The Deadly Fire

by Cora Harrison

  Sure enough, Mutsy made an instant dash at a cart and neatly scooped up a rat from under its wheels. He had a very good technique for dealing with rats. His pounce was lightning quick and his teeth instantly found the back of the rat’s neck. After a minute there was nothing left except a long scaly tail.

  ‘Good dog you have there, lads,’ said the butcher, pausing in his loading of his cart. ‘If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a rat.’

  Mutsy wagged his tail as if he knew he was being praised and carefully checked the rest of the cart, thrusting his wet black nose under the axle and pawing at the ground beneath the wheels.

  ‘You lads are from Bow Street, aren’t you?’ asked the butcher. ‘I recognise the songbird there.’ He nodded towards Sammy before continuing. ‘Drop into my shop on Drury Lane later on and I’ll have a few sausages for you and a bone for the dog. There’s four of you, ain’t that right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Alfie. ‘You haven’t seen my other cousin, Tom? Looks like Jack here, but younger.’

  ‘Lots of boys around. Can’t say I’ve taken much notice.’ The butcher gave a nod and went back to his job of loading the meat.

  Mutsy had eaten three more rats before they reached the north gate into Smithfield market. There was a tremendous din of animal noises, as farmers from the countryside beyond London queued up to get into the market and sell their cows, sheep, pigs and even their baskets of hens and geese to the stallholders.

  It was still very early in the morning and many stalls were not yet open. Some stallholders were still walking around, their faces anxious. Alfie’s glance sharpened. These must be the ones who had not yet bought their produce from the farmers. And, of course, to do this, they had to have money. Without money, stallholders could not buy the animals, and, unless they bought and then sold at a profit, they would have nothing to live on. There was one woman who had made a fortune out of this need for ready money on the day of a fair.

  ‘We’ll follow them. This is where we’ll find Mary Robinson.’ Alfie spoke directly into Jack’s ear. It was too dangerous to say anything aloud. Mary Robinson had plenty of men working for her. One of them might be on the lookout at that very moment. Alfie dragged his cap low down over his face, though he knew that with Mutsy and Sammy beside him, he would be instantly recognised by Mary Robinson herself.

  ‘Here, boy,’ he said to Mutsy. Quickly, he tied a long piece of rope to Mutsy’s collar. Now was the moment.

  ‘Find Tom,’ he said into Mutsy’s large hairy ear. ‘Go on, boy, find him.’

  This got Mutsy excited. He loved finding games. He gave one quick glance at Sammy just to assure himself that he was coming with them, and then began to weave his way through the crowds.

  Had Mutsy understood at last?

  CHAPTER 9

  THE BODY IN THE CART

  Mary Robinson did not require any stall, or any sign. Anyone who needed money knew exactly where to find her. Already there were about thirty people, lining up, many of them clutching a piece of paper or a docket to show that they had paid her back promptly the week before. A man walked the line of the queue, carefully scrutinising the pieces of paper and putting those with a docket at the head of the line. Alfie glanced at him briefly. No point in asking him anything. These men were probably paid to keep anything to do with Mary Robinson a secret.

  ‘I hope Tom notices that Mary Robinson’s people can read and probably write, too.’

  Jack nodded at Alfie’s whispered joke, but his face was very pale, each freckle standing out like smallpox scars on the white skin. His eyes were everywhere, but the friendly butcher was right. This fair was full of boys: boys helping with the animals, boys carrying trestles, boys hammering stalls together, lifting boxes, holding horses; there were as many boys as cows at Smithfield market.

  Mutsy was making steady, leisurely progress through the fair. He did not go near the menacing figure of Mary Robinson, dressed in her usual man’s overcoat and hat, her stout, heavy boots planted firmly on the wet, stinking filth of the ground. Luckily, she did not look towards the boys – she was too busy shouting at a woman in a torn shawl with three small children clutching at her threadbare gown.

  ‘It’s no good. I’m not lending to you again,’ she was yelling. ‘Yes, I know you paid me back the money last week, but you were sixpence short on the interest. Just you understand this, all of you,’ she shouted hoarsely at the waiting crowd. ‘I don’t lend money for fun, or because I want to do you a kind deed. I lend money at interest and my rate is twelve per cent, per week. I give you eight half-crowns, you give me back nine. And if you think you can get money cheaper than that, then off with you to Threadneedle Street.’

  This raised a big laugh. Threadneedle Street was the place where the banks and the moneylenders of the City congregated. It was a place for the rich, not for the poor stallholders, who lived from day to day – hoping every morning that they would manage to make enough money to feed their families.

  ‘Get off with you, you’re wasting my time!’ yelled Mary Robinson, and the unfortunate woman slunk away. What would she do now, wondered Alfie. There was only one thing left to her and that was to go on the streets and to beg. London was full of beggars; he had known that since he was six years old. Most of them earned very little cash. It did little good to stand at a street corner and whine. Value for money, that’s what you had to give the people of London, the people who had the money to spare. He and his gang did all right. They performed tricks, sang songs, held horses, swept crossings so that ladies and gentlemen could cross roads without getting the muck and mire on their shoes and clothes, worked for shopkeepers, scavenged for coal and wood by the riverside, occasionally stole from stalls and bread vans or even from the pockets of the rich ladies and gents that came to Covent Garden Theatre or Drury Lane Theatre. They did all right and it was up to Alfie to look after the gang and keep each member safe, warm and well-fed.

  ‘Twelve per cent per week comes up to six hundred per cent in the year. Banks only charge rich people eight per cent a year.’ Alfie had learned that from Mr Elmore, but his cousin didn’t seem interested.

  ‘Mutsy looks like he is going somewhere,’ said Jack in a low voice.

  Alfie said nothing in reply to this. He did not want Jack to get his hopes up too much, but there was a steady, purposeful pull on the rope from Mutsy, now heading towards the gate.

  Outside the gate many large carts were parked. It had been a very cold night with freezing fog everywhere and even now the ground under the carts was still frozen and white with hoar frost.

  ‘Find Tom, Mutsy,’ repeated Jack, but since Mutsy had left the market things were not looking too hopeful. Alfie kept a tight grip of Sammy’s arm and said nothing. He was still not sure whether Mutsy had even understood the command.

  And it began to look again as though Mutsy had not understood. He was checking the carts – looking for rats, thought Alfie. Now the dog pulled impatiently against the rope and Alfie came forward and untied it. Let Mutsy catch another few rats and then they would go back and check the cellar again – perhaps Tom had returned – and if not . . .

  And if not . . . then what? Alfie’s mind ran out of ideas and he stayed there watching Mutsy. The big dog had checked the grass, and then the wheels of a large, handsome wagon, painted blue with the farmer’s name on the front board. The horses were probably still in some cosy, straw-filled stable at the Bishop’s Finger Inn, because the shafts rested on the ground.

  Mutsy ignored these and went around to the back of the wagon. Before Alfie could stop him, he leapt lightly up and thrust his nose under the tarpaulin that covered it.

  ‘Stop it, Mutsy, come back,’ yelled Alfie. They would be in bad trouble if a farmer came out and found the dog in his cart.

  For once, Mutsy took no notice, though usually he was very obedient to Alfie. His head had now disappeared under the tarpaulin and his shoulders and body soon followed. Only his tail was left outside and that was wagging with deli
ght.

  In despair, Alfie dropped Sammy’s arm and swarmed up the side of the wheel.

  The tarpaulin was well tied to the sides of the wagon, but he just managed to get his hand in.

  And what he felt was soft, stone-cold, and lying as still as any piece of meat.

  Frantically Alfie struggled with the string and managed to achieve a gap in the side of the tarpaulin. Hastily he threw it back.

  The light was not good. The freezing fog hung in almost solid yellow veils over the whole of London, but there was just enough light to see what was lying there. It was the body of a boy, badly dressed in a ragged pair of trousers, an old waistcoat and a coat too small and too tight with holes here and there.

  The boy did not move, but lay there with closed eyes. Above his mouth and nose there was a thin skim of ice.

  It was Tom.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE TARPAULIN BOYS

  For a moment, Alfie thought that Tom was dead. He heard Jack gasp from behind and knew that his cousin feared the same.

  Mutsy, however, had no doubts. Within a moment, he had licked the ice from Tom’s mouth and was now busily washing the rest of the boy’s face. His large, warm, hairy body was stretched out over Tom’s body. Jack rubbed the stone cold feet and Alfie chafed the icy hands and after a minute, Tom groaned and then started to shiver violently.

  ‘Let’s get you out of here.’ No doubt the farmer was tucking into a plate of ham and eggs at the Bishop’s Finger Inn but he would soon be out. Quickly, he and Jack dragged out Tom and then Alfie laced up the tarpaulin ties.

  ‘Let’s get you over to the chestnut seller’s fire.’ He hoisted Tom up on to Jack’s back, grabbed Sammy’s arm and then went quickly through the gate over towards the place where smoke and flames rose up from an iron brazier. Quite a few people were standing in a queue, waiting for the roasted nuts.

  ‘What about a song, Sammy?’ Alfie asked.

  ‘The Catsmeat Man?’ enquired Sammy with a grin. ‘Or would they prefer Don’t Eat Tripe on a Friday.’

  Alfie cast a quick, professional glance over the queue for the hot chestnuts. ‘Let’s have the The Catsmeat Man and start it straight away,’ he said, noting the well-dressed, prosperous look of those who could leave their stalls so early in the morning. None of them were sellers of cat’s meat, he was sure, so they would not take offence. He ushered Sammy to a place near to the fire. The chestnut seller turned to protest, but then stopped as Sammy’s high sweet voice rang out.

  Sammy was an extraordinarily gifted singer. He had been taught a wide range of songs by their grandfather, who had travelled from Ireland with his fiddle. ‘The boy will need some means of earning his living,’ the old man used to say, and with Sammy’s bright mind and retentive memory, he was always adding to those songs. But it was the quality of his voice that attracted the crowd. He could reach and hold the highest notes effortlessly and was clever enough to vary his songs and keep his audience. The Catsmeat Man was making them all chuckle now and keeping everyone in good humour while they were waiting for their roasted chestnuts. When that finished Sammy’s voice soared up effortlessly into the sad Irish song, The Meeting of the Waters. One or two of the women in the queue wiped a tear from their cheeks, and the pennies and groats pattered into Alfie’s cap, placed at Sammy’s feet.

  Alfie jerked his head at Jack, still patiently holding the frozen body of his brother. It was now quite safe for the other two boys to crouch down before the fire. The chestnut seller, with an appreciative nod towards Sammy, tipped a shovelful of roasted chestnuts towards Alfie and he passed them to Jack. Even if Tom wasn’t able to eat anything, the warmth of the chestnuts placed in his half-frozen hand would help.

  The queue grew and grew as the stallholders and the shoppers were attracted by the sound of Sammy’s voice, now singing ‘The harp that once . . .’

  ‘Give you a hand,’ said Alfie, and without waiting for an answer from the chestnut seller, he fetched some more charcoal and carefully placed some more pieces on top of the burning coals and earned himself another nod from the man. Jack, quick and unobtrusive, started to take some more chestnuts from the sack and as the chestnut seller took the money from the buyers, Jack carried on with toasting the next lot of chestnuts. After a few minutes, Tom sat up and held his frozen hands to the flames.

  ‘That your brother?’ The man was looking at Tom.

  ‘Cousin,’ said Alfie. ‘He’s been out all night. We’ve been looking for him everywhere.’

  ‘One of the tarpaulin boys,’ grunted the man, efficiently tipping a scoopful of chestnuts into a paper bag and accepting the twopence. ‘I hear that a couple of them died last night in this freezing fog.’

  ‘Tarpaulin boys?’ questioned Alfie, tipping some ale from a large bottle into a cone-shaped container and thrusting the bottom of it into the glowing charcoal. On a freezing morning like this, the man was selling as much hot ale as chestnuts.

  ‘Yeah, a gent came around and counted them one night. There were seventy boys, all told, sleeping under tarpaulins in carts and in corners of the market. He said it was a disgrace, but what can be done! Here, take a bit of that ale and pour it down his throat. Run away, did he?’

  ‘That’s right, had an argument with his dad,’ said Alfie, lying with his usual ease. No one knew who Tom’s dad was and of course his mother had died many years ago. He had a feeling, though, that the man would be more friendly if he thought they were from a respectable family, and he was right, because he was told to give some ale to Sammy and to take some for himself and Jack. Another shovelful of chestnuts was poured into his hands and he munched some while Sammy sang,

  ‘The sun came through the frosty mist,

  Most like a dead-white moon . . .’

  ‘Tell him to sing more of these cold weather songs,’ whispered the chestnut seller in Alfie’s ear. ‘That’s what brings the customers. If I do as much business as this in the next hour, I’ll stand you all a slap-up meal at the pie stall.’

  And so Sammy sang every winter song that he could think of, sprinkling the light-hearted ones with some Christmas carols and ending up singing plaintively in his beautiful voice,

  ‘Good master and good mistress,

  While you’re sitting by the fire,

  Pray think of us poor children

  Who are wandering in the mire.’

  Several pitying glances were sent at the four ragged boys and their dog, and a couple of bright silver sixpences sparkled against the grimy torn lining of Alfie’s cap.

  ‘Here you are, lads.’ The chestnut seller handed over another sixpence. ‘Off you go now and have a good meal. I’ll be here on the same day next week if your brother wants to come and sing a few more songs like that,’ he said to Alfie.

  ‘Thinks I’m deaf as well as blind,’ said Sammy with a grin once they were out of earshot of the chestnut stall. ‘Or else stupid,’ he added. There was no bitterness in his voice, but Alfie felt bad for a moment. If only Sammy was not blind, or if they had not been born poor and left as orphans to fend for themselves . . .

  ‘With a voice like that and the brains and musical talent to match it, we’ll have you singing in Covent Garden one day,’ his grandfather used to say to Sammy. Still, thought Alfie, he sings outside Covent Garden and who knows what might happen. At least they had a roof over their heads and food to put in their mouths most of the time.

  ‘You all right, Tom?’ he said aloud. His young cousin was managing to stumble along now, but it was obvious that his feet were still half-frozen. It worried Alfie that they were not red, but still an odd, blotchy shade of white through the dirt and grime. There was a curiously blank look on Tom’s face and he said nothing in reply to Alfie’s question.

  ‘You all right, Tom?’ repeated Jack. He put his arm around his brother’s shoulder, giving him a little shake and looking into the vacant eyes.

  ‘Frost got into his brain.’ Alfie was sure that he had heard of this sometime.

  ‘What wi
ll we do with him?’ Jack looked aghast.

  ‘Get some food into him,’ said Alfie. Most of the problems of life could be cured by good hot food, was his experience.

  ‘Four mugs of hot ale and five large pieces of pie,’ he said in a lordly fashion to the pieman, handing over his precious sixpences. A few ragged boys hanging around looked at him enviously, but Alfie took no notice. His job was to look after his own gang; he couldn’t feed the starving hordes of London. He held the steaming ale under Tom’s nose until his young cousin’s mouth opened. Then he poured some in. Tom gave a few gulps and then took the mug in his own hand. A little bit of life and understanding seemed to have come back into his eyes. He took another gulp and then looked at Jack.

  ‘Was the other boy dead?’ he asked.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE BOY FROM THE BRICKWORKS

  ‘What boy?’ Jack stared at his brother in a bewildered way.

  ‘The boy from the brickworks. He was running away. I met him outside the school. After . . . after . . .’

  ‘After you had given Mary Robinson them leaflets,’ said Alfie grimly. The words ‘Hope she gave you something for them’ were on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them. Tom was looking better, Jack was looking hugely relieved and what was done, was done. Alfie was never one to dwell on the past. ‘Go on about this boy from the brickworks,’ he said.

  ‘He was running away,’ repeated Tom. ‘He had been in the workhouse, himself and his mother, and they apprenticed him to the owner of the brickworks on his eighth birthday. He said it was like being a slave. He never got a penny for himself and all the apprentices were just crowded into a shed and had to sleep on some straw and got hardly nothing to eat. He said that he had to get out of London because if the police caught him he would be put in prison.’ Tom took a bite of his pie and added, ‘It’s against the law for an apprentice to run away before his time is up.’