With much contemptuous laughter, more sailors came and helped Mynheer Tripp up between them. I followed on my own. No sooner was I on deck than Mynheer Tripp—who’d got a considerable, jeering crowd about him, shouted in his bad English: ‘Cover him up! Boy of good family, that! He’ll die of cold!’ I flushed angrily, but a huge cloth was brought and wrapped round me. To my indignation, I saw it was an English flag. I stripped it off and flung it down.
‘I’d rather die of cold than be covered with that!’ I meant to display some Dutch spirit and show we weren’t all like Mynheer Tripp.
‘Brave lad!’ said an officer—the captain, I think. ‘Worthier than his companion, eh? What say we heave the old fellow back?’
I grew alarmed. Begged them to do no such thing. ‘Though you may not think it, he’s a great man . . . greater than all of us put together!’
‘A greater coward, you mean, boy! How come you go about with such a rag-bag?’
But fortunately, Mynheer Tripp hadn’t heard the threat. He was by the mizzen-mast lantern, examining his drawings to see they were intact. A number of officers and sailors were staring over his shoulder. Then more and more came, with more lanterns, lighting up that patch of deck which seemed roofed with canvas and walled by the netted shrouds. Krebs and his honourable wound, and myself and my defiance were left and forgotten. A greater victory was in the making. Of a sudden, I began to feel very proud to be Mynheer Tripp’s pupil, and my eyes kept filling with tears on that account. I picked up the flag and wrapped out the cold with it, and went to join the English crowd about my master. Krebs, feeling stronger, leaned on me and stared.
Not all the ships and cannon and defiance in the world could have done what he’d done. With a few lines—no more—he’d advanced into the enemies’ hearts and set up his flag there. Mynheer Tripp’s victory had been with God’s gift—not with the gunsmith’s. It’s a mercy, I suppose, he never really knew his own power—else he’d have suffocated it under guilders. The Englishmen stared at the drawings, then, seeing Krebs, began comparing with him—in slow English and bad Dutch—the terror and grandeur of their experience, so uncannily caught by the sniffing and shuffling Mynheer Tripp. Pennants, flags, even countries were forgotten. An aspect of battle was seen with neither Dutch nor English eyes, but with a passion and a pity that encompassed all.
‘Mynheer Tripp,’ said the English captain—a handsome, well-bred man, most likely of Dutch descent, ‘you are a very great man. We are honoured. As our guest, sir, I invite you to visit England.’
My master looked at me—not with pride or any so respectable a thing, but with his usual greed and cunning. He said, in his horrible English, ‘Good! Good! I will paint your admiral, maybe—?’
And then to me in Dutch, with an offensive smirk: ‘You see, Vaarlem, these English are different. I told you so. I’ll be appreciated—not prosecuted. Just wait till they see what I make of their admiral! Money back, indeed! And after all, my boy, guineas is as good as guilders, eh? He-he!’
He really is the most contemptible man I know! I wonder what the English will make of him: and what he’ll make of the English?
3
THE SIMPLETON
CHAPTER ONE
IN THE YEAR 1749, on January the eighteenth at Lewes Assizes, my old friend Nicholas Kemp collected seven years’ transportation and a sermon from the judge as long as a monkey’s arm.
Poor Nick! He stood there in the dock, his happy young face all bewildered when the jury brought in their verdict, and the judge said better men had been hanged for less.
Every advantage, the judge declared he’d had: meaning his family being in a good way of trade (if you care for such things), and as respectable as a church pew.
‘But in spite of everything, you’ve turned out a bad lot, Master Kemp.’
Here, Nick looked honestly depressed and surprised that anyone should think so ill of him. Which was a trifle impudent, we thought. After all, he’d only been fourteen when he’d left his home under a cloud—and I don’t mean the sort that makes up weather!
He’d prigged some trinkets from his father’s workshop (his father being a silversmith), and given them to some flighty doxy of twelve or thereabouts. Yes indeed, if Nick had one weakness above all others, it was for a pretty face. It wasn’t a weakness like yours or mine which stays with a wink and a laugh and a kiss and a cuddle; it was a real sighing bog of a weakness. Believe me or not, he was one of your moonfaced lovers who twang and twiddle outside ladies’ windows till someone empties a chamberpot on them to keep them quiet.
On this, his first mistake, he’d been unlucky enough to pick on the daughter of the trinkets’ lawful owner—who took offence and worse. Nick left that very night, with his heart, I’m sure, carved on a dozen trees.
‘If I didn’t think there was some goodness in your soul,’ went on the judge, ‘I’d have you hanged out of hand.’
Well, well—he was a judge and had had his bellyful of human nature. If he saw goodness in Nick’s soul, it must have been there.
‘So It’s seven years in Virginia for you, Nicholas Kemp,’ finished up the judge. ‘And may you be improved by it.’
Nick gave a great sigh and looked as glum and heartbroken as if the hangman had asked for his neck.
‘Poor soul!’ muttered someone at the back. ‘I’d have sworn he was innocent.’
Which was exactly what Nick had sworn—till he’d been peached on by the rosy-cheeked trollop he’d birthday’d with a silver watch he’d prigged the previous morning. We’d warned him she was a low-class slut; but, not being exactly a gentleman himself, he’d no yardstick to judge her by. Even got peeved and told us to be content with the guineas he’d passed on and leave the watch to him. She was one of Nature’s ladies, he said, and had promised not to wear the watch for a fortnight.
It was a large watch, as I remember it: a shade vulgar, like Nick. She wore it as soon as his back was turned—and in the parlour of the White Horse, which was where it had been prigged. Need I say more?
A peace officer with a neck like a bull came to our lodgings. Nick shot under the table.
’Ad we any notion of a young ’un called Kemp? If so, it were oor dooty to give ’im up.
I ask you—what could we do? Nick looked a trifle put out, at first, but then took it in good part when we reminded him we’d told him so. I fancy he knew where the blame really lay. Lord! You should have seen the look he hung on that trollop when she gave her evidence! Stones would have wept. (Though, I must admit, we couldn’t resist a chuckle.) But Jurors’ hearts are made of sterner stuff . . .
So we took a coach down to Deal to see him off. The Phoenix out of Deptford was anchored there, dipping and bobbing like an enormous bridesmaid, all laced and gilded and wanting only her fat bodice and petticoat to be put on that she might billow out to some roaring wedding at sea.
But she wasn’t the doxy after Nick’s heart, and his face was as long as a coffin when he shuffled, leg-ironed, into the rowboat with half a dozen assorted embezzlers, pickpockets, and ragged layabouts, all Virginia bound.
We waved, but I don’t think he saw us, so we left it till next morning when we hired a fisherman to row us out to the Phoenix to send our poor friend off in convivial style.
A tremendous great brute of a ship was the Phoenix—when we got close—and as far past her prime as was reasonable with still being afloat. She creaked and grunted and groaned even in the calm waters, so what she would do when the wind blew, God and her captain alone knew.
But there was no sense or kindness in frightening poor Nick, so we all toasted him in gin and drank to the teeming doxies in Virginia—far fairer than our English drabs—and kept to ourselves the belief he’d not make halfway over with his soul and body in one piece.
I don’t know whether he was still in irons then, for we could only see his head and shoulders poking out of a gun port, six feet aloft.
‘Cheer up, Nick!’ one of us shouted. ‘There’s a Richmond in Vi
rginia with a lass that’s peach to porridge to the blowsy damsel here!’
But he looked as if his silly heart would break.
‘Cheer up, Nick!’ I roared. ‘Gentlemen pay fifty pound for a trip like yours!’
I think he was going to smile. He’d a fair sense of humour—which was part of the reason we kept his acquaintance, that and his skill in keeping us in funds—yes, I’m sure he was going to smile when another convict poked his head out beside him and spat mightily into the sea; so we all had to duck to avoid.
‘Friends of your’n, sonny?’ asked this fellow curiously, but poor Nick never answered a word. His heart was too full, we guessed.
So, ‘Cheer up, Nick!’ shouted the last of us. ‘You’re real lucky, you know! After all, as the good judge said, you might have been nubbed, old dear! For you wasn’t exactly innocent, was you, Nick? Ha-ha!’
It was then that he spoke.
‘Aye,’ he said, in that rich voice of his that was always so surprising. ‘I wan’t innocent, was I? Not like you, friends.’
‘What d’you mean, Nick?’
‘Just what I say, friends.’
The privation in that stinking hold was having its effect on him, all right. It’s always said that, put a mouse with rats and it grows sharper teeth and a longer tail. He leaned on friends very verminously indeed. We were all sorry to note it.
‘You could have saved me, friends. You needn’t have given me up.’
‘Come along, Nick! Would you have us be accessories? We’d have been took along with you! And what would our families have said to that? Besides, I’m sure your feet was poking out of the table. And anyways, it was on account of the watch. Remember? We warned you. It was the watch that did it. And we’d no part in that, my lad!’
‘No,’ said Nick, somewhat sourly for him. ‘Your hands were clean. For once.’
A nasty dig, that. But we all made allowances, I think. We didn’t want to show bitterness to a friend in distress. So we smiled and toasted him again and gave the boatman the nod to pull away. No sense in drawing out what had turned so sour . . .
Then, as we began to shift off, he shouted after us, ‘I may be a scapegoat, friends—but there’s some sins I’ll not carry off for you! There’s some sins that’ll always come home to roost!’
Here was an unchristian sentiment if ever there was one! In what Scripture, for God’s sake, does the scapegoat turn round and snarl? Something devilish there.
None the less, we kept our charity and drank Nick’s salvation deep into the night, remembering good times together and ending up quite merry. I speak no less than the truth when I say we all had a warm corner in our hearts for that simpleton, Nicholas Kemp. We forgave his turning on us and put it down to the ugly circumstance of his confinement, rather than to a nature grown unsteady.
Next morning, which was the twenty-first and Wednesday, we rose at ten and went down to the frontage of the sea, warmly meaning to row out once more and let bygones be bygones and give poor Nick a second chance to carry a gentle thought of us all into the hereafter.
But alas! It was not to be. The Phoenix had already spread her grubby finery and lumbered out to sea. When she was pointed out to us, she was no bigger than a thumbnail. We waved—and I recall our eyes grew moist with staring.
‘The last of Nick Kemp,’ sighed one of us. ‘Let’s go drink to his memory. Let’s not forget he served us well, and, in his simple way, was faithful. But now he’s gone, and I fancy the world’s seen the end of him. Poor old Nick!’
‘We’ll not forget you, Nick,’ I said, in sentimental mood. Never let it be said that your lack of breeding spoiled the goodness of your heart.’
‘Farewell, Nick Kemp,’ murmured the last of us, solemnly. ‘Though the sea will most likely gobble up you and the dingy Phoenix in a day, I fancy, you’ll live on in our hearts. It’ll be many a long while before we find another such dear simple soul to take your place. So come, lads! Let’s start looking!’
CHAPTER TWO
CONTRARY TO THE confident expectations of the kind friends who’d seen him off, a day had passed and Nicholas Kemp was still alive and the Phoenix still afloat; though when the wind blew and the sea heaved, the groaning of the ship and the convicts together was such as to make any man think the end of the world was nigh.
Eighty-two of them slept, rolled, moaned, stank, and swore between the main- and fore-masts, on what had once been the lower gun deck. But the thirty-two pounders were gone, and out of the gun ports now, instead of ball and grapeshot, flew ancient hats, shrieks, old boots, bellows of song, bottles with painful messages, rats, pewter plates, and stinking pots to litter the old sea in a long, dancing line.
The convicts were a quarrelsome lot, having come from four stone prisons into this wooden one. And each of these prisons, which were Newgate, Marshalsea, the Fleet, and Lewes, had printed a fierce and rank comradeship on its own platoon. Thus the Newgate gentry jeered at the Marshalsea, who spat on the Fleet, who in their turn, did what they could to make life more wretched than it need have been for the six from Lewes Gaol.
Yet this last sturdy little band stood up remarkably well and gave as good as it took, or, rather, took somewhat more than was taken from it: thieving being as common as breathing and Sussex thieves being the busiest of all.
None the less, small as it was, even this band carried its passenger; one who was among them, so to speak, but not of them. One whose heart had fallen further than his boots and was languishing over a large part of Southern England, carved into trees, scratched on to doors, marked up in ale on tavern windows and, once, painted in blood (thinly—from a scratch) on an alderman’s coach. Nicholas Kemp crouched lost in his tender past. While round about him the profoundest activities went on, he mooned away in his private night, where the stars were bright, bright eyes.
Yet there must have been something about him that touched even the hardest heart. No one kicked him; no one trod on him; no one clouted him round the head. Instead, to his great surprise, he found himself in the midst of a kind of plenty. Tattered blankets and stolen dinners were passed stealthily on with a: ‘Take it son. It’s going begging.’
These gifts from a darker heaven, so to speak, began to fall soon after the ramshackle commotion on deck declared the Phoenix to be under way and the wind set fair for Virginia.
First a neckerchief and then a pair of mittens were dropped in his lap.
‘Put ’em on, sonny, afore you catch your death of cold.’
Later came a smelly waistcoat.
‘Roll it up, sonny. ’Twill serve as a pillow.’
Most gratefully (gratitude being another of his weaknesses) Nick looked up, and a pair of beady eyes looked briefly—almost contemptuously—down. Nicholas Kemp, amiable soul that he was, seemed to have brought out the father in a squat fierce embezzler called Bartleman.
He was much moved by this strange circumstance, and it served to calm his confused and agitated thoughts concerning the three kind friends whose miserable cowardice and stinking treachery had put him where he was. Anger against himself for having been taken in and against them for having done the taking, had contended almost equally in his troubled mind.
He confided as much to Bartleman during the first pitchy night out of Deal, and felt easier in his mind for it.
‘How’d you like to slit their throats, son?’ came the embezzler’s harsh voice. Then, before Nicholas could reply one way or the other, came a laugh that had a very fatal ring to it.
Disquieting as was this laugh, the next day brought a blanket and a pipe and enough ‘son’s’ and ‘sonny’s’ to furnish a madman’s sky.
On this second day, which turned out to be brisk and blowy and laid half the convicts low, Bartleman’s example inspired another of the Lewes company to pass on to Nicholas a quarter bottle of gin. Bartleman was formidably angry. He snatched up the bottle and bade the giver leave the lad to him. On which Nicholas felt uneasily that Bartleman had bought him, lock, stock, and barrel
as a receptacle for his own charity.
Later that day came an incident even more striking. It had to do with the pipe. Though not much of a smoker (he preferred snuff when he could get it), Nicholas found there was some comfort to be had from sucking at the pipe while he squatted and contemplated the rusting iron of his fetters. The flavour of the tobacco brought back memories of inns and taverns. The memory of a tavern brought back the memory of a pair of cherry lips and hair like a fold of the night: his last heart-break. Though she’d helped to betray him, he forgave her with a sigh . . .
‘Bleeding thief,’ came a voice, thick with reproach. He looked up. Before him stood a bony, hideous ruffian from the Marshalsea company. He’d shuffled up unheard; there was such a grinding and clinking and clawing of leg-irons that all motions turned out stealthy—their sounds being swallowed up in the general uproar.
‘Thief?’ said Nicholas, reddening awkwardly. His accuser’s fists were large, and roughened from easy use.
‘You got my pipe, ain’t you? You prigged it yesterday and left me in a very pitiable state, mister. I been through a horrible night on your account. I twitched and groaned and me poor mouth felt like old leather. And now I sees you, rosy as the bleeding dawn and a-smoking of my pipe like it was your very own. You done wrong, mister, and I’m a-going to beat you into pulp for it.’
‘I—I found it,’ attempted Nicholas, never having been remarkable for his quickness in inventing excuses. He smiled hopefully, then feebly, then not at all as he saw he’d had no luck.
So he began to shrink backward, praying that he was somehow in the grip of a nightmare from which he’d shortly awaken and find himself a thousand miles away.
But no such awakening came. The nightmare went on apace. Though well made and tolerably sturdy, he lacked a fierce nature. Violence dismayed him. The Marshalsea ruffian frightened the wits out of him.
Abruptly, he found himself hard against a bulkhead. He must have travelled six yards on his shaking bottom, with the monster coming on. Fifteen or twenty bleary faces regarded him with interest. None with compassion.
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