The Killing Man

by Andrew Wareham

  Abe pointed to the copper lid and heavy stone weights to the side to keep it firmly down. There was a copper pipe fixed to the lid.

  “See the end of the pipe, where it bends down? That fits into the worm, nice and tight. Got to get that just right, everything level so that it can’t run back. The worm, look, is a long pipe all bent round in circles, spirals like, what goes down to the spigot at the bottom of that tank.”

  The copper pipe sat in an iron tank, twice the size of the still. There was a cast-iron pipe leading in from outside and an earthenware drain underneath.

  “We open up the cock on the pipe which is in the stream outside – I’ll show thee that in a minute – and the water runs from the stream and fills the tank and flows out the bottom, and you got to keep the little door at the bottom just right so that it flows out as fast as it comes in. Got it?”

  Abe led Sam outside, showed him the stream, dammed like a little millpond so that there was a head of cold water to flow inside.

  “Right, young Sam, that’s all there be to it. Thing is, that the mash works and turns out alcohol, and the heat makes it boil up into steam. Alcohol makes steam quicker than water, at a lower heat. So, instead of just making up beer, what is alcohol mixed with water, the alcohol comes off the top and goes up into the pipe, and then gets cooled down in the worm and comes out the bottom as spirits. Then, if we wants gin, we puts in the juniper flavour. If we wants something else, we puts in different stuff. But gin’s the simplest to start with. If you want to be real cheap, you use spuds or turnips for the mash, it don’t have to be barley, but it gives a harsher, sharper taste to the stuff.”

  “Sounds simple, Uncle Abe, but if it was every bugger would be doin’ it. So, what’s the problem?”

  “Good lad! If you gets too hot, like, the water mixes in and weakens it. If you ain’t hot enough, the alcohol don’t come off, and you waste a load of it. If you ain’t clean, maybe you gets poisons in the mash, and then you get whitestick, what kills off the customers, what is not generally liked by the Justices. You must be careful not to get wood alcohol – that methylated spirits stuff that the carpenters and painters use – acos of, young Sam, that sends men blind, or buggers their balance so that they can’t never walk straight again, or even kills them. If you get it right, then you end up with a good evening on the bottle; get it wrong and you gets a constable nabbing you by the neck, and a rope soon after. It ain’t too hard to knock out a few pints of the good stuff; it ain’t so easy if you try to run a big still, or a dozen of small pot stills, and produce by the barrel every day. People do it, and make a mint from it, but you got to know what you’re doing, Sam. You got to watch your smith who makes the stills for you – watch him for using lead solder, which ain’t a good idea.”

  It was an art, Sam discovered; distilling relied on a feel for what was happening.

  The warm water had to be at the right temperature, which could be assessed by the way it bubbled in the pot – too vigorous was too hot; too few bubbles, too cold; small bubbles meant one thing, big another. Abe knew by the look of the water; Sam had to work out what he could see and feel by resting his hand an inch or so above the surface of the water. Determining when the mash was working depended on colour and smell as much as any other factor. Cooling the worm was essential, but not too cold, and that depended on the flow of water – which had to be controlled by eye and feel. If the day was very cold, then the colours seemed different, and the bubbles certainly changed – but the product had to be right.

  Cheap gin was the easiest to produce, because the customers had no expectations of it, other than that it should get them drunk, quickly and for the tuppence which was all they had. A better spirit sold for two and three times as much, but demanded careful watching – it was, literally a headache, bent over the fumes.

  “You know what they say in the cheap pubs, Sam. ‘Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence’. So that means the pub can sell at about fourpence for a pint, for the cheapest gin. Two shillings and eightpence a gallon jar. They don’t make much profit in the cheap places, but they still ain’t going to pay us more than one and six for a gallon. This pot still of ours will make about eight gallons in a day – so that’s twelve bob, which ain’t much. If you can’t make the better part of seven and six a day, it ain’t hardly worth the effort and the risk – because you got to deliver your stuff, too. So, you’ve got four and six to cover all your costs.”

  “A bit less than a bob a gallon, Uncle Abe. That means I got to make a good few gallons a day, and sell in a big town. Give it a few months, while I learn the trade, then it’s set up in town somewhere. In a smelly bit, where it won’t be noticed. That way, there won’t be wagons on the road every day, with folk wanting to know what’s in ‘em.”

  Abe was impressed – Sam was determined to make a fortune, or be hanged, it would seem.

  “Tanneries, Sam. They stink. Can’t smell nothing else near a tannery. Can’t get much by way of clean water, mark you, not near a tannery.”

  “Cheesecloth, Uncle Abe. Run the water through that and the lumps will come out.”

  Abe agreed, and the gin would cover the taste of anything else that might be floating. Besides, people who drank cheap gin generally couldn’t taste anything at all, for their tongues and throats being pretty near burned out.

  “Getting hold of charcoal can be a problem, Sam.”

  “Use coals, Uncle Abe. Ain’t so easy to keep the fire burning right, but it ain’t so important for gin. Didn’t they say some old bugger over in Shropshire been turning pit-coal into something like charcoal?”

  “So they say – but they don’t say how, Sam. Trade secret, so I reckon.”

  “Easy dealt with, Uncle Abe. Go across to the boozers there, the cheap ones, and buy a drink for blokes what works for ‘im. Two free gins and they’ll explain just ‘ow ‘e does it.”

  “Go over the night before payday and you’ll only need buy one, Sam. Blokes what are thirsty and penniless are cheaply bought.”

  Sam nodded, that was certainly true – he had seen that in the barracks.

  “What about whisky and brandy, Uncle Abe? How do we make them?”

  “Brandy, we don’t. That has got to be made from a grape mash, and I ain’t sure how to go about it, and we damned sure can’t get hold of grapes cheap. Might be we could use wine, in place of a mash, and boil that up, but I ain’t at all sure of just how. Whisky needs the flavour in the water – got to come off peat, so they say. The colour ain’t no problem – you get that from keeping it in wooden barrels a few months and letting the stuff in the wood soak in, that’s if you do it the proper way. Other way is to get hold of the stuff from the tannery what they use for their leather – that’s got brown in it and you just chuck it in. It gives a flavour, too.”

  “Maybe not, Uncle Abe. Rum, now, the army gave us that, when it could lay ‘ands on a few barrels.”

  “Sugar Islands for that, Sam. They makes it from that molasses stuff. We can make a white rum – really good stuff, but it costs money for needing a sugar mash. There’s blokes in Bristol and Liverpool what knocks out white rum, for the gentry-folk, paying their tax all above board. But it costs, boy, a pint bottle comes in at two bob – a man’s wages for a day!”

  Sam nodded, impressed by the sheer cost of the stuff.

  “So, if one day, it all gets straight and lawful, and that ain’t much of an idea – can’t see paying bloody taxes to no bugger, not so that the money can be wasted on a load of bloody soldiers and their like – then maybe we could go for white rum if ever we got legitimate, but it’s gin for the while. No need to pay tax on that.”

  “Not just to make bloody politicians rich, Sam. No sense paying taxes so they fat sods can grow bigger bellies!”

  Sam agreed – that was simple good sense. Better to pay a tenth part as a direct bribe than be caught by the taxman.

  Then it was weeks of hard work, making a mash, boiling it, bottling the product, tasting it, and only too of
ten throwing it away.

  The rate of success grew higher and higher and early spring saw Sam with a cartload of full bottles, corked up and ready to sell.

  “Right now, Sam. Over to Stoke, to see a few acquaintances of mine, soon to be thine as well.”

  Two hours in the pony and trap saw them into the little old town that was quickly becoming a big, new nightmare of smoke and dirt.

  “Good clay, and coal close to hand, Sam. Always been kilns here, knocking out a bit of pottery, using the charcoal. Now, don’t know why, but we’re talking tens of bloody tons a week from places that was used just to knock out fifty plates and think they was doing well. They ain’t that good, mark you, but they’re cheap and usable, and that’s what folks want. Going down south and east on the river boats mostly, and there’s talk of digging canals for them to go further. Got to be five thousand men what just earns a daily wage here, Sam. And most of them throws half of it down their throat – what is just what we want.”

  Half a mile through the outskirts of the town brought them to a tumble-down beerhouse, too poor to have a signboard out front. It was built of local brick under blackened thatch that should have been fifty years old but looked no more than ten on close inspection.

  “Smoke in the air, Sam. Turns thatch inside a year, and makes limewash black in six months. Dirty place, this town, Sam.”

  As long as it was a thirsty place, Sam was not too concerned.

  “The landlord’s a Paddy – call him Mick, Sam. Used to be a soldier, so he says. Give him a nod when you comes in with me, but don’t say nowt else.”

  The pub was empty early in the morning, apart from a single figure asleep – or dead perhaps – under a table. There was a large, fat man sat behind the bar, motionless, looking at dirty pots and glasses as if he was considering washing them, later.

  “’Morning, Mick.”

  “The top of the morning to ye, Abe.”

  “My sister’s boy, Sam, what is learning the trade, having come back from the Yeomanry and the fighting in Scotland.”

  Sam nodded, as instructed.

  “Was you with the Butcher, Sam?”

  “I was, Mick.”

  “Was it like they said? Bloody and brutal?”

  Sam decided to give a full answer, despite Abe’s warning to keep his mouth shut. Perhaps he had only meant to be silent when it came to talking gin.

  “More nor that, Mick. They killed any man what looked like ‘e might be a rebel, up in those mountains. From what I was told, they made free of their womenfolk as well, but we came south after the battle, sent to chase rebels making their way to the west, so the truth of that, I am not knowing.”

  Mick nodded.

  “Better not to know, Sam.” He turned to Abe, raised an eyebrow.

  “Got a few bottles, Mick. Been showing young Sam the working of a still. If we can find the takers, might be making a lot more.”

  “Good?”

  “Cheap. But it won’t kill your customers.”

  “Bring a bottle in, Abe.”

  They opened the bottle, took a sniff, poured a cautious finger into a clean glass, washed for the purpose, sipped, each of the three drinking.

  “Raw, Abe. I’ve tasted worse, and it’s bloody hard to be getting hold of any at all these days. More than one night I have only had beer in the house, and the boys not liking that at all. How much?”

  “Two shillings a gallon, Mick. Twenty-four pennies – for the cost of everything be high this season.”

  “Jasus, Abe, you are after cutting me throat! A penny for a quarter of a pint is the most I can be selling for, and I have to be running the house on the back of that and putting a tanner in the hands of the Watch whenever they turn up. Add to that, I am paying two bob a week protection, and if I start selling more gin, that will go up.”

  Sam did not understand – he had never heard of ‘protection’. He remained silent, would ask Uncle Abe afterwards.

  They compromised on twenty-one pence, which was thruppence a gallon more than they had hoped for. Mick took the twenty gallons they had in the trap, paying cash, silver shillings, without a quibble.

  “One guinea, right and tight, Sam, which is a crown more than we had looked for! And he will take as much from us any time we turn up.”

  “He makes eleven shillings on that, Uncle Abe, on top of his ordinary earnings. He must be pleased we turned up this morning.”

  “He’ll be happy enough, Sam.”

  “What did he mean by ‘protection’, Uncle Abe?”

  “The local gang, Sam. If he don’t pay them each week, they’ll burn him out. Every pub in their part of town pays them. So do the little shops, and the local tradesmen. If you turn up every week, they’ll spot you and make you pay up as well.”

  Sam nodded quietly; he thought that his dragoon pistols might have something to say about that. He did not think he was in the way of paying ‘protection’ for going about his own business, quietly.

  “I’m in need of a shirt or two, Uncle Abe. Not a bad idea to get hold of a sticker of some sort as well. Are there shops in this town?”

  Abe wondered just what he intended to do with a sticker; easier not to know, he suspected. He took Sam through the back streets until they reached a pawn shop, tucked away, hardly visible, a single window next to a door, a cottage converted to a store, only the three balls outside announcing its business.

  “Never seen this place and don’t know nothing about it, Sam.”

  Sam nodded. He followed Abe inside, was amused to note that his respectable uncle was greeted by name. One day, in a year or two when he was established, he might just talk to Uncle Abe and discover how he made the money that had turned his White Horse from a hedge-pub into an inn.

  “My nephew, Sam Heythorne; Mr Rufus.”

  The shopkeeper was aged now, but there was still a trace of red in his hair.

  “Got the look of a soldier about you, boy. Buying or selling?”

  “Buying, maybe. Going to be carrying a good few bottles of gin about, one time or another. Needs something sort of sharp to go with the dragoon pistols what I already got.”

  “Through the back, young man.”

  The shopkeeper stirred from behind his counter, threw the bolts on the front door and led them into his back room, the old kitchen, larger than most at twelve feet square. He lit a lantern, hung it on a hook dangling from the ceiling.

  Sam’s eyebrows raised – he could have armed two companies from this room. There were muskets on one wall, fowling pieces opposite and an assortment of hand guns to the third. The counter and half a dozen racks on the fourth side, by the door, contained blades of all sorts and sizes.

  “If so be you are sat on the board of a wagon, then I got just the thing for you, young fellow.”

  Rufus produced a cut short, heavy gauge double-barrel shotgun, with a curved stock and a hand grip, to be fired from the waist, not put to a shoulder. There was a long spike bayonet on a spring, folded back over the barrel. He pressed on a latch and the spike flicked forward into locked position, making effectively a short spear.

  “Takes a two-ounce load of buckshot to each barrel. Blow any knight of the road off his ‘oss, mister. Fifteen bob to you, for being Abe’s kin. Powder and ball as well for another two bob - a dozen loads.”

  Sam was tempted. He could afford fifteen shillings as well as what he would have to pay for a more conventional blade.

  “Well… it ain’t what I were lookin’ for, Mr Rufus, seein’ as ‘ow I got a pair of good pistols… but, it’s a hell of a piece, ain’t it? Anybody gets ‘it by that ain’t goin’ to argue about it. Is there a sort of bag for it?”

  Rufus produced a leather sack with a wide mouth and flap to cover over.

  “Throw that in for free, Mr Heythorne.”

  “Done, Mr Rufus.”

  Sam reached up to his neck and produced his little purse on its drawstring, withdrew a guinea piece, intentionally showing he had others, that he was not just talking
. He laid it on the counter for the while, the gold catching their eyes.

  “I carried a straight dragoon sword last year, Mr Rufus. You knows, the one with the thirty-two inch blade, chisel point what you got to work yourself into a proper double-edge?”

  “Heavy and awkward, so they say, Mr Heythorne. You’re big enough on the shoulders to swing one of they. I ain’t got an issue blade, but I do ‘ave one of they Frog swords, what is copies of the Prussian blades, the Solingens. Some bugger brought it back from the wars.”

  Rufus produced a straight sword, very similar to the official pattern used by the army.

  “From what I been told, Mister Heythorne, the English swords was brought across from Hanover by the new kings, them being German, so all three armies is much the same. You want to get a feel of it?”

  The point had been worked on both edges; otherwise, it felt just like the Yeomanry sword.

  Sam knew that the sword cost thirty-five shillings when paid for in the army. It was a lot, but he knew just how to use it effectively. He rang the blade on the wooden counter, was satisfied with the clear sound – there were no cracks in the metal.

  “What do you want for it, Mr Rufus? It’s a good blade, might be more than I can afford.”

  Rufus delayed a few seconds, mind busy. If Sam was carrying gin in quantities, then he was going to make money. Sooner or later, he would be hiring on help, and guards, and would be coming back for blades for them. In any case, he would be a big man locally, and would be involved with the gangs, one way or the other. Add to that he was related to Abe, an old associate. He was one to cultivate, not to offend.

  “It’s worth more, but to tell thee the truth – and that is a rare habit for a man in my trade, young sir – I paid five bob for it. It’s yours for seven, as I must take a profit on it.”

  “Done, Mr Rufus, with my thanks. I shall know where to come back if I ever have need for more.”

  They left satisfied and moved the few yards towards the town centre and respectability.