Andrew Pepper - The Last Days of Newgate

‘Be careful on the stairs. The stone gets mighty slippery when it rains.’

Godfrey said they would and led Pyke along the corridor towards the staircase. The man followed them, jangling some keys. He told them that unless he unlocked the condemned block’s main door, they would be spending the night there. Pyke allowed his heartbeat to settle and took his uncle’s lead. He tried to relax and put himself in the mind of a drunk. Mumbling something, he made a point of shuffling along rather than walking; he also swayed from side to side, trying not to appear too rigid, and just grunted when the guard asked him whether he was all right. The staircase between the floors was dark and narrow and Pyke walked down the steps at an appropriately modest pace, holding on to the stone walls as he did so. When they reached the bottom, the turnkey pushed in front of them and as he did so said, ‘Well then, sirs, I’ll bid you both goodnight,’ and unlocked the main door and waited for them to step outside into the rain.

Pyke held on to his hat to stop it blowing off his head. As they walked through the press yard, a confined area about ten feet wide and seventy feet long, bordered on either side by a high wall, Pyke whispered to Godfrey that he was doing well. ‘Just keep your calm, we’re almost there.’ Pyke knew how much his uncle was risking to assist him; knew that Godfrey disliked physical exertion of any kind; knew how hard it must be for him.

Godfrey exhaled loudly. ‘Easy for you to say, Pyke.’

Pyke knew, of course that they were not almost there; he knew that the most dangerous part of the escape still lay ahead of them — walking out through the prison’s guarded and well-lit main entrance without arousing suspicion — but chose not to say anything, because he could feel his uncle trembling.

It took them a minute or so to shuffle across the press yard and perhaps another minute to pass through the male felons’ quadrangle and the arcade under the chapel and approach the gatekeeper’s house via a series of poorly lit passages. No one had stopped them or even asked them a question. Seeing the bedraggled figure of the Ordinary stumble through the prison must have seemed the most natural sight in the world.

By the time they reached the keeper’s house, they had been ushered through three sets of locked doors by a succession of incurious turnkeys.

The keeper’s house was little more than a dark passageway that housed a series of small rooms which belonged to him and which linked the prison’s main door with a stone-floored entrance hall.

They had to pass through two sets of locked doors, but since there was no one attending the first door, Godfrey had to call out for assistance. A small, feral man with an unkempt beard appeared from one of the adjoining rooms and said, ‘Ah, Reverend Foote, I was hoping it might be you, sir. The governor wanted a word about the condemned’s sermon tomorrow. Told me to tell you to wait ’ere while I fetch ’im.’

Pyke mumbled something nonsensical and Godfrey barked, ‘Perhaps it could wait until tomorrow morning. You can see for yourself that Reverend Foote is maybe not in the best state of mind to assist the governor.’ Pyke, whose face was turned down towards his feet so that the keeper could see only the top of his hat, belched. Godfrey added, ‘He just needs a good night’s sleep.’

The keeper, who was standing the other side of the iron bars, shrugged and produced a set of keys from his jacket pocket. ‘I don’t suppose it would matter, though the governor was insistent that I fetched ’im when you was ready to leave, sir.’ He inserted one of the keys into the lock, turned it and pulled open the first of two reinforced doors that blocked their path to the outside world.

As they shuffled past the keeper, Pyke heard him whisper, ‘Good luck, Mr Pyke.’ To Pyke’s horror, Godfrey acknowledged the remark and said, ‘Thanks,’ as the keeper stepped back through the rectangular gap in the iron bars, swung the door closed and locked it from the other side.

Pyke heard the governor before he saw him. ‘Gentlemen. I’m so pleased I managed to catch up with you before you disappeared.’ Ahead of them, the main prison entrance was still locked. There was nowhere left to go. ‘Please step away from the prisoner, Mr Bond.’ Turning around for the first time, Pyke saw that the governor was surrounded by a group of turnkeys. The keeper was grinning. This had been Pyke’s last opportunity to gain his freedom and his plan lay in tatters. His despair was palpable and the governor seemed to sense it. ‘What a shame.’ He strutted towards them, like a prize cockerel. ‘To think you came so close. .’

That evening, they removed the two other prisoners awaiting execution from the top floor of the condemned block to cells on the first floor and turned it into a fortress. No visitors were permitted to enter the block. Turnkeys guarded the staircase. Shackled by leg-irons and handcuffs and gagged by cloth, Pyke had been thrown into a different cell. A turnkey sat with Pyke inside the cell. Additional turnkeys guarded the cell from the outside. The governor made regular visits throughout the night and the following day, Sunday, to make certain that his keepers remained vigilant; through the grated hole, he informed Pyke that Foote’s throat had been so badly damaged by the assault he might never speak again. He explained that Godfrey had been charged with assisting an escape attempt and would be spending considerable time in prison. He said the two turnkeys whom Pyke had bought off had been dismissed and also charged with aiding and abetting. He told Pyke, with some glee, that one of the turnkeys had been overheard in a nearby tavern boasting about his role in Pyke’s escape bid and the money he was to receive. He reminded Pyke he would die the following morning, adding that such was the interest in Pyke’s execution — an interest that had been further stoked by Pyke’s ‘cowardly’ escape bid — crowds had already started to gather in the street outside Debtors’ Door.

‘If the hangman doesn’t get you,’ the governor said, almost drooling, ‘then the angry mob will.’

Inside the cell Pyke stared at the tarred wall and listened to the lowing of cattle as they were driven into their stalls and pens.

The bells tolled. Outside, beyond the walls of the prison, he heard them baying for his blood; working people who had been gathered since early in the morning drinking, laughing, shouting, singing and, above all, waiting for the greatest show on earth to begin. The scaffold outside Debtors’ Door would now be finished, a single noose hanging from the wooden beam. Across the street, the King of Denmark would be crawling with moneyed flesh. Viewing spots on roofs and up lamp-posts would be taken. The procession of clergymen, sheriffs, visitors and, of course, Pyke began to make its way from the press room down a flight of stone steps into an underground passage.

He was walking down the aisle of St Paul’s Cathedral with a younger woman dressed in white on his arm. Above him the grand dome was full of chirruping blackbirds.

Dead Man’s Walk, they called it. His own father was reading from the scriptures. Emily was next to him. Then it was Foote who was reading, but just his disembodied head. Damnation and forgiveness. Pyke could still taste the sweetness of the wine on his parched lips.

They were walking up some steps and Pyke found himself in a small hall. They waited momentarily. Ahead of them lay Debtors’ Door, and beyond that he could hear the crowd. He could smell them: their excitement, their fear, their hatred of him. Closing his eyes, he saw his own father fall, arms raised, under their stamping boots. He heard his father scream; heard the screams of animals being slaughtered.