John McPake and the Sea Beggars

by Stuart Campbell

  ‘I was talking,’ he said, resuming the earlier monologue, ‘about my boy.’

  ‘I can’t take any more of this,’ said the Bastard. John was inclined to agree as he squeezed water from his sleeves. He had to admit that the fire was impressive. Mick had unsuspected talents – at the back of his mind John vaguely remembered a history of arson. Kevin had crept into the office one day when Beverley’s back was turned and read all of the residents’ files. Ever since he had used his stolen knowledge and illicit insights to great effect.

  ‘Behave!’ interjected the Academic. ‘Oral history at its best. Just listen for a change’

  ‘Except not a word of it’s true, a figment of a dysfunctional mind. It’s all made up. Claptrap. Much more of this and I’m going to live in someone else’s head.’ John perked up at the thought.

  ‘We didn’t ken he’d joined the army. We thought he’d gone to live with his uncle in Dundee. We used to look at yon Basset place on telly as the coffins came home. Hairy bikers and wee wifies united in grief and all that. No for a moment did we think our Kevin was in Afghanistan.’

  ‘This is so much shite!’

  Quiet!

  ‘Anyways, we got the knock on the door. The whole slow motion bit, his mother in a silent scream, me wanting to lamp the man standing there in his shiny uniform, commiserations, sympathy, all that patter. It was as if I could see this mist creeping up the close, a cold creeping mist, just furling up the drive. Except it wasn’t just the close, it was my heart. It was gripped in this dark mist, its fingers dug deep. And you ken what, Johnnie boy, it’s still there.’ He beat his chest for effect and stared at the fire.

  ‘I couldn’t go in his room. Football posters, next to a picture of a woman with big breasts. It’s not been touched since. A shrine. That’s why I understand about your brother. It’s the mist ken.’

  John nodded and nodded again, and again. His chin moving ever faster towards his chest in a hypnotic rhythm. Mick looked at him strangely, ‘Are you ok?’

  ‘Of course he’s not ok, are you John? The merest mention of your pathetic brother and you’re off, isn’t that right?’

  John dug his thumbnail into the side of his forefinger until it started to bleed. At least the pain was starting to drown out the Bastard.

  ‘Ouch! It’s not that easy. I’ll be back. I’ll be back.’

  ‘That’s when the head got bad,’ said Mick. ‘It had not been the best before, ken, but after his death things deteriorated. First it was his voice. My son, ken. I heard gun fire too. IEDs, they improvised roadside things. Then it was loads of voices speaking Arab, mocking like. I seen the doctor, shock and bereavement he said. It’ll pass, but it didn’t. And then they Arab bastards started to come after me. I heard them at night. Laughing in the corner of the room as they ate their rations. His mother couldn’t stand it any more so she left me. They soldiers live in the hostel now ken. But it’s not just the Arabs, there’s a dark conspiracy going on and nobody but me kens it. Have you heard their Voices, John?’

  ‘Ha! A good question,’ said the Bastard, at the very moment when John stopped pressing his thumbnail into his finger. ‘You see, you’ve lots in common with Mick. You both hear foreign voices, the difference is Mick only lives with a few Afghanistan veterans, pensioned off no doubt. Whereas you live in an entire world, a full-scale imaginary menagerie of weird foreigners. Have you heard the voices? I love it! Is the Pope a Catholic?’

  ‘I think you’ll find he’s an Argentinian, but the one before him was German and the one before him … ’

  ‘Academic, I’m losing patience with you!’

  The wind had caught the flames which shot out in great tongues towards the sea. Mick dragged two creosote soaked planks from the undergrowth and added them to the pyre. Unbeknown to John several errant sparks leaped onto his coat and smouldered until they took a hold. Mick noticed the small fist of flame on his companion’s chest, ‘Christ!’ he said beating out the flames with his hands. ‘’You look like the Sacred Heart in my missus’ church!’

  ‘Well look at that, a visiting card from hell,’ said the Bastard, ‘it’s waiting for you, not long now!’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  When he woke, Johannes was staring at a dead mouse inches from his face. He lifted his hand and stroked the animal with his forefinger before engaging once more with his surroundings. He was on a small knoll surrounded by water that seemed to stretch forever.

  When he got to his feet he saw that this particular infinity was more proscribed than had been initially apparent. After watching the water draining from his breeches and spouting from his coat, he surveyed the changed landscape. The mass of water bore a resemblance to the Schelde in full spate. Several islands had sprung up. At one point a track rose from the water and climbed onto an isolated finger of land where a windmill stood untouched by the torrent, its blades turning furiously, inhabited by a mad miller determined to harvest the wind and grind corn for the devil.

  He saw a black drowned horse sweep by, its head upturned and its eyes open. It was followed by several small trees floating in a straight line as if striving to recreate the symmetry they had known in dryer times. Water was eddying either side of a farm building, the red tiled roof of which poked above the surface. A blue bonnet with a white band floated past, as if its anxious owner was running along the bottom of the riverbed.

  As Johannes scoured the horizon for his friends he heard a groaning to his left. Balthasar was lying face down into the edge of the water. He ran towards him and hoisted him by the armpits onto dryer land. ‘By Nicholas’ blood, you’re still alive.’

  ‘Only just, only just,’ said Balthasar, coughing while clutching at the arm proffered to haul him up the embankment.

  ‘Where’s Cornelius?’

  ‘I don’t know, I can’t see him.’

  The two men stood back to back and shouted Cornelius’ name but their voices were swallowed by the wind and driving rain. The last time Johannes heard the pastor preach in the depth of the forest he had told the assembled to close their eyes and listen to the wind as it crept among the trees and scuttled the leaves. ‘Hear the groans of the damned,’ he said, ‘listen to their plaintive lamentations as they are dragged towards the land of the dead; hearken as they howl at their own misfortune; hearken to the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes.’ Michel had hidden his head in his father’s coat. Even Antonia had looked uneasy.

  ‘He’ll be safe somewhere,’ said Johannes who was far from convinced yet unable or unwilling to entertain the thought that Cornelius might have drowned.

  They shaded their eyes from the squall and continued to shout but heard nothing apart from the elements. They stared bleakly at each other. ‘We can’t stay here, we must search,’ said Johannes, staring through unfocussed eyes at the passing flotsam: planks, staves, the halters from a cart, a fence, something that could have been a gibbet, fish boxes, a cat, a fisherman’s coracle.

  The coracle, itself half submerged, was heading towards their spit of land. Balthasar saw it at the same moment and waded into the water to intercept it as it flowed past. Together they dragged the coracle onto the bank and turned it over. Balthasar pointed out a hole just beneath the middle point. He turned back towards the water, knelt down and dragged out a handful of vegetation that he twisted and forced into the small aperture. ‘It will do for a while,’ he said, already on the lookout for a branch that could be stripped and used as an oar.

  Johannes balanced himself in the middle of the unstable craft while Balthasar stood behind and dipped the improvised oar into the fast flowing waters. The tiny one-man boat, woven from rushes and covered in animal skin, almost sank under the combined weight of the two men.

  They knew they were moving away from the sea but, otherwise, had no idea where they were headed. Johannes, feeling sick, shivered. He surrendered to his worst thoughts. Needles in haystacks, a goose chase as wild as they get, cold and wet and miles from home, at the mercy of a raging torrent and a fl
imsy vessel. All this and a missing friend, probably drowned and a missing son, probably …

  The coracle lurched and drank in the water as Balthasar shouted something and pointed ahead. Johannes was startled to see a pair of legs hanging from a tree in the middle of the flood. Bizarrely he was reminded of the crudely drawn cartoons on the broadsheets passed on by the itinerant pedlars who risked their lives by lampooning the Spanish.

  The wriggling legs with their thin calves clearly belonged to Cornelius.

  Both men, elated beyond words, roared with laughter. ‘Having fun, Cornelius?’

  ‘Look! A chicken stuck up a chimney.’

  ‘Useless clods of dung!’

  ‘You should take up dancing.’

  ‘Treacherous spawn of Lucifer.’

  ‘Shapely calves to make a maiden swoon.’

  ‘Pair of shits!’

  Balthasar steered the craft under the overhanging branches of the tree while Johannes grabbed hold of Cornelius’ legs. He fell into the water, momentarily disappeared and then resurfaced spluttering, clinging to the outside of the frail boat as it was swept onwards by the tide.

  Using branches as oars, Balthasar and Cornelius managed to steer themselves out of the main flood which lost momentum as the invading sea reached a rapprochement with the newly conquered lands. The brown water had become sluggish under the weight of soil and clay it had gouged from the fields. Storm clouds retreated towards the far horizon.

  Caught in a small eddy, the coracle moved of its own accord towards a field that marked the start of higher land. They waded ashore and looked back at the swathe of new sea interrupted by the occasional roof and stubborn tree. Whole hamlets, small holdings tended for years by the same families, meticulously cultivated patterns of land, intricate patterns of ditches and irrigation channels all wiped away: all history, all labour, all colour eradicated.

  For a moment the three men lay on the wet earth laughing and punching each other.

  ‘The dogs,’ said Balthasar. The others looked out over the water as if they could conceivably catch sight of the beasts swimming towards them. No one spoke.

  ‘I saw Michel,’ said Johannes quietly, ‘in the water, at least in my mind’s eye. Just before I passed out. He was holding out his hand to me, urging me on.’

  ‘It was a sign,’ said Cornelius, ‘definitely a sign. We must continue.’

  Balthasar drew their attention to a thin spiral of smoke rising from the copse of trees at the top of the field above which a solitary bird circled. It signalled the prospect of food and warmth.

  Seeing a knot of men sprawled on the ground made Johannes think of the post-harvest feasts he had known at home. He half expected to see the village women dispensing beer and cheese from wicker baskets to their tired spouses.

  At their approach the nearest of the men sprang to his feet and gripped the stave lying next to him. The others followed. Within seconds the new arrivals had been surrounded by at least twenty men exuding a stench of alcohol and damp clothes.

  Cornelius grabbed the end of the stave that had been poked into his stomach then released his grip once he saw how heavily the odds were stacked against him. Johannes noticed three women with shaven heads, nuns, apparently holding hands round a tree. He looked again and saw that they were tied together.

  ‘What is it with effing nuns?’ Mick asked John who was staring out to sea. At first John had not the slightest clue what Mick was on about then briefly considered the bizarre possibility that his companion had been eavesdropping on his own delusion. He shook his head.

  ‘The worst are they nuns that train wee girls in the Legion of Mary, I ken because my mother was a member so she said, only eight year old ken. They would dress in black and visit dying folk. Kneel down by the bed, hands thegether, praying for the no-quite-dead soul shiting himself in bed. I’m telling you son, if I wake one morning and see all they wee praying bitches lined up by my bed, I’m out of there.’

  THIRTY-SIX

  ‘Speak!’ shouted one of the men, ‘and if your tongues are tainted with Spanish sweetmeats they will be ripped from your throats and burnt in front of you!’

  ‘We are Dutchmen looking for my son who was taken by Philip’s men. We are simple weavers and wish you no harm.’

  The mood of the group changed. Disappointment was palpable as the staves were lowered and their leader made a grandiose gesture inviting them to join the party.

  ‘And we,’ he said, ‘are a dishonourable party of sea beggars, geuzen if you will. A parcel of rogues. Vagabonds, looters and pillagers by appointment to His Royal Majesty William the Silent. We came ashore for sport but apparently the sea was missing us and set off in pursuit. One minute we were minding our business quietly ransacking St Michael’s Abbey, the next running for our lives. We lost three men but there are three of you. You look fit, ideal replacements really. Though you, sir, look a bit old for the chase,’ he said, staring at Balthasar.

  Balthasar bridled.

  ‘Very well,’ said the leader. ‘Roll up your sleeve.’

  ‘What?’ asked an incredulous Balthasar.

  ‘Your best arm, come now. If you beat me, all three of you will join us, indeed if you beat me you can choose which nun you wish to have sport with.’ He glanced back towards the terrified women playing ring-a-roses round the tree. ‘My personal recommendation would be the tall one; she knows a trick or two. If you lose, well … ’ He had already rolled up his own sleeve and was resting his elbow on a tree stump that was being used as a table. He was flexing his fingers. Shaking his head, Balthasar did as he had been told and knelt down opposite his opponent. After a moment they locked their hands together.

  ‘This is fascinating!’

  Academic, this is not the time to interrupt.

  ‘Arm wrestling can be traced all the way back to ancient Egypt where a painting depicting a type of arm wrestling was found in an Egyptian tomb dating to about 2000 BC. There’s more to it than meets the eye. Although technique and overall arm strength are the two biggest factors, there are others: the length of the wrestler’s arm, muscle and arm density, hand grip size, wrist endurance and flexibility, reaction time.’

  ‘It’s all crap!’

  Will you both just let me get on and tell the story?

  ‘Well, it is, isn’t it? They’ve survived the Inquisition, then a flood and now their very lives depend on the outcome of an arm wrestling encounter between a geriatric weaver and a sea-begging megalomaniac. It actually sea-beggars belief … It’s bad enough having to listen to a lunatic rabbiting on about the war on Portobello beach … ’

  Let me tell the story. I want to find out what happens if you don’t.

  Balthasar stared into his opponent’s eyes and watched as the sweat broke out on his brow. He detected the merest hint of a tremor in the younger man’s arm. He had him for sure. He forced his hand no more than one inch closer to the surface of the rough hewed tree stump but then had to concede the ground won. Back on the vertical they fought until Balthasar felt as if the sinews in his bicep would burst. What was the expression in the man’s eyes? Uncertainty, bravado, vulnerability, tiredness? He couldn’t tell but his opponent broke the stare first.

  Balthasar used the instant to force a tiny advantage once more. His opponent’s face was clenched and tight, his eyes now closed but whatever mental image he was conjuring imbued him with sufficient additional strength to force Balthasar’s hand almost to the horizontal.

  ‘Come on, old man, come on!’ shouted Cornelius whose own face was now within inches of the sea beggar’s. Noticing that the other crew-members were about to drag him away, Johannes restrained his friend. Cornelius let himself be moved back to the edge of the jeering crowd, from where he stared at Balthasar’s opponent with undisguised hatred.

  Sensing that he had nothing to lose, Balthasar summoned power from somewhere and slowly, inexorably, his muscles in spasm, he re-established the triangle of arms, the white knuckled fists forming the apex. Stalemate! Bot
h men were totally and equally unyielding. Balthasar became aware of the other men shouting encouragement. Both sides were bellowing as if at a cockfight in a darkened inn yard. He could pick out Cornelius’ voice above the others and hoped he might somehow suck in the power that was being projected across the space between them. Aware as never before of his own muscle and bone, and feeling suddenly invincible, he forced his enemy’s hand down onto the table. For a moment he didn’t release his grip as if the effort to unclench his fingers was simply beyond him.

  His opponent roared with laughter as if he had intended to lose. ‘Too bad, no more throat-cutting today. We sail at dusk.’

  ‘We are weavers, not seamen. We will take our leave.’

  ‘You don’t understand do you?’ said the Leader, rubbing his bicep. ‘If you attempt to leave you are spies for Spain, simple as that. We will kill you. The alternative is to accept a commission with the geuzen and serve your country.’ He stood close to Balthasar, his eyes dull, unfocussed, his leather skullcap clinging to his head. He was bouncing slightly on his heels as if ready to attack at a moment’s notice.

  ‘We are following the Spanish to Zuid-Holland to find my son. The rumours say there will be sieges and battles there that will shape our nation,’ said Johannes.

  The Leader clapped his hands together. ‘Our route exactly!’ His men laughed. ‘For the sake of argument I will assume you to be people of good name and fame.’

  ‘Remarkably accurate!’ proclaimed the Academic unable to contain himself. ‘When the sea beggars or watergeuzen as the Dutch called them were eventually persuaded to forsake their life of pillage and plunder by William of Orange and join the cause, he issued letters of marquee which specified among other stipulations that no persons were to be received on board, either as soldiers or sailors, save folk of good name and fame.’

  ‘Academic, take a hike. Sometimes you are as sad as the lost deluded soul whose head you live in. Whoever said a little learning is a dangerous thing had a point.’