Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary 'Jacky' Faber, Ship's Boy

I runs me hand up Charlie's chest and opens each button as I go up. When all the buttons are undone, I pulls off Charlie's vest, sobbin' all the while.

Ah, Charlie, you was a good one, you was. You looked out for us in your way and took care of us in your way and always shared even though you didn't have to and was always happy in spite of all. And takin your clothes is prolly a sin, too, and I don't mean no disrespect, Charlie, hut I got to do it. I got to get away.

I slips Charlie's shirt over his ruined head as gentle as I can and then loosens the cord on his trousers and pulls them off. His legs flop all limp and slide on the stones and I remembers how they used to dance and caper and now they don't do nothin'.

Goodbye, Charlie. I close his dead eyes and kiss his dead cheek. You was my darlin.

Leavin' the alley, I sees a horse trough in the gloom and I commences to washin' Charlie's clothes what was dirtied by his dyin'. After I gets most of the blood and dirt off, I takes off me two shifts and rolls 'em up. I puts Charlie's clothes on wet, grateful it's a warm night. I puts the shiv in next to me ribs like Charlie always done and I sticks me old shifts under me arm and gets ready to head off, but then I hears a noise and jumps back quick in a doorway. I peers out and there's Muck wheelin' his barrow toward the alley and toward all what's left of Rooster Charlie.

How long will it be 'fore it's me that Muck is coming after?

I'm lookin' down through the grate at the shapes below and I counts three, no, four of them huddled down there. Three girls, one boy.

'Psst! Toby!'

The shapes start in alarm. I'm startin' to shiver from the wet clothes, in spite of the warmth of the night. I hisses down through the grating, 'It's me, Mary, from Rooster Charlie's gang.'

Toby gets up and walks toward me, his face striped white and black from the moonlight and the shadow of the grate. 'What's up, then.'

'Charlie's been done,' I says, as even as I can.

'Wot? The Rooster done! It can't be!' wails one of the girls.

'Who done it?' asks Toby.

'Dunno,' says I. 'Prolly Muck.' Then I tells him what happened at the Bell and Boar and in Slipburn Alley.

Toby lets loose a string of low curses and while he's doin' it I says, 'I want you to take over our gang, Toby.'

I lets that sink in a bit and then plows on. 'I don't want 'em picked up by Scroggs or Jimmy Ducks or Dirty Henry or any of those. I takes you for a decent sort, Toby, the sort'll look after 'em a bit. Like Charlie done.'

'I ain't nobody's mother,' says Toby. 'And I ain't—'

'Our gang lost two today, so there's Judy and Polly and Nancy and Hugh the Grand, with your bunch that makes eight, a good-sized group, and we got a better kip than this. More privatelike, where coves can't piss down on ye like here.'

I'm talkin' fast, tryin' to make the deal. 'Be right comfy with the bunch of you snugged up in there.'

'What about Hugh?'

'He'll follow your lead. He's slow, but he's strong and loyal. You kin be the brains and he'll be the brawn. It worked for Charlie.'

'You're not goin' back, then.'

'No, I got to go. You tell 'em I died with Charlie ... no, tell 'em I went to sea and will come back rich and famous. That'll give 'em a laugh. Tell Hughie I hopes he gets to be a hostler. That way he'll know you came from me with my blessin'. They got a loaf of bread and some cheese. They'll share it with you.'

'You think it'll still be there?' says Toby all doubtful.

'I know it'll be there 'cause that's the way we done things. So it's done, then?'

'Awright, it's done,' says he. 'Come, me girls, let's go see your new sisters and brother.' The girls get up all excited by the happenings and the thought of some bread and cheese. They gathers up their rags.

'And, Toby,' says I, 'don't let Hughie go after Muck. Ye'll have to calm him down 'cause he loved Charlie like we all did. Tell him if Muck is onto makin' his own corpses, it won't be long 'fore Muck does the Newgate Jig his own damned self.'

'That's one hangin' I won't miss,' says Toby with feelin'.

'Luck, Toby.'

'Luck, Mary. Sorry about Charlie.'

'Aye.'

That's the last time anyone on this earth ever calls me Mary.

Chapter 5

God is a tricky cove, all right, as I didn't mean for Charlie to die so's I could be delivered, but that's what He come up with. I'd like to think of Charlie up in heaven, his red mop shinin' in the celestial light, crackin' up the archangels and such with his japes, and meetin' up with Mum and Dad and Penny and all the others I've known who've died, but I don't know. I don't know nothin'.

'Cept now I knows to be careful what I prays for as it might be granted. In the future I'll pray like 'God, deliver me from this, if you please, but don't be killin' Charlie in the doin' of it.'

But what's done is done.

The first thing I do after I leaves Toby and his bunch is to take out me shiv and hack off me hair, grabbin' handfuls and sawin' away, leavin' it in clumps in the gutter along me way. I cuts it as close to me head as I can get it. I figures I'll follow the Thames down towards the sea as no one knows me face down there and it is a good a place as any to make a new start. I hears that's where the navy ships are and maybe I'll find a way to make meself useful and so get to keep body and immortal soul together for a bit longer.

That night I walks till me clothes dry out and then I kips in a dooryard, cold and hungry and miserable.

Charlie, why'd y have to go and mouth off to Muck like that? If you hadn'a done it we'd still he like we was, the Rooster Charlie Gang against the world, but you did it and now yer dead and gone 'cause of it and nothin's ever gonna be like it was. Yer dead, Charlie, and that's it and that's all, but I still can't believe even though I seen you lyin there all still all quiet all dead.

I wipes me nose and me eyes on me sleeve and curls up into a tighter ball.

Y' know, Charlie, it's stupid, but I sort of thought that we would get together someday when I got older, like gents and ladies get together, like. At least for a little while before ye went off to be a brave soldier. At least for a little while we'd walk along, ye all cocky and fine and me beside y with me arm through yers, even though I know I'll never be a lady. I sort of thought that, I did. But, no. Nothin' now.

In the mornin' it begins to rain and I'm wet again. I walks on and don't scare up no food this day, neither, and I knows that body and soul might start to separate themselves soon if I don't get some right quick. I lie down on a bed of stones in a dark alley when night comes and the cobblestones bite me skin where me bones poke through and I'm thinkin' that I ain't never slept alone before and I don't like it. I misses the feel and smell of the others in our cozy kip when we were in for the night. Yes, and the whisperin' and gigglin' and snugglin' up together. I could go back. I could get along with Toby.

No. I've got to go on. I'll come back someday, I will. Stop yer cryin. Stop it now.