Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

This time the applause was more muted. Munroe seemed puzzled, unable to work out why he was not receiving more wholehearted support from the rambunctious mob.

From his vantage point at the back of the room, Pyke studied the gathered crowd, mostly shoemakers and tailors, he supposed, with a handful of labourers. The latter wore grubby shooting jackets and torn velveteen coats while the former were dressed in either smockfrocks or monkey jackets. He saw Emily right at the front of the room, having an animated talk with a young man sitting next to her. They looked to be sharing some kind of joke.

‘Do you see Emily there? Who’s she talking to?’

Godfrey put on his spectacles. ‘ Ah, that’s a chap called Julian Jackman.’

‘Why do you say it like that?’

Up on the platform Munroe was trying to explain the merits of the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union.

‘His mob is a different kettle of fish altogether. They might be a ragbag mixture of types but at least they’ve got some balls. They talk a good game but they’re interested in the ordinary man, too.’ Godfrey hesitated, his expression clouding over. ‘In the current climate, I’d say that any association with Jackman and his lot is not going to be conducive to Emily’s good health, though.’

Pyke felt the skin tighten across his cheek. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ At that moment, his view of Emily and Jackman was obscured by someone sitting a few rows ahead of him.

‘As far as I’ve heard, there’s going to be a big clampdown on radical activity,’ Godfrey whispered, ‘and when it comes, the authorities won’t concern themselves with someone’s rank or station.’

‘And has this information come from someone inside the government?’ he asked, thinking about Peel’s interest in Jackman.

‘They’re willing to tolerate the unions up to a point. But what they do not want is every Tom, Dick and Harry joining these organisations. Look around you, Pyke. Folk are rightfully angry. Reform hasn’t changed a damned thing and they’re disillusioned. That’s why this figure Captain Paine has become something of a hero to them.’

‘What do you know about him?’

‘Who, Captain Paine?’

Pyke nodded.

‘No more than anyone else.’

On the platform Munroe was starting to build towards a conclusion but there were already rumblings of discontent from the floor.

‘Do you think he’s flesh and blood?’

‘You mean, do I think he’s one man rather than an amalgam of people using the same name?’

‘That’s part of it,’ Pyke whispered. ‘But I was also wondering whether you’d heard the rumour that Jackman is Captain Paine?’

‘Who did you hear that from?’ The way Godfrey said it showed he was prepared to entertain the possibility.

Pyke ignored the question.

‘Look, Pyke, whether Captain Paine is a fiction or not, he’s someone the poor can cheer for. They see someone who acts rather than postulates. That’s what makes him such a threat.’ Godfrey hesitated, perhaps deciding whether to say what was on his mind. ‘But there was something else…’

‘Yes?’

‘This chap Jackman is rumoured to be something of a ladies’ man. Apparently he’s hung like a donkey.’

Pyke turned to his uncle. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

Up on the platform Munroe was winding up his speech with an attack on vulgarity and drunkenness. ‘Let us put into practice our democratic principles,’ he shouted, his eyes fixed on something over their heads, ‘by seeking the company of sober-minded, virtuous individuals.’ Unsurprisingly, given that most of the people were drinking ale provided by the owner, this drew the first outward signs of dissent. Someone shouted, ‘Give the man a drink,’ and then added, ‘Sit down, you old windbag.’ This got the most raucous cheer of the evening. Then someone began chanting ‘Captain Paine’ and others followed, and soon everyone in the room had joined in, the chanting easily drowning out the end of Munroe’s speech.

Someone jostled them from behind and at first Pyke put it down to an expression of high spirits. He heard some further mutterings and then someone threw some beer over the back of Godfrey’s coat. Laughter ensued and it was only then Pyke realised they were being targeted because of their clothing: because someone had decided they didn’t belong in such a gathering on account of Godfrey’s blue double-breasted jacket and Pyke’s knee-length cutaway coat.

Emily had climbed back on to the platform, together with Julian Jackman. Emily waited for the room to quieten before she said, in a deep, confident voice that surprised Pyke, ‘And that’s why you shouldn’t allow us respectable, bourgeois types anywhere near these meetings.’

It was a direct rebuke to Munroe and it got the biggest cheer of the night.

Next to her, Jackman applauded her comments and commended Captain Paine to the mob.

‘Death to the tyrant Whigs. Pestilence on the villainous Tories.’ Jackman stepped to the front of the platform. ‘Let the swinish multitude rise up and kick our fat masters in the teeth. Cut off their heads and stick them on pikes. What we need is revolution. While we’re at it, let’s throw Bentham and Malthus on the bonfire too. We should be striving for the betterment of the working man and only the working man: the middle classes can take care of themselves as they always have done.’

Those packed into the fetid room rose to their feet to hail his words, throwing their caps into the air.

Turning round, Pyke found himself staring at a fat, whiskered man of about forty wearing a monkey jacket that was too small for him and a stocking-cap pulled down over his forehead. ‘Look at me again, cully,’ he sneered, ‘and I’ll smite your costard.’ He was cross eyed from drink. ‘What are two rum culls like you doing mixing with the riff-raff? Didn’t you hear the man? You ain’t wanted.’

There were many ways in which Pyke could have answered the question, not least pointing to the fine work his uncle did riling the authorities with his unstamped paper the Scourge, but none of them seemed appropriate. So when the man started to pour the rest of his beer over Godfrey’s head, Pyke snatched the bottle from his hand and, in the same movement, smashed it against his jaw, the bottle shattering into hundreds of tiny shards. The ruffian fell backwards into the crowd sitting behind him but someone else, obviously a friend of the injured man, came at Pyke with a knife. Pyke caught him by his lunging wrist and jerked it sharply down, the bone breaking with a clean, satisfying snap. The knife clattered harmlessly on to the floor and the assailant roared with agony, the veins in his neck swollen from the pain. Others might have waded into the dispute as well if someone hadn’t fired a pistol up at the ceiling. The loudness of the blast brought the room to order, and when Pyke looked up, he saw his wife standing next to Jackman on the platform with a pistol in her hand, the acrid smell of blast powder filling the room. Stepping off the platform, Emily made her way through the mob, the men hurriedly clearing a path for her. Maybe she had already seen what had happened or perhaps she suspected that Pyke may have been involved in the rumpus because when she came upon them, surrounded by a mob spoiling for a fight, Emily’s expression didn’t noticeably change.

‘You,’ Emily barked, pointing the pistol at Pyke, and added, without changing her tone, ‘You, too, old man.’

Once Emily had marched them out of the room at gunpoint, and they were out of sight and earshot of the crowd, she turned to Jackman and said, ‘I’d like to introduce my husband, Pyke, and his uncle Godfrey.’ She handed the pistol back to Jackman and added, ‘Pyke, Godfrey, this is Julian Jackman.’