HABS AND JOE may have been the last to emerge from Four but they knew Ned had been killed before they reached the first landing. Most of the rumours in Dartmoor turned out to be false, but these – the ones that flew up the stairs of Block Four – had the speed and force of truth about them. The two gave up fighting through the melee and moved outside at the crowd’s pace. Sam was waiting, and he flung himself at Habs, the words tumbling out.
‘They beat him, Habs, then they used a blade. Haywood’s pretty bad, too. King Dick was callin’ for you.’ The three of them pushed their way into the throng. The now-lit lamps around Four showed thirty militiamen penning in seven or eight hundred angry prisoners. The crowds made way for Sam, and they made way for Habs. Joe tucked in just behind. When the throng resisted, Habs, tear-filled eyes fixed on the black bearskin hat at the centre of the pandemonium, shouted, ‘Crew o’ the Bentham coming through!’ Joe glanced up. All around them a scattering of lights flickered from the other blocks’ unshuttered windows, illuminating the curious, all straining for a better view.
When the three broke through the cordon, a tableau of tragedy confronted them. A few yards from the last of the path’s lamps, Elizabeth Shortland knelt at John Haywood’s side, a blood-drenched cloth held to a wound in his stomach. Dr Magrath was holding a cup of water to his pale lips. King Dick and Agent Shortland were arguing. And just beyond them all, Pastor Simon knelt over the stricken, sackcloth-covered body of Ned Penny. Habs ran the final few yards then collapsed at his friend’s feet.
‘Dear Mother of God, what’d they do to you?’ he whispered. He lifted the sheet and answered his own question. Two stab wounds to the heart. Many fists to the face. Sam knelt beside him and, when they had replaced the sacking together, joined in another one of Pastor Simon’s prayers.
‘They was trapped, Habs,’ said Sam. ‘Tricked. Someone put the lamps out then waited for the lighters to come. When Ned and John got to the end here, they was set upon.’
‘Rough Allies,’ said King Dick, appearing next to them. ‘Only the Allies’d do this.’ A new detachment of guards ran to form a line in front of Block Six. ‘And tha’s what Shortland thinks, too.’ A few of the prisoners started to run towards the guards.
‘If the Rough Allies break out now, there’ll be a bloodbath,’ said Habs. ‘You gotta say somethin’, King Dick. Right now.’
They exchanged the briefest of glances, and then the King roared. It was the loudest, most commanding order anyone there had ever heard. Everyone present in the courtyard had fought at sea, all had followed orders as cannon and musket fired around them; they knew how to distinguish order in the chaos, knew when to stop their own thinking and take notice of someone else’s.
‘Men of Four!’
The first shout grabbed their attention, the second demanded their action. ‘Men of Four! We kneel together now. There will be time for anger, but now we grieve. We kneel together for our fallen brothers.’ The King removed his bearskin and stood with his arms outstretched, head turned up. ‘We kneel!’ he shouted again, and around him, hundreds of men got on the ground. They knelt in waves all the way back to the steps of Four. Elizabeth Shortland and Dr Magrath were already kneeling at the side of John Haywood, but what the crowd saw was a white man and a white woman following King Dick’s instruction. And they marvelled.
‘We been here before,’ he said, his words now edged with anger and grief. ‘All o’ us been here before. We know this. We see our brother lyin’ on the cold ground and our hearts break. We seen it all before.’
Shouts of agreement from the sailors of Four.
The King’s whole body shuddered. ‘’Cos he is not jus’ one!’ he cried. ‘This is not jus’ Ned Penny from Philadelphia. He is many. He is hundreds. Thousands. And sometimes it seem as though we have seen ’em all. Every one. And the truth is, we’re still countin’.’ The King’s black eyes swung to Shortland and fixed him with a ferocious stare, the bearskin stabbing into the space between them. ‘So now the Agent will do his work. The Agent will bring us justice. And, for today, for tomorrow, we will wait for him.’
The two men held each other’s gaze. It was Shortland who looked away first.
The King waved Pastor Simon forward. The preacher prayed over Ned then over John Haywood, before Magrath and some of his orderlies carried the injured man away, Elizabeth Shortland still holding a compress to his side.
By the time the prayers had finished, heavy rain had started falling. Many prisoners were too cold and too wet to stay outside any longer. For now, the situation was under control.
Shortland stood in the downpour with his troops, watching the prisoners of Four withdraw, until he was sure the danger had passed, then he nodded briefly at King Dick and marched away.
‘He owes you more’n that,’ said Sam bitterly. There was desperation in his eyes. ‘But what do we do, King Dick? Ned is gone and there’s a murderer right there, in those walls.’ Rain and tears streamed down his face.
‘Do, Mr Snow?’ echoed the King. ‘What do we do? We survive. Tha’s what we do. Tha’s what we always do. And we wait. If the British find who killed our friend, he will hang. If they don’t, we’ll have our own justice.’ Sam nodded, pacified for the moment. ‘We need our justice, Mr Snow, I know, but we also need to get home alive. All of us. The Rough Allies want a fight. If they can’t fight the British, they’ll fight us, but we gotta deny them that pleasure, whatever it takes. Then maybe they’ll fight each other. Mr Hill. You have somethin’ to say?’
Joe, in shock, stumbled over his words.
The King cut him off, anyway. ‘You have somethin’ to say ’bout why you’re here?’
Joe blanched, glancing at Habs, who gave the tiniest of reassuring nods.
‘Well, if the offer is still open …’ began Joe.
‘It is,’ said the King. ‘Move in soon as you can.’