Antonia Hodgson - The Devil in the Marshalsea

‘Be quiet, you dogs,’ Cross snarled as he passed, slamming his club hard against the doors. ‘Or we’ll leave you locked up in there all day.’

The cries turned to whimpers, then silence. Cross gestured to Chapman, who began pouring the liquor he’d brought with him into wooden cups. Jakes grabbed one and passed it over. ‘Not yet,’ he said, stopping me as I brought it to my lips. He passed me a neckerchief. ‘Cover your nose and mouth.’

The other men were all doing the same, rinsing the cloth in the liquor before tying it tight.

Cross stomped to the building at the far southeast corner, battling hard against the bitter wind. ‘Sick wards first today,’ he called over his shoulder. He pulled a face beneath his neckerchief. ‘Get the worst of it over.’

Behind me, Woodburn began to pray softly to himself behind his handkerchief.

The trusties positioned themselves by the door. Cross chose a key from the ring and slotted it into the lock. ‘Stand back,’ he shouted to the prisoners inside. Chapman and the others knocked back their liquor in one quick gulp.

The door swung free.

A foul, putrid stench poured into the yard – so thick and strong we all cried out as one, turning our faces away. It was the festering, heavy stink of disease, of rotting, infected bodies, of men forced to piss and shit and sweat together in an airless cell. There was no escape from it, it clung to my nostrils no matter how hard I pressed the cloth to my face. I began to heave uncontrollably, again and again. I stumbled away, collapsing helplessly to my hands and knees and vomiting across the cobbles until there was nothing left but a thin stream of acid bile.

I stood up at last, half-faint, eyes watering, stomach aching from being turned inside out. By now they had opened up both the men’s and women’s sick wards and were dragging the night’s dead out into the yard, heels scraping the dirt. I clapped my hand across my mouth and looked away, but I could still see the grey, lifeless bodies lined up in a row, even when I closed my eyes. My stomach heaved again.

Cross walked over – to mock me, I thought, but he just picked up my cup and filled it to the brim with liquor.

‘Drink,’ he ordered, thrusting it at me.

I did as I was told, hands shaking, coughing as it scorched a path down my throat. But it was sharp and clean – a welcome relief from the terrible stink of the sick rooms.

Cross swigged from the bottle, swilling it round his mouth before swallowing. ‘Better?’

I nodded weakly.

He studied me with bloodshot eyes, half-curious, half-suspicious. ‘What the hell are you doing here, Hawkins?’

I took another drink. ‘God’s work.’

Cross sputtered his drink on to the cobbles. ‘Well, then,’ he said, when he’d recovered. ‘He must fucking hate you, mustn’t He, sir? Any more meat, Mr Jenings?’

The nightwatchman was carrying a body wrapped in stinking rags out of the women’s ward. It seemed too thin, too light to be human. He laid the bundle gently on the ground next to the others. ‘Just these seven, Joseph.’

Just these seven. My God. No wonder the man was afraid of ghosts.

There was a roll of thunder. The men looked up at the sky as Cross walked slowly from corpse to corpse, eyes narrowed. ‘Five men, two women.’ He nudged the nearest one with his boot. ‘Gaol fever by the looks of it.’

‘Bollocks,’ Jakes muttered in my ear. ‘Starved to death, most of them.’

It started to rain.

Chapman brought a prisoner out from the sick ward, a shaking, sweating skeleton of a man and only a day or two from death himself. Chapman was careful not to touch him – just prodded him forward with his club. The man stared at the row of bodies, no doubt seeing his own future laid out in the dirt before him.

‘Any of these have family?’ Cross asked.

The prisoner nodded. He was shivering hard – feverish.

‘Show me.’

He pointed a grimy finger. Four of them.

‘Right,’ Cross frowned and gestured to a small hut set close to the Common wall. ‘Sling them in the Strong Room with the others.’

I flinched. ‘Others? There are others?’

‘Can’t release the bodies until the family pays the fee. Governor’s rules.’ Cross took another long swig from his bottle and added, idly, ‘Jack Carter’s still in there.’

‘What’s this?’ Woodburn cried, startled. He had been quiet all this time but now he seized Cross’ arm. ‘There must be some mistake. I gave Benjamin the money to release him.’

The trusties opened up the rest of the wards while Woodburn and Cross argued loudly over Jack’s corpse and whether or not it was paid for. It was raining hard now, and lightning flickered in the east over Bermondsey, but the prisoners still streamed out into the open air, desperate to escape their cells at last. The yard was soon crowded with thin, dazed figures. Some were in a better state than others – the porters and servants who had secured jobs on the Master’s Side and could afford to sleep in one of the better wards. Others looked like walking versions of the corpses laid out on the cobbles.

As I looked about me, stunned with the horror of it all, a young woman stumbled past, tears streaming silently down her face. She would have been pretty once but now her skin was covered in weeping sores, as if a hundred hungry mouths had burst out of her flesh. There were a few children running out into the yard now too, half-naked, scalps red and bloody from scratching at the lice crawling in their filthy, matted hair. The youngest, a boy no older than Acton’s son, tottered over to me, holding a tiny scrap of pink silk. He waved it at me shyly.

I turned to Jakes, a hard lump in my throat. We stared at each other for a long moment, the rain soaking us both to the bone.

‘Have another drink,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll get started.’

He strode off through the crowds and into one of the wards. The trusties had finished moving the fresh corpses into the Strong Room. They covered the three without family in old, stained sheets and left them out by the wall. Then they scrambled back to the Master’s Side as fast as they could.

Woodburn hurried over. ‘Mr Hawkins, can you start the rounds without me? I must go with Cross and sort out this business with Jack’s body – it really should have been taken away yesterday.’ He leaned closer. ‘Tell Captain Anderson we’ll bring the food round to the begging grates at six o’clock tonight. Acton will be too busy collecting rent to notice.’ He paused and looked deep into my face, eyes filled with concern. ‘You’ve had a shock. One forgets.’ He patted my arm. ‘You’ve held up well, sir. I fainted the first time.’

‘But you came back.’

Woodburn sighed. ‘This is my flock. How can I abandon them?’ He bowed and hurried away.

I felt a tug on my jacket. The little boy with the scrap of silk had edged close enough to reach me. ‘Bread,’ he pleaded, thrusting the cloth towards me as if it were money.

I shook my head. I couldn’t speak.

He began to sob, held the scrap higher in his tiny fist. ‘ Hungry …’

An elderly woman limped over and smacked the boy hard across the head. ‘Sorry, sir,’ she said, dragging him away, blackened nails digging into his arm. ‘You won’t tell the governor, will you?’

‘They’re only allowed to beg at the grates,’ Jakes said, making me jump. I hadn’t heard him approach. ‘Come on. I’ve found someone who’ll talk.’

Captain Ralph Anderson was prowling the ward like a wild animal. Even Jakes looked wary of him. A wide, badly healed scar cut down his left cheek into his lip – an old wound won in a battle or a brawl (either way I wasn’t about to ask). It would have disfigured a better-looking man but it suited Anderson’s wild, craggy face. There was a look in his eye I’d seen in old fighting bears as they were led out into the ring. Oh, this again. Very well.