by John Drake
“Ahhhh!” screeched one, right at my feet, “Mother! Mother!” says he, tearing his clothes to find the wound.
He had a hole in his belly and was a dead man. He groaned and wept, his white-ribboned hat had been trampled in the street beside him, and blood and gin vomited up from his torn stomach. “Urrrgh!” he heaved violently. “Ah, me mother, me mother ...” But the hundreds of men around roared with anger and I fought my way to the front as the thunder of feet swept onward and forward towards the front street door of No. 208.
There I was jammed against the woodwork with mad Irishmen up to my armpits and fists and sticks coming down from all directions in a battering hail upon the stubborn door.
The good thing about my position in that moment was that I was out of sight to the pistol-men steadily blazing away from the first floor. It was a vicious fight now between them with their firearms and the mob with its cobblestones and brick-ends. But the bad thing was a stout oaken door and no obvious way to break it down. And I was mad myself by that time, mad to get inside and get on with the thing.
*
Slym ran up the stairs in answer to the warning shout. In the first-floor front sitting room, half a dozen of his men were craning their necks trying to see what was coming up the street. Little pools of light came from the row of street lamps but they did little more than mark out the line of the pavement, while a dull red glow and a deep low roar of voices told them something big and menacing was coming.
“Get away!” said Slym, pushing to the front. He threw up the sash and leaned out to look down the street. “Dammit,” said he, “the mob’s out! Now what could that be for?”
He leaned back inside and saw the anxious faces of his men. “Don’t have to be nothing to do with us, boys,” he said. “Just keep back from the windows and let the buggers pass. God knows what they’re after.” He shoved one man firmly towards the door. “This ain’t your station, my boy!” says he. “Get back where your duties are.” He snarled at the rest of them. “Damn your bloody eyes! What’s the matter with you? Never seen the mob before?” He laid on with his blackthorn stick. Not hard, but enough to liven them up and chivvy them back to their proper places. Once he’d done that he looked for Sarah.
She was on her way up the stairs, looking excited but still calm. “What is it?” she said. The bawling of the mob could be heard clearly now, even inside the house. He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” said he, “but keep away from the windows.”
“Could it be him?” she said. “Fletcher?”
“I doubt it,” he said. “Don’t see how he could raise the mob. He’s got no friends here.”
“None the less,” she said, “I shall go to our prisoner and take her in charge personally. If we need to bargain with her, then I want her under my own hand.”
“Sarah,” he said suddenly, “get out the back way, now! I’ll look after this place. If you’re quick you can be away across the fields before they get here. Take old mother Collins with you, she’s as good as a man.”
She looked at him, puzzled, for a moment.
“You’d stay here?” she said. “Why?”
“Never mind that,” said he. “Run for it — now!”
“But you said it’s not him.”
“Yes, but I’m not sure.”
“Then why do we not both run?”
“Sarah,” said he, for he could see that she was playing with him, even now. “I want you to go. I’ll stay here and keep ‘em busy. That way they’ll not look to chase anybody.”
“Would I not be safer here?” she said.
“No,” he said, “they’ll have the door in or they’ll fire the house. There’s hundreds of them, and I’d planned for one or two.”
“But if I run and you stay, what will happen to you?”
“That’s my business,” said he, “and my pleasure.” With the baying of the mob growing louder, he cast off the last restraint. “I know what you think of me, my girl, but no man shall harm a hair of your head while Sam Slym lives.”
“Beau chevalier, sans peur, sans reprocher she said, and kissed him on the cheek. Sam Slym had no French and for once could not read the expression on her face.
“Don’t mock me, girl,” said he, angrily. “Just get out while you can.”
“No,” she said, “not even if I could, and I think it is now too late. I want you to kill Jacob Fletcher and I want to see you do it.”
“Oh Christ!” he said as there came a clash of breaking glass. “Get upstairs!” he said. “Guard your hostage if you must, but keep out of this!”
BANG! a pistol went off. Then half a dozen more. The men were in fear of their lives now, and nothing would stop them firing. He’d have ordered them to, in any case. A howl of rage came from the mob and more glass was smashed out of the windows. “Go on!” he cried and pushed her bodily up the stairs. She laughed and ran off, up to the attic.
Sam darted into the living room, now swirling with powder smoke. Men were loading and ramming for another volley, all around him. Outside, the street was a mass of heaving heads and shoulders and bellowing mouths. Torches flared in the night, and one or two were tossed forward to curve in a roaring arc, trailing smoke and sparks and crunch against the front of the house. Fire! That was the mob’s weapon par excellence. Burn, loot, smash — but never forget to burn! Slym ran downstairs and yelled at his men to fill buckets with water from the pump in the kitchen, but even as he did so, a more immediate danger presented. The front door, which was holding back the mob, suddenly boomed and split as something struck it a tremendous blow from outside.
“Danny! Jimmy!” he cried. “And all the rest of you! To me, downstairs — they’re breaking in!” Slym threw aside his precious blackthorn and drew his hanger, trying the edge of the two-foot curved blade on his thumb.
CRASH! The front door shuddered again. Dust and flakes of paint leapt from it and began to settle. CRASH! And the butt-end of something black and soil-encrusted drove through a hole in the middle of the door. A cheer came from the mob and the planks and panels of the door burst inward under the pressure of a dozen bodies. Men tumbled over one another fighting to get inside, Sam Slym gripped his short sword and stood ready to fight, with Danny, Jimmy and those of his men who’d the stomach for it behind him.
Among the press, and well to the front, Slym saw a very big man. He recognised Jacob Fletcher and ran forward with the fixed determination of killing him.
I could see very little crammed against the front door of 208 Maze Hill, but I noticed that while most of the mob was busy here, its outermost arms were attacking the houses on either side. It looked like a lively night in that quarter of London.
Then there was a swirl in the crowd and a dozen wild-eyed figures were pressing forward with a cast-iron lamppost, torn up by the roots to serve as a battering ram. In their eagerness they hadn’t even extinguished the lamp, which guttered and spluttered as it bounced along, sprinkling burning oil over those at the lamp end of the iron column. They didn’t seem to mind though, and pressed on with their coats singed and smoking. Thus the ponderous instrument drove forward, braining one poor dolt for not getting his head out of the way quick enough. Down he went under the heels of the twenty or thirty men struggling at the front door of 208, crammed into the narrow railed steps that bridged the drop down to the basement area and the basement windows.
“ONE!” we yelled, swinging our ram against the door — CRASH! It ground home, demolishing the doorknob which dropped off and rolled away. “TWO!” and the door split from top to bottom. “THREE!” and the woodwork surrendered and shivered into ruin. At once we tore our way through the shards and splinters, dropping the lamppost which clanged on the stone steps and bounded up again, knocking men off their feet. Bodies poured through the doorway and I stumbled over those who’d fallen in front of me. By George! It was just like one of Wellington’s ghastly sieges in Spain in the early 1800s, with the mad Irish first through the breach in the wall.
; Then there was a shouting from within the house and four or five lost men rushed at us with short, curved swords like cut-down cutlasses. One was Mr Samuel Slime and the bastard went straight after me. He’d have split my skull to the chin if I hadn’t got my cudgel up in time. CLUNK! The blade bit hard and I reeled back from the blow, hauled my cudgel clear and took a swing at his head.
Ahhh! Someone screamed at my side and a pair of men fell into me, the one shoving a blade into the other’s guts. They knocked me off my stroke and got between me and Slime. I basted the swordsman hard across the back of his head, since he had no white ribbons, and shoved through the press to get at Slime.
Swish! Slime’s sword sliced the air over my head as I ducked. Then we were driven into each other’s arms as the hundreds without tried to heave themselves in, and filled the hallway with angry, fighting men.
Fighting among themselves, that is. The dozen or so defenders were overwhelmed by sheer numbers so there was little opposition. But the English among our mob were already fallen out with the Irish.
Meanwhile, I had my hands full with Mr Slime. He was a vicious swine, hard and skilful, who’d learned his fighting in the gutters of Whitechapel. He bit me, the rogue, full on the chin, which was all he could get at, and he jammed his knee hard up into my groin. I bellowed in pain and got my fists working into his ribs. But he wriggled like a greasy pig to turn the blows, and I never got a good one home. Then he dropped his sword, which there wasn’t room to use, and dived a hand into his coat pocket. I grabbed the hand which for sure was after something nasty, and took a leaf out of his book by clamping my teeth on his ear and jerking back my head to detach a good chunk.
Not that that stopped him! He never even flinched but pulled his hand free and whipped out the pistol he’d been after. Bang! Sizzle! The blasted thing went off, burning the pair of us with its flash and drillhig the carpet underfoot. But he couldn’t concentrate on two things at once and I managed to catch him a good one in the bread basket, while he was fumbling for the second shot from his pistol, which was a double.
He staggered at the blow, and I cracked my cudgel across his pistol hand, knocking the weapon flying. Instantly he was on me like a bloody tiger. He grabbed the cudgel with both hands and we fought for it furiously. But once again, bodies rolled between us as the wild struggle went on all around. I lost my cudgel, more guns went off, blades flashed, sticks whirred and the noise was deafening. And over the surging heads and shoulders there was Slime’s cold, angry face glaring at me with the blood running down his face from the torn ear. He was just burning to finish it between us.
Well, so too was I. And I knocked men down left and right to get at him. Once we were face to face we went at it with our fists.
He was older than me and not so strong, but by George he was a devil to fight! I don’t know to this day if I’d have got the better of him or not, for Sammy came pounding up at that moment, with Toby and the lads and those of our people still inclined to obey orders.
They piled into Slime at once and he went down under a storm of boots and cudgels.
“Search the house!” yelled Sammy.
“Save the Admiral!” cried Toby, sticking to his tale, and still more men piled in through the shattered doorway. They were mad drunk by now, with fighting and with gin, though all resistance had ceased when Slime went down to join the rest of his men, dead or unconscious on the floor.
“Jacob,” says Sammy, “find Kate! Get her out, quick!” He pointed to a grinning monkey trying to set the wallpaper alight with his torch. “This place’ll be up in smoke in a trice!”
“Come on!” says I, and pushed open the nearest door. It was a sitting room, rapidly being emptied by busy hands. I saw Toby’s lads (stone cold sober the pair of ‘em) leaving with the silver candlesticks and a fine bracket clock off the mantelpiece. The curtains were well alight and men were merrily swinging chairs over their heads to smash them on the floor, for sticks to feed the blaze. The smoke was choking already.
“No good!” says Sammy. “Outside.” And as we turned to go out, I heard a thing that chilled me with fear and horror. It was a girl’s scream, piercing and high with terror.
“God Almighty!” I roared. “Kate!” and I threw men bodily aside in my furious haste to get to the source of that dreadful sound.
37
The scream came from the kitchen downstairs. I kicked in the door which was hanging on its hinges and saw the room full of staggering men emptying every bottle in sight and smashing open the cupboards to get the pickles and raisins and any other delicacies. On the kitchen table, in the middle of the room was a grubby servant girl, shrieking and dancing up and down as a dozen men grabbed at her skirts and ran their hands up her legs. Just now they were only playing, but you could see the hot, wet faces and the slobbering tongues, and the girl was terrified.
I knocked a couple of them down to clear the way and let ‘em know I was there. Then I grabbed the girl, swung her off her feet and down to the ground. She looked up at me from the depths of terror.
“After you, Cap’n darlin’,” says a loud Irish voice. “Officers forst, as always, but kindly leave a piece for us when you’s done!” This brought cheers and a roar of laughter, and more screams from the girl, who stru: ed fiercely. But I hung on to her and yelled with my best sea-going bellow.
“Belay that squawking!” says I. “I’m a gentleman and I promise no harm shall come to you! Stop it at once, I say!” That calmed her down enough so’s she’d pay attention. “Now then,” says I, “where’s Kate Booth?” The girl’s eyes widened and I could see that she knew. Fear and anger rose within me. “Where is she?” says I, but she was either too frightened or too stupid to speak. “Damn you!” says I, “tell me this instant … or I’ll give you to them!” and I held her out at arm’s length to my Irish colleagues, bringing a roar of approbation.
“Come, sweetheart, come!” says one of ‘em and the girl gabbled hysterically, “She’s upstairs!” says she. “Right up the top!”
“Sammy,” says I, shoving the girl at him, “get her out! I’m going for Kate!”
Up in the hallway the smoke was thick, and red flame roared inside the sitting room as I ran up the stairs.
Toby’s son George passed me, going down with a bulging sack over his shoulder, and on the first floor I had to struggle through a fierce battle between the Irish and the English for possession of a yellow old man, dragged out on a day-bed from one of the bedrooms. He looked up at me grinning vacantly and stirring his blankets with one foot. It was grotesque. They’d found his sword and shoved it in his hand, and a couple of dolts were fighting for the privilege of shoving his thin arms into the sleeves of a gold-laced, full-dress Admiral’s coat looted from a wardrobe.
“Here’s his honour’s hat!” cries a big Irishman, hauling a sea officer’s cocked hat out of its leather case as he ran forward to jam it on the old grey head.
“Giss that ‘at, you Irish turd!” says an English rival. “You ain’t fit to serve a’ Hinglish gennelman!”
“Fock you, Cockney!”
“Fuck you, bog-trotter!”
“Fock the King!”
“Fuck the Pope!”
SMACK! THUMP! SMASH! And a pile of ‘em pitched into one another as the smoke rolled up the stairs and the roar of flame grew angry below.
I pushed through and ran forward for the last flight of stairs, but as I turned to go up them, I stopped off short and a cold fear took my heart. I hope to God that you who read this should never have such an experience, but that’s what it feels like. As if the Devil’s claw, made of ice, had got inside your breast to pluck the life from you.
At the very top of the stairs, a door stood open to a little room. In the doorway was a big squat woman with a face like a toad, and she had Kate Booth held clutched against her, with her thick, muscular arms around Kate’s waist, pinning her arms as Kate kicked and struggled furiously. Next to them, in a bizarre costume like a postilion or a hussar, with prepo
sterous white breeches, was Sarah Coignwood, about to put a knife to Kate’s throat.
“Kate!” says I.
“Jacob!” says she, and I charged forward to tear Sarah Coign-wood limb from limb. I was halfway up the stairs when she screamed in fury.
“No!” she shrieked. “Not on her life!” She slid her knife a fraction, and I saw the blood swell on Kate’s neck.
“No!” I cried and stopped in my rush, grabbing the banister to steady myself.
“Then stand aside!” says Lady Sarah. “Stand aside and let me pass.”
“Jacob!” says Kate. “Kill her!”
“I’ll kill her first!” screams Lady Sarah.
“Beware, you bitch!” says I. “For God Almighty won’t save you if you do!”
“Collins!” says she, grabbing Kate. “Unlock the chain and bring her.” The gross woman fumbled for a key and leaned down to unlock a padlock securing the anklet on Kate’s foot. But Kate kicked and stamped and caught her a clout in the chops with the heavy steel, and laid her back on her haunches, stunned. But it was no good, for Lady Sarah shrieked in rage and pulled the girl close with the knife blade glittering. Kate shuddered as the cold steel pressed into her throat.
And then there was a commotion on the stairs and Sammy and Toby came running up. Sammy’d got a pistol from somewhere, a big service weapon with a swivel rammer.
“Now then, missus,” says Sammy, to Lady Sarah, “it won’t do!” He levelled the pistol at twenty-foot range. “Put down the knife or I’ll blow your soddin’ guts out!”
“Hold your fire, Sammy!” says I, afraid he’d miss, for she’d got herself behind Kate now, with the knife sitting in the blood on Kate’s neck. Sammy was a famous gunner, but I didn’t know what he might be capable of with a smooth-bore pistol, and Sammy wasn’t sure either, for I saw the weapon waver in his hand.