A couple of other men joined in the protest. “Yeh, moke off aht of it.”
“Flamin’ sweep in ’ere, what next?”
They were gathering round rather threateningly; but I suddenly felt myself being yanked off by the collar, and the men watched helplessly as I disappeared, backward, through the crowd, making apologetic faces at them through my coating of dirt.
“And your elbows will get you into a fight, if you’re not careful,” Cricklebone said reproachfully, letting go of me as we reached the stairs. “You’re drawing attention to us,” he added in a low voice, through clenched teeth. “Now, come on.”
I followed him sheepishly up the narrow staircase, squeezing past men and women standing in huddled pairs. The occasional low laugh sounded in my ear as I edged past, trying not to leave black marks on the women’s skirts, which practically filled the stairwell.
As we reached the top we could hear bizarre growls penetrating the hum of voices. The room opened out into a long, crooked space with no furniture and a low, beamed ceiling. The atmosphere up here was distinctly different from downstairs. It was packed full of people, terribly hot, and very dark; and gradually I realized there seemed to be no women up here at all. The voices of the men were full of aggression, and I tried to stay as close as I could to Cricklebone so as not to draw attention to myself. Surrounded by taller people, I couldn’t see much of what was going on, and it took me a while to realize that there was a kind of empty space towards the back of the room, and an air of expectation, as though the men were waiting for a boxing match. But some low metal cages by the wall, containing dark muzzled shapes scratching and grunting, soon assured us it was dogs rather than people who were going to fight. I was suddenly thankful we’d left Lash outside.
Cricklebone bent close to my ear.
“If you see someone you recognize,” he said, “ignore ’em. Don’t stare. Don’t give the game away.” He’d been eyeing the crowd shrewdly. “Flethick’s here,” he said into my ear, “and one or two others. Don’t look!”
In the corners of the room there were pairs and groups of men, standing whispering and occasionally glancing over their shoulders at the crowd. Men were going through the room collecting money — bets on the dogs — but I also noticed money changing hands which didn’t seem to have anything to do with the dogfight.
Cricklebone settled himself, leaning against the wall by a small four-paned window, and drew a pipe out of his coat pocket. He looked quite shabby enough to fit in well with the assembled company: and when a man with broken teeth tottered up to us to shout for stakes, Cricklebone pulled coins out of his pocket and told the man they were bets for himself and his young friend — meaning me. The man winked at me as though we were entering into the subtlest of contracts. His face looked pockmarked and distorted, disfigured as though he himself were a bulldog who’d seen too many fights.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” came a sudden loud voice, “we’ll start the match, if you please.” As people gathered and shuffled aside I noticed that the back part of the room contained a sort of enclosure, an arena boxed off by low wooden planks the height of a man’s knee.
“No shoving!” someone shouted, “and clear a way there! Ho, clear a way!” The cages were brought on: and out of them were hauled two squat, powerful dogs, with wrinkled flat faces and skin like old upholstery, snarling and squinting in the smoky light. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to see this. Cupping my hand against the glass, I peered out of the window.
The dogs were held up to cheers from the crowd. When one of them snapped with a loud clack of its teeth at a hovering bluebottle, it received extra-loud roars of enthusiasm.
“’E’s in a grand mood!” someone near me enthused, “a fightin’ mood!”
Outside, the street seemed quiet. The window was filthy and covered in scratches, and most of its surface was almost opaque; but through a small clear corner I could make out the tapering spire of the church opposite, and at ground level the gates giving onto the cemetery where I’d hidden, the other night when I’d watched Coben. I craned my neck to see if I could spot Lash, and make sure he was all right; but the place where I’d tied him was out of sight of the window. I was about to turn back to the scene in the room when a moving figure outside caught my eye.
I pressed my nose against the glass and tried to block off the room’s reflections with my hands. I watched him walk, unconcerned, along the street on the cemetery side, and cross into the light. Tall, heavily built, in coarse dark clothes with no hat, it was unmistakably the bosun.
But he was alone. Where was Nick?
I tugged at Cricklebone’s sleeve.
In the pit, the dogs stood poised, restrained by their owners and chivied by the enthusiasm of the crowd which set the air buzzing. One of them scrabbled impatiently on the floorboards, trying to lunge at his adversary.
I watched the bosun walk under my line of vision, as though to stand against the wall of the inn, or maybe to come inside. And now my heart gave a sudden jolt, as somebody else ran into sight. From the opposite direction, and again sticking close to the cemetery wall, a black-cloaked and black-hatted figure moved with graceful wary speed, clutching something to his chest.
“Mr. Cricklebone!” I hissed, bashing his arm.
“What is it?” He bent close and I caught the scent of his tobacco.
“I thought you told your friend to burn his disguise.”
“So I did.”
“Well then, who’s that?”
The man from Calcutta stood deliberating, directly opposite the inn. He was looking up and down the street. The object in his grasp flashed briefly and I thought it looked familiar. Suddenly he was off down the hill to the river, and although I couldn’t be certain it was the camel he was holding, it was the right size.
Five seconds later the bosun crossed the street again — and began running, awkwardly, down the hill in pursuit. He was gaining on the man from Calcutta very quickly indeed.
“Come on,” said Cricklebone, taking my arm, “after them.”
As we pushed through the crowd, the dogs leaped forward. Snarling like drills, they went for one another in a blur of hide and teeth, powerful legs lashing out, clawing wildly. Teeth seemed to slide over the smooth cannonball heads, desperate for a grip.
“Excuse me,” said Cricklebone, time and time again.
They were well-matched. The supporters roared them on as they stumbled and kicked out in the wooden pit, shaking each other by the neck, yowling and crunching their jaws together. Blood had been drawn and it smeared dark lines across the dogs’ foreheads as they jumped and slid together in vicious rage.
We were having trouble getting out. People were so engrossed in the fight, shouting so loudly, they formed a moving wall between us and the door, impervious to our requests or our attempts to push through. Cricklebone gave up saying “Excuse me” and began forcing his lanky way through the throng.
The dogs showed no signs of flagging. Each was determined to wear the other away, leaping back for more after every assault, ignoring the wounds which were opening up, scrabbling among the fur lying loose on the floorboards. Almost comically, amid all the violence, they assessed one another with furrowed brows before lunging again, snapping at one another’s throats.
At last we reached the top of the stairs and Cricklebone sent me down first, hanging onto my arm from behind, almost pushing me in his urgency. The roars continued from upstairs as the bulldogs clashed resiliently, tearing open splits in their opponents’ faces, biting at eyes and lips.
The heat was bringing cascades of black sweat down my face as I pushed through the crowd downstairs, taking little heed this time of people’s clothes, treading on their feet and digging my elbows into their bones as I forced a path between them. The roar of violence upstairs rang in my ears; and just as we reached the front door a huge cheer seemed to go up, as though one of the dogs had finally been defeated and was lying in a silent, bleeding heap, as the grim, spattered victor wa
s held up for applause.
Nick opened his eyes, and at first he didn’t believe them.
Bells?
Then in a flash it came back to him. How long had he been up here? How had he managed to fall asleep? He sat up, rubbing his neck, which had acquired a sharp welt from being pressed too closely against a beam corner.
There was a sudden hollow sound from far below. Everything was still utterly dark: but someone was moving. The sound came again. It must have been this which had woken him.
Gingerly he pulled himself to his knees and peered over the planks down into the long shaft of the hollow tower, his line of sight guided by the bell ropes which hung down, down into the darkness. He could see nothing. But there were scufflings echoing up through the fusty air, getting increasingly distinct. And he thought he could hear someone panting.
His father must be coming up to see what he was doing.
Trying to be as quiet as possible, he stood up and pressed himself back into the hollow space. And a gun slipped quietly out of his belt and fell, before he could catch it, over the planks and down, down into the depths.
The scufflings stopped as it landed with a metallic bang somewhere far below. What an idiot he was! He’d completely forgotten he even had the gun, and now …
“Oozat?”
A voice boomed up at him from the depths, and he froze, letting the echoes subside. There were a few seconds of silence; then the sound of slow, purposeful footsteps.
Nick swallowed hard. Suddenly he felt sharply and brilliantly awake. He could see the bells glinting very slightly in the moonlight. His mind was racing. The voice wasn’t his father’s. Below him was Coben, the man he’d been sent to shoot. Coben knew someone was up here. And he was coming up to get him. Nick was suddenly convinced he was going to be killed. There were only two ways down: to use the steps and meet Coben coming up, or to fall down the shaft to the platform forty, fifty feet below. Still the hollow steps echoed up the tower, and the panting, more controlled, was getting nearer and nearer. If only he hadn’t dropped the gun!
He couldn’t resist a brief glance out over the edge, between the bells, into the chasm. He saw nothing. But there was an almighty crack, and the whole tower seemed to tremble, and one of the bells gave out a sharp, buzzing ring. It took Nick a few seconds to realize it had been a bullet. He flung himself back into the hole.
Coben was shooting at him. He’d probably picked up the gun as it fell at his feet. Now he was firing up at the bells, trying to hit Nick.
“Come down or I’ll shoot yer down!” The words were confused and jumbled by the echoing stone. But there was no mistaking the second shot, when it came, crashing through the still air and pinging off the bells.
Kicking out at the nearest bell, Nick set it swinging slowly towards its neighbor. There was no sound. But when it swung back he pushed it again with his foot, and reluctantly it heaved out a deep, shuddering clang. He set another bell swinging. If only he could attract attention from outside! The ringing was getting louder as the bells lurched back and forth, and Nick kicked out every time they swung towards him, sending them in a long arc, forcing out their piercing chimes. Beneath them the long ropes snaked crazily, swishing through the hot air of the tower, rippling wildly. His ears buzzed with the noise, but he kept kicking, propelling each bell away, rejoicing at each deafening peal, gasping with effort. The bells were rolling backward and forward: everything else, all thought, was lost in the noise.
As a huge bell swung aside he saw Coben’s face almost immediately beneath. He was leaning out into the shaft, clinging to a plank under the bell house, his face moist and his teeth clenched in a determined and murderous grimace. The bell swung back and hid him, then came forward again and there he was, with the gun raised, its barrel aiming right between the bells and up at Nick’s face.
Nick pressed himself into the cubbyhole and his fingers closed around something hard and unfamiliar.
The sword! The breath he took when he realized what it was seemed almost to drown out the noise of the bells. Coben kept trying to take aim, waiting for a moment when he could fire between the swinging bells. And he had the advantage. He was too far away for Nick to reach him with the sword; and if he wasn’t careful, Nick would end up dropping the sword as well. They watched one another as the bells swung apart again. For a split second the moonlight bouncing off the bells illuminated Coben’s face and picked out a dazzling gold tooth, a vicious glint in a murderous grin.
And now Nick raised the sword.
In what seemed like the slowest second of his life, he stepped forward and, with a single clean motion, hacked apart the rope which held the nearest bell. As the chimes echoed through the tower he watched the bell falling, and as it did so he caught sight of Coben, terrified, putting up his arm to shield himself from the plummeting weight.
It was a very long way to fall. And in the dying noise of the bells, Nick couldn’t be sure whether he’d heard a long, receding scream, or not.
Outside the inn I gave my soft, silly, uncombative Lash the biggest hug of his life when I untied him. Cricklebone, with his huge strides, was off down the hill and I couldn’t possibly keep up. But the relief of breathing fresh air again after the murk and smoke and doghair of the tavern propelled me after him, and in less than half a minute I found him crouching by an unlit doorway.
Something was lying in the hay and dirt at the edge of the road, and it was wearing the man from Calcutta’s clothes.
“It’s not your —“ I began.
“No, it’s not McAuchinleck.” Cricklebone was subdued and breathless. He stood tall, looking down the road to the river, where only a few low and shabby huts separated us from the creaking, rat-infested ships.
“Has the bosun escaped?” I asked.
“For the time being.” He seemed to be talking more to himself than to me, looking up and down, as if waiting for someone.
“Is he … dead?” I asked, nervously glancing at the inert shape lying by the wall, pulling Lash back to stop him sniffing at it. There was no reply. Cricklebone was behaving very uneasily indeed, almost twitching. I stared at the lights on the dirty river and took a deep breath.
I’d become aware of a ringing in my ears, and the deeper I breathed, the louder it seemed to get.
Cricklebone suddenly looked at me. “Bells,” he said, astonished.
And so it was. I realized that the church, the one up the hill from which we’d just come, was pealing out the most tuneless racket London had ever heard. Like the anguished jangle of someone in awful distress. Its discordant urgency penetrated my bones and I felt my skin crawl in the heavy night air.
“Come on.”
Cricklebone led us, at a gallop, back up the hill. People were looking out of the windows of the Three Friends, and figures were milling in the street and across the graveyard. A man met us as we rushed up.
“I’ve sent a couple of men in, sir.”
“Good. Where’s McAuchinleck?”
“There, Mr. Cricklebone, sir, by the inn.” But McAuchinleck had seen us and he came over, meeting us in the middle of the road. His face was grave, and very different without its oriental disguise. He had a small, gingery mustache.
“You’re too late,” Cricklebone said shortly. “The bosun’s got the camel and he’s off. And he’s just killed someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.” Cricklebone sounded disturbed. “What did you do with that disguise?”
“I burnt it, like you said.”
“Are you sure?”
McAuchinleck stared. “Of course I’m sure.”
Still the bells rang. Where was Nick? I watched the policemen running here and there, some of them talking to the crowd which had gathered by the Three Friends, a couple of them going off in the direction of the river. What on earth was going on? As I watched a couple of shadows moving by the church wall, the bells seemed to die, their sound thinning out and eventually stopping altogether. The silence they left in t
he hot night was heavy, dull, and dreadful. I gazed up at the ornate church spire, a dirty spike against the smoky sky: and for a second or two the place looked so silent, so motionless, and so sinister I wondered with a shiver whether the bells had been ringing on their own.
Against the sky, rising on a thermal current, a single crow swooped, fluttering around the black spire, circling it, before disappearing into the darkness with a hoarse distant squawk.
Cricklebone had gone striding off towards the inn at McAuchinleck’s prompting; and, left alone with Lash in the middle of the street, I suddenly felt exposed. Over by the church there was a lot of activity by the little door under the spire; and I could hear a massive commotion. Someone was being brought out of the church, and it was taking a whole horde of policemen to do it. Black shapes struggled in the grey churchyard, and Coben’s voice roared obscenely from the melee. They must have arrested him, then! Was it Coben who’d been ringing the bells?
I was about to move toward the inn when I noticed another figure emerging by the cemetery gates, between two policemen. A figure about half their height.
He’d seen me, and five seconds later he had me in a tight hug, his silent tears of relief making my neck wet, as Lash jumped excitedly around us.
At first I thought something dreadful had happened to Nick; when I spoke to him he didn’t seem to hear me. He just stood there looking dazed, wiping the remnants of tears from his cheeks with a dirty sleeve. But he managed to explain his ears were still buzzing from being so close to the bells.
“I can’t hear,” he said in a loud voice. And then, “Have they found my Pa?”
Cricklebone had disappeared, someone said in the direction of the river; and we set off through the dark little streets in pursuit. A Bow Street Runner had tried to stop us, but by the time he’d asked us who we were, we’d already fled halfway down the hill towards the docks. Nick seemed to think we were going in the right direction. By the time we arrived, breathless, at a dark corner close to the river, his hearing had partly returned. I was able to explain who Cricklebone was.
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