In the Belly of the Bloodhound

by L. A. Meyer

  After the reading, which was well received by all, we had a lively discussion concerning the meaning of the passage, and the wiser ones settled on cleanliness from sin in the presence of Jesus being the main point, as opposed to simple foot odor. I didn't press the point, and then the flaps came slamming down, ending the debate.

  We had Giovannelli's Jubilate Deo in Chorus and we shook the very timbers of the Bloodhound with it, and then it was time for me to go on with my Cheapside tale.

  On hearing the news of our Polly bein' snatched, Charlie tore out of the kip, with Hughie right on his heels. Us girls all picked up rocks and followed them out at a dead run up Water Street to Broad, across Ludgate, and then on to Paternoster and Pigger O'Toole's and the Shanky Boys' kip.

  It was a perfect pigsty, the kind of place what gives slums a bad name. Filth and garbage piled up outside, cheeky rats goin' through it all and not carin' who knew it. The door was closed.

  "Give 'em one, Nancy," says Charlie. His flushed face is just about as red as his hair.

  "Right-o, Chuckie," says Nancy, and pegs one of her rocks at one of the lower windows and it smashes through with a satisfying crash.

  That gets their attention. Faces appear at the other windows and the door flies open and angry Shankies pour out to face us. There's about twenty of them to the five of us. They know we got rocks and they see Charlie's shiv in his hand and they see that he's mad enough to kill, and so hang back.

  Then their ranks part and Pigger O'Toole himself comes out, holding our Polly by the hand. Seeing us, she tries to jerk her hand out of his grimy paw and come join us, but he just tightens his grip. Polly puts the thumb of her other hand in her mouth and says nothing, just looks down at the ground.

  "That warn't nice, Charlie, bustin' our winder like that," says Pigger, calmly. He runs a finger in his ear, twists it around, and then takes it out to examine what it might have found there. Pigger O'Toole could be the ugliest, most unpleasant cove I've ever seen in this world, and I've seen a lot of them that could give him a run for his money in that regard, but, no, I gotta say Pigger was the champ. His close-chopped greasy black hair ran down his low, sloping forehead to about an inch above his horribly pitted nose. He's got a stubble of beard that surrounds the gap-toothed hole of his mouth, and that stubble goes all the way up to his little pig eyes. He's squat and stooped and way beyond filthy. He's probably about twenty-five and it's a real pity he ain't been hanged long ago.

  "This ain't right, Pigger! Give 'er back!" yells Charlie, choking with rage. "It's against the Code!"

  "To 'ell with the Code and to 'ell wi' you! This girl come here of 'er own free will, she did. Didn't you, darlin'?" Pigger looks down at Polly while scratching the huge belly that hangs over his pants. "Didn't want to live no more wi' the likes of that nasty Rooster Charlie and his big dummy and that dirty bunch o' snot-nosed girls that run with 'im."

  "I'm warnin' you for the last time, Pigger, hand 'er over!"

  "Aye, the little angel come walkin' right up to me and the boys, askin' to be took in, and as we needed to fill out our beggin' ranks, we decided like good Christians to take the poor thing in and give her our love and affection. Just look at 'er little face—don't it just make y'want to give her a penny?"

  Pigger liked to hear himself talk, but I can talk, too. "Let her go, Pigger!" I shouts. "We saved your boys Scut Jetter and Flick Coontz from the peelers last week, and if we hadn't, they'd both be hangin' in gibbets right now with the birds pickin' out their eyes, instead of standin' there next to you droolin' like the morons they are. So you owe us! Let her go!"

  Pigger brings his little piggy eyes to rest on me. "Ah, Mary Faber, the little bint what can read but what's got such a wise mouth," he says, smiling a gap-toothed grin. "I'm thinkin' maybe you'll be next to join our family. We'll work on that mouth thing for you. Fix that right up."

  "In a pig's eye, Pigger, or your filthy eye if a clean and honest pig can't be found," says I in return. "Hughie, up."

  Hughie stoops down and I climb up on his shoulders and wrap my legs around his neck, a rock in each hand and get ready.

  Scut Jetter, emboldened by the Shankies' superior numbers and seekin' to impress his boss, takes his finger out of his nose long enough to sneer, "Hey, Hughie, sure hope fer yer sake that you wash yer neck real good when you get back to yer kip, little Lady Smart-mouth ridin' you like that, and all."

  "Aw, c'mon, Clarissa, settle down—it wasn't that funny. Jeez."

  Anyway, Charlie was tired of the wordplay, as was I. "Enough of this," he says. "Ready on."

  Ready on—that's our gang's signal for "Get ready to fight," and fight we must, for this outrage cannot go unanswered. If we don't do something, word will get around to the other gangs and we'll be done—we'd just have to split up and each join whatever gang would take us.

  "Go!" shouts Charlie, and he leads us into battle.

  Judy and Nancy immediately let fly with their rocks and stoop down and pick up more as we charge along. Curses and cries of pain from the Shankies testify to the girls' skill.

  I have a rock in either hand, but these rocks are not for throwing, oh, no. These are my special fighting rocks. They are squarish and fit my hands in such a way as to stick out a bit as I grasp them with fingers and thumbs. Y'see, our Hughie here and me had a special way of fighting as a team, and—

  "Yes, Hughie, I can hear you back there chortlin' 'cause you know what's comin'..."

  And that way was this: We'd charge into the enemy with me on top, and Hughie would grab the first bloke he could get his hands on, lift him up so's his face was about level with mine, then I'd open my arms wide and bring the rocks around and whack the victim on either ear if he was facin' me, or on the nose and back of the head, if he warn't. It was highly effective, either way. I liked to think of us as a strike force, brawn and brains united for the common good.

  So it is in that way that Hughie and I wade into the Battle of Paternoster Lane. Hughie grabs the glib but slow-movin' Scut Jetter, lifts him up till he's lookin' with shock into my eyes, and I slam him on both ears with my stones ... aye, and with a certain satisfaction. How's that for insult, hey, Scut? His eyes cross and I yell, "Drop!" Hughie drops him and grabs the next unfortunate cove. This one is facing to my right as he comes into my view and so he gets it on the nose and back of head. There is blood now on my right-hand rock. "Drop!" He disappears, to crumple onto the stones, and another victim is hoisted into view. This one is facing away and so don't know what hit him when the rocks come against his ears. He'll only know that he'll not be hearin' right for a while. Might even find it a bit difficult to stand up without bein' dizzy, too, but it serves him right. Serves 'em all right, takin' our Polly like that.

  While Hughie's looking for another one to grab, I look over and see that Charlie's using his shiv to try to get close to Pigger, but he can't 'cause two of Pigger's boys got regular swords and they're jabbin' at Charlie and keepin' him off Pigger, and Charlie's got some blood showin' on his right leg, so I yell, "Hughie, over there!" When I point toward Charlie and Hughie sees the blood, he roars out his mighty roar and lurches over to Charlie's aid. A rock thrown by Judy catches one of the swordsmen on the side of the head and he goes down moanin', but there's still the other sod. I see Hughie's hands reaching for his neck, and yes, he's got him. Then the bugger raises his sword, but before he can bring it down on Hughie, I smash my rocks on the top of his head and the sword drops, and Charlie sprints after Pigger. But Pigger backs into his doorway and slams the door, and up the street we hear shrill whistles and we know it's the coppers, so we have to run away, leaving the wounded Shankies on the cobblestones.

  I jump down so's Hughie can pick up Nancy, who's been hit hard and can't walk, and we all hie back to the kip to lick our wounds and cry over our lost Polly.

  I give a full curtsy in the dark and say, "Tomorrow night we shall conclude this tale of war and woe, but till then, good night and peace be with you all. Good night, Hughie, and know
that there would not have been any story without you." There is a chorus of agreement from the girls, and I know Hughie revels in the sound.

  I crawl back into the kip with my friends for a few hours of sleep before my midnight creep.

  I am awakened by the maid of the watch, Helen Bailey, at one thirty in the morning. I shake the cobwebs from my mind and head down to the Rat Hole, but before leaving the Stage, I go over to the other Balcony and shake Clarissa awake.

  "Psst! Clarissa. It's time."

  She groans and rolls over and then sits up. My hand is still on her shoulder and she picks it up and throws it off.

  "All right," she says, groggily, "I'm up."

  She puts her feet on the Balcony stairs and follows me down to the Stage and then down beneath it, where we can see the faint glow of a candle and Helen and Cloris on watch. I get out my seabag and pull out my Black Ghost gear and put it on, carefully laying my chemise and drawers neatly off to the side should I need to get to them quick.

  They have already taken the screws out of the Rat Hole safety boards, and we pull the boards down and place them to the side. It had been decided amongst Dolley and Clarissa and me that, although the Plan did not include Clarissa going out this way on the day of the escape, she should still know how to open the outer latch on the storeroom and the rest of the escape route, in case things went awry. Besides, as she herself said, she was an officer and should know.

  I take the candle and the wedge and crawl through and stand up. I put the wedge under the door and the candle on the bench. Clarissa comes through and stands up.

  "Here," I whisper, "take the knife and put it through here and lift up. Yes, that's it. Now take this file, put it through there, and push sideways ... right, like that"

  The door swings inward.

  "All right," I say. "Now stay here till I get back"

  "Like hell," she says, and I look at her sharply. In the light of the candle I can see that her eyes are shining with the excitement of being out, being out somewhere she's not supposed to be. I know the tingle that can bring and I know she feels it. "I'm going with you."

  "Clarissa," I whisper, "you can't. You're dressed all in white. You'd be seen—"

  "I'll take the clothes off."

  "You'd still be white," says I, but I know she's going to be obstinate so I relent. "Look, come with me to the bottom of the first ladder. That way you'll see the whole escape route. All right?"

  She nods and we slip out.

  I go to the ladder and start to climb. When my head clears the next level, I stop and listen and hear only snores and coughs and belches from the crew's quarters. There's some light coming in the open hatch above, and I can see there's no one in the kitchen. Then I feel Clarissa's head butt me in my behind. Damn!

  I lean back down, grab her hair so's I'll know where her ear is and hiss into it, "You're going to get us caught! Now get back down!"

  She doesn't move. "All right. Stay here. I'll be right back," I whisper and climb on to the next level. I pad along the passageway till I'm outside the crew's berth, then I lay down the strand of seaweed I had gotten earlier in the day. I make it so it's stretched out straight into the berth, nice and regular, so it doesn't look accidental. We'd kept it nice and moist so it'll look especially slimy when the crew sees it in the morning. I had thought about arranging it so it made a C and an M, after that poor, cursed ship, but I figured no one in the crew could read, anyway, so I dropped that idea.

  I get back to the ladder and Clarissa's blond head is still popped up, looking around. I shove it back down and together we feel our way back to the storeroom and quietly close the door.

  "That was ... exciting," she whispers. "Are you going out tomorrow night?"

  "Yes," I reply, not liking where this is going. "I have to start disabling the other lifeboat."

  "Good," she says. "Wake me up then, too."

  She's had a taste and she's gonna be hard to hold back.

  Chapter 43

  "Ship."

  I hear the word uttered by Abby Pierce, up on port quarter lookout. I fly to her side to look out. She points to a sail on the far-off horizon. We can only see the tops of the sails, but it seems to have three masts. And it seems to be headed for us. I see the men on deck putting up more sail.

  Damn!

  "Everybody down," I say. "Emergency meeting. Down under the Stage. Yes, everybody, even the watches. It's important. Now! Let's do it."

  For the first time since we came on board, there is no one on any watch—not on the Balcony, not at the gate, not at the edge of the Stage. The girls crowd into the space and look at me expectantly.

  "Sit," I say, and they do.

  I stand before them and begin.

  "There is a ship out there that looks like it might be headed for us—"

  I hear several quiet shouts of "Hooray!"

  "There are those of you who think this is a good thing. That the ship we see out there might run us down and rescue us and take those who have taken us into captivity off to justice."

  More quiet cries of "Hear, hear!"

  "But, oh my sisters, I must tell you that it will not happen in that way."

  They are quiet now.

  "What will happen is this: Before any ship gets close enough to grapple and board and search us, Captain Blodgett will order that we be manacled by our necks on to one of those long chains you see lying down there next to the hull, that we be taken on deck in such a way that we cannot be seen by the other ship, that an anchor be affixed to the chain that binds us, and that we be thrown overboard, like bait on a fish line"

  Shocked silence.

  "I did not tell you this before because I didn't want to ruin your sleep," I say. As mine has been ruined, I think.

  "But ... but who could do such an awful thing?" asks Cloris.

  "Cloris, they know that if they are caught with any of us aboard, each and every one of them will hang for it. There's men on this ship who have done things as evil as what I have described. Don't judge them all by poor simple Mick and Keefe, here on their first journey and regretting it. Or even Cookie. There's men on this ship who have made fifteen, twenty, such voyages—who knows what horrible things they have seen? Who knows what terrible things they have done? Believe me, they will do it."

  "They will drown us like helpless kittens," says Julia, her voice trailing off in despair.

  "That will not happen," I say, "if we stand and fight"

  "And that we will do," says Dolley firmly. "Better they kill us here so they, too, will pay with their lives for what they have done."

  I nod and lay out my plan. "Right. Here is what we will do. When you hear the code words 'Plan B' we will do the following: Whoever is on watch at the gate and on the Stage will have a loop of wire about their waists—the wire will be passed from watch to watch—and they will take their wires and twist them around the gate bars and the bars to the side to slow up anyone coming in at us. Everyone will meet down here, and Abby and Helen will take down the boards covering the Rat Hole and the Powder Hole—start doing it now while you're listening to this, as we've got to go in to get the wire. We might well be implementing Plan B this very morning. I know we should have done this before, but I grew complacent because we had seen so few ships, and for that I am sorry. The Dianas will take up positions on the outside, to nail anyone who manages to get through the gate and tries to get at us. Everyone who does not have a weapon will grab a bottle from the Powder Hole and, holding the bottle by the neck, will smash it against the next bottle—it will give you a jagged, sharp, and very effective weapon. Annie and Martha will light two candles and place them on the Balcony. Clarissa and I will then take the two bags of powder, the ones that have the short fuses attached to them, up on the Balcony. We will watch the approaching ship and if it looks like the time is right, we will light our charges and throw them toward the quarterdeck, where they will flare up and, it is to be hoped, ignite the mainsail. At that time we will yell, 'Go! Go!' and all of yo
u will go out the Rat Hole. Dolley will lead the way because she'll need to open the outer door. The Dianas will follow her to clear the way of any trouble. When you come out onto the deck, try to climb into the rigging where you'll be seen by those on the other ship, who will be watching through long glasses. If a seaman tries to stop you, come up with your broken bottle under his chin, as hard as you can."

  I pause to take a breath.

  "Any questions?" I ask. There are none. "It will be messy and bloody and many will die, but it would be far better for us to die fighting on deck than to submit to being slaughtered like animals." There are resolute nods all around. When I think of that cowed crowd of scared, whimpering girls who were first thrown down into this Pit, well...

  "All right, everyone back on watch. Sally, when they get the boards down, get a candle lit and crawl through and set the wedge. You'll find the spool of wire on the deck to the right. The cutters are sitting on it. Take about six feet, then cut it in half. Now, let's see what that ship is up to." And with that, I spring back up on the Balcony, with Clarissa right behind me.

  The ship is still out there and seems to have gained on us a little.

  "What do you think it is?" asks Clarissa.

  "Don't know. Too far away," I reply. "Could be a merchant, a warship, a pirate, even. Whatever it is, it's trouble, and I wish it would go away. Sure would like to pull out my long glass, but we can't risk that."