THE SOUND OF marching boots filtered in through the open windows and every sailor rose instinctively to his feet. Recent searches in Six and Seven for Ned Penny’s murderer had caused widespread fury, but it was only ever a matter of time before the British tried again.
‘Sounds close,’ said Habs, jumping from his hammock.
‘’Cos it is!’ called a sailor from a nearby mess.
Peering through the sacking which had been stuffed into the opening, Habs counted the arriving troops. ‘Reckon that’s at least twelve redcoats approachin’. And they’re stoppin’ here.’
‘Maybe they lookin’ for Napoleon!’ called one.
‘I’d hide him for sure!’ called another.
Habs looked around. ‘Why’d they come here?’
‘Someone find King Dick!’ cried a voice.
‘He’s already there!’ called another. ‘They talkin’ to him.’
Habs and Joe stood together.
‘Could be the tunnel?’ suggested Habs. ‘But I can’t remember this happenin’ before.’
They waited for an update from the troop-watchers crowded at intervals along the wall.
‘When’s the next rehearsal again?’ asked Joe, although he knew the answer. He’d had the routine in his head for days: a read-through in the cockloft today at midday, full dress rehearsal at seven, then the play itself the next night. ‘Saturday, 18 March at 6 p.m.’ was what it said on the handbills. ‘Admission 6d, Rear 4d’ is what it said. Seeing it written down, even in the scrappy version Sam had pinned up in Four, had been a thrilling moment.
‘Still midday,’ said Habs, amused.
‘You nervous?’
‘Right now, I’m nervous ’bout these soldiers. When they’re gone, then I’ll get nervous about the play.’
There was movement at the windows.
‘King Dick’s comin’ back in!’ called a voice. ‘Redcoats goin’ nowhere.’
They heard the King climbing the stairs and everyone fell silent. Habs and Joe stood by their hammocks, Sam sliding in next to them. ‘I’m tryin’ to think how this might be good news,’ he muttered.
‘And how you gettin’ on with that?’ asked Habs.
‘Not so very well.’
The King appeared in the doorway and made straight for his mess. Every head turned to follow him: where he was going, what he was doing, who he would speak to. From about thirty hammocks out, Joe and Habs had no doubt he was heading for them. From ten hammocks, it was obviously Joe. Bearskin under his arm, the King pointed his club.
‘Mr Hill. A word, if you please.’
Joe shrugged and looked around. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘What is it?’ He looked up at the King, trying to read his face.
‘You’re wanted at the Agent’s house,’ said the King.
Whatever Joe had been expecting to hear, it most certainly wasn’t that. ‘I’m what?’
‘The troop outside is to take you to the Agent’s house. The sergeant says he can only return with you and he has no knowledge of what it’s concernin’. Told me you’ll be back in an hour. C’mon.’
As the King walked with Joe, it was clear that word had spread across the floor.
‘Tell the Agent he’s a dog’s ass!’ called one.
‘We need more bread. Tell him that!’ cried another.
As they walked down the stairs, King Dick put a hand on Joe’s shoulder. ‘Might be a trick, Mr Hill. Might be a recruitin’ sergeant from the Royal Navy. They’ll have noticed the way you talk, might think you’ll still fight for ol’ England. Might offer to get you outta here.’
Joe nodded dumbly. If that was the explanation, if there was going to be some admiral offering him a ticket to a British ship, he’d be wasting his time. Joe had spent the last two years trying to capture or sink British ships. He had no intention of joining one.
He was placed in the middle of the redcoats. Joe hadn’t marched anywhere since their arrival in Dartmoor but now he matched the stride of the guards as they trooped their way across the courtyard, towards the market square. A thin, milky sky provided the brightest light they’d seen in days and, from every block, sailors spilled out to see what appeared to be the arrest of Joe Hill, the white sailor from Seven who’d chosen to live with the coloureds in Four. The prisoner who was playing Juliet. The man who’d had to be told he couldn’t kiss a coloured man. If they hadn’t known who he was by then, they did now.
Joe heard the jeers, assumed many of them came from Seven and hoped his old shipmates weren’t participants. He wondered what Will Roche would say, then realized he didn’t really want to know after all.
The soldiers’ heavy tread echoed off the walls as they marched through the square. It must be the play, thought Joe. It looked as though he was being arrested, it certainly felt like he was being arrested, so maybe he was being arrested. The rumours around the blocks had been rife; news of the rehearsed kiss had spread rapidly and predictable conclusions reached. A shiver ran through him as he remembered the yarning of an Eagle shipmate, a witness to the hanging of a British lieutenant for buggery. Appalled, Joe looked at his guards. Is that what they think I’ve done? Will Habs get arrested, too? At the King’s direction, they had agreed to drop the kiss and proceed with a vaguer ‘embrace’, but maybe the damage had been done. Maybe it was already too late. Maybe – and the thought caught his breath – he wouldn’t see Habs again.
Through the alarm bell gates, and they were marching towards the Agent’s house. Joe remembered this courtyard from when they had marched under the Dartmoor arch for the first time. Parcere subjectis. ‘Spare the vanquished’. He had used the inscription’s translation to reassure Will, but now it was he who needed reassurance; Joe was shaking as he was led into the house. He removed his hat and held it tightly in both hands, inhaling deeply.
Lavender and rosewater. His first reaction to the Agent’s house was the remembered perfume of Elizabeth Shortland. In the small sitting room, her scent was everywhere. It was a bright front room with armchairs, a small baize-covered card table and a writing desk in the window. Flowers had been arranged on a small stand near the door; a polished upright piano was positioned against a cream-painted wall. Her room, Joe thought, and took some comfort in it. Although two soldiers were still guarding him, if he was being accused of ‘the unnatural act’, surely he wouldn’t be in Mrs Shortland’s private office? He fidgeted, shuffled, agitated, then the door swung open.
‘You may leave us,’ said Elizabeth Shortland to the soldiers as she strode in. ‘Wait by the door, please.’ She wore the same high-waisted dress Joe remembered from their first meeting, with the addition of a simple pearl necklace. Her chestnut, curled hair was piled high, little ringlets allowed loose about her ears. She stood waiting for the door to close, then turned to Joe.
‘Mr Hill, good morning. I hope I haven’t alarmed you too much. I needed a private conversation with you, and this seemed to be the only way.’
For a moment, Joe was speechless. It was as though he had stepped into another world, a world of courtesy, delicacy and manners. When he realized she was waiting for some kind of response, he managed a spluttered, ‘Oh, I’m, fine thank you,’ then cursed himself for sounding so tentative.
‘Will you sit,’ she said. It wasn’t a question.
Joe stepped awkwardly towards a small upright chair, its red velvet upholstery contrasting with an elaborately embroidered cushion. ‘Are you sure, ma’am?’ He looked down at the heavy woven trousers he was wearing. Thick with dust and mud and streaked with spilt stew, they seemed incongruous with such finery, but she waved him on.
‘Oh, nonsense,’ she said, balancing on a mahogany couch. ‘Don’t worry about that. Please.’ She gestured towards the chair, and he lowered himself on to its padded seat. ‘How is your production?’ she asked. ‘Your Romeo and Juliet?’
Joe’s heart sank. So it was about the play. He looked around the room, avoiding her gaze as he fought for an answer. ‘It’s tomorrow,’ he said eventually, ‘and I think I know all my lines.’ She smiled at him, kindly, he thought.
‘Well, it is certainly the first time my husband has become involved in any drama,’ she said. ‘Have the issues been resolved?’
‘Yes, ma’am, I think they have.’ Joe had no idea what she wanted to hear. ‘You don’t need to worry,’ he added, and hoped he’d said enough.
There was a knock at the door and one of the redcoats who had escorted Joe brought in a tray, which he placed on the stand, next to the flowers. ‘I assumed you might like some tea,’ said Mrs Shortland, and suddenly Joe felt like laughing. It had taken barely two minutes to walk from the grime of the prisons to the elegance of the Shortlands’ house; enough time, he had discovered, to become terrified at the thought of being arrested, charged, tried and hanged. Now he was being offered tea from a china pot. ‘You’re smiling,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe I have seen you smile before.’
Joe couldn’t help himself. ‘There aren’t many reasons to smile in your husband’s prison, Mrs Shortland. The war is over, but we are still held like cattle.’ He felt himself wringing his hat between his hands. ‘So, if I was smiling, it was because I’ll be back in my pen shortly. I’ll not take the tea, thank you all the same.’ Joe gulped, knowing he had spoken too sharply. It wasn’t this woman’s fault that the prison was still full and the gates remained locked.
‘… Ma’am,’ he added, and stared at his boots.
She nodded. ‘I am sorry, that was careless of me. I hope, too, that you may be able to go home very soon. Your Congress ratified the peace; we are waiting for the signed treaty and then ships to take you home.’ She sipped some tea. ‘And that is really why I asked you here.’ She waited until Joe was looking straight at her. ‘Mr Hill, you have a visitor.’
‘Oh. Oh, I get it,’ said Joe, annoyed again. ‘King Dick said you’d try this. Well, I’m not meeting no admiral, no British sea lord or anyone.’ He stood and brushed some dried mud on to the carpet. ‘I think I should go.’
‘Joe, sit down.’
‘I’ll not join your Navy—’
‘Mr Hill, sit down. Please. It is true our Navy would take you and, that way, you could leave Dartmoor immediately. With Bonaparte escaped, the French war needs to be won again, but that is not why you’re here. This isn’t what you think.’ She smiled nervously. ‘Your … your grandmother is here.’
It took a while before Joe had his bearings again. He’d been lost just once, when fog had rolled in fast off the Grand Banks, enveloping the Eagle with such speed that no one on board knew quite where they were or which direction they were heading in. He was enveloped again in that Newfoundland fog now. Joe sat down. When he spoke, his words were whispery and thin.
‘My grandmother?’
‘Alice Webb. You mentioned your grandparents were in Suffolk. I’m afraid your grandfather passed away three years back, but I wrote to Alice. She’s come to see you.’
Joe hadn’t moved. ‘My grandmother? She’s … she’s here?’
‘She’s next door. Having some food from the kitchen. She’s had a long journey.’
‘But no one has visitors,’ he mumbled, still in the fog. How could this be right? He had held on to the hope that, please God, he still had a mother and a sister back at home, that somehow they might still be there when this damnable peace treaty was ratified. Two family: that was it, that was all he had. He had no memories of his old life in England, just a few fragments, scraps from a tapestry of pictures he had formed in his mind from tales his parents had told him.
‘My grandmother …’ he said out loud, trying the word out for size. His mother had spoken sometimes of the parents she had left behind, but would usually become upset, so he or his father would change the subject. He thought his grandfather may have been a fisherman – a church elder, possibly – but when he tried to recall anything about his grandmother, Joe found nothing.
And with the visibility still clearing, there was a knock on the door and he stood, suddenly nervous. ‘Would you like to open it, Joe?’ Elizabeth Shortland’s invitation surprised him.
‘No, not really,’ he blurted. If it was his grandmother, would he even recognize her? And what should he call her? How should he greet her? He was still listing the questions in his head when Mrs Shortland spoke.
‘Come in,’ she said, and Joe held his breath.
The door was opened by a member of the guard, on his left arm a hunched old woman who straightened as she peered deep into the study. Joe stared back, transfixed. White hair, green shawl, long fingernails, black bonnet, a heavily grooved, perplexed forehead, a dragging left leg and pale, curious, familiar eyes – the images tumbled into Joe’s mind. While he stood, unmoving, the old woman freed herself from her escort and stepped into the room.
‘Well,’ the woman said, ‘let me see you.’ An English accent. A Suffolk accent. His mother’s accent. Two more shuffled steps and her hands were in front of her mouth. ‘Joe-boy?’ The sound she made was little more than the driest of whispers, but there was no denying the wonder in her voice. ‘They said it were you. They told me over and over. And I didn’t really think it could be but … look at yer.’ She reached for him: frail fingers, parchment skin and a lopsided smile. Joe found himself laughing.
‘You smile like Mother,’ he said. ‘Exactly like her. It’s been such a long time, I’d forgotten.’ He took her hands and they embraced. ‘Hello, Grandmother,’ he managed.
‘You look so much like yer mother,’ she whispered. ‘Hello, Joe-boy.’ They stood together without speaking; there was so much to say, they said nothing.
After a while, Mrs Shortland cleared her throat. ‘I’m afraid you can only have a few minutes together. I’m sorry, but there it is.’
‘Why?’ asked Alice, still holding on to Joe’s shoulders. ‘Why just a few minutes?’
‘He’s a prisoner-of-war, Mrs Webb,’ said Mrs Shortland. ‘Strictly speaking, you shouldn’t be meeting at all.’ The words were still kind but were now laced with a certain brusqueness. ‘You may have privacy, if you wish, but just for five minutes. I can step outside.’ She produced her snuffbox and headed for the door.
‘But you arranged it all, Mrs Shortland, didn’t you?’ said Alice, calling her back. She wiped her eyes with a small handkerchief that had appeared at her fingers. ‘You sent for me. Yer man – that guard you sent – he persuaded me to make the journey, then you served me some of yer food, ordered yer chef, no doubt, to cook me some of that liver. Seems to me yer in charge. If you want to give us longer, who will say no to you?’ Before Elizabeth could answer, Joe found his voice.
‘And why, Mrs Shortland? Why did you get my grandmother to travel here? What do you want with her?’
Elizabeth Shortland spun the wooden box in her fingers, glancing from grandmother to grandson.
‘No one else here, as far as I know, has such close English family,’ she said. ‘It’ – she paused, as though the next words were difficult to say – ‘it seemed the right thing to do. Five minutes.’ And with that she left the room. As the door closed, Alice slumped on to one of the chairs.
‘I’ll not be told what to do by the likes of her. So, quickly, then, Joe-boy. What of your mother – is she well?’ There was a lightness in her tone that couldn’t disguise her sudden, quiet desperation.
Joe felt helpless. ‘I have been at sea for more than two years and so …’
Alice placed her hand on his arm as he tailed off.
‘I haven’t seen her for fourteen years,’ she said, then smiled the crooked Webb smile. ‘Anything that’s happened since then will be news to me.’
Joe sat opposite her, pulling up a chair. He took a deep breath. ‘Father died seven years ago. The flu, Mother says.’ Alice held a hand in front of her mouth; the other stayed on Joe’s arm. ‘She took it hard, of course – we all did – but when I last saw her she was strong. The Webb women are tough, it seems.’
Alice cleared her throat. ‘Who is “we”?’
‘Pardon me?’
‘I’m so sorry to hear about yer father, Joe, he was such a kindly man. But you said, “We all took it hard” when he died.’
‘Oh, yes!’ said Joe, realizing his omission. ‘I have a sister. She’s Alice, too.’ A small gasp, and Alice closed her eyes for a moment; for the first time, tears rolled down her weathered face. ‘Oh, Mary,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Alice.’
There was silence in the study as he watched his grandmother process this new addition to her family. He couldn’t think what other ‘news’ he had. Aware that their time would be gone soon, he forced the pace.
‘The war is over,’ he said quietly. ‘All the men hope to be going home soon. What should I tell Mother of you?’
Now Alice clasped both his hands in hers. ‘That her father passed. That never a day went by without us talking about her. And now, never a day passes without me praying for her. And you, Joe-boy. And now I shall pray for Alice, too.’ She closed her eyes again, and Joe wondered if she was praying for them already.
‘Help me up, I want to get a better look at you.’ Joe gave her both his hands. ‘Your mistress is tough but, Lord knows, I shall hurt the same after three minutes as after thirty. If you ever feel like you need to see yer old house, there’ll be a welcome for you and a bed made up. There’s always a bed made up, in case.’ She reached up and took his head in her hands. They trembled slightly but her voice was firm. ‘You keep this head high, Joe-boy.’
The door burst open and Alice jumped. The guard who had escorted her tumbled in.
‘The Favorite has docked …’ he began, then stopped as he scanned the room, surprised to find only a prisoner and an old woman present.
‘The Favorite?’ asked Joe.
The guard nodded. ‘Arrived from America. It brought the Treaty of Ghent, signed by your President Madison himself.’ The soldier shrugged his shoulders. ‘So that’s it.’