Solomon Gursky Was Here

by Mordecai Richler

  “Aye, for we had been abandoned by vile Akaitcho and his band of heathens. And by this time poor Mr. Hood was much inconvenienced by dimness of sight, giddiness, and other symptoms of sin, and we had to make frequent halts. Now did I tell you that Belanger and Ignace Perrault, unable to go on, had been left behind in a tent with a gun and forty-eight balls?”

  “No. You did not.”

  “That was the case. And then one morning Michel Teroahauté claimed that he had seen a deer pass near his sleeping place and he went off to chase him. He couldn’t find him. But, he said, he had come by a wolf which had been gored by a deer and he brought portions of it back to camp. Only after we had eaten it did we grasp that it must have been a portion of the flesh of either Belanger or Perrault, both of whom the savage had slain, and then gone at their frozen bodies with a hatchet.”

  Such was the failing boatman’s increasing agitation that the rest of his tale was too garbled for Ephraim to comprehend, but he did sort out that in the days that followed the gale was relentless. Teroahauté, left alone with Mr. Hood in a tent, apparently murdered him with a shot of his gun. The priapic Mr. Hood died by the camp-fire, Bickersteth’s Scripture Help lying next to his body, as if it had tumbled from his hand at the instant of his death. A raging Teroahauté then heaped scorn on the rest of the company. Dr. Richardson, alarmed to see Teroahauté now armed with two pistols, and an Indian bayonet, took advantage of an opportune moment and killed him with a shot through the head with his own pistol.

  The boatman suddenly clutched at Ephraim, his good eye bulging, a rattle rising in his throat, and then fell back, dying, his tale incomplete. Searching his person Ephraim found a soiled and torn sketch of a beautiful nude Indian girl, whom he would learn years later was Green Stockings, the daughter of Kesharrah, the prize that made such unforgiving enemies of Hood and Back.

  Also years later, once he himself had become familiar with the barrens, Ephraim would discover that it was the vile Akaitcho and his Indian band that ultimately rescued the starving party, bringing them dried deer meat, some fat, and a few tongues.

  Before parting with the survivors of Franklin’s party, Akaitcho, denied his promised reward of goods, said to them: “The world goes badly, all are poor, you are poor, the traders appear to be poor, and I and my party are poor likewise; and since the goods have not come in, we cannot have them. I do not regret having supplied you with provisions, for a Copper Indian can never permit white men to suffer from want of food on his lands, without flying to their aid. I trust, however, that we shall, as you say, receive what is due to us next autumn; and in all events it is the first time that the white people have been indebted to the Copper Indians.”

  Hours after the Orkney boatman had died his body was dumped into a cart and taken to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital to be privately dissected.

  The next morning in the exercise yard Ephraim saw that the wall by the water cistern was still unattended. Back braced painfully against the rough stone, he slithered up the wall, just as he had once been taught by a sweep’s climbing boy. He grasped the cistern and shot over its crown. His back badly torn, he then made a grab for the rusty bar supporting the chevaux de frise and edged along it until he came to the Press Yard buildings. There he risked a jump of nine feet to the roof, spraining his ankle, but still managing to hobble clear of Newgate and the adjoining buildings. Emerging on the sloping roof of a house on a nearby street, he rested briefly, concealed behind a chimney stack, hugging his throbbing ankle. Then he slid down a drainpipe to the street and made directly for Izzy Garber’s lodging in Wentworth Street, where he could count on a healing salve for his torn back, a warming fire, meat pies and wine, and ribald stories.

  Three

  THE

  NEWGATE CALENDAR

  IMPROVED

  Being

  INTERESTING MEMOIRS

  of

  NOTORIOUS CHARACTERS

  Who have been convicted of Offences

  AGAINST THE LAWS OF ENGLAND

  During the seventeenth century; and continuing to the present time, chronologically arranged;

  COMPRISING

  Traitors, Highwaymen, Pickpockets,

  Murderers, Footpads, Fraudulent Bankrupts,

  Incendiaries, Housebreakers, Money Droppers,

  Ravishers, Rioters, Imposters,

  Mutineers, Extortioners, And Thieves of every

  Pirates, Sharpers, Description

  Coiners, Forgerers,

  WITH

  Occasional Remarks on Crimes and Punishments,

  Original Anecdotes, Moral Reflections and Observations

  on particular Cases; Explanations of the Criminal

  Laws, the Speeches, Confessions, and

  LAST EXCLAMATIONS OF SUFFERERS.

  EPHRAIM GURSKY

  Several times convicted—sentenced once to Coldbath Fields, once to Newgate— And finally, on October 19, 1835, transported to Van Diemen’s Land.

  Perhaps never natural talents were more perverted than by that notorious Jew, Ephraim Gursky, celebrated for his daring escape from Newgate in The Weekly Dispatch and The People’s Journal. We could scarcely believe that even in the melancholy catalogue of crimes, a young man proficient in Latin, Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish (the patois of his people), could be found descending to the degraded character of forgerer of official documents and letters, ravisher, panderer, and gentleman pickpocket.

  Ephraim Gursky was born in Liverpool. By his own account his father, Gideon Gursky, was a Jew of Russian origin. He had been a well-known opera singer in Moscow until an affair with the Baroness K., a favourite of the Czar, had led to a scandal, and the lovers had been obliged to flee for their lives. Ephraim claimed to be the issue of that ill-starred union. After his mother died in childbirth, he was raised as a Jew by his father’s second wife, whose maiden name was Katansky. Gideon Gursky earned his living as a cantor in a Liverpool synagogue. Though not affluent, he sent young Ephraim to school. Ephraim made indifferent progress, and gave early evidence of a daring and wicked disposition. While among his companions, if any mischievous project was set on foot, young Ephraim was sure to be their leader, and promoted it as far as in his power. Weary of the floggings he endured by the hand of his cruel stepmother, who constantly reproached him for both his bastardy and Christian blood, Ephraim ran away from home at the age of twelve. He worked in the coal mines in Durham and added to his income by delivering newspapers in a nearby village. There he was noticed and patronized by a gentle schoolmaster, Mr. William Nicholson, who taught him Latin and penmanship. As a reward for such kindness, Ephraim absconded with Mr. Nicholson’s sterling silver candlesticks and, consequently, a complaint to this effect was made to the local constabulary by Mrs. Nicholson.

  Shortly after his arrival in London, young Gursky was apprehended trying to sell the purloined silver candlesticks and was sentenced to six months hard labour in Coldbath Fields. On his release, young Gursky set himself up in lodgings in Whitechapel, among the lowest class of the metropolis, as a forger of official documents and letters. He was in his eighteenth year, and though not handsome and small of stature, he became a favourite of young ladies of loose character and dissipated manners. He corrupted two hitherto respectable young sisters who had rooms in the same lodging house, working as seamstresses. They were Dorothy and Catherine Sullivan, recently of County Kilkenny, and when a constable was sent thither to inquire after their characters, he found them praiseworthy. Perverted by young Gursky, the sisters became bug-hunters, though they profited little from their crime, regularly turning their booty over to their mentor. When the three of them were apprehended the Sullivan sisters were sentenced to three years hard labour in Newgate, but Gursky, while awaiting what was bound to be a more severe sentence, made his daring escape.

  Now a fugitive, he adopted the name of Green, and then commenced what is called a gentleman pickpocket, by affecting the airs and importance of a man of fashion. In this endeavour his helpmate for a time was Miss
Thelma Coyne, of equal notoriety as a sharping courtesan. This audacious lady was, in all, tried three times at the Old Bailey; two of which she was acquitted, and found guilty the other one, and sentenced to two years imprisonment in Newgate. About the expiration of her time, she caught the gaol distemper; and died in a fortnight after her discharge had taken place—thus yielding up her last breath, in perfect conformity with the infamous tenor of her life.

  Hitherto our pickpocket hero and his faithful confederate in the execution of his plans visited the most celebrated watering places, particularly Brighton, as brother and sister. Gursky, being supposed a gentleman of fortune and family, was noticed by persons of the first distinction. He picked the pockets of the Duke of L. and Sir S. of a considerable sum; all of which he got off undiscovered. He also took from Lady L. a necklace, but the circumstances and purlieu of the theft were such that she declined to prosecute.

  While the lawyers were outlawing him, and the constables were endeavouring to take him, Gursky evaded detection by travelling in various disguises and characters through the southern counties of the kingdom; he visited the great towns as a quack doctor, clergyman, etc. On his return to London, he became an even more daring pickpocket. He went to court on the Queen’s birthday, as a clergyman, and not only picked several pockets, but found means, while strolling in the gardens with the Viscountess W., to deprive her of a diamond order, and retired from the place without suspicion.

  He was at length apprehended at St. Sepulchre’s church, when Dr. Le Mesurier preached a charity sermon on providing pasture land for superannuated dray horses that might otherwise be sold as provender in France. Herbert Smith, a constable, saw Gursky put his hand in Mrs. Davenport’s pocket, and presently after followed him out of the church, and took him into custody near the end of Cock-lane, upon Snow-hill.

  Having taken the prisoner to St. Sepulchre’s watch-house, and found a gold repeater watch, and some other articles, in his possession, Smith returned to the church and spoke to Mrs. Davenport whom he had seen the prisoner attempt to rob; she adamantly informed him she had lost nothing. But Mr. Davenport was far from satisfied. Upon Smith’s return to the watch-house, the irate Mr. Davenport advised that the prisoner might be more strictly searched, which caused his wife to unaccountably swoon and then to be led outside. Gursky was desired to take off his hat, and raising his left arm, he cautiously removed his hat from his head, when a metal watch, a pearl brooch, and a scarlet garter fell to the floor. At the sight of the latter article, Mr. Davenport had to be forcibly restrained from striking the prisoner with his walking stick.

  Gursky was bound over to prosecute, his trial at the Old Bailey surprisingly attracting many ladies of the beau monde and demimonde more commonly seen in Rotten Row, Hyde Park. Even more surprising was the appearance of Mr. William Nicholson, who came to speak in the prisoner’s defence. The gentle schoolmaster, mentioned heretofore, was now a widower, his demented wife having hanged herself a month after giving birth to their only child. The child was being raised with the help of a young nephew, of most pleasing countenance, who accompanied Mr. Nicholson to court. The prisoner, Mr. Nicholson said, had not stolen his candlesticks, but rather they had been presented to him as a farewell gift on his departure for London. Mrs. Nicholson’s complaint that they had been stolen was the first indication of her oncoming dementia that ended so tragically. Furthermore, Mr. Nicholson said, had Ephraim Gursky, a most promising student, not been falsely accused in the first place and wrongly incarcerated in Coldbath Fields at such a tender age, it, is possible his life would have taken a more commendable direction.

  The prisoner then addressed the court with considerable animation, making a great display of elocution, and enlarging upon what he termed the force of prejudice, insinuating that calumny had followed from boyhood because of his father’s faith.

  “Gentlemen, in the course of my life, I have suffered much distress, I have felt something of the vicissitudes of fortune, and now from observation, I am convinced, upon the whole, there is no joy but what arises from the practice of virtue, and consists in the felicity of a tranquil mind and a benevolent heart.

  “Gentlemen of the jury, if I am acquitted, I will quickly retire to Prince Rupert’s Land to preach my mother’s faith to the savages that pollute the barrens, cursed to live out their days without any of the consolations which the Christian religion never fails to afford. If my life is spared, I will retire to that distant land, where my name and misfortunes will be alike unknown; where harmless manners may shield me from the imputation of guilt, and where prejudice will not be liable to misrepresentation, and I do now assure you, gentlemen of the jury, that I feel a cheering hope, even at this awful moment, that the rest of my life will be so conducted, as to make me as much an object of esteem and applause, as I am now the unhappy object of censure and suspicion.”

  The jury found Ephraim Gursky guilty.

  On Thursday, October 19, 1835, Ephraim Gursky was sent to the bar.

  Mr. Recorder: Ephraim Gursky: the sentence of the Court upon you, is, that you be transported for the term of seven years, to parts beyond the seas, to such place as His Majesty, with the advice of his privy council, shall think fit to declare and appoint.

  Four

  Ephraim showed Lady Jane the letters commending Isaac Grant’s skills and Christian piety. “The surgeon I’m speaking of is also a naturalist of some distinction,” he said, as he proffered yet another letter, this one signed by Charles Robert Darwin. “Mr. Grant has long admired Sir John and would endure any hardship to sail with him on this bold venture. And I, who am forever in your debt, most revered lady, would take it as my duty to serve Sir John.”

  Lady Jane, enchanted to see the redeemed lad again, was willing to plead his cause, but she explained that he was, alas, too late. “Unless,” she said, warming to the prospect, “you made directly for Stromness Harbour.”

  “Exactly my intention. And I would be happy to wait,” he said, “if you cared to address an epistle to Sir John.”

  The letter in hand, Ephraim hurried back to Whitechapel, where a desperate Izzy was hiding out. “We’re for the Orkneys,” he said.

  “I dare not leave here. They’re looking for us everywhere.”

  “They will be watching the ports, expecting us to make a dash for Ireland or the Continent.”

  “Even if we got there safely how could we expect to get ourselves included in the ship’s company?”

  Ephraim was already steaming open Lady Jane’s letter. The ink, he established at once, would be easy enough to duplicate. He had the nib she had used in his jacket pocket. He practised her spidery script for more than an hour before he risked adding the post scriptum, imploring Sir John to accept Ephraim, their Van Diemen’s Land foundling, and Mr. Isaac Grant, admirable as he was devout, among his ship’s company.

  The rap on the door startled Izzy.

  “Not to worry,” Ephraim said. “That will be the Sullivan sisters. Dorothy and Kate are coming with us.”

  Once in Stromness Harbour, the gloomy dockside public house where the crews gathered was easily found. Many of them were fearful they would never see home again. Dangling the Sullivan sisters like bait, spending lavishly, it did not take Ephraim long to ingratiate himself with the sailors. He settled instinctively on those he took to be the most jittery, regaling them with tales of his late father’s overland journey to the shores of the Polar Sea with Franklin in 1819. “Why, there came a time,” he said, “during their third year on the barrens, when they were driven to eating the putrid powdered marrow bones of a deer that had already been picked over by ferocious white wolves and black ravens. Mind you, my father was one of the few fortunate enough to survive, though my poor mother hardly recognized him on his return. His teeth lost to scurvy and all of his toes amputated. Not much use to her, which probably accounts for her running off with Mr. Feeney.”

  The night before they were to sail, Captain Crozier of the Terror wisely refused his crew shore le
ave, worried that some of the men would jump ship. But Captain Fitzjames of the Erebus allowed his lot the usual liberty. All of them reported back at the required hour, but then the randy assistant surgeon appropriated a small boat and had a sailor, a lad fortunate enough to be fancied by Kate, row him back to land. There the two of them joined the Sullivan sisters, the assignation having been hastily arranged while Ephraim was ostensibly busy elsewhere.

  According to the official records, the miscreants rowed back to the Erebus at three A.M. The third lieutenant, whose watch it was, hardly recognized them, but then it was a dark night, the moon and stars obscured by clouds, and he was somewhat the worse for drink himself. The sailor, sporting a silk top hat, was jabbering in some unknown guttural tongue with the assistant surgeon, the two of them lugging sacks of personal provisions on board. Certainly against the rules, that, but they had been sufficiently thoughtful to bring the third lieutenant a bottle of rum.

  Franklin had no luck. Unknowingly, he set sail for the Arctic in what would subsequently prove to have been one of the most relentlessly cold cycles of the last 1,000 years. He went to sea with some eight thousand cans of preserved meat, supplied by one Stephen Goldner, the lowest bidder, and canned according to his new-fangled process called “Goldner’s Patent”. The meat was vile. Cans found on Beechey Island by a perspicacious anthropologist more than 125 years later had imperfectly sealed seams and bulging ends, evidence of putrefaction, supporting his theory that expedition members had suffered from lead poisoning, which can lead to debilitating fatigue, anorexia and paranoia. But Ephraim and Izzy, given their secret hoard of Jewish soul food, were not as infected as the rest of the company. True, the bulk of their supplies gave out during the first year, but the schmaltz herring, an indulgence Izzy limited to the sabbath, lasted them well into the second. And even then, the ever resourceful Izzy, by now an intimate of the cook, was able to leaven their intake of poisonous meat with delicacies that he had shrewdly held back. So one Friday night they might gorge themselves on kasha fried in chicken fat and the next on rice prepared in a similar fashion.