Mersey Dark

by Michael Whitehead

  “There is no way am I waiting here in the dark,” she said. “If you go, then so do I.”

  “If I get caught then you need to get out and tell people about this place,” he said but he felt her take his hand in the darkness and knew his words were falling on deaf ears. He waited a moment, hoping she might see sense and change her mind, all the while the light from the lamp was getting fainter. Eventually he said, “fine, come on then.”

  The two children made their way along the corridor, hand in hand, hearing each footstep like the tolling of a bell. The darkness grasped at them with hands made of pure fear. They reached the point where they had seen the men stop, and saw light below them.

  The place was a junction, where about a dozen tunnels met in a circular amphitheatre. Some were large, like the one that Billy and Bird now stood in, others were smaller. They came to the junction at different heights and from different angles. The tunnel from which they had just emerged was one of the highest, looking down on the floor of the circular area about thirty feet below.

  Billy dropped down on to his stomach, in order to get a better look, without being seen. The men stood, in a small group near the middle of the junction, the two prisoners held between them were not struggling. The woman looked up and around her, and Billy ducked back out of sight in case she saw them and cried out. For a few minutes they all stood, without speaking, as if waiting for something to happen.

  Then, without a word the room below them began to fill. Men and boys, some carrying torches and lamps began to gather around the edges of the circle. They came from the lowest tunnels and filed around the walls until they stood in silent ranks, all looking into the center of the room.

  Some of the boys carried what looked like staves of wood. These they moved to the middle of the floor and placed in a small bonfire but nobody lit it. Each of the boys then went back to find their place in the massed ranks and stood, hands clasped before them, silent and respectful.

  Billy tried to count how many men and boys there might be but he had never been very good at numbers. All he really knew was that it was more people than he had seen in one place that weren’t making any noise.

  Before his father had died, he had taken Billy to church at least one Sunday a month. There had been a lot of people there, all trying to be quiet while the vicar spoke. In reality they had coughed, sniffed, cleared their throats and made a multitude of other sounds, all while trying to remain silent. The men below Billy did none of those things. They were as quiet as a group of people could possibly be.

  A single drum began to mark time in a slow, deliberate manner. Anyone trying to walk at the pace of that drum would take an age even to cross a room. Billy couldn’t see the drummer and dare not slide any nearer the edge through fear of being seen. He did feel Bird shuffle closer to him as she lay on her stomach next to him.

  Out of a tunnel that must have been directly below them the man Billy had seen before emerged. He was huge and very dark skinned and, as he had when Billy had seen him before, he wore a heavy looking fur over his shoulders. Davidson carried a long stick that might have been a spear, except where the tip should have been was a carved effigy. Billy thought it might have been a grinning skull but it was too far away to tell. The stick, like Davidson’s long hair was decorated with feathers and what could be animal bones, Billy thought he might have seen a bird skull.

  All of the men looked at the new arrival, and the silence still held. Davidson walked around the circle, slowly looking each man in the eye. None of them looked away or shied from his gaze, though Billy didn’t know how they could look at him without flinching.

  He was terrifying in a way Billy had never experienced before. Not like being scared of the dark, where you were really scared of your own imagination. This was real terror, where the thing you were supposed to be scared of was right in front of you, showing its teeth and laughing at you.

  “You are the down trodden, the forgotten, the starving.” Davidson said to them. As he spoke, he held his arms aloft and the fire behind him burst into flames. For the first time the gathered men let out a murmur and began to shuffle their feet. Davidson waited patiently, but the interruption did not last long.

  “I have brought you here, my army of the damned, to bear witness to my power, to our power!” he raised his voice on the last words, causing them to echo back to them from a hundred tunnels and chambers. “I have asked you to form an army and you have done so for me. I have asked you to take prisoners so that I might work my magic, and you did that also. You have made me happy and you have made me proud!” Again his deep, accented voice rang of the walls. “Now I bring you all here so that you might see and know what you have been a part of. Some of you have seen what I can do, most of you have only heard rumours of my power, now you will all bear witness.”

  The men around the circle let out a roar that echoed up and filled the chamber with noise. Billy felt Bird hide her face in the crook of his neck.

  “This Kingdom, this empire has brought misery and suffering to the people of the world. They have built their fortune using our blood and sweat. They have walked on the backs of our dead fathers, brothers and sons. They sold my people into slavery, they have starved our Irish brothers from their homes. They have destroyed our cultures, our beliefs, and our gods.”

  Davidson walked in front of the gathered men. He embraced a young black teenage boy, then turned and did the same to an older white skinned man. As he walked away each man turned to the men around him and grinned, receiving pats on the back and returned smiles. They acted as if they had been touched by greatness and so did the men around them.

  “I have seen the suffering the British Empire have brought down on the world first hand. I was a slave, my father died a slave, and his father the same. You have all seen your mothers and your sisters starved or beaten into submission. They destroyed whole civilisations, in pursuit of what? Money and power. Well I say it is time to take that power back.”

  Again the gathered men roared their approval. Fists were thrust into the air and hats were waved above the heads of the crowd.

  “I have created the means to punish those who once stood with their boots on my back. I will build an army to destroy those who have killed our brothers, those who have profited from our misery, and those who have stood idly by while the rich and powerful ran roughshod over our ancestors.”

  The crowd erupted once more. The men who had stood so placidly now thumped each other with the excitement and idea of revenge. Billy saw men showing their teeth in snarls and savage grins. This time it was not a shout that they released it was an animal growl.

  “At this very moment our brothers are striking a blow at the heart of this city. This is the very center of the Empires trade in death. This town has seen the flow of displaced people and profited from the flow of blood. The very dock yards and ships will burn with our vengeance.”

  “Bring me the prisoners,” Davidson said. He spoke quietly but the noise died away at his words. The men who surrounded him fell back to their previous silence.

  Billy watched as the woman and Harry were brought forward into the firelight. The woman struggled and kicked out, fighting the men who dragged her at every step. Harry, stripped to the waist, allowed himself to be pulled along, not walking by himself but not resisting either. Davidson walked around the two prisoners, looking at them as a farmer might look at a new bull.

  “Make them kneel before me,” he said, and the men who held the prisoners forced them both to their knees. Now Harry fought them, but to little avail. They kicked at the back of his knees until he was subjugated before their leader.

  “Now, you will see my power,” Davidson said. “Now, you will see the gift that the spirits gave me.”

  The men around Davidson and the prisoners all seemed to lean forward, drawn to him like iron filings to a magnet. A low murmur escaped the crowd that reached Billy’s ears like a sigh.

  Davidson threw off his fur and Billy saw, from his plac
e high in the chamber, an ash white scar on the dark skin of his chest. It looked like a crest, the type of thing you saw above the doors of important buildings. The crowd saw the same thing and they let forth a low muttered reaction. Davidson nodded.

  “Yes, I wear the mark of my oppressor on my skin. It reminds me every day of the pain that he caused me and the vengeance that will be mine.”

  He turned to the prisoners and casually threw something into the fire as he did. The flames erupted, flashing green and causing Harry and the woman to cower away from it. Billy felt a rush of heat waft past him.

  Davidson began to chant, low at first, then with more speed as he got louder and louder. The words undulated, rolled into the air, filling the spaces in the cave. He paced around the two people on the ground, seeming to find the rhythm that was caught in his words. Billy did not understand what was being said but the words undulated up and down in his mind, making it swim.

  Back and forth Davidson danced, pounding out the words and matching them with the rhythm of his body. On the ground the prisoners began to howl in pain and fear. The woman leaned forward and allowed her head to fall to the stone. Harry rolled onto his side, clutching at his ears.

  Heat that was not from the fire began to make Billy sweat. His insides seemed to be suffering from a fever that burned in him. The men who surrounded the scene began to step back from the three figures in front of them.

  Faster and faster Davidson chanted and his body marked time. He seemed to bounce from one foot to another, like water poured from one jug to another. An arching, flowing dance that would never end, could never end.

  Above them a deep, powerful voice filled the chamber. It seemed to answer Davidson’s words. Billy felt true terror grip him and he felt like his heart would burst unless the chanting stopped. It must stop, now. Beside him Bird cried, unable to mask the noise but unheard under the power of the unseen voice.

  Light began to swirl above Davidson’s head. Colours and shapes drifted in an out of Billy’s vision, forming almost recognisable figures and then snatching away to drift into the void. Faces appeared and disappeared, were born and died only to be born again. Form became a thing born on the air, gas made solid then liquefying once more.

  The dance reached a crescendo and Davidson was suddenly holding something in each hand. The things writhed and struggled to be free but he held them before him, dancing and chanting as he did. Billy saw the things he held were huge black rats. They fought wildly, biting at the hands that held them.

  In an instant the dance ended, the chanting stopped and Davison threw the rats at the two prisoners who cowered before him. There was a flash of light and the prisoners seemed to leap into the air as if lifted by a powerful force.

  Their bodies wrenched and twisted violently, all the while hung in the air by unseen chains. Harry threw his arms out, like Jesus on the cross, seeming to beg God to end his suffering. The woman snapped backward, arching her spine into a shape that must surely break it. Then she lurched forward into a ball, twisting in on herself.

  The two of them convulsed and thrashed, the shape of them changing as they hung suspended. Then they fell to the floor of the chamber and were still. The crowd of men leaned forward, each eager to get a look at what had become of the prisoners.

  Davidson stepped forward, looking exhausted but powerful and strong. He knelt between the two and held out a hand to each of them. For a moment nobody moved, nobody breathed, then the prisoners got to their feet.

  Where once there had been a man and a woman, there now stood two twisted, malformed creatures. They were half rat and half human. Their bodies and faces were transformed into some sort of mongrel monstrosity. Fur covered half of their bodies and their hands were twisted claws.

  “Take them to the others,” Davidson said, and two of his men stepped forward. They did not touch the creatures, Billy noticed, instead they simply pointed them in the right direction. Subservient and almost mindless, the monsters followed the instructions without hesitation.

  “When the time is right, my creations will bring the people of Liverpool to their knees. Then we will burn this place to the ground.” Davidson spoke in measured, almost quiet words that still carried up to where Billy lay next to Bird. The two children waited in the dark and terror found them, and now terror had a face.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It had looked like being a quiet day, but like all such times, it did not last long.

  “All hands on deck!”

  The shout came around midday.

  Tanner was leaning back in his chair, and contemplating everything Micky Flynn had told him. Gangs of criminals, led by a man called Davidson, wanting to overthrow the crown. It seemed farfetched, especially if you threw in the half-men, half-rats.

  The idea that people had been snatched off the streets and nobody had noticed was less difficult to believe. This was a town full of vagrants, beggars and orphans. Hundreds of people came and went every day, nobody wondered where they were. Some upped and left for distant lands, or life on the ocean. Others simply fell off the edge of the world, lost in the sea of humanity that passed through Liverpool every year.

  He turned as the call came, sitting up in his chair to see who had shouted. Inspector Ewing, a dower and sharp faced, ex-naval officer stood in the corridor outside Tanners office. Normally these things would be handled by men far junior to the inspector. The fact that he had walked from his office and was addressing the men directly was testament to the severity of the situation, or proof that someone had paid handsomely for the very best service.

  “All hands on deck,” he shouted again. “The strike at Thomas Royden’s ship yard is turning in to a riot, everyman not dealing with a prisoner in custody is to report to the Queen’s dock immediately.”

  Thomas Royden’s was one of the bigger shipping companies that built and repaired ships on the Mersey. Tanner had heard talk of the strikes but knew few of the actual workers involved. The uniformed men had been working the picket lines for the last few days but now the stand-off seemed to have turned nasty.

  Tanner heard a commotion in the corridor as men began to gather themselves for the fight. More than a few excited voices could be heard among the men. Any day that presented something out of the ordinary, and broke up the boredom was to be welcomed. Tanner was of the opinion that boredom was an undervalued state of mind.

  Ewing continued to issue instructions, “Sabres are being issued at the scene, but all men are to collect one before leaving the station.”

  The police sabre was a curved sword in which all recruits were given basic training. Not used on a day to day basis, it was a testament to the severity of the situation at hand that they were being issued now.

  Tanner picked up his overcoat, felt in the right pocket and fished out his knuckleduster. The brass felt familiar and he took comfort from slipping it into his belt. He took a last gulp of the tea on his desk, it was cold and bitter but it might be the last drink he would be able to take for a while.

  In the reception, the constable on desk duty was handing out the sabres. Tanner took one and spent a moment checking the edge and point before strapping the scabbard and belt around his waist. He then joined the men heading out of the door and climbing in to the metal-sidded police carriages. Soon they were cramped into a space that was far too small for such large men, heading out into the street and toward the Queen’s Docks.

  As they approached the docks and got out of the carriage, Tanner began to hear the sounds of shouting and fighting. Shortly after he saw the smoke, lazy and thin but getting thicker as he watched it rise above the houses.

  The men around him began to run, and Tanner joined them. They rounded the final corner and were greeted by a scene that could have been lifted from any war. Chaos reigned as men fought, objects were thrown and more than one body lay on the ground.

  Most of the men seemed to be dock workers. Heavy booted, with sleeves rolled up to allow them to fight, they wielded whatever makeshif
t weapon they had been able to get their hands on. As most of them carried heavy tools or lengths of chain they were better equipped than the police that faced them.

  It was hard to tell who fought whom. Men in docker’s boots and donkey jackets faced off against men dressed almost exactly the same. Tanner watched as a tall bloke in his forties was held by two younger lads as a third aimed punches into his stomach. Across the street a pair of workers traded punches despite the fact that both of them held a weapon in their other hands.

  “Tanner, over here,” Evans shouted from the midst of a group of uniformed officers.

  Tanner jogged over to join them, “This is a mess,” he said.

  “Too bloody right it is,” Evans replied in his broad Welsh accent. “We can’t even tell who the workers and who the strike busters are. We’ve been told that, unless we have to get involved, we hold back and try to keep them in the docks. The trouble is there was a ship that docked just as it all started. It’s been off-loaded but the crew hadn’t disembarked before the fight started.”

  “Can they not just head back out into the river?” Tanner asked, knowing whatever answer came it would almost certainly go over his head.

  “I asked that, apparently some tiller thing or other is broken and...you know what, Tanner, I haven’t got a clue.” Evans laughed as he said it and Tanner joined him, happy not to have to explain his complete lack of nautical knowledge. Around them the sounds of fighting filled the air, causing both men to raise their voices.

  “Can we get men in there?” Tanner asked.

  “Not uniformed men, not a chance. Those bastards are keeping away from us because we are staying back, but the moment they see one of our lads get involved they all turn on him.” As he spoke Evans gestured over his shoulder to where a couple of uniformed officers were leaning against a cart, blood poured from the forehead of one man and the other was having his arm put into a sling. “It’s like the only thing they hate more than each other is us.”