by Jana Petken
“Right, stick some more of that chloroform on the other bitches’ gags,” Eddie told Sam after opening the door an inch. “We need them kept under till we get into the suburbs. C’mon, tie her up quick and make sure her gag’s on nice and tight. It’s time to get home. We’ve done well, Sammy boy, but we’ve a long road ahead of us.”
Chapter Seven
Mercy’s body rocked back and forth and bounced up and down with the coach’s movements. She was falling in and out of consciousness, shivering with cold yet otherwise unable to move her relaxed muscles. She didn’t know where she was. As much as she tried, she couldn’t keep her eyes open.
Time passed in a blur of dark shadows. She slept again. Then she finally managed to open her eyes and keep them open long enough to take in her surroundings. The horrible taste and smell were still deep in her throat, and she tried to cough them out. Her body ached. Her wrists and feet were hurting, as were her shoulders and back. She tried to focus now that she no longer felt herself spinning. She was fully conscious. The terrible dream she thought she’d just had became reality.
From her position on the floor, she could see shadowy figures, billowing skirts, and shoes of all colours. She saw the ropes tied around bare ankles first. She tilted her head back on the floor, looked left and right, and saw arms tucked behind backs. With her neck arched as far as it would go without breaking, she saw faces of terrified girls. They were all gagged with white cloths. The top of the gags sat just under their nostrils and completely covered the girls’ mouths.
Mercy felt her own gag more keenly and suddenly thought she might suffocate. She couldn’t breathe through her mouth. She couldn’t move her lips. The gag was knotted so tightly at the back of her head that it dug into her cheekbones.
Some partly covered faces stared back at her, whilst a few still slept. She tried to count how many girls were in there with her. She was on the floor with one other body, which was not moving. The girl lay directly behind her. Mercy could just see the tip of her bright pink walking boots.
There were four girls slumped on one long bench to the right and another four on the bench to her left. Some heads bounced on their neighbours’ shoulders. One girl was in an awkward position, with her body twisted and her head on another girl’s lap. None could speak, but a couple of girls were persistently moaning through their gagged mouths. Some were unconscious, as she had been earlier, but those who were awake did not attempt to untie themselves or struggle against the ropes in any way.
Mercy looked above the faces. Her eyes scanned the walls until she saw the soft golden glow of dusk coming through a tiny window, covering the wooden ceiling in an orange hue. How long had she been lying here? Where was she? What was the carriage’s destination? Questions converged on her all at once, making her pounding headache even more severe. Hours had passed; that much she did know. It would be dark soon. Was she still in London? And her final question, which should have been her first: why was this happening to her? What did they want with her and the other girls?
The pain of tightly knotted ropes became more intense. She struggled to loosen the rope that bound her wrists, which were behind her and pressing into the hard floor that bumped every time the coach hit a stone or dip in the road. She shook her feet in an attempt to free herself, but to no avail.
Exhausted, she stared up at the ceiling and felt the first tears fall. They were a strange sensation, those tears. She allowed them to fall freely for the first time in her life. As she did so, muffled sobbing left her gag-bound mouth. She was crying, and it felt good.
Chapter Eight
“How far is it now? My bloody arse has gone to sleep. You know how much I hate those bleedin’ pins and needles when it starts waking up again,” Sam complained.
“I reckon it’s about another two miles or so. Why the fuck are you asking me? We’ve done this often enough. Christ, Sam, I can tell just by looking at the trees where we are. You sleep too much instead of paying attention. When we’ve finished at this rest stop, you’re taking the reins. I’m knackered.”
“All right, ya moaning git, stop your griping. Just get a move on and don’t spare the horses. I need a drink.”
It had taken the carriage an hour longer than usual to reach the London outskirts. There had been work going on everywhere. They’d been turned away from side streets and main roads, and they’d ended up on the south side of the city instead of the north.
They arrived at their rest stop seven hours after starting out and three hours later than usual. The horses were labouring now, but this inn always kept spare horses for them, as did all the other inns where they routinely stopped.
The madam paid retainers, and the men with the horses never crossed her. A couple of years earlier, a man had taken her money and then hadn’t shown up with the animals. He’d ended up decapitated, his head stuck on a tree branch with her anonymous compliments.
Sam and Eddie always got a free meal and ale wherever they stopped. They took their time, for after they’d had their fill, they then had the tedious task of watering the whores in the back of the coach. They never fed the girls. It delayed Sam and Eddie too much and was hard work. They didn’t need food, the madam told them. As long as they were periodically watered, she believed there would be no harm done to their bodies – and starving them would stop shit flowing out of them every five minutes. “Just make sure you keep them watered. I want soft skins, not bloody prunes – that’s the most important thing,” Madame du Pont reminded them whenever they left for London.
Sam and Eddie felt better after they’d eaten a stew with bread, accompanied by a pitcher of ale. It was time to change the horses. They unhitched the four from London and led them to the stables just behind the inn. Their man was waiting, as always, with four fresh horses. He hitched them up to the carriage and then disappeared.
Eddie carried two buckets of water to the rear of the carriage and set them down. Sam was already inside. He picked Mercy up from the floor and threw her untidily onto one of the benches. She moaned, and he slapped her across the head. He then did the same to the other girl who’d been on the floor with Mercy. She was now conscious and kicked out, hitting Sam’s shin. For her cheek, she was punched on the side of the head. “Try that again and I’ll fucking choke the life out of your scrawny neck. Now shut it!”
He told all the girls, “Not one sound do I want to hear come out of your mouths. Next one will get more than these two got. You hear me?”
Eddie handed the water buckets to Sam, stepped up, and slid inside the crowded carriage, closing the doors behind him. He carried a gas lantern and set it down.
They shared the work. Each man untied a gag, poured water into a girl’s mouth from an iron ladle, and gagged the girl again straight after.
Eddie pulled a face, an ugly scowl. Watering the whores got harder as the journey went on. It was so bloody tiring. Most, if not all, girls usually peed themselves a couple of times before they reached the first stop, and tonight was no exception. The carriage stunk like a cesspit with vomit included. It was common for a girl to vomit when the gag was removed. He hated the smell of vomit and how it looked. The fucking sight of it had put him off eating porridge for life. Christ, it was like working in a fucking zoo, tending to stinking animals by the time they got within striking distance of Liverpool. He went back outside for some fresh air.
Sam was finishing off inside. He made sure every gag was tight enough and securely knotted. Then he put chloroform drops on the top part of the cloth, just under the girls’ nostrils. A sleeping captive was a good captive, as far as he was concerned. He took one last look, and right enough, they all conked out one after the other before his very eyes.
Outside, Eddie looked at his pocket watch. It was almost ten o’clock. Nineteen hours to go, he calculated. They had about nine and a half hours of night travel in front of them. It was always as black as a bottomless pit, with only a small, dimly lit lantern on the front of the carriage to guide them along the uneven a
nd sometimes treacherous path.
They only ever came across one or two other carriages during this part of the journey. Highwaymen were not much of a threat nowadays. They had all but given up on that employment, what with night traffic on the road a rare sight, thanks to the railways.
Eddie and Sam stopped periodically to water and cool down the horses. They always had two full buckets of water attached to the rear end of the coach for this very reason. When they moved on after a half hour or so, the horses were slightly fresher and just about able to reach the next stop.
Their habit was to rest up just before dawn or thereabouts. At the inn, they went through the same routine, ate what seemed like the same watery stew, and drank another pitcher of ale. They were both convinced that the same cook travelled from inn to inn, covering the length of England.
They changed horses again, watered the captives, and afterwards moved on to their third and final rest, which was during daylight hours.
The day was coming, Eddie believed, when these ventures would stop altogether. Inns were closing at night for lack of traffic, and it was harder to get someone to have the horses available, even though the men who did this job for them were well paid. The railway was going to finish off the madam’s long-standing business, and that worried Eddie, for if she closed down this part of her operation, he’d be out of a job.
Chapter Nine
The carriage, exhausted horses, two men, and ten abducted girls finally reached the Liverpool suburbs. It was mid-afternoon, and the weather was fair, but it was much cooler than the blazing London heat they’d left behind.
Eddie’s head bounced on his neck. He was unaware of the traffic build-up, the city noise, ships’ horns, and putrid smell penetrating the carriage’s wooden walls. He’d slept for at least three hours on this last part of the journey. Sam had cursed more than once at the ease with which Eddie seemed to shut out everything going on around him, including him. He had needed Eddie to talk to. Eddie talked a load of crap most of the time, Sam thought, but his company would have made the last bit of the journey more tolerable.
“You’re a right selfish bastard,” Sam stated in a loud voice. He kicked Eddie’s legs, which were stretched out over the wooden bar that partly connected the horses to the carriage. “Wake up, ya lazy bugger; we’re nearly home.”
Eddie yawned and stretched his arms. He threw Sam a thunderous look. “Wait a minute – let me come to, will you? Christ, it’s not as if you didn’t sleep enough earlier.” Eddie yawned again.
“Well, we’re in the city, just about. Keep a lookout for coppers or anyone else that might stop us for some reason. I don’t like the look of all this traffic. The bloody Americans must be in port. I’m going to see if we can get down one of these side streets.”
“Jesus, the whores are stinking well this trip,” Eddie said, finally fully coming to.
“I know. Smells worse than the London stink in there. I can’t wait to get cleaned up and have a good kip.”
“Me too. My fucking neck feels as though it’s broken,” Eddie said, massaging his neck and shoulders.
Sam glared at him. “You’ve got a nerve. If you had snored any louder, I was going to break your bloody neck for you. Now look lively, Eddie boy. We’re almost there.”
The coach turned off the busy port thoroughfare, which ran parallel with the docks. It turned right onto a long wide road, lined with storage yards, livery stables, and an omnibus terminus. From there, they headed west and continued in this direction for about a mile. They then took a sharp turn into a side street and then into another connecting to it. These streets were full of old low-rent houses, and even Eddie and Sam hated going through this particular area. Thieves and drunks lived there, and most of them made their livings stealing money and luggage from immigrants.
When they reached the final bend of the third street they’d gone through, they carefully manoeuvred the carriage onto a narrow dirt road which led to the edge of a park. The carriage steadily followed one of the many paths branching off like veins through the grassy tree-dotted expanse until they eventually came to another street which bordered it on the far side.
The street they were now in was different to the ones they’d left behind. The houses were large and gated. They were in the heart of Mansions Row, where the upper class resided. Those who didn’t know Liverpool well could be led to believe that they were in the countryside instead of just a couple of miles from the docks. Most of the mansions were invisible from the street, for they sat at the end of long, winding driveways and were surrounded by high walls and trees.
Finally, the carriage turned right and stopped in front of iron gates. Eddie jumped down, unlocked them, and opened them wide. He waited until the carriage was inside, and then he closed and locked the gates behind him.
A gatehouse stood just inside the gates. When Madame du Pont was open for business, two men were always on hand to monitor who was coming and going.
Madame du Pont’s mansion and the business therein were accessible for members only. The membership document was nothing more than a fancy piece of paper embossed with a silver-leafed frame, the customer’s name in the centre, the house rules, and Madame du Pont’s signature. But this document was all-important, because without it there was no entry onto the premises until a thorough background check and interview had been conducted. Only the elite passed through these gates, whether it was for one night only or on a regular basis.
The driveway snaked its way around manicured lawns and trees. The carriage finally came to the rear of the mansion and turned sharply to park up inside the stable.
Both men sighed with relief.
Sam jumped down and stumbled as though he’d just reached dry land. He stretched his body, rubbed his arse, and then rolled his head from side to side. “Ah … pure fucking luxury,” he said.
Eddie joined him on the ground and did the same dance movement, swinging his hips and bending over frontwards and then backwards. “Christ, I’m as stiff as a board. I thought I’d lost all feeling in my arse forever. Thank God that’s over. We did well, Sam.”
“That we did. It was a bloody hard one. I can’t wait to see the madam’s face when she looks over the bounty. She’ll be right pleased, I bet, especially with that last piece of cunt we picked up.”
Two young boys smiled and waved to Eddie and Sam as they approached the carriage. One of the boys said, “It’s good to see you back, sirs.”
Eddie nodded and then growled harshly, “Get the horses unhitched. Wipe them down and feed them well – and take a look at one of the mares. It looks as though she’s gone lame on her left foreleg.” Whilst the boys did as they were told, Sam closed the stable doors.
Eddie crossed to the far corner of the stable. There was a door situated there. He waited for Sam to join him, and when he did, both men opened the door and stepped onto a landing that led to a basement, ten stairs down.
The large underground room had no windows. A fire was necessary to keep it warm, winter and summer. It was also very dark, with only small ceiling vents allowing in air and a shimmer of light.
Straw mattresses lay on the ground in two neat lines. There were four bathtubs, towels, washbowls, soap, and rows of filled water buckets. Sam lit the logs in the fireplace and placed the first of the water buckets on a bar that sat above them.
They were aware that Madame du Pont didn’t like her girls catching cold. She couldn’t care less about them as people, but they were her bread and butter and she cared about her income. The place had to be cosy before the girls got down there to bathe and sleep. This was rule number one.
They walked back up the stairs. Eddie spoke to one of the stable boys and ordered him to get the serving women. When he’d done this, he joined Sam, and both walked towards the carriage.
Experience had taught them not to open the carriage door until they’d covered their noses and mouths with cotton masks. The stench emanating from the carriage was at its worst now that the coach was in a c
onfined space and behind closed doors. Both men had been known to vomit.
The ten girls were in various positions inside the carriage. Some had woken up and were sitting as stiff as pokers, whilst others struggled to reach consciousness and were wobbling dazedly on the bench. Some were in shock and trembled, whilst others looked as though they were just about to keel over and die.
Sam was first to speak to them. “Right, wake up and listen here, all of you,” he said in a gruff voice. “I’m going to untie you one by one. My friend here,” he pointed to Eddie, now holding a pistol, “will shoot you between the eyes without a minute’s hesitation if you make a bloody sound or try to run. When you’re free of your ropes, you’ll get down from the carriage and stand in line. I’ll say again: if any one of you so much as moves or says the wrong thing, he’ll shoot you for that too. Am I clear? Nod your heads and tell me you understand, for I’ll not be saying it a third time.”
The girls, eyes wide with fear, nodded in understanding.
They were untied one by one, grimacing but silent, and, as ordered, tried to get down from the carriage. Some stumbled and fell as soon as their feet reached the ground. Legs bound for more than a day and night felt numb and had not an ounce of strength in them to hold their bodies upright.
Those on the ground crawled like babies and then attempted to stand, hanging on to other girls’ skirts for support. When the last of them left the carriage, it was towed away into a somewhat larger stall, where it would be cleaned and disinfected, a task the stable boys hated with a vengeance.
Chapter Ten
Mercy, dazed, bewildered, and terrified, stood in a bedraggled line with the other girls. She was afraid to move a muscle, even though her aching limbs demanded that she do so in order to free herself of painful cramps. She was terrified of being noticed or of allowing a sound to leave her mouth. Cold air was not responsible for making her teeth chatter. No, they clicked together in a song of fear. She was exhausted, sick, and trying her utmost to stand on unsteady feet.