by Simon Mayo
Habs took an elbow in the face, Sam a fist to the stomach. Arms and legs tangled; clothes were pulled and ripped as they closed on the gates. Sam was fastest through, then applauded Habs, who made it as the gates started to move.
‘Slowin’ down, boy,’ he laughed. ‘Too much liquor and tobacco.’
Joe, red-faced, tricorn pulled low, forced his way through the crowd.
‘Thought you’d slept in. What kept you?’
‘Block Four is farthest from the gates,’ said Habs, ‘so not surprisin’ you Sevens got here so easy.’ Habs offered Joe some bread from his pocket, Joe produced some rolled-up meat from his and they swapped some breakfast.
‘Thanks for the advice,’ Joe said. ‘If you hadn’t warned me about the crash, I’d never have been ready.’
‘Ol’ man Roche not here, I see,’ said Habs through a mouthful of food.
‘Said he was cold and in pain anyway,’ said Joe. ‘Didn’t see the point in getting more of both.’
The throng of inmates were surrounded by redcoats, guns held at the ready. Six officers were shouting and waving their arms, succeeding eventually in dividing the men into working parties. Habs, Sam and Joe were herded into a group with three other messes from Four then joined by a noisy gang from One. The latter made their displeasure felt immediately.
‘We don’t do the same work as fuckin’ Negroes,’ spat one man from the swathe of wool wrapped around his face. Clouds of steam billowed around him.
‘You do if you want the money,’ replied the nearest sergeant. ‘If you want to go back inside, Yankee boy, there’s plenty who’ll take your place.’
Their march through the recently swept courtyard and gates was straightforward. But as they filed under the arch, their progress slowed. Overnight, the Dartmoor hills had been covered by a foot of snow and the track that led from the prison to neighbouring Princetown had vanished. In the half-light of the early morning, each sailor turned his head to the dark, grey, overcast sky, judging wind and temperature; it was clear there would be more snow soon.
The men were split into left and right, and half the troop was directed left, towards Princetown, while Joe, Habs, Sam and a hundred others were forced to the right.
‘What’s this way?’ called Joe.
‘A whole load o’ nothin’,’ said Sam. ‘I did this last year – the moor goes on for miles. Grass, piles o’ rocks, bogs, grass, piles o’ rocks an’ bogs. For ever. But somewhere there’ll be some poor English farmer with his poor English cows and pigs that need rescuin’.’
‘How far away are these farms?’ Joe had his hat pulled low, his hands deep in the pockets of an old coat he had traded for in the market. He walked in the footsteps of the men in front but still trod gingerly, their progress painfully slow.
‘Hexworthy’s an hour off,’ said Habs, holding on to Sam’s shoulder, ‘more like two in this snow. That’ll be where the others have gone. Russets is closer, and Rounders before that.’
‘Well, let’s pray we’re Rounders and the snow waits awhile,’ said Joe, shivering hard.
‘Amen to that!’ said Sam. ‘And that the farmer has beautiful daughters who’re bored o’ their usual grass-combers and dreamin’ of meetin’ an American sailor.’
‘… who smells like shit,’ added Habs.
‘It’s a farm, Habs,’ said Joe. ‘Everything will smell like shit.’
Two men in front of them turned their heads. ‘We were there last snowfall,’ said one, his eyes and nose watery with the cold. ‘The ol’ boy there’s not so bad, even tried to offer us liquor, but the guards wouldn’t let ’im. Though they took plenty, mind.’
‘’Course they did,’ said Joe. ‘You from One?’
‘Yup.’
‘You’re all better now? Sounded like you had a real bad attack of the fever in there some days back.’
‘Back on our feet now, but it was bad, and no mistake. Headaches, sickness, and shit everywhere. Couldn’t wait to get out.’ He stuck a hand towards Joe. ‘Bill Gramm and Jonathan Tilson. Sailed with the Plainsman outta New York. You from the Eagle?’
‘Yeah, Joe Hill from Seven.’ They shook with gloved hands. The men from One glanced at Habs, Sam and the rest of the Fours and nodded. There was, apparently, no need to ask where they were from.
‘And we’re from Four,’ Habs said pointedly. ‘Sam and Habs Snow.’ The men turned again, nodded again.
‘We know who you are. You were fast!’ said Gramm to Sam. ‘Saw you run. Not many from Four made it.’
‘One’s as close to the gates as Seven is,’ said Sam. ‘You have it easy round there.’
Tilson snorted. He spoke over his shoulder. ‘Sure don’t feel that way. Some in the mess still sick with the flu or some such. Lotta groanin’ goin’ on most nights.’
The troop of snow-clearers and militia trudged through the snow for an hour. Starlings screeched around a clump of battered pine trees, then swooped suddenly into its branches. The track to the farm was marked out with large granite stones every quarter-mile, ditches, hedges and spoil heaps from old tin mines taking it in turns to run alongside the route. The men saw no one. The excited chatter that had marked the first mile faded as the cold began to bite and the damp to seep. Aside from the cursing, coughing and sneezing, they walked in silence.
A sharp right turn produced a change in vista: fields with moss-covered, dry granite walls dipped away from the track. Farm buildings, most no more than tumbledown shacks, appeared, scattered ploughs and broken wheels propped against the drystone walls.
‘Rounders Farm,’ said Habs.
‘This it?’ asked Joe.
Habs shook his head. ‘Just the edge of it, but not far now.’
Bill Gramm turned again, checked for redcoats. ‘Ever thought of escapin’?’ he said, his voice only as loud as it needed to be. His question hung between them.
‘You suggestin’ we make a run for it?’ whispered Sam, incredulous. ‘Here? In the snow? With footprints ’n’ all?’
‘No. Just wonderin’ if you ever think them thoughts.’
‘Uh-huh. Don’t everyone who ever lived here?’
‘I been watchin’ these redcoats,’ said Habs. ‘They know nothin’ and see nothin’. We could fall in a ditch an’ they wouldn’t notice.’
‘So we could escape,’ said Joe, ‘and with peace not yet ratified, we’d be caught by the press gangs and sent to fight for the British.’
‘Or shot on sight,’ said Habs. ‘Less painful, maybe.’
They shuffled, slid and fell towards Rounders farmhouse. A florid sergeant handed out sticks, shovels, forks and slates and a militia colleague counted their charges. Satisfied, he set them to clear the snow that had drifted five feet deep against the farmer’s stables and cow sheds, imprisoning the horses and cattle. Around the farmer’s yard, the small army of inmates made short work of his animals’ predicament. Joe, Habs and Sam toiled alongside their new acquaintances from One. The work was welcome, their faces now red with exertion as well as cold.
‘These stables are better than our prisons,’ commented Joe, catching his breath.
‘Even if there’s no sign of the farmer’s daughters yet!’ said Bill, wiping his brow with his sodden sleeve.
‘You’ve got something on your forehead.’ Joe frowned at him.
Bill wiped again but the mark remained.
‘Maybe it’s the straw?’ Joe asked.
‘Yeah, I guess so, I get these rashes all the time here. Goddamn this country, and God bless America. Please ratify that peace and take us home soon.’
‘Amen!’ said anyone who’d heard him.
As the sailors cleared the courtyard of snow, the grateful farmer tried to shake every one by the hand, but few wanted his thanks. Within two hours of their arrival at Rounders, the inmates from One and Four were being marched back out again. Snaking up the hill before turning back to Dartmoor, their pace was slow, the men exhausted, their mood sombre. The sky, too, was against them, showing ominous layers
of grey, cream and blue-black.
The soldiers talked and smoked among themselves, checking on their prisoners only with reluctance. Joe watched two redcoats amble along their line; they looked almost as cold and miserable as their prisoners. When the redcoats were no more than four strides away, they stopped alongside Gramm and Tilson. For a few seconds, the soldiers fell into step alongside the men from One, then they fell away.
‘What?’ said Habs to Joe. ‘What’s goin’ on?’
The prisoners at the back of the line had stopped marching, spilling off the track to see what was happening. More shouted orders, and the men at the front stopped, too. Joe and Habs circled round to try to see what the redcoats had seen.
‘Jesus Christ Almighty,’ muttered Joe, his hands covering his mouth. They stared at poor Gramm and Tilson, who were now on their own in the middle of the track, their friends and comrades retreating in an ever-widening circle. Terrified, they looked at each other and started to weep.
The guards, now at some distance, called to them. ‘Show us your hands! Remove your gloves!’
Both men pulled gently at the cotton fabric which they had wrapped around their hands.
The material fell to the ground. ‘Hands up! Hands where we can see them!’
Both men raised their hands as if in surrender.
All eyes, both of prisoners and guards, switched from their hands to the faces of the two men. Then from face to hands. From the deep red marks on their foreheads to the ferocious red spots on their palms.
They didn’t need a physician. Every man had seen it before. One word came from a hundred mouths.
‘Smallpox.’
3.2
Dartmoor
JOE HAD KNOWN fear all his life. He had seen it in his mother’s face when his father was dying. He had felt his whole body shake when an Eagle crewman had spotted the first Union flags on the horizon and quiet despair when he realized their bloody battle was lost. He remembered the trickle of sweat that had run down his back as he descended the decks of the prison ship. He felt that same terror now.
‘I shook his hand,’ he said. It was a hoarse, harsh whisper.
‘You both had gloves on,’ said Sam, then added, ‘Of a kind …’
‘His were more like bandages,’ said Joe, unconvinced. ‘And anyway, they’d be full of the pox.’ He held his arms away from his body, as though that might keep infection at bay. In front of him stretched out a long, chaotic, single file of men. No one walked near anyone else. He could just see Gramm and Tilson out in front: stumbling, wretched, hysterical. They moved only at gunpoint, four guards with scarves over their faces stalking them like wild animals. Joe made out multiple, overlapping, panicky orders as they were hurled forward. ‘What they sayin’?’ asked Sam.
‘They’re saying they’ll shoot them if they come any closer,’ answered Joe.
Next came the One inmates, panicking, fearful and constantly, relentlessly, checking their own hands for any sign of a rash. A gap of fifty yards, then the men of Four, and behind them, in self-imposed isolation, Habs, Joe and Sam.
‘We was all too close. We was too close!’ said Sam. ‘We was walkin’ in their shadows. Oh, my dear God.’
‘How close is too close?’ asked Habs. ‘Anyone know?’
They trudged on a few steps, the last of the troops, bayonets drawn, dictating their pace.
‘We had an outbreak back in ’09,’ said Joe. He wanted to talk. It drowned some of the groaning. ‘That’s what my folks told me. A village near us lost nearly everyone – three farms, I think it was. A few houses. Ma said it was the most terrible thing she ever saw. They used to leave food in baskets at the village boundary, then retreat. They watched from a distance. Men and women covered in bloody sheets came to get it. She knew everyone in that village – called out to them – but they just took the food and went away.’
‘So living in the same house is too close?’ Habs looked at Joe, who nodded.
‘Well, tha’s everyone in Block One,’ said Sam. ‘Tha’s a thousand men.’
‘And what about us?’ asked Habs. ‘Did we march too close? Work too close?’ He stared at Joe, then at Sam.
Joe, head down, said nothing. He was too busy fighting the voice in his head. Its message was clear: ‘You know you were too close.’
By the time they got to Dartmoor, the hospital was already overwhelmed. The first cases had been confirmed shortly after the work party had left, and Magrath had ordered Block One to be quarantined. Soldiers stood at its closed door with orders to shoot anyone who tried to break out.
In Shortland’s office, Magrath, his hand shaking on his stick, was brisk.
‘It will be a miracle if we keep the outbreak confined to Block One but, at the moment, all sixty confirmed cases come from there. Two were on the work party with inmates from Block Four. They’re being watched, but that’s all I can do. Three hundred and seven have early signs of the rash. Nearly all my extra staff have deserted, so we need help from Plymouth, from London, from anywhere we can find it. There will be deaths, of course. Many deaths, I fear. They will need to be taken away for burial. Your men must do this. I will inoculate all of them, naturally, but I can’t say it will be popular work.’
Shortland, his face grey, regarded his surgeon. ‘I will ask for volunteers,’ he said.
‘And then you might need to order them,’ said Magrath. ‘I need all the resources you can find me.’
‘I will make sure you have them, George, but I think, too, of your safety. Without you, we are lost. I should have had the vaccination back on the Canopus in ’02. I will rectify that error right away.’
‘I am safe from the disease,’ said Magrath. ‘I caught cowpox a few years back, and it has made me immune. But I suggest I vaccinate you and Elizabeth immediately. I would inject you with a tiny amount. It is the only way to stop it. We can bandage, we can soothe, but we’ll only stop it with the needle.’
Shortland swallowed. ‘Very well.’
‘And Elizabeth?’
‘If you recommend it, I’m sure she will oblige.’
‘Thank you,’ said Magrath, ‘and I would like it done in public. In the courtyard. So the men – the prisoners and the soldiers – see your example.’ As Shortland made to protest, Magrath pressed. ‘If this breaks out of One, the whole prison will sink. I’m sure of it. If the men take the vaccine, you have a chance of holding the prison till they go home. There is no time, Thomas, none at all. As your surgeon, I must insist.’
Shortland looked up from rearranging his books, blotter and pen and rose from his desk.
‘As you wish, George,’ he said wearily. ‘As you wish.’
Thomas and Elizabeth Shortland, escorted by a guard commander and six of the Derbyshire militia, walked the short distance from their house, across the market square and through the gates into the prison courtyard. With every step, they could hear and see more of the gathering crowd before, finally, an improvised stage came into view, King Dick standing tall at the front of it. A clearly uncomfortable Dr Magrath was standing high on a dozen crates that had been dragged from the barracks, two medical bags at his feet.
‘This feels more like an execution than an injection,’ said the Agent.
‘Agreed,’ said Elizabeth, their pace brisk. ‘But it was the right decision, Thomas.’
‘Thank you.’
She interpreted his swiftest of glances as surprise at a rare moment of agreement.
As the gates were unlocked, Elizabeth’s eyes swept the courtyard. ‘I’ve never seen it this full,’ she said. ‘Maybe they’re hoping for an execution, too.’
‘Never heard them so quiet either,’ said Shortland.
‘They’re scared, George. We all are.’
Redcoats stood at each corner of the stage, rifles held in anticipation of an imminent attack. One of them produced some crates to make steps and the Shortlands climbed up. Elizabeth surveyed the sea of faces for another sight of her newcomer before remembering he was one of
the quarantined.
King Dick and Magrath were talking head to head for the first time.
‘Physician, my men from the work party have been isolated in the cockloft. How long must they stay there?’
‘A week,’ said Magrath. ‘Preferably longer. Ten days. You’ll know by then.’
‘Uh-huh. You doin’ the needles?’
‘Actually, no needles. It’s a skin stab with a fork. Many will not allow it, I know that. The Agent and Mrs Shortland have agreed, as you can see.’
‘You come to Four,’ said the King. ‘When you’re done with them, you bring your science to us.’ He turned and pushed his way back towards his block. Magrath was nodding his thanks as he was summonsed by Shortland.
‘Get this done, then, Magrath,’ he said, removing his jacket and rolling up his sleeve. He glanced at the physician’s brown glass bottle. ‘That it?’
‘That is it, yes.’
‘What is it, exactly?’
‘It’s actually material from lesions in the udder of a cow with cowpox,’ said Magrath. ‘Local man called Jesty injected his whole family with it back in ’74. Made them immune. It’ll do the same for you.’ The Agent nodded, then looked away.
The crowd surged forward, straining for a view. Elizabeth saw her husband’s jaw lock and his fists clench. The procedure didn’t concern her overly but she knew he would rather lead a frigate into battle than face the vaccination. Magrath uncorked the bottle then dipped in a long silver two-pronged fork. The size of it brought an audible gasp from the watching inmates, followed by a shout of ‘Stick it in the bastard’s eye!’
Shortland blanched.
‘Don’t mind them,’ said Magrath, ‘they’re just being tars. Ours’d be no different.’ He wiped Shortland’s arm when he was done and pulled his sleeve down.
Next, Elizabeth sat down, her sleeve already rolled high and her eyes flashing Magrath a warning. When the Agent had turned to talk to one of the soldiers, she leaned in close. ‘Someone will shout about us. I’m sure of it.’
Magrath nodded, his face taut with concentration. Again, he dipped the fork in the bottle; again, he checked he had taken enough vaccine. With one hand, he held Elizabeth’s arm; with the other, he stabbed her skin in two short, jerking motions. She winced, and a voice, clear and unchallenged, rang through the courtyard.