The Lively Lady

by Kenneth Lewis Roberts

  The first and second floors, however, were quiet by comparison with the third; for the gambling tables on the third floor were already open, and the vendors of coffee and tea were shouting their wares. At the far end a Negro band practiced wild and tuneless music, rich in ragged drum-beats and wailing discords; and in another quarter Negroes rehearsed a play that had a sound of Shakespeare, but a Shakespeare grandly mangled.

  I found King Dick holding court in the space which, I learned, he had reserved as a boxing academy; for he taught boxing when free of his royal duties. He was seated on a green-topped table that I was to know later as the Bishop’s altar on Sunday, the royal judgment seat on weekday mornings, and a Wheel-of-Fortune table during afternoons and evenings. On one side of him was the Duke and on the other the Bishop, both glowering darkly at an abashed Negro who stood before King Dick. There was something of a crowd in attendance, mostly black men; while stretched on the floor at the outer edge of the crowd was a Frenchman in a soiled yellow Transport Office suit. As I came up, the Frenchman struggled to a sitting position and felt his jaw in a gingerly manner, moving it from side to side as though doubtful of its security.

  King Dick poked the abashed Negro in the chest with his stick.

  “Ah give you warnin’ two weeks back, Ashmodeus Jones,” he said, in a high, almost breathless voice. “Ah tol’ you not come pussuckin’ aroun’ nat’ t’eater wif so much beer in yo’ stummick. Din’ Ah tell you, Ashmodeus?”

  The eyes of Ashmodeus rolled spasmodically in search of succor. He was manifestly unable to answer.

  “Tha’s what Ah done,” the King went on, prodding the culprit with his staff, “an’ how you foller mah odors? Ah had a complaint las’ night fum Clerphus Lapp ’at when he was a-mekkin’ a speech to Ot’ello, playin’ he was Des’emona, an’ all painted nice an’ white, you was a-sittin’ in nat t’eater wif anodder stummick-full of beer, jes’ awful drunk, an’ bus’ right out a-laffin’ an’ a-laffin’ so’s he’s ’bliged quit bein’ Des’emona an’ holler ’at you be th’owed out. ’At’s what you done!”

  “Ah wa’n’t drunk,” said the culprit feebly.

  “Ah s’pose,” the King said, in a faint, reedy, skeptical voice, “Ah s’pose you din’ have no beer a-tall? Ah s’pose not!” He flapped one huge flat foot against the door, in time with the ragged drum-beats of the Negro band.

  “Nuh-nuh-nuh, Ah had two liT mugs,” Ashmodeus said fearfully. “Ain’t nobody goin’ git drunk on two mugs beer.”

  King Dick rapped his gnarled stick on the floor. “ ’At’s what you say, Ashmodeus! ’At’s what ev’y drunk man say. Nex’ time you see someone git drunk for th’ee-foh days, you ast him how much he put into hisse’f, an’ he say he had a glass or two—jes’ two liT glasses! ’At’s what he’ll say! Hyuh, hyuh, hyuh!” He laughed darkly. “What Ah say is ’at you was drunk, else you wouldn’t go lussuckin’ aroun’ nat t’eater, yellerin’ an’ bellerin’ when Des’emona right in a purty speech. ’At’s what Ah say! ’At’s judgment nis co’t!”

  “Amen!” said the Bishop in his deep, booming voice.

  “Judgment nis co’t,” the King went on, rising to his feet and adjusting his enormous bearskin hat upon his small head, “is ’at you git yo’ jaw wiped. Nen you keep away fum ’at beer an’ outen nat t’eater lessen you want git wiped th’ee-foh times, all togedder.”

  The eyes of the waiting audience widened expectandy. Ashmodeus looked over his shoulder like a hunted animal, saw no way of escape, and sought to hide his face behind his arms. King Dick made a quick movement with his huge left fist, a movement that caused Ashmodeus to jerk his hands convulsively toward his stomach, as if to protect it. With that King Dick’s vast torso rolled to the left, and his right arm came up a short distance. Ashmodeus’s head snapped back. His body became rigid and elongated. He seemed to float upward from the floor, as though drawn by a wire, and in the next instant he fell with a lummocky thud on the cement-covered floor, jerked his right knee weakly, and lay still.

  “Co’t’s adjourned!” King Dick said. He turned indifferently from his admirers, leaving them to dispose of the insensible Ashmodeus in any way that suited them, and came to me.

  “Wheah’s ’at li’l’ Feevolus?” he asked.

  “Jeddy?” I asked. “He went around looking for someone he knew. What’s a feevolus?”

  “Li’l’ bird,” King Dick said faintly, yet shrilly, making what he may have considered a bird-like motion with his tremendous big hand. “Li’l’ pickety bird, li’l’ quickety pickety bird.” He flirted his hand vaguely and led me down the center of this long attic, bright by comparison with the ground floor, which was a dank and gloomy cave; brighter even than the second floor; but there were pools of water on the cement underfoot, showing that the roof leaked. There were stanchions in sections of it, as on the other floors, except at the two ends, which were airy open halls. At one end I could see a rough stage—doubtless the theater where Clerphus Lapp, painted white to represent Desdemona, had been enraged by the drunken laughter of Ashmodeus Jones. At the other end, toward which King Dick was leading me, were tables encircled by prisoners both black and white. As we came closer, my ears told me that the white patrons of the tables were French as well as Americans.

  The tables were arranged in a rough circle, in the center of which were two barrels of beer on wooden trestles, and two smiling black men waiting for customers. From the players rose a shrill and perpetual gabble, an occasional bellow of “Kenol” and a peculiar ear-piercing shriek, that sounded to me like “Hit! Rit! Rit!” All this uproar, somehow, seemed a fitting accompaniment to the wailing discords of the black musicians.

  King Dick signaled imperiously to one of the beer guardians, who ran out from behind his trestle.

  “Gim us ’ose stools, Shellac,” he said. He beamed on me engagingly. “Had yo’ breakfas’?” he asked. When I shook my head he added to Shellac: “Gim us ’ose stools, ’nen tell ’at Gawge Washington Dinwiddie bring ’ose fritters ovah heah, ’nen bring us two mugs ’at beer an’ wipe ’at foam off ’em. Ah doan’ wan’ no foam ’is mawnin’ or any odder mawnin’, you heah me, Shellac?”

  "Yarsuh!” Shellac said. He shuffled rapidly away, to return immediately with two rough stools and two brimming mugs of beer. We were approached by a small, bowlegged Negro, shrieking at the top of his lungs and peering at us over the pile of puffy fritters that filled his tray. His monkey face was distorted by strange twitchings resulting from the trilling half scream, half whistle with which he cried his wares, “Frrrrrit! Frrrrrit! Git yo’ frrrrrits!”

  King Dick rapped the feet of the fritter vendor with his gnarled stick and eyed him severely. “Heah, Dinwiddie! Doan’ mek all ’at noise when you see me talkin’ business wif a frien’! Ah kain’t think about miffin' wif all ’at whussickin’ goin’ on!” He reached forward, engulfing a dozen fritters in his gigantic hand. “He’p yo’se’f,” he said to me. “Ah got credit wif Dinwiddie.” Dinwiddie smiled a weak, monkey-like smile; and when I had taken four of the fritters he tiptoed away, a withdrawn look about his rump, as though fearing to be called back.

  King Dick stared at me out of doorknob eyes, popped two fritters into his cavern of a mouth, and washed them down with a draft of beer.

  “Ah doan mek frien’s easy,” he said at length. “Less you meks, less you loses.” He studied his beer mug thoughtfully. “Ah heahs what you done to ’at ole Bagley; an’ Ah heahs ’at li’l’ boy Tommy call you Cap’n Dick. Ah doan’ like Bagley; an’ Dick’s mah name, too; so Ah guess Ah’s oblessickated to be frien’s wif you.”

  “Well,” I said, “we need a friend, God knows.”

  He nodded solemnly.

  “’At li’l’ Feevolus, he tol’ me you figgerin’ on gittin’ out ’is ole prison.”

  “I’ve got to get out!”

  He closed his eyes wearily. “Whuffoh you want to be like all ’ose white Americans? Alius pussuckin’ roun’ bout gittin’ out! Whyn’t you hoi’ yo’ tongue an
’ be good white boy?” He washed down two more fritters.

  “Don’t you want to escape?”

  He laughed. “Mah lan’! Ah guess Ah doan’! Ah’s mekkin’ money, an’ Ah’s keeping odor in ’is ole prison.”

  “Keeping what?”

  “Odor,” he said, chewing his fritters. “Wif mah club an’ mah fis’. You seen me keepin’ odor jes’ now. ’Ese prison folks, Cap’n Shoatland an’ ’em, ’ey’s obleeged to me foh keepin’ odor, an’ if Ah wants to git out, Ah gits out. Ah gits out any time an’ stays out th’ee houahs, foh houahs, sem houahs! Come sunny days, Ah puts on mah blue clo’es an’ goes into Princetown; ’at’s whah Ah goes! Whuffoh Ah want to escape, wif plenty money, an’ bein’ King of ’is ole Number Foh, an’ goin’ ovah to Princetown when Ah feels lak dussuckin’ aroun’ a li’l’?”

  He leaned forward suddenly and closed his huge fingers around my biceps. “Mm, mm!” he said. “Kin you hit?”

  I said I could hit as much as was necessary to keep a brig in order.

  “Stan’ up,” he said, “an’ take a whup at mah chin.” He rose to his feet, a towering, smiling figure, and held out his chin invitingly.

  “What for?” I asked.

  “Ah want to see kin you hit,” he said, and I saw he meant it. “Hit hahd as you kin. Ah ain’t goin’ to feel it.”

  I took him at his word and drove my fist at his velvety black jaw. To my surprise it slipped out from under the blow, so that I missed and nearly lost my balance, though I felt my knuckles graze his cheek.

  He caught me with an arm like a jib boom when I staggered forward. “Mm, mml” he said in a hushed, faded voice. “You kin almos’ hit, on y if you go lashin’ out wif yo’ right fis’, you ain’t never goin’ get nowheres.” He stared at me thoughtfully, caressing his cheek with fingers the size of marlinspikes. “Heah!” he said at last, “Cap’n Shoatland say ’is French war goin’ be ovah one of ’ese days, ’nen all ’ese Frawgs, ’ey goin’ back to France; an’ all ’ose Americans in Plymuff an’ Chatham an’ Stapleton, ’ey cornin’ up heah. How you lak Ah learn you how to hit, ’nen you be king in anodder prison when ’ey all filled up wif Americans?”

  “I wouldn’t do it if I could,” I told him. “I don’t want anything except to get out.”

  “Ah show you plenty ways mek money,” he said hopefully.

  “I’ve got some.”

  He nodded, tapping his stick on the floor. “Yarse,” he said. “Ah wouldn’ say nuffin’ about it. Ah doan’ know nuffin’ about you es-capin’, but effen Ah heahs somepin’, Ah tells you or ’at li’l’ Feevolus.”

  He popped the last of his fritters into his mouth and upended his beer mug against his broad, flat nose. “You talk French?” he asked me then, and I suspicioned from the restlessness of his doorknob eyes that he had a reason for asking.

  “A little.”

  “ ’At ain’t enuff,” he said, and I was sure, then, he knew something he was unwilling or unable to tell me.

  He studied the narrow skylight that stretched the entire length of the slant-roofed cock loft in which we sat. “Ain’t no use not wukldn’ in ’is ole prison,” he said at length. “Folks ’at does nuffin’, ’ey goes bad. Frawgs, ’ey git to be Romans. Americans, ’ey git to be Rough Alleys.”

  “Rough Alleys?” I asked.

  “Yarse,” he said. “Rough Alleys. Fellers ’at won’t wuk an’ won’t keep ’eyse’fs clean, on’y gamble an’ steal an’ go mussuckin’ aroun’ mekkin trouble.”

  “Why do they call ’em Rough Alleys?” I asked.

  “ ’Cause ’at’s what ’ey are,” he said. “Rough, an’ belong in alleys.”

  Not until later, when I knew more French, did I discover that the Rough Alleys, who caused such grief among us before we were finished with Dartmoor, got their name from the French word raffalés, a term applied by French prisoners on English prison ships to those among them unfit in dress, person, and manners to associate with folk who made any pretense to decency. “Whyn’t you start wukkin’ on French?” King Dick continued. “’At ole Gin’ral Le Feeber, ovah in Prison Number Sem, he give lessons in French, an’ talk clear an’ nice, not all yockety, yockety, yockety, lak mos’ Frawgs.”

  “Number Seven?” I asked, to make sure.

  “Yarse; Sem,” he said.

  He warned particularly against gambling, declaring it was a curse, not only to his old Number Foh, but to all the other prisons as well, inasmuch as prisoners who became addicted to gambling would sell their clothes and even their daily food ration in order to gamble.

  I asked him how they lived if they sold their food rations.

  “ ’Ey picks up ’at ole swill behine ’ose cookhouses,” he explained. “Doan’ you gamble, an’ doan’ you let none of yo’ white boys git started, not lessen you want to see ’em runnin’ aroun’ wifout no shirt nor nuffin’.”

  Keno, he said, was not particularly bad, but Faro and the Wheel of Fortune, which he said the Frawgs called Roulette, were sure poison.

  “If they’re so bad,” I asked him, “why have ’em? You could drive them out if you wanted to, being King.”

  He let his head sink on his shoulder and giggled weakly. “Whuffoh I wan’ do ’at?” he asked. “You ain’t seen ’em Frawgs ovah in ’em odder six prisons! ’Ey’d tek money offen a li’l’ baby what hadn’ had nuffin’ to eat foh a week! Whuffoh Ah let ’ese folks in ole Number Foh go ovah an’ frow ’eir money at ’ose Frawgs? You t’ink ’ey stop gamblin’ effen Ah frow out Faro an’ Wheel o’ Fortune! Nawsuh! Not no moh nan ’ey stop drinkin’ effen Ah say ain’t goin’ be no moh beer in Number Foh! Ah keep ’ose gamblin’ tables right heah whah nobody starts no russickin wivout Ah knows it!”

  A shrill outcry rose from a near-by table. “Lookit ’at!” King Dick said. “Go on down git yo’ dinner!” He strode swiftly to the table, his bearskin hat towering above the excited players.

  “’At ain’t nobody’s fault on’y yourn!” I heard him shout. “Effen you goin’ gamble in heah, do yo’ gamblin’ wifout no hussuckin’!” He drew two yellow-clad figures from the milling throng and made what looked to me like gentle jabs at them, jabs that traveled about six inches. Yet both gamblers bounced from his keg-like fists: bounced, fell violently to the floor and lay still.

  There was, I could see, much to be learned about Dartmoor Prison; and as I hobbled down to our bay on the second floor I thought to myself I would have plenty of time in which to learn it.

  XXIII

  WHAT it was about our life in Dartmoor that weighed heaviest on us, I find it hard to say. At one time I think it was the stench of the place—the bitter-sweet, flat, choking odor of unwashed bodies and fragments of food and hidden filth; for though some of our bays were scoured daily, others were given only a hasty sweeping—what Arundel housewives call a lick and a promise.

  Again I think it was the cold; for the windows had no shutters, only iron bars, so that the bitter winds, the daily rains and snows, and the penetrating fogs that curse Dartmoor for nine months in every year poured in on us day and night. At other times I think it was our despairing rage at the wrongs inflicted on us by our jailers —inflicted not because we had committed crimes, but because we had fought to protect our country and our homes from conquest.

  It may have been the lack of certainty as to our fate: we might, for all we knew, be kept in this dripping stone tomb for the remainder of our lives, unless we could escape; nor was this a groundless fear; for on every side of us were Frenchmen who had rotted either in the hulks or in Dartmoor for eleven long years, forgotten and forsaken by their country, their families, and their friends.

  It may have been the myriads of fleas that lurked in cracks of the floor or folds of our hammocks, creeping out in the night to raise rows of welts on our bodies, welts that kept us awake and in torment with their burning and itching. Lice I don’t mind. They are clumsy slow creatures, and any man who takes the time and trouble to be clean can keep them from his clothes and often escap
e them entirely. Fleas are different. They are too quick to be easily caught, and cleanliness is no guard against them.

  It may have been the threat of disease—of smallpox, pneumonia and typhus—that hung over us constantly; or the clamminess that soaked up into us from the reeking floors; or the manner in which our wardens and guards taunted and jeered us. God knows they got back more taunts and jeers from the Americans in five minutes than their thick British wits could think up in five days, but none the less we brooded over their lying tales of American defeats when we had gone back at night into our prison house, and wondered and wondered whether, when we returned to our homes, we would be doomed to spend the rest of our lives paying taxes to keep a halfwitted prince regent in women, liquor, and gambling funds.

  In our own prison and the other six, prisoners had set up schools for the teaching of every subject under the sun. There were classes in navigation, knitting, tailoring, barbering, fencing, dancing, French, German, Spanish; in cooking, mathematics, boxing, painting, wood carving, Latin, Greek, chess playing, and the use of the globes; in gambling, even, and theology and violin playing.

  I cannot remember all the things taught in Dartmoor; but for the expenditure of a penny an hour I truly believe a man could have instruction in any known subject, so that the prison was as good as a university, provided a man was hearty in his desire for knowledge. And to a man who lacks that desire, no university is better than a prison.

  * * *

  The Frenchman whom King Dick called Gin’ral Le Feeber proved to be General Le Febvre, an officer who had served with General Rochambeau in the French expedition to Santo Domingo. Like many other French officers, he was no longer admitted to parole, because of the frequency with which his paroles had already been broken.