Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

The convicts destined for shore duty had already gone when Richard’s lighter ferried its complement of four dredging teams slightly downriver of the ship and somewhat closer to the shore. His dredge was the first of the four, moored by chains on both sides of both ends. It was a true barge, absolutely flat-bottomed and rectangular in shape, its hull (it had neither bow nor stern) curving out of the water at each end to make it easy to run aground and climb on and off when unloading. Being new, its interior was empty, its paintwork unsullied.

They stepped over the gunwale of the lighter onto a five-foot-wide plank platform which ran down one side of the barge only; no sooner was Jimmy Price, the last man, out of it than the lighter shoved off and headed for the next dredge some 50 yards away. After a wave for Ike and his youngsters, they turned to inspect the premises. One end of the barge was a simple shell, whereas the other had a broad deck on which stood a small wooden shack complete with iron chimney stack. Feeling the impact of men coming aboard, their keeper strolled out of his domain puffing away at a pipe of tobacco, a bludgeon in his other hand.

“We do not,” said Richard instantly and courteously, “speak the flash lingo, sir. We are from the West Country.”

“S’all right, cullies, that don’t worry me.” He inspected them. “Ye’re new to Ceres.” As no one volunteered to comment on this observation, he continued to converse with himself. “Ye’re not that young, but ye’re real strong-looking. Might get a few tons of ballast out o’ ye before ye weaken. Any of ye dredgemen?”

“No, sir,” said Richard.

“Thought not. Any of ye swim?”

“No, sir.”

“Best not lie to me, cullies.”

“No lies, sir. We do not come from swimming parts.”

“What about I throw one of ye in to find out, eh?” He made a sudden move at Jimmy, who squealed in terror, then on each of the others in the row, watching their eyes. “I believe ye,” he said then, returned to his shack, disappeared inside and emerged with a chair, upon which he sat himself, one shin resting on the other leg’s knee, pipe blowing a delectable cloud their way. “Me name is Zachariah Partridge and ye call me Mister Partridge. I am a Methodist, hence the name, and I have been a dredger since me youth in Skegness on the Wash, which is why I do not care for flash lingo. In fact, I asked Mr. Campbell to make sure I did not get no Londoners. Wanted some Lincoln men, but West Country ain’t bad. Any of ye from Bristol or Plymouth?”

“Three from Bristol, Mr. Partridge. I am Richard Morgan, the other two Bristolians are Will Connelly and Neddy Perrott.” He pointed each man out. “Taffy Edmunds is from coastal Wales, Bill Whiting and Jimmy Price are from Gloucester.”

“Then ye know a bit about the sea.” He leaned back in his chair. “This here establishment aims at deepening the channel by dredging out the mud on the bottom with that”-he waved his hand at what looked like a giant, gape-mouthed purse-“bucket. It runs around a chain-there at your feet now, but waist level when bucket is in-which can be shortened or lengthened according to the depth of the water. Adjusted just right for this here spot, did it meself.”

Clearly enjoying giving this oration (though there seemed to be no malice in him), Mr. Zachariah Partridge spoke on. “Ye might well wonder why this spot? Because, cullies-that be a word I have picked up local-like-the Royal Arsenal over there supplies the entire army with ordnance, yet there ain’t a tenth enough wharfage for the ordnance tenders. Your colleagues in crime on shore are building the new wharves by filling in the marshes around the Warren. And we dredgemen give them their ballast, which of course they have to mix with rock, gravel and lime, else it would all wind up back in river.”

“Thank you, Mr. Partridge, for explaining,” said Richard.

“Most folk never do, do they?” He waved at the huge purse again. “That there bucket goes in water at my end and comes up where the davit is down far end. If ye do the job right, it will hold fifty pounds of mud and muck-terrible, some of the things what come up! This here barge holds twenty-seven tons of ballast, as we dredgemen refer to it. That means ye will have to dredge up one thousand, one hundred buckets of ballast to fill it. This being winter, ye’ll work six hours-they waste two hours getting ye here and back again. A good day’s work will give me twenty buckets, which is half a ton. Subtracting”he is literate and numerate, thought Richard“Sundays and allowing for another day a week for foul weather, especially this time of year, ye should fill this here establishment with ballast in about ten weeks. When it is full it is towed to the Warren, where ye’ll shovel it out before it is towed to a new spot and ye start again.”

He loves facts and figures; he is a disciple of John Wesley; he is not from London; and he enjoys what he does-particularly because he does not have to lift a finger. How then do we burrow our way into his affections, or, failing that, gain his approval? Is the degree of labor he expects from us feasible? If it is not, then we will suffer in some subtle Wesleyan way. No brute, he.

“Are we allowed to speak to you, Mr. Partridge? For instance, may we ask questions?”

“Give me what I want, Morgan, and ye’ll have no trouble from me. By that I do not mean that I will pamper ye, and if I want, I can break your arm with this here club. But I do not want to, for one good reason. I aim to stand real high in Mr. Campbell’s estimation, and to do that I need to produce ballast. I have been put in charge of this here brand-new establishment because my dredge has always produced the most ballast. You help me, and I might be willing to help you,” said Mr. Partridge, getting up. “I will now proceed, cullies, to tell ye what to do and how to do it.”

The bucket was a thick leather bag about three feet long, with a round maw of iron a little over two feet in diameter. Fused to the iron on its underside was a steel extension shaped like an oval spoon, shallow and sharp-edged. A chain was attached to either side of the iron ring and joined in a Y to the single chain which ran, uninterrupted, in a circuit from one end of the barge to the other with sufficient slack to put the bucket on the river bottom. The chain went around a winch which dropped the bag into the water at Mr. Partridge’s end; it sank under its own weight, its leather butt tethered to a rope manipulated from the barge. A geared and pulleyed davit at the other end dragged the iron maw and its steel spoon along the bottom gathering in mud. When the bucket reached the end of the run the davit exerted a vertical pull; up it came, dripping, was swung inboard by turning the davit and hung over the ballast compartment. Then, working the rope on its butt, the bag was upended and vomited its contents. It came down, empty, ran along its chain to the winch, and went over the side again for its next meal of Thames mud.

Getting used to the job took a full week, during which Mr. Partridge did not see anything like his expected half-ton a day. He was calculating upon one bucket every twenty minutes, whereas the new team took an hour. But Mr. Partridge said and did nothing, simply sat on his chair and sucked at his pipe, a mug of rum at his feet and all the activity of the great river to occupy his attention when he was not staring contemplatively at his toiling team. A dinghy was attached to the barge by a painter, which may have meant that he rowed himself ashore at the end of the day, though he seemed to spend at least some nights on board, for he bought wood for his stove and food for his larder from two of the hordes of bum boats which plied their wares around the river; his rum and his ale came from a third.