by Sara Fraser
‘Be these sweet enough for you, my fine bucko?’ she asked.
An ear-splitting outburst of cheers and whistles came from the onlookers and the officer ran his tongue across his wet lips.
‘You’re in luck today, my pretty,’ he grinned lasciviously. ‘I’ve taken a fancy for you.’ He waved his arm at the other boats. ‘Clear the way there, you lubbers. Let the girl’s craft through.’
‘Don’t bother!’ the young girl shouted angrily, and laughed into the officer’s lustful face. ‘If them three poor wenches you just told to sheer off ain’t good enough to be rogered by you poxed-up bleeders on the Vulcan, then neither am I.’ She suddenly bent and tossed up her rear skirts, displaying her naked buttocks. She slapped the temptingly rounded flesh so that it quivered. ‘You can kiss my arse Vulcan!’ she shouted scornfully. ‘Row back to the shore,’ she ordered her boatman.
He began to argue, but she out-shouted him. ‘Damn your stinking hide! I’ll gi’ you the sale-money meself, you broken-down sand-rat,’ she cursed, and sullenly he obeyed her.
Sarah watched the young whore closely as the craft beached on the shingle, and she touched Shimson’s arm.
‘Bring her to me, Shim. She’s the sort of girl we need . . .’
*
‘Vot’s your name, girl?’
The whore was busily retying the garter of her black cotton stocking above one dimpled knee, oblivious to the comments and lustful stares of the boatmen and loungers on the beach, Without lifting her dark, curly-ringleted head, she answered,
‘I’s Molly, my bucko.’
‘Molly vot?’
For the first time she looked at her questioner. She saw what she considered a well-dressed flash cove, with jewelled rings on his fingers and a great diamond stickpin in his lacy cravat folds. She met his admiring stare with a contemptuous smile and dropping her skirts she straightened, using both hands to toss her long hair back from her flushed face.
‘It’s Molly Bawn, Jew-boy.’
His swarthy complexion darkened and anger momentarily hardened his eyes. Even after almost a lifetime spent in England, Shimson Levi, still fiercely resented the arrogance that even the lowliest English showed towards all who were not of their nation. He forced himself to smile back at the whore.
‘I’ve a friend who vant’s a vord vi’ you,’ he said.
Molly Bawn stared at him suspiciously. ‘Listen, Old-Clothes, I’m not a girl who fancies men who won’t speak to me direct, but must send others to pimp for them.’
Shimson bit back his burgeoning anger. ‘My friend is not a man.’ He pointed back to Sarah. ‘She is standing there . . . And if I vos you, girl I vould come and talk vith her. It might be the makin’ of you.’
The girl looked where he indicated and her eyes widened. The handsome woman along the beach was dressed like a gentlewoman. She wore a green satin habit trimmed with swansdown, a sealskin hat and huge muff of the same material. A swansdown-trimmed black cloak hung casually across her shoulders and on her small feet were expensive black kid half-boots. Beneath her hat, her glossy hair was arranged ‘á la Madonna’ with a centre parting and loose flowing waves which showed her emerald and gold earrings, all in the very height of fashion. It took some moments for Molly Bawn to recover her customary bravado. Then, holding her shoulders well back so that her fine breasts were displayed to their best advantage, she went walking proudly to meet Sarah Jenkins.
‘She calls herself Molly Bawn,’ Shimson Levi said aloud and Sarah nodded, her eyes not leaving the girl.
‘What age are you, Molly? she asked pleasantly.
‘I don’t know for certain, mistress,’ the girl smiled ruefully. ‘I was a foundling, d’you see, and brought up by anybody who ’ud feed me for a few weeks . . . I think I’m about eighteen years though.’
Withdrawing one hand from the recesses of her muff, Sarah touched the girl’s smooth cheek with her fingers.
‘I’d like to ask you a question or two, Molly,’ she said. ‘I’ll pay you for your time. I’d not want to see you lose a chance of making some money from the Vulcan.’
The girl tossed her long hair and her bold eyes flashed.
‘There’s no call for you to gi’ me anythin’, mistress. There’s only the Vulcan in to earn any rhino from and I’ll not go on board that bloody dung-heap.’
Sarah chuckled in amusement. ‘I didn’t really think you would. I saw what happened.’
The girl spat her scorn. ‘That bastard Jack Tar angered me! He’d no call to treat them poor old drabs in that way. ’Tis no fault o’ theirs that they’m agetting a bit long in the tooth, is it. He could have let ’um on board. Some one o’ them bleedin’ poxy deck-apes would ha’ rogered the wenches and given them a few shillin’s . . . Why! Once they’se swilled enough grog down ’um, some o’ them would roger their own grandmas, and I tell no lie.’
‘Tell me, Molly, and I mean no offence by asking. But are you clean and free of disease?’
The young whore’s laughter was loud and unrestrained, but beneath it was an undertone of great bitterness.
‘I am now, mistress. But a bloody marine gi’ me my first dose o’ the clap, when I was no more than a bit of a kid. It taught me a lesson . . . I takes great care now, and that’s for sure. I’ve no wish to end up dying blind and mad in some stinkin’ midden, like a good many o’ my pals ha’ done.’
‘Good,’ Sarah nodded, and went on. ‘Would you like to come and work for me and my partner here, Molly?’
Instantly suspicion veiled the girl’s bold hazel eyes. ‘I’ve no mind to work in a brothel, mistress . . . I likes me freedom.’
‘I’m not asking you to work in a brothel, Molly,’ Sarah told her quietly. ‘My partner, Mr Levi here, and myself are going to open a gaming club. We need girls to help attract the men with money into the place, to help serve and entertain them. If you do not wish to bed with the men who come there, then you do not have to. In fact I do not wish any girl to sell herself while she is working for me, but I do know something of human nature, and I’ll not forbid what I cannot hope to prevent. The only thing I do insist upon, however, is that the girls will be honest and obey me during the hours of work. After their work is completed, they are free to do whatever they wish. But I’ll make it plain to you now, that if any girl becomes diseased, or steals from men they have met at the club, then we want no more of that girl, whoever she may be.’
Molly Bawn’s hazel eyes searched the candid green eyes before her and what she read in them eased her suspicions.
‘What exactly would I have to do in this club of yourn?’ she asked.
‘I’ll not try and give you a host of worthless tales,’ Sarah answered. ‘Nor try to hide from you the truth. You and the other girls I shall be recruiting will be at the club for one reason only . . . To attract the men, to encourage them to spend heavy on food and drink and, most important of all, to get them to gamble at the tables. Some of the cleverer girls we’ll train as dealers, and one or two of the really knowing ones we’ll teach how to watch out for the flash coves and sharps who’ll be trying to cog the dice and pack the cards.’
‘And how much money will I be making?’ Molly questioned.
Shimson Levi winked at Sarah from behind the girl’s shoulder. Sarah frowned at him and shook her head.
‘Shim! I’ll not begin by haggling over wages,’ she snapped, and told the girl, ‘In all honesty, Molly, I do not yet know myself. This is a new venture for me and it’s Shimson’s cousin from London, the one they call the Hebrew Star, who will be running the gaming to start with . . . But I will promise you that I’ll see you get a fair return on whatever you persuade the flats to wager or spend . . .’
For the first time in many years Molly Bawn found herself trusting another person completely. She smiled gaily.
‘What’s your name, mistress?’
‘It’s Sarah, Sarah Jenkins.’
‘Very well, Mistress Sarah, when do I begin working for you?’
&nbs
p; The handsome face returned her smile. ‘Right away, girl . . . We must first go and get some refreshment, then we’ll buy you some new clothes, and after we’ll look for more girls.’
The young whore laughed in delighted anticipation. ‘It’ll be wonderful not to ’av to lie under some drunken Jack Tar or bootneck for a few measly shillings. I’ll find more girls than you can ever use . . . For there’s very few on us who really like bein fancy pals.’
Shimson Levi mentally calculated what new clothes for this girl and the others would cost, and groaned in real pain. Sarah chuckled at the girl’s reaction to the groan.
‘Don’t worry yourself, my dear. It’s only his pocket that’s hurting him, and it shouldn’t do because half o’ the outlay is mine.’ She took the other’s arm. ‘Come, we’ll find some beautiful clothes for you, no matter what they cost.’
*
At the Portsea dockyard there were no excited whores awaiting the Vulcan’s passengers. No crowds of eager touts and bumboat men. No smiling faces or friendly voices. Only a silent and morose dockyard official and a red-coated major of the Commissariat department.
Lieutenant David Warburton of the Twenty-Fourth Foot, sat on his leather-covered military chest and watched the groaning wrecks of invalided soldiers being lifted roughly, like so many pieces of inanimate baggage, out of the rocking lighters and on to the cold wet-slicked cobbles of the landing jetty. He was a medium-sized young man, his thin face drawn and pale and his grey eyes shadowed by much suffering. Dressed in a badly faded scarlet coatee with frayed green facings, a battered black shako tilted on his short brown hair, and the silver lace and epaulets of his uniform tarnished almost black by wind and weather, he was a far cry from the dashing resplendent officers who swaggered through the streets of Portsmouth. Now his lips twisted in anger as a hulking seaman dragged a ragged-clothed legless soldier from the lighter, ignoring the wounded man’s cries of pain, and dumped him carelessly on the greasy stones.
‘Hey, you there! That sailor!’ the young officer shouted irascibly.
The man’s vacuous face stared at him in puzzlement.
‘Did you mean me, sir?’ he asked.
‘Yes you! You great oaf!’ Warburton shouted. ‘Take care with that man. He’s not a lump of wood to be tossed about.’
The sailor’s puzzlement deepened. ‘I’ve done naught to him, sir,’ he protested. ‘Just lifted ’im to the jetty, that’s all.’
‘Oh, what’s the use of it?’ David Warburton asked himself disgustedly, and turned away. He stared about him at the shores of his native land and could only feel a great weight of lonely depression pressing down upon him.
‘God help me! But I’d have preferred to remain in the Peninsula,’ he thought despondently. ‘For there’s none to bid me welcome home.’
The Commissariat Major, a plump fussy hen of a man, bustled across to him, waving his lists of names and goods importantly.
‘You’ll be Lieutenant Warburton of the Twenty-Fourth, will you not?’ he flustered.
David got to his feet and clicked his heels, half-bowing to the man. ‘The same, sir,’ he told him.
‘About these invalids you’ve brought back.’ The major’s tone was hectoring.
‘What of them, sir?’ The young officer was curt. He was contemptuous of the gentlemen of the Commissariat.
‘Well, there’s a good half score on ’um not yet here on the jetty,’ the man said aggrievedly.
Warburton’s resentment of the other’s manner deepened. ‘Nor likely ever to be, sir,’ he snapped. ‘For they’re feeding the fishes in Biscay Bay. They died for lack of medical attention and decent treatment.’
The major’s tiny mouth opened and closed as he ingested this news. ‘’Pon my soul!’ he grumbled finally. ‘It’s most damnably remiss of you not to have informed me of this before I made the list out.’
The young man’s resentment boiled over. ‘Not half so remiss as the damned commissaries who loaded the poor devils on board without medicines, or blankets or decent provisions,’ he said heatedly. ‘There was not even a Hospital Sergeant on board to tend them, never mind a surgeon.’
‘That’s no concern of mine, young man,’ the major retorted. ‘And I’ll thank you to show a civil manner when you’re addressing a senior officer.’
With an effort of will, David clamped down on the angry words that clamoured to spill from his lips. Satisfied that he had won the day, the major went on.
‘You yourself will, be staying with your family no doubt, until you go before the Medical Board.’
‘My family?’ David thought sadly. ‘Now that my uncle is dead, my only living relative is William, and I’ve not seen or heard from him in years. He could also be dead, long since.’
‘Well, Lieutenant?’ the major pressed him. ‘Do you intend to stay with your family? I have to know for entry in my records.’
‘I shall be staying here, in Portsmouth, for a time,’ David told him. ‘I shall take rooms here.’
‘Very well,’ the major puffed. ‘You may leave now, if you wish, Lieutenant. I’ll see to these invalids.’
David looked pityingly at the rows of grey-faced wretches lying moaning and shivering in misery on the cobbles without coverings or mattresses. He looked at their blood-stained filthy bandages, at the rag-padded stumps of arms and legs, at the raw empty eye sockets and swore softly to himself. ‘God help you, you poor devils!’ Aloud he said, ‘I trust that you’ll have these men moved immediately to hospital, sir?’
The plump cheeks of the other blew out petulantly. ‘That, young man, is easier said than done,’ the major grumbled. ‘No one ever stops to consider the difficulties that we poor fellows of the Commissariat face. Dammee no! I’ve now got to try and obtain carts from somewhere to shift the buggers, and the Lord only knows where I’m to find them from. Perhaps He can help me to do so.’
The young lieutenant’s face grew suddenly very bitter.
‘I’ve seen precious little evidence of the Lord helping these poor devils in their sufferings,’ he burst out. ‘So I’m damned if He’s likely to help you find carts.’
The major stared hard at him and demanded querulously, ‘What d’ye mean by that statement, sir?’
David turned from the man in disgust and called a loitering sailor to him.
‘Here, Jack Tar. I’ll give you a shilling if you’ll carry my trunk.’
‘Aye, sir.’ The sailor came forward and grunting with effort swung the trunk to his shoulders.
The young officer walked slowly to the dockyard gates and was passing through them when a soldier wearing a white canvas fatigue suit and red- and yellow-banded forage hat accosted him and saluted.
‘Beg pardon, sir. But might you be Lieutenant Warburton o’ the Twenty-Fourth.’
‘That is my name,’ David told him.
‘Well sir, I musk arsk you to come along o’ me, if you please.’
David stared at the man in surprise. ‘No, I do not please, my man. I have many pressing affairs to attend to.’
The man’s bovine features were wooden, and he continued as though the officer had not spoken. ‘Things ’as all bin arranged for you, sir. My marster, Cap’n Joseph Ward, told me to tell you that you’m agoing to stay wi’ ’im and his family.’
The young officer’s jaw dropped. ‘Captain Ward? Do you mean Joseph Ward of the village of Holt End, in Worcestershire?’ he asked incredulously.
‘The very same, sir,’ the soldier affirmed. ‘Only it’s Cap’n Ward, now sir, o’ the Third Worcestershire Militia. We ’em in garrison ’ere, sir.’
‘Good God above!’ David breathed the words. ‘And Mrs Ward and Miss Jessica, are they here also?’
‘Aye, sir,’ the man grinned. ‘And powerful anxious they be to welcome you back ’ome to England, sir.’
‘Jessica! Sweet Jessie!’ A vision of his one-time playmate whom he had grown to love so deeply as they grew up together, and who had never been absent from his thoughts for a single day dur
ing all the long years in the Peninsula, flashed across the young man’s mind, and he felt his heart begin to pound.
‘My lovely Jessie, here! Here in Portsmouth! My Jessie!’ David could hardly breathe, so intense was his emotion. ‘Lead on, man,’ he blurted out. ‘Lead on this instant!’
*
Once the Vulcan had entered the harbour, Jessica had made her good-byes to John Coventry and then rushed back to the house that her parents had rented in Portsmouth High Street. Dorothea had refused her friend’s invitation to tea and returned to her own home, saying a trifle maliciously,
‘Now do not overwhelm the poor invalid with your ardour, Jessie.’
The blonde-haired girl blushed and made no reply. Now she waited impatiently in the hallway of the house for the sounds of his footsteps. At last the door swung open and the soldier servant came in, carrying the much-travelled trunk across his shoulders. Behind the man followed a slender boyish figure carrying a cockaded shako in his left hand, whose right arm hung somewhat stiffly at his side.
‘Oh Davy! It is so good to see you again.’ Jessica’s beautiful face glowed with pleasure and she ran to hug the young officer. As her soft arms crushed around him David grunted in pain. Instantly the girl released him and scanned his face anxiously.
‘Are you ill, Davy?’ Her brown eyes grew shiny with the threat of tears. ‘Oh Davy, my dear Davy, what has this cruel war done to you?’ she exclaimed softly, and could have wept with pity over his thin tired face, patterned with faint lines of suffering around eyes and mouth. With one soft hand she traced those lines and trailed her other hand across the tarnished silver epaulet on the right shoulder of his badly stained and faded scarlet coatee. He fumbled with both hands at his battered shako and smiled fondly at her.
‘I’m very well, Jessie, really I am. It’s only that my right arm is still a little stiff and sore. The wound became infected, d’you see . . . but it’s almost healed now,’ he assured her.
She brushed away the tears in her eyes and returned his smile. ‘Mama is in the salon. She’s waiting to take tea with us.’