Mad Blood Stirring

by Simon Mayo

  It was then that Joe got it. ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ he said. ‘Of course. So, when the King says you have plans for me …’ Joe raised an eyebrow. ‘Let me guess. You will play Romeo?’

  Habs nodded solemnly.

  ‘And … you want me for Juliet?’ Joe asked. ‘Have you lost your senses in here?’ His head was spinning – he needed some air. ‘Maybe you have the jail fever that took your Montano,’ he said. ‘I need to see my crew. We need to find our berths in Seven. We need food and money. And then? Well, then, God willing, we’ll be sailing home.’

  1.9

  The Agent’s Study

  SHORTLAND (standing, awkward): Mr Crafus, you seem to have made quite an impact. Please sit.

  King Dick also standing, at ease, his bearskin hat under his arm, looks around Shortland’s study, taking in the pictures and portraits; is silent.

  SHORTLAND: The men in your block respect your … strength and your control.

  King Dick continues to study the paintings; is silent.

  SHORTLAND (puzzled): This isn’t a game, Crafus. I am the Agent, I am your governor, your commanding officer. I ask questions, you answer them. I respect the discipline you have instilled in your men. I appreciate the order in Four, but I need that order in all things. And that includes prisoners answering questions when asked.

  KING DICK (still not looking at Shortland): You ain’t asked me any questions. You jus’ been talkin’ at me, tellin’ me things.

  SHORTLAND (smiles, impatient): Quite so. Very well, then. How are your men in Block Four?

  KING DICK (looks at Shortland at last): They are sick, as you well know. We lost four to the pox this month. Sick and hungry and wantin’ for home. If you want peace in your camp, if you want order in your prison, you gotta do somethin’ ’bout that. ’Bout all o’ that.

  SHORTLAND: You are a prisoner-of-war. It is a Dartmoor winter. Conditions here are no worse than in all prison camps; indeed, considerably better than some. There is fresh water, the courtyards are swept and clean, you have ample food and supplies. If there is a shortage of money, that is a problem with your government (checking himself). However, I will raise the matter of sickness with Dr Magrath …

  KING DICK (sharply): You will ‘raise these matters’, but my men will still die, Captain Shortland. You are in charge, but you choose to be weak. Your men, your soldiers, are stupid, and you permit the Rough Allies to disrupt your prison …

  SHORTLAND (annoyed): Enough! I did not ask you here to deliver one of your speeches …

  KING DICK: And from a Negro, too …

  SHORTLAND: From a prisoner! It’s a miracle you Yankees have any ships sailing at all, with this insubordination.

  KING DICK: It’s a miracle you Brits are still in the war …

  SHORTLAND: And a war you declared for what? Washington at least fought for ‘liberty’ – you have been fighting for shadows. (controls himself) What I wanted to say was simply this. I admire the way you have taken control of Four and made it your own.

  KING DICK: I am an unaccountable sovereign.

  SHORTLAND (puzzled): I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that …

  KING DICK: An unaccountable sovereign. He keeps chaos at bay, keeps the state of nature in check. We have order in Four, Captain. This is Othello, this is Leviathan.

  There is a silence between the men.

  KING DICK: Shakespeare and Hobbes. These are your great Englishmen.

  SHORTLAND: Indeed. Though I confess it’s been many years since I read either. But I can be clear on this: I only wish the other blocks were as, well, efficient and, er, organized as Four.

  KING DICK (laughing): I served in some of your ships that were ‘efficient’ and ‘organized’. Royal Navy words for ‘brutal’, I believe.

  SHORTLAND (ignoring him): It seems amazing to me what you can achieve without those damned prisoner committees. The other prisons seem to like them. A lot of voting goes on, I believe – and constitutional talk, I hear (pronounces ‘voting’ and ‘constitutional’ with a sneer in his voice). You’ve not been … tempted?

  KING DICK (angry): And how do you think that constitution has been doin’ in lookin’ after people like me, Captain? What d’you think we make of it over in Four? When we are back home, all that votin’ don’t seem to be helpin’ us much. We are not ‘tempted’, ’cos it’s a sham, a trick to let those in charge feel better ’bout themselves. Everyone’s jus’ fine with the way it is in Four. I am in charge, or it is the war of all against all. And when the Rough Allies are allowed to go ’bout attackin’ whoever they fancy, someone needs to do somethin’. I am the someone, Captain.

  SHORTLAND (smiling): You are indeed the someone, Mr Crafus. I assure you I will speak to Dr Magrath shortly. And I will order the guard to be more watchful of the Rough Allies. (As if an afterthought): What do you hear of the other prisons, Mr Crafus? Are they restless?

  KING DICK: Restless? You think prisoners desperate for home after a war that has ended might be restless? You got that right. But I won’t be your spy, Captain Shortland. You have enough men here – they can tell you. And case you hadn’t noticed, the white blocks are quite happy keeping themselves ’part from the likes of me. You allowed the separation. You put us in Four—

  SHORTLAND: For order! If I had refused, we would have had riots. You weren’t here, but the committees were very clear that they wished to have their own with their own—

  KING DICK: The natural order of things—

  SHORTLAND: Something like that, I believe, yes.

  KING DICK: Only atheists and Jacobins would say anythin’ else …

  SHORTLAND (uncomfortable and unnerved): Those issues were raised.

  KING DICK: So you listened to ’em. And you said yes.

  SHORTLAND: This is an American problem, Mr Crafus.

  KING DICK: And a British solution.

  SHORTLAND: Tell me you’re not happier in Four. Tell me you’d rather I broke it all up and mixed you all again.

  KING DICK (pauses, runs a hand over his hair. An uncomfortable time passes, then he straightens as if he has decided): We’d be happier at home, we’d be happier if we wasn’t fightin’ and we’d be happier if we wasn’t treated like we was lower than dogs. In Massachusetts, y’know, they promise all men are born free and equal. We’d be happier like that. But right now, we need each other. Right now, the men of Four need each other and need me to fight for ’em. Don’t know ’bout the other prisons, but the men of Four would want to stay men of Four.

  2.1

  Monday, 2 January 1815

  Block Four

  BY DARTMOOR’S STANDARDS, the overnight snow had been thin and watery, settling no deeper than a few inches. The strong southwesterly carried the freezing air across the moor and deep into the prison blocks; the shutters had kept the flakes out, but little else. By dawn, the temperature inside was barely different to that outside.

  Two slight, shivering boys flittered around King Dick’s bed, then settled, one on each side of his mattress. They nodded to each other then folded the bedding back. In a single fluid movement, the King rolled over once, opened his eyes and sat bolt upright. He wiped his face with his hands.

  ‘All quiet, Mr Daniels?’ he said, his voice thick with sleep and rum.

  ‘All quiet, King Dick,’ said the boy.

  ‘All well, Mr Singer?’

  ‘All well, King Dick.’

  ‘Very well, then.’ The King stood, the blankets falling from him. He had slept in stockings, vest, jacket and trousers, worn for warmth but in truth barely fitting his huge frame. He loosened the trousers and held out his hand; Jonathan Singer handed him a favoured black woollen pair. He tugged each leg on then threw his yellow prison jacket to the ground. Alex Daniels handed him two white muslin shirts, one inside the other, and he pulled both on together. Alex stepped on to the mattress to button both up to their high collars.

  ‘Sleep well, Mr Daniels?’ said the King.

  ‘Yes, sir, thank you, sir,’ he replied
, pressing home the last button. The King pushed both shirts into his trousers and Jonathan handed him a wide grey stitched leather belt with battered pewter buckle and he strapped it to his waist.

  ‘Sash next,’ he said, and Alex handed him a silver band with four gold stars sewn into the fabric. ‘Made where, boys?’

  ‘Haiti,’ they parroted together.

  ‘Which is?’

  The boys glanced at each other to coordinate their words.

  ‘An independent nation of free peoples,’ they said, their words memorized but said with emphasis and vigour. King Dick nodded solemnly then adjusted the sash across his chest. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, untroubled by the malodorous air. ‘I was born a slave,’ he intoned, ‘but nature gave me the soul of a free man.’

  ‘Toussaint L’Ouverture, 1743 to 1803,’ chanted Alex and Jonathan.

  ‘Of course,’ said the King. ‘Good, good.’ He opened his eyes. The lesson was over.

  ‘So. Are we the first, Mr Singer?’

  ‘Yes, King Dick. And Mr Snow, Mr Snow and Mr Penny are waiting for the keys.’

  The King grunted appreciatively, his eyes quickly surveying the rows of hammocks and mattresses; if anyone else was stirring, they knew to keep their distance and their silence. He stepped off the mattress. Alex passed him a pair of black leather boots with brown leather trim at the top and front; square-headed nails on the bottom formed an ornate pattern around the edges. King Dick grunted again.

  ‘Everyone admires my boots, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes, King Dick.’

  ‘I admire them myself. And they fit only me. So …’ He eased each foot past the bootstraps. ‘Amazin’ what that cobbler could manage, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, King Dick,’ said Alex and Jonathan together. Their snatched glance and brief smile at each other anticipated the King’s next comment. ‘Though I seem to remember he needed a little … encouragement.’

  ‘That he did, sir,’ said Alex, smiling openly now. Next came a heavy brown leather jacket and a military greatcoat, but the King waved the coat away. ‘Just some blankets for now, Alex. I can hear the turnkeys at the door. My hat ’n’ bat, and we can go.’

  One floor down, opposite Four’s heavy double doors, Ned, Sam and Habs, dressed in as many layers of clothing as they could muster, sat shivering together on the cold stairs. Sam’s first pipe of the day was freshly lit, enveloping them in a cloud of yellow smoke.

  ‘That gotta be the piss of a fox you’re smoking, cuz,’ coughed Habs. ‘Some swindlin’ sailor sold you some bad flakes there and that’s the truth.’

  Sam looked aggrieved. ‘Threepence for four ounces,’ he said. ‘I like it. Man in Two said it’s called Virginian River.’

  ‘Where foxes go to piss,’ said Ned.

  ‘Guaranteed,’ said Habs, standing up. ‘I swear my ass’ll be ice before they open these goddamn doors.’

  Across the yard, the turnkeys were about their work, two to each block. Habs could hear their handiwork. The cries of ‘Tumble up and turn out! Tumble up and turn out!’ were met always by the anger of woken men, as vicious as they were predictable.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’

  ‘Go back to yer English whore!’

  ‘Kiss my arse, duck-fucker!’

  In Blocks One, Two, Three, Five, Six and Seven, the turnkeys would bark their morning greeting around the floors, occasionally loosening the hammock yarns of the most virulent and most drunk. The louder the crash of bodies, the more the English laughed. But they didn’t enter Four. It was always different in Four.

  The sound of heavy, booted steps approaching brought Habs, Sam and Ned to their feet in an instant. Two keys inserted and turned, two opened doors, two swathed turnkeys. It was a tiny moment, but Habs found the unlocking a daily emboldening, an unintended encouragement; even when conditions outside were worse than inside, their night was through and their incarceration, for a moment at least, lifted.

  ‘Good mornin’, Mr Turnkey One and Mr Turnkey Two,’ said Habs. ‘Whoever you are under those mufflers.’

  ‘King Dick knows what time it is,’ said Ned. ‘He’s already hard at it. He don’t need …’

  One of the turnkeys pulled down his scarf. ‘We know. He don’t need the English to tell him when the day starts. You tell us every day, but we’re tellin’ you, anyway. Please inform His Darkest Majesty that he needs to tumble up and turn out, along with the rest of his poor, unfortunate subjects.’ They turned and were gone, and so missed Ned’s dropped-trousers salute.

  ‘My naked weapon is out!’ he called.

  ‘And it’ll snap like a tiny icicle if you don’t get decent,’ said Sam, lighting some more Virginian River. ‘C’mon. We’ll find King Dick is this way.’

  The ground floor was stirring and thick with tobacco smoke. Some had heard the exchange with the turnkeys, others needed the piss tub or their first pipe, but everyone awake knew King Dick was on his way. Men slid from their hammocks then lashed them away; they woke neighbours and called warnings. A man holding tightly to his wooden crutch hopped past them with a coffee pot in his free hand.

  ‘When your fire is lit, we’ll be your first customers,’ called Sam.

  ‘Penny each,’ came the reply, followed by a series of racking wet coughs and noisy hawking.

  Ned, Sam and Habs looked at each other.

  ‘Maybe someone else can be his first customer,’ muttered Ned.

  Behind them, they heard deliberate footsteps.

  ‘Good mornin’, Mr Penny and both Mr Snows,’ called King Dick, as he descended the stairs.

  Habs felt the voice reverberate in his chest as he heard it with his ears, rich, full and deep. Once more, the King wore the bearskin hat high on his head; the rest of his torso was draped in blankets of contrasting colours. The diminutive forms of Alex Daniels and Jonathan Singer peered from behind him.

  He returned the greeting. ‘Mornin’, King Dick,’ he said, and, glancing at the boys, touched the knuckle of his index finger to his forehead. The King swung his club absent-mindedly, its handle now tied to his wrist with a leather thong.

  ‘Show me,’ he said, and strode away, a ship’s captain inspecting the decks.

  A few of the shutters had been flung open but, for the most part, they were still closed against the cold. A thin, milky light barely illuminated the King’s path but was just sufficient for him to follow the forest of upright wooden stanchions that lined the floor. Eighteen inches apart, they gave each man a space of nine inches for his hammock. As King Dick walked the aisles, some men nodded; others saluted as they squeezed past. He called to some by name, and embraced others.

  ‘Damn but you’re good at this,’ Habs muttered.

  Not everyone was awake. The King stopped at a stanchion tied with three clearly occupied hammocks. In the lowest, a fully clothed sailor lay spreadeagled across the stretch of hemp, two empty bottles wedged under his neck. Above him, a blanket covered all but a sleeper’s booted foot, and on the top hammock, barely six inches above the King’s head, a single upturned hand protruded over the side. The King looked ominously from berth to berth, the club spinning loose on its thong as it dangled from his wrist.

  ‘Thoughts, Mr Snow?’ he said.

  Habs stepped forward and considered the spreadeagled man. ‘That’s Mr Kale, so the others’ll be Dean and Boyce. I think a turnout might be quite somethin’, King Dick.’

  The King flicked his wrist, caught the club. ‘I think so, too,’ he said, and, reaching up, pulled hard on the top hammock. The hemp cloth spun on its clews, depositing the still-sleeping sailor on top of the man below. They cracked heads, woke with a roar and toppled on to the splayed Kale beneath them. His hammock split in two and all three men lay stunned and groaning on the granite floor. From the wrecked beds, a collection of dice, cards and coins scattered around them.

  ‘Mr Penny,’ said the King, his voice barely more than a growl, ‘will you collect those, please? Mr Singer, Mr Daniels, perhaps you could as
sist?’ Ned and the boys scrabbled to retrieve the fallen evidence, then offered it to the King in fistfuls. He waved them away.

  ‘On your feet, sailors,’ King Dick ordered. Still stunned, the three fallen men struggled to stand. The King, slowly, meticulously, wrapped just enough of the thong around his wrist to place the club’s ribbed handle neatly in his palm. Running his fingers along its shaft, he appeared to find a blemish a few inches from its tip. He picked at it with his fingernails, fussing, then seemingly content, polished the club on his trousers. The three tottering prisoners urinated where they stood.

  King Dick stepped forward.

  ‘Asleep past turnout; too much grog and gamin’.’ The King prowled around them. ‘You know the rules, and you know that gamin’ happens upstairs or outside. If it happens inside, in the dark, under blankets … well, then, what am I to conclude?’ Kale, Dean and Boyce were now very awake and very scared. They inched closer together, trembling. Dean and Boyce both had blood in their hair. Kale wrapped his arms around his ribs.

  ‘Sorry, King Dick,’ began Dean, his head bowed, his speech slow. ‘We ain’t tryin’ to take your money or nothin’, really we ain’t. It was the peace, we forgot …’

  Not good enough, thought Habs.

  ‘Oh!’ the King breathed, as he walked behind the men. ‘After your celebration, you was goin’ to declare your winnings?’ His words had slowed to a drawl; everyone knew what was coming next.

  Habs held his breath. Two small hands found their way into his and he held them fast.

  The King paused. One of the men, Kale, frantically turned his head to see where he had gone. He found the club six inches from his eyes.

  ‘You wanna watch?’ said King Dick, and pushed the tip hard against Kale’s forehead. The King twisted his wrist one way, then the other, grinding the club into Kale’s skin.

  ‘N–no, King Dick,’ he whimpered. The King held him there, as he squirmed like a worm on a fishhook. Habs counted the seconds. He got to eleven.