Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

His pleasure increased. “But first,” he said, squatting down while Mr. Sykes and his minions remained standing behind him, “I ’ave to cast me ogles over them boxes an bags, so dub ’em- now! ”

This lecture having informed them that to dub was to open, the convicts unlocked their boxes, spread open their additionals.

Mr. Herbert Hanks was very thorough. By chance he commenced with the belongings of Ike Rogers and his team, whose boxes were smaller, not uniform, and in the case of the two Wiltshire lads, nonexistent. Rags he discarded, clothing he discarded, but each and every rag and item of clothing was nonetheless passed up to Mr. Sykes, who ran them between his hands and squeezed at every tiny swelling. This yielded nothing. Nor did any of the other articles appeal, evidently.

“Where’s yer money?” he demanded.

Ike looked respectfully surprised. “Sir, we have none. We have been in Gloucester Gaol for a year. The blunt got spent.”

“Huh.” Mr. Hanks turned to Richard’s team, eyes glistening. “Rum coves, eh? A lot of loot.” Out of Richard’s box and sacks came the clothing, the bottles and jars, the framed dripstone and several spares, the rags used as packing, the books, the ream of paper, the pens-very curious objects!-and two spare pairs of shoes. He held the shoes up and studied them in disappointment, shrugged at the equally disappointed Mr. Sykes. “Ain’t for nothing ye’re called clodhoppers. No one here got feet that size, cully, even Long Joyce. What is this, then?” he asked, displaying a bottle.

“Oil of tar, Mr. Hanks.”

“An what is this contraption?”

“A dripstone, sir. I use it to filter my drinking water.”

“Water is already filtered in ’ere. Got a big strainer under every pump. What’s yer name, big feet?”

“Richard Morgan.”

He snatched a list from one of Mr. Sykes’s offsiders and cast his ogles over it; read he could, but painfully. “Not any more it ain’t. From now on, Morgan, ye’re convict number two ’unnerd an three.”

“Yes, sir.”

“A booky cove, I note.” Mr. Hanks riffled through the pages of a few in search of salacious etchings or erotic prose, then laid each one down with a frustrated slap. “An what’s this?”

“A tonic, sir, to cure boils.”

“An this?”

“A salve, sir, for cuts and ulcers.”

“Shite, ye’re an apothecary’s shop! Why’d ye bring all this clutter?” He removed the cork from the bottle of tonic and sniffed suspiciously. “Aaaaaagh!” He slammed it down on the deck and let its cork roll away. “Smells bad enough to come from the river.”

Expression unconcerned, Richard stood while the head gaoler picked up the empty box, shook it to hear if it rattled, rapped all four sides, top and bottom. After which he felt every seam of the sacks. Nothing. He appropriated Richard’s better razor, the strop and whetstone, and Richard’s best pair of stockings. Then he moved on to Will Connelly’s box and bag. Very quietly and unobtrusively Richard knelt to retrieve his tonic, cork it and put it to one side. A glance at Mr. Sykes told him that he was probably expected to repack his things at this juncture, so he nodded to the immobile Rogers and began his task. Rogers and the youngsters followed suit.

Finished with the twelve of them, Mr. Hanks exuded pleasure. “Right, now where’s yer coach wheels? Where’s yer blunt, cullies?”

“Sir, we have none,” said Neddy Perrott. “We have been in gaol for a year and there were women…” He trailed off apologetically.

“Pockets inside out!”

Every coat pocket was empty save Richard’s, Bill’s, Neddy’s and Will’s, stuffed full of books.

“Dowse yer toges-take ’em off!” snapped Mr. Hanks.

Off came greatcoats and suit coats; Mr. Sykes felt over every inch of every one. “Nowt,” he said, grinning.

“Frisk ’em, Mr. Sykes.”

This they interpreted as an order to search their persons; Mr. Sykes proceeded to feel their bodies, with obvious enjoyment when he groped around genitals and buttocks. “Nowt,” he said, exchanging a look of keen anticipation with Mr. Hanks.

“Dowse yer kicks an bend over,” said Mr. Hanks in a resigned but quivering voice. “Though I am warning youse! If Mr. Sykes ’ere finds any coach wheels up yer arses, ye’ll wash ’em in yer blood.”

Mr. Sykes was brutally, lingeringly efficient. The four young men and Joey Long wept in pain and humiliation, the others endured it without exclamation or evident discomfort. “Nowt,” said Mr. Sykes. “Fucken nowt-not nuffink, Mr. ’Anks.”

“We are from Gloucestershire,” said Richard as he pulled up his underdrawers and breeches. “It is a poor part of England.”

And I have got your measure. Shame and money. God rot you.

“Take ’em below, Mr. Sykes,” said the gigger dubber, and went off into the warren of shacks a disappointed man.

As ofthis January 28, 1786, Ceres held 213 convicts; the twelve from Gloucester were admitted as numbers 201 to 213, Richard at 203. The only gaoler, however, who used their numbers was Mr. Herbert Hanks of Plumstead Road, near the Warren, Woolwich.

Someone in his wisdom-probably to placate the felons of the London Newgate, who loathed associating with hicks-had separated the London Newgaters from the hicks by putting them on different decks. The London Newgaters occupied the lower deck and the hicks occupied the orlop deck. Or perhaps this wisdom stemmed from the perpetual war which went on between the London felons and all the non-Londoners on Censor and Justitia, wherein everybody was so hopelessly intermingled that not even Mr. Duncan Campbell could unravel the tangle. With Dunkirk in Plymouth he was to go further than with Ceres, segmenting the ship to create seven convict compartments according to a system of classification he had concocted himself.

The divisions between Englishmen were very deep. Those who used the London Newgate flash lingo spoke what sounded like an alien tongue, though many could-if pushed to it, and in a bizarre accent-speak a more general kind of English. The problem was that by far the greater number of them refused to as a matter of principle, preferring their flash exclusivity. Those from the lands of the north as far south as Yorkshire and Lancashire could more or less comprehend each other’s speech, but, no matter how literate, could not make head or tail of anyone who hailed from farther south. Complicated by the fact that Liverpudlians spoke something known as Scouse, another foreign language. The Midlanders could communicate fairly well with those from the West Country and both these groups could understand convicts from Sussex, the Channel parts of Kent, Surrey and Hampshire. But those from the Thames part of Kent spoke something akin to flash lingo, and the same had to be said of those from the parts of Essex closest to London. As for those from north Essex, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Lincoln-quite different again. So polyglot was this assemblage of Englishmen, indeed, that Censor owned two convicts from Birmingham who could not understand each other; one had lived in the village of Smethwick, the other in the village of Four Oaks, and neither had been a mile from home until caught in the judicial net.

The result was that people clumped. If one group of six could understand another group of six, they mingled to some degree. When dialects or accents became insuperable, the twain never met. The Gloucester men therefore entered a divided camp, united only in a universal hatred of the London Newgaters one deck up, who were said to get the lion’s share of everything from grub to cheaper gin because they and the gaolers could understand each other and were allied in depriving the non-Londoners of their rightful share.