John McPake and the Sea Beggars

by Stuart Campbell

  Cut it out both of you. There is a story to be told.

  ‘Oooh, get you. Suit yourself. You’re a shite storyteller anyway. Call yourself a Narrator, it’s all strained metaphors, hopelessly overwritten and, essentially, it’s nonsense … ’

  The men jostled the new conscripts. One of them, a short man with beaked nose fingered Johannes’ coat. ‘Nice cloth, nice cloth.’ He muttered. His companion insinuated his hand into Johannes’ pocket and, undetected, removed a small knife. He recoiled in mock horror waving the weapon. ‘Armed to the teeth. A Spanish blade I wager!’

  Cornelius meanwhile had attracted the unwanted attention of a small man who had grabbed his sleeve and sniffed. Cornelius jerked away in disgust. ‘Careful now,’ said the Leader, ‘you don’t want to upset Ulriche, our own blind soothsayer.’ Ulriche raised his sightless eyes towards the leader and flared his nostrils as if drinking in his words through his nose.

  ‘If you cross Ulriche he will sniff you out, like a hound he will track you down, he will smell you in the midden, he will find your scent in water, and then he will rip out your own eyes. He recruits, you understand, for the King of Darkness. There are many young brides in Madrid and Valencia who stare in horror at their husband’s empty sockets.’ Ulriche nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘We will join you and labour on your ship in exchange for free passage,’ said Johannes. The Leader repeated his earlier exaggerated mocking bow and ordered his men to strike the camp. Smouldering logs were kicked out of the fire. The busy sparks spiralled upwards and then died. A man went to untie the three nuns from around the tree and jerked them, still chained together in a line. ‘Call me Holy Father!’ he shouted. ‘Yes, Holy Father!’ they chorused in terror. Satisfied, he grunted as if his newly acquired dogs were finally learning

  obedience.

  Several of the men struggled to lift the studded chests on to their shoulders. Cornelius was reminded of the box crammed with bedding and curtains gifted to him and his new bride by the elders of the village. It had remained virtually unopened in a corner of their bedroom. ‘Wait until we get a big house,’ Geertje would say. ‘Or when we fall on hard times.’

  He was distracted by laughter and looked towards where one of the men was staggering under the weight of an enormous cross presumably looted from St Michael’s Abbey. His fellow beggars flailed him with imaginary whips while shouting ‘Release Barabbas!’

  Eventually he was relieved of his solitary burden that was then shared between four men who either took an end or the cross length as if hurrying to get an imminent crucifixion over and done with.

  Balthasar shivered as the wind blew in from the adjacent flooded land. ‘This too is meant,’ he said, more to reassure himself than the others. Cornelius and Johannes nodded grimly.

  The walk to the coast took under an hour. On several occasions the Leader paused and called Ulriche to the front of the party. Everyone watched as he raised his nose in the air, puckering his nostrils before pointing with great certainty in a particular direction.

  They marched until their eyes were smarting with the salt whipped off the spume. As they clambered through the ferny undergrowth they disturbed a nest of gulls which erupted into a flurry of wings, web and feather. One of the birds brushed against Johannes’ cheek. He raised his arm to protect himself but the bird redoubled its fury and attached its yellow beak to his sleeve. Cornelius came to his aid and quickly smacked the squawking bird into the undergrowth where it lay stunned.

  They eventually came to a gully at the bottom of which a two-masted ship, flying the Lion of Nassau flag of orange, white and blue, rocked on its anchor. The men improvised a human chain down the side of the sloping bank and passed down the crates, chests, barrels, crowbars, the spoils of their ecclesiastical looting and what supplies remained. The nuns were treated in similar fashion and were manhandled towards the vessel below. Most of the men attempted to kiss or grope the frightened women before roughly passing them to the next link in the lecherous chain.

  Johannes stumbled down the last few feet and plunged to his knees in the frozen edge of the sea. He had seen enough rain, floodwater and sea to last him a lifetime, and was overcome with bleakness. Unsteadily he hauled himself back onto the lichen-smeared rock and made his way to the split log that stretched from the shore to the ship. Balthasar and Cornelius had already stepped over the gunnel and onto the deck where they were jeered by the crew who had stayed aboard. Balthasar counted some forty men altogether. Most were dressed in black sacking breeches and jerkins stained with shiny patches which could have been tar or spittle. They smelled of latrines.

  The weavers progressively backed away from the menacing phalanx of men, several of whom moved slowly towards them with daggers drawn.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  ‘Do you remember that song by the effing singing nun, “Dominique, nique, nique” or some rubbish like that. They shouldn’t be singing on Top of the Pops, ken, they should be praying for lost souls like us.

  ‘Most of them are crabbit, twisted wee women, and so ugly ken. Brides of Christ, I don’t think so! It’s not right; all they frustrated women living in the same home. No men. All salivating over the parish priest when he comes to say mass. Most of them are lessies anyway. Christ has no chance!

  ‘And don’t mention that thrawn sleikit old crone, Mother Teresa. A wee twisted midget, with no concern for the livin; she couldn’t move for all they papal medals round her neck, weighed down she was. Humpybackit.’

  Jester, did I say you could take over?

  ‘Sorry boss, I thought you were getting tired and I just slipped in there.’

  Well, just slip out again!

  ‘Nobel Peace Prize, my arse!’

  The two men wandered further along the beach in the direction of Portobello and the fun fair closed for the

  season.

  ‘She also won the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize in 1971 and the Nehru Prize for the promotion of international peace and understanding in 1972 … ’

  At a word from the Leader the crew desisted and returned grudgingly to their duties. The Leader then ordered one of the sailors, a thin man whose face was covered with bulbous carbuncles, to show the three new arrivals their quarters.

  Their guide led the way below deck and along a sloping dark passage that smelt of fungus and bodies. Cornelius hit his head against a beam that bisected the increasingly narrow space. He swore and felt for wetness. Carbuncle stopped. ‘Fresh straw, lads,’ he said, ‘you must be favoured guests, but remember you have to earn your passage.’ Chuckling, he left them and retraced his steps to the thin aperture of light that showed the upper rungs of the ladder down which they had climbed. Water dripped from every knothole.

  As their eyes adjusted to the dark the men could make out other shapes resting on both sides of the narrow corridor. One of the shapes put its leg out and guffawed as Johannes stumbled. Other shapes were quick to join in the mocking chorus. Eyes shone in the darkness.

  ‘Is this hell?’ muttered Balthasar. ‘Are these men or demons?’

  ‘I preferred the flood,’ said Cornelius, leading the way back to the hatch.

  The light was fading and the sky heavy with sagging black clouds, the sea air welcome after the rancid stench below.

  There was much activity on deck. Serpent ropes uncoiled, spun by an unseen sorcerer. The men watched as the crew worked to a pattern the shape of which was not immediately apparent. Cornelius was minded of a dumb show he had watched when strolling players had visited the village and, without recourse to language, had conjured the death of Abel and his subsequent redemption.

  Ropes were fed through hands at a rate that should have shredded flesh from bone, but the crew seemed immune. Balthasar looked overhead where the main sail shrugged, a surly giant reluctantly waking from a deep sleep. Wooden crossbeams groaned as pressure was applied from taut ropes. Johannes glanced at the lattice-work of rigging that enveloped the ship like an old lady whose face was swaddled with a cloth to allevi
ate toothache. Small figures, silhouetted against the setting sun, clambered towards the crow’s nest.

  ‘Idle weaver scum,’ said the Leader. ‘We don’t deal with cloth and buttons here. Get to work.’ He ushered them to the gunnel and demonstrated how to close the gun ports, a necessary precaution as the ship lurched into life and wind fought with tide.

  Cornelius worked on his own while the other two developed a rhythm, each pushing the heavy oak shutters from opposite sides. The movement and the degree of effort was exactly that required when the loom had to be repositioned. For a moment Johannes saw Michel at his side, plying him with questions as he strained to fix a problem that could, if handled badly, jeopardise the day’s labour.

  Blind Ulriche stood stock still at the centre of the hubbub, his face slightly raised towards the breeze, which he smelt as if savouring a decaying fruit.

  Cornelius was the first to hear another sound mingling with the wind. He paused for a moment and motioned to the others to listen. The crew were singing.

  LET GO THE ROPES, UNFURL THE SAILS,

  AND LET US BE OFF TO SEA,

  WERE WE EVEN LORDS ASHORE

  OUR HEARTS WOULD LIE WITH THEE

  ‘Let me just say the sea shanty has an honourable lineage. For many centuries sea-faring folk have often improvised verses lacking either explicit or continuous themes. The rhythm of the song quoted above suggests a Long-drag or Halyard shanty, both of which were devised to synchronise with the job of hauling on halyards to hoist topsail or topgallant yards.’

  Academic, I appreciate your enthusiasm but increasingly you are getting in the way of the story. No, Bastard, back to sleep! I do not need a contribution from you, not now.

  ‘Can’t stop me, I live in this head, same as you. Anyway, I’m getting pissed off listening to a tale about pirates. Why don’t they sing “Yo-ho-ho and a Bottle of Rum”, and be done with it. It’s all rubbish.’

  ‘Sorry to butt in again but Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest was made up by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1883. Although it was subsequently expanded in a poem titled Derelict by Young E. Allison and published in the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1891, there is absolutely no evidence for its existence in the 16th century … ’

  Both of you, behave! You consistently compromise the momentum of the narrative.

  ‘Sorry … ’

  ‘Pair of losers … ’

  When the gun ports had all been closed the three men rested their backs against the gunnel. The other crew did likewise. As the ship was now well underway, riding the swell towards the open sea, most of the men were stood down. Johannes smiled ruefully at his companions.

  ‘God’s will,’ said Balthasar.

  ‘God’s will,’ echoed Cornelius in his best priest’s voice before grinning. His mirth was infectious and the others joined in until they were convulsed, tears running down their faces. Even Ulriche moved his face towards the sounds of joy that had their origins in the absurdity of the recent days, overwhelming relief at still being alive, and an irresistible sense that all was not lost.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  While Mick continued to mutter to himself about the irredeemable evil of nuns John looked at the forlorn beach. The tide was out and it was difficult to see where the sand ended and the water began. There was an indistinct blur of wetness through which two dogs scampered in a pointless gull hunt. The birds flapped towards the distant waves and merged into a haze of spray and faltering daylight. The wooden groynes sank deeper into the sand the closer they got to the sea, like the rib cage from the carcass of a sunken hulk.

  Minutes earlier he had been able to make out the tiny silhouette of a two-masted ship on the horizon but that too had disappeared behind the encroaching murk of dusk. A memory had been stirred but he couldn’t tie it down. It felt like an itch in his head that he couldn’t quite scratch. The Voices tried to help him. The Jester was first up.

  ‘Come on, sir, dirty postcards, loads of them, bums and tits, sir, don’t show the missus, ooh aah!’ John stared at a nonexistent wodge of saucy seaside cards from the 1950s. Striped bathing costumes, breasts merging into beach balls, pouting lips, silly captions. Huge arses and ice creams.

  The Bastard swatted the Jester to one side. ‘John, you came here to bury something once, what was it? Some shameful secret, a dirty magazine stolen from the corner shop, someone’s pet you killed out of wickedness … ’

  John flinched then relaxed as the more welcome urbane cadences of the Academic gradually grew in volume and prominence.

  ‘I’ve been looking through the archives and, although the evidence is a little ambiguous, I think you were brought here when you were much younger. A holiday, the sun was shining. You got a little burned and were eventually caked in calamine lotion then placed behind the collapsible wind shield. The only surviving photos from that day have been damaged; it’s impossible to tell who was with you.’

  ‘Probably your brother,’ interjected the Tempter while the Academic marshalled his thoughts.

  ‘They Christian Brothers were just as bad as the nuns,’ commented Mick unhelpfully. ‘I was held off the ground by one of they Catholic hooligans, he lifted me by the lug, it’s not been the same since.’ He held out the lobe of his left ear for John’s inspection.

  ‘There’s a lot of work been done on false memory syndrome; you have to be on your guard.’

  Despite the Academic’s warning, John focussed on the shade of a particular memory until it became less blurred. He did remember the ache of sunburn and had a sense of a large woman bending over him. There was a man too, though at a distance. He was smoking and looking out towards the sea. He had hated the feel of sand between his toes. One of the grown ups, probably the woman, had chided him and told him to take off his sandals. Who were these people? Foster parents perhaps, the latest in a long line.

  He strained to look round the edges of the sepia photograph that he was desperate to restore to its original condition. Was his brother there? Could he see him in his peripheral vision? He tilted the photo. Could he hear him shouting as he played at the water’s edge? He put the print close to his ear but could hear nothing. Then the clouds came in and obscured the memory. The large woman faded first, then her male companion. The pain from the sunburn subsided and John was aware once more of Mick ranting at his side. Aware too that he had wandered into a stream of dubious-looking water gushing from another outlet pipe and making a slurry mess of the sand. Mick was cursing, mincing on tiptoe as he edged his way across the flow. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he said, ‘as if life’s no bad enough.’ He glanced up and pointed towards the Mecca amusement arcade. ‘Look, son, the promised land, an oasis of light and hope.’

  John followed in Mick’s wake as he swept into the arcade, pushing both swing doors simultaneously as if he were an emperor paying a surprise visit to his errant people. He glanced at the significant list of prohibitions in the foyer, NO FISH AND CHIPS NO DOGS NO SKATEBOARDS. ‘Fascist bastards!’ He grasped the loaded shove ha’penny machine between outspread arms and, summoning strength well beyond his frame, shook it. The precariously balanced avalanche of ten pence coins proved remarkably resistant. ‘Glued thegether,’ he pronounced, transferring his interest to a cage crammed with smiling toy kangaroos beneath an industrial-sized grabber. ‘And they say I suffer from psychotic episodes.’

  John was disconcerted by the barrage of neon, invitations to kill the freak, make a fortune, and test his strength in a booth dominated by a smiling Mohammed Ali. A nightmare ceramic toddler was suspended by a wire from an air balloon next to several garish full-sized horses frozen in mid

  prance.

  ‘It’s a trial,’ said the Tempter. ‘Keep your wits and you will find him.’

  ‘Join the losers!’ said the Bastard, obliging John to look at the other punters, all of whom were clad in identical beige raincoats. Each was patiently feeding the residue of their benefits payment into lucky slots while the proprietor lorded it in his own perspex cage fortified by t
owers of two-penny coins.

  He was tugged by another memory which he knew was going to be unpleasant once it materialised but he lacked the strength to let it go, whatever form it was about to assume. It already held him in its thrall. His mounting anxiety centred on one of the male figures hunched over a slot machine.

  ‘It’s him,’ said the Tempter. ‘By his deeds will you know him.’ Something was not right. John knew it wasn’t his brother. It was someone else. Unable to stop himself, he reached out and touched the man on the shoulder. The unkempt man in his sixties turned and stared. His lip curled as he appraised the stranger at his back. He muttered something and returned to his game. John felt diminished.

  ‘Well now,’ said the Bastard. ‘Interesting or what? Let me think. Could it be the Superintendent? Could it be your father? Now there’s a thought. Some nightmare figure from your past. Someone who rightly despised you for the runt that you were.’

  ‘Amusement arcades,’ said the Academic loudly, determined to distract John and rescue him from the dark place that had momentarily claimed him, ‘developed out of penny arcades from the nineteenth century. Initially popular were the bagatelle machines which combined elements of billiards with modern pinball. Of course the Victorians were attracted to What the Butler Saw, not to mention the unfortunately named Pussy Shooter.’

  ‘Your sort of game, I would have thought, seems perfect for a sexual deviant with a fear of women and unresolved anger issues,’ quipped the Bastard.

  ‘Survive the trial, and you will find HIM,’ persisted the Tempter.

  ‘My favourite is the Cochon Electriser developed in France in 1898 which administered electric shocks. You turn the handle on the pig’s belly and receive a shock. If you can withstand the maximum charge the pig’s eyes light up.’

  ‘Now that’s familiar, isn’t it, John. A bit like the Royal Edinburgh. Did your eyes light up last time? Did they?’