Hell and High Water

  Oh, he had gone through some difficult ones in his life: when he had been cold and hunger had gnawed his insides. But there had always been Pa. Pa, holding Caleb in his arms when he was small, whispering stories in his ear to distract him. And when he had grown too big for Pa’s lap – sitting beside him, Pa’s arm thrown around his shoulders, talking, laughing. Always Pa, minding him when he slept, watching over him, keeping him safe. With Pa gone, Caleb felt shrunken, exposed. Alone in the street through those long hours of darkness he waited and prayed. Prayed and waited. He had stumbled into a nightmare from which he would surely wake.

  It was only at dawn, when black ebbed to grey and red lines threaded the sky that he realized Pa was not coming back. Only then did he think to move from the place he’d waited. If Pa wasn’t returning, why then … he needed to go and find him.

  Getting to his feet, moving slowly, stiffly, as though he’d aged a century in that one night, Caleb began to look for the gaol. He pushed the handbarrow ahead of him. Pa had moved it as though it was no weight at all, with the same unthinking ease with which he powered his own limbs. But for Caleb, in his pitifully anxious state, it was awkward and cumbersome. It tipped on cobbles, twice spilling its load. He righted it. Reloaded. And then the wheels became stuck in a rut. Passers-by cursed his clumsiness. They jeered, they called him foul names and there was no Pa to intercede on his behalf or tell Caleb that they were ignorant fools with no more sense than a gaggle of geese.

  By the time Caleb found the gaol, hands blistered, sweat running in rivulets down his back, Joseph Chappell had been taken to court.

  The wheels of justice turned swiftly that day. It didn’t matter how loudly Joseph Chappell protested his innocence. He was brought before the judge and identified as the culprit by the fine gentleman and several passers-by who had seen him holding the purse. That was all the evidence the judge required. In a matter of minutes he was condemned.

  And the sentence for the theft of a fine silk purse, heavy with coins?

  Death.

  By the time Caleb found the court building the trial was over and done with. It was the clerk who told him, “Judge said he was to be hanged by the neck until he’s dead.”

  Hearing those words, Caleb had to lean against the wall, for suddenly his legs would not bear him. A pain squeezed his chest, as though iron bands had been fastened around his ribs and were being slowly tightened.

  The clerk was utterly unmoved. He yawned deeply, regarding Caleb as though he was of no more interest than a chipped stone on a cobbled street.

  Finally Caleb found his voice. “Hanging? He is to be hanged?” He could not take it in. The words were monstrous! Surely there could be no truth in them?

  “Your master, is he?” asked the clerk, his curiosity stirring.

  Caleb understood the implications of the question. The clerk thought him a slave, and a slave must belong to someone. With Joseph convicted, his worldly goods would be disposed of as the judge saw fit, human chattel included.

  With as much dignity as he could muster Caleb told the clerk, “I am a free man. Joseph Chappell is my father.”

  “Is he now?” A knowing smirk crossed the clerk’s features. “This has been a lucky day for him.”

  “Lucky? How?”

  The clerk tipped his head to one side as if considering whether to answer. At last he said, “The Bishop of Torcester got to hear of it. He came along and spoke up for him. Said Joseph Chappell was a man of good character. That the whole thing was a mistake. I suppose he thought that purse just flew into your father’s hands of its own accord!” The clerk found his own joke so hilarious that he slapped his thigh and roared with laughter.

  The man was vile but Caleb felt a sudden surge of hope. Had the clerk been merely playing a prank this whole time? “A mistake?” he said eagerly. “Yes, indeed it was. Pa is no thief. And so he has been freed?”

  “Lord love you, no! One bishop’s word against a dozen witnesses? And with the victim himself swearing the thief had been caught red-handed? Oh no, no, no… The judge found Joseph Chappell guilty as charged. Couldn’t do nothing else, could he?”

  “And yet you say my father was lucky?”

  “Well, the bishop speaking up came in useful, see? He saved his life, in a manner of speaking.” The clerk yawned again and stretched, taking malicious delight in the fact that he had knowledge Caleb was desperate for. Only when he’d had his fill of amusement did he reveal that the judge had commuted Pa’s sentence from death to transportation. “They’ll take him off to the colonies. America. Maryland or Virginia, I’d say.”

  That was halfway round the world! People who made that voyage never came back. This was scarcely better than a sentence of death. Caleb was on the verge of tears. “Must they take him so far away?”

  “They must. That’s the law, right enough. If I was him I’d be on my knees thanking the Lord. You too. Be grateful for small mercies.”

  Too stunned to reply, Caleb turned his back on the odious clerk. He pushed the barrow back to the prison but he was not permitted to see Pa, the gaoler said, unless, of course, he could make it worth his while. The man held a filthy, outstretched hand under Caleb’s nose so his meaning couldn’t be mistaken.

  Bribery. Pa despised it. And yet how else was Caleb to get in?

  How much should he give? He dropped one coin then two into the gaoler’s palm. The money was quickly pocketed but then the hand was held out once more. Half the previous day’s takings was gone before Caleb was allowed over the threshold.

  The inside of the gaol was no more than a stone barn. Men and women and a few ragged, bony children were herded together in a place where there was not even a pot to piss in. It stank worse than a byre.

  And Pa was not here. Caleb’s eyes ran over the mess of humanity once, twice. He was turning to protest that the gaoler had tricked him when he heard his father’s voice.

  “Oh my boy, I am so glad to see you.”

  Pa was sitting on the floor by the wall. His clothes were torn, smeared with human waste, his powdered wig was gone. Blood had dried on his forehead and cheeks, a dark bruise coloured one eye. He was filthy, with straw in his hair, and grime under his nails. Dear God, Caleb had taken him for a vagrant! To see Pa so degraded was like a blow to the stomach. He couldn’t draw breath.

  Seeing the horror on his son’s face, Pa struggled to his feet and reached out his arms but before they could embrace he folded them over his soiled clothing, hanging his head and saying sorrowfully, “I dare not touch you! I will only make you stink as much as I do.”

  But he was Pa. His Pa. His only family. Caleb stretched his arms around his father’s hunched frame.

  “I don’t know what to do. I am ruined!” Pa whispered. “How could such a thing happen, Caleb? I don’t understand.”

  The ground under Caleb’s feet seemed suddenly to lurch. He’d believed that if he could only see Pa, he would tell him what to do. Pa would have a plan – he always did. There would be an answer. A solution. But there was no sign of that in this bruised, shattered man. Pa was at a loss. As was Caleb. In a small, unsteady voice he asked, “Can nothing be done?”

  “Nothing, nothing, nothing.”

  “But the bishop… Could I not go to him?”

  “Bless the man! He has done all he could. He saved my life, Caleb, he can do no more. It is the law. It is an ass, but it is the law. We must try to accept what Fate has dealt us.” Tears had carved clear furrows through the filth on Pa’s cheeks. “Seven years I will be gone.”

  “Seven years?” Caleb had turned fifteen last winter. He was old enough to be called a man, and yet now – to his shame – he found himself whimpering like an abandoned child. “Where am I to go? How am I to live?”

  “Time’s up.” The gaoler stepped between them. “You got to leave now. Unless you got more.” Out came the grubby palm. Caleb reached for his coins but Pa slapped the gaoler’s hand away.

  “Keep the money, my boy. You will need all you have
.”

  The gaoler went to the door, fingers fumbling to fit key to lock.

  The moment of separation had come. Pa’s hands gripped his son so tightly that the ring on his third finger dug in, bruising Caleb’s arm. For a moment he was himself again. “Follow the river,” he said urgently. “It flows north to the coast. It will take you to Norton Manor, the home of Sir Robert Fairbrother. Can you remember that?”

  “Sir Robert Fairbrother. Yes. But who is he?”

  Pa said only, “I believe his home is close by to Tawpuddle. It will be a grand house, I’m sure. There you’ll find my sister, Anne.”

  “Sister?” Caleb frowned. Pa had always said the two of them were alone in the world. “Is your sister married to Sir Robert?”

  “No! Anne is a maid there.”

  “But…”

  “She will help you. Tell her she must.” A last, desperate look. A promise. “I’ll come back, Caleb. The ocean is wide, but it won’t keep me from you. Be certain of that. I will find you again, my boy, come hell or high water.”

  3.

  Time was out of joint. The world had been tipped sideways. Everything was off balance, gone awry. Two lives had been dissolved in the blinking of an eye. There should have been something to mark the occasion, Caleb thought later. A clap of thunder. A bolt of lightning. Even the mournful tolling of a bell would have sufficed. Instead there was nothing but the sounds of a city going about its business as day turned to evening, careless and unheeding of the tragedy that had unfolded in its streets.

  Questions tumbled together inside his head. This sister. His aunt. Pa had never spoken of her. Not once in all Caleb’s years of life. Why? Had she done something terrible? Had they quarrelled? It was impossible! Pa was the most forgiving of men.

  So what could have caused this utter silence? Was it something Pa had done?

  He felt suddenly sick to the stomach. Oh dear God, was Caleb the reason for the rift? Was she ashamed to have a relative his complexion? Had she turned her back on Pa because of him?

  But if that was so why had Pa told him to go to her now? He must have believed she’d take him in, give him a home. Yet how could he throw himself on the mercy of a complete stranger?

  The sun was already low when Caleb left Torcester. There were two, perhaps three, hours of light before darkness came. He had no home to return to, no possessions to collect. They had carried their worldly goods loaded on the barrow. There was nothing to keep him but the thought of Pa, trapped in that miserable, stinking hellhole of a gaol. And Pa had told Caleb to leave. What could he do but obey? Wheeling the barrow over the cobbled streets, skirting the edge of Gallows Hill, he followed the river out of the city and kept on walking until nightfall. The going was hard. Though mercifully dry, the road was deeply rutted. He had travelled only two or three miles before darkness made going any further impossible. The weather being fine, he lay down – as he and Pa often had – under the stars. Sleep was slow to come. Caleb, who had always longed to be away from the crowds, now found no peace in solitude. A deep, gnawing dread, a weight of guilt clawed at him. He had let Pa down. Why hadn’t he chased the thief? He’d just stood there and let it happen. Why hadn’t he done anything? If he’d thought quicker, acted faster, done something, things would be different.

  * * *

  Caleb was awake long before dawn. As soon as the sky began to lighten he went on, his limbs sluggish, his muscles aching. After about a mile the river and road went their separate ways, one twisting and winding to the right, the other running over a bridge to the left and then heading in a straight line over the hill.

  “Follow the river,” Pa had said.

  Caleb could see that it wound and looped and curled back on itself like an eel. The road would no doubt be easier. But obeying Pa’s instruction was all he could do for his father now. In his grief Caleb reverted to childish superstition: Pa’s command must be followed to the letter or some further, yet more terrible catastrophe would occur. And so he crossed heaths, wormed his way through hedges, waded through mud and mire. When he could not push, he dragged the barrow. By noon his hands had blistered and bled and soon his feet were in the same pitiable state. He struggled through woods, tugging the barrow through snagging brambles, cursing, constantly on the brink of tears of sorrow and frustration.

  Exhaustion had begun to overwhelm him when there was a loud snap and he was thrown onto his back with the force of something that burst from the undergrowth. For a moment he thought a huge animal had attacked him. But no … this was a man-trap, set by some gamekeeper to catch poachers. Most luckily those iron teeth had closed not on his leg, but on the barrow’s wheel, shattering the spokes completely.

  Caleb had Pa’s tools but not his skill with them. He knew he couldn’t repair the wheel, couldn’t even prise it from the trap. He had no choice but to abandon the barrow. As for the theatre, the puppets? For a moment Caleb wavered. He was no showman. It was Pa who had given those wooden dolls life and soul. To him they were nothing but a burden!

  And yet Pa had promised he would come back, and he was a man of his word. When he returned – how could Caleb tell him he’d left the show to rot in the woods?

  Joseph had often carried the theatre on his shoulder, lightly, as though it weighed nothing. Caleb tried to do the same, but his frame was not broad enough. In desperation he tied the puppet sack to his back and dragged the theatre behind him. Snapping a branch from a dead tree, he picked his way slowly through the undergrowth, poking the ground ahead in case other traps were concealed there.

  On he went, following every bend and curve of the river. He lost all sense of time. Day followed day. Night followed night. He picked leaves and dug roots when he came across them. Poached trout from the river. Used Pa’s money to buy an occasional loaf from a house if he passed one. As he trudged onwards he felt a darkness seeping into his mind: it was as though an inkpot had been upset, and the blackness now oozed into every corner.

  The river gradually became wider. Murkier. He could no longer see its stony bed to judge its depth. Its taste began to change. And then one morning Caleb woke to find the water had almost entirely gone. All that remained was a thin trickle gouged deep through the mudflats either side. He leapt to his feet. His first thought was that a monster – an ogre or a giant – had drunk it. But as he watched, little by little the river filled again. He sighed wearily. He was a damned fool! Had his wits entirely deserted him? Hadn’t Pa once bored him half to death in Porlock’s trying to explain Sir Isaac Newton’s scientific theories on the moon and tides? He must have reached the point at which the river became tidal – he was surely nearing the coast? How amused Pa would have been by his thoughts of monsters! He’d have laughed long and loud and Caleb would have joined in until they were both weak with it. The pain of missing Pa hit Caleb like a punch to the head. For a while he was so dizzied with it that he was quite unable to move. But move he must because Pa had told him to. Gathering his belongings, once more he went on.

  As the river changed, so did the trees. The tall, graceful beeches that crowded together near the city were a thing of the past. Now those few that grew looked withered and hunched, as though the land did not give them sufficient nourishment. Oaks at the tops of hills leaned away from the prevailing wind as though they yearned to flee inland and would do so if only their roots did not hold them back.

  The birds too altered with each passing day. There was still the sweet sound of robin and thrush from the woods but now their calls were joined by those of the birds that pecked in the mud at low tide. Some piped shrilly, as though stabbed by sudden, dreadful pain. Others made strange, keening cries that seemed to speak of loss and sorrow. And the gulls! Their cackles sounded like malicious jeers. They mocked Caleb’s struggling footsteps, his laboured breathing, his calloused hands and feet, his sweating brow.

  The journey was hellish, but at last he saw – some distance ahead – a bridge, spanning the river’s broad girth. Beyond it lay a town – a port so bustling
with life and vigour that the shouts and chatter reached him from half a mile distant.

  Caleb had been entirely alone for more days than he cared to count. Suddenly to find himself amongst so many people was enough to make him panic. His guts tied into a knot, his heart lodged in his throat, his teeth were clamped so tight together his jaw began to ache.

  He expected stares. Jeers. To be challenged, perhaps, as a runaway slave. It had happened before and would no doubt happen again. But no one gave him a second glance as he wandered through the teeming crowds on the quay.

  Pa would have loved this place! It was more frantic than Torcester on a market day. Unfamiliar sounds and smells and sights overwhelmed his every sense. There were ships – so many of them! Masts swaying, the creak of timber and rigging, the slap of water against their hulls, and the stink – of salt, of fish, of oakum and tar, of sweat and brandy, ale and tobacco, of midden heaps, piled with shit and rotten food. All around him men yelled oaths and curses. Painted whores sat with skirts hitched up, swinging their legs, shrieking and gossiping. They started to call to him.

  “There’s a handsome lad!”

  “Looking for some sport, lover?”

  “You go with darkies, don’t you, Betty?”

  “I’ll go with anyone, me!”

  Caleb squirmed with embarrassment. He had seen women like that before but Pa had been with him. Pa, with a steadying hand on his shoulder, with an easy manner and ready laugh, sharing a joke with such creatures even as he rejected their offers. All Caleb could do was walk past with his face turned away, their calls ringing in his ears.

  He had no idea of the town’s name and it was a while before he found the courage to ask. At the far end of the quay was a building whose door stood wide open. Inside a line of gentlemen sat at desks writing busily in ledgers. He stepped over the threshold but before he could speak one of the gentlemen asked, “Are you off the Mary-Louise? Do you bring the bill of lading?”