John McPake and the Sea Beggars

by Stuart Campbell

  ‘Oy, yourself!’ replied Mick, annoyed at being distracted from a debate with Mussolini’s henchman. The woman thought briefly of giving Mick a piece of her mind but, deciding he might be dangerous, ran to catch up with her companion.

  John glanced across the busy road to where a small knot of women were practising Tai Chi. Before she left him, Sarah went through a martial arts phase that seemingly involved aping ‘a snake creeping down’ among other exotic practices. Who this snake was and what it was creeping down he never found out.

  ‘Simple,’ said the Bastard, eager to corrupt a comparatively harmless memory. ‘You were both the snake and the creep.’

  Mick’s muttering increased in volume the closer they got to Holyrood Palace. The policeman on duty in the car park seemed to take exception to being called a useless tree-hugging tosser by the dishevelled heckler on the path opposite, equally resenting the accusation that he was a toadying royalist parasite. John sensibly steered his companion onto the start of Pilgrim’s Way that signalled the ascent to the crags. The sheer effort of walking up hill stopped Mick’s increasingly belligerent rant. The policeman shook his head and went back to directing the queue waiting to park.

  Despite the comparatively early hour people kept appearing through the mist on their way down the path. What was the woman in business suit and high heels doing on Arthur’s Seat? She and her equally well-dressed male companion strode past as if slightly annoyed at their inability to locate the office water fountain. A mother-earth figure emerged with numerous small children in tow all equipped with sufficient equipment to survive a nuclear winter. An elderly man with a walking stick; perhaps he too was looking for someone.

  Two large black dogs preceded by their slightly unearthly panting were next. There was no sign of their owner. Hounds, thought John, disconcerted.

  ‘Refugees from the city on the hill,’ suggested the Tempter. ‘A tableau of people from your brother’s life. We are getting close. The young smart couple are his immediate neighbours, the woman and the kids live down the road. He helped that old man off the bus the other day. Kind, your brother.’

  John was experiencing a growing sense of unease. It was all delusional projection, he knew that, but he could not let go of the residual hope that this time it would be different.

  ‘More things in heaven and earth … ’ contributed Mick as if bizarrely attuned to John’s unspoken appraisal of the

  likelihood of the Tempter speaking the truth.

  BEWARE FALLING ROCKS

  said a sign at the foot of the crags.

  ‘You could be stoned,’ said the Bastard, viciously. ‘Buried up to your neck while your accusers each step forward with their chosen rock. Death to the infidel, death to the idolater, death to the adulterous whore! But Sarah wasn’t the only unfaithful one. Was she, John? And then the first rock hits you on the temple … Then nothing.’

  ‘The rest is silence,’ said Mick.

  ‘DO NOT CLIMB THE CRAGS HISTORIC SCOTLAND WILL TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY INJURIES

  ‘Give it a go, give it a go, give it a go,’ urged the Tempter. ‘He’ll be waiting for you at the summit. Taste the ecstatic joy as he recognises you.’

  ‘Keep right on ’til the end of the road,’ sang Mick at the top of his voice.

  The Bastard had to chip in. The opportunity to oversee the oblivion of his host was too great. He could always move on, find another head. ‘The Tempter’s right, John. One hand over the other, easy, ignore the wind starting up, it will come to nothing. Climb towards your brother!’

  ‘Climb towards your brother,’ echoed the Tempter, delighted to have an ally for a change. John left the path and moved towards the foot of the cliff.

  ‘I could do with a pish,’ said Mick, opening his fly.

  The Voices stopped. It was as if Mick possessed the power to swat them away. They would be back, even stronger, even louder, John knew that, but for the moment he was content to lean his forehead against the cold rock, hearing the wind in his ears and Mick contentedly relieving himself.

  John turned back to the path as the mist retreated before the breeze. The multitude of church spires gradually revealed the buildings beneath. He noted the minaret of the mosque next to the university buildings.

  He had enjoyed his time at uni. He had met Sarah at a party; it was love at first sight. He had always suspected that his own love-making was more enthusiastic than accomplished but she had not minded, at least not in the early days. He stopped half way through the memory, bracing himself for the Bastard to make some utterly scathing and derogatory comment. Surprisingly, all of the Voices remained silent.

  He remembered that he had heard his first Voice in those far-off days. He had been in the stack room at the library searching for an elusive volume. Probably stolen, he had decided. The Voice was posh English and the content seemed random and inconsequential. It was something about washing lines and pigs. He had looked round the edges of the stack in case some of his mates were playing tricks on him but there was no one there. Although disconcerted, he had decided that he was suffering from lack of sleep and thought no more about it. He did not discuss it with Sarah in case it served to confirm what he thought was her growing conviction, that he was interesting but decidedly odd.

  They had married months before graduation, much to the disapproval of Sarah’s parents. He recalled resting his hand ostentatiously on the table during his next tutorial waiting desperately for someone to notice and marvel at his wedding ring. No one said anything, but it didn’t matter. They were utterly immersed in each other, Siamese twins whose togetherness progressively alienated them from former friends whom they decided were jealous of their love. He realised subsequently that they were fearful this inward facing exclusivity was unsustainable. They were not wrong.

  Meanwhile, Mick’s mood had shifted from the paranoid to the unashamedly megalomaniacal. He stood with his arms outstretched to encompass the entire panorama of Victorian tenements, public parks, football stadia, warehouses, cathedrals, the Forth estuary and the hills of Fife.

  ‘It’s all mine! You are my people,’ he shouted. ‘I will rule you fairly in accordance with the principles on Marx and Engels. No poverty, no exploitation, no fear, and no religion!’ He threw his head back and roared with a laugh that started as an expression of harmless exuberance before mutating into something decidedly sinister, more the demented roar of an ogre about to devour innocent children. He looked at John sheepishly and pulled his beanie over his eyes.

  They walked on until the path almost met the road once more. John took the lead and veered to the left where it wound between the Crags and Arthur’s Seat, the top of which was still not visible. He sighed. The Voices were back; it had been too good to last. The Jester, taking his cue from Mick, contributed the refrain ‘Tho’ you’re tired and weary still journey on,’ in a rough approximation of Harry Lauder on helium. John was far from amused.

  ‘As he approached the swire at the head of the dell – that little delightful verge from which in one moment the eastern limits and shores of Lothian arise on the view – as he approached it, I say, and a little space from the height, he beheld, to his astonishment, a bright halo in the cloud of haze, that rose in a semicircle over his head like a pale rainbow … ’

  Sorry? What’s going on here? Academic, why have you butted in and taken over the narrative?

  ‘Don’t you see what’s happening?’

  All that’s happened is that you are intruding into the story. Why do you need to be the centre of attention?

  ‘Exactly, a pathetic attention seeking ploy … ’

  Bastard, be quiet, let him explain himself.

  ‘Just let me read on, all will become clear … “he was struck motionless at the view of the lovely vision; for it so happened that he had never seen the same appearance before, though common at early morn. But he soon perceived the cause of the phenomenon, and that it proceeded from the rays of the sun from a pure unclouded morning sky striking
upon this dense vapour that refracted them.”’

  Ok, very clever. James Hogg.

  ‘Well done, well done …Confessions of a Justified Sinner, a sadly neglected Scottish classic published anonymously in 1824. If I remember correctly, the full title is The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: Written by himself: With a detail of curious facts and other evidence by the editor.’

  I still don’t see the point.

  ‘You will, you will. Let me read on.’

  Very well.

  ‘“George did admire this halo of glory…” Why George? It could just as easily be John, don’t you see?’

  Not really.

  ‘Just listen! “… which still grew wider, and less defined, as he approached the surface, of the cloud. But, to his utter amazement and utter delight, he found, on reaching the top of Arthur’s Seat, that this sublunary rainbow, this terrestrial glory, was spread in its most vivid hues beneath his feet. Still he could not perceive the body of the sun, although the light behind him was dazzling; but the cloud of haze lying in that deep dell that separated the hill from the rocks of Salisbury, and the dull shadow of the hill mingling with the cloud

  made the dell a pit of darkness. On that shadowy cloud was the lovely rainbow formed, spreading itself on a horizontal plain, and having a slight and brilliant shade of all the

  colours of the heavenly bow, but all of them paler and less

  defined.”’

  I’m getting bored … I might have to ask the Bastard to have a word with you.

  ‘“He seated himself on the pinnacle of the rocky precipice, a little within the top of the hill to the westward, and, with a light and buoyant heart, viewed the beauties of the morning, and inhaled its salubrious breeze. ‘Here,’ thought he, ‘I can converse with nature without disturbance, and without being intruded on by any appalling or obnoxious visitor.’ The idea of his brother’s … ”’

  All right I’m getting it now.

  ‘Shhh! “The idea of his brother’s dark and malevolent looks coming at that moment across his mind, he turned his eyes instinctively to the right, to the point where that unwelcome guest was wont to make his appearance. Gracious Heaven! What an apparition was there presented to his view! He saw, delineated in the cloud, the shoulders, arms and features of a human being of the most dreadful aspect. The face was the face of his brother …!”’

  Ahh…

  ‘“but dilated to twenty times the natural size. Its dark eyes gleamed on him through the mist, while every furrow of its hideous brow frowned deep as the ravines on the brow of the hill. George [John] started, and his hair stood up in bristles as he gazed on this horrible monster. He saw every line and every feature of the face distinctly as it gazed on him with an intensity that was hardly brookable. Its eyes were fixed on him, in the same way as those of some carnivorous animal fixed on its prey; and yet there were fear and trembling in these unearthly feature, as plainly depicted as murderous malice. The giant apparition seemed sometimes to be cowering down as in terror, so that nothing but his brow and eyes were seen; still these never turned one moment from their object – again it rose imperceptively up, and began to approach with great caution and, as it neared, the dimensions of its form lessoned, still continuing, however, far above the natural size.

  “[John] conceived it to be a spirit. He could conceive it to be nothing else; and he took it for some horrid demon by which he was haunted, that had assumed the features of his brother in every lineament, but, in taking on itself the human form, had miscalculated dreadfully on the size, and presented itself to him in a blown-up, dilated frame of embodied air, exhaled from the caverns of death or the regions of devouring fire. He was further confirmed in the belief that it was a malignant spirit on perceiving that it approached him across the front of a precipice, where there was not footing for thing of mortal frame, Still, what with terror and astonishment, he continued riveted to the spot, till it approached, as he deemed, to within two yards of him; and then, perceiving that it was setting itself to make a violent spring on him, he started to his feet and fled distractedly in the opposite direction, keeping his eye cast behind him lest he had been seized in that dangerous place. But the very first bolt he made in his flight he came into contact with a real body of flesh and blood, and that with such violence that both went down among some scragged rocks, and John rolled over the other. The being called out ‘Murder’ and … ”’

  ‘I’m not your brother! Leave me alone!’

  Mick looked genuinely startled as he extricated himself from John’s grip. ‘Calm yourself, pal. It’s ok. It’s probably that new medication. You’ve had one of they episodes. Let’s go back eh?’

  John was shivering heavily as he let himself be led back onto the path.

  ‘It’s ok, pal,’ said Mick.

  John looked over the cityscape towards the Forth. Beneath the hazy horizon he could just make out the smudges of several small ships. He felt consumed with sadness. He desperately wanted something but didn’t know what it was.

  So, Academic, what was all that stuff about?

  ‘Who knows? More reflection needed.’

  FORTY-EIGHT:

  Gerda’s Tale

  There was someone in the hammock.

  ‘I’m sorry but hammocks were not widely used in the navy until … ’

  Shut up!

  ‘I was just saying … ’

  There was someone in the hammock. Johannes felt the warm weight as he pushed the canvas upwards. There followed a long expiration of breath. Johannes shook the tight web and a gaunt face appeared over the edge. ‘Go away, I’m tired,’ said a woman’s voice in Dutch.

  ‘You are one of us,’ said Balthasar. Slowly the figure lowered itself onto the deck next to the three strangers. She scratched her head and appraised them. ‘Ah, my countrymen,’ she observed with a resigned bitterness. ‘But you are still men. Spanish, Dutch, what does it matter? Just get it over with. I want to go back to sleep.’

  ‘We will not harm you,’ said Balthasar. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Do you have any liquor?’ she asked. Her hands dug deep into her clothes as she pursued a vicious itch marauding up and down her slight frame. Cornelius moved forward and offered her his leather flagon. She snatched it from him, emptied its contents down her throat and sat on one of the sacks littering the floor. Furiously scratching her head, releasing a shower of dead skin, she looked down and spoke almost inaudibly. The men moved closer.

  ‘I am Gerda, woman of sorrows,’ she said. ‘Listen to my tale and learn … Pedro, Pedro,’ she muttered, ‘never in all my days had I been so bewitched by one man. I had only known him for hours although I had waited all my life for him. When we kissed he sucked up my soul and made it his own. He was small, smaller than my oldest child. Black eyes and so sad.

  ‘We lay that night in the cornfield. He beat down the stalks and made our bed. He placed his tunic on the ground and I heard his teeth chattering in the dark. I held my new child in my arms and smothered him in the warmth of my breasts.

  ‘Later he pointed at the black sky and named all of the stars in his own tongue and I told him the names we knew them by. We tried each other’s names and laughed before we put our tongues to better use. The field mice fled beneath our weight while the owl kept watch.

  ‘When the red dawn broke the colour was not that of a new day threatening storms but of fires from the town. The smell of burning homes swept through the chill fields. He rose, held me in his arms, spoke soft words and without glancing back walked through the corn towards the pall of smoke on the horizon. I followed at a distance, howling all the while, spitting hate at the God who was leading him back to war.

  ‘On the edge of the town the buildings smouldered, charred black beams pointed up where the roofs had been. Women clung to each other as their lamentations rose like a psalm. Sobbing children rubbed soot from their eyes and dogs sniffed at the clothes of the dead.

  ‘I watched my Spanish boy joi
n a group of men who were hurrying towards the docks, following them downhill, keeping in the shadow of the carts loaded with plunder. Several of the horses rebelled against their yokes and reared spilling barrels and trunks and fine clothes dragged from merchant cellars. The Spanish drivers beat the horses with staves until they staggered back onto their feet.

  ‘Soon I saw snaking lines of men waiting for their turn. Eagerly they stepped into one of the small skiffs that would ferry them back to the large ships beyond the harbour walls. My boy joined a line and was cuffed for his pains, but I would not leave him, of that there was no doubt.

  ‘I turned into one of the alleys where a man’s body was propped against a wall, his face still wet with blood and not yet coated with the wax of death. The dead man leered at me as if he knew what I was about to do. I easily stripped him of his clothes as his heavy rag doll limbs were still soft. Stepping into his breeches, tightening his tunic across my chest, stepping into his large braided shoes and joining the shuffling line I boarded the same ship as my love.

  ‘It was easy to hide in the confusion of shouting and laughter. I made my way, excited, below decks, hid in a far corner and with beating heart noticed how I now smelt like a man.’

  ‘This is reminiscent of the 19th-century folk song, Polly Oliver, how does it go? … “As sweet Polly Oliver lay musing in bed A sudden strange fancy came into her head. ‘Nor father nor mother shall make me false prove, / I’ll list as a soldier, and follow my love… ”’

  Shut up!

  ‘So early next morning she softly arose, / And dressed up in her dead brother’s clothes, She cut her hair close, and she stained her face brown, And went for a soldier to fair London Town … ”’

  I’m not telling you again. Shut up!

  ‘Benjamin Britten also wrote an arrangement … ’

  ‘I lay stiff and aching in my dark corner. The movement of the ship made me ill; I had to choke on the bile that rose in my throat with every storm lest the sound of my retching led to discovery.