John McPake and the Sea Beggars

by Stuart Campbell

  ‘After two days I could wait no longer, I had to find my boy. I made my way to the quarters where the men were asleep. I knew which was he, and placed my hand over his mouth until he woke. His alarm faded in an instant and he become transfixed with joy. Rising, as if still wrapped in a dream, beautiful beyond understanding, he took my hand and led me into the fresh night air. I pointed at the stars and whispered “Grote Beer”. With his mouth on mine we swayed with the swell. Never had he known a dream so sweet.

  ‘Neither of us noticed the watchman who climbed down from his perch, crept towards us and held up his lantern.

  ‘“Sodomites!” he shouted and, like a living thing, the ship awoke. My boy stood petrified as a multitude of angry men appeared from nowhere and jostled us. Someone grabbed him by the throat and forced him backwards over the rail. As others held his legs off the deck, I forced my way into their midst and tore open my tunic letting them see my breasts. They soon forgot my boy and turned their attention to me. With a roar of excitement and lust they dragged me below the decks where I was unclothed by a hundred willing hands.’

  ‘This is more like it! This is what we want!’

  Shut up Bastard!

  ‘I caught a glimpse of my boy being held back by two men who wanted him to watch. They poured liquor down my throat and I lost consciousness.

  ‘When I woke I knew the world was a different place. The men were leaning against the bulkheads but no one spoke, and no one looked at me. Someone spat tobacco and coughed. I searched in vain for the face of my boy but he wasn’t there. I knew in an instant that he had hurled himself into the sea unable to shake off the nightmare that had strangled his sweet dream. One of the men gave me his coat and laid me down on the straw. Without a word they returned to their sleeping places leaving me shaking with fear and shame.

  ‘They left me alone after that. On occasions one or two of them brought me food and asked if they could lie with me. I gave them what they wanted. Nothing mattered. My life was already spent.’

  Gerda wearily pulled herself into the hammock and sighing turned her back to the weavers.

  ‘You must come with us,’ said Johannes, gently patting her shoulder. ‘When we land, come with us.’

  Having failed to find a timid navigator hiding in the bowels of the hull, the great Leader took it on himself to steer his one-sailed, wounded ship. The flotilla followed the grey coast towards Gravenzande. England would wait. Above the thin line of land the clouds dropped rain on the smoke rising from remote farms and cottages. Balthasar screwed up his eyes, hoping the smoke was from innocent bonfires.

  Cornelius too looked at the trails of smoke on the horizon and tapped his fingers ever more aggressively on the ship’s rail. Cottages were burning on the horizon.

  Johannes sat apart from the others, his head in his hands on a coiled rope in the middle of the deck. The rest of the crew, excited at the prospect of being greeted as heroes on their return, either busied themselves with very little or just gave up the pretence of working and chatted idly. ‘Cheer up, weaver,’ said one of them. ‘Soon back with the wife. Get your leg over and forget about us poor sea beggars fighting for your country.’ His mates laughed. Johannes smiled wanly. Swatting aside a seagull threatening to steal the bread from his hand, he saw Blindman walking slowly towards him. Johannes believed his thoughts must have been stolen by the unpleasant creature gliding over the deck, his head moving imperceptibly from side to side, a supercilious grin on his face.

  ‘Your son,’ he said, ‘is not well.’

  Johannes leaped to his feet and made as if to strangle the odd figure smirking at him. He thought better of it. ‘What do you know?’ he asked.

  ‘Skin and bones. Almost beyond hunger now. He calls for you and his mother in his sleep.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Johannes shouted into the man’s face, his fists clenched. Blindman paused for a moment as if deliberating whether to continue or not. Sensing that he might have silenced his only source of hope, Johannes relented and begged, ‘Please say more.’

  ‘Your son was brave. He forsook his new masters and found a way through the great walls into the city. Only a dog or a small child could squirm through the pipe meant for shit, but even the shit was drying up as the people starved. A single rat eaten by a family doesn’t make much shit.’

  ‘Stop the riddles!’ shouted Johannes into Blindman’s face.

  ‘Patience,’ he replied, after another agonising pause. ‘The bodies are piled high in the square. Mothers drag their children to the heap. Nothing stirs. The birds no longer visit. If they land in the square they will be caught and cooked. Do you see that walking skeleton there with the net? Never has the town bird catcher been so important. There are no dogs. No cats. No sound.’ He paused and smiled. ‘Look,’ he said pointing into the middle distance, ‘that man is boiling the leather from his boots. See, his wife and child are waiting. That must be the mayor, thin like the others but strong. He has a word for everyone as he moves slowly through the square. We need more like him.’

  ‘Where is Michel?’ asked Johannes, suddenly aware of the absurdity and pain of trying to see through a blind man’s eyes.

  The seer paused as if he was searching through each building, opening doors looking for a child. He grunted periodically as if disappointed that the child he found under blankets was not the one he was looking for. ‘Ah,’ he said after an interval. ‘There he is!’

  ‘Where?’ demanded Johannes gripping the sleeve of Blindman who froze and waited until Johannes relinquished his grip. ‘There in the corner. Look.’ Johannes stared wildly round him.

  ‘How interesting,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ Johannes pleaded.

  Blindman chuckled. ‘That house belongs to the guild master. You see, he knows he is a weaver’s son, but so frail, so tired. Look at his ribs.’

  ‘My son, my son,’ wailed Johannes, clutching for words. As he tried to master the choking panic that had robbed him of speech, they were jostled apart by a fat crewman running to join his fellows along the port side. By the time Johannes had recovered his balance Blindman was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ said the Academic excitedly. ‘There was a moment when the outcome of the Dutch Eighty Years’ war hung in the balance. William the Silent decided to risk everything, his people, his land, by attempting to relieve the siege of Leyden. Quite simply the fate of a new nation depended on the outcome … But hang on a minute, something’s wrong here, I smell a rat … Narrator, there’s a problem, back to the drawing board, I’m afraid.’

  What do you mean?

  ‘I felt there was something wrong with the chronology before, but it’s all to buggery now, the whole story’s gone to hell in a handcart. If my memory serves me right The Hunters in the Snow was painted in 1565 and the Seige of Leyden took place in 1574! You’re not telling me that our Dutch friends have been wandering about the countryside for nine years!’

  Just piss off Academic, piss off!

  ‘What’s all this?’ said the Bastard, suddenly interested. ‘Is that you swearing, Narrator? Tut, tut. That’s my job. What happened to the tone of neutral objectivity? You’re losing the plot.’

  ‘My point exactly!’

  Look, it has a sort of truth that transcends mere detail.

  ‘Sort of truth, my arse!’

  Just piss off the pair of you!

  ‘Tetchy!’

  I feel undermined; I’m not going to carry on.

  ‘Diddums …’

  ‘Ignore the Bastard, Narrator, don’t sulk. As an academic of repute I have a responsibility to point out error. Listen, apart from that, it is really not bad at all. Please keep going.’

  Are you sure?

  ‘Yes!’

  I’ll try. Rotterdam dock was awash with people, no that doesn’t work. I’m flustered, the words won’t flow … Rotterdam dock was teeming with small figures, all of whom were shouting and waving bonnets. Urchins clambered onto the half-constructed ships propp
ed against the sea walls to get a better view. Apprentices paused on their ladders, calking pots in hand, and waved their brushes at the returning fleet. OK, we’re up and running again.

  Several coracles in the harbour entrance had been capsized by the wake from the captured man-of-war. The smaller pirate vessels snuggled against the captured prize with the urgency of suckling puppies. In the excitement many of their oars had not been retracted and clashed above the water like battlefield lances.

  A youth jumped into the frozen water from a barrel on the quay and swam towards the nearest sea beggars’ craft and the safety of the many hands offering to pull him aboard. Coals glowed in the dockside braziers. The returning heroes would soon have the grease from roasted chickens running into their beards, and the arms of their women folk around their waists.

  In their eagerness to get ashore the men jumped or stepped from one boat to another until they could haul themselves up one of the many ropes that had been lowered to them.

  The three weavers stood on dry land and watched the turmoil of lovers meeting. Small women in best smocks were lifted off their feet by burly partners. Tiny children threaded their way through the sea of adult legs to get closer to the fathers who had been away so long. Heads were ruffled and kisses taken. Balthasar instinctively looked for Wilhelmien though he knew she wasn’t there. Cornelius looked for Geertje. Johannes studied the crowd looking for boys of Michel’s age.

  FORTY-NINE

  ‘Another postcard for you, John,’ said Janet, as she distributed the mail around the breakfast table. She couldn’t help noticing that Jack had another letter from a lawyer’s office in London and made an unhelpful connection in her head with the new version of Great Expectations currently being serialised on television. Paul seized his envelope containing Word Search Weekly and tore it open. There was nothing for Dennis, there never was.

  Janet noticed that John was shaking to such an extent that the crockery was rattling in the box on the middle place mat. He was holding a postcard at arm’s length. ‘What’s up?’ she asked, taking the postcard and reading it. In that moment her concern for John overrode her normally instinctive respect for residents’ confidentiality.

  Kevin snatched the postcard from her. ‘YOU WILL FIND ME AMONG THE DEAD MEN,’ he read. ‘That’s it then, John, your brother must be dead.’

  Mick growled and Jack handed the postcard back to John who left the table and went into the kitchen.

  ‘Dead and gone. Dead and buried. I told you so. Dead as a doornail,’ said the Bastard.

  ‘A strange expression,’ mused the Academic, ‘featuring in both The Vision of Piers Plowman and in Henry IV. There are of course other similies with the same meaning: dead as mutton, dead as a stone. Dead as a herring is another odd one. Although it is true that by the time most people see a herring it has long been both dead and preserved.’

  ‘Herrings?’ asked the Bastard.

  ‘There is the view that the term has its origins in carpentry. If you hammer a nail through a piece of timber and then flatten the end over on the inside so it cannot be removed (a technique called clinching I believe), the nail is considered dead as it can’t be used again.’

  ‘Quiet!’ said the Bastard. ‘Poor, poor John, a dead brother eh? All alone in the world now. Perhaps you should join him, what do you think? Get back to that bridge. You know what they say, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That big Dutchman is probably away by now.’

  ‘Think of the peace,’ chipped in the Tempter, again an unexpected recruit to the Bastard’s cause. ‘Endless sleep, rest forever. An end to pain and disappointment.’

  ‘The bourne from which no traveller returns,’ interjected the Academic.

  ‘Who would want to return to this poxy life? Especially when your brother’s dead, and you don’t have anyone in the world who cares for you … ’

  ‘Among the dead men, doesn’t necessarily mean he’s dead himself,’ said Mick. He had left the breakfast table and walked slowly up to John who was staring through the window at a bird high in the sky. He put his hand round his shoulder. ‘Loads of folk visit graveyards ken. People like the peace and quiet, they go to eat their lunch away from the noise. Graveyards these days are places of refuge and contemplation.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ hissed the Bastard, annoyed that his perfect pitch for suicide had been compromised by a real voice from outside of John’s head.

  ‘I’m not busy the day. Let’s go and see,’ said Mick.

  ‘He’s right John,’ added the Tempter. ‘He might be there. You’re due a break.’

  ‘“STRICTLY NOT PERMITTED,” recited Mick outside the gates of Easter Road cemetery “Scattering or partial burial of ashes. Planting of plants, shrubs, roses, etc. Children without a parent or guardian. Any unauthorised persons or vehicles. Erection of monuments or stone vases. Artificial wreaths or glass of any kind.” Don’t let them see that stone vase you’re carrying, John, for Christ’s sake.’

  John had already left Mick and was working his way methodically along the first line of gravestones close to the perimeter wall, quickly scanning the details of the interred. He was helped by the Academic who had assumed a sonorous tone appropriate to the surroundings. ‘Mary Mullins 87, John Bogie 27, Paul Turner 6 months, much missed … the beloved wife, daughter, husband, brother … No, not yours, he was 59.’

  ‘Faster, faster!’ urged the Bastard. John responded and started running between the stones. The Academic also tried to read faster, ‘Ivy Douglas, housewife, 80 … hang on, May McDonald, no Mary McDonald, look I can’t do this! Joseph somebody, 42 … former policeman, Ivandl, no, Ivelleli, Italian I think, no probably Lithuanian … ’

  ‘Faster, faster, no time to lose!’

  ‘72 years old, John somebody … died giving birth, no, not John, Harriet … 27, no, the stone’s chipped, 29 … I CAN’T DO THIS!’

  ‘More haste … ’ said the Bastard.

  ‘Keep looking, keep looking,’ implored the Tempter. ‘Don’t give up now. Try the ones in the corner. There’s someone there, I’m telling you!’

  John kept his eyes on the far corner of the graveyard where the Tempter had made him look. As far as possible he took the most direct path, walking over graves, knocking over vases of utterly dead flowers. For a fleeting second he eyeballed a stone angel before veering to the right.

  ‘Careful, son,’ said Mick, picking up the desiccated flowers and putting them back in their equally faded receptacles.

  The Tempter had been right, there was someone there. John caught sight of a male figure lying neatly on a grave some two rows further in. From this angle only his boots and jeans were visible. He clambered over the intervening plots and stood, heart pounding above the recumbent figure.

  ‘It’s him, it’s him!’ shrieked the Tempter with the enthusiasm of an excited child, ‘After all these years!’

  John could barely look at the figure lying with his arms neatly folded across his chest.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Jack, what are you doing here? Get up, you fool,’ said Mick, helping him to his feet. ‘You’ll catch your death … no, that’s no quite what I mean … ’

  Despite his disappointment, John too felt sympathy for his hostel mate.

  ‘It’s peaceful here, it’s where I get to think,’ said Jack, exhibiting defensiveness and embarrassment in equal measure. ‘I get to look at the sky, and prepare myself … ’

  ‘What for? Ah, don’t tell me’ said Mick. ‘Get yourself home, have a lie down in your bed, not a poxy grave, the time’ll come for that soon enough.’ Mick instantly regretted the last observation, and muttered something consoling to Jack who was already walking slowly, shoulders hunched towards the cemetery entrance.

  ‘You couldn’t make it up!’ commented the Bastard, a sardonic observer of the farce as it unfolded. ‘A small trip round the asylum garden of remembrance, chained together by your shared sadness and delusional states.’

  What do you mean, you couldn’t make
it up? As Narrator, I resent that. I am the objective recorder of John’s inner and outer lives. I also strive, in case you hadn’t noticed, to give equal weight to all of the Voices, yours included, and mine for that matter, who live in John’s head.

  ‘But are YOU making it up?’ butted in the Academic. ‘We are dealing here with profound issues of the existence of a reality separate from those who observe and record it.’

  It’s my story, right!

  ‘My point exactly. Isn’t it meant to be John’s story?’

  ‘It could have been his brother,’ intervened the Tempter sensing trouble and increasingly disconcerted by the new direction the narrative seemed to be taking. ‘You’ve got to hold the hope, isn’t that what they all say, John?’

  ‘MY WIFE IS DEAD AND HERE SHE LIES NOBODY LAUGHS AND NOBODY CRIES WHERE SHE IS GONE TO AND HOW SHE FARES NOBODY KNOWS / AND NOBODY CARES’

  Jester, shut up!

  ‘TEARS CANNOT RESTORE HER / THEREFORE I WEEP’

  This is neither the time not the place!

  ‘I just wanted … ’

  Well, don’t bother.

  ‘You look shattered, old son,’ said Mick. Near the entrance he patted the stone on which he sat and John joined him. ‘I got Linda to make us some pieces,’ he explained offering a wodge of Mother’s Pride to his companion.

  ‘In the name of the wee man!’ said Mick, ‘Would you look at that?’

  The horse-drawn cortege was preceded by a single figure in a long black coat and top hat. The horses with black plumes strapped to their heads pawed at the gravel. The coffin

  itself was scarcely visible though the glass-sided carriage, obscured by a sign made from flowers that proclaimed,

  MOTHER.

  ‘Gangsters,’ muttered Mick. ‘Drug dealers, pimps, money launderers, people traffickers … ’ His muttered litany attracted the attention of two burly men hiding behind sunglasses. Mick touched his beanie in respectful acknowledgment of their grief.

  ‘All the rage these days,’ explained the Academic. ‘Themed funerals. Many options. Motor cycle hearses are increasingly popular. Harley Paulson, a Cafe Racer Triumph or maybe a Suzuki Hayabusa. For a little extra the principle mourner gets to ride pillion. There are other more alternative possibilities, a hearse, flatbed lorry, decorated bus, a simple horse and cart, vintage fire engines … ’