HABS AND JOE walked fast. Their circuit took them round the back of all seven prison blocks – a vast semicircular track that ran alongside the twelve-foot-high iron palisade that ringed the prisons. If they walked tight against the fence, they were for long stretches invisible to the watching, twitchy British who peered down from the military walk. The late-morning air carried a welcome tang of salt and the sun cut the sharpest shadows of the year so far.
‘And you’re sure this is King Dick’s idea?’ asked Joe.
‘Would I make that up?’
Joe was frowning, persistent; he needed this to be clear. ‘But was it his suggestion?’
Habs’s response was measured. ‘He said somethin’, jus’ to see what I thought.’
‘And what did you think?’
‘That it sounded ’bout right.’
Everywhere, groups of men huddled to discuss the morning’s events. Habs and Joe paused their conversation each time they negotiated a knot of prisoners.
‘And this is because of what happened in the courtyard?’ asked Joe.
‘King Dick woulda said somethin’ anyhow,’ said Habs. ‘And you spent those days with us in the cockloft. But yes, he thought you might change your mind ’bout the play now. If we’re not goin’ home, well, then …’
‘What were the English thinking?’ Joe was distracted for a moment. ‘If they were trying to start another revolution, that was a goddamn fine effort.’
‘When it comes to provokin’ Yankees,’ commented Habs, ‘they ’bout the best there is.’
Round the back of Five, a small huddle of sailors looked up to see who was approaching, then resumed their conversation. With a glance to the guards beyond the palisades, Habs leaned in close. ‘I heard talk of an escape this mornin’. Never heard that before. Not in Four.’
‘How d’you escape from Dartmoor?’ asked Joe, surprised. ‘Is it possible?’
‘If it’s just you, you bribe a guard. You need someone to get you out. If there’s more than you, it’s the tunnel.’
Joe stopped in his tracks. ‘There’s a tunnel?’ He realized he’d spoken too loud, checked for eavesdroppers, then glanced up at the military walk.
Habs tugged at his coatsleeve to get him walking, then spoke softly. ‘Used to be three. First one was in Two, longest was in Five, and the French built one in Four. But Two and Five got discovered. So that leaves Four.’
‘Have you seen it?’ Joe asked. ‘How far does it go?’
Habs shook his head. ‘I ain’t, but Ned says he seen it once. Heads north from the cookhouse, he said. But tha’s a lot of diggin’ ’fore you reach the outer wall, and King Dick stopped all that kinda talk soon as he heard it. Said the press gangs always out there lookin’ for more victims and, anyways, there was enough dead Yankees here and he sure wasn’t goin’ to help ’em kill any more.’
Four Rough Allies appeared from the back of Three. Joe thought he recognized the shortest of them from the library, but the forked beards made it hard to tell them apart. Their uneven walk suggested they’d made an early start on the ale. Their eyes flicked from Joe to Habs and back again.
The short Ally hitched up his trousers and squirted tobacco juice from the corner of his mouth. ‘Still workin’ on your nigger play, then?’ he breathed as they passed.
Neither of them said anything, just kept walking. A whole block later, Habs sighed deeply. ‘Hadn’t thought ’bout this,’ he said. ‘Not properly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m invitin’ … we’re invitin’ you to move to Four. Makes sense to us, but not to them.’ Habs gestured back at the Allies. ‘In here, if you get recruited and go fight for the British, you’re branded a traitor ’fore you go. I mean, really burned. Like with irons. Well, if you move in with “the niggers” to perform in some “nigger play”, many here’ll be thinkin’ ’bout you the same way. Even some o’ your own crew. Maybe it ain’t such a good idea.’
Joe pulled Habs’s arm back until he stopped walking. They had reached a sheltered space between Blocks One and Two where the sun had reached and melted some of the snow.
‘But there’s a berth near you that’s free?’ Joe fixed his eyes keenly on Habs.
‘It’ll be free, yes.’
‘So it isn’t free now?’
‘Listen, Joe,’ said Habs, his normally restless eyes settling on Joe’s. ‘You know that if King Dick asks, King Dick gets. He wants you to join us in Four. You’ll be ’cross the aisle from me, Ned and Sam.’
‘And the King.’
‘And the King, yes. He likes you, Joe, else he wouldn’t be offerin’. He don’t do this very often.’
‘You mean, he doesn’t invite whites very often?’
‘I do mean that, yes.’
‘But I would be leaving my mess,’ said Joe, turning away. ‘It’s not the Rough Allies worrying me. I haven’t been firing cannon and rifle at sea these last two years only to become a coward as soon as I get to England. No, it isn’t them. But if my ship think I am deserting them … well, I can’t come. We survive in groups, Habs. I’m not sure I can change just like that. I need to know which group I’m in, where I belong.’
Habs twisted a button on his coat. ‘You’re right. ’Course you right. And you’ve only been here a few weeks – King Dick’ll understand when you explain it like that. But in the long days before home, we can still put on a show.’
‘We can,’ said Joe, leaning back against the wall. ‘Hard to believe – Shakespeare in a jail. Romeo and Juliet in Dartmoor. It’s quite something.’
Habs stood next to him, their shoulders touching, heads turned skywards. ‘The show most certainly will be somethin’,’ he said, ‘once all the rehearsin’s done. And we need to make this memorable. The last show of the Dartmoor Amateur Dramatic Company.’
The cockloft’s wall of tobacco smoke and beer fumes hit them hard; here, everyone had a pipe, everyone a jug. Most of Block Four had forced their way inside. There was no music, not even any gambling; but arguments, loud and impassioned, had taken over. It started at the door: Habs and Joe found themselves squeezed between four men who were yelling at each other.
‘They done that on purpose.’
‘D’you expect them to jus’ let us go?’
‘You lost your thinkin’ in here!’
‘Show me the tunnel! I’ll dig us home myself.’
They ducked and weaved around the shouting, Habs leading the way. A man with hollow eyes and intricately braided queues grabbed hold of Joe, but Habs pushed him away. ‘Later, Eli. We’re seein’ King Dick.’
‘Far corner,’ said the man, as though he were passing on a great wisdom.
As he walked through the crowds, Joe couldn’t help but take in the glances, the nods, the squints of displeasure.
‘They don’t like me here, Habs,’ he called, a sense of foreboding in his voice.
‘Don’t matter!’ was the shouted reply. ‘King Dick’s pleasure’s all you need.’
And the King’s pleasure seemed to be what they had. He saw them approach and summoned them closer. They waited while he finished a detailed discourse on British naval tactics. When he had, he waved his audience away. The slight figures of Alex and Jonathan lurked behind his throne.
‘Mr Snow! Mr Hill!’ he boomed. ‘Join me here, these men are just leavin’.’
Joe removed his hat, his damaged scalp now invisible beneath a new growth of soft blond hair.
‘So, I assume the reason you’re here is that you two’ve been talkin’ ’bout these matters.’
The King glanced from Habs to Joe then back again. Habs nodded and turned to Joe.
The King’s black eyes narrowed, his voice dropping to a murmur. ‘I want you to understand this. We don’t need you, Mr Hill, you know that?’ He let his words hang for a moment. ‘We don’t need you in Four. We don’t need you in our theatre company.’
A small white hand appeared, offering the King coffee. Eyes still on Joe, he took the cup and sipped slowly. Habs shifted his weight awkwardly. Joe kept quiet.
The King held out the now-empty cup and the white hand appeared again. ‘Thank you, Mr Daniels,’ he muttered.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Alex from behind him.
King Dick picked up his club, striking it against the floor as he spoke. ‘We are sufficient,’ he said. ‘We are complete. We need nothin’ from you.’ He rose now and peered down at Joe, one hand tucked inside his starred sash. ‘Have you read your Thomas Hobbes yet, Mr Hill? There’s a copy in Seven, I’m sure of it.’
Joe, bewildered and unprepared for this course of conversation, shook his head. ‘No, King Dick, I—’
The King waved the club. ‘Don’t matter. I’ll tell you what you need to know. Out there …’ He stabbed his club six times, one for each block. ‘Out there, you have to save your skin by whatever means you deem fit. In here, in Four, there is order. I save your skin; you follow me.’
‘I see—’ began Joe.
‘So, we don’t need you,’ repeated the King, ‘but we invite you.’ Now he smiled, suddenly welcoming. ‘We invite you to join our company – but you follow the rules. You might like it. You might not. But before you give me an answer, you know that your crew, your mess mates, your block … they will not understand.’
Joe waited a few seconds then took a deep breath. ‘And that is why I cannot accept your invitation, King Dick. On the Eagle, we fought together, we nursed together, we buried so many of our friends together …’ He held the King’s stare, the black eyes impossible to read. ‘We saved each other’s skin. I should stay with them, I think. But your play, your Romeo and Juliet – that, I could do. That, I would very much like to do. If I can join that company, I should like that very much.’
King Dick hadn’t moved. No one had. After a long moment he removed his bearskin, wiped a hand over his neatly trimmed hair then placed the hat back on his head.
‘Are you negotiatin’ with me, Mr Hill?’ he asked, his tone neutral.
‘Why, no, sir,’ replied Joe swiftly, nervously.
‘Yes, you are,’ said the King, ‘but you gettin’ me wrong: I like negotiatin’. I’m negotiatin’. I’m a businessman, and I accept your terms. If you play Juliet for me, you can sleep where you want, even with the pigs on Dartmoor if you wish. Or maybe with the Agent – but the pigs got more style.’
The men around the King roared with laughter, fuelled more by relief than comedy.
‘I admire your loyalty,’ he went on, ‘but the offer will remain open.’ King Dick banged his club on the floor like a gavel. He was moving on. ‘We shall perform Romeo and Juliet in one month. It will be the last performance of the Dartmoor Amateur Dramatic Company and men will talk about it for ages to come. We rehearse today. Mr Snow, call everyone together.’