by Duncan, Hal
•
Now, you all’s seen the Waiftaker General with yer own peepers, so there ain’t no need for conjuring him, right? Back when this story took place, he’d the same beak nose of a bird of prey, the same beady eyes with pin-prick pupils, the same scrawny neck to angle his head this way and that, to size up a Scruffian just Fixed or all set for a Scrubbing. Only thing different back then… though his hair it were slicked back to his skull the same, so’s he looks a true hawk—back then it were black instead of white.
•
So. It began on a day as seemed like any others for the Waiftaker General, as he rose from his fancy four-poster bed, bid his butler hold the piss-pot for him whiles he drains his bladder, then pour water—piping hot!—for him to wash his fams. Why, that butler even buttons up his breeches, he does; helps him on with his big black frockcoat what flaps like wings when he pounces on yer; and knots his white silk cravat so sartorially sophisticated… what only makes his neck look scrawnier, poking out as a vulture’s from its ruff.
•
All the whiles he were dressing, of course, he were already at work, calling in his lieutenant to tell him how many waifs was took for Fixing in the dead of night, and was they Jews or gypsies, paupers or carnies? Was they boys or girls with black mops or blond curls? What ages and stages of starving was they? So what was their worth at the going rates? And all of this writ in his little black book. And then lastly he spins, with a smile cruel as sin, and asks, How many scruffs did the stickmen bring in?
• 2
Now on this day, after all these accountings of the night’s business, there’s a few more things for the Waiftaker General to be asking after, yeah? This weren’t no different from no other day, mind, cause he’d always have what he calls extraordinary business. One day it might be a partic’lar Scruffian as is vexing him sorely with spritely shenanigans—Lightfinger Larker outdoing himself as prince of the pickpockets, or Flashjack Scarlequin playing scourge of the stickmen. Others it might be truly extraordinary—rascalry from Rake Jake Scallion or some other Rake as looks like a groanhuff but’s Scruffian inside.
•
Today though, it were the Beast of Buskerville to be dealt with, and for some reason—a reason what nobody in all his staff knew, not his butler nor his lieutenant, nor one of his stickmen, nor a single sausage in all the lodges across London—this partic’lar extraordinary business did seem to get the Waiftaker General’s feathers extraordinarily ruffled. What news of the Beast of Buskerville? he snapped, soon as the tally of snaffled scofflaws was noted. Is there sight or sound of it? Sniff of spoor of it? What news of that bothersome, blackguardly brute of a Beast?
•
See, there ain’t no borough more troublesome to the stickmen than Buskerville anyways, on account of it having its streets all over London, it being patched from the pitches of all em organ-grinders, penny-whistlers, Punch-and-Judy-men and whatnots. Worse, it’s always on the move, always shifting, and that’s a thing as no stickman can stand. Can’t get their heads round it, can they? Course, every Scruffian knows Buskerville the way a sailor knows knots; there’s rich pickings to be made among the toffs as dawdle on its corners, wipes and tickers just waiting to be plucked.
•
So if there was anywheres in London as caused the Waiftaker General grief, it were Buskerville; and lately that Buskerville botheration had gotten sorer still, with reports of routs—panic in the streets—all sparked by vicious attacks from a dread fiend of the four-legged faithful-friend variety. Nobs was being savaged, and their brats was being mauled, by some demon dog as like to go for a throat as for a toffee apple. A demon dog, says they, as had been shot, stabbed, scorched, you name it, and weren’t nothing could keep it killed. Could it possibly be…?
• 3
—A Scruffian dog? says the Waiftaker General as he steps down from the carriage that’s took him all the way from his Kensington townhouse to his Westminster workplace, that dark, domed crematorium of a construction they calls the Institute. Perhaps, he says as he swipes his cane at some hawker stood on the steps with a lad on a leash—an urchin to be Fixed, no doubt, and an owner as needs learning in the protocols of propriety, to bring his purchase to the appropriate entry.
—Perhaps, he says to the lieutenant as scurries after him. Perhaps some… failed experiment.
•
—An investigation must be instigated, of course, says he. An inquiry must be initiated, an inquest inaugurated. If this monstrous mongrel is indeed a product of our hallowed Institute, why, this is a scandalous misuse of our facilities. Scandalous! Tell the PM he may rest assured: we will uncover the culprit of this crime, and deal with him severely. Most severely.
Oh, there was a black scowl in the Waiftaker General’s beady eyes as he says those words. There’s few groanhuffs can brood as bitter as the Waiftaker General, foul-tempered fucker that he is.
—Heads will roll, says he.
•
—But of course, says he as he aims another swipe at the hawker (who don’t seem to be fathoming the correctitude of conduct as is being imparted to him through the medium of whacking, who’s still worrying at the sleeve of the lieutenant as is s’posed to open the Institute’s front doors for Himself, holding him back from doing his dutiful.) Of course, says the Waiftaker General, our priority of primacy must be the apprehension of this foul abomination, the extermination of this vile vermin, the Scrubbing of this Scruffian canine. If indeed that is the nature of this… this…
•
Oh, there was a right sour twist to the Waiftaker General’s thin lips as he spoke. Might have been a slight bite to em too, me scamps, the bite of lip on a man as wants to say more than he ought to, a villain as has an awful urge to rant and rail, but has a damn good reason not to blather his bile too wildly, eh? But if there were, it wasn’t such as the lieutenant were like to notice with the hawker tugging at his sleeve and Himself exploding:
—The side-entrance, you cretinous oaf, he shouts.
• 4
Now, that were the first the Waiftaker General truly noticed the nature of this hawker as was harrying his man. And if ever there was anything made to revolt him to the depths of his soul—anything as wasn’t an escaped Scruffian, that is—it was this pitiful peddler. Hunchbacked and hook-nosed, he was, a Rumpelstiltskin as rag’n’bone man, wearing the black-glassed spectacles of the blind, with straggly hair and matted beard as might be grey or even white underneath all the filth. Togged in tatters too, layer upon layer. And the sight weren’t nothing to the stench.
•
But now as the Waiftaker General had actually noticed the peddler, he couldn’t help but notice the urchin what was with him too; and if the peddler had him wanting to wash the filth from the Institute’s front steps with a firehose, why, that boy made him wants to purge it with purifying flames first, for he’d never seen no Scruffian as scruffy as this in all his puff. Barely clothed, the boy was, in rags as hardly kept him decent, the number of holes they had in em. Why, the dirt made a better job of covering his flesh.
•
More’n that though, the Waiftaker General, he saw then that this weren’t no urchin being brung for Fixing, but a Scruffian already Fixed, the scars of the Stamp upon his chest for all to see, under his buttonless shirt, when the boy sat back on his haunches—as he did just at that moment. He weren’t just on a leash that lad, see, a leather collar round his neck and a chain held tight in the peddler’s liver-spotted hand; he even walked on all fours like a dog, sat down like one too, at a yank of his leash.
•
Now the Waiftaker General weren’t inclined to be intrigued by this. Was he bollocks! No, all the more reason for him to rail at this noisome nuisance, cause Scruffians to be Scrubbed definitely wasn’t for the front doors. But with him proper noticing the hawker now, well, nows he noticed what the man were saying. And that were intriguing.
—If ye please, yer vorshipful ’onour, says this hunchback hawker. My
name is Lionel J. Reakesack, and fer all as I’m blind and beggarly, yer eminent regality, I’m come here vith me Scruffian to ’elp yer catch the Beast of Buskerwille.
• 5
There’s wicked and cruel men who would have simply laughed then, scoffed at the notion of such scum being of service, being useful in any manner other than maybes keeping rats in check by hunting em for mealtime morsels. But that’s a kind of wicked and cruel as has a sense of humour in all its nastiness, and the Waiftaker General, he ain’t even got that to be said for him. Ain’t never so much as a snigger passed those lips, not a chortle nor a chuckle. So all’s he done was sneer down the beak of his cocked snoot.
•
—To help us catch the Beast of Buskerville? says he. And just how does a piddling peddler such as you, an aptly-named reeking sack of misshaped penury such as you, propose to be of assistance? You do understand that as the Waiftaker General I have the entire Institute at my disposal, not to mention the constables of every lodge across the whole of London? How precisely do you fancy yourself, a blind cripple, facillitating the capture of that cur?
—If ye please, yer esteemed reverence, says Reakesack. If ye please, I’ve come to offer me serwices as a tracker.
•
—Well, in truth, says he, if ye please, yer magnanimous magnificence, it ain’t so much my serwices that I’m enwisioning as may be of some walue; no, it’s the serwices of me Scruffian ’ere. Now, blind as I am, I can’t see yer scorn, but as a certainty I can imagine it, sir; for sure and this creature must look as vorthless to you as to the sot I bought ’im from; and truth be told that drunk had so little use for ’im I got the lad for a bottle of gin. Got ’im to be me eyes, sir.
•
—But ye see, says he, if yer please, yer resplendent nobilitude, the boy were a vild child, found in a forest or summat, never learned to talk nor even walk upright. Fixed for to be a guard dog, growling being ’is only apparent skill. Veren’t much use at that neither; ’e’s a craven whelp as cowers at a kick—see? Oh, but bless the good Lord if old Lionel J. Reakesack didn’t find a use for a boy raised as a dog, and not just as me eyes. As me nose too, sir. Oh, my Yapper’ll sniff out yer Beast.
• 6
Now the Waiftaker General hadn’t never heard of no feral child being Fixed, but old Reakesack ’splained as the lad were from way back, according to the sot what owned him afore. Guarded the family business for generations, stretching back to the days of his grandfather’s grandfather, so he says. Kept with the dogs for a century or more, until he come to think he was one, even come to know his way by his nose just like a dog. Course, then that sot drunk away that family business, and what use were a guard dog with nuffink to guard?
•
—Now mark me, says Reakesack, for I’ll not lie to ye, yer blessed grace; it’s a fishy story, of a truth, if ye please. For as ye see when I kicks ’im—see?—or when I smacks ’im with ’is leash—see?—or even if I just clips ’is ear—see?—he don’t growl at nothing. So I reckon as that sot was spinning a yarn and thinking to pull a fast one on old Lionel J. Reakesack. But bollocks to that bugger, hee hee, if ye’ll pardon me French, for I got the best of ’im in the end.
•
—A Scruffian vot ain’t got no words to be always asking questions, says Reakesack. A dog vot ’as the smarts to answer. Yes and no. Two yaps for yes, and one yip for no. Ain’t that right, boy?
And blimey if that boy didn’t give two little yaps in answer.
—Ye’ll be a good dog for yer master, won’t yer, boy? says Reakesack.
—Yap yap, says the lad.
—Knows the Beast of Buskerwille’s stink, don’t yer, lad?
—Yap yap.
—Yer can sniff yer way to ’is lair, boy, can’t yer?
—Yap yap.
—And ye’ll not lead us astray, eh?
—Yip.
•
So the Waiftaker General he peers at the scamp, angling his head this way and that; and the scamp he’s just sat there, tongue lolling from his mouth. Then he peers at old Reakesack, angling his head that way and this; and old Reaksack he’s just stood there, tongue licking at his lips. The gleam of guineas in his eyes, he has, thinks the Waiftaker General, the greedy grubbing avarice of a right Jew.
Oh, but the Waiftaker General, he has his own hunger rising in his heart. It just ain’t wealth he’s wanting.
The Waiftaker General, he wants blood.
• 7
—Look sharp! he snaps at his lieutenant. Sound the bell! I want ten men, with pistols, nets and ropes, here now! Go on! he roars. I want them ready for the hunt, ten of the best, snapped to attention, spick and span—you know I’ll stand no less—and if this blistering breath has ended by the time they’re here, by God, if I have time to catch another breath to blast, I swear my next will signify your last, I’ll have your badge, your balls, and all the seed they’ve sown, you laggardly, lollygagging, lazy…
—Very good, he says.
•
So there’s a baker’s dozen of em as sets out in search of the Beast—the lieutenant counting himself as one of the best, natch—an unlucky thirteen of em, as they might have had good sense to pay some mind to: ten broke-nosed, brawny stickmen with coshes, all dolled up like a boxer’s wedding party in their grey bowlers and tin flutes; the Waiftaker General at the head of em, his topper on tight, his cane tapping sharp with his stride; Reakesack up front, scurrying on, stoop-shouldered; and this lad, half-pauper, half-pup, leading the pack.
•
They starts the hunt in Covent Garden, where’s many a Scruffian snaffles treats and trinkets; though there ain’t many a Scruffian in sight soon as em stickmen stride in. Why, one whistle from a lad sat watching Jack Ketch hanging Punch, and half the audience is offsky in a flash, scattered into the mob like mouses to their holes, and scarper signals by the score sounding all through the market. But for once the beak-nose bastard ain’t a-flap and screaming shrill, to grab em and nab em. Oh, no; it ain’t scruffs is on the Waiftaker General’s mind today.
•
—This… marketplace, says he, voice dripping with disdain of all em flower-girls and fruit-hawking costermongers. The last sighting of the Beast was in this… vicinity, was it not?
—Indeed, sir, says his man. Last night, no less, stealing sausages from some servant’s—
—How most like a Scruffian, sneers the Waiftaker General. Well, Reakesack, set your whelp to work; and pray it does as promised, else…
—Of course, yer ’igh-born ’oliness, says Reakesack.
And down he bends to pinch the lad’s ear, hiss his orders in it, seal em with a curse and cuff.
And then they’s off.
• 8
At first they ain’t going nowhere fast, Yapper leading em in circles, snuffling at the stalls and cobblestones, wandering left and right to weave his way amongst the mob of serving-maids with shopping baskets and whatnot. First it’s all zig-zags and criss-crossings, now this way, now that, like as that lad were scribbling out the very Stamp scarred in his chest, in all its convolutions. ’Fore long though, Yapper, he’s straightening out to sniff his way along one wall, stopping to cock his head. Then with an almighty howl, that Scruffian lad starts straining at his leash.
•
Out of Covent Garden he pulls em, scrabbling keen along the kerbs, up Bow Street and around, down Drury Lane, with all its plate-glass-windowed gin palaces—and there’s more’n one rogue there eyes em stickmen as they pass, pipe in his teeth, hand drifting to them scars he never shows nobody—his Stamp. There’s more’n one Rake gives a queer peer at Reakesack in partic’lar. And slinks back into a doorway as the Waiftaker General marches past.
Along and around, nipping down this alley here, this back-street there, off Kingsway and back on it, Yapper leads em.
•
Every turn as can be took along High Holborn, Yapper takes it, and some more besides, winding wigglier than the Thames itself, and n
ever tiring, so it seems, even as morning passes into afternoon, even as the proud stride of the Waiftaker General and his stickmen gets less puffed-up and more puffed-out what with all em hours of walking. It’s early-afternoon afores they even reach the Old Bailey, mid-afternoon by the time they’s jostling through the crowds of Cheapside, Reakesack casting glances at the glint of signet rings and scarf pins in the jewellers’ shop-windows.
•
As the afternoon stretches on, Yapper starts to lead em north, he does, up through Petticoat Lane with all its stalls of clobber top-notch or tatty; and the Waiftaker General he scowls at the traders with their sidelocks and wide-brimmed hats, mutters about immigrants and churches turned to synagogues. On and up they goes, more directly now, as evening sets in, using bluster and bullying to carve a clear path through Spitalfields Market as the traders is closing up their stalls for the night. Up to the edge of Bethnal Green and Shoreditch.
To the Old Nichol Rookery.
• 9
—Of course, says the Waiftaker General as Yapper halts, starts whining, cringing from the kicks what Reakesack aims to send him on, but stubborn as an animal as smells its own death in the abbatoir ahead. Tain’t no abbatoir as is in front of em, that loverly little neighbourhood marked out by Half Nichol Street and Boundary Street, Old Nichol Street and Nichol Row, that cesspit of a slum owned by the pious and rented to the poor, three families to each house. Tain’t no abbatoir, but it might as well be, how it treats em animals as enters it.