by James McGee
Hyde attacked. His sword arm was a blur as the rapier blade plunged towards Hawkwood’s throat.
Instinctively, Hawkwood parried, quarte to prime. The room rang as blade clashed on blade. Hawkwood riposted, drove the point of his sword down towards Hyde’s flank. Hyde parried easily, disengaged, and withdrew.
“I see you have some knowledge,” Hyde said dismissively.
Hawkwood knew then that Hyde’s opening gambit had been merely a reconnaissance to test his reflexes. A good swordsman’s strategy was dictated by his opponent’s defensive actions. Hyde would have seen how Hawkwood held his sword, how he moved, and the speed at which he had executed his response. The second attack was likely to be more aggressive, but probably still exploratory.
Hawkwood waited.
Hyde’s next foray was a strike towards Hawkwood’s sword arm. Hawkwood parried, using his forte and the curve of his sword guard to deflect the blade. He riposted towards Hyde’s flank. Hyde parried and moved in again, his sword blade flickering in the light from the windows. Hawkwood parried, riposted, and lunged towards his opponent’s right side. Hyde brought his sword up and Hawkwood withdrew his feint. As he did so, he turned his wrist palm down and slashed his sword back-handed towards Hyde’s belly. He felt the point rasp across Hyde’s chest, heard Hyde grunt as the blade raked the underside of his throat. As Hyde twisted, Hawkwood stepped back before Hyde could riposte. Hyde lifted his hand to his breast and chin and stared at the blood on his fingers. He looked up. There was a new understanding in his dark eyes.
Suddenly, he launched himself forward. Hawkwood barely had time to react as the edge of Hyde’s blade slashed towards his ribs. Hawkwood sucked in air, brought his sword around and felt the nerves in his wrist jar as his blade caught the full force of Hyde’s attack. He heard Hyde grunt. Hawkwood pushed Hyde’s blade away and adjusted his grip in preparation for the colonel’s next offensive.
Hyde came in again. Sword held high, Hawkwood moved to block the cut, realized, too late, that he’d misread the signal and felt a searing pain lance down his right arm as the point of Hyde’s blade sliced across his bicep. He heard Hyde’s hiss of pleasure at the contact.
It was time to end it.
Hawkwood snapped a strike towards Hyde’s sword arm. Hyde flicked the blade away with contemptuous ease and scythed his sword towards Hawkwood’s ribcage. Hawkwood smashed Hyde’s blade aside. Hyde counter-attacked. Hawkwood brought his sword across the front of his body and struck hard on the outside of Hyde’s blade, driving it down and away. As Hyde’s shoulders began to turn, Hawkwood made his move. Sidestepping left, he spun right, turning into his opponent and locking his left arm over Hyde’s sword arm. Hyde was a slender man with a long reach. By stepping forward into Hyde’s attack and thus shortening the distance between them, Hawkwood had reduced his opponent’s room to manoeuvre. Hyde’s cadence was disrupted.
Ignoring the shriek of agony from the wound in his arm, Hawkwood slammed his body against Hyde’s shoulder until they were almost back to back. As Hyde fought for balance, Hawkwood reversed direction, using the outside of his rigid left arm as a fulcrum to force Hyde’s sword arm away from his body. He felt the wound in his arm open and the warm flow of blood, but continued the turn, straightened, and brought himself back to the vertical. Completely wrong-footed by the speed of Hawkwood’s attack, Hyde found himself stranded, his sword arm held adrift, his guard destroyed, and the point of Hawkwood’s sword hovering a paper’s width from his left eye.
And yet, Hawkwood saw, there was no fear there, only a kind of awe, giving way to respect and then uncertainty.
“There was a fencing master called John Turner,” Hawkwood said. “His speciality was killing his opponent by putting the point of his sword through the eye. I killed someone through the eye once. Pierced his brain with an auger. But there’s another attack, supposed to have been perfected by a French master, name of Le Flamand. He called it the botte de Nouilles. The blade enters between the eyes …” Hawkwood shifted the point of the blade an inch and a half to the right. “There’s a weak spot, I’ve been told. Not sure if that’s true, though.”
Hyde frowned.
Hawkwood thrust the blade home.
The point went in with very little resistance. Hyde’s eyes widened with surprise. They were still open as Hawkwood withdrew the blade and stepped away. He watched as Hyde’s corpse pitched forward and hit the floor. He looked down on the still body for several seconds. Then, retrieving his coat, he threw the sword aside and strode out of the room.
Jago looked up with relief as Hawkwood emerged from the darkness.
Hawkwood sighed wearily. “Go home, Carslow.”
He heard Jago gasp. “You ain’t serious?”
The surgeon stared towards the door through which Hawkwood and Hyde had disappeared. “You heard, Carslow. Go home.” Hawkwood fixed the surgeon with a steel gaze. “But be sure to present yourself at Bow Street before midday. I don’t want to have to come looking for you. And if I were you, I wouldn’t plan on holding any lectures for a while either.”
His composure destroyed, the blood drained from Carslow’s face. Hawkwood turned on his heel. “Coming, Sergeant?”
James Read was standing in front of his fire, staring into the flames. He looked, Hawkwood thought, more than a little pensive.
“A terrible business, Hawkwood.”
Hawkwood assumed the remark was rhetorical. He kept quiet.
The Chief Magistrate turned. “How is your arm?”
“Mending.”
Read nodded slowly. “I spoke with Eden Carslow.”
Hawkwood waited.
“He has accepted that his involvement with Colonel Hyde was ill-judged.”
“Ill-judged?”
“Hindsight has made him realize that he allowed loyalty to his friend to rule his head. Once events had been set in motion, it was too late to retract.”
“Too late for him to step in and save Molly Finn?”
Read pursed his lips.
“Did Carslow say what they wanted with her?”
“Molly Finn was not …” Read paused “… a specific requirement. Any female of a similar age would have sufficed. It was her heart Hyde wanted.”
Hawkwood went cold. “They were going to transfer her heart to his daughter’s corpse? Hyde was going to start her heart with his electrical machine?”
“That was his intention, yes.”
“Like John Hunter did with the Reverend Dodd.”
“Dodd?” The Chief Magistrate frowned. “I’m not familiar with that name.”
Hawkwood explained.
“I see. Yes, Carslow said that was Hyde’s plan.”
“Is it possible? Could they really have done it?”
“Hyde was convinced it could be done. Carslow confessed he did not know.”
“Didn’t know? But he went along with it.”
“He was seduced by the possibility. Carslow had no interest in resurrecting Hyde’s daughter per se. His participation was purely, he says, to enhance his knowledge.”
“I doubt he’d have told Hyde that,” Hawkwood said.
“He admitted to sharing Hyde’s belief that it will be possible one day to take organs and blood from the dead or dying and use them to prolong the life of the living. He said that if one truly believes in the advancement of surgery, one must be prepared to take risks, to push back the boundaries of science and medicine in pursuit of the greater good, the benefit of mankind. He openly acknowledged that Hyde’s abilities and grasp of anatomy were far greater than his own. The skills the colonel had gained treating the wounded on the battlefield had given him a unique understanding of how the body functions.”
“What about the girl?”
“He was deeply contrite.”
“Contrite? That’s all? Contrite?”
“He told me he felt deep remorse, also shame for his actions, but he did not express guilt and I detected none in his manner.”
“In other word
s, as far as he’s concerned, his only crime was getting caught.”
“Crudely put, but I suspect that may be so.”
“He’ll get away with it, won’t he?” Hawkwood said heavily.
“Carslow will certainly not face trial. There will be no precedent set this day. You know as well as I do that no surgeon has ever appeared in the dock as a result of an association with the resurrection gangs. In any case, it would be most unlikely that a figure as eminent as Eden Carslow would be taken to task.”
“He was an accomplice to murder!”
Read sighed. “The authorities have already decreed that Colonel Hyde was killed by the Reverend Tombs in Bethlem Hospital. A dead man cannot rise up and commit murder.”
“But that’s exactly what he did do,” Hawkwood said.
“The girl’s death at the hands of Colonel Hyde will go unrecorded,” Read said.
“She had a name,” Hawkwood snapped. “It was Molly Finn.”
Read’s head came up. His jaw was set. Then his face softened. “You are right. Forgive me, Hawkwood. I cannot say I like this state of affairs any more than you do.”
“Can’t you do anything?”
“Some things are beyond the remit of this office.”
The Chief Magistrate steepled his hands. “As I believe I advised you before, Hawkwood, Eden Carslow moves in privileged circles. He has powerful, influential friends. He attends the Prime Minister and at least two members of the cabinet. Molly Finn was a working girl, of little consequence. His words, not mine, I hasten to say. I found his arrogance a shade irritating, as you may imagine.”
“You mean they’re closing ranks?”
“Indeed.”
“So what next – he resumes his rounds as if nothing happened?”
“Not entirely.”
“What does that mean?”
“I understand a knighthood has been mooted. I saw no harm in advising him that such an honour bestows certain responsibilities on the recipient. I told him there could well come a time when he would be reminded of his … aberration, and his obligations to this office.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he is beholden to us.”
“So he gets a knighthood while Molly Finn goes to an early grave. Where’s the justice?”
“Justice, Hawkwood?” James Read sighed. “It is the way of the world.”
“It’s wrong.”
“Perhaps. But the world turns, there is no stopping it. It is relentless. It is inevitable.”
“It doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“No,” Read conceded. A silence fell between them. The fire crackled in the grate. It was Read who finally broke the spell. “How is Major Lomax?”
“He’ll live. He has more lives than a cat.”
“I am pleased to hear it. And Constable Hopkins?”
“I’ll be having words with him about the maintenance of sidearms.”
“And Sergeant Jago?”
“He was his usual efficient self.”
Read’s mouth twitched. “By the way, I’m assuming Twigg told you that he discovered the location of Hyde’s daughter’s grave?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“A very curious state of affairs.”
“How so?”
“It appears that the body was still in situ.”
“What?”
“The grave had not been tampered with. The body Hyde was attempting to resuscitate was not that of his daughter.”
“Then whose was it?”
“I doubt we shall ever know the answer to that question. I suspect, if anyone could shed light on the mystery, it would be Eden Carslow. He told me that Hyde had asked him to obtain the corpse.”
“He told you that?”
“In one of his more unguarded moments.”
“He wouldn’t have dug it up himself though.”
“No. He did, however, admit to making regular use of one of the resurrection gangs. A porter at St Thomas’s by the name of Butler is his liaison. Butler, you will be interested to know, is also a former military man. He was an associate of Sawney’s during the war. It would be ironic if Sawney was hired to retrieve the daughter’s body. Twigg tells me the grave was constructed of stone and protected by a metal grille. I think it’s safe to assume that Sawney and his cohorts, if indeed it was them, would have considered that particular exhumation to be too exacting. They evidently obtained another body instead and kept quiet about it. I doubt Carslow knew. Colonel Hyde, of course, had never met his daughter. He placed his reliance on Carslow to retrieve the body and preserve it until his escape. Carslow stored the corpse at 13 Castle Street …” The Chief Magistrate’s brow creased. “It was fortunate you found that note.”
“What are they going to do with the place?”
“No decision has been made. The contents will most likely be moved to Lincoln’s Inn to join the rest of John Hunter’s collection. I’ve yet to receive an explanation as to why they were not removed earlier when the house was closed. It appears to have been an oversight.”
“God Almighty,” Hawkwood said.
“Indeed. The Lord does work in mysterious ways. Which, incidentally, brings me to another mystery. I’m intrigued and not a little concerned to learn of the fire which consumed the Black Dog public house. I understand the owner and his sons died in the blaze, along with Sawney and his associates.”
“So I heard,” Hawkwood said. “A terrible business.”
“Indeed. So you would have no knowledge of how the fire might have started? It was down to good fortune that it did not spread to the surrounding buildings, though I believe the neighbours were able to offer some assistance. This morning’s early snowfall would also have helped to dampen it down.” The Chief Magistrate looked towards the window.
“Probably a stray spark,” Hawkwood said, moving towards the door. “You know how easy things like that can happen.”
James Read turned and looked down the end of his long nose.
Hawkwood paused, hand on the door knob, and nodded past the Chief Magistrate towards the newly installed fireguard. “Could happen to anyone, sir …”
Read’s eyes narrowed.
Closing the door behind him, Hawkwood smiled grimly at Ezra Twigg, who was seated at his desk in the ante-room, and murmured softly under his breath, “… even surgeons.”
HISTORICAL NOTE
By any definition, body snatching is and was a foul trade, and yet there is no doubt that during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, prior to the Anatomy Act of 1832, which allowed corpses other than those of condemned murderers to be used in anatomy studies, it played a crucial role in the advancement of medical knowledge. There were very few surgeons who did not rely on the resurrection men to provide fresh cadavers for their research.
Hyde’s real-life mentor, John Hunter, certainly made use of them and took delivery of fresh corpses for his anatomy classes at 13 Castle Street, now Charing Cross Road.
Other characters in the story also existed. James McGrigor was Surgeon-General of the Army, Richard Ryder was Home Secretary and both James Norris and James Tilly Matthews were patients at Bethlem Hospital. Mike Jay’s book, The Air Loom Gang, gives a fascinating account of Matthews’ incarceration in Bedlam, as well as great insight into the workings of the mad houses of the time.
Eden Carslow is a fictitious character, though based for the most part on the surgeon Astley Paston Cooper, who was a student of Hunter’s and who later became lecturer in anatomy at St Thomas’s and senior surgeon to Guy’s Hospital. There is no suggestion that Cooper was involved in aiding and abetting murder, though he was in league with the sack-’em-up men, using Thomas Butler, a porter at St Thomas’s dissecting room, as a go-between. Cooper often boasted that he could obtain any body that he wished and he paid the resurrection men handsomely for their services, despite referring to them as ‘the lowest dregs of degradation’.
In that, Cooper was not wrong, as I discovered
during my reading of Ruth Richardson’s excellent Death, Dissection and the Destitute. The scene in which Hawkwood discovers that human flesh had been converted into soap and candles in the cellar of the Black Dog is not the product solely of my imagination. If anything, I have held back in describing some of the more bizarre uses to which human corpses were subjected. For example, John Sheldon, another of Hunter’s former pupils, lived with the preserved body of a beautiful woman in a glass case in his bedroom for ten years, while another, dentist Martin van Butchell, had his wife embalmed by Hunter and kept her in his living room where visitors could view her by appointment. I confess I did try to work a similar scenario into the story but decided to abandon the idea, for fear it would be considered too fanciful.
Equally, while some of the medical procedures I have attributed to Hyde during his service in Spain may seem unlikely, they too are based on fact. Crude blood transfusions had been attempted, including one from a sheep to a man by seventeenth-century physicians Richard Lower and Jean Baptiste Denys. John Hunter also conducted transplantation experiments involving both human and animal subjects.
Lest any readers think it a tad convenient that Hyde should have found himself a bolt-hole equipped with both an operating room and an escape route through an adjoining building that just happened to back on to his hideaway, I can assure them this was not poetic licence. Hunter did indeed own the lease to 28 Leicester Square, the house directly behind the Castle Street property. He had the gap between the houses bridged with an operating room specially constructed to aid his anatomy lectures. Above it he built a museum, in which were displayed thousands of his preparations. Following Hunter’s death in 1793, the Leicester Square property was rented out, while the museum remained in place, tended by Hunter’s former assistant, William Clift. The museum’s contents were later purchased by the Royal College of Surgeons. They are now displayed to splendid effect in the galleries in the Hunterian Museum at the RCS’s headquarters in Lincoln’s Inn. Sadly, unlike Hunter’s specimens, neither his home nor the school building has been preserved, though the plaque placed above his grave in Westminster Abbey can be seen, commemorating him as the ‘Founder of Scientific Surgery’. While researching the novel, I referred constantly to Wendy Moore’s immensely readable biography of John Hunter, The Knife Man. I cannot recommend it too highly. I am also indebted to Mick Crumplin, Archivist to the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, whose knowledge of general surgical history, in particular that of the Napoleonic Wars, is truly encyclopaedic. He responded to my questioning with great patience and good humour. Any mistakes in the story are mine, not his.
