Mad Blood Stirring

by Simon Mayo

  ‘They got a taste for it now,’ cried Habs, pulling Joe back. ‘They ain’t gonna stop there.’

  ‘Don’t even look at them, don’t give them a reason,’ said Joe, turning away. He recognized the sounds behind him; the clatter of muskets’ ramrods pushing another cartridge to the breech, the snap of the ramrods being replaced under the barrel and then the death rattle – a hundred guns going to full-cock.

  ‘Fire!’

  Another volley – louder, longer this time – and the square crackled with gunshot. The four walls bounced the sound around between them – many inmates assumed they were surrounded. White smoke billowed from the British soldiers’ guns, the cloud rolling high over the square.

  ‘Can’t see nothin’!’ shouted Habs. ‘Who’s down? Anyone down?’ They started walking sideways, backs to the wall.

  Joe shook his head. ‘No one! Can’t see anyone down – they’re firing in the air!’

  Others, too, had noticed that the guns were shooting high. A different cry now began to fill the square.

  ‘Blank cartridges! They firin’ blank cartridges!’

  A new resolve filled some of the sailors. They turned around, they stopped retreating, the old Yankee defiance flooding back.

  ‘They’re bluffin’! They’re fakin’!’

  It took Habs one look at the closest militiaman to know there was no deception. The man was ten yards away, puce with excitement and grinning like a shot fox.

  ‘This is no fake!’ yelled Habs. ‘Christ alive! Can’t no one else see that?’

  The clatter of loading.

  Habs held on to Joe, pulled him to his knees.

  The snap of ramrods.

  The muskets were low. Chest high.

  ‘Make yourself small, Joe!’ Habs yelled. He looked at the twisted faces around him, then folded himself into the ground.

  ‘Fire!’

  The loudest volley. The longest volley. Now, the bodies fell.

  One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Four, and the shooting was over. Five, and Habs hauled Joe back to his feet. He was yelling, ‘Move!’ over and over, but Joe heard nothing save the shrill, furious ringing that was splitting his head. Spaces had appeared in the crowd, and they ran into them. Joe chanced a head turn. Ten feet away, another reload had started. Four feet away, a man sprawled with half his head missing. The militia front line was again within bayonet range of the inmates and, while some loaded new cartridges, the others stabbed. It was a murderous advance. Legs, groins, stomachs, faces, arms – whichever part of an American was within reach, a British bayonet impaled it.

  Through his clanging head, Joe now heard the screams.

  Habs had Joe by his jacket, the fabric screwed tight in his fist. They were on the front line now. They backed away from the guns as fast as they could, pressing hard against the men behind them, but it wasn’t fast enough. If the next volley fired straight, it would cut them down. The ramrods were in the barrels, the grim smiles were back on the British faces. Every sailor recognized the expression; they’d seen it before in battle. It was payback. This was a British recrimination, a military-sanctioned revenge for the taunts, the abuse and the stone-throwing. A retribution for the daily indignity of their prison life. There were scores to settle, bones to break and pride to restore. Joe and Habs knew this was the end.

  There was a slackening in the tension of the men at their backs, a few hurriedly taken steps to avoid falling. Cries from the market square entrance and the pounding of running feet told Joe and Habs all they needed to know. The square was, finally, emptying fast. In front of them, the ramrods were being re-clipped to the barrels.

  As the guns were raised, Joe and Habs turned. Hundreds of men were running for their lives. Some were stooped, expecting the bullets; others flailed as they fled. Joe and Habs, heads low, bodies braced, sprinted for the broken gates. They heard raised, angry voices behind them. They heard two running men close behind them, one fast and easy, the other laboured and painful. They saw that the gates, now thirty yards away, were suddenly rammed, too narrow for the volume of men trying to escape. Habs swerved.

  ‘Corner!’ he yelled. They ran five more steps.

  The death rattle again: two hundred muskets to full cock. Three more steps.

  No one shouted ‘Fire!’.

  The shooting went on for ever.

  Habs hit the ground first, Joe following, then other bodies – three, maybe four – landed on top of them. One convulsed, another fell silently, a third rasped and rattled, gripping hold of Habs’s shoulders before lying still. Eventually, this mound of bloodied and broken bodies fell silent. Joe and Habs knew they had both survived because they could feel, then hear, the other’s staccato breathing. No words were attempted – not even whispered – the sound of boots was all around. One pair ran past, then their owner doubled back and spat. ‘Fucking Yankee bastard!’

  Habs felt the body above him jerk hard, then the blinding pain of a bayonet piercing his arm. He fought the scream, biting hard into the dirt. He started to shake as he felt his legs and torso run with the other man’s blood.

  Joe left it as long as he dared. He, too, was aware of a wetness that was spreading across his head and knew he had to move. ‘Hold fast,’ he whispered, in the tiniest of voices. Habs said nothing; his mouth was better kept shut. ‘Hold fast,’ Joe repeated. ‘He’s gone, but wait.’

  Joe opened his eyes and his vision swam with blood. He worked a hand free and wiped his eyes with his fingers.

  They had landed a few yards short of the corner, sliding the last few feet as they fell. One man now lay across Joe’s head, the weight pressing his face to the ground; another was across his legs. The third, bayoneted, man must have come down on top of Habs.

  Joe strained to listen to every sound. He could hear the injured and the dying, cries for help and prayers for mercy, but no troops. For the moment, no troops. The gunfire was now coming from the prison yards themselves. Dear God, it was a massacre. The battle was everywhere but, just now, it was everywhere else. Joe lifted his head as far as he could, but the man on top of him was heavy, and he lowered it again. He tried to roll sideways but, drained of all strength, he quickly gave up. It was only the thought of the spitting man returning that made him try one more manoeuvre. Joe gritted his teeth, breathed deep then arched his back.

  It worked. He felt the heavier body roll from him, the lighter one on his legs shift, too. He froze, listening again for troops. Hearing nothing nearby, he eased himself up on to his elbows. The heavier man lay face down, his skull broken open above his right ear. Joe thought he may have been from One, possibly one of the men who had volunteered for the farm work. ‘Poor bastard,’ he said, then wiped his face.

  ‘Can I move?’ whispered Habs. ‘I got to move. My arm …’ He moved, anyway, the body rolling sideways. Habs knew the man was dead, could feel his blood congealing around his legs, but when he saw a black arm twisted across the man’s back he shuddered.

  ‘Holy Jesus and Mary …’ Oblivious to his own pain, Habs leaned over and rolled the man back again. It was John Haywood.

  Habs froze, looked away, then looked back again. ‘Please God, no. ‘Oh, that ain’t right. No, no, that ain’t right at all.’ He crawled to where Haywood lay, saw the bullet’s exit wound in his neck, saw the bayonet wound in his ribs, and bowed his head. ‘What were you doin’ here, anyways? The King was lookin’ for you.’ Lost briefly in a haze of grief, Habs became aware of two white arms enveloping him, then steering him gently away. ‘Joe? What are you … look, it’s John, after all, that’s …’

  He realized Joe was sobbing and let himself be manoeuvred. As he tore his eyes away from Haywood, then took in the heavy man with his head blown in, Habs realized he knew already what it was that had broken Joe’s heart. Now he saw it, too. The shock of red hair, the muddied, freckled face, the eager green eyes – still open – and the jagged hole in the body that had felled the unstoppable Tommy Jackson.

  ‘He was following us,
Habs.’ Joe choked the words as much as spoke them. ‘We called him, and he came. John Haywood, too. And when the bullets flew, they took them for us. Cobb may have put Tommy Jackson in the firing line, but we got him killed.’

  ‘No,’ spat Habs, ‘the English got ’em killed. English guns, English bullets.’ He waved his uninjured arm across the body-strewn square; some men were still moving, others had succumbed to their injuries. ‘Same as what did for of all of these.’ From the prison yards, more firing; from the top gates, more troops.

  Joe didn’t argue. There didn’t seem much point. They lay down next to the crier. ‘So that’s it. This is how it ends.’ Habs’s voice was tight. ‘We join the turkey-shoot out there, or I get arrested for murder here.’ They stared at the darkening, bullfinch sky. They heard a small patrol moving around the square, moving between the fallen, but they weren’t listening. Joe reached for his jacket pocket.

  ‘There is another option.’ He sat up and held out a small knife. ‘King Dick gave it to me for Act Five. Warned me it was sharp, too sharp for a prop, but that it would look better.’ His voice tailed away. Habs stared at the roughly made shank in Joe’s hand.

  ‘Are you sayin’ … you think I should …’

  ‘No, I’m saying I think we should.’

  Habs shook his head in disbelief. ‘This fightin’ has lost you your senses, Joe Hill. This ain’t no play now, this is war here, but you can wait for the peace. I can’t. You can go back to your pretty, white Norfolk home and marry a pretty, white Norfolk girl and have pretty, white Norfolk children. I really hope you do, Joe, but I can’t.’

  Joe shook his head. ‘I thought so, too. Once. But not any more.’ He wiped the tears from his friend’s face, took his bloodied hand. ‘Why would I go back to America when you are buried here on the moor? That’d be no life at all. Why would I read more books when each turn of a page would remind me of you? Why would I go to another play, knowing that every line would be better performed by you? Why grow old and mad pretending in a Norfolk town when I could die now, my sight clear and my heart true? Answer me that, Habakkuk Snow.’

  Now it was Habs who wiped Joe’s tears. ‘I can’t answer that one,’ he said. ‘I can’t answer that at all.’ He shook his head. ‘I remember that day you arrived, sang that song, told us the war was over. From that moment, my heart was lighter. Sam told me I started whistlin’ right ’bout that time. I think he guessed.’

  ‘Guessed what, Habs? Tell me.’

  ‘Guessed I’d fallen for the most handsome, most righteous, most blackest white boy in the land.’ Habs winced at a spasm of pain. ‘I’m sorry we ain’t catchin’ the ships, Joe. We woulda been good.’ He glanced at the patrol which was closer, one of the men winding a long bandage on to a propped-up inmate. ‘They’ll be with us soon and the moment gone.’

  They knelt facing each other, Joe with the knife to his wrist. ‘I’ve heard it doesn’t hurt much,’ he said, his voice trembling now.

  ‘I should go first,’ whispered Habs. ‘I’m the one they’ll want to hang.’

  ‘Is it one cut or two?’ asked Joe, suddenly uncertain. ‘Both wrists, or one?’

  ‘An’ I’m sorry I missed your Act Four. I bet you were dazzlin’.’

  ‘Do you believe in heaven?’

  ‘Says the sailor with a knife to his vein.’

  ‘Do you, Habs?’ Joe’s tone was urgent now, the patrol closer.

  ‘Does it make a difference? Heaven is here where Juliet is. That’s what Romeo says.’

  ‘And if I’m not here?’

  ‘I’ll follow you. I’ll go wherever you go. But hurry, Joe, they’re mighty close.’

  Habs leaned forward and they embraced. With strong arms, they held each other, a lifetime of love in the briefest caress. He felt Joe take a mighty breath and pull away, watched Joe push the knife’s serrated edge into his skin, a bulb of blood pooling around the indentation then running down his arm. Habs winced, and the tears ran, too.

  ‘Give me my Romeo,’ said Joe, his voice exhausted, weak. ‘And when I shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night.’

  He drew the knife long and deep, his blood running freely to the ground.

  5.34

  The Market Square

  7.08 p.m.

  SPRINTING FOOTSTEPS AND a cry. A shout so unexpected Habs turned. Elizabeth Shortland flew at Joe, smacking his knife-hand high, sending the shank arcing from his hand and spinning across the macadam. One of the orderlies recovered it, swiftly placing it inside his jacket.

  ‘No more dying!’ she shouted. ‘Enough life has been lost today.’ She spoke fast, her eyes wild. Hair loose around her shoulders, dress drenched in blood, she knelt, grabbing Joe’s slashed wrist. ‘No more death, boys.’

  ‘Then I shall hang,’ said Habs, slumped, broken.

  She wrapped a bandage tightly around Joe’s wrist and held it hard. Joe grimaced, but she kept the pressure as tight as she could manage.

  ‘No, you shall not,’ she said. Three attendants and two soldiers approached, but she waved them away. ‘Deal with the dying,’ she said to her staff, then to the guards: ‘Watch the square. Get to the gates.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, miss,’ said one, ‘but Captain Shortland insisted we stay with you …’

  ‘Did he?’ said Elizabeth, still with her eyes on Joe. ‘How very resolute and brave of him. The thing you need to know about Captain Shortland,’ she told the squirming redcoats, ‘is that he might command you, but he does not command me. And that, after this butchery, he won’t be commanding here much longer.’ She glanced around the square. ‘So. To the gates. You can protect me from there.’

  Joe, head in Elizabeth’s lap, whispered, ‘He killed a man—’

  ‘I know what happened,’ Elizabeth cut across him. ‘Dr Magrath told me.’

  ‘So you know I will hang, then.’ Habs, scornful now, stared at her. ‘You save us only to condemn us.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ She cut the bandage with scissors, then resumed the pressure on Joe’s arm. ‘You are not condemned.’

  Habs leaned in so close their noses almost touched. ‘You think a coloured American prisoner who has killed a white man won’t swing for it? Are you mad? You think the spirit of the peace will extend to men like me?’

  Elizabeth tied the bandage off. ‘Of course it won’t,’ she said.

  Joe squinted in confusion. ‘So a court would condemn Habs, even though he was the one being attacked?’

  ‘They would, yes. Undoubtedly.’ She wiped some of the blood from Joe’s face.

  ‘You playin’ with us,’ said Habs, disgusted.

  Elizabeth looked around her. ‘There is a game you can play, if you wish,’ she said.

  ‘Go away,’ said Habs, lying back on the ground, ‘but you can leave the scissors.’

  She turned to Joe and, as she tied his arm in a sling, words came tumbling from her mouth.

  ‘Listen. I shall go and attend, briefly, the wounded up near the top of the square. There’s two men with bullets in their legs, and one bayonetting. You see them?’ Habs sat up again. ‘I will leave the gates open. Walk past the storehouses, under the alarm bell and turn right towards the physician’s house. You understand?’ She moved without pause to dress Habs’s bayoneted arm.

  ‘Wait—’ he said.

  ‘There is a moment here, Mr Snow,’ she said, ‘but it is just a moment. Mr Hill will live. His injury is bad, but I got to the wound in time, I think. This arm will heal, too. Considering what carnage has been done here …’

  She called her attendants and, weaving her way around the fallen, strode to the top of the square. Habs sat, stunned. Had he understood her right? Another volley of fire from the prison yards and he was on his feet.

  ‘Joe, get up.’ He tugged at Joe’s good hand, then pulled hard. ‘Joe, we’re leavin’.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Get up.’

&
nbsp; Their exhausted, traumatized bodies resisted, but they hurried as fast as they could across the square, following her zigzagging path. Some of the injured called out, but they had no time. ‘The attendants will come for you!’ called Habs as he passed.

  ‘Eagle man, ho!’ replied one, the voice pained and thin, but Joe knew him in an instant.

  ‘Will!’ He doubled back, searching.

  ‘Joe, we—’

  ‘One second.’ Joe found Will Roche with a messy bandage around his thigh. The old man managed a half-smile, the familiar lines in his face creasing again. ‘Missed the bone, she said. Jus’ bleedin’ is all now.’ He took in Joe’s bandaged hand. ‘You, too, huh?’ Joe knew he had no time to explain. He dropped to his knees, kissing Will on the forehead. ‘Will, I … I’m sorry.’

  ‘Joe …’ urged Habs.

  ‘I have to go.’

  Roche nodded his understanding. ‘Listen, I’m sorry ’bout them words we had ’bout you and your friend back there. What do I know?’

  Joe found a smile for his oldest friend. ‘Bless you, Will. Stay safe, won’t you?’

  ‘And down with the English,’ added Roche, closing his eyes.

  ‘And down with the English,’ echoed Joe, clambering to his feet again.

  At the top of the square, a man with blood-soaked bandages around his knee raised a hand in acknowledgement but pointed back the way they had come. ‘Your friend …’ he said.

  They stopped and looked back. In the far corner, King Dick was stooping low over the bodies of Tommy Jackson and John Haywood, Alex and Jonathan – hands over their mouths – lurking just behind. Habs and Joe raised simultaneous arms in salute, and Alex alerted the King, tugging on his sleeve. King Dick wheeled round. Across the charnel house between them, Joe and Habs saw the King’s stricken face brighten with unexpected relief. He clasped his huge hands together as if in prayer, beating them against his chest. Habs pointed at the open gates. The King nodded, then raised his bearskin in salute. It was a farewell. A haunted, devastated farewell. When Joe could look no more, he bowed slightly and found Habs doing the same. The King then knelt and lifted the crier over one shoulder, the lamplighter over the other. Standing again, he staggered, and Habs noticed his bloody shirt. ‘He’s hurt …’ Steadier now, the King seemed to gather himself for one last walk. Jonathan carried the club; the bearskin, he handed to Alex. The King carried the dead away, the two boys following mournfully behind.