One who can escape from a locked safe for the entertainment of the audience will never trust his secret to paper and ink. For where would he find to keep it?
The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter
I was not alone in the maw of the black Maria. Three others sat on benches running along the walls. All looked at me as I clambered in, shielding their eyes or squinting against the daylight. One I recognised.
“Tulip?”
The door slammed shut behind me, blinking us into near darkness.
“Who’s that?” she asked, grabbing my hand just in time. The engine had clanged into gear, and I would have been jolted off my feet but for her support. I half fell onto the bench next to her.
“I’m Elizabeth,” I said. “We met–”
“At the Secular Hall. You crossed as a child.”
“You remember.”
“I’d hoped to see you again. But not like this.”
A slit high on the side wall allowed a little light and air into the cell. It would have been too narrow to squeeze an arm through, let alone shoulders and hips. A memory of once escaping from a locked carriage came back to me. That time, I had been led by instinct. There had been a clutter of objects. I had found a way. This chamber was bare. I reached a hand to feel below the bench. It was merely a plank fixed along the wall. There could be no hiding here.
My eyes were growing accustomed to the gloom. The floor was a single sheet of metal. Other than the two benches, the only fixtures were leather hand straps dangling from the metal ceiling. The vehicle was purpose built – a prison on wheels.
“They must have signed the treaty early,” said Tulip, her voice small but close.
“It’s not due yet. And we’d have heard.”
“Signed in secret maybe?”
The black Maria had been steaming through a series of turns, throwing us first forward and then back. Now it started to accelerate. Steadying myself with a hand on Tulip’s shoulder, I clambered up onto the bench and looked out of the slit window. It took me a few moments to understand where we were. Then I recognised a landmark – the ruins of a Roman wall beside the road – and knew the canal must be close ahead.
“We’re heading west,” I said, lowering myself back to the bench. “If they were taking us to the border, we’d be going to the main crossing by the clock tower. That’s south.”
“Not if they want to keep it quiet,” said Tulip. “They’d want a crossing where no one would see.”
I listened, trying to pick up more clues, but our prison reverberated with the boom of the engine and the clatter of its wheels. All I could know for certain was that we travelled over cobbles.
I tried to think, to reason out the tumble of events and new knowledge. But panic was rising in my chest. If Tulip was correct we would be across the border in a few hours. I imagined the iron collar and chains that would be waiting for me on the other side. My skin crawled as if seething with lice.
Someone must have told them where to find me. For days, I had been nagged by the sense that I was being watched and followed. But the thought that a spy might be on my trail was comforting compared to the more likely truth. They had gone to make the arrest at the wharf where one of my neighbours had informed on me, telling them I had set off towards the library.
There was a screech of brakes and the engine noise changed. Our movement came to an abrupt stop, throwing us towards the front of the wagon. I could hear voices close outside – two men exchanging greetings. A bolt clanged, the door swung outwards and daylight streamed in. I could just make out three figures climbing up, then the door swung closed and darkness swallowed them. The after-image stayed with me though – the silhouette of a woman and two children. The boy had been holding her hand, the girl clinging to her skirts.
We made three more stops after that; the last prisoners in were two men. The benches were full so they had to stand, gripping the leather straps to keep balance.
Since crossing the canal and the river, there had been a few miles of steady climb before the land levelled out again. The bench below the slit window being full, I could no longer climb up to look out. But once, as we stopped for water, I heard beyond the sound of the tender being filled, the throbbing hum of twin airship engines passing low overhead.
The only airship terminus for miles was the international hub at Anstey. That meant we had veered somewhat north of west, taking us away from the border not towards it. We were being taken to a place of confinement pending deportation. They wished to guard us so that we could not drop into hiding as the signing grew closer. I silently berated myself for underestimating the foresight of the Republic’s government.
The sound of running water stopped and I heard the squeak of the filling arm being retracted. Then the engine noise picked up and we jolted into movement once more. Tulip’s shoulder bumped against mine. I wondered what had made such a strong woman take refuge in the Republic.
After Anstey, the cobbles gave way to a dirt road, softening the din inside our cell. But here the carriage began to sway and lurch. Every pothole threw us one way and the other. Heads bumped on walls. The children were crying and one was sick on the floor. The journey slowed. The light through the slit window became egg-yolk yellow. Shadows passed more frequently across the small window. The sun outside was getting low.
Then we stopped. This time the engine stopped also, with a long whoosh of venting steam.
The door opened. Outside, a line of uniformed constables stood shoulder to shoulder. Beyond them I could see trees and a row of green-painted huts. I searched for a perimeter wall but could see none. It was an army camp, I guessed. Not a prison. I felt my heart accelerate. Unlike the black Maria, this place had surely not been designed to prevent escape. And with forest all around, getting away would be easy.
“Come when your name’s called,” said one of the constables. He read from a sheet of paper: “Fredrick Morison.”
One of the standing men shuffled to the door and was helped out.
“Happy Rathsphere.”
A man on the opposite bench got up and followed.
“Arthur Purling. William Fotheringham. Thomas Thatcher.”
When the carriage was empty of men, the constable who had been calling the names followed them out of view. Another constable took his place, holding another list.
“Sunshine Turner, Angeline Turner, Drake Turner.”
The mother pulled her two children to their feet and headed out.
“Tulip Slater. Elizabeth Barnabus.”
After the vomit smell and body odour of our confinement, the first thing that hit me was the cool freshness of the air. There was birdsong and soft light. And then I saw the men walking away in a line towards one of the huts. The left ankle of each had been shackled. Each leg iron was linked to a long chain which they carried between them.
“Left arm out,” a constable said to Tulip.
She obeyed, meekly. He snapped a shackle around her wrist, shut it tight, tested it then gestured her along and turned to me.
“Left arm out.”
There is a technique used by the escapists, whereby they flex their muscles and inhale deeply as they are tied. When they later breathe out and relax they can wriggle free, because the chains and ropes have fallen loose. But the wrist is bone and sinew. There is nothing to flex.
The constable grabbed my arm and snapped the manacle in place. I felt the iron grip. Then he shoved me in the back and I found myself stumbling towards Tulip.
Behind me, he instructed the next in line. “Left arm out.”
Each of our manacles was connected by a short length of chain to an iron ring, through which a longer chain had been threaded, linking all together, just as the men had been. Except that they had been joined by the ankle.
Tulip leaned close to whisper. “Too shy to tell us to raise our skirts?”
“They’re Republicans,” I reminded her.
The constable folded the list of names and stood back to survey the line. “Lift the chain!” he called.
After a moment’s confusion we had each gripped part of the length with our manacled hand and were being led over the grass towards a hut some distance from the one the men had entered. The young girl was crying. Not able to lift the chain, she let it drag along the ground next to her.
The constable counted us in through the door of the hut, though it seemed unlikely that any could have wandered off since being shackled. An iron ball had been padlocked to both the front and back of the long chain, too big for our manacle rings to pass over. But once we were inside the hut, the ends were also locked to ring-bolts in the floor.
“Food will be served before sunset, courtesy of the Council of Guardians. I suggest you wash and make yourselves comfortable.” So saying, he closed the door. I tried to listen for the sound of a lock or bolt being shot, but everyone was suddenly talking at once and I had no chance to hear.
There were ten of us on the chain, including the two children, but only nine beds along the wall of the hut. A pot-bellied stove stood on a rectangle of slate, the chimney pipe heading straight up through the roof. Jugs and bowls for washing had been placed together with chamber pots in the corner of the room. The windows were not barred. Chain and ring bolts notwithstanding, this place had been built for some other purpose.
Somehow we arranged ourselves along the room and everyone moved as one towards the beds. The poor mother and her youngest child were obliged to squeeze together furthest from the door. The rest of us had a bed each, though the chain allowed comfort to none. It could either lie heavily across the chest, or uncomfortably under the body. In this, the men would have an easier time. Had it been attached to our ankles it could have lain on the floor along the foot of the beds.
“We could turn around,” I said, reasoning that if our heads were at the bottom of the bed, we too could lay the chain along the floor. No one else seemed convinced of my idea.
“Listen,” said Tulip. A notice was pinned to the wall next to her bed. She read out the title: “Rules for patients.” Below was a long list, with some words and phrases underlined. I scanned the regulations for clues.
5.No tobacco – chewing, smoking or snuff.
6.No spitting.
7.Name badges to be worn at all times.
8.Opium to be administered by medical staff only.
“Then it’s a hospital,” said Tulip.
“Not a hospital,” said the woman with the children. “A sanatorium.”
Tulip shifted around, making the chain clank against the iron bed frame. “How do you know?”
“I came last summer. But for a holiday. There was a camp for children from the city. We walked in the woods. It was... different. No prisoners. They told us the history of the place. Before anti-tubercular medicines, people with consumption came here.”
“To die,” said a woman further up the row.
Sunset came without sight or smell of food. Nor did we have lamps. There wasn’t much speaking. Just a few apologies when people had to move to use the chamber pot and ended up dragging the chain. And soothing words from the mother to her children, who were crying from hunger.
Lying in the dark, panic churned in my stomach. I had examined our confinement from all angles but found no possibility of escape. The more I focussed on the problem, the faster and more disorganised my thoughts became until they were bouncing off each other, little more than a blur.
In a moment of clarity, I realised what I was doing. I took a series of deep breaths then started to recite the thirteen times table in my mind. After one hundred and ninety-five I became lost, but the exercise had done its work. My thoughts had slowed. In an effort to divert them from my imprisonment, I focussed on the puzzle of Mrs Raike.
It was only a few hours before that I had been reading through old volumes of the Derby Herald. Her organisation had started twice. The first time seemed natural enough. Councillor Wallace Jones had been at the helm. They had made some mistakes in dealing with local businesses and ended up in a controversy that reached the front page. The second time had been very different. ‘Controlled’ was the word that came to mind. Unnaturally smooth. Mrs Raike had made her appearance and Wallace Jones had vanished from the scene.
My thoughts were interrupted by the door banging open. A young constable entered with a tray, on which rested three loaves, a saucer of butter and some knives.
“Why did you turn out the lamp?” he asked.
He seemed taken aback when Tulip told him that no lights had been given to us. But he left without offering help.
It was Tulip also who organised the distribution of the food, tearing the bread into portions and making sure everyone had their share of the butter. I chose to eat my bread dry, though it proved hard to swallow. I also managed to end up with one of the butter knives, which I slid into my boot. The knife was too dull to be used as a weapon and would probably prove useless. But the act of stealing it comforted me. A taste of defiance. The illusion of control.
After the others were asleep, I reached under my bed frame and dipped my finger in the butter I had hidden there. I greased the skin of my wrist and started to work the manacle, pulling first one side and then the other, feeling it bite into my flesh. Discomfort turned to pain. The pain became unbearable. But however hard I pulled, the iron would not slip over my hand.