The Great Stink

by Clare Clark

  Without the heavy cages Tom and Joe made quick progress back through Soho, while the new-found burden in their pockets was lightened by several lively hours at a public house behind the Strand. It was almost nine o'clock when Tom emerged into the darkened courtyard, his belly tight with beer and roasted beef. The plaintive creak of a fiddle drifted up from a basement window. Tom had his own private lodgings, no less than the luxury of a room to himself, but he was in no hurry to return there. He had never found himself a wife, wasn't sure why except that he'd always been one for liking his own company. There'd been girls washed up with him over the years, time to time, but none who'd not drifted away again, caught by a stronger tide. When he'd first come to London he supposed there might have been a few chances if he'd been quicker off the mark but one way or another he never saw them till it was too late. He'd always been awkward in company, tongue-tied and restless, and the bawdy talk that warmed the girls' cheeks and lifted their petticoats rattled him and made him blush. The other lads had thought him soft. Most of them were set up with a girl by the times they was twelve or thirteen. In the house in Flower-court, where he'd lived when he first started up with the old man, nine couples shared the one room each night, give or take, and he was always the only one sleeping by himself. He shouldn't rightly have been in there, only there was nowhere else. Even on the nights the other boys declared themselves tired of their arrangements and changed the girls over between them, sometimes more than once before dawn, Tom never seemed to find himself matched up. Instead he lay in the darkness and listened to the rustles and the giggles and tried to find a place on his damp straw mattress where nothing itched or bit. In the mornings he ducked his head to avoid the girls' curious stares.

  'Wallop 'em,' one of the lads had advised him. 'That's the way. The gals don't fall for a feller till he gives 'em what for but after that, for as long as the bruises keeps hurtin', they's always thinking on the cove as gived 'em her.'

  Tom had listened but he'd never heeded the advice. Not that he wouldn't have taken it, had things worked out different, but he never seemed to get that far along with a girl. Time he thought to thump her she was already up and off. So Tom kept his fists for the sewers. In them days, with the competition so fierce, you had to protect what was yours or you'd find it gone in the twinkle of an eye. Take Red Joe, for one. As a younger man Joe had been a pure finder, gathering dog dung for the tanneries. Good at it, he'd been, knowing the yards that liked it moist and dark and the others that preferred the chalky kind and would be prepared to pay the extra for it. He had himself what was almost a little workshop, mixing up the trophies he bagged with mud or mortar, depending on the customer, and rolling it out into fat little cigars or looser lumps to produce whatever blend the tanner liked to declare perfect for the dark glossy morocco of a gentleman's wallet or the delicate calf of a lady's glove. He was even in with the kennels for a time, before the tanners refused it on account of the quality being so poor. For a while Joe'd had himself a right little enterprise.

  It weren't to last. Once the railways came London started to bloat and swell and all of a sudden there were more people looking for work than there was ever work to be done. It wasn't long before there was so many after the pure that they was fighting over every last scrap, sometimes two or more waiting while a dog crouched in order to pounce on what it left behind. The tanners weren't stupid neither. They knew there was a hundred people out there if there was one, all scrambling over one another for their trade. Where once Joe might have got himself two shillings for a pailful and at least a pail a day, in the years after the Irish swarmed into the city like locusts he was lucky to win himself tenpence a pail five days in a week. There was nine children by then. If it hadn't been for the old man dying and Tom looking for a partner on the tosh, Joe would have found himself in serious trouble. He knew it, of course. They didn't talk about it, they didn't talk much at all, come to that, but Tom always knew he was grateful. If he ever needed a favour he knew Joe'd be first to oblige him. Tom hadn't tried to call it. Strange though it sounded, he was grateful to Joe too, in his own way. With no family of his own, Joe's family had become Tom's to fall in with when he chose. He'd even lodged with them a while before the tailor's family took up with them and they'd needed Tom's space for him to work in. It was the only time he had ever felt a pang, sitting in that crowded room in St Giles, a plate of supper on his lap and the clamour of family life racketing around him, and watched Joe's littlests, a pair of girls crowned with their father's flaming hair, as they entwined their arms around his neck and covered his great freckled face with their kisses.

  They were all growed-up now, of course, the youngest one nine or more. Eleven of them all told, not counting the ones that had passed on, God rest their souls. Two of the boys were already transported and one there'd been no word of for nigh on ten years, but they took Alfred or Jem, who was Joe's fifth and eighth respective, down the tunnels sometimes, when they needed the extra pairs of hands. Joe had hoped one day there'd be something of a business to hand on, father to son, but it didn't look too likely no more. Times were changing fast and not for the better. At the docks, where Alf waited for work at fourpence an hour and the employers asked no questions, there were hundreds of men of every calling offering themselves for hire. They waited for the ships to come in like children waiting for their dinner, holding their thumbs and hoping they wouldn't go to bed hungry.

  The night was clear and stars drifted across the black sky like ash. Tom felt restive, not yet ready for sleep. Slowly, barely noticing where he was headed, he walked back up towards Soho. His head tumbled with memories and it was with a start that, sometime later, he realized he'd found his way back to the arched entrance to Hawker-lane. Behind him on Broad-street the Golden Hind dazzled and blazed, her glass doors parted in invitation. Coins jingled inside Tom's hidden pocket. At his feet a ragged boy with a blackened eye turned cartwheels and demanded pennies for his trouble. On one foot he wore an ancient shoe knotted around its broken instep with a grimy length of ribbon, on the other a woman's old boot. Ignoring his petitions Tom ducked into the alley and made his way to the Black Badger.

  It was a long time since he'd been to the fight but the place hadn't changed any since his regular days. The front of the long downstairs bar was crowded with every kind of man, all of them smoking, drinking and talking about dogs. Dogs fretted on tables and benches so as the Fancy might look them over, feeling and squeezing their feet, peering into their eyes and mouths. An omnibus driver, his round hat tipped over one eye, banged his fist upon a rickety table, glaring violently at a costermonger in a plush skullcap and a green neckerchief patterned with flowers in mustard yellow. Each of the buttons on the coster's sandy-coloured corduroy waistcoat bore the raised head of a fox and under his arm he clamped a Skye terrier that thrashed like a fish. A pair of coachmen dressed in fancy livery leaned against the bar and made quiet enquiries of the barman as to the proprietor's favourites for the night, holding their position despite the attack of a company of soldiers whose eyes were as red and dishevelled as their unbuttoned tunics. Throughout the crowded parlour grocers and ironmongers, their evening frock-coats thrown over their working clothes, jostled with red-capped sailors and grey-faced dustmen and hollow-eyed tailors. Tom found himself crushed against an old man wearing a patched frock of a type that might have suggested him a countryman except that his uncombed hair was thick with soot. He had sold his coat that morning, he told Tom, for two shillings. Tomorrow, if the dogs and the gods were kind, he'd buy himself a finer one.

  The first fight was for the gold watch. If Brassey had been obliged to rescue it from Uncle's he didn't say so. The men muttered to one another, jabbing blunt fingers at fresh scars and on occasion drawing comparisons, not all of them favourable, with celebrated champions now retired or dead. Indignant owners bridled, their greatcoats bristling like the pelts of peevish tom-cats as they countered with glowing accounts of their dogs' triumphs. The grand match of the evening, for which
heavy wagers were already being taken, would pit the dog Butcher against forty of the beasts. Voices were dropped. Money changed hands, sometimes in large amounts. One coster, whose face resembled nothing more than one of his own potatoes, backed Butcher for twenty pounds on a forty for three. In a chair beside the door, one soft slipper resting on his knee, Brassey stroked the sleeves of his shiny black coat and drew a large watch from his waistcoat pocket.

  The dogs were running short of patience. One, a bulldog with eyes the colour of raw liver, snarled at Tom as he passed, straining so viciously at his chain that it seemed certain he would snap his neck in two. His muscular body was livid with scars and his forehead bulged dangerously as he peeled his lips back from teeth yellow and greasy as spikes of tallow. Drool looped from his jaws. Set wide apart on his flat head his ears were ragged with bites, one almost torn in two. Grey markings spotted the deep channel between his powerful shoulders. The famous Butcher. In the shadow of the champion, a bull-terrier with a black patch over one of his crafty eyes and legs as bowed as a groom's growled and flexed and scratched his autograph deep into a flaking table top. The chorus of barks and yelps rose steadily above the din of voices and clatter of pots.

  Only one dog stood quite still, its eyes fixed on the sawdust floor. Secured by a loop of rope to the leg of a chair it seemed deaf to the clamour that surrounded it. Tom watched it out the corner of one eye. Despite its smooth white coat the animal had a raw and tender appearance to it, being peculiarly pink about the edges of its eyes and nose and belly. Its tail might have been chewed by a fretful child. There was no telling the breed from the look of it. While it had the stocky body of a bull-terrier, its legs were long and finely boned. And although its forehead sloped directly into its nose in the manner of a bulldog's, its ears owed nothing to the bulldog design. Indeed the pair of them were such a poor match they seemed cut from two quite different patterns and pieces of cloth. While the left ear stood stiffly to attention, the pink veins traced clear as the veins on a leaf, the other, soot-black and ragged, fell over the animal's right eye. This might have given the dog a rakish air had it not been so diffident an animal. As it was, the overall impression was of a creature assembled in the dark. On a whim, Tom thrust the toe of his boot under the animal's snout, tipping its face up towards his. Resting its chin on his foot the dog blinked its pink eyes and gazed up at him. Tom gazed back.

  'I dunno what the old fool's on about, bringing that bitch 'ere,' a hoarse voice disparaged from behind a pewter pot. Ain't no self-respectin' rat wouldn't 'ave it for breakfast and want more besides.'

  The dog blinked again and its head seemed to droop a little more heavily on to Tom's boot.

  "E'd 'ave more chance in there 'isself!' another rejoined, bursting with mirth, as a bent old man with a goblin's mutter pushed past Tom and delivered a sharp kick to the dog's ribs.

  'Get up, you good-for-nothing mongrel,' he hissed, yanking hard on the dog's rope. The dog stumbled to its feet. 'Worthless carcass.'

  'Kicked out, is yer?' the hoarse voice enquired. 'And there was me fearin' the old Badger'd gone and lost its standards.'

  The old man's face twisted with rage. Yanking again at the dog's rope he spat into the sawdust and was gone, leaving the voices to snigger into their beer.

  Tom's boot felt cold and flimsy without the warm weight of the dog's muzzle. He pushed his way towards the fire where an ancient mastiff sprawled, its wheezy snores rumbling in its chest. The walls were crowded with trophies. Clusters of black leather collars with brass rings and clasps and framed engravings of famous dogs engaged in combat jostled for space with dusty glass display cases containing stuffed specimens the worse for moth. Tom peered into the one displayed above the mantel. It housed a brutish-looking dog with brown markings and a haughty expression. Around its thick neck the dog wore a flaking yellow chain of paste that resembled a lady's bracelet and between its blunt jaws it clamped a large stiff rat. The rat's glass eyes were round with bewilderment.

  'You ever saw her fight?' asked a man standing at Tom's shoulder. He wore a mole-coloured waistcoat and his cropped mole-coloured hair was worn away in patches like old velveteen.

  'Once or twice.'

  'They've spoiled her in the stuffing, haven't they, though?' the man observed happily, showing his missing teeth. 'Made her far too short in the head. But what a dog! There was one occasion, years ago now of course but not long after I took up with —'

  Tom never found out who the man'd took up with. Abruptly, as if a sluice had been opened, the men drained from the parlour. Tom followed them as they clattered up the splintery staircase. At the top each dropped a shilling into the box held out by Brassey as he entered the upstairs room. Tom posted his shilling and nodded at Brassey but the proprietor was distracted and flapped a hand, urging him onwards.

  In the upstairs room the shutters were closed and lamps burned so ardently in every corner that the brightness hurt your eyes. In the centre of the room was the pit, a circular wooden structure about eight feet across and elbow height. It was painted white. In the centre of the pit was a chalk circle of perhaps a foot in diameter. Otherwise the boards were bare. The audience hung themselves over the sides of the pit or clambered up on to one of the tables behind it for a clearer view. Dogs whined and slavered. The room was full, the men restless. Voices rose above the clamour, shouting for the fight to begin.

  In the open doorway Brassey hesitated, rotating his feet in anxious circles. His eyes flickered uncertainly over the empty alcove in the wall in which three diverse carvers had been arranged in a manner, Brassey fancied, as stately as thrones. But there was no sign tonight of the Captain and his friends. Brassey's lad looked at his master expectantly. Brassey frowned. Once again he brought out his watch. Someone at the back of the room began to chant. There was a chorus of impatient clapping. With a final reluctant glance down the stairs Brassey nodded at the boy and closed the parlour door.

  As the lad brought out the first of the crates there was a deafening roar of approval from the company. The boy made a great show of setting the crate down in the pit, dancing around it and whipping up the crowd into a fever before flinging open the trapdoor in its lid like the conjuror on Epsom Day. For a moment nothing happened. Then like a wave, all of them moving together, the rats swarmed from the crate, streaking across the white floor of the pit before piling themselves up together in a shifty mound against the far wall of the ring. They were big ones and no mistake, Tom thought with a twitch of satisfaction. From their heaped-up bodies rose the hot stench of summer privies. As soon as they caught the scent of it the dogs went wild, baying and thrashing in their owners' arms. The noise was deafening.

  Shouting for silence Brassey stood himself upon a table to state the rules of the house. Each dog would be permitted a second but seconds could stand only within the marked area of the pit. Any man touching dog or rats, or acting in any way dishonestly, would have his dog disqualified. Time must be strictly observed. In a questionable situation it would be the umpire's decision whether a rat was alive or dead. By the time Brassey had finished his short speech the room was once again lost in an almighty racket. Brassey nodded at the boy as he took his seat at the top end of the pit.

  Immediately a man leaped into the pit holding a large terrier. Both the dog and its second sported hairy coats of a rough texture in an uncertain shade of grey. The dog writhed so ferociously it was all the second could do to keep a grip on it. He muttered something into the dog's ear. Then, gripping it round the chest, he squatted, the dog clamped between his knees. The dog stared at the rats and it drooled. The second murmured a final word and let it loose. For a moment the dog stared wildly about it, its head twisting like a snake's. Then, giving a little bark as if it were clearing its throat, it hurled itself into the heap of rats, burying its nose in the mound. When it pulled out its head its jaws clamped a large brown rat by the neck. Squealing like piglets, the other rats ran in frantic circles around the pit or tried to squeeze between the nar
row spaces in the floor. The terrier paid them no attention but gave his trophy one violent shake and then another, sending feathers of blood across the white walls of the pit. Imprisoned in his chalk circle, the second punched out his arms, bellowing at the dog to get back to business. The terrier shook the animal one last time before dropping it reluctantly to the floor. The rat gave a shudder and its tail twitched. Then it was still. Blood shone bright as fresh paint on the ripped-out meat of its neck.

  In a moment the terrier was setting about dispatching his next victim. He was quicker this time, tossing its body aside before pouncing on another and another. By now the audience was in a storm of excitement and the second was fairly boiling over. The sweat poured from his forehead as he roared his commands and the rough hairs upon his coat stood out like the spines of a hedgehog. Steadily, rat by rat, the terrier pursued his slaughter. Only one of the devils gave him any trouble. Struggling desperately in the terrier's jaws, it twisted its body around and clamped its teeth on to the dog's nose. The dog faltered then, taken by surprise, but only for a moment. With a brusque swing of its neck, it dashed the rat as hard as it could against the wall of the pit. As the rat fell to the ground it left a dark scarlet stain on the paint as shameless as a birthmark.

  'Time!'

  The second clicked his fingers. Immediately the dog slunk to heel, its whiskered face beaded with blood. The second handed him over the rim of the pit to his owner, who pulled his ears and cuffed him gently on the head as a cluster of men crowded around them, beating the both of them on the back. The dog panted happily and licked his master's cheek. Fragments of fur and raw flesh were lodged between its teeth. In the bloodied pit the dark bodies of the dead rats littered the floor like clods of manure. Amongst them the rats left alive sniffed idly at the walls of the pit or sat back on their hind legs and set to cleaning their faces with their paws.