Ratcatcher mh-1

by James McGee

  Was it usual, Hawkwood asked pointedly, for Lord Mandrake to depart for his northern estates at this time of year? And if so, was it also his lordship’s custom to depart at the crack of dawn?

  The servant’s reply wasn’t much help. Lord Mandrake visited his estates whenever the mood took him. As for setting off early, it was a long journey, therefore, the earlier the family left, the earlier the family arrived.

  Hawkwood bit down on his frustration. A thought struck him.

  “Tell me, has his lordship been having any trouble with his clocks?”

  The footman blinked uncomprehendingly. “Clocks?”

  “Yes, his bloody clocks, damn it! Were any of the household clocks in need of repair?”

  “Er, no, sir, not as I recall.” It was apparent from his expression that the footman had begun to harbour serious doubts about Hawkwood’s sanity.

  Well, it had been a random shot, anyway. They returned to the front door, where the servant could not hide his relief at showing Hawkwood out. The Runner stood on the steps and reflected. There was little doubt that Lord Mandrake had left in unseemly haste.

  But for what reason?

  Coincidence or conspiracy?

  “And so we commit his body to the ground. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. In sure and certain hope…”

  The parson’s voice droned on, flat and unemotional, giving the impression that the burial service was a task to be endured. Hawkwood found himself wishing for what would probably be the Reverend Fludde’s more strident style of oratory. He stared into the open grave at the rough wooden coffin, and wondered if his own funeral would be so sparsely attended. Probably, he concluded ruefully.

  It was late afternoon. The corner of the tiny churchyard was dappled in fading sunlight. Next to Hawkwood, James Read leaned on his stick, his face sombre. Aside from Hawkwood and the Chief Magistrate, there were only three other mourners. There was Ezra Twigg, looking suitably solemn. At the clerk’s shoulder, a heavy, thick-set man: Runner Jeremiah Lightfoot, currently on assignment with the Bank of England. Standing several paces away, shaded beneath the branches of an apple tree, a slight black-shawled woman, face drawn with grief, sobbed into a handkerchief. Warlock’s sister, whose husband, Hawkwood had learned, had been killed at Almeida. Henry Warlock had been her last surviving kin. Over by the railings, a pair of gravediggers squatted against a moss-encrusted tombstone, smoking clay pipes as they waited patiently for the parson’s signal.

  The cost of the burial had been borne by the Public Office; a small courtesy, but it had meant the Runner’s remains could be buried in the same plot as his wife and infant son. Without it, Warlock’s body would have been consigned to an unmarked poor hole. James Read, Hawkwood knew, would never have countenanced such an indignity for one of his officers. The Chief Magistrate looked after his own.

  There was no eulogy. The parson, his duty done, clasped his hands devoutly, and nodded to the waiting gravediggers.

  While the Chief Magistrate, accompanied by his clerk and Runner Lightfoot, went to offer condolences to Warlock’s grieving sister, Hawkwood watched as the gravediggers replaced the soil. It took time. Read had ensured that Warlock’s body was buried deep. The resurrection men tended to work during the winter months when the anatomy schools were open, but it wasn’t unheard of for the body snatchers to operate out of season. So the precaution had been taken and Henry Warlock would sleep soundlessly in his grave, free from disturbance. Hawkwood stared down at the low mound of earth and the modest headstone bearing the names of Warlock’s wife and son. The Runner’s own name had yet to be inscribed. Small compensation, Hawkwood reflected, for fifteen years’ loyal service and a fractured skull.

  He sensed he was being watched and looked up. The child’s presence came as a shock and he wondered how long she had been there. Jenny, the waif who had escorted him to his meeting with Jago. She approached him slowly, picking her way between the gravestones. Her bare feet made no noise on the soft grass.

  “Told ter bring you this-” she said, and held out her hand.

  Hawkwood took the scrap of paper and opened it. The scrawled message was succinct.

  Rats Nest. Ten o’clock.

  It was signed J.

  14

  Bound with brass, dark and pitted with age, the oak chest had survived a score of bloody campaigns. It had belonged to a major in the Guards before falling into Hawkwood’s possession. The major had died from wounds on the retreat to Corunna, and Hawkwood had acquired the chest at auction, the proceeds having gone to the major’s widow.

  It contained the mementos of war.

  Hawkwood opened the lid. The sheathed sword rested on top. A heavy, curved sword, with a blade designed to cleave bone and muscle. With great care, Hawkwood removed the weapon and laid it to one side.

  Beneath the sword, carefully folded, lay the dark green, black-braided officer’s tunic. The tunic had been patched many times, most noticeably around elbow and shoulder. The stitching, though worn ragged by time, had been neatly executed. The mending had been done by the wife of a Chosen Man. A seamstress by trade, she had been one of the many camp followers who’d accompanied their husbands to the war.

  Next to the tunic, also folded, lay a pair of grey cavalry breeches, reinforced with leather inserts down the inside of the leg. Like the tunic, they showed numerous signs of wear and tear. Alongside the breeches, the sash; once bright crimson, now tattered and torn and the colour of dried oxblood.

  The officer’s greatcoat lay underneath. Weighty and warm, it had protected Hawkwood during the harsh Spanish winters; wind and rain, sleet and snow, nights so cold a man’s piss froze before it hit the ground.

  Secured at both ends by ribboned ties, the long, grey oilclothwrapped bundle lay diagonally beneath the coat. Hawkwood reached in and lifted the bundle out. He hesitated before untying the ribbons.

  The rifle barrel gleamed brightly in the candlelight. Etched on to a brass plate on the polished stock was the inscription: Ezekiel Baker amp; Son, gunmakers to His Majesty, London.

  A hundred memories were stirred as Hawkwood rewrapped the gun and laid it on the bed. With this rifle he had shot and killed the Spanish general atop the ramparts at Montevideo. It had accompanied him into Portugal and Spain and it had served him well. In return, he had cared for it as if it had been a child. He had even slept with it at night. It had been as close to him as any woman.

  There was more clothing and equipment. Shirts, hats, belts and boots, a case of duelling pistols, tools and moulds for making bullets, ammunition pouches, a powder horn, a bayonet, a brass telescope; the accoutrements of a lifetime’s soldiering, and more besides.

  Hawkwood made his selection, returning the unwanted articles, including the rifle and sword, to the chest. Then he dressed.

  The Rat’s Nest was in Shadwell and not the first place Hawkwood would have chosen for a meeting-not even in daytime, let alone the dead of night. He supposed Jago had his reasons for choosing it. To go there in normal attire would be to invite trouble. Remembering his welcome at Noah’s Ark, a degree of subterfuge was therefore required.

  The person reflected in the mirror bore little resemblance to the austere, well-cut figure of a Bow Street Runner. Gone were the shirt and cravat, the tailored coat, the smart waistcoat and the dark breeches. In their place a threadbare brown shirt, a shabby woollen jacket, a pair of frayed and shiny-bottomed trousers bearing the scarlet seam of the 3rd King’s Own, and on his feet a well-scuffed pair of boots. Hawkwood had liberated the boots from the body of a dead French officer. French boots were good quality. This pair looked to have seen better days, but they were sound and comfortable and that’s what mattered.

  Hawkwood knelt by the fire grate. Scooping up a handful of ash, he rubbed it into his clothes. Untying the ribbon at the back of his neck, he smeared the rest of the ash into his hair. He returned to the mirror and studied the result. Not a bad transformation. Cursory, but it would have to do. No one would take him for a
law officer. A labourer, perhaps, or a discharged soldier down on his luck.

  Satisfied with his disguise, Hawkwood tucked his baton into his belt and left the room. Using the back stairs, he descended into the passageway at the rear of the tavern and slipped silently into the night.

  Hawkwood proceeded with caution. Shadwell lay at the eastern end of the Ratcliffe Highway. The streets were becoming narrower and increasingly claustrophobic. There were no lamps here, no link-men to guide the way. It was as if the cobblestones had absorbed all the light. It might just as well have been the dark side of the moon. No honest men walked here at night, not if they valued their souls.

  The sound of a bottle shattering against stone halted Hawkwood in his tracks. He melted into a patch of shadow, face half-turned to the wall, and waited. Across the street, two figures struggled in a drunken embrace. A bottle was raised and swung. One of the brawlers went down. The victor leaned over his fallen companion and booted him viciously in the side of the head. Then, after conducting a hurried search of the victim’s pockets, he rose and staggered away, the remains of the bottle trailing loosely in his hand.

  Hawkwood stepped out, past the body sprawled in the gutter. He did not bother to check for signs of life. He knew, as soon as he was out of sight, the scavengers would move in, jackals drawn to a rotting carcass. The remains would be picked clean in minutes.

  The houses were crude affairs, some wood-built, most of them brick, all packed tightly together; a breeding ground for disease. There had been an outbreak of typhus here not so long ago. It was unlikely the contagion had died out completely. Most likely, it was only lying dormant, biding its time, like an enemy in the undergrowth.

  Hawkwood was no stranger to the area, though he didn’t know it well. Like the inhabitants of the rookeries, the people here kept themselves to themselves. Strangers weren’t welcome. He would have to tread carefully. Turning into a narrow lane, he headed towards the river.

  He saw it as soon as he emerged from the alleyway: a dark, monstrous shape tethered to the far end of the wharf. Beyond its black hulk, a forest of mastheads reared towards a full moon, a bright pearl suspended against a curtain of black velvet. A thin veil of mist hovered over the water, as eerie as dragon’s breath. In the darkness every sound seemed unnaturally loud; the grating of a ship’s hull against a wharf stone, the groan of an anchor chain as a vessel moved against the tide, the slap of rigging against a masthead. Somewhere across the river, a ship’s bell tolled mournfully.

  There were rumours that she’d started life as a merchantman for the East India Company transporting ivory and muslin, but had later been judged too small to turn a profit. Others hinted that she had plied a more odious trade, ending her days as a slaver on the notorious Middle Passage.

  Whatever the truth, she had probably been beautiful in her prime, bows thrusting proudly into the wind and spray, sails spread against an azure sky. But that had been a previous incarnation. Now, left to her fate, she sat embedded in the Thames mud, a rotting derelict.

  No one could remember her name. The letters that had adorned her once graceful stern had long since faded away. She’d gained her sobriquet by what she had become.

  Countless strays had sought sanctuary within her reeking hull. Homeless seafarers originally, many of them foreigners; former East India men, abandoned by John Company and left to fend for themselves in a hostile land. Destitute, with no knowledge of the language and no means of finding a passage home. Strangers on a strange shore who had gravitated towards this dreadful place to be among their own kind. Wharf rats.

  Hawkwood approached the vessel with caution. Away in the murk, something whimpered, as if in pain. A woman, or a child, it was impossible to tell.

  There was a dampness in the air and a smell he could not place, sickly and cloying. It wasn’t coming from the river, he realized, it was seeping out of the hulk. As he drew closer, the smell grew stronger. When he stepped off the gangway on to the deck, the full stench hit him. He knew then what it was: the foul foetor of human misery.

  Looking around, Hawkwood could see that almost every inch of deck space had been utilized. Every broken spar, every last strip of canvas, rigging and ratline had been pressed into service to form makeshift shelters. The result was a coagulation of tents, shacks and driftwood lean-tos that would have made a tinkers’ encampment a palace by comparison.

  The forward deck grating had been removed, revealing the top rung of a steep companionway. Next to the open hatch, silhouetted by the faint lantern glow issuing from inside the hull, a shrunken figure squatted on its haunches. A pair of half-closed, slanted eyes, set in a wizened, jaundice-yellow face, peered up at him. A thin clay pipe jutted from the crea-ture’s lips. A bony hand, with claw-like nails, reached out, palm uppermost. Hawkwood dropped the coin into the outstretched fingers. The hand withdrew and Hawkwood descended into the pit.

  Hawkwood was no stranger to life on board ship. The voyage across the Atlantic to retake Buenos Aires had not been the most pleasurable of experiences. Life below deck had been hard. Hawkwood remembered with loathing the closely packed bodies, the sickness and the appalling food, not to mention the inability to walk upright. The voyage home had been even worse. Violent storms had tossed the vessel around like a cork. There had been times during the passage when, spewing his guts over the lee rail, he would have welcomed death with open arms. But not even those weeks of purgatory could have prepared him for this.

  The smell was overpowering, as if something had died and been left to decompose. There was illumination, of sorts, from oil lamps and candles, but if ever a place could be truly called a hell-hole, Hawkwood decided, this was it.

  He was standing on what looked to be the remains of the mess deck. There were several crudely built benches and tables, some of them occupied. Whether by the living or the dead, it was hard to tell. Dressed in rags and slumped like corpses, they could have been either, or both. Rats slithered past his feet and darted across the table tops. The air was as rank as a sewer.

  Hawkwood picked out the corner of an empty pew and sat down. He felt something slither over his boot. He kicked out and was rewarded with a faint squeal.

  “You want grog, culley?”

  Hawkwood looked up. The man’s surly expression indicated that he didn’t care one way or the other. Hawkwood nodded, though he had no intention of allowing anything to pass his lips in a sty such as this. A dirty tin mug was placed in front of him and the noxious brew was poured. Hawkwood wiped a sleeve across his face and handed over a coin. The pot man shuffled away. Nothing else to do now except wait, and wonder what had possessed Jago to choose such an unsavoury place for a rendezvous.

  Half a dozen benches away, close by the port bulkhead and out of Hawkwood’s line of sight, the pot man answered the summons of a crooked finger.

  “Well?”

  The pot man nodded sullenly. “It’s ’im.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. ’E’s dressed rough, but I saw the scar, didn’t I? Under ’is eye, right where you said it’d be. Looks an ’ard bastard, if you ask me.”

  A coin was placed on the table. “No one’s asking you, Cooter. On your way.”

  The disgruntled pot man pocketed his earnings and slunk off. The receiver of the information stood up.

  Hawkwood was staring into his mug and wondering how much harm a single sip would do when he sensed a presence.

  “You lookin’ fer Jago?”

  The whispered enquiry came from Hawkwood’s elbow, literally. The speaker was the height of a small boy, but that was where the similarity ended. The seamed forehead was high and broad, the nose flat, while the eyes were large and set wide apart under a heavy brow. The speaker’s lack of stature was matched by the incongruity of his dress: a brocade frock coat over a filthy ruffled shirt and striped pantaloons, the latter held up by a wide leather belt. On his feet, a pair of knee boots. The vision was topped off by a blue turbaned bandana. The costume would not have looke
d out of place on the deck of a Caribbean privateer.

  Hawkwood eyed the creature with caution. “Who’s asking?”

  “The name’s Weazle.”

  Hawkwood hesitated. “Where’s Jago?” The little man, Hawkwood saw, even sported a large hooped earring.

  “Last-minute spot o’ business to take care of. Sent me to fetch you, on account of ’e didn’t want you blunderin’ around in the dark. Now, you comin’, or what?”

  The stunted figure was already waddling away. Hawkwood cursed and rose to his feet.

  In the outside world, Weazle’s size would undoubtedly have placed him at a disadvantage, making him the target for prejudice and intimidation. On board ship, it was a different matter. In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In the confined, claustrophobic space between decks, the little man was in his element. While his guide trotted confidently ahead of him, Hawkwood was forced to assume an awkward, neck-straining stoop. More than once he had to duck even lower to avoid striking his head on a protruding beam.

  The deeper inside the hull they penetrated, the darker it became, and they were not alone. It would have been impossible to count the number of persons on board. In the disciplined world of a ship of the line, all hammocks would have been slung neatly in rows and aligned stem to stern to conserve space. In the Rat’s Nest no such regime existed. There were bodies everywhere. Sleeping sacks were suspended from the deck beams like seed pods, and judging from the number of limbs sticking out from beneath blankets, many of the hammocks were double occupied. The moans and groans and movements of the occupants confirmed the fact.

  Hammocks were not the only form of sleeping accommodation. There were bunks, too, though that might have been too fine a description for what were, in effect, little more than coffin-sized niches. The place was a catacomb. If the rumours of her former trade were true, Hawkwood thought, it was doubtful if any slave had endured more privation than these pitiful souls. The only difference was that her current residents weren’t wearing shackles. At least, none that he could see.