WHISKED AWAY, I WAS! Whisked like an egg and beaten just as soundly. These are the moments when your life’s not your own, when others grab you and take you and force you to go where you’ve no business going. And I should know, having suffered more than my fair share of such moments in fourteen years. But once that whistle is heard and the crowd around you turn in your direction and focus their nasty eyes on you, ready to accuse, try and judge, why, you might as well get down on your knees and pray to disappear into thin air as hope to escape without a bloodied nose or a blackened eye.
‘Hold off there!’ came a cry from outside the scrum, but little did I know who it was, covered as I was by the weight of four separate traders and a simpleton woman, who’d placed herself atop the rabble and was screeching with laughter and clapping her hands together as if there had been no better sport all year long. ‘Hold off there! Mind, or the boy will be crushed!’
That was a rare thing to hear, a fellow taking the side of a young villain like myself, and I resolved to pass a nod of appreciation to the utterer of the lines if ever I found myself blinking in the daylight again. Knowing what indignities might be on the horizon, however, I was content to pass a few idle moments stretched out on the cobbles, the peel of an orange pressed against my nostrils, the core of a rotten apple settled by my lips, and a bloody great arse making itself friendly with my right ear.
Soon enough, however, a chink of brightness appeared through the mess of bodies above me and up they stood one by one, the weight gradually decreasing atop me, and when him with the bloody great arse took himself off my head I lay heavily on the ground for a moment longer, looking up as I tried to assess my options, only to see the hand of a blue reaching down and grabbing me, without courtesy, by the lapels.
‘Let’s have you up now, lad,’ said he, dragging me to my feet, and to my shame I stumbled a little as I recovered my balance and the people watching made a farce of me for it.
‘He’s drunk,’ cried one, which was a slander as I never take a drink before lunchtime.
‘A young thief, is it?’ asks the blue, ignoring whoever had offered the lie.
‘There was a young thief,’ said I, trying to brush myself down and wondering how far I’d get if he was to lose his grip for a moment and I was to make a run for it. ‘Tried to make off with the gentleman’s pocket-watch, he did, and only for I nabbed him and called for the blues he’d have had it too. A hero is what I am, only this bloody great mess leapt on me and shoddy well nearly killed me. The thief,’ I added, pointing in a direction that made everyone turn their heads for a moment before looking back at me, ‘ran yonder.’
I looked around, trying to gauge the reaction of the crowd, knowing full well that they were not stupid enough to be taken in by such a lie. But I was trying to think on my feet and this is what I came up with on the spur of the moment.
‘An Irish fella, he was,’ I added then, for the Irish were hated in Portsmouth on account of their dirty ways and their filthy manners and the habit they had of procreating with their sisters and so were easy to blame for anything that went on outside the straight and legal. ‘Babbling away in a language I didn’t understand, he was, and him with the ginger hair and the big buggy eyes as well.’
‘But if that’s the case,’ said the blue, towering over me, standing up so tall on his toes that I thought he might take flight. ‘What might this be, then?’ He reached into my pocket and extracted the French gentleman’s timepiece and I stared at it, the eyes fairly popping out my head now in surprise.
‘The scamp,’ I cried, a note of outrage racing into my tone. ‘The vandal and miscreant! Oh, I am done for! He put it there, I swears it, he put it there before he ran. They do it, you see, when they know they can’t escape. Try to blame another. What need have I of a watch anyway? My time’s my own!’
‘Save your lies,’ said the blue, shaking me again for good effect and placing his hands about me in such a way that I swear I was giving him the motions. ‘Let’s just take a look and see what else you have secreted about your rascally person. Been thieving all the morning long, I’d warrant.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ I shouted. ‘I am slandered. Hear me now!’ I appealed to the crowd around me and what do you think happened next, only the simpleton woman came up and stuck her tongue in my ear! I leaped back out of her way, for the Saviour alone knew where that tongue had been and I didn’t want a taste of her clap.
‘Back there now, Nancy,’ said the blue and she stepped away, sticking that same filthy tongue of hers out at me now with an air of defiance. What I wouldn’t have given for a freshly sharpened knife at that moment and I might have had her tongue from her mouth in a trice.
‘Wants hanging,’ shouted one man, a fellow who I knew for a fact spent every penny of his earnings from his fruit stalls on the gin and had no business laying accusations at me.
‘Leave him with us, sir,’ shouted another, a lad who’d known a stretch or two inside himself and should have taken my side on account of it. ‘Leave him with us and we’ll teach him a thing or two about what’s belonging to him and what’s belonging to the rest of us.’
‘Constable, please … if I may?’ said a more refined voice, and then who should make his way through the gathered crowd but the French gentleman, him as had every right to condemn my soul to eternal damnation but who I now recognized as the one who had tried to stop my annihilation under the mound of stinking carcasses not five minutes before. The crowd, sensing a gentleman, parted as if he was Moses and they were the Red Sea. Even the blue loosened his grip on me a little and stared. That’s what a smart voice and a fine greatcoat will do for you and I resolved at that moment to be the possessor of both one day.
‘Good morning, sir,’ said the blue now, bringing his voice to a posher place now, the dirty dog, trying to equal the gentleman. ‘And are you the victim of this here miscreant?’
‘Constable, I believe I can vouch for the boy,’ he answered, sounding as if the whole mess was his fault really and not my own. ‘My pocket-watch was inauspiciously placed about my person and in imminent danger of falling to the ground, where no master craftsman would have been able to repair the damage done to it. I believe the boy was merely taking it to hand it back. We had been engaged in a conversation about literature.’
There was a silence for a moment and I have to admit that I almost believed his words myself. Could it be that I was as much a victim of this unhappy circumstance as anyone? Should I be released without further assault on my character and good name and perhaps a letter of commendation from a person in a position of authority? I looked to the blue, who considered it for a moment, but the crowd, sensing an end to their sport and a denial of due course and proper punishment, took up the cudgel in his place.
‘It’s a sham, Constable,’ shouted one, spitting the words out so hard that I had to duck to swerve away from his nasty gob. ‘I saw him with my own eyes putting the watch in that there pocket of his.’
‘Saw him, did you?’
‘And it’s not the first time either,’ roared another. ‘He had five apples off me not four days ago and I didn’t see a penny for them.’
‘I wouldn’t eat your apples,’ I shouted back at him, for it was a terrible lie. I’d only taken four apples and a pomegranate on the side for a pudding. ‘They’ve weevils in them, every one.’
‘Oh, don’t let him say it!’ shouted the woman beside him, his old hag of a wife, and her with a face on her that would send you cross-eyed. ‘Ours is a going concern,’ she added, appealing to the gathered masses with arms outstretched. ‘A going concern!’
‘That boy’s a bad ‘un,’ called another now and they sensed blood, that was all. You don’t want to get a crowd against you at a moment like that. As it happened I was almost glad the blue was there for had he not been, they might have torn me limb from limb, French gentleman or no French gentleman.
‘Constable, please,’ said the very same now, stepping closer and taking the watch back, I noticed, as that blue would surely have pocketed it himself in a heartbeat. ‘I’m sure the boy could be released on his own recognizance. Do you regret your actions, child?’ he asked me and this time I didn’t bother to correct his use of the word.
‘Do I regret them?’ I asked. ‘As God is my witness, I regret them all. I don’t know what came over me in fact. The devil, no doubt. But I repent in honour of Christmas Day. I repent of all my sins and swear that I will go forth from this place and sin no more. What God has joined together, let no man tear asunder,’ I added, remembering what few of the Good Words I had ever heard and joining them together to put my devotion on display to all.
‘He repents, Constable,’ pleaded the French gentleman, opening his hands wide now in a gesture of magnanimity.
‘But he admitted the theft!’ roared a man whose stomach was so big that a cat could have rested on it and got a good sleep. ‘Take him away! Lock him up! Whip him soundly! He has confessed the crime!’
The blue shook his head and looked at me. Between his two front teeth were the remains of what I believed to be a stew dinner; just looking at it gave me the revulsions. ‘You are apprehended,’ he informed me then in a serious tone. ‘And you must pay recompense for your abominable crime.’
The crowd cheered in support of their freshly crowned hero and turned as one when the sound of a carriage was heard pulling in behind the French gentleman’s own fleet and, what was it, only the blue’s brougham. My heart sank when I saw another blue at the reins of it and in a trice he was down from his spot and on his feet, unlocking the back doors.
‘Come along, now,’ said the first one in a booming voice for all to hear. ‘And your judge will be waiting for you at the end of our journey, so you may start to tremble in anticipation of his magnificence.’ I swear he should have been a sham-actor on the stage.
The jig was up and I knew it then but I dug my heels in firmly to the gaps between the cobbles nevertheless. For the first time I did sincerely regret my actions but not on the grounds that I had committed an error in my personal morality, such as it was. Rather, because I had committed one too many of the same in the past, and even though this particular blue didn’t know me, there were others as would where I was going and I was only too aware that the punishment might not entirely fit the crime. I had but one recourse left to me.
‘Sir,’ I shouted, turning to the Frenchman, even as the blue started pulling me in the direction of my hearse. ‘Sir, help me, please. Take pity. It was an accident, I swears it. I had too much sugar for my breakfast, that was all, and it gave me ideas.’
He looked at me and I could see that he was thinking about it. On the one hand, he must have been recalling the pleasant conversation we had been engaged in not ten minutes before and my abundant knowledge of the land of China, not to mention my ambitions towards book-writing, of which he was wholly in approval. On the other hand, he had been robbed, plain and simple, and what’s wrong is wrong.
‘Constable, I decline to press the charge,’ he shouted finally and I gave an almighty cheer, such as a Christian might have offered when Caligula, the dirty savage, gave him the thumbs-up in the Coliseum and let him live to fight once more.
‘I am saved!’ I roared, pulling myself loose from the blue for a moment, but he took me back in hand again quick enough.
‘Not a bit of it,’ he said. ‘You were witnessed in the act and must pay or you’ll be left here to rob again.’
‘But, Constable,’ cried the French gentleman, ‘I absolve him of his crime!’
‘And who are you, the Lord Jesus Christ?’ asked the blue, which made the crowd erupt in laughter, and he turned in surprise at their commendation but his eyes lit up, thrilled with himself that they thought him a fine fellow and an entertainer to boot. ‘He’ll be taken to the magistrate and from there to the gaol, I dare say, to pay for the gruesome act, the little deviant.’
‘It’s monstrous—’ came the retort, but the blue was having none of it.
‘If you’ve something to say, then you can say it to the magistrate,’ he offered as a parting shot, walking towards the carriage now and dragging me behind him.
I fell to the ground to make things more difficult for him, but he continued to haul me along the sodden street and I can picture the scene in my own head still, my arse going bumpity-bumpity-bump over the cobbles as I was wrenched in the direction of the carriage doors. It hurt; I didn’t know why in hell I was doing it but I knew that I wouldn’t stand up and make his job any easier. I’d rather have eaten a beetle.
‘Help me, sir,’ I cried as I was thrown inside the carriage and the doors were slammed in my face, so close that they nearly took my nose off. I gripped the bars in front of me and made the most pleading face that I could muster, a picture of innocence disbelieved. ‘Help me and I’ll do whatever it is you ask of me. I’ll wax your boots every day for a month! I’ll polish your buttons till they shine!’
‘Take him off!’ shouted the crowd and some of them even dared to throw rotten vegetables in my direction, the scuts. The horses lifted their hoofs and off we went on our merry way, me in the back wondering what fate awaited me when I met the magistrate, who knew me only too well from past acquaintance-ship to show any compassion.
The last thing I saw as we turned the corner was a picture of the French gentleman, stroking his chin as if thinking what to do for the best now that I was in the hands of the law. He lifted his pocket-watch to check the time … and what do you think happened next? It only slipped from his grip and fell to the ground below. Easy to see that the glass would smash from the force of it too. I threw up my hands in disgust and settled down to see whether I could find a bit of comfort at the very least on the journey, but there was little to be had in the back of one of those contraptions.
They’re not designed for consolation.