Printer's Devil (9780316167826) Page 7

  “Caught in the hact,” he said, savoring every word and grinning horribly into my terrified face. “A thief about to make off with the Sun o’ Calcutta — and I caughtim! I caughtim in the hact and strangled ’im dead before ’e could say a word! Well done sailor! Extra rations for you, sailor!” His grip tightened still further. I had gone completely numb with terror: it was as though the rigor of death had seized me in anticipation, before I was even killed.

  “I’m not a thief,” I heard my voice saying, weakly.

  “Oh no? Caught in the hact in the captain’s cabin and not a thief?” With every noun his grip came closer and closer to throttling me and before long all I could see was the blood crawling in blotches across my eyes, and all I could hear was the gurgling of my own breath.

  But he must have changed his mind at the last moment because I was suddenly drawing gasping breaths again, realizing he’d released his grip on me.

  “Hexplain yerself,” he was saying, as the cotton wool cloud around my head seemed gradually to disperse. “What was you doin’ in ’ere?”

  I coughed a couple of times, gathering myself, trying desperately to think of an answer. As I looked into his big flat face he was still grimacing, but I thought I detected a flicker of alarm behind his eyes, as though he’d found himself suddenly unable to cope with the act of killing me.

  “I wants to see the captain,” I said, putting on my best urchin-boy voice. “I come lookin’ for ’im.”

  “You come lookin’ for somethin’ all right,” the sailor replied, grimly. “I seen you sneakin’ onboard. Up in the riggin’, I was, watchin’. Never thought to look up, didja? Never thought you was bein’ watched from above!” He was grinning triumphantly and I suddenly panicked again, convinced he was still going to kill me.

  “I told you, it’s the captain I wants,” I said. I’d seen his name on his documents: what was it, oh what was it? “The captain, captain … Captain Shakeshere,” I said, in sudden relief. The sailor was still looking suspicious; but I could see his hostility abating as his brain worked to fathom how I knew the captain’s name.

  “Oo sentcha?” he asked.

  I had a sudden flash of inspiration. Yesterday I’d been mistaken, in my tarry clothes, for a bosun’s boy. Well, in that case, I might have a perfect reason to be onboard. “The bosun,” I said. “I’ve a message for Captain Shakeshere from his bosun.” Something in the giant face told me I was onto a lifesaver. “I was told ’e might be aboard. Important message, I got.” My nerve was starting to come back. “And the cap’n might not like it,” I continued, “if his bosun’s lad got strangled before ’e delivered his message. And my Pa might not like it,” I said, “if I was brought back to ’im dead.” I knew enough about life at sea to be sure that the average sailor preferred to stay on the right side of the bosun; and the consequences of harming the bosun’s lad were clearly starting to filter through even to this dim-witted brain. I saw him swallow. “And ‘Is Majesty’s Company of Merchants Trading to the East Indies might not like it,” I said grandly, rather enjoying myself now, “if their business was to get neglected ’cos of a strangled messenger.”

  He was obviously flustered. “Well,” he said, crestfallen, “I ain’t to know that when I sees you sneakin’ onboard, am I? You might’ve bin any old common panneyboy come to see what you could get yer ‘ands on. Anyway,” he continued, “the cap’n ain’t ’ere. ‘e’s at the three friends.”

  I opened my eyes wide. “Where?”

  “At the three friends. The Three Friends Inn.” He pointed vaguely toward the dockside buildings, and before he had time to say another word I’d ducked past him and was scrambling back down the ladder to the welcoming bark of my dog, still sitting up in the bobbing rowing boat as the morning sunshine glinted on the water.

  We found the Three Friends without much difficulty, on a steep little lane opposite a cracked old church with a high, blackened spire. It was a tall, narrow house with a pointed roof, embedded in the grime of the city, the glass in its windows opaque with scratches, the stone discolored by long streaks of filth and damp. It proclaimed its function with an inn sign the shape of a gravestone, which hung from an old iron frame as a man hangs from a gallows, swinging gently every now and then and giving a faint creak. Nevertheless most sailors laughed when they clapped eyes on it, because of the cracked painting of three naked women which adorned it. Not only this, they laughed because they knew it meant a chance to drink as much beer, rum, and other intoxicants as their paltry pay would afford them.

  I tied Lash’s lead to an iron post outside and ventured in. It wasn’t long after breakfast time, but I found the taproom heavy with yellow smoke and several figures discernible through it, sitting eating or drinking ale or puffing at pipes, silent, or else engaged in low conversation which was temporarily halted as they turned to look at me. Instantly reminded, by the thick air, of Flethick’s strange little smoking den, I tried to greet the staring sailors as cheerfully as I could. But my heart sank in dismay with the realization that the captain I wanted to speak to was probably one of these tight-lipped, wary gentlemen.

  Still the object of the customers’ collective stare, and beginning to feel very uncomfortable, I made my way across to the shadowy little hatch where I could dimly see a face peering at me behind the beer taps. As I got closer I saw it was an old woman with a noticeable mustache. Her face looked as if it had been taken off, screwed up like an old piece of paper, then unfolded and stuck back on again. She was so ugly that, if it had been me, I’d probably have thrown the piece of paper in the nearest fire instead of sticking it back.

  “Fine mornin’,” she croaked at me suddenly. At first I thought she’d burped.

  “Oh — er — yes,” I said. “I’m looking for Captain Shakeshere. Is he here?”

  “Can you see him?” came the cracked reply.

  “Well — I don’t know him,” I said in a low voice, “but I want to talk to him if he’s here. Please.”

  “Might be here,” the old woman said; and I stood waiting for her to call him. But she just stood there. Was that all she was going to say?

  “Well, er — how can I find him?” I asked.

  The woman was still just standing there motionless, behind the bar. Was she thinking? Or had she perhaps died, without falling over? Suddenly I noticed a tear trickling down her cheek, slowly following the channel of her deepest wrinkles.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked her.

  Her reply, like the creaking of an old door, came slowly. “Such a lovely boy,” she said, and the drops continued to well in her wrinkly eyes and dribble down her crumpled face. “Such a lovely boy.”

  “Thank you,” I said uncomfortably, and edged away, realizing she was going to be no help at all. I wondered if I should ask one of the sailors. I’d ceased, at least, to be the center of attention, most of the clientele having gone back to their beer or their furtive conversations.

  “‘Scuse me,” I said to the nearest sailor, and he turned to look at me. “What’s the matter with her? With the lady there?”

  “Meg?” he said gruffly, looking across at her. “She’s old. And she wishes she was young. That’s all.”

  “Does she often cry?” I asked.

  “Depends,” he said. “See, I don’t s’pose she often sees young folks like you in ’ere. You’ve reminded her how old she is. That’s all.”

  “How old is she?” I ventured to ask.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Least a hundred years, I s’pose, that’s all.”

  I felt like going up to the woman again and apologizing for being only twelve, and vowing that I’d be a hundred too if only it lay in my power to be. “Do you know Cap’n Shakeshere?” I asked the man.

  “In the corner,” he told me: and as I looked towards the corner of the room by the window I could make out a thin man in a frock coat sitting alone: a man so thin, indeed, that he looked like a set of pipe cleaners wrapped in specially tailored clothes.

  “Not th
at corner,” said the sailor, “the other. Over there.” And he moved his head to indicate the group of four men on the other side of the window nook, who were arguing in low voices and seemed quite agitated. The one with his back to me was the tallest of the four, and there was something masterly in his demeanor.

  “The nearest man? The tall one?” I asked.

  The sailor I’d been talking to was getting to his feet. “That’s him,” he said. “Now, I’ve got to be going, that’s all.” I thanked him and watched him stride, a little unsteadily, out of the smoky room and into the daylight. Suddenly I wished I was going with him.

  Instead I stood debating what I should say to the captain. Should I tell him I’d seen men making off with goods from his ship the other day? Should I ask him if he knew anyone called Damyata? Should I ask him if he knew Coben and Jiggs?

  The foursome suddenly erupted. One of the men had attacked another. As they leapt to their feet and beer spilled everywhere, I saw that they’d been playing cards. Perhaps one had been cheating, and that was why he was currently being throttled by another, while the other two tried to pull them apart. I’d chosen a bad time to approach the captain, I decided. The brawl was quickly over though, everyone sat down, and the combatants were soon glaring at one another with cards in their hands again. None of them seemed to notice me as I stood nervously by the table.

  “Cap’n Shakeshere?” I asked, trying to sound offhand.

  The tall man turned in his chair and I found myself looking up his nose. He had a high narrow nose which seemed to stretch up far between his eyebrows before it finally stopped, and a long face, made even longer by his high collar and straight back. He was so upright he might have been hewn from his own mast. He didn’t seem impressed as he looked me up and down.

  “What is it, boy?” he asked, rather impatiently, turning back to the card game.

  “Have you got a moment, sir?” I said, speaking rather fast, “only I’ve found out a couple of things I. thought you should know, sir, about people — taking precious things off the Sun of Calcutta. Thieves, sir, I s’pose I mean. Yesterday I —“

  He had turned to look at me again, with a rather haughty face which seemed to resent my interrupting his game.

  “Who sent you?” he asked. “How do you know me, boy?”

  “Please, sir, I’ve been asking after you,” I said, nervously taking my hands in and out of my pockets; “I saw thieves, sir, making off with a precious chest from the ship, sir. I followed them, and —“

  “Really, boy,” he said, “I’ve no time for your pestering. Go and see the Customs men, or go and worry my bosun about it. What do I care about thieves, here in London where they’re on every street corner?” He turned back to the game, and for the first time I noticed that the cards the men were playing with weren’t ordinary cards, but were strangely marked with shapes and symbols, like the foreign letters on the snuffbox and in the note I’d taken from Coben and Jiggs.

  “Where can I find the bosun, sir?” I asked, feeling that even if he told me I’d really rather not find him.

  “What?” the captain bellowed.

  “Where can I find—”

  “Yes I heard you! I don’t keep tabs on my crewmen so as to know where they choose to live in this pigsty of a city. Be off and let me concentrate!”

  And that was the last I got out of him. I could always try the Galleon, I told myself, remembering how I’d been accosted there by the sailor who claimed the bosun was after my hide. But then I noticed the man in the frock coat with the pipe-cleaner limbs in the opposite corner, watching me intently, and smiling, as though he knew who I was. Another idiot, or drunkard, I thought as I watched his eyebrows rising and falling. But I decided to have a word with him.

  “Do you happen to know,” I said, “where I can find the bosun of the Sun of Calcutta?”

  The pipecleaner man spoke very quietly and very hesitantly, his lower jaw quivering slightly as he tried to get the words out. All the time his eyebrows were moving animatedly, as though trying to supply by a kind of semaphore the information his voice couldn’t put across. I waited patiently through the long silent gaps in his sentences.

  “B-bosun often … Galleon,” he said breathily. “Mm-mm … but he lives … ss-sign of … Lion’s Mane.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and was about to get up to leave when he grasped my arm.

  “B-be c-c-careful,” he gasped, with a little visible explosion of spittle droplets which shone in the sunlight and died as they fell, like shooting stars. “D-don’t mm-meddle … bosun’s affairs. He’s d-dangerous. “G-g-got d-dangerous ff-friends.” There was a furrow of earnestness above his jolting eyebrows which convinced me he was serious. “Want m-my advice, k-k-keep out of it!”

  “Have you ever heard of—” I began, but he was putting his finger to his lips and his eyebrows were bouncing up and down alarmingly. I turned and saw one of the Captain’s companions staring darkly across at us.

  As I left, nodding my thanks to the stuttering man, I passed the cardplayers again and noticed one of the strange cards poking out from under the captain’s backside, at the edge of his chair.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “excuse me, sir, but I think you’ve mislaid a card. It’s here, on your seat.”

  The captain was staring at me as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. The other cardplayers were stiffening with anger and staring at him. His long face began to redden and a gap opened to display a clenched set of teeth, including a couple of gold ones. Realizing what I’d done, as his eyes bulged further and further outward, I was off through the door, leaving the foursome staring at a couple of overturned tables and a roomful of heavy smoke, before any of them had a chance to rise from their chairs.

  5

  THE BOSUN’S BOY

  I had never heard of the Lion’s Mane Inn before, and as I walked home I stopped a few people to ask if they could tell me where it was. I felt somehow drawn to this mysterious bosun; but at the same time I was afraid of him. I couldn’t help remembering the words of the laughing man at Flethick’s, about gizzards — and then there was the earnest advice of the pipe-cleaner man, warning me to keep out of it. But as I thought about it, I realized I couldn’t be sure whether he’d said that out of genuine concern for me, or because he was an accomplice of the bosun’s and didn’t want me poking my nose in.

  It had turned into another roasting hot day and some boys were playing round a pump, splashing one another and jumping in and out of the spurting water. I was tired after my morning’s adventures, and the cold water looked very tempting. As I watched the boys my throat felt drier and drier. One of them saw me watching and shouted.

  “Come and get wet.”

  Shyly, I joined them and stood under the pump while the boy who’d shouted leaned on the handle and made it belch a great cascade of water over my head. It was cool, and a bit smelly, and I shook the water out of my eyes, delighted. Lash ran round the pump, trying to get wet, veering in and out of the splashing water and barking with enjoyment.

  There was a big tub underneath the pump, brim-full of water, where people used to take their horses to drink. One of the boys suddenly pulled off all his clothes and jumped into the tub, sending water welling up over the sides and all over the ground. The other boys laughed raucously and ran around him, their feet getting black as the ground around the pump turned to mud. Caught up in the game, I ran too, dodging the squirting of the water pump. The boy was still sitting in the tub and another of the boys was trying to push his head under the water. There were squeals. Two of the other boys pulled off their clothes and tried to haul the first boy out so they could have a turn at sitting in the tub. As I ran round and round the pump, with Lash barking and jumping beside me, I became aware that I was the only one still wearing my clothes.

  “Come on,” said one of them, “you come in too.”

  I stopped, and watched them grappling and laughing on the edge, skinny and naked, their bodies slippery with the water.
<
br />   “No,” I said, suddenly, “I’d better go.”

  “Aw, come on,” he said, and began tugging at my sleeve. “Not scared of getting wet, are you?”

  “No, I —“ I couldn’t explain myself. One of the other boys stood up, dripping, and I was suddenly really scared that they were going to grab me and tear my clothes off for a prank. “No. Let me go,” I said, pulling away.

  The first boy stared at me, hostile all of a sudden. “Suit yourself,” he said.

  I wrapped Lash’s lead tightly round my wrist. “I’ve got to find the Lion’s Mane Inn,” I said uncomfortably. “Do you know where it is?”

  The boy pointed; and gave me a lingering and suspicious stare as I thanked him and walked off, my wet clothes clinging to me, and Lash licking at my wet fingers as we went.

  Even after this it took me a while to find the place. The inn nestled in the warren of streets around Christ’s Hospital, between a workhouse and a rather shabby group of broken stables, whose smell convinced me they were still home to living creatures. Peering in, I saw two rather shabby and broken horses, one of whom was coughing alarmingly; and after a few seconds I noticed, with a slight shock, that there was a person in the stable too, sitting on an old box in the corner. It was a grey-haired, filthy old man, slumped in an apparent sleep, looking like a disembodied head on top of a shapeless pile of grey clothing — in fact, he was wrapped in a horse’s blanket. I didn’t dare investigate in case he turned out to be dead.

  There seemed to be no one about in the little courtyard of brick buildings adjoining the inn. I could hear a drain trickling, and as I crept round a corner I saw a filthy stream of water dribbling from a pipe in the wall, leaving a spreading patch of brown slime over the brickwork all the way to the ground. A flight of stone steps led up to a door halfway up the house side. This irregular, badly whitewashed yard must be where the fearsome bosun lived.