A Coin for the Hangman

by Spurrier, Ralph

  The first years of Henry’s life were relatively uneventful, certainly nothing untoward that could later be drawn upon in his defence. Some in the town were to say that the first cracks that eventually led to the tragic events of 1953 appeared when Henry began attending the local church school. It was only natural that the robust Henry, having inherited genes that had seen his grandfather grow to a striking six foot five inches and fuelled by more contents of the shop than were really good for him, should stand out at school in contrast to the majority of his wiry classmates. “Sweet Fatty”, as Henry had become known amongst his peers, was often the centre of unwanted attention in the playground. Alternatively preyed on for his sweets and then ignored while the others formed their own groups, Henry was often to be found at the edge with his back to a tree that bordered the playground. In this way he could watch the others without drawing undue attention to himself. Even so he would occasionally come within the orbit of those who enjoyed baiting him for his size.

  One day, with the usual sweet bag in hand, he found himself encircled by a group of five girls who began to chant the nursery rhyme: “Georgie, Porgie, Pudding and Pie”.

  Round and round they went, hand in hand.

  “Kissed the girls and made them cry.”

  On and on, until one of the girls, Mary Collins, dashed forward and knocked the bag of sweets in the air. The sherbets, toffee chews and marshmallows cascaded onto the ground in a kaleidoscopic display. Something ticked over inside Henry. He was to say that it was the thought of the sweets that his mother had made in the long hours of the evening being spoilt in such a careless way that made him do what he did. He picked up a handful of marshmallows, now gritted with dirt from the playground, and caught hold of Mary by the neck. Forcing open her mouth with a hand that was big enough to grip her whole face, he stuffed the marshmallows into her throat with a force that shocked her with its unimpeded thrust. Mary reeled back, gagging on the sweets as they filled her airway. Her friends slapped her on the back and after a few sizeable thwacks the gooey mass shot out onto the ground. With tears streaming down her face, Mary retreated to another area of the playground together with her friends. After that incident he was generally left well alone by the other children.

  The result of his attack on Mary Collins led to Mavis Eastman being visited by the school’s head teacher who warned that if there was a repeat of the incident, he would have no alternative but to ask for Henry’s removal. Arthur Eastman, a man of few words but proud of his position in the town, took a heavy hand and his slipper to Henry’s backside that same evening. Arthur’s fellow tradesmen were wise enough not to raise the subject directly with him over the usual nightly drinks at the New Bear pub opposite the Eastman shop, although, for a short while, the gossips in the town had a field day.

  The event was not, in itself, something that would have normally remained in the consciousness of most people and would have, as time does with such minor aberrations performed in childhood, slipped into complete obscurity. However, the one person that it had directly affected, Mary Collins, was still living in Bradford on Avon fourteen years later, at the time of the events of 1953. What she had to tell the police about Henry’s temper – “he almost killed me, don’t you know?” – and the precise nature of the attack was to prove both a godsend to the prosecution and a fatal seal on Henry’s life.

  At home, Henry and his mother continued to live a life somewhat isolated from the regular social world of the town. Arthur Eastman, for his part, had taken to spending most of his evenings after supper with friends either down the Legion or in the New Bear pub where he would stay until closing time. Neither belligerent in or out of drink, it cannot be said that Mavis ever suffered physical or verbal violence at the hands of Arthur. Nor, sadly, did she feel much companionship. While Mavis would have enjoyed more of Arthur’s attention, she realized that he was now firmly set in his ways. If anyone were to ask Mavis if she was content with her lot there might have been some hesitation but, on balance, and perhaps because she knew nothing better, she would have answered “Yes”. As the years went by, however, she did begin to wonder if there was anything better.

  Henry and his mother, meanwhile, created their own entertainment and delighted in each other’s company. The piano in the drawing room immediately behind the shop was Mavis’s favourite past-time and she was proficient enough to pick out a tune and read sheet music. On occasion, Henry would stand by her side, looking over her shoulder and, following the notation, would turn the pages whenever she nodded emphatically. Without any formal training it was surprising how quickly Henry picked up on the notation, the rise and fall of the tunes and the emphasis of the dotted rhythms. With his hand on her shoulder as she sat at the piano he could feel the muscles of his mother’s upper arm working the fingers that produced the wonderful music from the keys.

  One day Mavis laid a new musical score on the piano stand. “Henry, take a look at what I bought today from Chappell’s. There’s a production of this at the Theatre Royal in Bath next week and I was wondering if you might like to come along with me? It’s not the kind of thing your father would like.” She had said it not unkindly, but it was the truth. Arthur’s appreciation of music stretched little beyond Henry Hall’s dance band music on the radio.

  Henry leaned over his mother’s shoulder, surreptitiously taking pleasure from the scent of her regular perfume, 4711 (which he had, more than once, dabbed behind his own ears as he had seen his mother do), and looked at the beautiful covers of the piano score, decorated with oriental devices and Japanese figures. The Mikado.

  “Let’s try one or two of the tunes. You can join in, if you want.” Mavis swished open the cover and chose a song. With her hands tramping up and down the keys for the introduction, she swept into The Lord Chief High Executioner and Henry quickly picked up the tune and the words written within the staves. Together, and triumphantly, they joined in the chorus. How they laughed! Henry stamping up and down on the spot with his belly straining at the shirt buttons and his cheeks puffed out, just like the Lord High Executioner pictured on the sheet music cover. Once, twice round the dining table he went, brandishing the nutcrackers like a sword before him.

  “Again, Mum. Let’s do that one again!”

  Henry felt that he would never feel as happy as he did now. For once – and possibly for the last time in his short life – he was right.

  Wednesday, May 13th 1953

  Reg Manley

  Reg kept the equipment in the small garden shed tucked up close to the wall of his terraced house. Fortunately the garden was south facing so he had been able to plant some vegetables in the well-tilled earth and now, as he walked towards the shed, he noticed that the cucumbers he had potted were beginning to grow. He made a mental note to pinch out the side tendrils before the weekend.

  He unlocked the padlock on the door and stepped in to the woody warmth of the shed’s interior. It was just big enough to house a row of shelves down the back wall, a stool and a work bench which ran under the small window that looked out the back towards the house. Reg shut the door behind him. As the sun was now shining directly on the back windows of the house, he knew that the glare would prevent Doris from seeing what he was doing on the workbench. From the bottom shelf he pulled out a small case, no bigger than the size of a Sunday serving plate. A flip lock was hidden under the handle and he inserted a key attached to his pocket chain. The lock snapped open and he laid the case flat on the bench, flipping open the lid so that it covered part of the window. The inside of the case was split in half with a divider keeping three cloth bags of different sizes away from a folding rule, a pair of pliers, twine, chalk sticks and two notebooks. Pushing the case hard up against the window, he pulled out the three bags and placed them on the bench in front of him. The first bag, bigger than the others, contained nothing but had a drawstring at its opening. Reg flattened it out, turned it inside out and checked both sides before putting it back in the case. He had washed and dried it himsel
f after the last execution. He had noticed with some distaste that there had been some dried spittle on the inside.

  From the second bag, Reg pulled out a small leather wallet which, when opened out, revealed twine, sailor’s palm, needles and thread. He checked the length of the twine and assessed that he had more than enough for this job. Satisfied, he refolded the case and put it back in its cloth bag before placing it back in the suitcase. From the final bag he tipped out two leather straps of differing lengths, buckled at one end and calibrated with holes at the other. Stretching both out on the bench, he closely inspected the buckles to ensure that the spigot pin sat neatly against the dip at the centre of the buckle. Next, he checked the holes at the other end of the straps, running his fingertips round the edges of the holes to ensure there were no cracks or breaks in the leather. He had had to replace one of the straps after his fourth job when the prisoner had put up a fight and pushed so hard against the buckle that it had broken through the hole. These looked firm and solid. He reached behind him and took a small tin and a cloth from the shelf. He always liked to dubbin the straps a few days before the job so that the leather would soak up the wax and be perfectly supple by the time he came to use them. Settling back on the small stool, Reg dipped the cloth into the light yellow wax in the tin and began to carefully run his covered finger up and down the length of the first strap. Outside the window, a single collared dove, a refugee from the trees surrounding the nearby green, landed on the fence that divided Reg’s garden from his neighbour. It hesitated, unsure of its own safety, sidestepped along the wooden rim and, it seemed to Reg, directly peered in at him with its button eye. As he absent-mindedly rubbed the leather strap, watching the collared dove dip and nod its head, a sudden and profound sense of unease came over him. He had experienced it just once before, on the eve of D-Day, when, polishing his boots in the sergeants’ quarters, he finally heard the report that they were to be in the vanguard of the landings. A fellow sergeant, George Tanner, had been the bearer of the news.

  “Fuck me, Reg, you still polishing your boots? I shouldn’t bother too much, me old son. Where we’re going they’ll be pretty wet and filthy in no time.”

  George Tanner stood by the door to the sergeants’ quarters, his hands akimbo on his waist. “A couple more days and we’re on the move. Say no more.” He tapped the side of his nose.

  Reg stopped polishing and lifted the cloth from the boot. A sudden lurch of panic hit his stomach. “You heard something then, George?”

  “Funny thing. I was just having a dump round the lats and this officer – Captain Douglas, you’ve seen him around – comes in, cool as you like, and sits down next to me. I thought it was a bit odd, him not opting for the officers lats, but it takes all sorts and I’m not fussy.” He laughed as he reached into his tunic pocket for a cigarette. “Anyway, we were having a chat about this and that and then suddenly he blurts out that we’re set for the off, June 5th. Head first into Normandy.” George turned to Reg and lowered his voice, although there was no-one else in the mess. “Let’s hope it’s not feet first back, eh?” He tapped Reg on the shoulder with the cigarette packet. “Keep it under your hat for the time being; don’t want the lads getting jumpy. Let’s wait for the official announcement.” He pulled out a couple of cigarettes from the packet and offered one to Reg. “I was pretty loose in the arse department before. This news don’t help none, I can tell you.” Having lit his cigarette, he took a long drag, held the smoke in his nostrils, and peered up at the ceiling before letting it out in a slow drizzle that drifted across the bunks of the mess. Reg watched George closely. He had always looked up to George as one who was seemingly untouched by the war, but now he saw an unexpected tremble in his face.

  “Did Douglas say anything else?” Reg tapped at his cigarette and a small tip of ash dropped to the floor. He brushed it away with the side of his foot.

  “Well,” George hesitated, staring at the glowing end of his cigarette before lifting his eyes and looking directly at Reg, “he’s not your regular type. Different, you know, not like those stuck-up Johnnies that get on your tits. Quite chatty really. There’s me, showering shit like there’s no tomorrow and he’s on the next hole, straining and a-pushing, trying just to fart. Well, out of the blue he digs into his tunic and pulls out this picture of a girl he had picked off a dead Kraut when he was in North Africa. Pretty thing she was.” He took another drag at his cigarette. “Really pretty.” He pursed his lips together, gave a little sucking sound and winked at Reg. “I wouldn’t say no, I can tell you.” Pulling hard on his cigarette, he continued: “Anyway, it had a little message on the back, something in German, something like ‘forget me not’ – you know the kind of thing.”

  “And?”

  “Well, just makes you think, don’t it? Here today, gone tomorrow. Some girl in Germany probably doesn’t know if her boyfriend or husband’s alive or not. Just realized that the letters have stopped and now she’s worrying herself stupid. She’d be better off knowing for definite. In some ways I’m glad I don’t have a steady girl.” He took a quick look at Reg. “It must be difficult for you married types.”

  Reg returned to the boot he had put on the bunk, picked it up and began to polish once more. “Depends, don’t it?” He removed the cigarette from his lips and spat on the toe cap before wiping the spittle in a circular motion with one corner of the cloth. “No kids, makes a difference. Well, some difference, anyways. Being away from home for months on end doesn’t help. Me and Doris been together for ten years now. I write to her once a week.” He hesitated. “It’s enough.” Looking up at George, he held his stare for a couple of seconds before winking and letting a smile crease the corners of his mouth.

  George laughed out loud. “You bastard married types are all the same. Thank God I’m single.”

  Reg finished checking the belts and carefully put the items back into the little suitcase, double checking before he closed the lid that all was there and ready for use. Locking the case, he placed it under the bench and stood up, banging his head against the hanging lamp that he used when working late in the winter afternoons. The lamp swung wildly back and forth but remained hooked over the hut’s single beam. Steadying it with his hand, Reg looked out of the small window over the patch of cultivated garden that sat between the hut and the house. The kitchen window looked out onto the garden and through it he could see Doris moving backwards and forwards by the sink. Watching her now, he wondered how much longer they would be able to carry on like this.

  He and Doris had lived in this house for nearly twenty years, ever since they had been married in 1934. They had been so excited, and on the first day had gone through the rooms, choosing which would be their bedroom and which would be the children’s – children that both of them thought would naturally follow. But as the months went by, followed by the years, and Doris failed to become pregnant, something indefinable between them died. The war had only added to the difficulties between them, with Reg away for long periods on manoeuvres and then after D-Day when he was away for nearly two years. The letters became fewer and by the time he returned from Germany in 1946 both of them realized that the hopes and aspirations of their early married days had completely disappeared.

  Doris had watched as her contemporaries around her bore children, occasionally comforting herself with the knowledge that at least she wouldn’t have had to send her children off as evacuees, but, little by little, dying inside. Reg, for his part, busied himself with outside interests, those that he would normally have done with a longed-for son. Saturday afternoon football in the stands where he would feel free to shout and bellow along with the other men; modelling a small schooner complete with three masts and rigging which he took down to the nearby park pond; and once, in the early days before the realization set in that it was unlikely ever to be used, he had even made a wooden sit-on scooter complete with painted wheels and a small bell that he proudly displayed to Doris. It had only upset her and now it sat in the back of the sh
ed, covered by unused pieces of planking and bits of cloth.

  Of course, eventually, he had had to explain why he had stayed on in Germany. Most of the other men had been demobbed by the autumn of 1945 and the excuse that he was “assisting” at the trials of the Nazis cut no ice with Doris. Long, complaining letters would arrive at his barracks on a weekly basis, telling him that so-and-so was already home or that so-and-so had got his old job back and if he didn’t hurry up there’d be nothing left for him back in England. In truth, when the opportunity came up to be an assistant to Pierrepoint he had jumped at the chance, seeing it as a way of avoiding the final return to England – and Doris.

  At first, somewhat nervous of the whole execution procedure, he quickly became fascinated by the precise nature of the operation and by Pierrepoint’s simple philosophy.

  “Don’t ever fret about the person you are hanging, Reg. They have been tried and found guilty by better men than you and I. We are just here to do the final task. Don’t worry about what they might have done – especially this lot – but make sure you do it with as much dignity as you can. And do it quick.”

  Stories had filtered through from other sectors of the occupied areas, especially of the Russians, where prisoners had been crudely strung up on makeshift gallows.

  “Bloody amateurs,” Pierrepoint had grumbled. “What do you expect from peasants?” He had snapped his fingers in emphasis. “Quick. That’s the way to do it. Don’t let the buggers struggle. One, two, lights out, job done.”