by Ken Follett
"What did you do to him?"
"I tried to rob him while he was fucking Cora, but he cottoned to it."
Mack nodded. He had heard that prostitutes sometimes had accomplices who robbed their clients. "Would you like something to drink?"
"I'd kiss the pope's arse for a glass of gin."
Mack had never heard such talk from anyone, let alone a little girl. He did not know whether to be shocked or amused.
On the other side of the road was the Bear, the tavern where Mack had knocked down the Bermondsey Bruiser and won a pound from a dwarf. They crossed the street and went in. Mack bought three mugs of beer and they stood in a corner to drink them.
The girl tossed most of hers down in a few gulps and said: "You're a good man, Jock."
"My name is Mack," he said. "This is Dermot."
"I'm Peggy. They call me Quick Peg."
"On account of the way you drink, I suppose."
She grinned. "In this city, if you don't drink quick someone will steal your liquor. Where are you from, Jock?"
"A village called Heugh, about fifty miles from Edinburgh."
"Where's Edinburgh?"
"Scotland."
"How far away is that, then?"
"It took me a week on a ship, down the coast." It had been a long week. Mack was unnerved by the sea. After fifteen years working down a pit the endless ocean made him dizzy. But he had been obliged to climb the masts to tie ropes in all weathers. He would never be a sailor. "I believe the stagecoach takes thirteen days," he added.
"Why did you leave?"
"To be free. I ran away. In Scotland, coal miners are slaves."
"You mean like the blacks in Jamaicky?"
"You seem to know more about Jamaicky than Scotland."
She resented the implied criticism. "Why shouldn't I?"
"Scotland is nearer, that's all."
"I knew that." She was lying, Mack could tell. She was only a little girl, despite her bravado, and she touched his heart
A woman's voice said breathlessly: "Peg, are you all right?"
Mack looked up to see a young woman wearing a dress the color of an orange.
Peg said: "Hello, Cora. I was rescued by a handsome prince. Meet Scotch Jock McKnock."
Cora smiled at Mack and said: "Thank you for helping Peg. I hope you didn't get those bruises in the process."
Mack shook his head. "That was another brute."
"Let me buy you a drink of gin."
Mack was about to refuse--he preferred beer--but Dermot said: "Very kind, we thank you."
Mack watched her as she went to the bar. She was about twenty years old, with an angelic face and a mass of flaming red hair. It was shocking to think someone so young and pretty was a whore. He said to Peg: "So she shagged that fellow who chased you, did she?"
"She doesn't usually have to go all the way with a man," Peg said knowiedgeabry. "She generally leaves him in some alley with his dick up and his breeches down."
"While you run off with his purse," Dermot said.
"Me? Get off. I'm a lady-in-waiting to Queen Charlotte."
Cora sat beside Mack. She wore a heavy, spicy perfume that had sandalwood and cinnamon in it "What are you doing in London, Jock?"
He stared at her. She was very attractive. "Looking for work."
"Find any?"
"Not much."
She shook her head. "It's been a whore of a winter, cold as the grave, and the price of bread is shocking. There's too many men like you."
Peg put in: "That was what made my father turn to thieving, two years ago, only he didn't have the knack."
Mack reluctantly tore his gaze away from Cora and looked at Peg. "What happened to him?"
"He danced with the sheriff's collar on."
"What?"
Dermot explained. "It means he was hanged."
Mack said: "Oh, dear, I'm sorry."
"Don't feel sorry for me, you Scotch git, it makes me sick."
Peg was a real hard case. "All right, all right, I won't," Mack said mildly.
Cora said: "If you want work, I know someone who's looking for coal heavers, to unload the coal ships. The work is so heavy that only young men can do it, and they prefer out-of-towners who aren't so quick to complain."
"I'll do anything," Mack said, thinking of Esther.
"The coal heaving gangs are all run by tavern keepers down in Wapping. I know one of them, Sidney Lennox at the Sun."
"Is he a good man?"
Cora and Peg laughed. Cora said: "He's a lying, cheating, miserable-faced, evil-smelling festering drunken pig, but they're all the same, so what can you do?"
"Will you take us to the Sun?"
"Be it on your own head," said Cora.
A warm fog of sweat and coal dust filled the airless hold of the wooden ship. Mack stood on a mountain of coal, wielding a broad-bladed shovel, scooping up lumps of coal, working with a steady rhythm. The work was brutally hard; his arms ached and he was bathed in perspiration; but he felt good. He was young and strong, he was earning good money, and he was no one's slave.
He was one of a gang of sixteen coal heavers, bent over their shovels, grunting and swearing and making jokes. Most of the others were muscular young Irish farm boys: the work was too hard for stunted city-born men. Dermot was thirty and he was the oldest on the gang.
It seemed he could not escape from coal. But it made the world turn. As Mack worked he thought about where this coal was going: all the London drawing rooms it would heat, all the thousands of kitchen fires, all the bakery ovens and breweries it would fuel. The city had an appetite for coal that was never satisfied.
It was Saturday afternoon, and the gang had almost emptied this ship, the Black Swan from Newcastle. Mack enjoyed calculating how much he would be paid tonight. This was the second ship they had unloaded this week, and the gang got sixteen pence, a penny per man, for every score, or twenty sacks of coal. A strong man with a big shovel could move a sackful in two minutes. He reckoned each man had earned six pounds gross.
However, there were deductions. Sidney Lennox, the middleman or "undertaker," sent vast quantities of beer and gin on board for the men. They had to drink a lot to replace the gallons of fluid they lost by sweating, but Lennox gave them more than was necessary and most of the men drank it, gin too. Consequently there was generally at least one accident before the end of the day. And the liquor had to be paid for. So Mack was not sure how much he would receive when he lined up for his wages at the Sun tavern tonight However, even if half of the money was lost in deductions--an estimate surely too high--the remainder would still be double what a coal miner would earn for a six-day week.
And at that rate he could send for Esther in a few weeks. Then he and his twin would be free of slavery. His heart leaped at the prospect.
He had written to Esther as soon as he had settled at Dermot's place, and she had replied. His escape was the talk of the glen, she said. Some of the young hewers were trying to get up a petition to the English Parliament protesting against slavery in the mines. And Annie had married Jimmy Lee. Mack felt a pang of regret about Annie. He would never again roll in the heather with her. But Jimmy Lee was a good man. Perhaps the petition would be the beginning of a change; perhaps the children of Jimmy and Annie would be free.
The last of the coal was shoveled into sacks and stacked on a barge, to be rowed to the shore and stored in a coal yard. Mack stretched his aching back and shouldered his shovel. Up on deck the cold air hit him like a blast, and he put on his shirt and the fur cloak Lizzie Hallim had given him. The coal heavers rode to shore with the last of the sacks, then walked to the Sun to get their wages.
The Sun was a rough place used by seamen and stevedores. Its earth floor was muddy, the benches and tables were battered and stained, and the smoky fire gave little heat. The landlord, Sidney Lennox, was a gambler, and there was always a game of some kind going on: cards, dice, or a complicated contest with a marked board and counters. The only good t
hing about the place was Black Mary, the African cook, who used shellfish and cheap cuts of meat to make spicy, hearty stews the customers loved.
Mack and Dermot were the first to arrive. They found Peg sitting in the bar with her legs crossed underneath her, smoking Virginia tobacco in a clay pipe. She lived at the Sun, sleeping on the floor in a corner of the bar. Lennox was a receiver as well as an undertaker, and Peg sold him the things she stole. When she saw Mack she spat into the fire and said cheerfully: "What ho, Jock--rescued any more maidens?"
"Not today." He grinned.
Black Mary put her smiling face around the kitchen door. "Oxtail soup, boys?" She had a Low Countries accent: people said she had once been the slave of a Dutch sea captain.
"No more than a couple of barrelfuls for me, please," Mack replied.
She smiled. "Hungry, eh? Been working hard?"
"Just taking a little exercise to give us an appetite," said Dermot.
Mack had no money to pay for his supper, but Lennox gave all the coal heavers credit against their earnings. After tonight, Mack resolved, he would pay cash on the nail for everything: he did not want to get into debt.
He sat beside Peg. "How's business?" he said facetiously.
She took his question seriously. "Me and Cora tumbled a rich old gent this afternoon so we're having the evening off."
Mack found it odd to be friends with a thief. He knew what drove her to it: she had no alternative but starvation. All the same something in him, some residue of his mother's attitudes, made him disapprove.
Peg was small and frail, with a bony frame and pretty blue eyes, but she had the callous air of a hardened criminal, and that was how people treated her. Mack suspected that her tough exterior was protective coloring: below the surface there was probably just a frightened little girl who had no one in the world to take care of her.
Black Mary brought him soup with oysters floating in it, a slab of bread and a tankard of dark beer, and he fell on it like a wolf.
The other coal heavers drifted in. There was no sign of Lennox, which was unusual: he was normally playing cards or dice with his customers. Mack wished he would hurry up. Mack was impatient to find out how much money he had made this week. He guessed Lennox was keeping the men waiting for their wages so they would spend more at the bar.
Cora came in after an hour or so. She looked as striking as ever, in a mustard-colored outfit with black trimmings. All the men greeted her, but to Mack's surprise she came and sat with him. "I hear you had a profitable afternoon," he said.
"Easy money," she said. "A man old enough to know better."
"You'd better tell me how you do it, so I don't fall victim to someone like you."
She gave him a flirtatious look. "You'll never have to pay girls, Mack, I can promise you that"
"Tell me anyway--I'm curious."
"The simplest way is to pick up a wealthy drunk, get him amorous, take him down a dark alley then run off with his money."
"Is that what you did today?"
"No, this was better. We found an empty house and bribed the caretaker. I played the role of a bored housewife--Peg was my maid. We took him to the house, pretending I lived there. I got his clothes off and got him into bed, then Peg came rushing in to say my husband was back unexpectedly."
Peg laughed. "Poor old geezer, you should have seen his face, he was terrified. He hid in the wardrobe!"
"And we left, with his wallet, his watch and all his clothes."
"He's probably still in that wardrobe!" said Peg, and they both went off into gales of laughter.
The coal heavers' wives began to appear, many of them with babies in their arms and children clinging to their skirts. Some had the spirit and beauty of youth, but others looked weary and underfed, the beaten wives of violent and drunken men. Mack guessed they were all here in the hope of getting hold of some of the wages before all the money was drunk, gambled or stolen by whores. Bridget Riley came in with her five children and sat with Dermot and Mack.
Lennox finally showed up at midnight.
He carried a leather sack full of coins and a pair of pistols, presumably to protect him from robbery. The coal heavers, most of whom were drunk by this time, cheered him like a conquering hero when he came in, and Mack felt a momentary contempt toward his workmates: why did they show gratitude for what was no more than their due?
Lennox was a surly man of about thirty, wearing knee boots and a flannel waistcoat with no shirt. He was fit and muscular from carrying heavy kegs of beer and spirits. There was a cruel twist to his mouth. He had a distinctive odor, a sweet smell like rotting fruit. Mack noticed Peg flinch involuntarily as he went by: she was scared of the man.
Lennox pulled a table into a corner and put the sack down and the pistols next to it. The men and women crowded around, pushing and shoving, as if afraid Lennox would run out of cash before their turn came. Mack hung back: it was beneath his dignity to scramble for the wages he had earned.
He heard the harsh voice of Lennox raised over the hubbub. "Each man has earned a pound and eleven pence this week, before bar bills."
Mack was not sure he had heard right. They had unloaded two ships, some fifteen hundred score, or thirty thousand sacks of coal, giving each man a gross income of about six pounds. How could it have been reduced to little more than a pound each?
There was a groan of disappointment from the men, but none of them questioned the figure. As Lennox began to count out individual payments, Mack said: "Just a minute. How do you work that out?"
Lennox looked up with an angry scowl. "You've unloaded one thousand four hundred and forty-five score, which gives each man six pounds and fivepence gross. Deduct fifteen shillings a day for drink--"
"What?" Mack interrupted. "Fifteen shillings a day?" That was three-quarters of their earnings!
Dermot Riley muttered his agreement. "Damned robbery, it is." He did not say it very loudly, but there were murmurs of agreement from some of the other men and women.
"My commission is sixteen pence per man per ship," Lennox went on. "There's another sixteen pence for the captain's tip, six pence per day for rent of a shovel--"
"Rent of a shovel?" Mack exploded.
"You're new here and you don't know the rules, McAsh," Lennox grated. "Why don't you shut your damned mouth and let me get on with it, or no one will get paid."
Mack was outraged, but reason told him Lennox had not invented this system tonight: it was obviously well established, and the men must have accepted it. Peg tugged at his sleeve and said in a low voice: "Don't cause trouble, Jock--Lennox will make it worse for you somehow."
Mack shrugged and kept quiet. However, his protest had struck a chord among the others, and Dermot Riley now raised his voice. "I didn't drink fifteen shillings' worth of liquor a day," he said.
His wife added: "For sure he didn't."
"Nor did I," said another man. "Who could? A man would burst with all that beer!"
Lennox replied angrily. "That's how much I sent on board for you--do you think I can keep a tally of what every man drinks every day?"
Mack said: "If not, you're the only innkeeper in London who can't!" The men laughed.
Lennox was infuriated by Mack's mockery and the laughter of the men. With a thunderous look he said: "The system is, you pay for fifteen shillings' worth of liquor, whether you drink it or not."
Mack stepped up to the table. "Well, I have a system too," he said. "I don't pay for liquor that I haven't asked for and haven't drunk. You may not have kept count but I have, and I can tell you exactly what I owe you."
"So can I," said another man. He was Charlie Smith, an English-born Negro with a flat Newcastle accent. "I've drunk eighty-three tankards of the small beer you sell in here for fourpence a pint. That's twenty-seven shillings and eightpence for the entire week, not fifteen shillings a day."
Lennox said: "You're lucky to be paid at all, you black villain, you ought to be a slave in chains."
Charlie's face
darkened. "I'm an Englishman and a Christian, and I'm a better man than you because I'm honest," he said with controlled fury.
Dermot Riley said: "I can tell you exactly how much I've drunk, too."
Lennox was getting irate. "If you don't watch yourselves you'll get nothing at all, any of you," he said.
It crossed Mack's mind that he ought to cool things down. He tried to think of something conciliatory to say. Then he caught sight of Bridget Riley and her hungry children, and indignation got the better of him. He said to Lennox: "You'll not leave that table until you've paid what you owe."
Lennox's eyes fell to his pistols.
With a swift movement Mack swept the guns to the floor. "You'll not escape by shooting me either, you damn thief," he said angrily.
Lennox looked like a cornered mastiff. Mack wondered if he had gone too far: perhaps he should have left room for a face-saving compromise. But it was too late now. Lennox had to back down. He had made the coal heavers drunk and they would kill him unless he paid them.
He sat back on his chair, narrowed his eyes, gave Mack a look of pure hatred and said: "You'll suffer for this, McAsh, I swear by God you will."
Mack said mildly: "Come on, Lennox, the men are only asking you to pay them what they're due."
Lennox was not mollified, but he gave in. Scowling darkly, he began to count out money. He paid Charlie Smith first, then Dermot Riley, then Mack, taking their word for the amount of liquor they had consumed.
Mack stepped away from the table full of elation. He had three pounds and nine shillings in his hand: if he put half of it aside for Esther he would still be flush.
Other coal heavers made guesses at how much they had drunk, but Lennox did not argue, except in the case of Sam Potter, a huge fat boy from Cork, who claimed he had drunk only thirty quarts, causing uproarious laughter from the others: he eventually settled for three times that.
An air of jubilation spread among the men and their women as they pocketed their earnings. Several came up to Mack and slapped him on the back, and Bridget Riley kissed him. He realized he had done something remarkable, but he feared that the drama was not yet ended. Lennox had given in too easily.
As the last man was being paid, Mack picked up Lennox's guns from the floor. He blew the flintlocks clear of powder, so that they would not fire, then placed them on the table.
Lennox took his disarmed pistols and the nearly empty money bag and stood up. The room went quiet. He went to the door that led to his private rooms. Everyone watched him intently, as if they were afraid he might yet find a way to take the money back. He turned at the door. "Go home, all of you," he said malevolently. "And don't come back on Monday. There'll be no work for you. You're all dismissed."
