by John Boyne
‘Please,’ said I. ‘I have to attend to the captain’s breakfast soon. Can’t I return to my—’
‘Silence, pollywog!’ shouted King Neptune and I jumped in surprise. ‘Servants,’ he said then, looking to the men to my left and right, ‘display the pollywog.’
They let go of me then for a moment, but as they did so one stood behind me and held me while the shirt was ripped from my body. A great cheer went up from the sailors and I shouted at them to let me be, but more hands were about me then, about my britches, and kick and thrust as I might, they were pulled from me, and then my undercrackers were quickly dispatched and within a few dark moments I found myself standing in the centre of the deck, naked as the day I was born, with naught but my hands to protect my modesty. I looked up as the sun came out from behind a cloud and it dazzled my eyes for a moment and the effect of it, coupled with my fear of standing there with my privacy on display, not to mention apprehension for what might happen next, made my head dizzy and my limbs weak and I felt my mind returning to moments of the past that I had tried to forget. Moments when my humiliation was equally brutal.
. . . he’s a fine lad Mr Lewis a fine lad indeed and where are you from my pretty fellow is it Portsmouth perhaps you know a particular friend of mine there a boy no older than you I would warrant name of George Masters do you know George you don’t how extraordinary I was under the impression that fellows such as yourself pretty fellows I mean make a company of each other do you not . . .
‘We have received reports of your crimes, primary of which is the news that you have impersonated an Irishman,’ continued the king, and I shook my head to concentrate on his words while staring at him in amazement.
‘I never have,’ I said, appalled by the suggestion. ‘I wouldn’t even know how. The only Irishman I ever knew was Skibbereen born and bred, hanged for a thief from Execution Dock.’
‘How do you find the pollywog, men?’ shouted the king and a great cry of ‘Guilty!’ went up all around me and he smiled at me with a brutal sneer. ‘The punishment for impersonating an Irishman is to eat of an Irish apple,’ he said then.
I nodded slowly. If this humiliation was to stand naked before the ship’s complement and eat a piece of fruit for them . . . well, I thought I had suffered worse indignities in my life, aye, and would again, no doubt. I saw Mr Heywood step forward then with something in his hand and I wondered whether he might have spat on the apple first, or worse. There was little I would have put past that donkey. He might have rubbed it against his unmentionables, for all the dignity he had, the scut. When he handed it to me, though, I stared at it in wonder, for it was no apple at all, Irish or otherwise.
‘But that’s an onion,’ I said, looking up.
Eat, pollywog!’ cried the king, and I shook my head, for there was no way on the Saviour’s green earth or the devil’s blue water that I was going to do such a thing, and at that moment one of the men’s boots kicked me hard in the rump, sending me sprawling on the deck with a bruise to my arse that I knew I would feel for a week yet. ‘Eat it!’ he screamed.
Seeing no alternative to the proposition, I put the foul thing to my mouth and tried to bite through its layers.
‘You must swallow it all,’ said Neptune.
‘But I’ll be sick,’ I pleaded, and would have said more, only Mr Heywood advanced on me again with such a murderous intent on his face that I took the onion back before forcing it into my mouth; I had no choice but to try to open my jaw wider and wider and bite on the article to free room for breathing, but the essence of the bulb fair took my breath away and left me gasping for air with tears rolling down my cheeks. ‘Please,’ said I again then, turning to my side now, the better to stop them staring at me in my nakedness, although my whistle was shrinking in fright at the assault that might be planned on it. ‘I don’t know what you want me to do but—’
‘Pollywog, you further stand accused of a plot to set fire to Westminster Cathedral,’ roared Neptune and this time I could just shake my head at the lunacy of the idea and protest my innocence. ‘How do you find the pollywog, men?’ he asked again and there came another loud cry of ‘Guilty!’ followed by a wild stamping of feet. ‘Then he must kiss the gunner’s daughter,’ announced King Neptune.
Another cheer was heard now as I was dragged bodily along the deck to one of the cannons and stretched across it, one man holding me from the front, another by the ankles. A pain shot through my body when I crashed against the cold metal too fast at the front and my knees buckled beneath me. I thought I knew what was to come next and struggled and cried, but, no, I had it wrong, for one of the midshipmen appeared instead with a bucket of paint and a brush and to my humiliation my rump was painted red all over and then I was turned around and my whistle was painted too, and then, without warning, I was wrenched off the cannon and brought back to where I had started and the king raised his hands and shouted ‘Proceed!’
The men advanced on me as one and I noticed how many of them held boards now and items to thrash me with and they slapped out, aiming for my rump and whistle, but beating me soundly about all of my person without conscience or inhibition. I held my hands out to fight them off, but what could I do, there were so many of them and only one of me, and my body started to feel as if it was suffering one long constant pain rather than a series of blows as they thumped and thrashed and broke my skin and I thought I might lose consciousness in the uproar.
. . . there are certain things that I like to do and Mr Lewis informs me that there are none so keen as you to be of assistance is this true I hope it is for there will be a sixpence in it for you if you give me pleasure you are a good boy for giving pleasure are you not perhaps you can suggest ways to me that you might give me pleasure can you think of any . . .
I know not how long the thrashing went on for, but eventually, with-out warning, the men parted and there was no need for anyone to keep me held aloft to prevent my running away, for I collapsed on to the deck immediately, one of my eyes half-shut and swollen, pain searing through my every fibre. I fell to my back and cared nothing for hiding myself, for my shame was as nothing compared with the suffering my body was enduring. Through my one good eye I looked up and the sun continued to dazzle me, but a figure stepped into the light for a moment and who was it only Mr Heywood again, come to finish the job.
‘Sir,’ I cried, spitting blood from my mouth, my teeth feeling as if they were not mine at all, a foul taste stenching my tongue. ‘Help me, sir,’ I attempted to say, but I could barely hear the words, so inaudibly did they emerge from my weakened voice.
‘A further punishment, pollywog,’ he said quietly, and I watched as he undid his trousers, took his own whistle out and proceeded to empty his bladder upon me. The steam of his piss burned into my skin but I could scarcely escape it, so broken was my body by now. He must have been saving it up, for it felt as if the humiliation continued for an eternity; when he finally finished and dressed himself he walked away and informed the men that I needed to be washed clean after that and another cheer immediately went up.
This time I was plucked from the deck by a fresh pair of hands and brought to the side of the ship, where many hands touched me and I knew not what they were doing, and only a few moments later when there was the great sound of a heavy rope being pulled and tied did I realize that around my waist the tether had been struck. Although I could barely stand erect I pressed my hands to it, attempting desperately to untie it from my body, but the rope was too heavy and too tight. I am to be hanged, I thought, my mind filling with horror and fear. I had seen two men hanged in my life, both murderers, one of whom was no older than me, and he had pissed himself on the gallows as the rope was tied round his neck, and I saw my own fate as his as my bladder loosened inside me and threatened to spill over in fright.
‘Help me,’ I cried. ‘Help me someone. Please. Whatever you want, I’ll do it.’
. . . anything I want is it I have some ideas of course and you shall not say no shall
you or Mr Lewis will know the reason why now don’t look so shocked don’t tell me you have not been asked for such practices in the past a pretty boy like you has tricks he can share has he not on your knees boy now that’s it . . .
Hands gripped me and pushed me up until I was seated on the side of the ship. I placed my own hands on either side to keep me steady, sure that I was being placed there to answer some further charge that eluded me, and then who did I see emerging from below decks but Mr Christian, who, upon seeing me perched there, beaten raw, naked as a bairn, broke into a wide smile and clapped his hands loudly.
‘Mr Christian,’ I tried to shout but the words barely travelled a foot or two beyond me, so dishevelled was I. ‘Mr Christian . . . help me, sir . . . I am to be murdered . . .’
Murdered! The last word I spoke before the great foot of King Neptune kicked me in my stomach, sending me falling backwards over the side of the boat and into the great Atlantic Ocean below. The rope tightened against my chest and I gasped in horror as I plunged deep down into the water below, my mouth filled with the sea, my breath taken from me in surprise, my only thought being that I was to be drowned for reason or reasons unknown. At speed my body was hauled through the waves alongside the ship and I was dragged towards it at such a rate that I felt that death was surely upon me. I gasped for air one last time as my body flung itself upwards for a moment as the rope was hoisted before plunging deep down again, and after that . . . after that . . . the rest is silence.
It began not long after my eleventh birthday. I had been living with Mr Lewis for nearly two years and during that time I had found him to be a strange mixture of kindness and cruelty, a man who looked after all the young boys in his care but who, when roused by the elder ones, could lash out and cause a scene of violence and horror that would give my youthful head the night terrors.
‘You like it here, John Jacob, do you not?’ he asked me from time to time during those early years; he always seemed particularly fond of me and treated me with unusual generosity. ‘And you’ve learned a lot from me, haven’t you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I would say, nodding my head quickly, and why shouldn’t I have been grateful to him after all? Wasn’t he the one who gave me food and water and provided me with a bed every night when otherwise I might have been passing the late hours in a gutter by the side of the road? Wasn’t his establishment the only one I had ever felt truly at home in and weren’t there other lads there my own age to converse with? ‘I’m most grateful to you, Mr Lewis, you know that.’
‘Aye, I should think so too. You’re a good lad, John Jacob, one of the better ones.’
From the start he had taught me the fine art of pickpocketing, which was the main occupation of everyone in that house, and I had taken to it like a duck to water. I know not whether it was in my blood or in my nature, but I seemed to have an uncommon swift hand, and it stood to me whenever I sauntered around the streets of Portsmouth, claiming the things I wanted and he needed. Indeed, of all my brothers there, I was well known for bringing home the greatest crop at the end of the day: wallets, handkerchiefs, coins, ladies’ purses – anything that I could get my hands on. Sometimes a boy would get nabbed by a blue in the act of stealing, but there was never a one who gave Mr Lewis up. Sometimes I got nabbed myself but I kept my counsel. He had a hold on us, every one. Where it came from, I know not. Perhaps it was loneliness or the security of familiar ways. Perhaps it was the fact that none of us had ever known anything different in our lives. Perhaps it was the fear of being cast out.
There were never fewer than a dozen lads living there and never more than eighteen. Most were younger than twelve, but there were always four or five aged between twelve and sixteen, and it was they who were the most difficult. I recall many lads who were friends of mine and looked out for me but then turned that age and grew sullen and withdrawn. I knew that Mr Lewis had different jobs for each of us as we grew older, but knew little of what they were. But still, every night when the sun had gone down and the moon had come up, those older boys were sat down in front of a glass with a bowl of water placed before them and told to wash their faces and comb their hair and then they were whisked away to the uppermost floor of the house for what was known as Evening Selection, where they would stay for a number of hours. None of the rest of us was allowed to leave our beds during that time, but we would hear the heavy footsteps of gentlemen ascending the steps to the top floor and coming down again a few hours later, but we knew nothing of what took place up there. And, in our ignorance, we thought little of it too.
But the numbers of the upstairs lads had to be replenished as the boys grew older and were then expelled from the house by Mr Lewis, and shortly after my eleventh birthday Mr Lewis came to sit on my bed one evening and put an arm around my shoulders.
‘Now, John Jacob, my fine fellow, do you think you’re still a baby or are you ready to take on a most important job that I have in mind for you?’
I knew that I was being summoned to join the upstairs room and felt proud of the fact that I was being plucked from among the little ‘uns for this role. I told him I was ready and he helped me wash my face and comb my hair before standing back and looking at me with pride on his face.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Oh, yes, indeedy. A fine lad you are too. So pretty. What a popular lad you’ll prove yourself to be. You’ll make my fortune, I swear you will.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said I, little understanding what he meant by these words.
‘Now, as it’s your first night, everything will be a little gentle on you. We won’t have any of the other boys coming upstairs. It’ll all be for you – do you like that idea?’
I told him I did and he seemed even more pleased than before, but then he grew suddenly serious and knelt down on the floor so we were looking at each other eye to eye.
‘But tell me this,’ he said with an air of suspicion: ‘I can trust you, can I not?’
‘Of course, sir,’ said I.
‘And you’re grateful to me for giving you a home and friends of your own age? You wouldn’t let me down?’
‘No, sir,’ said I. ‘I’d never do such a thing.’
‘Well, that’s good to hear. I’m very glad to hear you say it, John Jacob. Very glad indeed. And you’ll do what you’re told, won’t you? And cause no trouble?’
I nodded, feeling a little more nervous now, but he seemed pleased by my responses, and soon after we were making our way up the stairs, just the two of us, to the upstairs floor, where I had never set foot since arriving at his establishment a few years before. I had often wondered what it would look like and assumed it would have the same sparse furnishings and drab atmosphere as the rooms we lived in downstairs but to my surprise the door opened out on to a fine living room with a comfortable sofa and a number of plush armchairs. Two doors led from the room at the end on either side and within each one I could see a plain bed and a bowl for water.
‘Well, John Jacob,’ asked Mr Lewis. ‘What do you think of it here?’
‘I think it is very fine, sir,’ said I. ‘Very fine indeed.’
‘Aye, it is. I try to keep it comfortable. But now that you’ve seen it, you understand that there’s a job of work that I need you to do and it’s most important for the well-being of our happy household.’
I swallowed and nodded slowly. My confidence was decreasing by the minute and, even though he seemed to think it a great compliment that I had been brought here alone, I wished that some of my older brothers were with me for companionship and security. I was about to say something to that effect, when I heard footsteps on the stair outside, followed a moment later by a rap on the door.
‘Just do as you’re told, lad, and you’ll come to no harm,’ said Mr Lewis as he opened the door.
I stepped back as it opened to reveal a middle-aged man in a heavy overcoat and a tall hat. I didn’t recognize him, but he was a toff, there was no doubt of that. Any fool could smell it off him.
‘Good evening, Mr
Lewis,’ he said, handing him a cane and stepping inside.
‘Good evening, sir,’ replied Mr Lewis, bowing a little, something I had never seen him do before. ‘I’m delighted you could return to see us again.’
‘Well, I promised I would, didn’t I, if you had something new to offer me and . . .’ He hesitated as he saw me standing in the corner of the room, a position I had somehow wheedled my way into, and his eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘Oh, my, Mr Lewis,’ he added then, ‘you have excelled yourself.’
The door was closed and the gentleman came towards me with a hand outstretched. ‘Good evening, young man,’ he said. ‘I’m delighted to make your acquaintance.’
‘Good evening, sir,’ said I, my voice coming out as a whisper as I shook his hand.
He laughed as I did so and turned round to Mr Lewis again. ‘You said you had something special,’ he said in surprise. ‘But I never imagined . . . Where on earth did you find him?’
‘Oh, he’s been with me a number of years, has John Jacob,’ said Mr Lewis. ‘Only, he hasn’t been put to use yet. This is his first night.’
‘You swear it?’
‘You only have to look at him, sir.’
The gentleman turned and stared at me, not smiling now, and put a hand to my face. I recoiled slightly as his fingers touched my cheek, knowing not what he wanted of me, and he nodded slowly and smiled.
‘You tell the truth,’ he said, standing up and taking something from his pocket, which he handed to Mr Lewis. ‘There’s a little extra in there, you’ll find. For your generosity in inviting me to partake.’
‘Why, thank you, sir,’ said Mr Lewis. ‘Shall I leave you both to it, then?’
‘If you would,’ he said. ‘But Mr Lewis,’ he added, as he was about to leave the room. ‘You may leave the cane here.’
‘As you please, sir,’ he replied and a moment later we two were alone.