by Roy Lewis
We went by boat, just the two of us, and Ben Gully himself did the rowing. He’d removed his jacket and the muscles bulged in his shoulders and arms as he heaved on the oars. There was a damp, meagre mist on the teeming river, curling slowly upwards and ship sirens boomed plaintively along the length of the turgid stream. The air was cool, but Ben was soon sweating at his exertions. I huddled in my coat, feeling slightly nauseous. It was not merely the river … though the smells were bad enough. It was the thought of our destination. I had met in the courts various denizens of Jacob’s Island: it had an evil reputation.
After a half hour rowing against the flow of the river, Ben sculled us into a gloomy, mist-shrouded, branching creek. The entrance to the narrow stream was screened by tiers of ancient, battered colliers, disused now and moored to rot along the shoreline; the littered banks were lined with decrepit, shuttered warehouses that had long since fallen into decay: their half-destroyed walls, gaping onto the side of the muddy stream, were gap-toothed, green, odorous and slimy. The creek would have been supplied at one time by clear streams from the Surrey hills, but the ravages of man had changed all that: the creek was now an open drain for the refuse that spilled from what houses remained inhabited on Jacob’s Island.
For Ben Gully I was aware it was a return to his early years: I could hear him muttering as he rowed along, almost to himself. At one point he glowered at me from under frowning brows. ‘I remember well how I escaped this as a young lad … the place still smells of the graveyard.’
My thoughts were elsewhere engaged. I closed my eyes and thrust away the surrounding images of Jacob’s Island as I hunched in my cloak and ruminated upon events that had brought me here, and not least the burning desire to get my revenge on that scoundrel Lord George Bentinck. I was becoming more and more convinced that it was he who had put pressure on Joe Bartle, perhaps bought him off, so he would give no evidence in support of Levy Goodman. I was certain it was Bentinck who had also arranged for Running Rein to be spirited away. My conviction had been growing ever more firm since Bentinck had showed the extent of his malice by blackballing the proposal for my membership of the Carlton Club after I had refused to turn aside from my investigations into the Derby fraud.
The skiff lurched and I heard a grinding noise. I opened my eyes. Ben was pulling the skiff in at the side of a broken, weed-encrusted jetty. He tied the painter to one of the supports; I eyed it uneasily, wondering whether the jetty was capable of holding the boat, let alone supporting our weight, but though it creaked and groaned in protest when Ben scrambled onto the sagging planking, it held well enough. He turned, held out a hand to me and I heaved myself up reluctantly beside him. When I grasped the slippery timber of the jetty for support it left a coating of green scum on my hand.
Gully took a deep breath, looked about him with a reluctant eye, perhaps dwelling on old memories, then jerked his head silently, and led the way. Our boots echoed on the crumbling timbers of the jetty and we struck out across crazy, rotting bridges, clearly familiar to him for he showed no hesitation. I am forced to confess that I glanced down nervously as I stumbled along: the bridges spanned reeking ditches where the water was covered with a thick scum and floating masses of green weed. Floating in the water near the bridge posts were malodorous carcasses, swollen with putrefaction, unwanted cats and dogs as far as I could make out, and on the muddy shore were piles of stinking fish bones and oyster shells, sticking up like pieces of discarded slate from the mud.
It was my first time on Jacob’s Island, and the place made a vivid impression on me. So much so that after all the intervening years, I can still taste the acrid reek in my throat, experience again the disgusting smell in my nostrils. Stumbling behind Ben Gully with a handkerchief held to my face, I looked about me at the staggering wooden houses behind the disused warehouses: they had been erected half a century ago with their galleries and sleeping rooms at the rear, standing on rickety, rotting piles above the dark flood. The scene reminded me of old paintings I had seen of Flemish streets except that these houses flanked stinking, undredged ditches rather than canals. Some of the dwellings had been built above the narrow creek itself, with house adjoining house over the filthy ditches, or linked by lurching bridges, and there were signs that they were still inhabited: yellowed linen had been left hanging out to dry along balustrades or staves, or run out on a series of long oars above the slow-heaving, tidal waters, scummed with the outpourings of faecal refuse from the houses.
We continued on our way along the muddy track past some old, broken boats beached on a scummy, weed-strewn stretch of land near a dilapidated wharf. Gully stopped to speak to an old, white-faced, cold-skinned man squatting in the dirt, leaning against the front of one of the houses. I glanced to the back of the house: there were pig sties there, and scratching hens and ducks, lean and ill-fed. The scrofulous old man was staring at me with watery eyes and he said something to Gully, nodding towards me suspiciously. Gully shook his head impatiently: there was a certain threat in his stance as he spoke roughly to the ancient, who cringed. The old man saw Gully’s bunched fist and scowled; he swivelled his head on his scrawny neck and pointed across the tidal ditch towards a crazily-leaning, gape-windowed, dilapidated wooden house that seemed on the verge of collapse. The few remaining shutters of the house were tightly closed: I remember wondering at the time, somewhat fearfully, if fever had struck there recently.
There was no sign of life as Gully led the way around to the side of the house to a narrow, close court. It was almost completely shielded from any sunlight that Jacob’s Island might occasionally enjoy; the air in the courtyard seemed stagnant, and as noisome as the ditches behind them.
‘Who in God’s name lives in these hovels?’ I asked, almost gagging in my handkerchief.
‘These days, corn-runners and coal porters, mainly.’ Gully shrugged with indifference. ‘It’s as much as they can afford. They can earn maybe twelve shillings on a good day, but then might get nothing else for weeks. The longshoremen and toshers are in a similar situation….’
There was a battered sign above one of the windows. I wrinkled my nose as I realized the dismal line of hovels beyond the court had been given the name of Pleasant Row: I wondered what wit had decided upon that name. Certainly no one had had the energy to change it, or even scratch something more appropriate on the sign. That would have required a sense of humour, or energy: I suspected both were lacking among the inhabitants of Jacob’s Island. I picked my disdainful way through littered filth as Gully led the way through a cellar-like back yard past a ragged, female child nursing a half-comatose baby on a doorstep: she watched us pass with vacant, uninterested eyes. Gully turned into Joiner’s Court, a group of four wooden houses huddled around an excrement-laden yard. He looked around suspiciously and then strode to the second of the houses and thundered with his fist upon the door. There was a short silence, then a shuffling sound from within. The door creaked open a little, and a dirty, shaven head appeared. The boy had deep-set, heavy-lidded eyes and his bruised skin was the colour of brown earth. Ben Gully said something that I failed to catch and the boy shook his head sullenly. ‘T’ain’t convenient,’ he muttered, and began to close the door.
Ben Gully kicked out his foot and the door slammed open, taking the boy by surprise. He yelped as he fell backwards, and lay there gasping for a moment, then was quickly back on his feet. He lowered his shaven head and shot past us, out of the house, scuttling down the yard like a frightened rat. Gully looked back and ducked his head, intimating that I should follow him. With even greater reluctance than earlier, I did so.
The house was shuttered and dark, but in the dim light we were just able to make out the litter of rubbish that had accumulated at the foot of the stairs. Gully paid no attention to the downstairs rooms and I could guess that the inhabitants would almost inevitably want to use the rooms upstairs, if only to get away from the proximity of the malodorous ditches outside, to seek a little air above. The handrail to the stairs w
as broken; as we ascended the creaking steps we moved carefully, Gully warning me of some missing boards. We finally came to a single room at the top of the stairs: without ceremony, Gully thrust the door open with his broad shoulder and stepped inside.
The windows of room had been long boarded up, and only faint chinks of light filtered through the split wood. For a few moments I could see nothing. Then as my eyes grew accustomed to the dimness I gradually made out in the filtered gloom a rubbish-strewn, uncarpeted floor, and a broken-backed chair and table. On the rickety table there lay an empty gin bottle, a wooden trencher and some scraps of stale, unidentifiable food. A three-legged wooden bed stood in the corner, half supported by a block of timber dredged from the river. On the bed there was a pile of ragged clothes. Over all hung a miasmic smell of must and dry rot, mingling with the odours from the creek, and I heard Gully growl deep in his throat. Too many memories, I guessed. He closed the door as he gestured to me to stand near the window; he himself took up a position just to the right of the door. We said nothing; I was still gagging into my kerchief. We waited in the dimness as the muted sounds of the island drifted up to us intermittently through the broken shutters of the window.
That damned rogue Lord George Bentinck had brought me to this. I swore fiercely under my breath.
Leaning against the door jamb Gully seemed content to wait. I grew impatient, and fought against the taste of bile in my throat. But I held my silence. It was twenty minutes before we heard a shuffling step on the stairs. Gully held up a monitory hand. A few moments later the door swung open and someone stood in the doorway, a narrow shaft of light picking out his features.
He stood there, stock still, for several moments, staring at me, a canvas bag slung over his shoulder, a long stave in his hand. I could see the boy was young, but his stance was confident and worldly. He was lean and wiry in build, narrow in the upper body but through his ragged shirt there were glimpses of well-muscled arms and chest. Slowly, he let the canvas bag drop to the floor and he stepped forward suspiciously towards me. As he entered the room Ben Gully moved quickly behind him, and in a trice had wrested the stave from his hand and slammed the door shut. The noise reverberated in the empty house like the knell of doom.
‘This,’ Ben Gully announced to me with a certain satisfaction, ‘is the Puddler.’
The boy, startled by the sudden loss of his stave, stared at Gully. ‘What’s the ’ell’s happenin’ now?’
Gully ignored the snarling tone. He glanced at me and sniffed. ‘The reports of the Constabulary Commissioners will tell you, sir, that the inhabitants of Jacob’s Island suffer extreme lassitude and are deficient in energy, as a consequence of the inhalation of the mephitic vapours of the swamp … and that drives them to the gin shops. Impaired digestion, languid circulation, depression of mind … that’s what the Commissioners say.’ Gully grunted and smiled. ‘But you and I know better, don’t we, Puddler? We know you can crack a rat’s neck with your fingers, and carry a heavy load of loot on your back. You won’t yet be fourteen, but you know every stinking courtyard in the rookeries over at St Giles. You know the boatyards and the shoreline and every inch of its slime, and you can outpace any constable over half a mile … after which, you’re vanished! Ain’t that so? You’re a man of consequence and initiative, ain’t that right, Puddler?’
‘Who are you?’ the boy snarled.
‘The name’s Ben Gully.’
There was a brief silence as the boy stood there, tense as a cat ready to spring. ‘I heerd of you, Gully. You used to be from around here.’
‘Used to be,’ Gully almost spat. ‘And it’s Mister Gully to you, my young friend.’
After a short silence, the boy looked again at me. ‘Who’s the swell?’
Gully stepped forward and prodded the shoreman in his chest, pushing him backwards down onto the filthy bed. ‘It’s no matter to you, Puddler, who my companion might be … but watch your tone of voice when you talk to me. And I ask the questions around here.’
‘There’s no cot for you around here these days, Mr Gully, and I don’t know what you want of me,’ Puddler replied, somewhat subdued, but still casting a wary eye in my direction.
‘What do I want of you? Merely a little information,’ Gully said cheerfully, seating himself carefully on the edge of the bed, pinning Puddler’s legs with a brawny arm. ‘I’d like to know what you been up to recently. What necks other than rats you been cracking of late? What cribs you been breakin’ into?’
‘Hey? You got to know better than that, Mr Gully,’ the young boy said, a note of alarm in his voice. ‘If you know me, you know my trade. I work the underground, and an honest trade it is in spite of what the Commissioners say. If it wasn’t for the likes of me, think what would be lost for ever! All I’m doing is plying a trade, collecting—’
‘Thieving, more like!’ Gully intervened sarcastically.
‘That’s not so!’ Puddler started up, seemingly outraged. ‘I only pick up what I find, where it’s lost, and no one can say otherwise.’
‘But you’re not above breaking the rules here and there,’ Gully suggested, almost conversationally. ‘Like lifting something from a drunk in a gutter.’
‘That’s not my style, Mr Gully,’ Puddler rejoined sullenly.
Ben Gully grunted in contempt. ‘Aw, come on, there’s days when pickings are poor down in the sewers, when you’ve got nothing to take to old Strauss. … Did I happen to mention I been talking to him recently?’
Puddler made no reply, but there was a stillness about his body suddenly.
Gully smiled genially. ‘That’s right, my son, I been talking to him. He’s an old friend. Keeps me informed, like all the fences do. I could cause them trouble, you see, a word here, a word there, so they confide in me. And old Strauss, now, when I met up with him at the rat-catching he left me with the impression that he’s worried about you, in a fatherly sort of way … well, not to put too fine a point to it, he tells me he thinks you’ve maybe changed the nature of your trade.’
Puddler shifted uncomfortably. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr Gully.’
‘Ah, I know how it is, Puddler! Things are hard going, the sewers have been dry this hot summer, there’s no great wash to the river, and pickings are lean. So how’s a young man of talent to live? Bit of thievery, maybe. Bit of crib-cracking. And I hear there’s been a bit of neck-breaking and garrotting down the West End, too. You coming up out of the sewer to do your bit of that business, Puddler?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr Gully! Mr Strauss’s got no call to say things about me that ain’t true. You know me—’
‘Yes, I know you, for a miserable piece of scum who’d sell his grandmother, if you only knew who she was!’ Gully snorted. ‘But no matter. I don’t really care what you’ve been up to, not today, and not as long as you tell me where you lifted this little piece of plunder.’
Gully dangled in front of the shoreman the watch he had earlier shown to me. Puddler hardly glanced at it. ‘Never seed it before.’
Gully was silent for a moment. ‘I think you’d better look at it more carefully, my friend,’ he said quietly. There was a subdued menace in his tone. ‘Strauss tells me you fenced it with him, and he was a bit nervous of it like, since it had a name … Joseph Bartle … etched on the back, and he thought maybe you’d have lifted it from that gentleman’s pocket. So he passed it on, and it finally came into my possession through a contact …’
Puddler detected the threat in Gully’s lowered voice and looked at the watch nervously. He shook his head again. ‘I never—’
Gully’s left hand shot out and grabbed the shoreman’s throat. I stepped back, startled, as there was a wild thrashing in the bed but Puddler could not escape the grip, his legs were pinned under the weight of Gully’s body, and though the boy tore at Gully’s choking left hand he was unable to loosen the pressure of the man’s powerful fingers.
‘Lissen to me, Puddler,’ Gully hiss
ed. ‘If you’re found dead around here there’s none to mourn, none to question, and none who’d dare point a finger at me, even if they cared. You’d be no loss to society, just a nameless grave in the swampy ditch out there. But my companion here, he’s an important man, a busy man, and he’s no time to waste on scum like you. He don’t like the air around here, and as for me … I’m tired of it too. Now I seen Strauss, and he’s told me a little tale, and now I want you to tell me a little tale too. Sort of confirm things, like. Strauss says you came in and fenced this watch … and a chain … with him. Now I just want the answer to some simple questions. Where did you lift this watch? Was it in some back alley? Was the owner drunk in the gutter? Is he holing up somewhere and had to use this to pay for accommodation? And how the hell did you get your dirty little hands on it?’ He thrust his menacing features closer to the struggling, choking boy. ‘What you been up to, Puddler?’
The shoreman’s head was thrashing around, his eyes beginning to roll up into his head as the fierce grip of Gully’s fingers increased. I thought that if Gully did not release him soon the boy would expire; even as I thought so and put out a warning hand, Gully glanced at me, then slackened his grip. He thrust his head closer to Puddler’s. ‘Well?’
The boy nodded desperately, and then as Gully released him he fell backward, racked by a paroxysm of coughing and retching. He sat up, head lowered to his chest and fought for breath. It was several minutes before he was able to speak. Gully remained silent, waiting, watching the boy’s convulsive movements dispassionately. At last, in a tone that was almost gentle, he said quietly, ‘Talk to me, Puddler.’
Puddler shook his head desperately. ‘All right. I seed it before. But it wasn’t no thievery, Mr Gully, I swear.’ He rubbed his sore throat and gagged. He swallowed painfully and stared in reproach at his tormentor. ‘You know that ain’t my caper, Mr Gully. I ain’t changed my style. I found it, Mr Gully, I found it.’