by Simon Mayo
Habs’s response was measured. ‘He said somethin’, jus’ to see what I thought.’
‘And what did you think?’
‘That it sounded ’bout right.’
Everywhere, groups of men huddled to discuss the morning’s events. Habs and Joe paused their conversation each time they negotiated a knot of prisoners.
‘And this is because of what happened in the courtyard?’ asked Joe.
‘King Dick woulda said somethin’ anyhow,’ said Habs. ‘And you spent those days with us in the cockloft. But yes, he thought you might change your mind ’bout the play now. If we’re not goin’ home, well, then …’
‘What were the English thinking?’ Joe was distracted for a moment. ‘If they were trying to start another revolution, that was a goddamn fine effort.’
‘When it comes to provokin’ Yankees,’ commented Habs, ‘they ’bout the best there is.’
Round the back of Five, a small huddle of sailors looked up to see who was approaching, then resumed their conversation. With a glance to the guards beyond the palisades, Habs leaned in close. ‘I heard talk of an escape this mornin’. Never heard that before. Not in Four.’
‘How d’you escape from Dartmoor?’ asked Joe, surprised. ‘Is it possible?’
‘If it’s just you, you bribe a guard. You need someone to get you out. If there’s more than you, it’s the tunnel.’
Joe stopped in his tracks. ‘There’s a tunnel?’ He realized he’d spoken too loud, checked for eavesdroppers, then glanced up at the military walk.
Habs tugged at his coatsleeve to get him walking, then spoke softly. ‘Used to be three. First one was in Two, longest was in Five, and the French built one in Four. But Two and Five got discovered. So that leaves Four.’
‘Have you seen it?’ Joe asked. ‘How far does it go?’
Habs shook his head. ‘I ain’t, but Ned says he seen it once. Heads north from the cookhouse, he said. But tha’s a lot of diggin’ ’fore you reach the outer wall, and King Dick stopped all that kinda talk soon as he heard it. Said the press gangs always out there lookin’ for more victims and, anyways, there was enough dead Yankees here and he sure wasn’t goin’ to help ’em kill any more.’
Four Rough Allies appeared from the back of Three. Joe thought he recognized the shortest of them from the library, but the forked beards made it hard to tell them apart. Their uneven walk suggested they’d made an early start on the ale. Their eyes flicked from Joe to Habs and back again.
The short Ally hitched up his trousers and squirted tobacco juice from the corner of his mouth. ‘Still workin’ on your nigger play, then?’ he breathed as they passed.
Neither of them said anything, just kept walking. A whole block later, Habs sighed deeply. ‘Hadn’t thought ’bout this,’ he said. ‘Not properly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m invitin’ … we’re invitin’ you to move to Four. Makes sense to us, but not to them.’ Habs gestured back at the Allies. ‘In here, if you get recruited and go fight for the British, you’re branded a traitor ’fore you go. I mean, really burned. Like with irons. Well, if you move in with “the niggers” to perform in some “nigger play”, many here’ll be thinkin’ ’bout you the same way. Even some o’ your own crew. Maybe it ain’t such a good idea.’
Joe pulled Habs’s arm back until he stopped walking. They had reached a sheltered space between Blocks One and Two where the sun had reached and melted some of the snow.
‘But there’s a berth near you that’s free?’ Joe fixed his eyes keenly on Habs.
‘It’ll be free, yes.’
‘So it isn’t free now?’
‘Listen, Joe,’ said Habs, his normally restless eyes settling on Joe’s. ‘You know that if King Dick asks, King Dick gets. He wants you to join us in Four. You’ll be ’cross the aisle from me, Ned and Sam.’
‘And the King.’
‘And the King, yes. He likes you, Joe, else he wouldn’t be offerin’. He don’t do this very often.’
‘You mean, he doesn’t invite whites very often?’
‘I do mean that, yes.’
‘But I would be leaving my mess,’ said Joe, turning away. ‘It’s not the Rough Allies worrying me. I haven’t been firing cannon and rifle at sea these last two years only to become a coward as soon as I get to England. No, it isn’t them. But if my ship think I am deserting them … well, I can’t come. We survive in groups, Habs. I’m not sure I can change just like that. I need to know which group I’m in, where I belong.’
Habs twisted a button on his coat. ‘You’re right. ’Course you right. And you’ve only been here a few weeks – King Dick’ll understand when you explain it like that. But in the long days before home, we can still put on a show.’
‘We can,’ said Joe, leaning back against the wall. ‘Hard to believe – Shakespeare in a jail. Romeo and Juliet in Dartmoor. It’s quite something.’
Habs stood next to him, their shoulders touching, heads turned skywards. ‘The show most certainly will be somethin’,’ he said, ‘once all the rehearsin’s done. And we need to make this memorable. The last show of the Dartmoor Amateur Dramatic Company.’
The cockloft’s wall of tobacco smoke and beer fumes hit them hard; here, everyone had a pipe, everyone a jug. Most of Block Four had forced their way inside. There was no music, not even any gambling; but arguments, loud and impassioned, had taken over. It started at the door: Habs and Joe found themselves squeezed between four men who were yelling at each other.
‘They done that on purpose.’
‘D’you expect them to jus’ let us go?’
‘You lost your thinkin’ in here!’
‘Show me the tunnel! I’ll dig us home myself.’
They ducked and weaved around the shouting, Habs leading the way. A man with hollow eyes and intricately braided queues grabbed hold of Joe, but Habs pushed him away. ‘Later, Eli. We’re seein’ King Dick.’
‘Far corner,’ said the man, as though he were passing on a great wisdom.
As he walked through the crowds, Joe couldn’t help but take in the glances, the nods, the squints of displeasure.
‘They don’t like me here, Habs,’ he called, a sense of foreboding in his voice.
‘Don’t matter!’ was the shouted reply. ‘King Dick’s pleasure’s all you need.’
And the King’s pleasure seemed to be what they had. He saw them approach and summoned them closer. They waited while he finished a detailed discourse on British naval tactics. When he had, he waved his audience away. The slight figures of Alex and Jonathan lurked behind his throne.
‘Mr Snow! Mr Hill!’ he boomed. ‘Join me here, these men are just leavin’.’
Joe removed his hat, his damaged scalp now invisible beneath a new growth of soft blond hair.
‘So, I assume the reason you’re here is that you two’ve been talkin’ ’bout these matters.’
The King glanced from Habs to Joe then back again. Habs nodded and turned to Joe.
The King’s black eyes narrowed, his voice dropping to a murmur. ‘I want you to understand this. We don’t need you, Mr Hill, you know that?’ He let his words hang for a moment. ‘We don’t need you in Four. We don’t need you in our theatre company.’
A small white hand appeared, offering the King coffee. Eyes still on Joe, he took the cup and sipped slowly. Habs shifted his weight awkwardly. Joe kept quiet.
The King held out the now-empty cup and the white hand appeared again. ‘Thank you, Mr Daniels,’ he muttered.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Alex from behind him.
King Dick picked up his club, striking it against the floor as he spoke. ‘We are sufficient,’ he said. ‘We are complete. We need nothin’ from you.’ He rose now and peered down at Joe, one hand tucked inside his starred sash. ‘Have you read your Thomas Hobbes yet, Mr Hill? There’s a copy in Seven, I’m sure of it.’
Joe, bewildered and unprepared for this course of conversation, shook his head. ‘No, King Dick
, I—’
The King waved the club. ‘Don’t matter. I’ll tell you what you need to know. Out there …’ He stabbed his club six times, one for each block. ‘Out there, you have to save your skin by whatever means you deem fit. In here, in Four, there is order. I save your skin; you follow me.’
‘I see—’ began Joe.
‘So, we don’t need you,’ repeated the King, ‘but we invite you.’ Now he smiled, suddenly welcoming. ‘We invite you to join our company – but you follow the rules. You might like it. You might not. But before you give me an answer, you know that your crew, your mess mates, your block … they will not understand.’
Joe waited a few seconds then took a deep breath. ‘And that is why I cannot accept your invitation, King Dick. On the Eagle, we fought together, we nursed together, we buried so many of our friends together …’ He held the King’s stare, the black eyes impossible to read. ‘We saved each other’s skin. I should stay with them, I think. But your play, your Romeo and Juliet – that, I could do. That, I would very much like to do. If I can join that company, I should like that very much.’
King Dick hadn’t moved. No one had. After a long moment he removed his bearskin, wiped a hand over his neatly trimmed hair then placed the hat back on his head.
‘Are you negotiatin’ with me, Mr Hill?’ he asked, his tone neutral.
‘Why, no, sir,’ replied Joe swiftly, nervously.
‘Yes, you are,’ said the King, ‘but you gettin’ me wrong: I like negotiatin’. I’m negotiatin’. I’m a businessman, and I accept your terms. If you play Juliet for me, you can sleep where you want, even with the pigs on Dartmoor if you wish. Or maybe with the Agent – but the pigs got more style.’
The men around the King roared with laughter, fuelled more by relief than comedy.
‘I admire your loyalty,’ he went on, ‘but the offer will remain open.’ King Dick banged his club on the floor like a gavel. He was moving on. ‘We shall perform Romeo and Juliet in one month. It will be the last performance of the Dartmoor Amateur Dramatic Company and men will talk about it for ages to come. We rehearse today. Mr Snow, call everyone together.’
3.8
Block Four, Cockloft
THEY REHEARSED FOR the remainder of the day. As soon as Pastor Simon had finished his service, the choir their last song and the gamblers had started rolling dice, Ned and Sam tabled off a corner of the room. The two copies of Romeo and Juliet were set on two wooden barrels and the players stood or sat, depending on who was speaking. If anyone dared to watch, one glance from the King sent them away.
Habs had a problem. ‘So I’m a Montague. I am a coloured man. My father is played by King Dick; Benvolio and Mercutio are my relatives, played by Sam and Ned. We are all coloured men. Not the same colour, it’s true – why Sam is lighter skinned than the rest of us, we’ll never know.’
Everyone laughed and Sam took a bow. ‘But Joe here is a Capulet,’ continued Habs. ‘And he is a white man, a rival, an ofay. There are many Capulets in the play – his parents, for example – so they got to be white, too. But Tommy here is the only other white-skinned actor we got.’ The crier flushed slightly at being called an actor but all eyes were still on Habs. ‘Now the French have gone, don’t we need to find us some new Capulets?’
Instinctively, everyone waited for the King to pronounce on this. Hunched on his box, hat folded across his lap, he chewed on the unlit pipe between his teeth.
‘We don’t have to do the full play, Mr Snow. You know how everyone gets … restless after a certain amount of time has passed. We gotta keep this one fast. So all them servants, fiddlers and musicians, they can go. Also, as I explained to Mr Hill here, we don’t need anyone. We can do this play with these players here right now.’ He stood and pointed the pipe stem at each of them in turn. ‘If Mr Hill can be playin’ a fourteen-year-old girl, you can all sure as hell play some white folks. It’s actin’, Mr Snow.’ The King was starting to uncoil now, expanding as he spoke, each word inflating him further. ‘But you do have a point so, yes, a couple o’ new actors might help tell our story. Mr Jackson, you know all the blocks better’n most. What d’you say?’
Tommy had only just stopped blushing after being referred to as an actor; now, being asked his opinion by King Dick sent his cheeks reddening furiously again.
‘Well. There was a – erm …’ He swallowed before continuing. ‘There was another theatre company in Five for a while but no one really went to their shows.’
Ned snorted. ‘They tried to charge a shillin’ for lettin’ folk in,’ he said. ‘That was their problem – well, one o’ many, if truth be told. The Heiress at Law they put on last, and it was so goddamn feeble. Every scene had goddamn sugar bowls and goddamn speeches like they all shitted soap. And I know for certain some of those players was intoxicated before they started. Two of ’em was sick all on each other, jus’ ’fore the interval. Biggest applause o’ the whole goddamn night. Soon after, their main man – Wells, I think it was – he caught the flu and died. Best thing for him, too. They ain’t done a goddamn show since.’
The King looked around and, catching Alex Daniels’s eye, summoned him over. ‘We need coffee an’ black fritters. Some freco stew, too. Here.’ He produced a handful of coins and slapped them into Alex’s outstretched hand. ‘Mr Mason outside o’ Two usually has the best, try him first. Tell him who it’s for.’
‘Yes, King Dick.’
As he and Jonathan scampered away, the King turned to Joe.
‘Mr Hill, did you bring any players in with you from the crew o’ the Eagle? It’s jus’ that, what no one has said jus’ yet, is that many here in this fine prison don’t wanna act with Negroes. They’ll shoot cannon with us, sink ships with us, but bein’ on a stage with us?’ The King feigned a shiver. ‘It’s not natural, you see.’
Joe considered the question. ‘No players that I could rightly say, King Dick,’ he answered. ‘There were no shows on the Eagle; we never had time to do much else than fight. We had five coloured sailors in all, but we never talked about … such matters. They all passed bravely when we lost the ship. I could ask Mr Goffe and Mr Lord if they’d be interested. They’re good men, sir.’
The King nodded slowly. ‘Ask ’em tonight. If they agree, bring ’em tomorrow; we have enough here for now. Sam, Habs: Act One. Benvolio and Romeo are talkin’ ’bout love and Benvolio is unimpressed with his cousin.’
‘Uh-huh, tha’s about right,’ said Sam.
They traded lines for thirty minutes more before Alex and Jonathan returned with food and drink. They all ate where they sat, the conversation, between mouthfuls, only of the theatre. ‘On my first ship,’ said the King, ‘there were two stewards. Both men outta Washington, both blacker than me and both had travelled to England many times. They seen so many plays, gone to so many theatres, it was all they spoke about. So they put on shows, right there on the ship. They shortened the plays, added a whole lot of singin’ and dancin’ to some Shakespeare, and I was hooked. Like a whale on a harpoon line. I’d never heard such words before, but it seemed to me, this boy outta Guinea, that this William Shakespeare, whoever he was, he knew ’bout my life. Knew ’bout my sadness, ’bout my trials, ’bout my joys. And that is why, Mr Hill, despite what some paintin’s might show, I know this man was coloured like me. I’ll hear no other view.’
Joe, with a mouthful of stew, mumbled quickly, ‘And I’ll not offer one.’ When his mouth was clear, he had a question. ‘What scenes might you cut, King Dick? The chorus at the start of the show says it’ll last two hours. How much shorter will it be?’
The King narrowed his eyes and Joe wasn’t sure if he was being squinted at or appraised further. ‘We need to lose some o’ the longer speechifyin’, for certain. Keep it movin’, Mr Hill, keep it fast. Your Juliet has a speech – Act Three, if I recall: “Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds …”’
Joe picked it up: ‘“… Towards Phoebus’ lodging …”’
The King raised an eyebrow. �
��Uh-huh. That’s fast, Mr Hill, you’re ahead of me. Well, I sure hope you didn’t spend too long learnin’ that speech. It has thirty-one lines. Thirty-one! The audience’d rather hear Pastor Simon preach once more on sin and damnation than hear Juliet speak so long. No one dies, no one fights, no one does nothin’ – jus’ you and your speech for thirty-one lines. So I cut it to four.’ To Joe’s shocked expression, he responded, ‘Ain’t no time for poetry here, Mr Hill. You’ll thank me once you’re on that stage and your audience has taken to yellin’. You see if you don’t.’ The King swallowed the last of his coffee. ‘But here’s one scene we play in full. Act One, Scene Five. It all starts here. Romeo meets Juliet, they fall in love, they kiss …’
‘Everything so soon?’ asked Tommy, incredulous. The King laughed.
‘Everything so soon indeed, Master Crier. They meet, fall in love, kiss, marry, shake the sheets and die, all in four days.’
Tommy blushed once more and looked to the ground.
‘So, page fifteen,’ said the King. ‘Tybalt has jus’ left.’
‘So we need a Tybalt,’ said Habs.
‘Patience, Mr Snow,’ said the King, annoyed. ‘We are attendin’ to that. Your speech, I think.’ Habs moved to one barrel, Joe to the other. Habs looked across, smiling, but Joe had his head in the script. Habs drained some cold coffee and began.
‘If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.’
Joe, following the script, mouthed Romeo’s words. Now it was Juliet’s turn.
‘Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this—’
The King interrupted.
‘Can’t hear you, Mr Hill. Louder. Assume we’re all drunk, we’re growin’ bored and wanna go home.’
Joe snatched a nervous glance at the King, then at Habs, and was back to the book.
