Maybe five with me. Running, running any way we could. There were calls behind, whistles blowing, I heard another shot of a gun, oh God, and then, oh God, oh God, screams after too, yet another shot and then silence. On we ran, we must, on and on, and turning what corners we may to keep the policemen from us. To escape their killing company. I had no notion where or what or anything, I was bloody and scraped and cut but we could not stop, must not stop or be taken.
Still the police whistles sounded, still we ran away from them, but they seemed to come from all directions, so that running away from one we seemed then to be running towards another. Which way? Which way? I could not see the way. Where, where to hide?
I hate you, London, I hate you already.
We came upon a long high wall – they are such familiar things to us of Foulsham, you see – and I thought for a moment I was back home, but this wall stood high and firm, unlike those others, unlike those former walls, those walls were gone, weren’t they, all of them come tumbling down. I slammed into that tall high wall, as if it might somehow save me.
‘Come on, we’re free yet, let’s stay so. Come on please, come with me!’
We ran along the side of the wall, the whistles behind us, so I thought then, our feet smacking on the cobbles, in the London filth, mud all over, thick with dirt, freezing and in a terror. Follow, follow, I thought, follow round the wall. We did come to the end of it then, and then, then, such sudden light, such brightness, we’d come around the side of the wall that gave upon the river, not the Effra, not an underground river, some other river, some other river, big and wide it was. I suddenly knew its name.
‘It’s only the bloody Thames,’ I said out loud, the shock of it flooding over me. ‘We’re only on the bloody bank of the Thames! Must’ve been what we crossed earlier.’
And then we saw the great flaming in the distance and how big was the smoke coming up from it, like a great torch over London, like someone had struck a match, only this match was a huge one. It was Foulsham over there, Foulsham burning and burning and going out, our home.
‘Oh.’
‘That’s Foulsham, is it?’
‘Yes, my lad, it’s Foulsham burning bright.’
‘Oh, where’s Mam? Where’s Dad?’
‘Where’s Bartholomew? He was here just now, wasn’t he?’
‘Hush now,’ I said. ‘We must keep quieter.’
‘But where are they?’
‘I lost my sister, I lost my Tess, she was with us a while back. Tess? Tess? Where are you now?’
‘Lucy Pennant,’ I said.
‘Jen.’
‘Bug.’
‘Colin Shanks.’
‘Esther Nelson.’
‘No more?’
No more. Just five. Half only remaining.
‘Molly?’ Jen called. ‘Molly?’
‘Please,’ I said. ‘We should keep quiet, we have to find somewhere to hide. They’re trying to find us, and if they find us it’ll all be up for us. For the sake of our families, we owe it to our families, we must keep running. Keep alive as long as we can, each breath we take is a fist in their face.’
‘I can’t! I can’t go another step!’ cried Colin.
‘Don’t then,’ I said, ‘and the whistles and bullets will find you all the faster.’
‘Where then, if you’re so smart, where do we go?’ asked Esther.
‘You led us here, now what?’ said Bug.
‘I hardly know,’ I admitted.
‘What are we to do?’
Police whistle again, got me shifting. Marching footsteps, coming, coming on. Ever nearer, ever closer.
Hide, Lucy. Hide them, Lucy, I told myself. Keep them safe.
Closer.
Hide, hide them.
‘Hide,’ I said. ‘Anywhere, on the ground, in the mud, get in the mud! Cover yourself with it!’
Now or never.
Closer.
We ducked down, between the wall and the river, we buckled us down by the wall by the river, in the thick mud against it there, so much filth raked high, and we slipped into it, like it was a part of us, like it was what we were made of one and all. We couldn’t jump over, the splosh should tell on us. We just muddied in the dirt, all the horse filth, all the muck, like we were all just rubbish, mounds of dirt. Filth.
Closer and then, of a sudden, right before us, policemen marching, and between them, my children, my young people of Foulsham, caught and trapped. Four there.
‘They shall be impounded,’ a sergeant was calling. ‘Be quiet about it, we’ve made more than enough noise for one night.’
They were herded in the dark. To have come so far only to be caught again. And behind us, lighting the night, was our home thick with flame and the terrible sweet smell of the heaps burning themselves to death. One girl from the police’s lot, Tess I think, seeing the flames and gasping at them, tried to pull away, tried to get away, to run free, screaming at all the horror of it all. But they had her down in a second, grabbed her by her hair. They dragged her back to the others. Blood down the face. Limping along. Better to have been crushed perhaps. Maybe I should have left us all there in the dark after all.
London. This is London. So much for London.
Hate it.
They came to the great gates of some place, just by us all along, but we’d been looking the wrong way, we’d been staring at all that was left of Foulsham. The gates clanged open.
‘How many here?’ come the call.
‘Four,’ the answer. ‘Children caught up the sewer pipe.’
‘Four then, four children from Foulsham. They’ll wish they hadn’t took the trouble.’
‘And some run off.’
‘Escaped?’
‘We shot one. I did not like to do that.’
That was Molly, I thought, that was Molly Porter that you shot.
‘No, Constable Jones, not children. They are not children, you can’t think like that. They’re rats. Got it? Rats, Jones. Say it, Jones: rats.’
‘Rats, sir.’
‘Should step on all their heads, Jones.’
‘Rats, sir, yes.’
‘We have orders, we’re fighting a war, man, a war against filth and disease.’
‘Yes, sir, I see that, sir, shan’t happen again, sir.’
‘See that it don’t. And the others? What of the others?’
‘Nothing yet.’
‘Find them, do it fast.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And have these ones penned before the hour’s out.’
‘Sir.’
‘I want the missing ones too, mind.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What were you thinking? To let them free.’
‘Didn’t mean to, sir, terrible rush it all was. There was one, a redhead, terrible vicious she was. Great red hair she had, all of a mess, like she was wild as an animal, shocking to see it. Shan’t forget that in a hurry, how she came at me. How she kicked my own nose into a tap of blood!’
‘Pen these ones fast. Then go back out. Find the children, find your redhead. Move it whilst they’re still close. I want no excuses.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Running again, gates shut, echoes down the lane, the sounds of the boots hammering against the wall, the prison wall. Suddenly it was quiet again. Shivering in the mud, like some animal, like some wretched dog. Like I was dead already and somehow floating in that hard cold, like I was almost lying above London, like some dead spirit.
London.
Clod.
Clod?
Binadit?
Where’s your whereabouts?
Are you here, either?
Are you about the streets?
On London ground?
I’d like to see you.
I’d like some company.
A familiar face.
In all this strangeness.
In all this London muck.
London: cold, cold place. Colder here than even any pole, North or South, cold are the London hearts, hard and mean. And sharp.
Well, London.
Well then, London.
My name is Lucy Pennant.
This is my story.
Make it a long ’un.
Won’t you?
‘Come on,’ I whispered, snapping to and heaving myself up, pushing the others around me. ‘We shouldn’t linger here long, this is the worst of it. Some sort of prison. Not the place for us. Well then, scrape yourselves down. They went this way and so we shall choose the other. Quiet as anything, and on we go. Silent. Silent.’
‘They had Tess,’ said Colin. ‘I did see her, she was with them constables.’
‘Then she’s alive, isn’t she? And that’s got to be something.’
‘Yes. I suppose.’
‘Course it is.’
‘What’ll they do to her?’
‘Well, Colin,’ I said, ‘I don’t know. But they’re keeping them and that’s something, isn’t it. They’ve taken them in. But I think, all in all, we’d better be our own keepers and so on we go, a little further. We must try and find somewhere before it gets lighter. Somewhere to keep us covered and safe as we may be. I bet we can, we’ll just help ourselves. And well done. You’re doing so well. Stick together, that’s the crux of it.’
We crept out and turned away from the Thames wall, keeping in the shadows, heading in the other direction into darker streets away from the horrible flicking light of Foulsham. Rat children, we were, and I loved us every one.
‘What are we going to do?’ Jen was beside me.
‘Step by step,’ I said.
‘You don’t have a clue, do you?’
‘Not much,’ I said.
‘We might be shot at any moment.’
‘We might,’ I said. ‘But also, consider this, we might not.’
‘Them’s the options?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Not a lot, is it?’
‘Not a ton, no. But then don’t forget that they did just walk by us, those idiots, and so maybe they’re not so smart. And maybe then we’ll be all right. Maybe.’
‘They walked right past us,’ some girl echoed and laughed.
‘Dunces.’
‘Dumb as leathers.’
‘No brains in their casings.’
‘Dummies, every one.’
There was some laughing through that. It was funny, and I was laughing along with them. Stupid bloody policemen.
‘Bloody idiots, aren’t they?’
‘Idiots!’
‘All we have to do is blend in,’ I said. ‘All we have to do is look like London children, don’t we, and then they’ll never find us, they’ll never know us. Can’t be that hard, can it?’
‘Nah, we can do it.’
‘We’ll filch some togs, that can’t be hard. We’ll steal a little here and there, I know about that well enough. Come on, pick us up, if we can laugh we’re not dead.’
‘And Tess, and the others?’ asked Colin.
‘We shan’t forget them,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how just yet, but we shall find a way to get them out. We’ll see them again. Shan’t we, Colin?’
‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘Yes, we must.’
There was some spirit then among us. Like we’d won a battle or something. But there was more war ahead of us.
‘Come on then, my dears. Let’s try just around this corner.’
And just around that corner, all very suddenly, there were several people and they had lit torches, which they shone very roughly towards our faces, and a sharp voice shouted out, ‘Well, well, well and what have we here then?’