Printer's Devil (9780316167826) (5 page)

BOOK: Printer's Devil (9780316167826)
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But I wasn’t listening to Bob’s eloquent salesmanship. I’d latched onto one specific part of his patter, and I wanted to know
more. “The Sun of Calcutta,” I said, “it’s a ship, then, is it?”

“She certainly is, and a finer one you won’t find in the whole port of London,” Bob enthused. “Laden with the gifts of the
Orient!”

“Where is it? Where can I find it?”

“Where can you
find
it?” he repeated. “Where can
you
find
it?” He turned to the little crowd and waved a hand towards me, inviting them to share the joke. “He wants to know where
he can find the
Sun of Calcutta!
” he said, and laughed aloud. “Where d’you find any new-returned East Indiaman, young Mog? In the dock, that’s where — and
I don’t mean the kind of dock your escaped convict makes it his habit to stand in!”

Clattering and screeching like the noise of hell itself, the wheels of a hundred carts and carriages mingling with shouting
voices and the screaming of wheeling seagulls filled the hot air above the London docks. I fought my way along the riverside,
holding tight to Lash’s lead; dodging horses’ hooves, avoiding persistent costermongers trying to get me to buy fruit from
their untidily laden barrows; and pushing with difficulty between the heavy coats of gentlemen and tradesmen who thronged
the dirty streets. The heat was almost unbearable, the horses whinnying in frustration at the crush. Everyone was sweating.
The further I went, the more like a foreign country it seemed, with sailors from overseas laughing and gathering in the doorways
of inns and shops, Jewish men in black coats and hats, men carrying things and shouting at the crowd to part and let them
through, everyone babbling in foreign languages, arguing and fighting with one another. Every now and again I stopped to ask
someone if they
knew where I might find the
Sun of Calcutta
; and every time, if they knew at all, they’d point me further east, towards Wapping and Shadwell.

What Bob had said about Maharajas had made me more sure than ever of the connection between the agitated fellow with the crow’s
beak nose, and the
Sun of Calcutta
. A stranger in London, I told myself, a foreigner lost in the maze of streets the same night as the
Sun of Calcutta
arrived, must surely have come ashore from that very ship. But the more people I saw as I wandered between the hot, dirty
brick buildings, the less convinced I became. How many ships might there be in London just now? And how many countries might
they all come from? I realized too that I was venturing into what many people said was the thickest nest of thieves in the
world. Most people said so quite importantly, as though it were a matter of national pride that London’s docks should be so
notorious. Nevertheless, my curiosity had been aroused, and my progress eastward never halted.

My feet were beginning to ache, though; and I persuaded a passing drayman to let us sit up on his cart next to a few beer
barrels. I climbed up first, using the hub of the wheel as a step; Lash bounded up after me in a single leap, with a little
yelp of excitement, and sat there with his tongue lolling out, surveying the passing crowds with a superior air from his new
vantage point.
After a while the drayman pulled up his horse and gestured with a wordless nod of his head down a dark narrow alley leading
to the river. We’d arrived. We jumped down and I fished in my pocket for a penny to give him.

The masts of ships jostled for position in the foul-smelling dock, stretching as far as the eye could see. Time and again
people shouted at me to get out of the way as they pushed and pulled great cartloads of goods over the cobbles. Dockers and
sailors milled in the narrow yards, stripped to the waist, with skins like alligators as a result of years of exposure to
salt and rain and scorching foreign sun. We passed huddled little inns: the Galleon, the Sun, the Ship’s Cat, the Crow’s Nest,
all playing host to hordes of seagoing men who’d come ashore eager for drink and food and female company. As we got nearer
the water, the smell rose and the masts grew higher and higher; loose ropes flapped in the spring breeze, timbers were ranged
along the bank for miles, making a noise like the groaning of a thousand wild animals as they bobbed on the water and scraped
against one another’s flanks.

Far below, in the dock, I saw a man helping people down into a little wooden boat. Every now and again he shouted up to the
crowd on the dockside, “See London by water! Ride on the great Thames! See the City! Room for two more!” The boat was rocking
as though it could have done with two fewer, rather than
two more, to carry; but the faces grinning up from the cramped little vessel seemed happy enough at the prospect of their
trip. The angular man in charge, with a sharp little face like a water rat, looked so untrustworthy I was quite sure the grinning
foreigners would soon find themselves robbed once they got out of sight.

I pushed onward, every now and again yanking at Lash’s lead to stop him going after seagulls or some other fascinating distraction.
Someone had just pointed out the
Sun of Calcutta
when I spotted a pair of strange-looking men standing by themselves, eyeing the crowd and whispering to each other. Something
about them made me stop and watch. One was tall and very untidy, sturdily built, with a raggy shirt open to reveal a hairy
chest and stomach. He had a bandage around his head as though he’d recently been in a fight or an accident. His companion
was shorter and skinny; older, it seemed, with a slight stoop. His eyes were grey and lifeless, and his face seemed fixed
in an expression of utter weariness, his mouth hanging slightly open, his skin drooping as though it was all being pulled
by gravity towards the ground.

I was convinced they were up to no good, from the nervous way they kept looking around. They were making their way towards
the mooring where I’d been told the
Sun of Calcutta
stood; and, keeping my distance, I followed them.

But I didn’t get very far. I found my way blocked by a broad-chested man in a dark coat. “Where do
you
think you’re going?” he asked. Lash growled, sensing sudden hostility — something he didn’t do very often — and I felt for
his collar, both to reassure him and hold him back. I wondered if I should point out the two suspicious types, and turned
to look for them — but they’d gone. In that single second I’d let them get out of sight.

“Erm — I’m looking for the
Sun of Calcutta
,” I said, rather awkwardly.

“Oh yes? And what would you be wanting with her?”

“I’ve, er — come to collect something,” I mumbled, and then wished I hadn’t, because he immediately asked me what. I looked
up at him. I couldn’t possibly slip past him, and the determined look on his face didn’t give me much cause for hope that
he would let me through. I thought quickly. What on earth might a kid like me want with a ship like that?

“Ink,” I said suddenly. “Indian ink. I’m Mog Winter and I work for Cramplock the printer at Clerkenwell. I was asked to collect
Indian ink off the East Indiaman.”

The man bent down and hissed his reply into my face.

“Ink, eh?” he said. “Mog Winter, eh? Winter the Printer.” He showed his teeth.

“Yes,” I said as brightly as I could. “Where can I pick it up?”

“Nowhere,” he hissed. “You show me proof you’s who you says you is. There’s a thousand horrible kids might pretend to work
for a printer just so’s they can get on board a ship and snoop around and thieve and do.”

I didn’t have any proof, and I had to tell him so. Lash was still growling softly, and I could feel him tensing beneath my
grip. The customs man eyed me suspiciously.

“How
much
ink?” he wanted to know.

“Twenty-four bottles,” I said confidently. “Big bottles,” I added.

“How you going to carry ’em to Clerkenwell then?”

“Er—” Again I had to think quickly. “I’ve left my cart back there,” I said, gesturing vaguely behind me.

“Really? Then chances are it’ll be gorn when you gets back to it!” The man was rapidly making me feel like a fool. “And I
might tell you, for your
hinformation
, that you can only get your ink on presentation of the necessary monies at the Customs Warehouse, in the City,” he added,
stabbing his finger shortly in the direction from which I’d come. “But if you was to let me have something for my trouble,
I might just see that nobody else makes off with your master’s ink.”

“Have you seen a man in a bandage?” I asked him,
“because there was one over there, and his thin friend, and they looked like they were up to no good.”

It didn’t work. “Could be,” he said, “my brother has a bandage, and a thin friend. Could be a full three-quarters of sailors
have a bandage, and a thin friend. And if you don’t want a bandage, to cover up the kick I’m going to give you,” he said in
a low voice, “you’d better hook it, Mog Winter.”

This was persuasive enough, and I turned back reluctantly, pulling Lash after me and casting an occasional glance over my
shoulder to see if the mysterious pair had resurfaced in the crowd. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became
that they were mixed up in the affair Flethick and his sinister friends had been talking about last night. Why else would
they be snooping around the
Sun of Calcutta
, looking so shifty?

Suddenly, there they were again. I edged behind a nearby pile of empty barrels so I could hide and watch them. They were carrying
a large decorative chest between them, and were still looking around as if checking to see who was watching them. Then I noticed
the Customs man — the same man who’d just turned me away — striding purposefully over to them. The game was up! I was far
too far away to hear what was being said — but I was sure they would be in trouble now.

Yet, as the customs man began to talk to them, he didn’t seem at all angry. I could see his face quite clearly, and it was
a picture of calm and good humor. He even began to laugh. He was sharing a joke with them! They were making off with a precious
chest full of all kinds of exotic treasure, and he was laughing as if it was all a huge joke! But I suddenly understood why
when I saw the bandaged one take some large banknotes out of his pocket and pass them quickly to the official. They’d hoped
no one had seen the transaction, but they hadn’t reckoned on me watching from behind these smelly, leaky tar barrels.

Only then did I look down at myself, and realize that my hands and clothes were black and sticky from being pressed up against
the barrels. Lash, sniffing round them, had acquired jet-black tips to his grey whiskers, and was leaving rings of dark shiny
paw-prints as he scampered around me, impatient to be off.

I didn’t have time to worry about my ruined clothes. Right now the most important thing was to follow the two suspicious-looking
men. I caught up with them again by the corner of a warehouse, where I saw them talking to a man with a horse and cart. Was
he an accomplice, or just a carter they were hiring to carry the load? Dismayed, I watched them all sweating as they lifted
the heavy chest up onto the cart. It was going to be much harder to keep up with them now.

I wondered if I should tell someone else. But who could I trust? The customs man, who was meant to prevent this kind of thing,
was obviously up to his neck in it. I had a feeling that shouting “Stop, thief!” in a place like this would only make all
the thieves laugh.

So, dodging between the people and hiding behind them as I went, I tried to keep up with the ugly pair and their carter companion
as they trundled away from the dockside and up the road towards the Galleon Inn, one of the most packed and notorious of the
local taverns. Every now and again, I could see them moving ahead of me as the crowd parted. I noticed that the chest had
been covered up with a big dark canvas sheet. It could have been anything under there: a chest of drawers, or a couple of
ordinary wooden boxes. Nobody even noticed them as they jolted on up the hill.

As the cart reached the Galleon I lost sight of them again. I was running, trying to catch up, when someone pulled my arm.

“Nick!” said a gruff voice, and I turned to see a stocky sailor with a filthy flat cap on his head, his neck blue with tattoos.

“Sorry,” I said, “I’m in a hurry, could you —“

“Not so fast,” he growled, grasping my arm more tightly. “Your Pa’s after your hide. Watcha done?”

I didn’t know what to say. The sailor obviously
thought I was someone else. His breath smelled strongly of drink and he was speaking so fast it was all but impossible to
understand what he was saying. “I — I think you’ve —“ I began; but he wasn’t listening.

“Your Pa’s up to his neck. He’s three sheets gone and he’s roaring,” he was saying. “Picture of palsy, the man is. Your hide’ll
not be worth tanning when he’s roped you in. What’s his rag for, eh?”

“Let me go,” I said, “you’ve got the wrong person.”

“Hang fire then,” he said, grasping me even tighter. “You tell old Samson what your Pa’s rag’s about, and mebbe I let you
go. Or mebbe I beef on you, lad. Seems he’s missing summink, and missing it sore.”

BOOK: Printer's Devil (9780316167826)
9.09Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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