It was clear that some official representations had been made on his behalf, because George was allowed to receive more communications regarding his case than would normally have been allowed. He read some of the testimonials. There was a purple carbon copy of a letter from his mother’s brother, Uncle Stoneham of The Cottage, Much Wenlock. “Whenever I have seen or heard of my nephew (until these abominable things were spoken of) I always found him nice and heard of his being nice and clever also.” There was something about the underlining that went straight to George’s heart. Not the praise of him, which he found embarrassing, but the underlining. Here it was again. “I first met Mr. Edalji when he had been in orders for five years and had very good testimonials from other clergymen. Our friends at that time too felt as we did that Parsees are a very old and cultivated race, and have many good qualities.” And then again, in a post-scriptum. “My Father and Mother gave their full consent to the marriage and they were deeply attached to my sister.”
As a son and a prisoner, George could not help being moved to tears by these words; as a lawyer, he doubted how much effect they would have on whichever Home Office functionary might eventually be appointed to review his case. He felt, at the same time, both keenly optimistic and entirely resigned. Part of him wanted to stay in his cell, plaiting nose-bags and reading the works of Sir Walter Scott, catching colds when his hair was cut in the freezing courtyard, and hearing the old joke about bed-bugs again. He wanted this because he knew it was likely to be his fate, and the best way to be resigned to your fate was to want it. The other part of him, which wanted to be free tomorrow, which wanted to embrace his mother and sister, which wanted public acknowledgement of the great injustice done him—this was the part he could not give full rein to, since it could end by causing him the most pain.
So he tried to remain stolid when he learned that ten thousand signatures had now been gathered, headed by those of the President of the Incorporated Law Society, of Sir George Lewis, and Sir George Birchwood, K.C.I.E., the high medical authority. Hundreds of solicitors had signed, not just from the Birmingham area; also King’s Counsel, Members of Parliament—including those from Staffordshire—and citizens of every political hue. Sworn statements had been gathered from witnesses who had seen workmen and sightseers trampling the ground where subsequently PC Cooper had discovered his bootmarks. Mr. Yelverton had also obtained a favourable statement from Mr. Edward Sewell, a veterinary surgeon consulted by the prosecution and then not called in evidence. The petition, the statutory declarations and the testimonials together formed “the Memorials,” which were to be addressed to the Home Office.
In February, two things happened. On the 13th of the month, the Cannock Advertiser reported that another animal had been mutilated in exactly the same fashion as in previous outrages. A fortnight later, Mr. Yelverton submitted the Memorials to the Home Secretary, Mr. Akers-Douglas. George allowed himself the full indulgence of hope. In March two more things happened: the petition was rejected, and George was informed that on completion of his six months’ separate, he would be moved to Portland.
He was not told the reason for the transfer, and did not ask. He assumed it was a way of saying: now you will get on and serve your sentence. Since part of him had always expected to do so, part of him—though not a large part—could be philosophical at the news. He told himself that he had exchanged the world of laws for the world of rules, and they were not perhaps so different. Prison was a simpler environment, since rules allowed no latitude for interpretation; but it was likely that the change was less disconcerting to him than to those whose previous existence had always been outside the law.
The cells at Portland did not impress him. They were made of corrugated iron, and to his eye resembled dog-kennels. Ventilation was also poor, and achieved by cutting a hole in the bottom of the door. There were no bells for prisoners, and if you wished to speak to a warder you placed your cap beneath the door. This was also the system by which the roll-call was made. Upon the cry of “Caps under!” you placed your cap into the ventilation hole. There were four such roll-calls every day, but since counting caps proved less accurate than counting bodies, the laborious process often had to be repeated.
He acquired a new number, D462. The letter indicated his year of conviction. The system had started with the century: 1900 was year A; George had therefore been convicted in year D, 1903. A badge bearing this number, and the prisoner’s term of sentence, was worn on the jacket, and also on the cap. Names were used more frequently here than at Lewes, but still you tended to know a man by his badge. So George was D462–7.
There was the usual interview with the Governor. This one, though perfectly civil, was from his first words less encouraging in manner than his colleague at Lewes. “You should know it is pointless trying to escape. No one has ever escaped from Portland Bill. You will merely lose remission and discover the delights of solitary confinement.”
“I think I am probably the last person in the entire gaol who might try to escape.”
“I have heard that before,” said the Governor. “Indeed, I have heard everything before.” He looked down at George’s file. “Religion. It says Church of England.”
“Yes, my father—”
“You can’t change.”
George did not understand this remark. “I have no desire to change my religion.”
“Good. Well, you can’t anyway. Don’t think you can get round the Chaplain. It’s a waste of time. Serve your term and obey the warders.”
“That has always been my intention.”
“Then you’re either wiser or more foolish than most.” With this enigmatic remark, the Governor waved for George to be taken away.
His cell was smaller and meaner than at Lewes, though he was assured by a warder who had served in the Army that it was better than a barracks. Whether this was true, or intended as unverifiable consolation, George had no means of knowing. For the first time in his prison career, his fingerprints were taken. He feared the moment when the doctor assessed his capacity for work. Everyone knew that those sent to Portland were given a pickaxe and ordered to break rocks in a quarry; leg-irons doubtless came into the reckoning as well. But his anxieties turned out to be misconceived: only a small percentage of the prisoners worked in the quarries, and star men were never sent there. Further, George’s eyesight meant that he was judged fit only for light work. The doctor also deemed it unsafe for him to go up and down stairs; so he was located to No. 1 Ward on the ground floor.
He worked in his cell. He picked coir for stuffing beds, and hair for stuffing pillows. The coir had to be first combed out on a board, and then picked as fine as thread: only thus, he was told, would it be suitable to make the softest of beds. No proof of this claim was afforded; George never saw the next stage of the process, and his own mattress was definitely not filled with finely picked coir.
Halfway through his first week at Portland, the Chaplain visited him. His jovial manner implied that they were meeting in the vestry at Great Wyrley rather than a dog-kennel with a ventilation hole cut from the bottom of the door.
“Settling in?” he asked cheerily.
“The Governor seems to imagine my only thoughts are of escape.”
“Yes, yes, he says that to everyone. I think he rather enjoys the occasional escape, just between the two of us. The black flag raised, the cannon booming, the barracks turning out. And he always wins the game—he likes that too. No one ever gets off the Bill. If the soldiers don’t get them, the citizenry does. There’s a five-pound bounty for turning in an escaper, so there’s no incentive to look the other way. Then it’s a spell of chokey and a loss of remission. Just not worth it.”
“And the other thing the Governor told me was that I am not allowed to change my religion.”
“True enough.”
“But why should I want to?”
“Ah, you’re a star man, of course. Don’t know the ins and outs yet. You see, Portland has only Protestants and Cathol
ics. About six to one, the ratio. But no Jews at all. If you were a Jew, you’d be sent to Parkhurst.”
“But I’m not a Jew,” said George, rather doggedly.
“No. Indeed not. But if you were an old lag—an ordinary—and you decided that Parkhurst was an easier billet than Portland, you might be released from Portland this year as an ardent member of the Church of England, but by the time the police caught you next time, you might have decided you were a Jew. Then you’d get sent to Parkhurst. But they made it a rule that you can’t change your faith in the middle of a sentence. Otherwise prisoners would be coxing-and-boxing every six months, just for something to do.”
“The rabbi at Parkhurst must get some surprises.”
The Chaplain chuckled. “Strange how a life of crime can turn a man into a Jew.”
George discovered that it was not just Jews who were sent to Parkhurst; invalids and those known to be a little bit off the top were also despatched there. You might not change religion at Portland, but if you broke down physically or mentally, you could be transferred. It was said that some prisoners deliberately put pickaxes through their feet, or pretended to be a little bit off the top—howling like dogs and tearing out their hair in clumps—in an attempt to gain a move. Most of them ended up in chokey instead, a few days’ bread and water their only reward.
“Portland is in a most healthy situation,” George wrote to his parents. “The air is very strong and bracing, and there is not much sickness.” He might as well have been writing a postcard from Aberystwyth. But it was true too, and he must find what comfort he could for them.
He soon grew used to his cramped accommodation and decided that Portland was a better place than Lewes. There was less red tape, and no idiotic regulation about being shaved and barbered in the open air. Also, the rules governing conversation between prisoners were more relaxed. The food was better too. He was able to inform his parents that there was a different dinner every day, and two kinds of soup. The bread was wholemeal—“Better than baker’s bread,” he wrote, not as an attempt to evade censorship or ingratiate himself, but as a true expression of opinion. There were also green vegetables and lettuce. The cocoa was excellent, though the tea was poor stuff. Still, if you did not want tea, you might have porridge or gruel, and it surprised George that many insisted on having inferior tea rather than something more nutritious.
He was able to tell his parents that he had plenty of warm underclothing; also jerseys, leggings and gloves. The library was even better than at Lewes, and the terms of borrowing more generous: he could take out two “library” books, plus four of an educational nature, every week. All the leading magazines were available in volume form, though both books and journals had been purged of undesirable matter by the prison authorities. George borrowed a history of recent British art, only to discover that all the illustrations of work by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema had been neatly removed by the official razor. At the front of the volume was the warning written in every book borrowed from the library: “No turning down of pages.” Underneath it a prison wag had written, “And no tearing out of pages.”
Hygiene was no better, though no worse, than at Lewes. If you wanted a toothbrush you had to apply to the Governor, who seemed to answer Yes or No according to some private, whimsical system.
One morning, in need of metal polish, George asked a warder if there was any chance of obtaining some Bath-brick.
“Bath-brick, D462!” replied the officer, his eyebrows leaping towards his cap. “Bath-brick! You’ll ruin the firm—you’ll be asking for Bath-buns next.”
And that was the end of that.
George picked coir and hair each day; he took exercise as instructed, though with no great zeal; he borrowed his full allowance of books from the library. At Lewes he had become accustomed to eating with only a tin knife and a wooden spoon, and to the fact that the knife was often insufficient against prison beef and mutton. He no longer missed using a fork, any more than he missed newspapers. Indeed, he saw the absence of a daily paper as an advantage: lacking this daily prod from the outside world, he adapted more easily to the passage of time. Such events as occurred in his life now occurred within the prison walls. One morning, an inmate—C183, serving eight years for robbery—managed to climb on to the roof, whence he declared to the world that he was the Son of God. The Chaplain offered to go up a ladder and discuss the theological implications, but the Governor decided it was just another attempt to gain a transfer to Parkhurst. Eventually they starved him down and packed him off to chokey. C183 admitted in the end that he was the son of a potman and not of a carpenter.
After George had been in Portland a few months, there was an escape attempt. Two men—C202 and B178—managed to hide a crowbar in their cell; they broke through the ceiling, gained the yard with the aid of a rope, and scaled a wall. The next time “Caps under!” was called, there was hubbub: they were two caps short. There was another cap-count, followed by a count of bodies. The black flag was raised, the cannon fired, and the prisoners locked in for the interim. George did not mind this, even if he failed to share the general excitement, or join in the bet-laying over the outcome.
The two men had a couple of hours’ start, but in the judgement of the ordinaries they would be lying low until nightfall, and only then attempt to get off the Bill. But when the dogs were loosed into the prison grounds, B178 was swiftly discovered, sheltering in a workshed and cursing an ankle broken when jumping from a roof. C202 took longer to find. Sentries were posted on all the heights of Chesil Beach; boats were launched in case the escapee had decided to swim for it; soldiers sealed the Weymouth Road. Quarries were scrutinized, and searches conducted of outlying properties. But the soldiers and prison guards did not find C202; he was brought in roped and bound by an innkeeper who had come upon him in his cellar and subdued him with the help of a drayman. The publican insisted on handing him over to the receiving officer at the gaol, and obtaining a promissory note in the sum of £5 for the capture.
The hubbub among the prisoners turned to disappointment, and the searching of cells became more frequent for a while. This was one aspect of life George found more disruptive than at Lewes; not least because the searches were in his case entirely pointless. First would come the order to “unbutton”; then the officers would “rub down” the prisoner to make sure nothing was concealed in his clothing. They would feel him all over, and examine his pocket, and even unfold his handkerchief. This was embarrassing for the prisoner, and George thought it must be hateful to the officers, since the clothes of many inmates were dirty and greasy from their work. Some officers were very careful in their searches, while others would not notice if a prisoner had a hammer and chisel concealed about his person.
Then there was “turn over,” which seemed to consist of the systematic wrecking of a cell, the sweeping of books from surfaces, the unmaking of the bed, and the scouring of potential places of concealment which George would never have guessed at. Worst by far, however, was the “dry bath” search. You were taken to the bathhouse and made to stand on the wooden slats. You removed every stitch of clothing except your shirt. The officers minutely inspected each item. Then you were obliged to undergo humiliations—raising your legs, bending over, opening your mouth, putting out your tongue. Dry searches were sometimes ordered systematically, sometimes on a random basis. George estimated that he suffered this indignity at least as often as other prisoners. Perhaps, when he had expressed his disinclination to escape, they had taken it for a bluff.
And so the months went by, and then the first year, and then much of the second. Every six months his parents made the long journey from Staffordshire, and were allowed to spend an hour with him under the eyes of a guard. These visits were excruciating to George: not because he did not love his parents, but because he hated to see their suffering. His father seemed shrunken nowadays, and his mother could not bring herself to look around at the place where her son was incarcerated. George found it hard to strike the proper t
one with them: if he was cheerful, they would think he was putting it on; if gloomy, he would make them gloomier themselves. Instead, he found himself adopting a neutral manner, helpful but inexpressive, like that of a booking office clerk.
Maud was initially judged too sensitive for such visits; but one year she arrived in the place of her mother. She had little chance to say anything, but whenever George glanced across at her, he encountered that steady, intense gaze he remembered from the courtroom at Stafford. It was as if she was trying to give him strength, to convey something from her mind to his mind without the medium of word or gesture. Later, he found himself wondering if he—they—had been wrong about Maud and her supposed frailty.
The Vicar did not notice. He was too busy telling George how, in the light of the change of government—a matter of which George was scarcely aware—the indefatigable Mr. Yelverton was renewing his campaign. A fresh series of articles was planned by Mr. Voules in Truth; while the Vicar intended issuing a pamphlet of his own about the case. George made a show of being heartened, but privately judged his father’s enthusiasm to be foolish. More signatures might be acquired, but the essence of his case would not have changed, so why should officialdom’s response change? He, as a lawyer, could see that.
He also knew that the Home Office was flooded with petitions from every gaol in the country. Four thousand Memorials were sent in annually; and a further thousand arrived from other sources on behalf of prisoners. But the Home Office was neither equipped nor empowered to retry a case; it could neither interview witnesses, nor hear counsel. All it could do was examine paperwork and advise the Crown accordingly. This meant that a free pardon was a statistical rarity. It might perhaps be different if there were some court of appeal, able to take a more active part in overturning injustice. But as things stood, the Vicar’s belief that a frequent reiteration of innocence, backed up by the power of prayer, would bring about his son’s release struck George as naive.
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