The world was so simple when you were thirteen. A sob escaped Ellen.
‘But I hate to see you like this, Ma, after you being so happy and all,’ Josie told her. ‘Even Mrs Nolan said she’d never seen a body weep so this side of hell.’
She wasn’t this side of hell. She was in hell.
‘I’ll be all right when we get to Pat’s,’ Ellen said without any real conviction in her voice.
Josie settled herself into the small space. ‘You know Doctor Munroe will come looking for you? I nearly went to find him myself.’
Hope and fear collided together in Ellen’s head. ‘Josie?’
‘Don’t worry, Ma, I didn’t,’ her daughter said. ‘Although seeing you like this, I wish I had.’
If Josie had gone, would Robert have come for her? Of course he would. Nothing would have stopped him. That’s why she had been hiding like a felon in Sarah’s front room these past weeks.
Get off the ship! her emotions screamed at her. Go to him.
A wave of nausea sweep over her and her head spun. With a swift movement Ellen grabbed a handkerchief from her sleeve and put it over her mouth.
‘Are you all right, Ma?’ Josie asked sitting up and laying a hand gently on her shoulder.
Ellen waved away her concern. ‘It’s the ship moving.’ Josie looked around at the solid deck. ‘It will wear off in a couple of days, I expect, when we get used to the pitch and roll.’ She tried to give Josie a smile, but had to reach for their slop bucket.
‘Ma, are you sure you’re all right?’ Josie asked again.
Ellen snuggled down next to Josie and the low, wooden ceiling above her stopped spinning. ‘I’m just tired and my nerves are frayed. I’ll be fine after a good rest,’ Ellen said.
Josie sighed and tugged her blanket around her, wedging her bottom against Ellen’s hip. It was a comforting presence. Ellen lay in the darkness like those around her. St George’s clock chimed four. They would be sailing on the morning tide in less than an hour. In the quiet, Ellen’s mind returned to Robert.
Stop! Ellen all but shouted out aloud. She would have to put those thoughts from her before the grey waters of the Atlantic and everlasting life started to look too inviting.
The ship swayed and nausea swept over her again. She tasted bile in the back of her throat. In the dark she took deep breaths.
It’s seasickness, she thought, as the nausea subsided.
Are you sure? A little voice asked.
The deck around them was becoming still as people settled. Many had walked miles, from Essex and beyond, to take passage to a new life in America. New life. No life. There would be no life without Robert.
Ellen rearranged the covers over her and thought of her brother and his family. In his last letter Pat had written that Mary had had another baby...
Without thinking Ellen’s hand went to her stomach. In the same instant there was a scraping of wood on wood from above her and men shouting. The deck she lay on pitched slightly and rolled as the ship left its berth. Within a moment, the last tether ropes splashed into the river as the Kentish Man began its long voyage to New York.
With his head hard against the rough stonework of the wall, Danny idly watched a large rat scamper across the other end of the damp cell. The rat was so used to sharing its habitat with men in shackles that, even as Danny moved and scraped the heavy iron fetters across the stone floor, the rodent continued its foraging without pausing. It was Danny’s only companion now that the last of his visitors had departed. Dripping water sounded. It had rained yesterday and the far corner of the cell had filled with water. This had drained away now, but a pool of stagnant slurry marked where it had been. Although he had been kept apart from the rest of Newgate’s population, he could hear the moans and whimpers of the prison’s other inmates echoing around the arched stone corridors outside his cell day and night.
Disappointment crept over him. Very few of his old drinking and business acquaintances had visited him in Newgate.
Old Annie had been sentenced to transportation, although at her age he doubted she would survive the journey. After investigation of the East India Company books, Captain Merton had been thrown into the Fleet prison for embezzlement. From there, in a month or two, he was going to Botany Bay and, being the calculating bastard Danny knew him to be, would make a fortune out of his fellow exiles along the way. Milo and Wag, the parish constables, were being held somewhere nearby, but Danny hadn’t seen them. They, too, probably had a long sea journey before them.
As a reward for his cooperation, Hennessey, too, had started his slow journey to the penal colony on the other side of the world as punishment for the murder of the families killed in the Chapman Street fire. But he, Danny Donovan, and Black Mike were to keep their appointment with the noose in a few hours’ time.
He had had a hope, albeit a slim one, that he could have had his sentence commuted to transportation, but the law demanded that someone die and he and Black Mike were those ‘someones’.
Through the open grate above his head, the sky had become a lighter grey, hinting at the sunrise an hour away. He could already hear the sound of the gathering crowd outside, staking out the best position for today’s main event. He planned to give them a show.
He had been a spectator himself on many occasions and knew what the crowd were waiting for. They wanted to see a man facing the rope cry for his mother and beg for mercy. Well, he couldn’t remember the woman who’d given birth to him and he’d never begged in his life. So if that’s what the mob wanted of Danny Donovan, then they’d be sore disappointed.
He looked around the narrow cell and wondered how Mike was faring. He’d seen him yesterday in the Prison chapel. They and their fellow death-cell prisoners had sat around the central table on which a coffin rested. He supposed it was there to remind them, as if they could forget, that they were under the noose. He and Mike had sat for a full two hours listening to an overblown parson with an ill-fitting wig call them to repentance. Wouldn’t it be a mercy not to make the poor souls condemned to die at the end of a rope suffer such a sermon on their last full day on earth? Still, it was a respite from the sameness of your own company.
After the service the prisoners stumbled back to their cells, shackles dragging on their arms and legs. He nodded to Mike before he was thrown back in the cell four doors down from his own. All prisoners sentenced to die were held in the condemned holds alongside Newgate Street. This gave them the added diversion, in their last days, of seeing the scaffold being made ready for use.
A small trapdoor squeaked open and a tin plate and cup were shoved through. Danny ignored it. His cell companion didn’t. The rat scurried over and started helping himself to Danny’s last breakfast this side of eternity. He watched the rat idly as his mind ran on.
Would Munroe be in the crowd? Would he come to see the completion of his work as Danny mounted the scaffold? He doubted it. Too fine a gentleman to stand and gawp with the rest of London.
He smiled. He’d seen to Doctor Munroe good and proper, that he had.
In fact, his revenge on Munroe was more complete than if he’d slit his throat as he’d thought to do. A man loses his life in a moment and then it’s over, whereas Munroe now had to live with the loss of his reputation and Ellen for the rest of his natural.
Forster, one of his few cell visitors, did at least tell him of Ellen’s disappearance and Munroe’s frantic attempts to find her. It had given Danny the only scrap of satisfaction in an otherwise bleak two weeks.
He sat there thinking of everything and nothing until the cell was fully illuminated by the dawn light. The chief turnkey, Ebenezer Winkworth, entered. Danny’s jailer was a man of about his own age and build, and one with whom he instantly knew he would be able to do business. Five shillings the old bugger had got out of him, but it was worth it. Danny didn’t want to go to his Maker in Newgate rags. Winkworth carried a bucket of water in one hand and Danny’s folded clothes and shoes in the other.
As
Danny dressed he could hear the crowd outside become restless. Pulling his waistcoat down he faced the jailer. His neck felt strangely exposed - his cravat would not be needed. A shiver rippled through him. He pushed thoughts of his bare neck aside.
‘Lead on, Winkworth,’ he said, putting on his most artless smile. ‘The good people of London have things to attend to other than seeing this old Irish neck of mine stretch.’
The shiver rippled up his spine again. Danny stepped forward, almost pushing the turnkey out of the door.
Outside, he felt the freshness of the morning air on his face. He stopped and lifted his head. Above the high walls of the yard a crisp autumn morning was in full splendour. Two pigeons perched on the wall were cooing. In the chapel yard several other condemned men were shuffling about in dirty rags. He spotted Mike. They stared at each other.
There was a jingling of metal as the manacles were taken off and, as the jailers sorted them into some semblance of order, Danny made his way over to his right-hand man.
‘Morning to you, Mike,’ he said with forced lightness. The shiver in his spine was now playing around his innards.
‘I suppose we are overdue this meeting,’ Mike said flatly. ‘Some we knew have taken this trip long ago.’
Images of boys’ faces long forgotten flashed into Danny’s mind. Spike, Ten, Poo and others, all young and all dead. Lads like Mike and himself who had been born and raised in squalor and only able to eat if they could flitch enough to sell to a fence.
The shiver was now spiking his spine and mangling his guts. ‘God, I could murder a drink,’ he said, nudging Mike in the ribs and willing him to retort with banter.
Mike said nothing. Sweat broke out on Danny’s brow and top lip. Unceremoniously, they were pushed and shoved into place, two abreast. He and Mike were in the centre of the column.
Winkworth marched along the side of the condemned men looking them up and down. He eyed Danny and Mike for a long moment then pointed at Danny with the end of his baton.
‘You, Paddy. You and your sweetheart there look dapper enough to head up this parade. Move to the front.’ Several of the guards snickered.
Sending the turnkey murderous looks, Danny and Mike stepped to the front of the column of prisoners and faced the main gate. Staring at the heavy oak gates with spikes across the top Danny’s heart started to thump in his chest and his mouth grew dry. Someone in the yard whistled, and the mournful bells of St Sepulchre started to ring. A roar went up on the other side of the gates. Then they started to creak open.
‘Move on!’ Winkworth shouted,
The prisoners shuffled forward, Danny at the front with Mike a few paces behind. As they were spotted the noise from the jeering crowd grew.
They marched forward, the crowd pressing on them on all sides and the jailers struggling to keep them back.
All around a sea of faces grinned, screamed, laughed and made merry. Across the street, crammed into windows, were those spectators able to pay the three shillings to have an uninterrupted view of the hanging. Others perched on the stonework of houses in order to see clearly. Making their way through the milling crowds were street vendors selling oranges, penny twists and sheets recounting the trials of the condemned. At the front eager, wide-eyed faces watched the condemned men make their last journey to the gallows. Behind them was the raised platform of the gallows itself.
Missiles started to fly through the air from every direction. A slimy piece of fruit that had once been an apple hit Danny on the side of his face. A coil of dog dirt splattered across his chest sending up a stomach-churning odour. A clump of mud hit Mike, then some more rotting matter fell on him. All around them the crowd screamed with one voice. Someone dashed out of the crowd, spat in his face and told him that was for Sarah. He couldn’t remember a Sarah or what he had done to her - there were probably a hundred or so Sarahs that he never knew, but who had been made to pay for displeasing him in some way. Now their friends and families were now arming themselves with shit and decomposing vegetation to sling at him.
The execution party made slow progress through the screaming throng, but finally Danny reached the steps. On the other side of the platform were two carts, their cargo of open coffins clearly visible. With no family to claim his body Danny would occupy one of those caskets only as far as the journey to the surgeon’s dissecting room. He looked up.
Above him the sky was blue and dotted with light clouds. His gaze lowered onto the men on the platform. The prison priest, the hangman and his two assistants. The steps up were only wide enough for two men so Danny and the jailer who had led the column the hundred or so yards along the Old Bailey began to climb. With feet like lead Danny plodded up the seven steps to the top.
Bracing himself on the uneven planks he looked around. The shiver on his spine was travelling both ways now and his guts felt as if there was a docker’s hook twisting them. The sound of the crowd was almost drowned out by the blood crashing in his ears. He tried to swallow, but found he had no spit. His eyes darted around and fixed on the upright structure with the looped rope dangling from it.
He heard his name shouted by a multitude of voices, but his gaze remained riveted to the loop of rope swinging ever so slightly in the breeze. Those now on the platform behind him pushed him forwards, towards the noose. He shoved them back and cursed roundly.
His fellow prisoners muttered and one of the jailers poked him with his baton to move him on. Danny stumbled forward, his eyes not leaving the loop of rope.
From somewhere in the crowd a child called ‘Mother’. It seemed to be coming from a long way away. Danny’s head whipped around. About three rows back, being held on his father’s shoulders was a small boy, bright-faced with a mop of fair hair.
Danny stared at the child, seeing as if for the first time the innocence of a child’s smile. A noise started in his head as he noticed a red shawl to his left and the sweep of a feather in a woman’s hat. All around him colours came at him, startlingly vivid in the clear morning light. Then sounds collected in his ear. A laugh, the bark of a small dog, the cry of a street trader. Suddenly his whole head was full of sounds and colours. Then he noticed his hands. He clasped them together feeling the coarse skin and the raised veins on the backs. He raised both hands and ran them over the surface of his face and over his head. He felt the scrape of the bristles on his chin and the coarseness of his hair as if he had never felt them before. He looked back at his hands. The black square nails would carry on growing after he was dead, as would the fine hair that covered his knuckles. Suddenly his breath failed him. His hands went to his neck, his bare neck, while his eyes were dragged back to the rope hanging patiently for him.
Behind him someone was trying to move him forward towards that cursed noose. A dam of thoughts broke in his head. Why was he just standing here like a thick Paddy? He was Danny Donovan, not some gutter scum. Somehow he had regained his ability to breathe and now he was dragging in breath noisily. His head was roaring and his vision seemed to have a sharpness like never before.
He went from frozen to animated in a heartbeat and lurched forward. Strong hands caught him from both sides. He shook them off. At the end of the platform the parson who had bored the ears off them the day before stood, Bible open, reading passages in a uninterested voice.
He’ll show the fecking, Protestant bastard what he thought about repentance, damnation, sinners and fecking eternity.
Danny stumbled towards him, avoiding the outstretched hands trying to hold him back. A whistle sounded and a truncheon crashed across his shoulder. He barely felt the pain and continued towards the black-robed parson. Other blows followed, but after a lifetime of street fighting his body ignored them and let his mind pursue its goal.
Seeing Danny approach, the priest let the Bible drop from his hands. It fell like a wounded bird at his feet. Someone got their arm around Danny’s neck, choking off his air. With a swift backwards flick of his head, his skull connected with a sickening crunch against his assai
lant’s nose. The grip loosened and, crouching momentarily, Danny launched himself at the white-faced chaplain.
With all his senses bursting within him and competing for attention, Danny grasped the unfortunate man around the throat in a murderous hold. He tried to speak, but only guttural sounds came forth. No matter. The fear in the priest’s eyes showed he clearly understood Danny’s meaning. Something hit the side of Danny’s head. It resounded in his skull and his hands lost their strength. As he shook his head to clear the sudden fogginess that was gathering, another further blow descended. Danny staggered back, the fog swirling all around in his head now. Hands grabbed him and something rough passed over his face and tightened around his throat.
He looked around and through his darkening vision saw Black Mike sobbing like a baby. He wanted to say something to him but his mouth wouldn’t work. Something propelled him forward and the rope scraped painfully on his Adam’s apple. The mist in his head was almost complete now, all sounds and colours were slowly fading.
For one dreamlike moment an eerie silence descended, the sound of metal scraping metal carried over the stillness. Then Danny’s feet were without support, instinctively he failed, trying to find a footing. There was a sudden jolt, a loud crack and then an abrupt nothing.
There was a light rap on the door. Robert didn’t answer. There was another light tap and then the brass handle turned. Robert continued to gaze at the glass of brandy in his hand.
‘I’ve brought you the special edition,’ William Chafford said, slapping the newspaper down beside him.
Robert didn’t look at it.
‘The report makes chilling reading. Donovan nearly killed Newgate’s senior chaplain on the gallows before they managed to bundle the noose around his neck and loose the trapdoor. It was a mercy there wasn’t a riot.’
Robert took another long sip of brandy as William settled in the chair opposite him.
‘No news then?’
Placing the glass on the table beside him, Robert leant forward and hung his head in his hands.
No Cure for Love Page 28
