Chapter 6:
IN THE MIDDLE OF WYNTER
Morning arrived early on Little Saltee, heralded by a single cannon shot aimed towards the mainland. The shot was a Saltee tradition that had been missed only twice in the six hundred years since King Raymond II had inaugurated the custom. Once in AD 1348 when an outbreak of plague wiped out half the population in less than a month, and then again in the Middle Ages when Eusebius Crow’s pirate fleet had all but overrun Great Saltee. The single cannon shot served both to awaken the prisoners and to remind Irish smugglers, brigands or even government forces that the Saltee forces were vigilant and ready to repel all attackers.
Conor Broekhart awoke on a wooden pallet to the sound of cannon echo. He had slept deeply in spite of all that had happened. His body needed time without interruption to repair itself and so had granted him a night of dreamless sleep. Numerous pains assaulted his senses, but the most urgent sang from his left hand.
A Little Saltee kiss.
So it was all real, then. The king’s assassination. The orphaning of dear Isabella, and his own father’s threats of murder.
All real.
Wincing, Conor raised his hand to inspect the wound, and was surprised to find it covered with a neat bandage. Green fluid oozed through the material’s border.
‘Do you like that dressing, boy?’ said a voice. ‘The green muck is Plantago lanceolata. I put some on your face too. Cost me my last plug of tobacco from one of the guards.’
Conor squinted across the cell’s gloom. A pair of long, thin legs poked from the shadows. A skinny wrist was draped over one knee, long fingers tapping imaginary piano keys.
‘You did this?’ asked Conor. ‘The dressing? I have… I had a friend who was good with medicines.’
‘As a young man, I rode with the Missouri Ruffians for a year during the Civil War,’ continued the man, his accent American. ‘I learned a little about medicine. Of course, when they learned that I was a Yankee spy, Jesse James himself took a poker to my skull. I suppose he thought I’d seen enough.’
‘Thank you, sir. I was not expecting kindness in this place.’
‘And you won’t see much,’ granted the Yankee. ‘But what you do see shines like a diamond in a bucket of coal. Naturally, we lunatics are the kindest of the bunch.’
Conor was momentarily puzzled. We lunatics?
Then he remembered that Bonvilain had declared him insane. A turf head, scatterfool.
The American was still talking. ‘Of course, technically, I am an invalid, not a lunatic, but we are all lumped together here on Little Saltee. Lunatics, invalids, violent cases.’ He stood slowly, extending a hand. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Linus Wynter. With a Y. In the middle of Wynter, you understand. You will be seeing a lot of me, but I won’t be seeing much of you, I’m afraid.’
Wynter emerged from the shadows like a stack of brooms falling from a closet. A tall gangle of a man, over fifty, clothed in the ragged remnants of a once-fine evening suit. Like Conor, he wore a bandage. But his was tied across the sockets where his eyes had been. Jesse James had done a thorough job with his poker, the scars of which ran in purple welts across Wynter’s high brow.
Wynter tugged on the bandage. ‘I used to wear an opera mask when I played. Very melodramatic. Very Dickens.’
Conor shook Linus Wynter’s hand as firmly as he could manage.
‘Conor… Finn. That is my name now.’
Wynter nodded, his prominent nose and Adam’s apple sending angular shadows dancing across his face and neck. ‘Good. A new name. In Little Saltee it is better to become a different person. The old Conor is dead and gone. A man needs a new sensibility to survive here. Even a very young man.’
Conor flexed his fingers. Pain scraped his tendons, but everything functioned as it should. He examined his prison cell without enthusiasm. It was as rough and ready as his previous cell with one small barred and glassed window and a couple of wooden pallets.
Something Wynter had said struck him belatedly.
Even a very young man?
Conor waved his hand before Wynter’s eyes. ‘How can you tell my age? Have your other senses compensated?’
‘Yes, they have, so if you could lower your hand. But I know all about you, young Conor Broekhart or Conor Finn, because you were fevered in the night and kept me awake with your babblings. The king? He is truly dead, then?’
Tears welled on Conor’s eyelids. Hearing a stranger say the words aloud had the effect of planting Bonvilain’s deed in the real world.
‘Yes. I saw him dead.’
Wynter sighed long and mournfully, running his fingers through fine greying hair. ‘That is indeed grave news. More than you know. Bonvilain will drag these islands back to the dark ages.’
‘You know Bonvilain?’
‘I know a lot about the affairs of the Saltees.’ Wynter seemed about to elaborate, his mouth open for the next word, when he paused, cocking his head to one side in the manner of a deer that senses nearby hunters. ‘Time for histories this evening. Over dinner perhaps.’ He leaned forward, fingers scrabbling through the air like spiders until they settled on Conor’s shoulders.
‘Now listen to me, Conor Finn,’ he said with some urgency. ‘The guard approaches. They will try to break you today. Watch carefully for trouble. A sly blade. A plank across the shins. Come through this day intact, and tonight I shall teach you how to survive this hell. There is an end to it, and we shall see it, believe me.’
‘Break me?’ said Conor. ‘Why?’
‘It is the way here. A broken man, or even boy, is not likely to upset production. And on Little Saltee production is the real king, not Arthur Billtoe.’
Conor pictured the monkey pirate who had ferried him to the prison. It was unlikely that Billtoe would lift a bejewelled finger to protect Conor.
‘What can I do?’
‘Work hard,’ replied Wynter. ‘And trust neither man nor beast. Especially a sheep.’
Before Linus Wynter could explain this unexpected remark, the door’s heavy bolt scraped through its rings with an almost musical sound.
‘Top C,’ said Wynter dreamily. ‘Every morning. Wonderful.’
This was a noise that Conor would yearn for over the months to come, a noise he heard in his dreams. The latch’s release signified liberation from his dank cell, but also served as a reminder that the liberation was temporary. Social diarists record that survivors of Little Saltee often suffered from insomnia unless their bedchamber doors were fitted with rusted bolts.
Arthur Billtoe peeped round the door, wearing the cheery expression of a kindly uncle waking his nephew for a plunge in the swimming hole. His hair was slicked back with a smear of grease and thick stubble poked through his skin like nails driven from the inside.
‘Ready for the pipe are you, Conor Finn?’ he said, jingling a set of handcuffs.
Wynter’s fingers gripped tight, like coal tongs. ‘Mouth shut. Work hard. Mind the sheep. And don’t cross Mister Billtoe.’
Billtoe entered the cell, clapping the cuffs round Conor’s wrists. ‘Oh yes, never cross me, little soldier. You lay one finger on me and you will be strapped to a low ring at high tide. And as for the sheep. Wise words from the blind man. Sheep are not for stewing here on Little Saltee.’
All this talk of sheep was strange and ominous. Conor guessed that he had a surprise coming, and not the jolly kind.
Traditionally in hostelries and even in prisons around the globe, breakfast is served before a shovel is lifted. Not so on Little Saltee. Here the morning meal was used as an incentive to work harder. No diamonds, no bread. It was a straightforward equation that had proved effective for centuries. Conor had expected a detour to a mess hall, but instead was led directly to the diamond mine, or the pipe, as the prison’s occupants called it.
Billtoe explained Little Saltee’s routine on the way.
‘Salts with a tum full of grub are inclined to be satisfied and dopey,’ he said, chewing on a hank of bread, which he stored in his pocket between bites.
To Conor, who hadn’t tasted a morsel in twenty-four hours, this was yet another form of torture. His hunger pangs were soon subdued by Billtoe’s revolting habit of half swallowing each mouthful, then regurgitating it to relish the taste once more. Each regurgitation was accompanied by a convulsion that ran along Billtoe’s spine like a flicked rope.
Though Conor was repulsed, he knew his hunger would soon return, gnawing on the lining of his stomach, as if his body had turned on itself in desperation. He was distracted from his hunger by the peal of a church bell in the distance. This was something of a mystery in such a godforsaken place.
Billtoe seemed cheered by the sound.
‘Say your prayers, boy,’ he cackled.
The guard jabbed his rifle butt into Conor’s spine, pushing him along a cobbled passageway lit by torches and dawn glow from roof portholes. The surf crashed against the granite wall on their left, which was half-natural half-hewn as though the island was growing through the structure. Each wave crash shook the entire corridor and set a hundred rivulets pulsing through mortar as crumbly as cheese.
‘Below sea level, we are,’ explained Billtoe, as though Conor needed telling. ‘A while back the prison and the mine were two separate things. But the Trudeaus’ greed and the inmates’ labour drew them together. The prison basement was heading that way and eventually the two met up. Just a matter of bashing through a wall. It was fortunate for us guards in the mad wing. Now there’s no need for us to venture out in the elements — we let the lunatics work the pipe. Half the time they don’t even know it’s dangerous and most of them will work until their hands bleed if you tell ’em that’s what Mummy would want.’
This exposition was delivered in a cheery tone that belied Billtoe’s cruel nature. If it had not been for the gun butt in his back and the burning Saltee kiss on his hand, Conor might have believed the guard a decent man.
They passed along a maze of corridors, dotted with strong doors and collapsing arches. The entire prison basement seemed in danger of imminent cave-in.
‘Looks like the whole place is coming down, don’t it?’ said Billtoe, reading Conor’s expression. ‘It’s been looking like that since I got here. Doubtless this pit will outlive you. Though you being a Salt, that’s not much of a boast.’
Salt. Conor had heard the term before. This was what Little Saltee inmates were called. Forever branded as such by the S on their hands. He was a Salt now.
They emerged from the corridor into an open area, which may have been a pantry in previous centuries. The walls were smeared with faded spice marks and flour swabs. The central flags had been excavated and ladders thrown down to the area below. Roughly a score more guards stood around, tooled with standard rifles but also more personal weapons. Conor spotted Indian blades, whips, dirks, cutlasses, American six-shooters, blackjacks and even one samurai sword. The Saltee tradition of hiring mercenaries had left its mark on local weaponry. The guards lounged about, smoking, chewing and spitting. They feigned easiness, but Conor noted that every last man of them had a fist on some weapon or other. This was a dangerous place to be, and it didn’t do to forget it.
The ladders dropped down to open water. Deep, black and ridged with whatever light could find it. More guards were ranged about the cave walls below, keeping their boots above the water line. Several convicts wrestled with a scaffolding rig, taking the weight of a huge brass bell which swung pendulously in the confined space, knocking stone splinters from the cave wall where it struck and sending huge cathedral bongs booming through the upper level.
‘Welcome to the pipe,’ said Billtoe, spitting breadcrumbs.
Conor knew something of the island’s geology from Victor’s teachings and quickly realized what was happening here. The Saltee diamond pipe was brewed in the gullet of a volcano on the other side of the world, sliced off by a glacier and deposited off the Irish coast. This meant that someday the diamond supply would run out, especially considering the constant and eager mining by the Trudeau family. This was not the first time underwater mining had been used to bolster diamond supplies, but King Nicholas had banned the practice within six months of his coronation. This brass bell was a diving bell, from the belly of which prisoners could chip rough diamonds from the underwater section of the pipe. King Nicholas’s decrees were being overturned before his body was cold. Bonvilain had clearly been plotting for long bitter years.
‘That bell is ancient,’ Conor said, almost to himself. ‘It must be a hundred years old.’
Billtoe shrugged theatrically, then unlocked Conor’s handcuffs. ‘That fact doesn’t bother me, being that I’m not the one going down in it, thank God. A man could get hurt and worse, as you will find out this fine morning. Down you go.’
Another shove from Billtoe’s rifle butt sent Conor stumbling towards a broad ladder poking from the cave’s shadows. The ladder beams jabbed him in the chest, preventing a tumble into the hole, and the end of a very short mining career.
‘One coming down,’ Billtoe shouted.
The senior guard scowled up through the gloom. Conor recognized him as Billtoe’s partner of the previous evening. His main distinguishing features were a seeming lack of any hair and a pinched stance, which made him seem almost hunchbacked.
‘We don’t need another, Arthur,’ he cried. ‘Full complement, we have. Even if a few croak it in the bell.’
Billtoe took Conor by the scruff, urging him on to the ladder. ‘That’s enough out of you, Pike. This is Marshall Bonvilain’s special boy, remember? He needs to be looked after.’
Pike’s expression changed from wheedling to leering. ‘Ah, the special boy. The little prince. Send him down. I have a few rams waiting to bump horns with him.’
Sheep again. What could it mean?
Billtoe stepped on Conor’s fingers, forcing him down a rung. ‘Down you go, Conor Finn. Don’t make me break your fingers. These are good boots and Salt blood would ruin ’em on me.’
There was a curious, expectant silence as Conor climbed down into the pit. He could feel the temperature drop with every rung, until the cold of the water crept from its surface like an invisible cowl draping itself heavily on Conor’s shoulders. He was really scared during those moments. Almost too petrified to move, but gravity tugged at his bones, helping him on his way.
The mad-wing convicts were a motley lot, favouring the stony-stare, slack-jawed demeanour. They glared at Conor with loathing and fear and the threat of harm hung heavy in the salty air. For long moments, the only sounds were the creaking ladder and the gentle slap of water on rock.
Finally Conor arrived on the surface, feeling like an enemy flag under the hammering gaze of so many hostiles. Billtoe stepped down behind him and pointed at the diving bell.
‘That there is Flora. You know what she is, Salt?’
Conor mumbled his reply. ‘She’s a diving bell.’
‘No, turf head. She’s a…’ Billtoe was frustrated to have his information stolen. He poked Conor in the chest with a rigid finger. ‘Yes, she is a diving bell. And because you know all about it you can be first into her. Flora has been out of service for several years, but I’m sure all is well with her fittings.’
Conor forced himself to study the bell, though all he wanted to do was clasp his knees in a quiet corner and cry for the bad luck that had cursed him. The bell seemed sound enough, though deeply gouged by stone in several places. She was suspended by a network of chains that hitched to an iron hoop dangling over its prow. The hoop in turn fed half a dozen more chains to the scaffolding above. The chains seemed as ancient as the bell, with several rust-dappled links shedding flakes as they swung. A cracked rubber hose poked from the top of the bell, snaking upwards to a hand-cranked bellows affair, which Conor presumed to be an ancient air pump. The pump was being cranked by two inmates. One was racked with consumptive coughing fits and the other paused regularly to spit tobacco phlegm on to the rocks. Not the ideal pair for the job. Conor would not rely on either to supply enough oxygen to fuel the lungs of a small dog.
Billtoe stepped well back and called out his command to a guard above.
‘Lower her down. Do not break the hose or the warden will tan all our hides.’
The diving bell descended in fits, according to the strength of the inmates bearing the strain and the clumsy coiling of chains on the previous use. Some of the links had fused in tangled knots and now popped free sending the diving bell lurching and swinging. The cavern walls resounded with irregular clangs and bongs, causing anyone with free hands to cover their ears.
‘Hell’s bells, man!’ Billtoe called up to his comrade. ‘It sounds like drunk day in Saint Christopher’s in here.’
Saint Christopher had been adopted by the Trudeaus as the Saltees’ patron saint. The church on Great Saltee bore his name.
‘It ain’t my fault, Billtoe,’ retorted the guard. ‘She’s coming, ain’t she. Mind I don’t land her on your head.’
It was said only in jest, but Billtoe stepped aside smartish just the same. Flora swung lower, like a skittish baby monkey on a rope, until eventually she splashed into the black water, sending wave rings rushing to the rocks.
‘Every day,’ sighed Billtoe, mopping his brow with a kerchief. ‘We have to go through this blasted rigmarole every day from this out.’ He turned his attention and annoyance to the prisoners at the pumps.
‘Crank! You apron-tugging, turnip-brained scatterfools.’
‘Yes, boss,’ they mumbled, and set to pumping the bellows, sending air through the rubber hose and into the bell itself. The hose wriggled and flipped as the air inflated it slightly.
The bell sank slowly into the sea, emitting a curious shivering hum as the water caressed its surface.
Billtoe elbowed Conor. ‘You hear that, soldier boy? We call that the siren’s song. Because it’s the last sound many of you Salts hear. Lord, I had forgotten how soothing it was.’
A band of glass with rubber seals was set into the diving bell’s dome. The window was covered with a scree of algae and filth that made it impossible to see through.
Billtoe followed Conor’s gaze. ‘Yes, pity about that port. Filthy as a beggar’s britches. We won’t be seeing much of what goes on in there today. I do hope and pray there are no unfortunate accidents.’
Conor had little doubt that whatever was coming would be unfortunate for him, but it would be no accident. Billtoe meant to break him in the bell. This whole affair was becoming nightmarish. He recoiled from the guard as he would from a brandished torch.
‘What are you twitching for, boy?’ asked Billtoe. ‘Crazed so soon? You’d best be keeping your wits about you in the bell.’
Surprisingly, these were bordering on words of wisdom from the prison guard. They were meant as a warning and Conor took them as one. Whatever his problems, he’d best forget them until he was safe in his cell. Linus Wynter would help him to survive this hellhole, but only if he lived long enough to see him again. While Conor did not believe that the traitor Bonvilain wished him dead, perhaps there was a kind of sheep that did not follow orders so well.
‘What do I need to do?’ he asked Billtoe, best to be as prepared as possible.
Billtoe was happy to deliver a lecture. ‘We lower Flora on to the pipe, then you goes down with your partner and chip off diamonds. Simple as bread pudding.’ He barked at an inmate loitering at the waterline. ‘You, fish bait. Give him your belt.’
The man placed a protective hand on his belt. ‘But, boss. I been polishing these tools for years. Got ’em from my dad.’
Billtoe tapped his head, as though there was water lodged in his ears.
‘What’s this chattering? I hear the chattering of a dead man. Must be leaking through his punctured neck.’
Two seconds later, the leather belt was in Conor’s hands. Billtoe ran through the tools.
‘You got your pick hammer for breaking down the rock. Hammer the rock, then pick out the diamonds, which will resembled nothing more than glassy marbles. Don’t worry about breaking the diamonds, you won’t be able to, because they’re the…’
‘Hardest substance in nature,’ said Conor automatically.
‘Hardest substance in nature,’ continued Billtoe, then scowled. He reached over and cuffed Conor on the temple. ‘Don’t be supplying me with information that I am supplying to you. That is a very annoying trait, which I would relish beating out of you.’
Conor nodded, ignoring the pain in his head, just as he was ignoring the other pains.
‘This here,’ said Billtoe proudly, pointing to a little trident tool, ‘is a Devil’s Fork. Invented on this very island by one Arthur Billtoe over twenty years ago. Got me a job for life, this little beauty did. Plus Marshall Bonvilain himself granted me a house on Great Saltee. It’s tele… tele…’
‘Telescopic,’ said Conor, thinking that if Billtoe could not even pronounce the word telescopic, it was unlikely that he had invented a telescopic tool. More likely he had stolen the idea from an inmate.
‘Exactly, telescopic. On the tip of me tongue, it was.’
Billtoe slipped the fork from its holder and twisted a few rings, extending the tool from eight inches to three feet.
‘Now, yer can wriggle this little beauty into cracks and spear any stones what has fallen down there. Amazing, eh?’
Conor knew enough to nod, though an extendable fork was hardly amazing in anyone’s book. It was practical though, and canny, and proved that Bonvilain knew a good idea when he saw one.
‘So all you have to do, Salt, is swim down there into the bell and dig out as many diamonds as you can until your swing is over. Stash them in your net and bring them back up. Simple as bread pudding. Naturally we search all the divers, and if we find any stones outside of that net, then I find the biggest bull of a guard on the island and have him flog the thievery out of you. Straight enough for you, little soldier?’
Conor nodded, wondering how close the pipe was to open sea.
Once more, Billtoe displayed a disturbing ability to anticipate Conor’s very thoughts.
‘Of course, you may decide to swim for it. The lure of freedom may be too strong for you. Feel free to give it your best. You may even make it — mind you, you’d be the first, and bigger men than you have tried. We still get bodies washing up in the cave, decades after they went in. And do you know something? They all look the same way. Dead.’
Conor cinched the belt round his waist, drawing it tight to the last hole. He could figure no escape from this task. In Greek mythology when the heroes were faced with daunting trials, they went about them with stoic determination and emerged victorious. Conor could not muster an ounce of determination for this trial; all he felt was a weight of exhaustion. And even if he did emerge victorious, his only reward would be more of the same tomorrow, and the day after that.
Billtoe encouraged him with a friendly wink and a jaunty tapping of his fingers upon the pistol stock at his waist. Conor set foot in the water and the cold gripped him in its icy fist, squeezing the life from his toes. An involuntary gasp escaped his lips, causing much laughter from the assembled men.
Conor took a moment to become used to the water temperature, casting a quick eye around the cave, wondering if there were a single person who would come to his aid. Every gaze he crossed was hostile. These were rugged men in evil surroundings, with little time to waste on sympathy. Conor realized that were it not for their uniforms, it would be impossible to separate the guards from the inmates. He was alone in this endeavour. Fourteen and alone. This was one of the few occasions in Conor’s life when his father was not there to provide guidance. And if Declan Broekhart had been there, perhaps he would have laughed along with the rest of them. It was an unbearable thought.
Though he was without doubt on his own, there was something in Conor Broekhart that would not allow him to give in. His mother’s brain and his father’s spirit were strong in his heart. He would endure somehow, and survive. If Conor could return to his cell still breathing, then the American, Linus Wynter, could teach him a lesson or two about Little Saltee.
Push it all from your mind, he told himself. Forget your family, the king, Isabella. Forget them all. Just live to think on them another day.
This was easier conceived than achieved, but Conor did the best he could, concentrating on the scene before him, shutting away his torment. He stepped off the rocky ledge, sinking fast into the cold, dark waters of Little Saltee.
For a moment the cold was absolute and it seemed as though nothing could ever be any colder. Conor thrashed his limbs, not from fear but to generate some heat. He had often swum on the Saltee beaches before, but the waters he was in now had never been blessed with sun. There was nothing to raise the temperature a few degrees.
Conor opened his eyes, peering through the liquid gloom. Below him, he spied a blob of orange, like a fading sun in the grip of black space.
The bell.
It is not so far down, he told himself. A chap would have to be a pretty poor swimmer not to make that distance. Ten kicks at most.
Conor duck dived, cupping his hands to better scoop the water. He had always been a good swimmer and immediately the orange blob assumed its proper bell shape and he could make out the texture of its surface. This tiny success comforted him somewhat.
I am not helpless. I can still do things.
The bell swung gently two feet above the cave bed, air bubbles leaked like pearl strings from a dozen tiny breaches. Conor hooked his fingers under its curved rim and wriggled inside. His efforts were rewarded by air, not by any means sweet or fresh but air nonetheless. Conor filled his lungs to capacity, ignoring the rubbery smell and the oily film that instantly coated his nose and throat.
The water rose six inches into the bell, and the surface below Conor’s feet was uneven, slick and treacherous. This was not an ideal working environment. The bell itself had a diameter of barely ten feet, and swung in irregular arcs with the current, butting Conor in the shoulder and elbow. He hunched his shoulders as far as possible, protecting his head. The light was murky and wavering.
Conor peered upwards through the porthole but could make out nothing more distinct than vague wavering silhouettes. Perhaps men? Perhaps rocks? It was impossible to tell. But then one of the silhouettes detached itself from the group.
Conor watched with a dread colder than sea water as the figure leaped into the ocean, shattering its surface into a jigsaw of silver crescents. The sound of the splash carried through the bell’s air hole. Another sound carried too; laughter, wafting through the pipe like ghost mirth. Dark, vicious, threatening laughter.
Conor choked down absolute terror.
Survive. You can do things. Survive.
Then something flashed past. A pale limb. Thick and muscled, swatting at the water. And on the forearm drawn with bold punctures, visible even through a sheen of scum, a tattoo of a horned ram.
A sheep, thought Conor. Sheep are not for stewing here on Little Saltee.
The figure disappeared from view, pulling itself down the bell curve. Hands slapped at the brass, setting off a cacophony of shuddering clangs inside the bell’s skirt. The clangs reverberated around the diving bell until Conor prayed for silence. Surely his ears were bleeding. Then four thick fingers curled under the bell’s rim, shimmering white in the water.
Each finger was tattooed with a single letter. Even upside down it didn’t take a scholar to read what the letters promised.
P. A. I. N.
Conor didn’t doubt it for a second.
A huge man dragged himself along the seabed, mindless of the sharp rocks scraping his flesh. When he stood inside the bell, a dozen red rivulets ran down his torso. It suddenly seemed to Conor that there was not enough air left to breath. He backed away until the diving bell’s cold metal moulded the curve of his spine.
The man’s size was doubtless exaggerated by the confined space, but still he seemed a giant to Conor. He spread his arms wide, tinkling his fingers on the brass bell as though it were a grand piano. The sweet sound was hardly appropriate for the situation. Whatever this man intended to do, he seemed to be in no hurry to complete his mission. He stretched this way and that, cracking neck and knuckles all the while wearing an expression of serene contentment. Conor read many things into that half smile. A confidence in his brutish abilities, the memories of past violence and the anticipation of the job at hand.
The man smiled, a yellow tobacco grimace, but then his expression drooped as he realized Conor’s age.
‘Hell’s bells, you’re nothing but a boy. What did you do? Lie about your age to get a ticket for the army? Are you that desperate to patrol a wall? There ain’t even a war on.’
‘You’re a sheep,’ said Conor numbly. ‘Sheep are not for stewing here on Little Saltee.’
The man stroked his tattoo fondly. ‘There are those that call us sheep, but our name proper is the Battering Rams. That being our favourite method of doing the big job.’
Conor understood the sheep references now. The Battering Rams were a notorious gang of London Irish who were involved in smuggling in ports from London to Boston and whose other main source of income was from hiring out thugs. It would seem that this particular ram had been gainfully employed.
‘Ah well,’ continued the man. ‘I’ve been paid now, and I don’t like to disappoint my employers, so you’ll have to take your licks, boy or not.’
‘Are you going to kill me?’ asked Conor. The man’s smell filled the bell, clogging the confined space. Sweat, blood, tobacco and stale breath.
The man rolled his shirt open, revealing a list tattooed on his chest. ‘I could kill you, and my employer would still be in credit, because he paid me three pounds.’
Conor read the words on the man’s pale flesh:
Punching — 2 shillings
Both eyes blacked — 4 shillings
Nose and jaw broke — 10 shillings
Jacked out (knocked out with a black jack) — 15 shillings
Ear chewed off — same as previous
Leg or arm broke — 19 shillings
Shot in leg — 25 shillings
Stab — Same as previous
Doing the Big Job — 3 pounds and up
The man buttoned his shirt.
‘He paid me the full three pounds, but said I was to spread it out. Keep punching on a daily basis until he was out of credit. That’s a fair whack of punching, but you being such a slip of a whelp, I reckon one belt a day should do it. Maybe, if the task is becoming tiresome after a few weeks, I may chew your ear off just to finish it.’
Conor was finding it difficult to believe what he was hearing. The man had such a professional manner, as though he were a roofer quoting for a slate job.
‘What will you do if your prices go up?’
The man frowned. ‘You mean the tattoo? I never thought of that. I suppose I’ll have to have it writ over. There’s a little Galway geezer what is good with the needles. Anyway, see yer tomorrow… ’
‘What?’ said Conor, but before his teeth had closed over the final consonant, the man’s huge fist had already begun its arc, swinging towards Conor’s head like a cannonball. The last things Conor saw were the letters P. A. I. N., but he remained conscious for long enough to hear the Battering Ram sing this savage ditty:
‘We stabs ’em,
We fights ’em,
Cripples ’em,
Bites ’em.
No rules for our mayhem.
You pay us, we slays ’em.
If you’re in a corner,
With welshers or scams.
Pay us a visit,
The Battering Rams.’
And then the whole world was wet and Conor gladly allowed himself to be tugged away by the currents.
Maybe this time I won’t wake up, he thought. I need never wake up again.
But wake up he did, many hours later with Linus Wynter bending over him, green paste dripping from his fingers.
‘More Plantago, I fear,’ he explained. ‘This is becoming a habit.’
Conor closed his eyes again, fearful that he would cry. He kept himself still for long minutes, breathing quiet breaths through his nose. He could feel the cold muck on his temple, where the giant had struck him, and more on his hand where the brand still scalded.
There must be an end to this? How long could a mind endure such torture and stay whole?
‘You have been asleep for nearly twelve hours. I saved your rations for you. Have some water at least.’
Water. The very word had the power to awaken Conor fully. His throat felt flaked with thirst.
Man’s primary instinct is to survive, Victor had once told him. And he will endure almost anything to follow his instincts.
‘Water,’ croaked the boy, raising his head, until the Plantago juice ran down his forehead.
Wynter held a rough earthenware cup to Conor’s lips, dribbling water down his throat. To Conor, the drink tasted like life itself, and soon he felt strong enough to hold the cup. He sat slowly, sighing gratefully for the simple pleasure of slaking his thirst.
‘And now you should eat,’ said Wynter. ‘Keep your body strong. A fever in here could kill you.’
Conor laughed, a feeble shuddering. As though fever would ever have the chance to kill him. The Battering Ram had almost three pounds’ worth of beatings to dole out, and it was hardly likely that Conor could survive those.
Wynter pressed a shallow bowl into Conor’s hand.
‘Whatever happened to you, and whatever is going to happen, you will not have a prayer without strength in your limbs.’
Conor relented, picking a chunk of cold meat from the bowl of stew. Even when hot, Conor doubted that the meal could ever have been called appetizing. The meat was tough, with a wide band of fat and hard burn ridges along each side. But meat was strength, and strength was what he would need to go back in the bell with a mad ram.
‘Now,’ said Wynter, ‘tell me what happened today. They brought you back here on a plank. For a moment I couldn’t even find a heartbeat.’
Conor chewed on a lump of meat. The fat was slick and rubbery between his teeth.
‘They put me in a diving bell with one of those Battering Rams.’
‘Describe him,’ instructed Wynter.
‘Big man. Enormous. Tattoos all over. P. A. I. N. on his knuckles and —’
‘A price list on his chest,’ completed Conor’s cellmate. ‘That’s Otto Malarkey. The top ram. That animal has beaten more men than he can count. And he can count well enough, especially when there’s coin involved.’
‘He’s been paid coin aplenty to keep handing out daily beatings. This is how they will break me.’
‘A simple but effective plan,’ admitted Wynter. ‘Set the big man beating the little man. That tactic worked on everyone, even Napoleon.’
Conor took a drink of water. Now that his senses were returning, he could taste the saltpetre in it. ‘There must be something I can do.’
Wynter thought on it, fixing the bandage across his eyes with long pianist’s fingers.
‘This problem is more important than all the daily vexations I had planned to educate you on this evening. Malarkey must be dealt with if you are to survive, young Conor.’
‘Yes, but how?’
‘You need to rest. Lie flat and think on your strengths. Draw on everything you have ever been taught. Tease out every violent daydream you have ever nursed in your darkest hours. You must have talents: you are a tall boy and strong.’
‘And if I do have talents, what then?’ insisted Conor.
‘Another simple plan,’ whispered Wynter. ‘Older even than the first. When you see Malarkey next, you must immediately kill him.’
Kill him.
‘I can’t. I could never —’
Wynter smiled kindly. ‘You are a good lad, Conor. Kind. Killing is hateful to you, and the thought that you could ever take a life is a terrible one.’
‘Yes. I am not the kind of…’
Wynter raised a conductor’s finger. ‘We are all that kind of person. Survival is the most basic instinct. But, you are sensitive, I can tell, so I will help you along the road to murder. Since my eyes were taken from me, I have become adept at recreating images in my head. I can see the concert halls of my youth. Time and concentration fill the spaces until the picture is complete. Every velvet-covered chair, every footlight, every gilded cherub.’ For a long moment, Wynter was lost in his own colourful past, then the sounds and smells of Little Saltee shattered his mental image. ‘What I need you to do is close your eyes and picture the man who sent you here. Use your hatred of him to awaken the killer instinct.’
Conor did not need to concentrate for long. Bonvilain’s face sprang into his mind’s eye, complete with hateful eyes and derisory sneer.
‘And now, Conor, tell me, do you think you can kill?’
Conor considered everything Bonvilain had done to the Broekhart family.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can kill.’
Linus Wynter smiled sadly.
‘We all can,’ he said. ‘God save our souls.’