Mad Blood Stirring

by Simon Mayo

  5.25 p.m.

  IT WAS WILL Roche who tipped the first stone. When Toker Johnson was spent, he passed the knife to the next in line, and Roche made sure it was him. He crouched low as the wall-gamers huffed and puffed above and around him. A patchwork of rocks roughly the size of a barrel had dropped, the stones no longer supported by anything but each other. A hole the size of an apple had appeared between them, and Roche’s view of the armoury and the barracks was clear.

  ‘The Yankees are comin’,’ he said as he peered through. ‘The Yankees are finally comin’. And with a fair wind, we ain’t stoppin’ till we get to Boston.’ He turned his head to call to the others – ‘Well, m’boys. We’re in!’ – and put his shoulder to the biggest stone. Others around him dipped and leaned their weight, too, and suddenly, the granite slid six inches. Now, they needed speed and surprise. The very closeness of escape, the proximity of guns and freedom, was a powerful drug. With a series of powerful lunges, four of the stones began to move. Inch by crunching inch, the centre of the granite wall was moving.

  Around the back of Seven, at the end of the military walk, the new watch of the Somerset militia were completing their first patrol. The six men stopped briefly. The view to the left was Dartmoor; the view to the right took in Seven then ran along the retaining wall, the market square gates and One. They were about to march back around the arc when their lieutenant ordered them to halt. He turned to study the prisoners by the wall.

  ‘What is it, sir?’ asked one of his men.

  ‘This tedious game the Americans are playing,’ he said, ‘seems to have become more frantic.’

  They saw men dip, disappear, then reappear at the back of the scrum. There was no disguising an increase in their speed and rigour.

  ‘What if it isn’t a game at all?’ said the lieutenant.

  ‘Sir?’ His men leaned, disbelieving, against the walk.

  A sudden shift in the patterns of the players, and a beam of light appeared in their midst. The lieutenant frowned. ‘That’s not possible,’ he said.

  One of his men leaned in closer, as far as the military walk would allow. ‘It is if there’s a hole in the wall.’

  When the beam of light doubled in size, the lieutenant gripped his rifle. ‘Dear God in Heaven,’ he said. ‘Sound the alarm.’

  5.25

  Block Four, Cockloft

  JOE SMASHED THE bottle from Habs’s hand just as King Dick tackled him to the ground. The strychnine spun away, spilling its poison in circular patterns. Habs crashed to the stage, the air from his lungs squashed out of him. Magrath arrived seconds later. ‘Did he drink? Did he drink?’ he yelled.

  ‘Yes, yes, I think so,’ said Joe, his words clear but his tone manic. ‘What was it? Why was he even—’

  Magrath had rammed his handkerchief into Habs’s mouth, dabbing and wiping. He felt for a pulse.

  ‘Is he breathing, Doctor?’ Joe rasped. ‘Is he dead?’

  The cry was taken up around the cockloft. ‘Habs is dead!’

  In the pandemonium that followed, only Joe heard what Magrath replied. ‘He’s not dead. Not yet, anyway. It depends how much of the strychnine he swallowed. We’ll know soon enough – the spasms will start in about fifteen minutes. Maybe sooner. It’s possible he’ll vomit it all back up again. Time will tell, Joe, time will tell.’ To Joe’s blank face, he added, ‘He killed Edwin Lane. Shot him with a pistol. Self-defence, he said.’ Magrath ignored Joe’s bloodless face, carried on wiping moisture from Habs’s mouth. Joe watched the physician’s frantic work on Habs’s limp body, momentarily stunned by the horror of what he had seen. Then came the fear and the battle-induced instinct to do something.

  ‘What can I do? What should I do?’

  ‘Try to wake him up,’ said Magrath. ‘Or pray. Whatever you’re better at.’

  Joe fell to his knees, then leaned forward so his head touched the ground alongside Habs. ‘You don’t leave like that!’ he shouted into his ear, his voice tight. ‘You don’t leave me like that! Habs, wake up!’ Then a whispered, ‘And I need you. You know I do.’

  A fearful-looking Sam stood at Habs’s feet, his arm around a red-eyed Tommy. The pastor was praying; the rest of the cast stood motionless, too shocked to know how to react.

  King Dick had disappeared. A quick scan of the room was all it took to know that he wasn’t there and, with the King absent, the fighting and the panic returned.

  Joe helped Magrath push Habs on to his side, then pulled some damp strands of hair from his face. ‘Is he safe here, Doctor? Should we move him?’ Habs made a deep groaning sound, then his body arched, his head and neck snapping back sharply.

  ‘Spasms have started,’ warned Magrath. As Habs’s muscles contracted, he vomited copiously. Magrath wiped his mouth. ‘He’s not going anywhere just now,’ he said.

  Magrath glanced at the crowd just as Elizabeth Shortland clambered on to the stage. She had just opened her mouth to speak when a gunshot ripped through the cockloft. The crowd dived to the floor; Magrath dived to cover Elizabeth. The gunman was six feet away. Lieutenant Aveline, standing over Captain Shortland, held his pistol high above his head, a hole blasted in the cockloft roof. The hubbub slowly faded but, in its place, came the sound of an entire prison tipping over the edge. The alarm bell was being rung and then, from the barracks, the drums. The call-to-arms.

  The Agent and Aveline were first to the doors. The Agent shot the briefest of glances at the stage, where Magrath was still lying on Elizabeth Shortland, and they were gone. It was the start of a stampede. From the stage, Joe watched them go. Eroded by alcohol, panic and fear, any remaining vestiges of ship discipline disappeared and the men fought, screamed, scratched and kicked their way to the exit.

  On the stage, the play clearly over, the cast still seemed separate, adrift from the proceedings that had overtaken them. As their shipmates pushed and heaved for the door, they stood watching, the last strands of the play’s camaraderie holding them back.

  ‘Do we go, too?’ asked Tommy.

  ‘I guess so,’ said Sam.

  ‘Go where?’ asked Magrath, helping Elizabeth to her feet. ‘A riot? If you have any sense left in your bones, you’ll be keeping well clear.’

  ‘A riot or an escape?’ said Elizabeth. ‘I’ve never heard the drums before.’

  Magrath shrugged. ‘Maybe both. We’re going to be busy. We need to go.’

  ‘Doctor!’ Joe called Magrath back. Habs was spasming again, and Magrath hustled over.

  ‘Nothing we can do,’ he said. ‘Pray God he didn’t swallow much.’ He watched as the convulsion faded. ‘That was milder, less violent. I am encouraged. But if he survives, he’ll be arrested for murder. I did try to help him, but I must report what I saw. And Mr Snow here admitted to killing Mr Lane. Shot him in the stomach. We’d have heard the shot here, but Lane fell on the gun. Muffled it.’

  The cast, open-mouthed, looked at each other in shock. Sam spluttered to life first.

  ‘No way! No way would Habs do that.’

  ‘That will be for a court to decide,’ said Magrath.

  ‘Where is King Dick?’ asked Elizabeth. ‘I didn’t see him go.’

  ‘No one did,’ said Joe. ‘He dived for Habs, then just disappeared.’

  ‘He does that sometimes,’ said Sam.

  ‘Well, let us pray he is making himself useful,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I think you’ll be needing him. I think we’ll all be needing him.’

  Habs coughed, retched, then opened his eyes. ‘Drink,’ he whispered. Joe clambered for one of the backstage jugs, relief powering his every move.

  ‘It’s good to see you again,’ he said, holding it to Habs’s lips and smiling.

  Habs closed his eyes.

  ‘What were you thinking, Habs?’ whispered Joe. ‘What in Christ’s name were you thinking?’

  Habs opened his eyes again. ‘I was thinkin’ it was a better way to go than hangin’ on the end of an English rope.’

  Joe pushed the image from his
mind. ‘Did you swallow much?’

  Habs shook his head then winced. ‘No idea. Don’t remember.’

  ‘The King flattened you.’

  Habs grimaced. ‘That’ll be why, then.’

  As the cockloft emptied, Magrath and Elizabeth Shortland left the stage. ‘Stay clear when he spasms,’ Magrath called to Joe. ‘I pray he’ll pull through. We need to get to the hospital.’

  Goffe looked around him. ‘Well, that’s it, then,’ he said, and, followed by Lord and the Requin men, he made for the doors, too. Their running footsteps echoed around the now quiet cockloft.

  ‘Last men on the ship,’ said Sam. ‘We should go, too.’

  The alarm bell still rang, the call-to-arms still beat, and now a new sound emerged, swelling, rolling, enveloping everything. Tommy took a few steps towards the door. It was voices. Thousands of voices.

  ‘It sounds like … like everyone.’

  Tommy, then Sam, ran to the single cockloft window that overlooked the courtyard. They stood, transfixed, for a long time. It was as though the seething, broiling uproar of the cockloft had transferred itself to the entire prison.

  ‘It is everyone,’ said Tommy, his voice awed by the spectacle. ‘All the blocks are out. Every one.’

  ‘And I’ve found King Dick,’ said Sam.

  5.26

  The Market Square

  5.50 p.m.

  THEY EMERGED ON to the steps of Four, Sam and Joe helping a recovering Habs, Tommy running ahead to hold the doors open, and gasped.

  ‘All hands,’ muttered Joe.

  It seemed as though all seven prison blocks had emptied, and each one of the seven thousand prisoners was yelling, pushing, scuffling. Every inch of the courtyard was taken, the sea of sailors now lapping at the edges of the prison’s steps. The focus of their attention was, as ever, the market square gates, and there, holding up both hands and swinging his club, was King Dick.

  ‘He must have heard the alarm bell before anyone,’ said Sam. ‘Must’ve known what it meant.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ said Joe.

  ‘Escape,’ said Sam. ‘It means someone’s tryin’ to escape.’

  ‘And gettin’ shot,’ said Habs, his words still hoarse with the poison. ‘It usually ends with ’em gettin’ shot. Or hanged.’

  Tommy was torn. ‘I’ll stay to help Habs, but—’

  Joe waved him away. ‘Go, Tommy. Get back to your crew mates. Stay safe.’ The crier nodded his thanks, squeezed his way into the crowd and disappeared.

  ‘Listen,’ said Habs, still holding tightly to his cousin. ‘This is bad for me. Once this riot is done, Magrath will make his report and the redcoats will come. I took Lane’s gun and, when he attacked me, I shot him. They’re the facts. Plus, he’s white.’

  ‘What are you sayin’?’ asked Sam.

  ‘I’m sayin’, if there’s a breakout, I wanna be a part of it, whatever happens.’

  ‘Cuz, you’ll get shot.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. But maybe not, maybe I get lucky and I ’scape the redcoats and their press gangs and make it to Boston. Or Philly. Or anywhere that ain’t England.’

  ‘Habs—’ began Joe, but Habs put a hand out.

  ‘I know,’ said Habs, ‘I know. But I’m right an’ you’re wrong. And that’s all there is, Mr Hill. And you’re still in your dress.’

  ‘I got ’em,’ said Sam, and threw Joe his trousers.

  ‘I’d forgotten,’ said Joe, pulling them on and dropping the dress. ‘I’d actually forgotten.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Go where?’ asked Sam. The throng of inmates in front of them hadn’t moved; from the market square gates, down through the courtyard and across to the palisades, this crowd was stuck fast.

  ‘To find a hole in the wall,’ said Habs. ‘This way.’

  5.27

  The Barracks

  THE AGENT, SWEATING hard and a commandeered pistol in his hand, listened impatiently as a sergeant explained what had happened. Around them, red-jacketed militia sprinted in all directions, many still buttoning up as they ran. Shortland struggled to hear his man over the cacophony of an out-of-control prison.

  ‘By the time the alarm was raised, sir, lots of prisoners had climbed through the wall. They headed for the armoury and when they found it was locked, they tried to kick the doors in. They nearly succeeded, too, but—’

  ‘How many?’ snapped Shortland. ‘How many got though the wall?’

  ‘I would estimate thirty or forty, sir, with lots more ready to go through.’

  ‘Dear God …’ said Shortland.

  ‘But as soon as the guard deployed, many of them ran straight back again. Back through the wall.’

  ‘You didn’t stop them?’ spluttered Shortland.

  ‘The men were safeguarding the armoury first, sir, I considered that the priority.’

  Shortland nodded. ‘Quite so,’ he said.

  The seven captured escapers, now surrounded by at least twenty militia, were kneeling on the ground, heads bowed. Some cast rueful glances at their hole in the wall, now with an arc of guns aiming straight through it.

  ‘Mostly Rough Allies, by the looks of it,’ said Shortland.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Throw them in the cachot when it’s safe.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And Captain,’ said Shortland, ‘thank your men for the panic ladders. Good work.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The swift throwing of the emergency ladders had enabled Shortland and Aveline to climb from the courtyard then run between the palisades and the military walk to the guards’ gate. They arrived as the last of the fleeing prisoners was disappearing back through the hole.

  ‘Is Mrs Shortland safe, sir?’ asked the captain, looking around.

  ‘She’s fine. The physician is with her.’ Shortland glanced briefly at the ground.

  ‘Right you are, sir.’

  Rocks and bottles flew over the wall, striking a number of soldiers.

  ‘Your men will need to be steely, Captain,’ said Shortland. ‘Protect this hole. God knows if anyone else will try to use it, but my order is to shoot anyone who does.’ He listened to the sounds of pandemonium coming from the other side of the wall. ‘There is much work to do today, I fear.’

  5.28

  The Back of Block Six

  WITH NO WAY forward from the steps of Four, Joe, Habs and Sam had retreated. Flat up against the iron palisades that arced around the prisons, they inched their way to the alley that ran between Six and Seven; funnel-like, it was at least thirty men wide at the top, tapering to a space barely large enough for three at the bottom. Joe shook his head.

  ‘No way we’re getting to the gates from here,’ he called to Habs and Sam. ‘And if the hole in the wall is where the Allies were playing that game, we can’t get there either.’

  Habs squeezed himself past Joe. ‘Watch me,’ he said. ‘You’ll be surprised what you can do if you don’t want to hang.’ And, like a man possessed, Habs began to fight his way through. Sometimes he span, sometimes he twisted, sometimes he scrapped; yard by yard, Habs headed for the steps of Seven. He took the punches, the kicks and the curses; he seemed unstoppable. Then, as he was climbing over some men’s shoulders, the strychnine came again. Joe saw his body spasm, his legs and head jerk backwards, and he fell, disappearing into the crowd.

  ‘Habs!’ shouted Joe, then, to Sam, ‘He’s fallen.’ Now it was their turn to scrap their way through. Joe and Sam followed Habs’s rulebook. It cost them split lips, ripped clothes and scratched faces and, by the time they found him propped up against an old-timer from Five, they were nearly spent.

  ‘He don’t appear too well, your friend here,’ said the man. ‘We had a sailor on board the Perseus. Used to fit like that. We learned to leave him be, mostly. He’ll get better.’

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ said Joe. ‘We’ll take him from here.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ said Habs eventually, croaking again and wiping bile from
his cheek. ‘Really. They’re gettin’ smaller.’

  By the steps of Seven – sometimes on them, sometimes off, depending on how the crowd shifted – they studied the market square gates, the King still perched on the top and flashes of red in the square beyond.

  ‘The call-to-arms has stopped,’ called Sam. ‘So I guess that’s half the British Army lined up for us.’

  ‘And the other half by the hole,’ said Habs. ‘Unless someone busts those gates, ain’t no one gettin’ out now.’

  Fights were breaking out all over, each one causing waves of stumbling, angry inmates. Other movements appeared like eddies, currents in a turbulent river. Thirty yards from the gates, a band of men, arms wrapped around each other, swayed sideways and back, then forwards and back, each movement triggering another wave. Joe realized they were singing.

  ‘I know this,’ he said. ‘It’s “The Hornet and the Peacock”. If it catches, those gates are going down.’ The first verse got lost in the whirlpool of shouts and insults that was flowing around the courtyard, but by the time they reached the chorus, everyone could hear.

  ‘Sing hubber, O bubber, cried Old Granny Wale,

  The Hornet can tickle the British bird’s tail

  Her stings are all sharp and they’ll pierce without fail.

  “Success to our Navy!” cried Old Granny Wale.’

  Riotous, patriotic and anti-British, the song was a perfect fit.

  No one was sure of the verses, so they quickly gave way to a constant repetition of the chorus, each one more boisterous than the last. At every ‘Success to our Navy!’ the crowd surged.

  ‘We need to be in this!’ cried Habs. ‘I need to be in this,’ he corrected himself.

  ‘Right first time!’ shouted Joe.

  ‘Wait – what?’ said Sam, but they had jumped.

  Habs turned briefly to wave, encouraging Sam to join them, but then they were gone. Arm tightly in arm, Joe and Habs fought their way into the heart of the melee.

  ‘Better step back from that fence, King Dick!’ cried Habs. ‘This crowd is coming through.’