John McPake and the Sea Beggars

by Stuart Campbell

  The farm buildings on the Landscheiding had been colonised by the sea beggars and the pioneers who, through idleness, fought, gambled and drank heavily. One of them suggested they should choose a King and Queen of Misrule. Gerda had been unanimously anointed queen and installed on a throne of straw bales in the largest barn. Her sceptre was a hoe, her crown a red handkerchief. Her consort slept, snoring loudly through his mouth. The isolated pair of incisors thereby revealed were the same teeth which, according to new legend, had recently torn out the heart of a Spanish soldier. Having ripped open the man’s chest and fixed his teeth on the beating organ, he tugged like a scavenging dog until it finally sprang hot and dripping from its cavity. Finding it tasted bitter he threw it away.

  ‘Boss, can I finish this bit?’

  Ok, Jester, go for it.

  ‘ … As their king was comatose the drunken suitors took turns to approach Her Majesty on their knees in gestures of mock homage. The weavers nodded towards their new queen and watched from a distance as the unruly court conducted its business.

  “She seems to have recovered well from her treatment at sea,” mused Johannes.

  “We all survive,“ said Cornelius, equally surprised at the transformation in the now only half-familiar woman with blood red beauty spots etched on each cheek.

  “What brings you here, you troll of a man?“ asked her majesty.

  “I am your child, oh Great Mother, oh wondrous queen, I need to be suckled by you,” leered the short man on his knees. His companions snorted.

  “Approach, loyal serf, your wish shall be granted.” The man grinned and raised both thumbs in the direction of his rowdy supporters. He approached the regal Gerda who suddenly leaped from her throne, grabbed the man by the shoulders and forced his head into her ample bosoms. Unable to extricate himself he squirmed and gasped. Eventually Gerda succeeded in lifting him completely off the ground. The audience howled with laughter as her victim trod in the air, his legs paddling helplessly. Eventually she relented and released her breathless subject who collapsed to the floor, laughter ringing in his ears.

  “And what is your wish, humpy backed toad?”

  “To serve you, oh great queen,” replied her next unctuous supplicant, a small brazier-nosed man weighed down by his hunchback. The courtiers roared insults and threw their hats into the air.

  “And how will you do that?” asked the imperious Gerda.

  “I will live all my days under your skirts … I will pleasure my glorious majesty … ”

  “Hideous little man!” shrieked Gerda. “Remove his breeches.” Eager to carry out the sentence his colleagues happily obliged. Soon the half-naked man ran out of the barn in mock terror with his hands positioned over his crotch. Even Balthasar thought he might be sick if he laughed any more.

  Meanwhile the King, now fully awake, felt able to resume his royal duties.

  A grinning ghoul of a man hauled himself off his barrel and approached bowing unctuously. “Your most gracious, fornicating majesty,”

  “What is your problem, my son?”

  “It’s my cock, your majesty,”

  “Pray, what is the problem with your cock, snivelling peasant?”

  “It is too big, your highness … it belongs to a horse…”

  “A sea horse!” suggested a heckler.

  “Then get thee to a stable!” decreed the self-elected king of drink and orgies. His raucous courtiers aimed kicks at the priapic petitioner who covered his cod piece with both hands and fled to the back of the room.

  The king then abandoned his all embracing benediction as his stubby hand wrapped itself round a tankard offered in tribute to his sagacity and omnipotence. He drained it as if emptying a pot into a ditch, belched loudly and threw back his head, guffawing with laughter. “Bring me Catholic hearts, bring me the fresh organs of virgins, bring me a cardinal’s liver, bring me … ” He snatched at the air as if the words were just out of his reach, “bring me, bring me … ”

  “Drink!” shouted his companions who held him down on the trestle and poured ale down his open throat … ’

  Thanks Jester.

  ‘No problem Boss, I thought things were getting a little tense.’

  ‘This story telling is simply irrelevant,’ interjected an increasingly frustrated and grumpy Academic. ‘Anecdotes, spurious humour, character and cameos add nothing to the historic dimensions of this significant episode in Dutch history. Narrator, I insist that you move things along.’

  If you’re so clever, Academic, you take over.

  ‘It would be a pleasure.’

  The Academic cleared his throat ostentatiously. ‘It is a matter of public record that the fleet languished for several days while opinions were sought and decisions made. Eventually a Pieter Wasteel, the late Pensionary of Mechlin, arrived at headquarters. Accompanied by a boat builder who was wholly familiar with the terrain, they proposed an alternative route to Leyden which involved penetrating into Rynland not from Delfland but via Schieland.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’

  ‘As I was saying, an exploratory expedition of eight galleys confirmed that the route was feasible whereupon the rest of the fleet followed. The main challenge was manoeuvring the preposterous Noah’s Ark, a type of floating fort, through the shallow water. Constructed by coupling two boats together, it could only be propelled by manually turning the wheels that separated the two hulls. Just when they were about to set the monster ship on fire to prevent it falling into enemy hands, it reluctantly floated off the restraining dyke. However, despite some progress the entire fleet was eventually grounded in shallow water quite unable to move. This period of waiting was a period of severe trial to the crews.’

  ‘I know the feeling!’

  ‘The men were consumed with impatience and suffered many hardships. Their tedium was only alleviated by infrequent skirmishes with the enemy and the chance to leave their galleys equipped with gauging rods to locate any deeper channels. So near but so far, they could see Leyden on the horizon.

  ‘His Excellency the Prince of Orange, recently risen from his sick bed, visited the stranded fleet in an attempt to raise morale.’

  ‘I wish someone would raise my morale, I’m utterly, utterly bored.’

  Bastard, I’m always reluctant to agree with you but on this occasion …

  ‘Suit yourselves, jeopardise historical accuracy if you wish, go for the cheap narrative thrill, see if I care what happens to your pathetic weavers … ’

  Academic, there’s no need to sulk, someone’s reading this you know, we have a duty to entertain.

  Anyway, the rain started. Balthasar had developed a hacking cough and was shivering involuntarily. Johannes offered him his overcoat but the offer was declined.

  ‘You’re just being stubborn,’ said Johannes. Balthasar opened his mouth to reply but was overtaken by another coughing fit. Johannes put his coat back on and shook his head. The rain was cold. It dripped from the gunnels and ran along the oars. It dropped from their noses. It flowed in rivulets from their shoes and mingled with the seawater already swilling along the bottom of the galley. Somewhere in the distance thunder growled.

  Cornelius took the sleeves of his coat in turn and squeezed the water out of them. The wind blowing from the north-west forced rain into their faces. Through smarting eyes Johannes looked in the direction of Leyden but the earlier sighting must have been an illusion. The intervening distance had been smudged and blurred by the incessant downpour. Beyond the boat he could only see a thin strip of water pock marked and pitted by rain. Perhaps Michel had succumbed to the plague, his loose skin similarly pitted by disease.

  SIXTY

  ‘I really don’t get you, John. You could have been with Rebecca if you had just taken that tiny step. I can do no more, Bastard, I tried.’

  ‘I know you did, Tempter. Some cases are just intractable. Listen up, John, we have offered you glimpses of your own promised land. It was yours for the taking. You could have felt the sun on your
back forever, away from all this. I’m sorry, there’s no other way now.

  ‘Face it, you are a blot on the landscape. A mute waster. A scrounger. Someone who lives on disability benefits because he hears Voices. Big deal. Get over it. Have you any idea how much money it costs the State to keep you in that hostel with its small army of support workers, a harassed manager, a cleaner, a cook? And what about the other professionals round the edges of your life? They don’t work for nothing you know. The community psychiatric nurse, the intensive home treatment team. Odd definition of home isn’t it? Living with weirdos. I know you don’t get to choose your family but for goodness sake! Then there’s the pharmacist, the psychiatrist, your social worker.

  ‘Oh yes, and let’s not forget those other unsung professionals in your life. Yes, you’re right. The women of the night in the docks down the road. We know you go to them, don’t deny it. We live with you remember? We are in your head at all times including the times when you negotiate a fee with whatever pox-ridden heroin-addicted whore takes your fancy. What was the last one called? Mary, wasn’t it? Yes Mary. A good Catholic name. You saved up your pocket money didn’t you? You even put your benefits aside in a special tin. A small boy saving up for a treat. Utterly pathetic. And so you were, by the way. In case you’ve forgotten. “Hand job, blow job, the full works son, what do you want?” And you said you just wanted to talk. Just talk, my arse. Pretending to be a poor lonely little boy, when the truth of the matter was you realised you couldn’t get it up. I seem to remember you blamed the medication, it’s your usual excuse.

  ‘By the way, what was your excuse when you were married to that poor unfortunate wife of yours? Can’t remember? There’s a surprise. Anyway let’s not forget that particularly amorous encounter up the alley off Great Junction Street. She ignored you and put her hand down your trousers and eventually found your sad wrinkled little cock. “Hame to yer mammy,” were her exact words. What a hero you are. A Lothario. Don Juan. A tragic Byronic figure. The Hugh Heffner of the Hostel who can’t even buy a wank.’

  A sheet of newspaper, propelled down the tunnel in the residual slipstream from the last train, wrapped itself round John’s face. He clawed at it, screwed it up into a tight ball and tossed it into the darkness.

  ‘You shouldn’t do that, John, it might have a story about your brother, and now you’ve ruined everything. Perhaps he’d paid for an advertisement, and you’ve missed it. No, sorry, I was reading the wrong page. His name is in the obituary column; let me see, “ … after a short illness, greatly missed, no known relatives”. There you have it, John. You failed him. He died a lonely death. All he wanted was to see you one more time. Sad isn’t it? I think you should join him. United in death, isn’t that what they say?’

  ‘Nice one, Bastard, you’ve got him this time. He can’t go back, not now.’

  ‘I feel uneasy about this whole scenario. According to the legal definition of murder in Scots law … ’

  ‘Shut up, the pair of you! That’s it, John, stand in the middle of the track. Legs apart, feet planted firmly. Good boy.’

  Cries from unfamiliar birds disturbed the darkness. Johannes shivered. They were the souls of dead soldiers being wrenched through the black night by unseen forces to meet their maker. In his troubled dreams he inspected the long queue waiting at the gates, seeing people from his earlier incarceration. The preacher moved to greet him but his face was missing beneath the cowl. The young boy soldier was being comforted by an older man he didn’t recognise. There were widows grieving, their heads buried in dirty shawls. The hunchback from Queen Gerda’s court was also there, waiting patiently. The nuns too, still roped together, tried to comfort each other. The Spanish soldier killed by Cornelius stood with his severed head under his arm. At the front of the long queue was not St Peter, resplendent in judge’s robes, but Blindman. Johannes woke with a start.

  There were people stirring on the galley. Something strange was happening. A line of lights was bobbing through the pitch-black night. There was no noise, just phantom lanterns stretching into the darkness. The crew speculated as to what was happening at the distant garrison. The gloomier among them concluded that reinforcements had arrived from Spain.

  ‘No, it’s good’ said Johannes. ‘It’s a sign.’

  ‘Well, it’s not the Lenten carnival,’ said Balthasar, suddenly aching to be back among friends in his village. For a moment he was with his drunken neighbours planting burning tapers in a ring around the church to exorcise the midnight demons of greed and avarice. ‘There are no bells for one thing.’

  Cornelius looked dispassionately at the floating bloated body of a Spanish soldier. ‘He has a mother somewhere,’ said Johannes.

  Eventually the lanterns were snuffed out and the darkness filled the gaps left by the pinpricks of light. The crews hunkered down once more in the galley and waited anxiously for the dawn. Somewhere an owl hooted and the rain beat down.

  That night Johannes dreamed that he was once again watching the night sky under his own father’s warm protective arm. For the first time ever he could clearly see the shape of a huge loom straddling the heavens.

  Eventually the night lost its certainty and turned from black to gray. A tired hesitant sun peered through the clouds. Johannes blinked and rubbed his eyes. A change had occurred. There was movement. Something creaked as the galley floated free of the water and, surrendering to the breeze, let itself be blown towards Leyden which lay somewhere over the horizon just beyond the smaller towns of Zouterwou and Lammen.

  ‘The waters have risen!’ shouted Cornelius. His excitement was echoed in the cries emanating from across the swollen waters as the fleet eased itself off the fields and the men tasted once more the possibility of success.

  ‘Jesus!’ said Johannes.

  What’s happening here, Academic?

  ‘Well, there’s definitely been progress. The previous night under Boisot’s leadership the most advanced troops routed the enemy at Zoeterwouck, a small habitation on the outskirts of Leyden. And eventually God understood the guttural prayers being offered up by the Dutch. Happy to oblige, He commanded the rain to double its efforts until the barges lifted themselves from the fields.’

  ‘Jesus!’ said Johannes again.

  ‘Mary and Joseph!’ said Cornelius.

  ‘Melchior, Casper and me!’ shouted Balthasar.

  Eager to make the task of the oarsmen easier, the pioneers jumped into the water and put their shoulders to the galleys. Balthasar made eye contact with a large soldier stripped to the waist, heaving the boat forward just feet from where he was straining on his oar.

  ‘Come on old man,’ urged the soldier.

  The distant garrison rising from the water eventually grew sharp edges and pulled itself upright above the steadily advancing fleet. Johannes stood in the galley and stared at the parapet where something was moving. He shaded his eyes to see better, as if the challenge was an excess of light not a scarcity. It was a small waving figure.

  ‘Michel!’ he shouted, jumping into the flood. The other beggars looked at him as if he had taken leave of his sanity. He lost his balance and fell, quickly upright he ploughed towards the garrison with flailing arms.

  ‘Michel, Michel, wait for me!’

  Cornelius and Balthasar, knowing they had no alternative but to follow their friend in his lunacy, stepped over the

  edge.

  ‘Jesus! It’s cold,’ said Cornelius, running quickly through the water, his knees raised high in a parody of dance. ‘Johannes, come back here you madman!’

  Glancing up, Johannes saw that the figure was no longer there. He paused, water dripping from his arms. His friends caught up and each placed a consoling hand on his shoulders. ‘Don’t fret,’ said Cornelius, ‘just a bad dream.’

  As the three figures stood trying to fill their lungs again, Michel appeared at the foot of the garrison wall nearest to them. ‘Papa!’ he shouted.

  John staggered towards the light that was growing stro
nger with every step. The white aperture widened. He broke into a run, noticing how inconveniently close together the sleepers were.

  He emerged from the tunnel a hundred yards from the edge of the platform at Haymarket Station. The commuters mentally rehearsing their ten o’clock presentations shuffled uneasily as he approached along the track. Dishevelled and jacketless, with ominously stained trousers, he was still smiling as several hands hauled him onto the platform and out of the way of the Glasgow Central slow train that was following him along the track, its horn blazing and its driver gesticulating.

  Michel virtually disappeared in his father’s bear hug of sodden embrace. Johannes held and rocked his son until Cornelius and Balthasar started to fear for the boy. Michel was making small noises that suggested he had not taken a full breath for several minutes.

  ‘They’ve all gone, last night, I’m the only one left,’ he said, passing his hand over his father’s face to confirm that he wasn’t an apparition.

  Cornelius looked up at the deserted battlements and, cupping his hands to his mouth, gave the news to the waiting fleet. His muffled announcement was followed by roars of delight from the galleys. Several hats tossed jubilantly in the air soon bobbed on the water. Eager to test the boy’s assertion Cornelius ran up the foreshore and pushed open the wooden gate. He stood in the still courtyard breathing noisily, gazing at the flotsam. The retreating army had, apparently, been petrified by an enemy capable of hauling ships with their teeth.

  Kicking a path through the ammunition boxes and personal possessions he moved towards a cauldron suspended above a smouldering fire. Although his first instinct was to ladle the gruel straight into his stomach, something held him back. He paused and thought of his fellow citizens in Leyden less than two miles away, picked up a red greatcoat lying on the ground and folded it carefully round the handles. He staggered back out of the gate towards the beggars as they happily disembarked from the galleys.

  ‘It all happened, it all happened just as you describe it, Narrator. Well done!’