris. ‘What are you doing? They are only children!’

  ‘They are here to wo
rk, like everyone else,’ Harris said. ‘If they can’t do it – or if they make it harder for others – they will be punished.’

  Sarah, peering around Emily’s skirt, heard her mother take in a shaky breath. ‘Punish me, then.’

  Harris shrugged. He pulled back the hand that held the cane, then paused. Instead of bringing it down, he moved it forwards and used it to push down the top of Emily’s dress. Not by much, certainly nowhere near enough to reveal her breasts, but enough to make his intent clear. And enough, he must have believed, to remind this woman that she was under his control. ‘See that your children aren’t so stupid, in future,’ he said, lowering the cane. As he walked away, he hit one of the bobbins so that it rolled beneath a machine.

  ‘You should stay away,’ Sam said now. ‘When we go to His Lordship’s and mount the attack.’

  ‘Why?’ Sarah asked. ‘Am I somehow less hungry, less wronged?’

  ‘Of course not. But . . . well, you must live, at least. As long as they haven’t caught all of us, they cannot be victorious. Nothing can happen to you, Sare. You must promise.’

  ‘How can I? How can any of us? But you all seem to see the success of this attack as a certainty.’

  ‘No, just as the only path left to us.’ Sam squeezed her shoulder again, then gave her a playful cuff.

  She laughed, grateful for the rough brotherly gesture; it helped her ignore, briefly, the relentless churn of her stomach. She had decided, while the men were talking, that if her brother went to the gallows, he would not be going alone.

  *

  It had never happened before: two meetings in as many nights, increasing their chances of discovery. But if the plan worked, discovery would be inevitable, and glorious.

  ‘I will go to the door with a note to present to the lord,’ said Briardown, his voice louder than necessary in the cramped loft. ‘You, my friends, are the advance guard. When the door is opened, you will rush in directly, seize the servants who are in the way, aim a pistol at them, and directly threaten them with death if they offer the least resistance or noise.’

  Tully scoffed. ‘If they are disgusted at having to clean up after their betters for so long, they will no doubt greet us as liberators.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Briardown, ‘but it can’t be relied on. There are other sympathisers in Lord Hargreaves’s employ – you have not met them yet, nor will you until afterwards, either as fellow members of the new provisional government or in the hereafter. They will rush forward to take command of the stairs. One will have a pistol, and he will be protected by another holding a grenade. A couple of men will take the head of the stairs leading to the lower part of the house. Once the house is secured, a group of us will go in for the assassination. I know precisely what I shall say.’ He stretched his neck and cleared his throat. ‘Well, my lords, I have as good men here as any in England. Enter citizens and do your duty.’ Briardown looked around as though expecting applause.

  ‘Others?’ said Tully. ‘I thought I—’

  Briardown shot him a look of annoyance, then raised his eyebrows at Tourville, who said, ‘The importance of your part in this cannot be understated. The final act, the swing that will bring freedom, will not happen unless you pave the way.’

  ‘But you haven’t stationed a lookout,’ said Sarah. ‘That’s my job. Always has been.’

  The men glanced at one another.

  ‘She has a point, actually,’ said Tully.

  ‘She also has ears,’ said Sarah.

  Henry smiled at her. ‘You have, and I know they function perfectly well. Everyone is just distracted.’ He looked at Briardown. ‘Isn’t that correct, sir?’

  ‘Nothing distracts me from the crucial task ahead of us. Or at least it didn’t, until you made your suggestion – which, by the way, is preposterous. What if you swoon in the excitement? We would endanger ourselves rescuing you.’

  ‘Swoon?’ Sarah scoffed. ‘Was I swooning when you met me in the aftermath of a massacre?’

  ‘I don’t doubt your fortitude,’ Tully said with gruff kindness. ‘But a lookout? What if a soldier comes, a runner? Won’t your presence at the front of the house confirm to them that something is amiss?’

  ‘They do have women in Grosvenor Square, Tully,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Not normally loitering outside His Lordship’s house.’

  ‘I’ll dress as a stableboy, then,’ said Sarah. ‘There are lads years younger than me who are taller, so I could pass very easily. I’ll grime my face. No one pays any attention to the dirty, unless they’re threatening to soil fine cloth.’

  Briardown had stopped scowling, and he looked at Sam. ‘Would you permit this?’

  ‘It is not his decision!’ said Sarah.

  ‘His is the only word on the matter I will accept,’ said Briardown.

  When Sarah looked at her brother, all her righteous indignation, all her excitement, all her annoyance at Briardown and Tully vanished. Sam was the colour of spent coals in a dead fireplace. His mouth was open, his eyes fixed on her. She suddenly felt mean, selfish and disloyal for making him endure this when he was about to embark on an endeavour that could potentially take his life.

  But, she reminded herself, she had just as much right to participate as he did.

  She walked up to him, took his hand, looked down at his stained skin and her own cracked nails, and said, ‘I am as wronged as you.’

  He gazed at her for a minute, and she had the uncomfortable feeling he was trying to commit her face to memory. Then he nodded.

  CHAPTER 6

  Sarah stood in the loft, staring at the gun barrels poking out from under the hessian, afraid to look away in case they somehow vanished. She had checked the weapons hidden in the loft twice, three times. They were all still there; they had not moved of their own accord.

  The weapons had been smuggled in over the past couple of days. Always by a different man, always only one or two firearms.

  Henry had been the last to come, early that morning after Sam had gone to Grosvenor Square. Briardown had told her brother he would be one of many men, from other groups like theirs, to pass by the Square that day: not to stop, not to stare, just to see if it looked as though preparations really were being made for a dinner, or if anything seemed amiss.

  ‘You’re not a toy soldier,’ Sarah had said to Henry when he arrived. ‘Not anymore.’

  He was nervous, moving from foot to foot, his eyes darting around the loft as if he expected to see a half-concealed Bow Street Runner. He had probably seen as much death as Sarah, but she doubted he had seen as much blood spilt in violence. He might see his own by the end of the day.

  She wanted to cup his face, stroke his hair, murmur half-formed words of reassurance. Fall against his chest, this time deliberately. Breathe in the faint odour of sweat with which everyone but Briardown and Tourville was wreathed; a scent that, on Henry, was far from unpleasant.

  He smiled, something he did even more often than Tourville although far less artfully. Then he dipped his hand into a pocket that was coming away from his coat – it must have seen some heavy wear, as she had rarely seen him take it off since the night he had put it around her shoulders – and extracted the little lead soldier. ‘I carry it for luck,’ he said, straightening the tiny bayonet before putting it back. He rummaged again and took out the sailor. ‘Hold this,’ he said, closing her hand around it. ‘We will all need luck today.’

  He looked, somehow, straighter. He had lost the natural hunch of a boy who needed to protect his food from theft and his belly from a boot.

  ‘Henry,’ she said, ‘do you believe in what we are doing? Is there really a chance?’

  ‘When I was a child,’ Henry said slowly, ‘I was taught to believe that there is a God, and He is loving, but that belief died with my mother. I was then supposed to believe I was intended for my poor station in life, and I refused to accept that. So I have to believe in Briardown.’ His smile was lopsided, and quickly gone.

  ‘I ho
pe he’s worth your faith,’ she said.

  ‘So do I, for I am not fighting only for Briardown.’ He stepped forward, inhaled deeply as though gathering courage, and kissed her cheek, resting his lips there for an instant.

  When he straightened, she raised her hand to her face, felt the growing heat.

  He frowned. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—’

  She shook her head, unable to supress a grin. ‘Don’t be. And don’t die.’

  He smiled again, more broadly this time. ‘As you command,’ he said. ‘But you must make me the same promise.’

  ‘Very well, I promise not to die.’

  He had given her an apprentice’s interpretation of a courtly bow before leaving the stable.

  Now Sarah restrained herself from checking the weapons again, and reminded herself that Henry and the others would be back shortly. One way or another, this would be their final meeting in the loft. Right at this minute, though, they were probably saying goodbye to parents, sisters, sweethearts – Sarah tried not to imagine Henry farewelling another girl. Perhaps some of the men were writing letters, explaining actions that might seem inexplicable. Others might simply be staring at the walls of their homes, committing each crack to memory in case they spent the remainder of their days in a prison cell.

  She didn’t hear Sam when he came in, didn’t know he was there until he clattered some guns on top of the arsenal. She started. He walked over and gently put an arm around her shoulder, led her away from the stockpile, sat her down at the table.

  ‘I’ll have the worst of it, you know,’ she said.

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘I’ll be waiting around outside. Fretting. You won’t have time to worry. You will be too busy carrying it all out. By the time you’ve leisure to let any fear in, you will either be victorious or . . .’

  ‘Or in a position never to be afraid again. Or, well, to exist in eternal fear – that’s where many will think I’m bound.’