Quincunx

  “I wish I had another,” said the crippled boy.

  At that moment the boy who had lighted the dip said: “Here’s one I was keeping for later.”

  He brought over a potato and I accepted it. It was half-raw inside and burnt outside, but I ate it with as much pleasure as if it had been the most exquisite delicacy.

  The boys now gathered round me and in the faint light of the guttering dip I saw a circle of drawn, pale faces with sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks. The three largest boys were in rather better sort than the others, all of whom were emaciated, clad in rags, filthy, and infested with vermin, especially their shaggy heads which they constantly scratched.

  “Who sent you here, Cloth-Ear?” demanded the largest and oldest. He had a somewhat brutal face with a broken nose. He was stuffing a pipe as he spoke and now leaned forward to light it at the candle.

  “Don’t call me that. My name is John.”

  He and the burlier of the two other biggest boys looked at each other quickly as if secretly amused, then he gripped me by the throat and forced my head back: “I’ll call you what I please. I’m captain here. Now answer my question. Who sent you here?”

  “M-My mother.” I gasped.

  “Who is your father?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  He said something brutally coarse and his companion laughed noisily, revealing that he had only a few blackened stumps for teeth. Then he banged my head against the wall and let go of me so that I fell to the ground. He and the other boy walked away.

  Richard helped me to my feet.

  “Why does your mother want you out of the way?” he asked matter-of-factly. “Out of the way?” I repeated.

  For answer he drew one hand across his neck and smiled grimly. “I don’t understand,” I said. “I’ve been sent here because my mother’s friends want me to be safe.”

  The boys laughed joylessly.

  “Oh you’ll be made safe all right,” said the one who had given me his potato.

  “My mother does not mean me harm,” I protested.

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “We were all sent here by our friends. Most of us are love-children as I am. My name’s Paul.” He indicated the crippled boy: “That’s Richard. He’s not a love-child. His parents wanted to get rid of him because of his back. But he is,” he said, pointing to the boy with the vacant, staring face. “We call him Big Thom because that’s Little Thom.” He indicated a smaller boy with a sharp-featured countenance and pale eyes.

  “I don’t know what I am,” said Big Thom. “I don’t remember nothing before this. ’Cept beatings.”

  “He was sent here for being disobedient,” Paul went on. “He was wild when he came.”

  Paul pointed out the other, smaller boys and told me their names quickly as if they were of little significance. They were lying down on the straw and pulling it over themselves — indeed, several of them were already slumbering. One was weeping in his sleep and from the darkness the self-proclaimed captain cried out: “Shut thy noise before I shut it for thee, thou mammy-sick babe! And bring that dip over, Paul.”

  Paul quickly lighted another and gave it to Richard.

  “Who are those two?” I asked Richard softly as Paul obediently went over to his captain.

  “That’s Ned,” he answered. “And the other is Bart. His lieutenant. They’re Quigg’s favourites.” In an undertone he added: “Paul’s one of them, too, because he’s older.”

  Ned pulled a pack of cards from under the straw and they began a noisy game of vingt-et-un.

  “What is for early school tomorrow?” Little Thom asked sleepily, lying back on the straw.

  “Threshing and ploughing again,” Richard answered.

  “When will we start proper lessons?” I asked.

  They laughed mirthlessly.

  “What could they teach us?” Richard said. “None of them can even read or write. They have to get their maid-servant or one of us, to deal with their letters.”

  “Is it just in the summer that we work on the farm?” I asked.

  “Bless you, no. The autumn’s the hardest,” said Stephen.

  “When do we start pulling potatoes?” Little Thom asked.

  “Another month at least,” Richard said. “But that’s no good. You can’t eat murphies raw.”

  “Yes,” Stephen agreed, “carrot and turnip-pulling are best for that.”

  “I found some mushrooms this afternoon,” said Little Thom.

  “Did you eat them?”

  “No, I didn’t dare. They weren’t like any mushrooms I’ve ever seen.” Cautiously he pulled something out of his pocket and opened his palm. Richard held the dip over them and we all leaned forward.

  “Where did you find them?” Richard asked.

  “By the gate from the yard into the Fifteen-Acre. Just by where Davy is. Does anyone know, dare I eat them?”

  I recognised them from my mushrooming expeditions with Sukey. “No,” I said. “You certainly can’t. They’re called Death-caps and they’re very dangerous.”

  “Are you sure?” Little Thom said disappointedly.

  “Yes. Give them to me and I’ll throw them away.”

  “Oh,” he said, “I know a trick worth two of that.”

  I didn’t understand for a moment what he meant. “No, I’m not going to eat them,” I said. “Put them on the ground.”

  Suspiciously he did so and I put my foot on them and crushed them into the mud and straw of the floor.

  “Hush!” Richard whispered suddenly, and we all fell silent, our ears straining.

  We heard what sounded like footsteps at one side of the barn, but then came a low growl and the boys relaxed.

  “It’s only one of the dogs,” Richard said.

  “We were afraid it was Roger,” Stephen explained to me. “He often spies on us like that.”

  He lay back and pulled some straw over himself. In a few minutes he was fast asleep.

  Richard glanced at him: “He is being worked harder than any of us.”

  “Yes,” said Little Thom, “he is being treated the way they did poor Davy. Today he was ploughing for longer than ever.”

  He turned away and began to make preparations for sleep.

  “Ploughing!” I exclaimed to Richard. “Surely he is not strong enough to handle a team!”

  “A team?” He smiled grimly. “You’ll see.”

  “And they’re punishing him more often than any of us,” Little Thom muttered.

  “Yes,” agreed Richard. He added softly: “Just like poor Davy again.”

  “Can you do nothing?” I asked.

  “What?” Richard demanded.

  “Can you not tell your friends when you write?”

  “Write?” Richard cried. “You are green! We cannot send letters.”

  “But do you never go home?”

  “Never,” Richard said. “The fees cover the holidays as well.”

  “But do your friends never visit you?”

  “Our friends!” Richard exclaimed. “Do you think we would be here if they cared for us?”

  “Then can you not escape?”

  “Where to?” asked Richard. “If we had anywhere to go or anyone who wanted us we would not be here.”

  “But wouldn’t anywhere be better than this?”

  “It’s impossible to escape from here,” Richard said. “Nobody ever has.”

  As if to mark his words, the dip guttered and went out. The others now lay down and prepared to sleep and I did the same, pulling the straw about myself. It stuck into me most painfully and the dust made me gasp and splutter. Since I had eaten nothing since breakfast at the inn, apart from the potato Paul had given me, I was so hungry that I was in pain.

  Why should Mr Steplight have brought me to this place when he had stressed that it was so clearly in Sir Perceval’s interest that I should be well looked after? Could it be that Mr Steplight did not understand what kind of establishment it was? Surely not, for he had
met Quigg and seen Stephen and the other boys. In that case, was he deceiving Sir Perceval? Or, a more frightening thought, could it be that the baronet was acting dishonourably towards my mother and myself? Was it, as I had asked the attorney during the journey, because he no longer needed me now that he had the codicil and was going to destroy it?

  I wondered if there were any way to smuggle a letter to my mother, but then I reflected that it would merely torment her for she would be powerless to do anything. To come and fetch me away — even if it were in her power to release me from Quigg — would be far beyond her pocket.

  One thing was clear to me: I had to escape. And it had to be sooner rather than later because I could see how much stronger I was than all but the three biggest boys. It was plain to me that, worked and fed as the others were, I would be getting weaker and weaker from that moment. Eventually, worn down by the exertions of the day I fell asleep.

  The next morning we were awoken early by Hal and Roger entering the barn and laying about them with their whips. They had a stack of wooden platters which they threw to the ground as we scrambled for them, and then they ladled from a bucket a helping of cold oat-porage which, I realized later, was always cooked — or, rather, over-cooked — the evening before with the potatoes and left to cool overnight. Immediately after this we were driven out into the yard and divided into two work-gangs. I was allocated to Hal’s and, with three or four others, was led by him out of the yard. As we went through the gate into a big field I noticed a number of Death-caps in the weeds near some grassy mounds and a newly-dug heap of earth. Hal marched us to a distant field where we were put to clearing stones and then building a boundary-wall with them. Stephen had gone off with Roger’s gang.

  The labour was not as arduous as threshing had been the day before, and we were not so closely under the over-looker’s observation. And so as I worked I was able to think about the way of dividing up dinner that I had seen the previous evening and that the boys had told me was practised every night. It meant that the biggest boys obtained far more than their fair share while the smallest obtained too little — and Stephen almost nothing — and merely wasted their strength in hurting each other. It occurred to me that Mr Silverlight would have insisted — and Mr Pentecost have denied — that there was a better way. And surely Mr Silverlight was correct.

  Hal allowed us half-an-hour to rest after our “piece”, and then we worked on until late afternoon, when we returned for dinner. Just as on the previous day, the brothers tipped the buckets of potatoes into the trough and we had to wait while Quigg delivered his usual oration, then clapped his hands as the signal to rush forward and begin struggling for the potatoes.

  Again, I hung back and noticed that Stephen did the same. As before, the bigger boys made off with an armful and both Richard and Big Thom managed to wrest several potatoes from the younger boys by using their comparative size and strength, while Little Thom also did fairly well by picking up any that were dropped in the mêlée. Once again the losers were the smallest boys who were reduced to fighting over the few potatoes remaining.

  While I was watching this, Quigg suddenly came up behind me and seized me by the hair, raising me to tip-toe.

  “Art tha trying to cheat me?” he asked.

  “What do you mean, sir?” I gasped.

  “Dost reckon that if tha dostna eat tha munna be made to work?” he snarled. “But tha sall see: I sall get my share of work from tha.”

  He slapped me hard on the face and the force of the blow, as he simultaneously released his grip on my hair, felled me. As I picked myself up it occurred to me that he paid no attention to the fact that Stephen was similarly making no attempt to fight for food.

  When the Quiggs had gone, securing the door behind them and then releasing the dogs, I said to my friends: “Why do you let them make you do that?”

  “What other way is there?” Richard asked as he handed a potato to Stephen and then offered one to me.

  “No,” I said. “I won’t take it because you fought for it.”

  I saw Stephen redden at the implied reproach.

  “What should we do?” Richard asked.

  “We should divide them up fairly. Everyone should get two, three, or four, according to his size, and after that the remainder should be divided equally. That is the principle of Equity.”

  I had spoken loudly enough to be heard by the others:

  “Stuff!” jeered Ned. “This is the fairest way. The ones who need it most are the strongest and so they get what they need.”

  “Aye,” said Bart. “What’s fairer than that?”

  “You get more than you need,” I said. “While others get too little or nothing.”

  “So what?” Ned sneered and turned back to his game of cards.

  “Don’t you see,” I said to the others in an undertone. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We out-number the other three and we could seize all the food and divide it up fairly.”

  The very thought frightened them, and yet I could see that it excited them, too. They resisted, but their argument amounted to no more than that because it had always been done that way, there was no other way of doing it, and by the time I settled down to sleep I believed I had won my case.

  The next day I was assigned to Hal’s work-gang again and spent the day collecting stones as before. I took the opportunity, during our baiting-time, to tell the other boys what had been agreed the previous night and, though fearfully, most of them consented to support me. Richard had done the same in Roger’s gang and so that evening, when Quigg gave the signal for us to start fighting, nobody moved. Somewhat surprised, Ned and Bart swaggered forward and collected an armful each but Paul, whom I had forewarned, hung back. As the captain and his lieutenant began to move away, I moved forward and seized some of the potatoes. This was the agreed signal, and to my relief enough of the other boys now supported me to enable us to over-power Ned and Bart. I threw them four potatoes each and shared out the others.

  The Quiggs were amazed at this turn of events and accused me of being a trouble-maker and of having arranged the whole thing to get more food for myself. Obviously at a loss as to their course of action, they contented themselves with driving us with brutal blows of their whips into the barn. When they had left us I told Ned and Bart that from henceforth this was the way that the food was to be shared out. They were sullen and said very little, but Paul agreed to abide by the new rules.

  The next day Quigg himself took a gang to which I was assigned and I spent an exhausting day threshing corn. When the signal was given at dinner-time no-one moved except me, and I shared out the food as before. The Quiggs, who were furious again, urged Ned and Bart to fight us but, seeing how united we were, they declined.

  The rest of the boys were euphoric at their victory and I was particularly gratified to think that Stephen would at last be receiving his fair share, for he seemed to me to be visibly weaker even than when I had arrived.

  The next day I was assigned to Roger’s gang and so was with Stephen for the first time. To my bewilderment, as we set off Roger threw at him a kind of leather harness attached to wide pieces of leather and made him, helped by Little Thom and myself, carry a heavy two-handled wooden implement consisting of a beam about six feet long with a triangular metal blade at the end.

  When we reached the field we were to work in, the mystery was solved. To my amazement Stephen secured the harness round his waist, thereby attaching the pieces of leather to his thighs. He then held the implement before him and I now realized it was a breast-plough. The field had been harvested and our task was to burn-brake it which is to say, to pare the stubble so that it could be burnt. This meant that Stephen had to push the heavy share before him with his thighs which were protected by the leather clappers. My task was to walk ahead of him pushing the picket, the blade, from side to side at the correct level. I found this extremely hard work — and somewhat dangerous — but the effort required by Stephen to supply the driving force must have b
een far more arduous.

  “Can’t you let it rise?” he gasped once while Roger was watching the others who were removing stones, digging drainage-ditches, and repairing walls.

  I realized that it was easier to cut the stubble the higher the blade was, and so I let the picket rise. But when Roger came back he quickly noticed and cut me with the whip. And so after this I only dared ease Stephen’s labour very briefly when Roger was not near, even though he begged me to do it more often.

  Roger stayed near us sauntering about smoking his pipe but occasionally running with his whip raised to strike at any of the others whom he suspected of slacking. He gave us all fewer and shorter rests than his brother did, but it was clear to me that he was determined to work Stephen and myself particularly hard.

  After a couple of hours Stephen was so exhausted that he could hardly stand. Seeing this, Roger walked behind him constantly striking him on the shoulders with the whip.

  At last I cried out: “Let me do it! You’re killing him!”

  Roger looked at me with a strange smile: “Tha’rt in a hurry,” he said. “Wait tha turn.”

  At least, I reflected as Little Thom and I helped Stephen to stagger home at the end of the day, he would get his handful of potatoes. However, I noticed that the Quiggs seemed unusually pleased with themselves and when the time came for the distribution of the food, I found out why.

  When the potatoes had been emptied into the trough Roger and Hal placed themselves between it and us and then Quigg beckoned Ned, Bart, and Paul forward and told them to help themselves to as many as they could carry.

  “Don’t, Paul!” I called out, earning myself a lash from Roger’s whip.

  “Hold hard, lad,” Quigg said to his son, to my astonishment. He grinned at me: “Let him see he’s beat fair.”

  The triumvirate began to eat the potatoes and when they had almost all gone, Quigg picked out about half of the rest of us — including the two Thoms but not Richard or Stephen or me — and ordered them forward. Then he told them to eat as many of the remaining potatoes as they could. After glancing anxiously at us, they began to do so.

  “Stop!” I cried. “Share them with us or we’ll all be the worse of it.”