Legion of the Dead (4 page)

‘B
alance, Will. It’s all a matter of balance,’ I reminded him the next day, calling across from the flat roof I was standing on, to the jutting pedestal behind me where young Will Farmer was still poised, his legs shaking and his face taut and pale. ‘Relax and lean into the jump,’ I said. ‘Don’t think about the drop. Concentrate on the landing …’

He looked across the gaping chasm at me and nodded earnestly, his cheeks flexing as he clenched his teeth. He squared his stance and raised his arms. The low sun cast a long, cross-like shadow behind him.

‘That’s the way,’ I told him encouragingly.

Normally, highstacking across town to Gatling Quays would have taken me an hour and a half at the very outside. I’d allowed twice that amount of time to shepherd Will across the rooftops, taking a long and convoluted route that avoided the need for any particularly tricky manoeuvres.

If not a born highstacker, Will Farmer was certainly a quick learner, swiftly mastering the Tuppenny Step and Two-Trick Pony, and proving himself a dab hand at stack-hopping. Now, however, perched on the edge of the jutting stone some seventy feet above the teeming street below, his nerve had gone.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘You know what to do. Push yourself off. Keep your arms outstretched. Then, when you land, roll forwards …’

‘Rather than tipping backwards,’ Will muttered, rubbing a hand over his cropped hair.

He took a deep breath and leaned back on his left foot. Then, with look of grim concentration, he kicked off from the wall and thrust himself into the air. As he hurtled towards me, I stepped to one side and readied myself to support him if he stumbled. A moment later he landed like an albatross on an iceberg and clattered into a sideways roll, before colliding with the parapet at the far end of the flat roof.

‘Not the most elegant Peabody Roll,’ I said, helping Will to his feet and dusting him off, ‘but I think you’re getting the feel for it.’

‘Do you really think so?’ said Will, now enthusiastic again after his bout of nerves. ‘Can I try another?’

‘Just follow me,’ I said. ‘We’ll ridge-walk the rest of the way.’

We continued, me in front, Will following behind, copying every move I made. The bright sun cast deep shadows that made every brick, every ridge, every stanchion and
pediment stand out clearly, while the gentle breeze that morning was not enough to cause any of the dangerous eddies and currents that so often swirled round the rooftops, plucking at those daring enough to be up on them. In short, it was a perfect day for high-stacking – and a perfect day for a funeral.

Strains of music – bagpipes, a trumpet, a drum – were the first indication that we were approaching our destination. Sure enough, at the end of the long pitched roof of a tenement block, the pair of us looked down to see a small square – Angel Place – crowded with a great throng of milling people. Members of the Gatling Quays’ gangs clustered together in whispering groups. From above, the makeshift uniforms worn by the different crews made a constantly changing patchwork of colours. ‘We’re in time,’ I said. ‘Thank goodness.’

‘How are we going to get down?’ said Will excitedly. ‘A Drainpipe Sluice? Or how about a Salmon’s Drop?’

I smiled. ‘Best to arrive in one piece,’ I said, and nodded towards a zigzag framework of cast-iron stairs, painted brick red, that had been bolted to the back wall of the building. ‘We’ll take the easy way down.’

‘All right,’ Will said, his voice a mixture of disappointment and relief.

He lowered himself agilely down to the top landing and, gripping the rusting banister, clopped down the flights. I followed him. The sunlight glinted on his scalp.

‘Looks like you’ve had a close shave,’ I laughed.

Will looked round. ‘That Peabody Roll?’ he asked.

‘No, your haircut,’ I said.

He grinned back at me, his right hand shooting to his head. ‘Not exactly,’ he said, with a grimace. ‘I sold my hair to a wigmaker last week to make up the rent on my half room in the Wasps’ Nest.’

‘Are times that hard?’ I asked.

Will nodded. ‘I’m a cobblestone-creeper, not a highstacker like you,’ he explained. ‘I can’t charge highstacking rates.’

‘Then we’ll just have to do something about that,’ I said. ‘Now, let’s get this over with.’

At the bottom landing, instead of lowering the final length of ladder, I swung down on a horizontal strut and dropped lightly to the cobblestones below me. Will landed beside me a moment later.

‘’Ere, what’s your game?’ came a gruff voice over the sound of the music, dirge-like with its droning bagpipes and thudding drum.

I turned to find myself being confronted by half a dozen toughs. Their leader, a hefty brawler with thick, slicked-back hair and a wide-brimmed Kempton, stepped forward. There were smudges of flour on his hard face and brawny tattooed arms, which he folded as he eyed me and Will up and down. Like
the crew at his shoulders, he wore a loose-fitting sleeveless jacket over his shirt, fashioned from flour sacks and decorated with skulls daubed in black tar. These, I realized, must be the Flour Bag Mob.

‘We’ve come to pay our respects to the Emperor,’ I said simply, removing my coal-stack hat and clicking it shut.

‘And who might you be?’ he demanded, thrusting his grim, lumpen face into my own.

‘He’s with me,’ said Thump McConnell, barging his way through the gathering and placing a heavy arm round mine and Will’s shoulders. ‘Come on, lads,’ he said. ‘Today, you’re honorary Ratcatchers. You march with us.’

Leaving the leader of the Flour Bag Mob staring after us, dumbfounded, Thump ushered the two of us across the square. The music grew louder. I looked at the band more closely.

The drummer and bagpipes players were both hefty, the brass buttons of their tartan jackets straining at their chests. The trumpeter, in contrast, was a scrawny individual with a long scar that extended from the corner of his mouth to the bottom of his left ear and made it look as though he was grinning lopsidedly, despite his puckered lips. The final member of the quartet was a backwards cellist, playing the great fiddle strapped to his back by reaching behind with long thin dextrous arms; one hand behind his neck, the other sawing behind the small of his back with a bow.

All four wore feathered Highland shakos and black kilts, and stamped their heavy boots in time to the low, sonorous funeral songs they played. They were a professional dirge band, expert at providing a mournful musical backdrop to the proceedings.

I recognized an old music-hall song about a saloon girl called Daisy Monroe in amongst
them, much slower than the original, but with the tune intact. I guessed that it must have been one of the Emperor’s favourites, and was about to say as much to Will when a black hearse drew up.

Will looked impressed, and I could see why. Resting at the back of the black and gold carriage, every inch of it decorated with orange, yellow and purple chrysanthemums, drawn by a pair of jet black stallions, sprays of ostrich plumes fixed to their heads, was one of the grandest coffins I had ever seen. It was made from highly polished oak, furnished with solid-gold handles and crowned with vast bouquets of roses and lilies, their petals trembling as the horses danced about on the spot. The young driver – his black suit a couple of sizes too large for his bony frame – had pushed back his top hat and was watching Thump McConnell keenly, waiting for his nod to flick the reins and spur the horses into action.

‘They do things in style down here in the quays,’ I murmured to Will.

He frowned. ‘But where’s his family?’ he asked. ‘His wife? His children?’

‘As far as I know,
this
was his family,’ I told him, with a broad sweep of my arm.

All twelve of the district gangs were here; the Ratcatchers, the Flour Bag Mob, the Bevan Street Crew, the Harness Riggers, the Tallow Gang, the Lampblackers, the Pressers, the Joinery Blades, the Barrel Boys, the Fetter Lane Scroggers, the Spike-Tooth Smilers and, last but not least, the formidable Sumpside Boys. All were under strictest orders to remain on their best behaviour, and the atmosphere was as brittle as a duchess’s smile. No gang leader wanted to be slighted or disrespected; no one wanted to lose face. Stewards with black armbands were passing between the crowd, organizing them into the ranks that they would take as they marched from Angel Square, through the narrow
streets of Gatling Quays, to Adelaide Graveyard.

All twelve of the district gangs were here
.

Finally, with the dirge band at the front, the funeral carriage immediately behind, surrounded by the Sumpside Boys in their ankle-length bearskin coats and straw boat-caps, we were just about to set off, when there was the sound of raised voices behind us. I looked round. Two stewards – elderly members of the lowly Pressers gang – were patting the air, trying to calm the situation down, but neither the leader of the Harness Riggers, in his brass-buckled leather overcoat, nor his portly opposite number in the Barrel Boys – the gold threads of his embroidered waistcoat glinting in the sunlight – were having any of it.

‘This is out of order,’ the leader of the Harness Riggers was snarling. ‘Third most powerful gang in the quays and we’re dumped all the way back here …’

‘Bunch of prancing ponies, the lot of you,’
the leader of the Barrel Boys shot back, punctuating each word with a stab of his finger. ‘The Barrel Boys were skimming ale wagons when you lot were still in stained knee-breeches.’

‘One second,’ said Thump McConnell, tapping the drummer on his shoulder.

The drummer nodded without missing a beat on the great drum that was strung round his shoulders and hung, vertically, at his chest. Strolling back along the line, his huge bulk cutting a swathe through the ranks of hoodlums, Thump approached the two furious gang leaders. There was a smile on his lips, but I noticed the vicious glint in his eyes as he leaned towards them.

‘Not now, lads,’ he said quietly. ‘Not today. Have you forgotten about the truce?’ The smile grew broader, even as his eyes narrowed. ‘I want you to be nice to one another.’ He raised his two great hams of hands and placed them on the back of the two leaders’ heads.

Then, with a grunt of exertion – and maintaining that sinister smile of his – he shoved the two heads hard together. There was a loud
crack
! and, with a muffled groan, the two gang leaders crumpled to the ground. ‘And show some respect!’ Thump snarled.

Back at the front of the line once more, the drum now silent, Thump McConnell and five other Ratcatcher gang members chosen to be pallbearers, stood on one side of the carriage, while six enormous Sumpside Boys stood on the other. Two emaciated-looking young lads provided by
Frimley’s Funereal Supplies
– their pale faces set with the solemnity of the occasion – stood beside them. The rest of us stood behind, with the other gangs of Gatling Quays, in ordered ranks. The cellist, trumpeter and bagpipes player fell silent. The drummer raised his arms, the creamy felt-covered heads of his drumsticks quivering in the air for a moment, then …

B-bang!

He struck the two sides of the drum once more, a resounding thud that brought everyone to attention. The trumpet and pipes started up a new tune; the carriage driver cracked his whip and the whole dismal parade lurched forwards. As we marched through the shadowy streets, windows were flung open all about us, and scrawny children and grey-haired matrons leaned out, their heads bowed in respect. Crowds of people gushed from the front doors, their hands filled with flowers, which they tossed at the passing carriage – carnations, gladioli, garlands of Michaelmas daisies …

Thump turned to me as we rounded the corner onto the Belvedere Mile, the broadest avenue of Gatling Quays, thicker crowds than ever greeting our passing by. The carriage, already half-hidden beneath a mountain of blooms, clattered softly over a carpet of still more flowers that littered our route.

‘A good turn out,’ he said, his eyes moist with emotion.

‘He was a well-respected man,’ I said, choosing my words carefully.

Thump nodded, satisfied, and turned back again.

At the end of the avenue, the road divided into two narrower roads. The left-hand fork led down to the mudflats and jetties; the right, along to Riverhythe. Between the two, the dark green of its gnarled yew trees speckled with waxy blood-red berries, was Adelaide Graveyard, black cast-iron railings separating it from the roads on either side. We marched on between the throngs of bystanders towards the arched entrance, its tall and ornately forged gates decorated with lions and lambs, and came to a halt.

I glanced up at the deserted Adelaide Mansions opposite. There was no sign of Ada Gussage at any of its many windows.

At Thump McConnell’s signal, the five
other pallbearers – each one as tall as him, though none quite as bulky – pulled off their flat caps and seized the edge of the coffin. On the other side of the carriage, the Sumpside Boys did the same. Then, having lifted it off the bier, they gripped a gold handle each with a great fist and hefted the coffin up onto their shoulders. From their grunts and sighs, it was clear that the coffin was as heavy as it looked. The music grew quieter till all that was left was the slow rhythmic
thump-thump-thump
of the drum.