Lungdon

by Edward Carey

  I shall put down what I know in the knowledge that should anything happen to me and my men, this journal should stand as a record and testimony of true events as they unfold. I shall in my best way write as I see and not embellish but only speak baldly and express with all the exactitude I can muster. So then, understand I am a most sensible and rational man in my middle twenties, a young man, certainly, to have gained this position, but one, I may frankly account, who is good at his job, loyal to his service, strict but not unbending, a rule-follower and a good one at that. I do not drink, I have no fanciful persuasions, as I say, I cannot exactly believe in God and Christ, but I do most fervently believe in Queen and Country, which may perhaps be something of the same thing. I should lay down my life for the good of London, I do take risks on London’s behalf every day. But I am, beyond all else, a sensible man and a reliable one too.

  Keep that in mind, who ever may read this, and reignite the knowledge as you read on, for I fear there shall be cause to remember it.

  * * *

  To begin in the best way let me try to describe the personage John Smith Un-Iremonger, if such a thing were even possible.

  On the surface he is a most average man. There is nothing the least bit remarkable about him. He is very unassuming in his dress. In fact after he is gone it is almost hard to describe him with any exactitude.

  His face, let me try to achieve that. Again there is little to distinguish here, a very average face, you might say. A blandly handsome face perhaps, with a neat moustache and mutton chops. A familiar face, I might even say that I have seen it before, and yet I cannot precisely recall it, but always when I am with the man I think I know him. He is very like someone, someone I know, only a bad version of him, a version, one might say, gone somehow wrong. And there I am again, I cannot say exactly where the wrongness comes from, only that he is wrong: Smith is very, very wrong. I have attempted to capture him in the latest police method, as you see above. It is the best I can do. The other thing about his face, the terrible thing: it does not ever seem to move when he talks.

  How else might I exhibit him? His voice, his voice, is somehow muffled, it seems to come from deep within him, not to come from out of his mouth, rather from somewhere else in his body; it is a thin, whiny voice, wholly unattractive, like the noise fingernails might make scraping upon a blackboard. A most unnatural voice.

  He is thickly dressed so that the least amount of skin is visible, indeed he never exposes himself apart from the face, only the face is ever spied, the rest – neck, hands, head-top – are all covered in layers of clothing with top hat or gloves or neckerchief.

  He works alone, or with his own kind; we will not be permitted to run alongside him, he has other men at his disposal, but of these we see even less than the master. They are kept at a distance around the carts and cages that they use for their employ. I have not been close to one of these underlings.

  And here I might mention some of the tools of his business: he has boathooks, and large butcher’s implements soldered to the end of long rods, he has pistols and rifles, there are strange traps and, I think, many disguises, he has odd whirring alarums too – sirens that he sounds, and steel whistles that are like police whistles only when they are blown upon no detectable noise can be heard, though they make the most vivid reactions in his small troop of assistants. As if those muffled men of his have similar hearing to that of canines or other animals. Again, how this discomforts my men.

  He is very cruel, the Smith is, and very thorough. He finds the Iremongers where we could not have, and they are mostly extinguished before we come near them. He has only been on duty these few hours and already he has made much progress. The Smith has no qualms about shooting Iremongers in the street, or trapping them in such a way that afterwards there never is any breath to come out of them. He has taken this morning three full Iremongers. Cusper Iremonger, a former clerk in Bayleaf House, Pomular Iremonger, a middle-aged woman from Heap House, and last of all Foy Iremonger, a girl found limping through the streets of London heaving a great lead weight. Smith has discovered these individuals and he has killed them.

  * * *

  I do find myself wondering about the method of removal of these pestilential people, the tool being such an improper person himself; I do wonder if the cure is as repellent as the malady itself.

  How can I say it clear? I have been struggling with it all morning, at last I seem to have come upon the answer, or one at least that satisfies me for the moment. So then, see below, my recent conclusion regarding John Smith Un-Iremonger:

  I think that the Smith is a man who is without life.

  I think that he is dead.

  A dead person who is somehow moving among us. The skin of his face does not quite look like any other human skin; it appears hard to the touch (heavens, I do not think anything could induce me touch it).

  7th February 1876

  7 a.m. (the sun still not risen)

  To add to our woes, various peers of the House of Lords have gone missing, and several Members of Parliament too. Posters are being printed. Lord Kilburn is missing and Lord Milfield disappeared early last night. The MPs for Southwark and Cambridge have been missing three days. There are now several thousand missing persons reported around the capital, but these latest are the first amongst the high ranks of the country.

  8 a.m.

  To the Mill Bank Penitentiary this morning at the Smith’s insistence. The pens are kept in the prison of Mill Bank, they are indeed most highly private and must remain so. In these pens we keep what few underlings of Foulsham we have managed to round up; some were caught in the rubble of Foulsham itself and kept extant for study, and others have been found trying to escape. They are pitiful children, for the most part. Some more were found just last night, escaping through the sewer lines. Some more are known to have broken free into London from the burning rubble town, perhaps as many as five. There is purported to be a leader of these trespassing children, a feral girl with wild red hair to match her ferocity. Judging by the impression of her on the Police bill poster now being distributed about the city, she is indeed a singular creature of vivid intensity and clearly a danger to the general public. No doubt she shall be quickly discovered and perhaps may lead to further information regarding the family in hiding. The redhead has a name, according to the new prisoners; she is called Lucy Pennant. Well then, Lucy Pennant, may you enjoy what last hours of freedom are left to you.

  But to return to the Smith and our visit to the Mill Bank pens and to those of Foulsham gathered there. These are not, you understand, Iremongers of blood. Rather, these are the lesser people, the dirty poor of that place, who have somehow, through cunning or accident, survived the terrible torching of their miserable home. Here they are watched most thoroughly and from afar. They shall never be allowed to mix with our people of London but must always be kept at a distance, so that gates of iron separate this lesser species from the common Londoner.

  We are awaiting orders to exterminate them – I am most grateful that it is not my division that shall carry out such a charge. For there is part of me that might consider them human.

  No, for certain, I never do like going to the pens. I must wash myself very thoroughly afterwards, and indeed when I go home I shall have my Vera make me a scalding hot tub and bring with her what brushes she has to scrape hard upon my skin.

  Some strangeness occurred in their pens when the Smith came to visit. He upset the prisoners a great deal, and for this I cannot blame them; it makes you think the poor creatures human, and almost similar to us.

  They shook their cages mightily when the Smith appeared and did howl and weep and get about as far away from him as their limited confines would allow. His presence does agitate them terrifically. Just this morning I was witness, or part witness, to so unnatural an event, that I do think I must have become confused in my mind. But meet it is that I set it down, as honest as I may. And quickly too, for I cannot bear the writing of it.

 
There was an old man in a pen, huddled over and shivering, not well it is true, and Smith singled him out and went to him. At his orders he had the cage unbolted and the old man, shaking in a misery, was sat before him, but then – this most strange thing – the Smith in his screeching strange voice he says,

  ‘Bless you, bless you, my dear friend, do come to us, please do come along now.’

  And he strokes the man, with such tenderness, he pats him so gently upon the head like the old man were just a child and he, the Smith, were the child’s mother. And the old man shaking so, takes a terrible big breath and he rattles rather inside, and then – I could not see him well, for the Smith’s back did mostly shield him from view – there was a very quick awful dying of the old man, a sudden tumbling of his corpus, an awful stillness came over him, and his pale skin lost all warmth to it so quickly, and was within the shortest of moments a lifeless grey. And – I know this sounds most unlikely, but please, I am trying to be as plain and honest as I may – and then the old man seemed no longer to be there at all, seemed somehow to have vanished quite out of life. In his place, upon the straw, was nothing but a pewter ewer, rather a nice one in fact. Where it had come from, and how it came to be there, I have no notion.

  Then – oh, would that the writing of this were a way to pass on the knowledge and so be rid of it, rather than duplicating it as I feel I must – then, the Smith, as I see him from behind, takes one large breath, his whole body rises, and then, and then, then the ewer is no more there. Neither old man nor ewer, but only ever the old straw and nothing, nothing more besides.

  John Smith Un-Iremonger rose from his knees, to his full height and asked – oh that voice – to be let out now. And so it was done, all were too affected to react otherwise. And now, it does seem to me, that the gentleman – must I call him so, no, no, no, I find I never can – that Smith is a fraction taller than he was before! Perhaps I do imagine this, but before he was of my height, or very near, but after the strange incident, he seems about an inch longer.

  Then something strikes home to me, an idea, a notion, a horrible consideration, so ghastly a summation: that the old man has somehow been eaten.

  That John Smith Un-Iremonger is somehow eating the prisoners.

  Moorcus Iremonger … and his Toastrack

  20

  UNDER THE CLOCHE

  Whispers heard in Saint Paul’s Cathedral

  Here, Toastrack, you wretch. I know you’re there. You’re as far away from me as I can get you, but there you are, still my shadow, though you’re all those yards away. I see your wretched form over where I sent you as far from me as possible.

  I don’t care that Rippit’s all out after us, I don’t care even that Duvit and Stunly have been killed, they never were ones to take their position seriously. They never did wear their blood quite right. But I do. I shall save my family, bring them back from the brink. I shall be the hero of all Iremongers. Grandfather’s growing old and ill, true enough, and in his dotage he makes mistakes. He never loved me as much as he should. And now he never looks at me, or calls for me, as once he did. And it’s on account of you, you Toastrack over there. Why must you be a person and not a toastrack, that is my question! Why me after all, why do I have this burden? And Grandfather, he is seen looking about Clod and wondering over all his progress. That whelp should have been put down at birth.

  I know he escaped, Clod the wretch, I do know it! I caught one of the leathers we’d set to keep him in the house, name of John Demijohn. He said that Clod had frightened them and they’d gone running! To be frightened of Clod! I unstitched the leather then and there, and he fell out into the street. Just as I shall, no doubt, if Rippit catches up to me. I mean to do it still, I mean to kill Clod. To do it myself.

  Clod! He cares nothing for Iremongers! (Perhaps I said that rather loudly, I’ll return now to my seething and whispering.)

  He does not deserve us. (That’s better.)

  He sullies us with his simpering after such common Foulsham skirts! Whoever could care for such cheap flesh is beyond me.

  And so I, I shall show them who it is that he is and in so doing let them see who it is that I am. He shall not mock me again, I do swear it! So then here it is, I hold it in my own hands, my great Beaumont-Adams, what a pistol you are. And you’ll do it for me, yes you shall. I had another one of you, your lovely twin, but where it is gone now I cannot say, I have lost it in all the struggle, I must have dropped it when Toastrack and I ran so fast from Rippit and his flaming, and sought some sanctuary here under the dome of Saint Paul’s. Whatever may have befallen it, it’s not here now. But still I have you, and you, dear pistol, you shall do the job, shan’t you? I like the feel of you, I do like to talk to you. You’re a comfort. With this here gun, with this bullet loaded into the cradle I shall kill Clod Iremonger. I kiss the barrel, I kiss my medal, there I swear it. It is my duty.

  I shall so earn my trousers doing such a deed!

  Hang on, where’s Toastrack gone? Is he there in the shadows?

  Toastrack?

  Toastrack! Wherever could he have got to?†

  A Pawnbroker’s Shop, Off Drury Lane

  21

  LONG LINE OF LONDONERS

  Lucy Pennant’s narrative continued

  ‘I’ve got to get out,’ I said to Jen, when we woke next morning. ‘I can’t be stuck in here.’

  ‘We’re safe here,’ Jen said. ‘Aren’t we?’

  ‘I’ll come back for you,’ I said. ‘But I must be out before the Rector comes. Then I’ll sign up same as you. Tell the others not to worry. Give me a day, I’ll be back.’

  The link boys were still sleeping then, so I thought.

  I scrambled out, quiet as I could, past all the candle carryings-on, a different shift at work then. I slid back the door, down the dark passage. There was the far door. The tame porter was fast asleep at his post. The door wouldn’t give. I found it bolted. I eased the bolt across, quiet, quiet. It opened and I stepped into the dank court. Out I went then, faster and faster, London, London!

  I hadn’t even made it out of the court onto Bishopsgate when a hand came down heavy on my shoulder.

  ‘No you don’t!’

  Tommy Cronin, his dander all up.

  ‘Get off me, Tommy, I don’t want a fight.’

  ‘You owe me money. It was agreed. Your wages.’

  ‘I’ll get you bloody money.’

  ‘Yes you will, at the end of the week. Now get back in there.’

  ‘No, I shan’t!’

  ‘Oh yes, oh yes you bloody shall.’

  And he started to drag me then, back through the court.

  ‘The Rector will come soon enough and he’ll have the foremen with him, so then you’ll be stuck in proper.’

  ‘Don’t you touch me.’

  ‘Shall if I like!’

  ‘Do you see that pile of dirt heaped up over there?’

  ‘I do. What of it? Missing home, are you?’ he said, but he glanced over. And that’s when I grabbed him by his hair and before he knew what was happening I tugged and rushed him to that small mound of filth and shoved him in it. And when he came up again all filthy he struck at me and so help me I knocked him back and we scratched and kicked and fought on London floor. He gave me such a knuckle-load in my mouth that I lost one of my teeth and then in such a fury I clocked his head again and again and again until he lay still in the dirt and did not hit any more.

  ‘That’s what I do to you, little boy,’ I said, thumping him again. ‘I’ll whip your own bloody guts out. I’ve had my fill of bullies. I’ve been bullied every day of my life, I’ve seen bullying everywhere I look. I’ve seen old people crushed by newer ones because they had more muscle about them, I’ve seen kids shove other kids, I’ve seen the great Iremonger people shove us all down in the filth. And I’ve had it now, up to here, with all of you, there won’t be any more of it.’

  He just lay there panting a bit, and sat up bloody and shocked.

  ‘I’m hu
rting,’ he said at last.

  ‘Well, I’m glad of it.’

  ‘Vicious thing, ain’t you?’

  ‘I think I am becoming so, yes, very vicious.’

  ‘You’ll end on the gallows, I reckon.’

  ‘Very like.’

  ‘I’m just trying to protect my lot.’

  ‘Are you then? Well you’d better get tougher, hadn’t you?’

  ‘I’ll still want paying.’

  I raised my fist and he flinched a bit but then grinned until it hurt him and rubbed his sore jaw. I helped him up. How he was shaking. He checked his pockets, took out a wooden darning mushroom, regarded it carefully, returned it to his keeping.

  ‘What’s that then?’ I asked.

  ‘Mind your own.’

  ‘Did it come to you of a sudden … was it hot when you found it? Did someone go missing?’

  He looked at me a bit, then, ‘My brother.’

  ‘I’m sorry for that.’

  ‘You never know who’s next, do you?’

  ‘No, you never know.’

  ‘I may be a shoelace tomorrow.’

  ‘You may.’

  ‘Or I might live till I’m sixty.’

  ‘You might.’

  ‘Listen, Lucy Pennant, you’ve some guts in you – horrible stinking red guts I reckon – but guts nevertheless, and you’re living and I’m living and that’s about all we can say for now.’

  ‘And I mean to go on living,’ I said, ‘or to try at it. And knock down any that attempt to stop me and those other ones of Foulsham.’

  ‘I seen that.’

  ‘There are people out in London that I need to find, people that I’ve lost, one in particular.’