Never argue with a man who holds a gun. Alfie couldn’t remember who had said that to him, but it was good advice. He moved slightly ahead of the man with the gun, allowing his arm to be gripped tightly and never turning to try to see the face of his captor. It probably would have been of little use anyway. One quick glance in the cellar had shown him a tall black silk hat, a long black wool coat, and a white silk scarf wrapped around the lower half of the face and leaving nothing but a slit for the eyes between the brim of the hat and the folds of the scarf. Lots of Londoners dressed like that in these days of lung-choking fog.
Alfie had been born in the cellar at Bow Street and had lived there all of his life. Most of the people who lived thereabouts knew the four boys, but Alfie made no appeal for help as he passed up the street and then was escorted down Long Acre and towards Piccadilly Circus. The streets were crowded with people and the noise was deafening. The sound of a shot would be lost in the hullabaloo and the man could easily slip away.
But Alfie had not given up. Every fibre of his being was alert for an opportunity. He hoped desperately that some stranger might stop and ask the way of his captor. Two seconds’ distraction would give him the chance to get away from the man with the gun. Already he sensed that the grip on his arm was not quite so firm.
Now they were going down Piccadilly. This was a street where all the toffs shopped or went to their clubs. The pair was beginning to attract more attention here. Not many bare-footed begging boys dared come down Piccadilly: policemen were everywhere.
‘I say, ole man, whash he done?’ The man asking the question was quite drunk and his words slurred into one another. He stood right in front of the man with the gun, barring his way. ‘Steal something, di’ he?’ he asked. ‘I say, Constable, young scoundrel here . . . my fren . . . ’ His voice was loud and a policeman turned and began to come across to them. The Russian hesitated and his hand on Alfie’s arm slackened slightly.
Now or never! The words flashed through Alfie’s mind and he sprang into action. He jabbed an elbow with all his force into the prominent stomach of the man holding him. There was a gasp of pain and suddenly the small, round, hard mouth of the pistol no longer pressed against the boy’s spine.
Alfie took a chance. With a second jab of the elbow, he was off, running and dodging down the wide pavement of Piccadilly, past the big bookshop, past the fancy grocery shop.
‘Shhtop thief!’ The drunken man was laughing heartily but his cry was taken up. This was a respectable street. No one wanted ragged boys, probably picking the pockets of the rich, in a place like that.
Alfie ran past the doorway to Fortnum & Mason, smelling the delicious smell of dried fruit wafting from the shop. For a moment he wondered whether to turn down the small street beside it, but there was a big delivery van there and the place swarmed with shop assistants unloading supplies. Any one of those could trip him up and claim a reward.
And then he remembered that Green Park must not be too far away. If he could get a start on his pursuers then he might be able to hide in one of the bushes there, or even better, climb a tree and hide there until the hunt was given up.
He dodged behind a man opening his umbrella then sprinted ahead and turned into Green Park
On a foggy, cold day like this day, Green Park should have been empty.
But it wasn’t!
It was jammed with people – men, women and children. Some were standing on the grass beneath the trees, some on the paths, and all of them were looking upwards.
And there, in the centre of the park, high above the trees, straining its ropes was a giant, brightly-coloured hot-air balloon, made from strips of yellow and red silk.
The balloon was the shape of a giant egg, with the patterned silk stretched over a wire framework. Dangling from beneath the egg shape was a basket made from bamboo.
Alfie pushed his way into the centre of the crowd, using his knees and elbows. He would get as far from the man with the gun as he could. After a few minutes, he managed to get himself a place just beside the balloon. No one could touch him here, he thought as he cast a quick look over his shoulder. There were a lot of heavily-built men around, carrying up bags of sand and handing them into the swaying basket. A warmly dressed man in a fur cap stood there. The balloonist, no doubt, thought Alfie.
‘More!’ shouted one of the men. ‘We need more ballast. This basket will turn over if we don’t have a bit more weight in it.’
‘One more bag to go,’ grunted one of carriers. ‘It weighs about five stone.’
‘Should be enough,’ replied the balloonist. ‘Hurry up. We must get going. We’re five minutes overdue already. Fling it over, man.’
Perhaps the man was rushed or perhaps the bag already had a split in it, but as he flung it through the air a stream of sand fell straight down and powdered the grass. By the time the balloonist caught it, the bag had less than half of its contents left.
‘Look what you’ve done, you awkward fool!’ shouted the balloonist. ‘I can’t go up without that last bag of sand. Look at the basket!’
There was no doubt that the basket was not properly weighted down. The ropes were slack and the basket swung to one side and then tilted to the other. Even Alfie could see that those ropes needed to be stretched taut, like the balloons that he had seen from time to time floating across the London sky.
Alfie had only survived the life of a street boy in London by having quick wits and plenty of courage. In a second he had made up his mind and a second later he was inside the bamboo basket, sitting on the floor with his arms around his knees.
‘Take me,’ he said. ‘I weigh exactly five stone.’
Alfie didn’t have a notion of what he weighed, but he had seen large machines inside chemists’ shops and was ready to swear to how, when and why he had been weighed on one of them.
The balloonist, however, took one glance at the boy and made up his mind. If Alfie had been a well-dressed, well-fed young gentleman he would not have risked it, but a ragged slum child was a different matter. No one would worry about him.
‘Cast off!’ he shouted.
Instantly the men holding the ropes let go. The gleaming silk swelled and surged, the pointed top rising towards the sky.
‘Hold on tight to that rope. Don’t wriggle and, whatever you do, don’t stand up!’ said the balloonist sternly.
Alfie was only too glad to stay still and to keep his head down. He wondered whether the man who was chasing him had seen him get into the balloon. Well, if he had, there wasn’t much that he could do about it now!
Peering through the cracks in the woven cane of the basket, Alfie was surprised to find that he was staring at the roof of one of the clubs beside Green Park. Already that high! Where was the man going, he wondered but didn’t bother to ask. The balloonist was on his feet now, tugging at a red cord that seemed to be attached to a sort of flap at the top of the balloon.
‘Need to get a bit more height,’ he yelled when he saw Alfie looking at him. ‘I forgot about that huge plane tree over here. Should have avoided it.’
The next minute the basket hit the tree. A few crows squawked, rose indignantly up into the air and flew away. Alfie shut his eyes and then opened them. The cane basket was stuck, like a giant nest, but it was undamaged. The enormous silk balloon was still full of hot air and it rose above the branches and tugged at the ropes like a living creature. The balloonist pulled once more on the red cord.
‘There we go!’ the balloonist exclaimed as the balloon gave one last tug and the basket floated free. Alfie heard a cheer from the crowd below. The basket was rising rapidly.
We must be well above the tops of the houses now, he thought and peered over the side of the basket, taking care not to move his position.
‘Well,’ he said aloud. ‘I ain’t never seen London look like that before.’
Suddenly the city that he knew so well looked like a picture. Down below him were towers, churches, domed buildings, smoking chimneys, houses the size of a large dog, tiny ships floating on a silver river crossed by toy bridges. He spotted the spire of St Martin’s church and the fountains of Trafalgar Square. He looked east and thought he glimpsed the stately pillars in front of the Covent Garden Theatre and the crowded streets around the market. He strained his eyes to try to make out Bow Street and that made him think of Sammy and how his brother had been left alone when he, Alfie, had been taken from the cellar at the point of a gun. He wondered what Sammy had done. Would he have guessed what was going on?
Alfie forced his mind away from Sammy; there was nothing he could do and his brother usually found his way out of trouble. He looked up and saw the veils of fog were touched with gold, like a silk lining to a grey coat.
‘Cor,’ he said. ‘I never knowed that the sun stayed up there all the time behind the fog!’ And then he thought that sounded a bit childish and said in a business-like tone, ‘Where are you bound, Mister?’
‘Vauxhall Gardens,’ said the balloonist. ‘I’m going to give rides in the balloon there tonight. There’s going to be a firework display and I’ll take people up for half a crown so that they can see the sights. You enjoying yourself?’
‘How far is that from Westminster?’ asked Alfie, wondering how he was going to get back. He had often heard of Vauxhall Gardens, of course. People who had money went there to amuse themselves, but Alfie had never had money to waste on things like that. Money was for the rent and for food and that was all it could be used for in Alfie’s life.
‘About a mile beside the river,’ said the man. ‘Look down; we’re nearly there.’
Alfie peered over the edge again. They were drifting along the line of the river high above the ships and boats.
‘Lambeth Bridge,’ said the man, pointing. ‘Look, Vauxhall Gardens are there. They cost a shilling to get into, sixpence for children, but you’re in luck. You’ll get in free because you’re with me. Hang on tight, now. This is where we go down.’
The balloonist hauled on the red cord which led upwards into the balloon. The vent for the hot air widened dramatically and the balloon began to sink. Suddenly the ground seemed to rush up to meet them. The basket bumped along the grass, dragged by the half-deflated silken mass of the balloon.
‘We’re here!’ shouted the balloonist. ‘Hop out like a good lad and hang onto the rope with all your strength. Don’t let it go, whatever you do.’
Alfie did as he was told. He wrapped the rope around his waist for double security, and looked up.
And looked straight into the eyes of the man with the gun.