The Devil's Acre

by Matthew Plampin

  Amy wouldn’t have this, of course. Her loyalty to her husband, tested by difficult circumstances, was growing firmer by the day. ‘They went, Caro, because Noone nurses a deep hatred of Catholic Irishmen. And I’d wager that filthy demon would be very pleased to learn of the bind we’re all in now.’

  A timber barge cruised by, its bell clanging and blue night-lights shining, making a late delivery to Cubitt’s building yard. Caroline watched it pass. ‘You should leave the Acre, then – leave London. Take your husband and the little ones and go back to Aylesbury. No Irish moneylender would think to follow you there.’

  ‘We left no one behind us, Caro, no one at all. Who would I go to? This city is the only home I have now – and you are my only true friend.’

  Caroline knew then that she was about to be asked for her help; that Amy was going to make the troubles of Martin and his friends her troubles as well. ‘What d’you want from me, Amy? I’ve told you what you should do. I ain’t got no money. My wage at Colt ain’t a fraction of what your Martin receives.’

  Amy wiped her eyes on her shawl. ‘The guns,’ she said simply, ‘from the factory. They’re worth a fair bit.’

  Caroline stared at her sister, feeling almost as if she was choking. ‘You mean…you mean you want me to turn thief too?’

  ‘Mart says you’re well placed to get all the different parts – a lot better than he is. And they’re watching him now. He can’t be seen doing anything strange.’

  ‘Do you have any notion what I’d be risking, Amy, just to save Mart? Why, the Yankees would see me jailed!’

  ‘Not for Mart,’ Amy corrected her. ‘I’m asking you for Katie and Michael. Please, Caro – for the little ones. If this debt ain’t paid they’ll be given over to the Parish and they’ll never escape. You’ve seen how it goes. There’s something about those places that sticks to you – that can’t be got off.’ Thinking of this made her well up once more; but she pressed on, determined to state her case. ‘Your Colonel’s set to make hundreds of guns, ain’t that right?’

  Caroline looked away. ‘Thousands, more like.’

  Amy laughed mirthlessly. ‘Well then, bless my heart, he won’t miss a few of them, will he! It’d be like taking a loaf from the bloomin’ baker!’

  ‘But this ain’t bread we’re speaking of here, leather-head!’ Caroline snapped. ‘These are six-shooting pistols! Who’d they be going to, Amy, d’you reckon? Have you thought about that at all? What might such things be used for?’

  Amy drew her shawl around her, pursing her lips. Caroline recognised her mood; any further discussion was futile. ‘I can’t think of that, Caro,’ she said. ‘We’re facing ruin – the workhouse, for God’s sake. My family will be broken up, and my babies lost forever. I can’t think of anything but that.’

  A policeman started down the street as if magically drawn to talk of law-breaking, walking slowly in their direction, his face hidden entirely in the shadow of his black top hat. Caroline could tell that he was studying them, no doubt taking them for a pair of novice whores from whom he could extort some kind of tariff. They had to leave.

  ‘Christ Almighty, Amy,’ she exclaimed wearily, ‘why’s your life always such a blessed trial?’ She hooked her arm through her sister’s. ‘Come, you should get yourself home. I’ll go with you.’

  ‘You have to help us,’ Amy insisted. ‘Please, Caro.’

  Caroline didn’t answer. Tightening her grip on Amy, she steered them towards the Thames, turning left onto Ponsonby Street. Up ahead were the lights of Vauxhall Bridge, marking a misty line across the wide black Thames. The sisters passed by the Spread Eagle; its low mullioned windows were glowing merrily, and those gathered within were belting out a hearty song. Caroline hurried them on to Westminster, not allowing herself even a single glance inside. Her walk with Mr Lowry would have to wait.

  9

  The panelled coffee room of the Reform Club covered one entire side of the building. Long rows of tables had been laid out across the tiled floor, and the aroma of a great many different luncheons intermingled in the air; a dazzling variety of creatures of both land and sea appeared to be on the menu that afternoon. There was a civilised murmur of gentlemanly conversation, accompanied by the discreet clinking of fine china and glassware. Political and literary-looking fellows were eating with fastidious good manners, taking coffee from slender silver jugs and reading their newspapers with the infuriating, mincing reserve of well-placed Englishmen. Sam surveyed the room, his chin up, squinting slightly to focus his eyes. He quickly located his ally and strode over to meet him, barrelling between the tables like a ball in the gutter of a bowling alley. Waiters, clad in the club livery of plush-breeches and white silk stockings, were obliged to step smartly from his path.

  Commodore Hastings looked up at him, blinking in surprise at Sam’s sudden arrival. ‘Why, my dear Colonel Colt, I did not expect you to be –’

  Sam landed heavily in the chair opposite Hastings. Without speaking, he reached into his jacket, fastening thumb and forefinger around the cold body of the pistol. He whipped the thing out with practised speed, held it up for a moment and then brought it down hard against the tabletop. The wineglasses jumped, one falling over, rolling off the edge and breaking apart on the tiles with a hollow crack.

  ‘Whiskey!’ Sam bellowed at the nearest waiter. ‘Tom Hastings, my friend, let us toast the first London peacemaker – the first London Colt!’

  Hastings was staring at the revolver. He had turned a mixture of colours; very pale around the eyes and cheeks, with a deep purple tone building at his neck. ‘So it is working, Colonel?’ he inquired, almost whispering in the hush that had fallen over the coffee room, mortified by the attention his guest was attracting. ‘Your – your factory, I mean?’

  Sam turned to the waiter, who was similarly transfixed, a dumb little mannequin in his ridiculous fancy garb. ‘I said whiskey, man! Are you goddamn deaf?’ The fellow shot off like a racehorse from its stall. Sam straightened his collar and addressed Hastings again, his voice proud yet businesslike. ‘It is, Commodore – and this here is the very first weapon manufactured by Samuel Colt outside the borders of the American states. The very first. A thirty-six calibre Navy pistol made for military use – you’ll notice that it has no brass fittings or any other details. No, what we have here is the weapon only, expertly designed and made, ready for use by Her Majesty’s forces at their earliest convenience. Neither has it been engraved, apart from the serial numbers and the marks of my inspectors – and this, of course.’ He angled the gun slightly, tapping the top of the barrel with his forefinger. There, in neat, mechanical letters no more than an eighth of an inch high, was stamped Address: Col. Colt, London.

  Hastings leaned forward, plucking a gold-edged monocle from his old-fashioned naval waistcoat, his natural gunman’s enthusiasm winning out over his John Bull reserve. There were noises from the other occupants of the room. Sam swivelled his head from side to side, meeting their stares. He saw ire, yes, and disapproval; but also a certain fascination. Even those who thought him a knave were clearly intrigued by his revolver.

  ‘Egad,’ exclaimed Hastings softly. ‘This is a fine piece indeed.’

  ‘English made in its entirety,’ Sam announced, as much to the onlookers as to the man opposite him. ‘Every last part fashioned from Sheffield steel by English hands. Physical testimony to the strength of the Anglo-Saxon bond that caused me to establish myself in this great country.’

  The waiter returned with a tray bearing a bottle of treacle-coloured bourbon and two short tumblers; he set them down and retired, recovering the broken glass from the floor-tiles as he did so. Sam checked the label and couldn’t help but be impressed. Whatever else a man might have to say about these high-born Bulls, they certainly knew how to surround themselves with quality. He poured them both out a measure and drank his down at once.

  ‘I should tell you, Tom, that production is not yet at full strength. But make no mistake – this pistol lying rig
ht here is as good a firearm as has ever been made anywhere, at any point in mankind’s progress. We’ve proved it ourselves, and rigorously. It’s more than ready to be sent off to the Tower to pass the tests of your government.’

  Hastings caught the pique in Sam’s voice. He sat back, tucking his monocle back into his waistcoat. ‘A mere formality, Colonel,’ he said reassuringly, ‘in your case, at least.’

  Sam snorted. ‘To be quite frank, Tom, your tests aren’t equal to the guns. They might pose a challenge to that rogue Adams, but this here before us now is an expertly constructed weapon.’ To stress this point, he lifted the revolver three inches from the table – it had left a greasy impression of itself upon the clean white cloth – and banged it down again. The sound rang through the genteel coffee room like a lead door-knocker.

  Hastings had returned to something approaching his usual hue; this second impact of pistol against table, however, brought a fresh radishy rash to the old soul’s jowls. ‘Will you eat something, Colonel?’ he asked quietly, looking to the neatly printed bill of fare lying beside his untouched glass. ‘I shall have the beef, I think. It is usually very good.’

  Sam shook his head. ‘All I require now,’ he declared, pouring himself a second drink, ‘is a nation to sell my wares to. Pretty soon there will be hundreds upon hundreds of guns piling up in that warehouse by the river. I look in the papers, Tom, and all I read of this promising situation in the East is an endless dance of diplomats – Russia menaces, Turkey responds, France and Britain flap about like ducks in a goddamn rainstorm. I’m growing impatient with it.’

  ‘My understanding,’ said Hastings, ‘is that both Lord Aberdeen and Lord Clarendon believe war can be avoided and are briefing the ambassadors to that end.’ He summoned a waiter and pointed to his choice on the bill of fare. The man took the card from him with a bow and made for the kitchens.

  Sam barely managed to contain his temper. ‘Well, Tom, that just ain’t good enough. It ain’t goddamn right. What of this Palmerston fellow? I keep hearing the name from the Englishmen in my employ. They say he is calling for a fleet of gunboats to sail into Turkish waters – to serve as sentinels and remind this frisky Tsar who exactly he’s facing here. Now that’s a course of real courage, if you ask me – and one approved by the British public.’

  Hastings cast a faintly flustered look around him, uncomfortable with this sensitive subject matter. ‘Lord Palmerston is Home Secretary at present,’ he said, a little quickly. ‘Such matters are not his area of authority.’

  ‘Perhaps they damn well should be.’

  An awkward silence fell between them. Sam overheard someone over by the windows regaling his companions with the tale of the Yankee gun-maker’s interview with Lord Paget three months previously. In this rather lively version, the Adams pistol actually went off, blowing a hole the size of a thrupenny bit in the back of Paget’s Chippendale desk-chair.

  The Commodore’s face suddenly brightened; he’d thought of a new topic of conversation. ‘I hear Mr Kossuth’s visit was a success. Your new friend Mr Street has been talking of it constantly – in this very room and all over London.’

  ‘It won’t lead to a sale. The Hungarian fool didn’t have enough understanding of what he was being shown even to realise that production had yet to begin, and he ain’t got so much as two cents to rub together.’ Sam put away his second shot of whiskey. ‘Got us in the papers, though. Spot of that ballyhoo’s always good for business.’

  ‘Oh, that’s not all, Colonel. Not by a good distance.’ Hastings was positively beaming, displaying a row of crooked brownish teeth. ‘Your reputation in the Commons – itself a great club, you know, not so very different from the one we sit in now – was raised enormously by that one small act. Men who hadn’t given a thought to the Colt revolver since the days of the Great Exhibition could speak of little else but the American gunworks, this marvel of engineering that has sprung up by the Thames. You were brought to the attention of England’s foremost men. They speak of you as a great innovator and inventor, a business genius, a – a…’ Here the old sailor’s voice trailed off; he waved a hand about vaguely, directing an encouraging smile in Sam’s direction.

  Sam considered the bourbon bottle for a moment. ‘Tom,’ he said firmly, helping himself to a third measure, ‘call it needless Yankee suspicion if you will, but I’m getting the feeling that I’m being used for some other end here. Exactly whose attention was I trying to get by playing host for Mr Kossuth?’

  Hastings laughed, finally picking up his bourbon and taking a sip. ‘You have me at a disadvantage there, Colonel. I am no plotter. Cannon, sir; that’s my area. Cannon, powder and shot. I am not one of these devious Westminster types.’ He set the tumbler down again with a shallow cough. ‘Mr Street might be able to help you.’

  ‘I’m sure he could, if he was at all disposed to.’ Sam met the Commodore’s eye. ‘I’ve been trying to reach the slippery son of a bitch, but I’m fast discovering that if he don’t want to see you, he sure as hell ain’t being seen. D’you happen to know where he is?’

  ‘Again, Colonel Colt, I cannot help you. Mr Street serves the interests of important men. They keep him busy indeed.’

  Sam decided to let this go. What did he really care about the doings of Lawrence Street? He drank his whiskey; three shots down and he was starting to feel it. There was an agreeable fluidity to his thinking, and the stiffness that so often plagued his joints was entirely gone. Outside, sunlight pierced the dense London cloud, laying long strips across the coffee room’s tables; these grew rapidly brighter, plunging all else into a pleasant gloom. Sam found himself thinking that he could easily settle in for the afternoon. Then he remembered the letter he’d received earlier that week and the decision it had prompted.

  ‘Listen, Tom,’ he said, pushing his glass to the centre of the table. ‘I must tell you that I’m returning to America at the earliest opportunity. Friday, most probably.’

  Hastings’s brow lifted in surprise. ‘My dear Colonel Colt! Not for long, I hope?’

  ‘For the rest of the summer, I should think. I’m needed at my Hartford works with some urgency.’ Sam sighed; he supposed he owed Hastings a proper explanation, much as it vexed him even to think of what was dragging him back across the Atlantic at this crucial juncture. ‘I’m having this dyke built, y’see, to protect my factory from the Connecticut River, which has a famous propensity to flood. An unholy combination of town officials and clergymen has got wind of this project, and seeks to curtail my endeavours, in the rascally way of such people. I must be there to fend them off.’

  Hastings’s expression was uncomprehending. ‘But how on earth can they possibly prevent you from protecting your own premises?’

  ‘Oh, they won’t prevent me,’ Sam informed him. ‘There’s no chance of that. They’ve been putting stories about, though, sowing their little seeds. I’m using the very best Dutch methods for this dyke, which I suppose involves a fair bit of excavation. Accordingly, my opponents have cooked up some ridiculous theory that I will unsettle the river, and force it to flood further upstream, where there are houses and suchlike. Total nonsense, of course.’ Sam laid a hand upon the London Colt, preparing to pick it up. He’d already decided that the gun was going over the Atlantic with him, to be shown off to the staff of the Hartford works – and anyone else who came into its inventor’s path. ‘Why is it, Tom, that whenever a man tries to do things on the big figure there’s always some goddamn chump sat in an office or standing up in a pulpit telling him he can’t?’

  The old Commodore didn’t have an answer to this. ‘I am quite sure that you will emerge victorious,’ was all he said.

  Sam returned the pistol to his jacket. ‘Anyways, my friend, I must leave you. There’s a mountain of preparations still to be made, and one particular piece of labour at the Pimlico works that demands my personal supervision.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ Hastings’s regret at Sam’s departure was tempered by a clear relie
f that the scrutiny of the Reform Club would soon be lifted from his table. ‘But you must promise to return to us soon, Colonel. We cannot allow the momentum that has been built up so skilfully to go to waste.’

  Colt stood, dropping a pound note beside the silver pepperpot and extending his hand. ‘My people will keep things going, Tom, don’t you worry. I’ll make sure they know what’s damn well expected of ‘em.’

  The Colt barouche steered away from the Pall Mall traffic towards where Sam stood. He climbed up from the pavement, shouted ‘Bessborough Place!’ at the coachman and swung himself inside. His secretary and press agent were seated within, facing each other. As he sat down, taking off his hat and cutting a plug of Old Red, Sam gave them a quick, derisive account of the luxury he had just seen – the fine foods, the magnificent, portrait-lined library, the platoon of overdressed servants – and stated that, in his humble opinion, it indicated a basic hypocrisy at the root of English Liberalism.

  ‘I tell you, the zeal that those worthy fellows in there supposedly feel for reform don’t extend to any democratic simplicity of manners or modesty of style, that’s for goddamn sure.’

  Lowry and Richards grinned at this; Sam felt that the Englishmen had no more respect for the rich Whigs of the Reform Club than he did. We’ve become a passable team, he thought, me and these two Bulls. They should know my plans; they deserve it. Pushing the plug inside his lip, he informed them that he was leaving the country at the end of the week.

  The secretary stared at him in disbelief. ‘But how are we to continue, Colonel, without you present to direct our efforts?’

  ‘Consider it a test of your abilities, Mr Lowry,’ Sam told him. ‘It’s a fine chance to demonstrate to me how much you’ve learnt in these past months.’

  He looked out of the window, feeling an uncomfortable cramping sensation in his midriff that may have been due to the whiskey. They were racing around the boundary of St James’s Park. Its lawns were teeming with office clerks and notaries, relieved of their jackets and hats, basking in the summer sun; some were even braving the waters of the boating lake. He slid a hand inside his waistcoat and gave his belly a firm, circular rub.