IT WASN’T an easy party to stop, even with rifles, bayonets and the onset of freezing rain. Fifty soldiers marched through the top gates into the square, urged on by the shouts of their sergeant and jeered by the prisoners.
‘Go back to your blocks!’ cried the officer.
‘Kiss my arse!’ came the reply.
The musicians were targeted first, their fiddles, accordions and drums snatched or smashed. Then the most obviously inebriated were dragged away. Any American protest that became too aggressive was silenced with a rifle butt.
Joe looked around, realized he’d lost his crew. He nodded once at Habs and was gone. When there was fighting to be done, most sailors wanted their ship’s company alongside them, and Joe Hill was no exception. Around the square, there was a great reordering, a shifting of men as they moved towards their blocks, and Joe pushed his way through to where he thought he’d last seen the Eagle crew. He barged shoulders, dodged punches, ducked flying bottles. In front of him, three black sailors refused to make way for an intoxicated white sailor with teeth the colour of old pennies. After threatening Hell and damnation on them, the man fell face first on to the macadam. Tripped or unlucky, Joe couldn’t tell.
He found Roche propped lopsidedly between other Eagle men and fell in behind them. Flat against the wall and halfway between the top and bottom gates, he observed the old ship’s crews re-forming. With one noticeable difference.
‘The Negroes are all separating out,’ he said aloud. ‘Why are they doing that?’
Roche shrugged. At the bottom of the square, the black sailors were gathering around the lower, more ornate gates.
‘What are they down there for?’ In front of him, some white crew turned round, their eyes narrowing as they took in the new arrivals. One sported the longest braided pigtail Joe had seen.
‘You need to be told?’ drawled the man with the queue. ‘Does it look like we’re still at sea?’ There was a flash of red by the upper gates. Ten soldiers had appeared, led by a short, stiff-backed man in the uniform of a Royal Navy captain. He positioned himself on an improvised dais and waited, hands on hips. The rain swirled round him and briefly threatened to set him off balance.
‘Well, we got the Agent out of his warm bed, then.’ It was the man with the pigtail again. ‘He’ll not be wantin’ to leave that wife o’ his for long. I wouldn’t be trustin’ her alone in this place, that’s for certain.’ His crewmen laughed.
‘Not with the likes of you around he won’t.’
‘Agent?’ asked Joe, leaning forward. ‘Who’s the Agent?’
‘The governor. He’s called the Agent. God knows why. Arrogant cock of a man by the name of Captain Thomas Shortland. Or just call him Cock.’
Shortland raised his hands for silence. This triggered scuffles, a volley of jeers and abuse and another round of singing. Four men were roughly hauled away. The Agent waited a while, then reached inside his coat, produced a rolled piece of paper tied with a ribbon and held it aloft. It was instantly soaked, but succeeded where his upheld hands had failed.
‘It’s the peace!’ cried a voice.
‘It’s the peace!’ called a hundred more.
‘Silence for the peace!’
‘So we got it right,’ muttered Joe to himself, as the square around him fell as close as it would ever get to silence.
On the dais, Shortland unrolled the document and took a deep breath.
‘Men of Dartmoor!’ he called, his clipped voice high and clear. ‘I have in my possession a copy of a document signed on 24 December in the city of Ghent. It is a treaty of peace and amity between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America.’
An almighty cheer erupted from the square and the dancing started again.
Joe grabbed Roche, holding his creased and scarred face between his hands. ‘It’s over, Will! It really is. The treaty is signed!’
Roche grinned back at him. ‘Then, by rights, we should be able to walk straight out of here.’
By the high gates, Shortland had more to say. Realizing he had no chance of silencing an end-of-war party, he nodded at the militiaman next to him and pointed skywards. A single volley from the soldier’s rifle silenced the crowd. The Agent had their attention now. He spoke quickly, knowing he might not have it for long.
‘Our nations are desirous of terminating the war which has unhappily subsisted between us. Peace, friendship and good understanding are to be established again, so any mistempered weapons can be thrown to the ground. But, gentlemen, listen here, to Article Three.’ He returned his attention to the scroll. ‘“All prisoners-of-war taken on either side, as well by land as by sea, shall be restored”’ – and here Shortland laid a heavy emphasis – ‘“as soon as practicable after the ratifications of this treaty.” His Majesty’s Government ratified it yesterday in London but, until your Congress has ratified this treaty, then returned it to Parliament, nothing has changed. Return to your prison blocks. The turnkeys will be locking up. Anyone still outside in thirty minutes will be in the cachot.’ He rolled up the treaty and placed it back inside his coat. ‘Tomorrow is the Lord’s day. No more brawls. No more drunkenness. All men, depart!’
It was only a matter of minutes before the militia squadron found the Eagle crew again. Same soldiers, same sergeant.
‘Ah, our brave escort,’ said Roche. ‘And Ol’ Fat Bastard too. You disappeared. Were you readin’ the new peace? Are the terms good for you? Does the pride of Old England still float?’
‘Peace, Will! Peace, for pity’s sake,’ said Joe, pleading. ‘You need some yourself, I think.’
The sergeant moved so close that his bayonet tip pushed against Roche’s shoulder. ‘You don’t have to be put in Block Seven, you know.’ He had the air of a man who thought he should have been back in his barracks many hours ago. ‘I could say you tried to escape, that you assaulted one of our brave militia, that you indulged in immoral acts. Or that you tried all three. That I had to put you in Four instead. That it was for your own good. So be careful, sailor. Now, march!’
They joined the throng staggering towards the square’s exit, Joe once again steering Roche around obstacles. This time, most were unconscious sailors.
‘What’s wrong with Four?’ asked Roche, once the sergeant had passed. Joe shook his head.
‘No idea. That’s Habakkuk’s block. He says they’ve got a theatre company there, Will. Says they’ve just done a pantomime.’
Roche snorted. ‘And he thought we were lyin’,’ he said.
They passed through the square’s lower gates and, as they shuffled into a wide courtyard, the Eagle crew got their first real sight of the seven prison blocks. ‘Dear God in heaven,’ muttered Joe.
The black, rolling clouds had darkened the skies still further but, even in the dim light, the view of the blocks of Dartmoor Prison sucked out his breath. The seven buildings crowded in a rough semicircle, like massive ships at anchor around a courtyard harbour. Brick walls and iron palisades hemmed them in, surrounding and containing them, but it was the prison blocks, granite grey and running with water, that overwhelmed him. To his left, Blocks One, Two and Three were grouped together, hunkered against the storm. Straight ahead, Block Four stood apart, seemingly unprotected and adrift from the rest, narrow pathways leading either side into the darkness. Then, as far as Joe could see, Blocks Five, Six and Seven were close-hauled and line abreast, the mirror of the three blocks opposite. Behind him, the lower wall of the market square was revealed to be part of a large retaining wall, a radius separating the prisoners from the soldiers, the Americans from the British.
Joe had seen the USS Constitution once, back in ’11. At three hundred feet from bowsprit to spanker and two hundred and twenty to the top of its main mast, she had filled Joe’s vision, thrilled his heart, and he’d known her knots and guns would terrify her foes. Now, this unspeakable flotilla of jailhouses performed the same trick, striking black-hearted fear into the crew of the Eagle.
Each block had two rows of shuttered windows; a third row had been set into the middle of the gable-ended, slate-covered roof. The whole place was drenched in endless rain, as torrential now as any Joe could remember. Prisoners for Blocks One, Two and Three peeled off immediately, each returning sailor inspected by a uniformed man with a lantern. When each face had been seen, the man was nodded through large double doors. Joe suddenly stopped and a shipmate crashed into him.
‘Don’t stop like that, Mr Hill!’
‘Sorry, Mr Lord,’ said Joe, distracted.
‘You seen a ghost or somethin’?’ asked Roche.
‘Look at the men waiting to get in, Will,’ said Joe. ‘That’s what’s different about Block Four. It’s Negroes only.’