Infernal Revolutions (10 page)

‘Very well,' said Burnley, ‘But we'll meet again soon, Mr Oysterman, in a far more troubled land. More conflict. More tension. More blood. Then you'll feel your senses tingle, by God you will. You'll thank God you were born.'

I doubted that as much as the words I then heard Vickie Tremblett breathe into his ear.

‘Fuck me, Burnley. For God's sake, fuck me now.'

She couldn't have said that, surely? But when I looked back a few moments later, they'd gone.

‘So, Lieutenant,' I said to Pete, in an attempt to divert my melancholic thoughts as we made our way down to the dockyard. ‘I see you can hold your liquor well; I didn't hear you cough or splutter once.'

‘That's because I threw it over my shoulder,' said Pete, in a distracted manner. ‘My father said I should never indulge in spirituous liquor until I am twenty-one.'

‘Very wise.'

Pete coughed, looked around suspiciously, then hissed down at me.

‘You may call me Pete, provided you do not do it in front of officers or men.'

‘So just when we're alone then?'

‘Aye.'

‘And you may call me Harry. Again, just when we're alone.'

‘Good. So, er, Harry, that friend of yours. It was
the
Burnley Axelrod, was it not? The Rising…'

‘…Star of the British Army. Aye, it was.'

‘And how did you make his acquaintance, if I may be so bold?'

I rattled off a brief history.

‘Many men would
pay
to be impressed by that man,' said the youngster, clearly impressed himself.

‘I've paid for it already,' I said. ‘No doubt about that.'

‘Come, come, Harry, a connection like that will be the making of you sooner or later…but zounds!…here is Corporal Tibbs up ahead. Look humble, Harry, if you please…and remember, if there is anything I can do for you, don't be afraid to ask.'

Surprised at this offer, I nevertheless slipped back immediately into my role as servant to Pete's master, and managed into the bargain to feign enough humbleness to fool a cartload of Corporal Tibbs's. Meanwhile Pete stuck his nose in the air and put on a show of aristocratic hauteur quite remarkable for its verisimilitude. After ordering Corporal Tibbs in a most surly manner to escort me to the dockyard, he trotted off for his dinner and a lie down, presumably at one of the more salubrious taverns in town.

‘Arrogant little prig,' Corporal Tibbs muttered under his breath. ‘How I'd like to get him up a dark alley.'

Nodding agreement, I followed the corporal through the few remaining streets to the docks themselves. At first, I was too bayoneted with the anguish of sexual jealousy and the desolation of broken dreams to take much notice of my surroundings, but on turning the final corner the full drama of life came bursting in upon me, and shook me out of my melancholia.

‘Well!' I exclaimed, tipping up my hat and pausing to take in the view, ‘what a prodigious stage set this is!'

We were on a slight elevation before the road descended further, so were able to look down on a scene straight out of Hogarth. A mass of people heaved and jostled before me, all setting about their business with single-minded determination. A tremendous hullabaloo rose up from them, as if the urgency of life was forcing them to communicate at the tops of their voices. In and out of all the chaos, as aimless as Cain, weaved cows, horses, goats, sheep, pigs, geese, hens, dogs and even monkeys. It was like watching a hundred plays all muddled up together, and my eye – unlike the same organ of that astounding insect, the fly – could only take in a limited number of random vignettes. Amongst them were men toting bags and cases of belongings; one-legged sailors scraping sea-shanties on fiddles, begging caps in front of them; barebreasted women kissing and singing with their lovers; husbands and wives beating the stuffing out of each other with brooms and pans; children being thrown playfully from second-floor windows to some catcher on the ground; and I even saw, as in some allegory of the decline of culture, an old man and his book being tipped out of a sedan chair by pair of young laughing louts. The man sprawled, crumpled and groaned on the filthy fishy cobblestones, while the book – Hume's
Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding
, I noticed – shot mortally into the threshing machine of feet, never to return. On the way to help, I was forcibly restrained by Corporal Tibbs.

‘Leave it,' shouted Corporal Tibbs, a man on whom the teachings of Our Saviour were clearly wasted, ‘it's his own fault for being here. Now come on.'

Ducking to avoid various forms of flying missiles, barged and buffeted by hurtling brawlers, we ploughed on through the mayhem until I caught a glimpse, in the distance, of the great ships of the line that would take us to America. My stomach knotting with excitement, I guided Corporal Tibbs towards them until the streets widened to the dockyard proper, which introduced itself to us with a blast of sea air that brought upon it a piquant mix of aromas including resin, tar, turpentine, wood, rum, tobacco, vinegar, smoke, sweat, ordure and stagnant water. Around the dockyard's wide spaces stood huge grimy warehouses, in front of which huddled taverns, chop-houses, pastry shops, loan shops, tobacco shops and grog shops, all with the windows of their upper floors occupied by shouting, waving spectators. A cordon of guards was trying to keep the rabble out of this area, with varying degrees of success, but of course we were nodded through without question. In the thinned crowd it was now possible to see where my regiment was, indeed where every regiment was, for the ground nearest the waterfront was covered with the seated ranks of soldiers awaiting embarkation. As we set a course for them, the general noise of the throng was gradually replaced by the sounds of hammering and sawing from the ships, which vied with the calls of sutlers selling provisions to the troops and the loud urgent screeching of the swooping gulls. The greater opportunity for conversation was of no importance to Corporal Tibbs and I, however, for while he was busy seeking out the Glorious 85
^th
Foot, my attention was captured by the names on the sides of the mighty ships now looming larger by the second – the
Havoc
, the
Armageddon
, the
Hellhound
, the
Implacable
. I was still glorying in these names, imagining what a fright the Americans would have when they saw them, when I came across the
Twinkle
. Spirits dashed by the very name, I took one look at it, shook my head free of American laughter, and turned my attention back landwards. There, sure enough, were my comrades-in-arms, waiting like redcoated sheep to be loaded.

‘Ah, nice of you to join us, Harry,' called Dick from a position at first difficult to locate. ‘Interesting place, is it, Portsmouth?'

I waded over several games of cards, cleared a space for myself with my musket, and sat down next to him, leaving Corporal Tibbs free to report for other duties.

‘Not bad. Busy, though.' Craning my neck, I looked around the quay to orientate myself. Then I squinted up at the masts of the ship, feeling giddy as I watched the blue-coated sailors scampering around in the terrifying heights of the rigging. ‘So, what time do we board the old, er…' I could not bring myself to say the name, ‘…
ship
?'

‘When this lot's on board, so ‘tis said.'

He nodded over to a mountain of cargo behind us, which was busy being whittled down by sweating, musclebulging stevedores. They either rolled barrels up the gangplank to the waiting crew, or staggered up with armfuls of non-cylindical objects. Now and again, pigs and horses were led up too, and all but one went up willingly enough. The exception was a handsome roan horse, which, perhaps scenting what was in store for him, decided to end it there and then by leaping into the water with an almighty splash. As he swam in the narrow channel alongside the ship, head held high and snorting horribly, there seemed a chance of rescuing him, but once he rounded the stern and headed out to the open sea all hope was lost. He sank from view just as a boat was being lowered to rescue him. We watched with interest as his weeping chargehand was severely beaten for his negligence by some officer in an apoplectic rage.

I sighed, and pulled a bottle of beer from my knapsack. After a good swig, I set about the cleaning of my musket, having nothing better to do. Detaching the ramrod from the musket barrel, I inspected it with the eye of an expert, then peered down the barrel itself.

‘So, how did your meeting with Burnley Axelrod go?' asked Dick. ‘Did you get your impressment annulled?'

Discomfited by this question, I replied in a rather surly manner.

‘Obviously not, or else I would not be here, would I?'

Wishing the subject would go away, I got on with my work, cleaning out the barrel of the musket with long strokes of the ramrod.

‘That was Vickie Tremblett he was with at the tavern, was it not?' observed Ned Lester.

‘Aye, what of it?'

‘You liked her, did you not?'

I sighed deeply with irritation.

‘I repeat, Ned. What of it?'

‘He'll be giving her one this very minute.'

Refusing to rise to the bait, I adopted a mask of smiling indifference and got on with my work. Inwardly, however, I was damnably perturbed, and this was reflected somewhat in the manner of my barrel-cleaning, which became ever more vigorous.

‘Aye, a right seeing-to he'll be giving her. And who could blame him? Made for riding hard, that filly. Doubt if she'll be walking properly again much before Christmas.'

This was torture enough, but Ned had not finished there. On and on his musings went, in ever greater detail, until the conversation widened and moved on to the joys of sex in general. How vigorous it was, how frequent it was, how abundant it was, how common it was, how dirty it was, how satisfying it was, how healthy it was, how toe-curlingly knee-tremblingly mouth-wateringly bloody exciting it was. Gripping my ramrod with a white-knuckled hand, I cleaned my musket out with ever increasing violence, until eventually, saliva dripping onto my breeches, I could take no more. I stood up, surveyed the guard situation, gave my tricorne, jacket and arms into Dick's safekeeping, and announced my temporary departure.

‘Where's he off to?'

‘Harry, where are you going, mate?'

‘For a walk,' I mumbled, dry-mouthed with lust. ‘Be back soon.'

‘You'll be caught and flogged again, boy,' said Dick in a patronizing sing-song voice.

‘I'll take my chances,' I said, and picked my way through the mass of cannon fodder towards the veiling warren of dismal backstreets.

‘Just off for a shite,' I told anyone who cared to accost me, my unaccustomed use of the demotic mode apparently convincing enough to pass muster. As I walked, grimacing and holding my arse for effect, the maddening conversation kept replaying itself in my mind, so that I was, as it were, superheated with lust. I paused in the first empty doorway I came across to try and apply reason to my runaway emotions. All that it told me was that a good whore could be had for sixpence; Pubescent Pete would cover for any absence; and that unless a wave of mass buggery broke out on board ship, this was my last chance in several weeks to jettison my burdensome virginity. Fingering the sixpence I had been saving for just such an occasion, I decided to let luck decide instead: heads I would pursue my lustful course; tails I would return to the regiment. I tossed; it came down tails. I pondered, then decided to make it the best of three. Fourteen throws later heads had moved into the lead for the first time, and at last I was on my way. Eyes on stalks, bubbles starting to collect at the corners of my mouth, I scurried deeper into the sinful streets of Pompey. Already knowing what Venerean ecstasy looked like and sounded like, it would only be a matter of minutes now before I knew what it felt like too. More importantly, it would only be a matter of minutes and a few seconds before I was cured of my fever; then I would be able to place the Vickie Tremblett business in its proper perspective, and return to what passed for civilized life in the British Army on equal sexual terms with my comrades.

So the search proper began, causing my heart to pound, my legs to wobble, and my tongue to rattle like a die in a box. As I advanced uncertainly through the grimy streets, I was watched with equal suspicion by fishwives, urchins, babies and dogs. At first I thought they had divined my intent, but then it became clear that I was under surveillance for other reasons.

‘You desertin'?'

‘What's happened, Mister? Has America surrendered yet?'

‘Were you the one who killed Horace Granby last night?'

‘Do you know my Charlie, Mister?'

The removal of the obvious badges of my trade had done nothing to deceive these people; like their menfolk – who were no doubt still busy hurling abuse down at the quay – they could sniff a soldier a mile off, and they proceeded to bombard me with questions of a loosely military nature as if out of boredom. In no mood for dalliance, I avoided eye contact, answered
no
to everything and kept walking. After a while their mad questioning turned to derision, and I was abused in the accustomed manner. Once they had despatched their insults, however, most of them returned coughing to their hovels; the only ones to stick with me were a band of dispirited urchins playing dull looking games with a metal hoop. These I shooed away like flies.

‘Go on. Bugger off. I can find my own way from here. ‘

They stopped playing and looked at me blankly.

‘Did you hear what I said?'

‘Why didn't you say you wanted a tart?' said a tousle-haired lad with a scar from his ear to his chin.

‘Me?' I snorted horribly, no actor. ‘Why should I want a tart? Now go away. Please.'

I rummaged in my pocket for the smallest coin I could find.

‘No, don't bother,' said the scarred one, waving his hand in refusal and turning away. ‘Save it for your tart.'

‘If ‘tis a tart you're after,' called a sad blonde-haired girl of withered beauty, ‘pick a nice one.'

And off they trooped, leaving me feeling very low. They were miles higher than me morally, but then they hadn't yet been tested by the promptings of nature, and I consoled myself with this reflection as I walked through streets ever more deserted and filthy. Blood Clot Lane, Gallows Row, Pisspot Alley, Dog Yard – all ran with liquid ordure, and stank to high heaven. Nevertheless, lines of washing still hung across them, so I assumed some form of life must be close. Perhaps a nervous tyro was lurking in the shadows, reluctant to emerge; perhaps also, it unexpectedly occurred to me, the mother of the urchins might be imprisoned somewhere near, slaving over a loom or dying of a fever. Why these images assailed me now I do not know, but they quite undid me, and drained me of all propelling lust. I stopped walking, pondered for a few moments, then turned back on my heels, horrified at the monster my frustration had created. Holding a cloth to my suddenly sensitive nose, I scurried back the way I had come; or, to be precise, the way I thought I had come, for all looked different in reverse, and with different aims. I was starting to panic, and dash hither and thither like a loon, when, turning one corner, I came face to face with what was, undoubtedly, a tart.

‘Fancy a roll, sonny?'

I held my breath to stop a rising shriek, and stood staring into the dancing eyes of an evidently experienced seductress. I had not the nerve to survey her biblical fruits, but I fancied a large and well-exposed bosom was on offer at the periphery of my vision.

‘Well, er…no…but…'

She laid a reassuring arm on mine.

‘Don't get so ‘et up, Mister. I'm only a woman, yer know. No diff'rent from what yer muvver is or yer gran or yer sweet'art. Yes, yer sweet'art. I saw that flicker in yer eyes there. Yer engaged, aren't yer, sonny, and yer intended, God bless ‘er soul, won't let yer touch ‘er till yer married and all proper like, ain't that so? Poor lad, yer must be burnin' wiv desire, and now yer off ter the war, I see. Many months or mebbe years o' separation ahead. Might not even come back. An if yer do she'll doubtless ‘av run off wiv a member o' the legal profession or sumfin sim'lar, I shouldn't wonder. Stupid cow, I finks, pardon me, sir, but I must speak me mind. Some o' these young girls finks they're so ‘igh-an'-mighty that I sometimes wonder why the good Lord bovvered givin' em fannies, scuse me French. Least a girl could do is open ‘er precious legs for a minute or two before ‘er intended goes off ter the end o' the world to fight for King and Country. Wouldn't do her any lasting damage, would it? Might even enjoy it, knows what I mean, love?'

I stood transfixed, hypnotized by the extreme mobility of her mouth and the fertility of her imagination. She was, I reckoned, all of thirty, with strawlike hair and a cracked scarecrow face painted with ceruse. Indeed, had it not been for her lopsided grin and cheery disposition I would have run a mile, but as it was I liked her very well, and wondered whether to give it a go after all.

‘But anyway, we're not ‘ere to put the world ter rights, are we, cutie? Naughty ov me to keep you's talkin' like that, when yer ready n' waitin'.'

She swayed, and belched out ginny wind.

‘My ship's leaving soon,' I said, to test if my vocal chords were still working.

‘Poor boy. Still, fink of all those lovely American girls. Drool over an English sojer, they will, drool. You won't need the likes o' me then, dearie. But I hope ye'll look back wiv fondness on yer little dalliace wiv Nutmeg Nell. Fowsen's ‘ave.'

Was I being charged for this consolatory chat, I wondered?

‘Many's the time I've received a letter from some far-flung corner ov the globe expressin' thanks for the kindness I've showed ‘em. Some ov ‘em from old men who I comforted years n' years ago. They all begin
I don't suppose you remember me
, but I do, I do; I can picture clearly every customer I ever comforted. I always writes back wiv a little chat, hoping to get a nice conversation going, but they never write again. ‘Spose because ov their wives. Not right to be seen crissponding wiv a tart. Taint seemly. Cor blimey, all over the world they come from. India, Italy, Germany, America – even those faraway places don't ‘ave enough in ‘em to erase the memory of ole' Nutmeg Nell.'

I caught a mental picture of Captain Cook leaning against a tree in Tahiti, sighing: ‘Well, it's nice, but it ain't Nutmeg Nell.'

‘Cor blimey, eh? What a life, eh?'

She'd slumped against a wall now, and was inwardly reminiscing, allowing me free visual access to her body. Her bosom was weighty and exposed, patterned with three warts and numerous freckles. Around her neck was a gaudy string of pearls, dewdrop-shaped and rainbow-coloured. On either side of her waist her body ballooned voluptuously, suggesting that her middle was held together by organcrushing stays. Meditating on these treasures, I found myself in the grip of lust once more, and decided to ask her price before she slumped to the floor in a drunken stupor.

‘You're in luck, sunshine,' she said, perking up. ‘Cut-price rate today. Least ole' Nell can do for our brave boys goin' off to war. Half a glass o' gin, is all I'm chargin'.'

As a quart of gin cost fourpence, that wasn't very much.

I agreed.

‘Then take that cloth off yer nose and come wiv me, my dear. Let ole' Nell acquaint yer in the ways o' the world.'

She took me not to the nearest alley, which would have sufficed for my purposes, but through a few busy lanes, as if parading me. Hot enough under the collar already, I began to sweat steam as the locals turned to gaze on me.

‘Summat you want to unload, Mister?'

‘Can't see him lasting ten seconds, Nellie.'

‘Nice couple of lovebirds you two are.'

My face, I knew, was pulsing redly, but Nellie was relishing the attention, coming to life as though she'd never touched a drop of alcohol. With her arms intertwined with mine in mockery of the attachment of true lovers, we weaved our way through the laughing crowd to our destination, wherever that was. On the way, we passed several other tarts, who Nellie taunted with her catch.

‘Got a nice piece here, girls. Young n' fresh. Feast yer eyes on that skin, my covies. Nothing rough about him, is there?'

She tweaked my cheek, which I did not like at all. I made a token remonstrance, but was merely laughed at by the ladies for my pains, as though I were a talking dog.

‘If you persist in this tomfoolery,' I said sharply, ‘I shall be forced to call the contract off.'

‘What, and leave yerself wiv a sackful o' juice fer three months? Cam off it.'

She knew only too well on which side the odds were stacked; so having no alternative given my mood, I meekly submitted to the last few yards of humiliation and let her lead me to a big warehouse, very dark and dirty. Quelling fears of fleas and spiders, I stepped over the threshold. After the brightness of the street, at first I could see nothing, except variegated colours bouncing off the back of my eyes. The smell in the place was reminiscent of a salt marsh at low tide, but even this did not deter me, and I was just starting to untuck my shirt when a sound stopped me dead in my tracks.

‘Hark!' I said, cocking my ear. ‘There's someone in here!'

‘Never ‘eard a fing,' said Nell, leading me by the hand deep into the interior. ‘Now come on, be brave for Nellie.'

How she could see I did not know, but eventually she pulled me down to the floor with her and suggested that I remove my breeches. Trembling on the brink, about to taste the most praised fruit in the world, I was disturbed once more by the noises, for this time there was more than one – a sigh here, a moan there, a muttered voice behind me. Nervous, thinking I had been brought to some refuge for the dying, I peered deeply into the darkness, forcing my eyes to adapt.

‘'Ere,' said Nell, clutching at my breeches, ‘Let me give yer an ‘and.'

As Nell tugged away, my eyes began to make out shapes. There appeared to be moving sacks all around me, some with the noises coming from them. A few moments later, to my horror, the sacks resolved themselves into openly copulating couples. The grunts and moans and mutterings came shorter, faster and harsher, and I realized at last the wretchedness of the place I was in.

‘Sorry, Nell,' I said, removing her hands from me with some effort. ‘This is not the place for me. Here's sixpence. Thank ye for your time.'

And with that I was off, running as fast as I could back to the door, stumbling occasionally over the feet of couples strenuously rutting their way to sad climaxes.
Little
and
prig
, were the only words I could make out from the nastysounding invective Nutmeg Nell unleashed on me, but I did not care, all I wanted was daylight, air and my senses back.

Out on the physically dirty but morally neutral street I felt cured of lust forever, and I spent some moments breathing deeply and reflecting on the narrowness of my escape. What had I been doing? I kept asking myself. What madness had come over me? There were no answers, only gladness that my body was still untenanted by the pox, and a new admiration for Claude Jepson, with his Piglet Theory of Life. But my relief was shortlived – I was lost, and had not the faintest idea which way to turn to get back to the docks. Then it struck me like a thunderbolt – being lost was the same as being free, and that without realizing it, my mind on other things, I had successfully deserted. Elation washed over me, there was no need to be killed in America after all, and I could simply run home to my garret in Brighthelmstone and resume my innocent life there. But I had little time to enjoy the feeling before a sort of counter-wave of reason surged back. My life there was indeed innocent, but it was also lonely and melancholic, and did I really want to go back to that, this time with the added and possibly unbearable burden of knowing that the Army might knock on the door at any moment, reclaiming me for its own? A more positive argument piped up that it was nobler, braver and more exciting to go with my new friends to America, suffer with them in Purgatory, and then with God's grace return to England a man of experience, all duty done. Sadder perhaps, but infinitely wiser. I dithered and pondered, taking one step one way, then one step another, until finally, with an agonized groan that sent a watching monkey shooting up a drainpipe, I shook my head and plumped for Adventure.

I went in search of someone who could direct me to the dockyard, but the only people around were village idiots, good for nothing except slobbery roundelays or weird soliloquies of unknown provenance. Then I heard a faint cheering far away to my left, and made for it. As I did so, however, I started to panic, for what else could cheering mean but that the ships were moving at last?

Running fearfully as if late for school, I managed to negotiate the streets sufficiently well to reappear on the dockyard at a point not far from where I had originally left it. How the scene and mood had changed!

The crowd, who before had been kept at bay by guards, now occupied the space where my comrades had been. They cheered, chanted, waved Union Jacks, and lobbed gifts ranging from flowers to chamberpots onto the decks far above them. In return, some of the waving soldiers who lined the decks upended their own effluvia pots over the crowd, to general delight. Realizing that I should be up there too, throwing my own filth over the English populace, I started to barge my way forward in desperation. One result, perhaps causative, was the splash and cry of someone on the front row falling into the dock. Another, definitely causative, was my brutal return to the back of the crowd. Dusting myself down, I tried again further along the line.

‘Let me through, ye dogs!' I cried, lunging forward, ‘I am late for my ship!'

Again, I managed to penetrate no further than two rows before I was forcibly repulsed.

Unable to see if the gangplanks were still down, I grew ever more fretful, until with terrible alarm I saw the anchor of the
Havoc
rise monstrously out of the water, seaweed streaming off it. At the end of my tether and close to tears, I was about to make another lunge when a sturdy Devonshire voice spoke up behind me.