John Snaith - The Sailor

A large woman in a torn dress stood at the gate of a rag and bone dealer's yard. The season was November, the hour midnight, the place a slum in a Midland textile town.

Hanging from the wall of the house beyond was a dirty oil lamp round which the fog circled in a hundred spectral shapes. Seen by its light, she was not pleasant to look upon. Bare-armed, bare-headed, savage chest half bare and sagging in festoons, she stood stayless and unashamed, breathing gin and wickedness. A grin of quiet joy was upon her alcoholic countenance. Nay, more than joy. It was a light of inward ecstasy, and sprang from the fact that a heavy carter's whip was in her hand.

Not many feet from the spot on which she stood was the wall of a neighbor's house. Crouching against it so that he was scarcely visible in the darkness was a boy of thirteen. Without stockings or shoes, he wore only a filthy shirt, a thing that had once been a jacket, and a tattered lower garment which left his thighs half naked.

His face was transfigured with terror.

"Enery Arper," said the woman with a shrill snigger not unlike the whinny of a horse, "Auntie said she'd wait up for you, didn't she? And she always keeps a promise, don't she, my boy?"

The figure six yards away the fog was doing its best to hide cowered yet closer to the wall.

"And what was it, Enery, that Auntie promised you if you come 'ome again with ninepence?" The wheeze of the voice had a note of humor.

The boy was wedged so close to the wall that he had barked the skin off his bare knees. The woman, watching him intently, began to trail the heavy lash on the cobbled yard.

"Said she'd make it up to a shillin' for you, didn't she? … if you come 'ome again with ninepence. Said she'd cut the heart out o' you … same as if it was the eye of a pertater."

A powerful arm was already loose. The eye of an expert had the distance measured to a nicety.

"Clean out."

A scream followed that was not human. The heavy whip had caught the boy round the unprotected thighs.

"I'll do ye in this time."

Mad with pain and terror the boy dashed straight at her, charging like a desperate animal, as with leisurely ferocity she prepared for a second cut at him. The impact of his body was so unexpected that it nearly knocked her down.

It was his only chance. Before she could recover her balance he was out of the gate and away in the fog. A lane ran past the yard. He was in it before the whip could reach him again; in it and running for his life.

The lane was short, straight and very narrow, with high walls on both sides. A turn to the right led through a small entry into a by-street which gave access to one of the main thoroughfares of the city. A turn to the left ended in a blank wall which formed a blind alley.

By the time the boy was halfway down the lane, he realized that in his mad terror he had turned to the left instead of to the right. There was no escape. He was in a trap.

A moment he hesitated, sick with fear. He could hear the heavy footfalls of his pursuer; as she plowed through the fog he could hear her wheezy grunts and alcoholic curses.

"Took the wrong turnin', eh?" She was within ten yards. "Hold on a minute, that's all, young man!"

In sheer desperation the boy ran on again, well knowing he could not get beyond the wall at the bottom of the lane. He could see it already. A lamp was there, faintly revealing its grim outline with fog around it.

"I'll do ye in, by God, I will!"

The voice was so near that his knees began to fail. Overcome with terror he threw himself on the ground near the wall. He had neither the strength nor the courage to try again the trick that had saved him a minute ago.

He knew she was standing under the lamp, he knew she was looking for him.

"Ah, Enery, I see yer," she said, with a savage laugh.

Content to know there was no escape for him she paused to get her breath.

The boy began to wriggle along under the lea of the wall, while she stood watching him. The wall was old, and all at once he made a discovery. Close to his head was a small hole, where three or four bricks had fallen out. It was a mere black space, leading he knew not where. But he didn't hesitate. Hardly knowing what he did, he squeezed his head through the hole. And then with the frenzied desperation of a rat in a trap he dragged his body after it.

An oath came from the woman under the lamp, a short ten yards off. She sprang at the wall. She lashed at it again and again, cursing horribly. But it was no use. Her prey had escaped with one savage cut across the heels. She continued to lash at the hole, but the boy was out of her reach.

Where was he? He didn't know. Half dead with fear he could hear her lashing at the wall, but she wouldn't be able to get at him.

With a great effort he rose from his hands and knees. He had hardly strength to stand up. He seemed to be in a sort of garden. There was mold under his feet. It was too dark to see it, but he knew by the smell; also it was damp and sticky. He moved a few yards and his feet became entangled among roots and bushes. And then suddenly a dog began to bark and his heart stood still.

For quite a minute he dared not move another step. The dog sounded very near, yet he could not return by the way he had come. No, in spite of the dog he must find another outlet from this garden. Very cautiously he moved a yard or two, and then stopped to listen. Shaking with terror he then moved on again.

Groping about in the fog and darkness, his teeth chattering with cold, his brain quite numb, it seemed that he would never be able to find a way out. Where was he? He had no idea of anything except the ground under his feet. Now it was a stretch of gravel, now a rubbish heap, now moist earth, now roots and bushes, and then finally, after the lapse of hours as it seemed, he came up against a wall.

It might be the wall through which he had crept. Of that he could not be sure, but yet he did not think it was. He began to follow the line of it, taking care to do so in the opposite direction to the dog whose barking was incessant. As he walked he rubbed his hands along the surface of the wall in the hope of finding a gate.

For a long time he groped through the darkness, but came upon nothing in the least resembling a gate. Again he grew desperate. He would have to wait there until daylight. But he simply dared not do that with the dog straining at his chain, seemingly, only a very few yards off.

Sick with cold and shaking in every limb he began to cry feebly. His knees were knocking, he was at the end of his wits. There was no way out of the garden, yet if he stayed in it the dog would kill him. Suddenly he decided upon the only possible course; he must climb the wall. Not knowing its height, or what there was beyond, or whether it was merely the wall of a house, he began to "shin" up it for all he was worth, grasping its rough surface as well as he could with his hands and his knees and his bare toes. There must be some kind of a top to it, and when the dog broke his chain, as every moment he threatened to do, he might not be able to reach him.

Wild and precarious struggling, in the course of which he was several times within an ace of toppling backwards into the garden, brought his numb fingers at last to a kind of coping. He had just strength enough to draw up his body on to the narrow ledge, only to find that he could not possibly remain on it. The top of the wall was sown thickly with broken glass.

He knew his hands and knees were cut, yet he could hardly feel anything. There was only one thing to do now; he must jump for it – one side or the other. He came to no deliberate decision; at that moment he was completely unbalanced in body and mind, but a voice inside him said suddenly: