LANE’S BLADE BURIED itself in Habs’s shoulder. The force of the lunge toppled them both and, as they hit the floor, Habs pulled the trigger. At point-blank range, the bullet tore through Lane’s body, blowing half his stomach on to the floor. Habs felt Lane bounce on his stomach then lie still, his blood drenching him in seconds. Grey, sooty smoke filled his vision; a fierce ringing filled his ears.
‘Sweet Jesus. Sweet Jesus. Sweet Holy Jesus.’ Habs pushed Lane’s body away. It rolled once and lay face down.
Habs’s breathing was coming in short, rasping gulps. ‘Christ, what have I done?’ he breathed. He scrambled to his feet, then walked to Lane’s body and back again; back and forth, a hand over his mouth.
‘I saw everything!’ said Cole, trying and failing to get up.
‘But you’re black, you won’t count!’
‘Haywood saw it all, too.’ They both glanced at the tunnel. Haywood had disappeared again.
‘He’s black and crazy,’ said Habs, panic settling deep in the pit of his stomach.
The shuffling figure of George Magrath appeared in the kitchen, his stick working hard to move him as swiftly as he desired. Greeted by the horror show of a bloodied Habs, a still-bleeding Cole and the wrecked body of Lane, he staggered to a stop.
‘Dear God, what has happened here?’
Habs, now shaking from head to toe and bleeding from his shoulder wound, started to approach Magrath. It was only when the doctor retreated, horrified, that Habs realized he was still holding the pistol.
‘No, Doctor!’ he cried. ‘He attacked me, I was …’ He dropped the gun and felt his head spinning. The pain from his shoulder pulsed strongly through his body. He could barely think, never mind speak. He had killed a man. He was a murderer. Worse. He was a black man who had killed a white man. The worst kind of murderer, the most guilty kind of murderer. What had Lane said? ‘It’s niggers that swing.’
Magrath was crouched over Lane’s body, his fingers holding the dead man’s wrist briefly, as much instinct as professionalism. There was a hole in the man’s back the size of a grapefruit. He moved on to Cole, pulling gently at his bloodied shirt.
‘Lane killed Ned Penny,’ said Habs. ‘He came lookin’ for a tunnel, but he found John Haywood. He was about to kill him, too.’
‘You had a gun?’ Magrath was incredulous.
‘No, he had a gun. He was ’bout to shoot John. I hit him with a bottle, then we fought and—’
‘You blew his stomach away.’
Habs stood with his eyes screwed tight and his hands balled into fists. How was it possible to feel numb and on fire at the same time? He needed to run; he needed to stay. He needed to say nothing; he needed to explain everything. He needed to see Joe; he would never see him again.
‘Yes, I – I did. We fell and—’
‘You blew his stomach away.’
‘I fired, yes.’
In the kitchens, there was silence as the doctor knelt by the stricken Cole. In Habs’s head there was a riot of noise. He missed the distant cockloft applause and Magrath’s soft words of comfort to his patient. It was pain that brought him round.
‘Show me,’ said Magrath. Habs knelt down and eased his shirt from his shoulder, wincing as the fabric snagged on the open wound. Magrath leaned in close, his fingers pressing gently around the cut. From his medical bag he produced a roll of lint, cutting off a large square.
‘Hold this to it. The knife went deep, but you’ve had worse.’ He looked into Habs’s agonized eyes. ‘You’re a good man, Mr Snow, but you are in trouble here, I cannot pretend otherwise. You have killed a man in one of Her Majesty’s prisons. Whether it is English law or Navy law, they will see you swing for it – if you are taken.’
Through the swirl of pain and anguish, the hard facts hit Habs clearly enough, and he fought the tears. He had dreamed of home, of New York, of a sweet return to peace. He had dreamed, too, of a cockloft curtain call, a bow with Joe as the men of Four roared their appreciation. All gone.
‘If I am taken?’ said Habs.
‘If you are taken,’ repeated Magrath, now returned to tending Cole. Habs waited for more, but the doctor remained silent.
‘I cannot hide here.’
‘Then hide somewhere else.’
Habs shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor, I’m not thinkin’ straight—’
‘Well, try harder, man. You have a few moments before I have to raise the alarm.’
As Magrath finished with Cole, he turned to the tunnel and called for Haywood. Hiding somewhere else meant escape. And then he had it. The Allies’ wall game. Was that happening now? Would they let a black man run with them? Did Magrath know about it? He didn’t know the answers to any of these questions, but he did realize that Magrath was telling him to go.
He stood and winced again as his shoulder muscles tightened.
‘Take something for the pain!’ called Magrath by the tunnel entrance. ‘Brown bottle, green stopper. Take it. Now, be gone. Away!’ Habs found the bottle in the doctor’s bag, shoved it deep into his jacket and ran.
Past the hammocks, through the hall and out of the doors, he forced his leaden legs to move. The late-afternoon sun made Habs squint and he hesitated on the steps, wiping his eyes. He felt utterly overwhelmed, lost in a whirlpool of pity. Just minutes ago, he had left the stage as Romeo, now he was leaving the block as a murderer. And a murderer who was on the run; he wasn’t sure how long it would be before Magrath raised the alarm, but it could only be a few minutes. Maybe seconds. He couldn’t stop now.
Habs stared up the crowded courtyard. To the left of the market square gates, hundreds of men – watched and cheered by hundreds more – rolled and fought. It looked as chaotic as it was intended to, and it answered his first question. Yes, the escape was on. He jumped from the steps, pushing through the throng of sailors, his bloodied appearance causing many inmates to stop. Some shouted questions. He felt no need to explain anything to anybody.
By the time he was alongside Five, a clear passage was opening up ahead of him. Bored with their courtyard routine, the sailors saw a bloodied, beaten-up, crazed-looking black man running towards them and got out of his way. Habs slowed his approach as soon as he realized that the man watching him at the end of the makeshift alley was Horace Cobb – the man whose deputy was lying face down in his own blood back in the kitchens. The Rough Allies’ leader ran a few steps towards him, then pulled up. The two men stared at each other. Cobb took in Habs’s blood-soaked shirt and jacket; Habs saw him recoil in horror.
He knows. He was expecting Lane and he got me. He knows.
Cobb turned on his heels and ran back towards the wall game, the crowd filling in behind him. So that answered his second question: no, he wasn’t welcome to join the escape. There was a chance, of course, that, if the wall was breached, it would become a free-for-all, but Habs knew he didn’t have the time to wait and find out.
Out of options and in excruciating pain, he turned and ran back into Four. In the darkest corner of the ground-floor dormitory, he flung himself unseen under a pile of broken hammocks. He would hang for certain, he knew that. There wasn’t a judge in England would save him from the gallows. Magrath would report the murder, the guard would be called and he’d be in the cachot before the day was done.
His shoulder sent a spasm of pain down his side and he remembered the bottle he’d taken from Magrath’s bag. He lifted it from his pocket then pulled back a few hammocks to examine it. He held a green bottle with a brown stopper. Habs frowned. ‘Brown bottle, green stopper’ was what Magrath had said, he was sure of it; he could hear the words still. ‘Wrong bottle,’ he said to himself. ‘I got the wrong fuckin’ bottle.’ He flipped it over. ‘Strychnine,’ he read. ‘Stimulant. Tonic. Poison.’
From the cockloft, the sound of stamping feet and rousing applause. Habs’s first thought was that the play had finished, then he managed a laugh. Not without Romeo it wouldn’t. He realized with a start that it was just the end of Act Four – he hadn’t even been missed yet. It seemed like a whole lifetime had swept past him since he took King Dick’s errand, yet it had been just one act. He looked again at the bottle, weighing it in his hand. He felt its contents slop around.
Stimulant. Tonic. Poison.