shivered with exhaustion and cold.
Slightly under an hour later, Swinburne presented the pink carcass to Mr. Jambory.
'Good lad!' exclaimed the fat man. 'Are you hungry?'
'Starving!' admitted Swinburne.
'How about a glass of milk and some bread and dripping?'
To the poet, who'd eaten in London's best restaurants, this sounded like food of the gods.
'Wow! Yes please!' he gasped.
Some time later, feeling much recovered and with his stomach comfortably full, Swinburne was walking through the thinning crowd on Commercial Road when he was hailed from the other side. He looked across and saw a small ragamuffin with sandy blond hair, wearing a too-big cap, a too-big greatcoat, and too-big boots. It was Willy Cornish-a fellow member of the League of Chimney Sweeps.
'Hallo, Carrots!' cried Willy, crossing the road. 'Been on a job?'
'Yes, up Whitechapel way. What are you up to?'
Willy lowered his voice and leaned close, his blue eyes very wide. 'Have you heard about the Squirrel Hill Cemetery?'
'No, what about it?'
'Resurrectionists!'
'What?'
'Resurrectionists! They've been digging up the dead 'uns on Squirrel Hill! Wanna come and have a look? Maybe we can catch 'em at it!'
Swinburne hesitated. He was dog-tired. On the other hand, Squirrel Hill wasn't far away and he'd embarked on this adventure not just to help Richard Burton but also to experience life in its raw and bloody nakedness; seeking inspiration for his poetry; a quest for creative authenticity. Men digging up cadavers to sell to crooked medical practitioners-could life be any less embellished than that?
He nodded. 'All right, Willy, let's go and spy on the grave robbers!'
'Really?' said Willy. He hadn't expected that answer. Most boys, if they were able, were rushing home now that it was dark, afraid of the werewolves. 'You're not scared?'
'No. Are you?'
Willy stuck out his chest. 'Course not!'
Swinburne's normally springy step was decidedly heavy as he trudged through the rain with his young companion. Willy, by contrast, jumped about excitedly and created extravagant plans for capturing the resurrectionists-plans which included booby-trapped pits, dropping nets, manacles, and blindfolds; and which inevitably climaxed with gibbets and bodies kicking at the end of swinging ropes.
'You're a bloodthirsty little beggar, Willy Cornish,' observed the poet, and your plans are admirable if a mite impractical. Perhaps we should settle for reconnaissance for the time being.'
'Re-conny-who?' responded the boy.
'Reconnaissance. It means we go and find out what the ghouls are up to and, if we see them, we run like blazes to get help!'
''Spose so, Carrots,' said Willy disappointedly. 'I'd much rather capture the fellows myself, though!'
They turned off Commercial Road and followed an unlit alley down toward Hardinge Street. A girl, perhaps twelve years old, stepped out of a doorway and gave them a price. Even in the gloom, Swinburne could see Willy's face burning red. He shook his head at the girl and pushed his companion on.
They emerged onto Hardinge, which was quiet, though the perennial hubbub of the city could, of course, be heard in the background, and followed it down to the corner of Squirrel Hill, then began to climb the steep incline. There were no houses nearby, no people, and just one gas lamp, right at the top beside the cemetery gates.
'Keep quiet now, Carrots,' advised Willy. 'We don't want to scare the rogues away!'
Swinburne followed his little friend up to the corner of the tree-lined burial ground and squatted with him in the shadows next to a wall.
They listened but could hear nothing but the rain pattering on the pavement and rustling through the leaves of the trees.
'Give me a leg up,' said Willy.
Swinburne sighed, thinking of the sacking mattress and thin blanket waiting for him back at Sneed's place. He bent, hooked his hands around Willy's knee, and lifted. The boy grabbed the top of the wall and pulled himself up, lay flat, and extended a hand down to the poet, who took it and scrambled after him. They dropped into the cemetery.
'I'm soaking wet,' complained Swinburne.
'Shhh!'
Willy crept forward through the undergrowth and Swinburne followed.
A snapping noise came from somewhere ahead.
'What was that?' hissed Swinburne.
'Shhh!' repeated Willy. Then, in the faintest of whispers: 'Resurrectionists!'
They came to a headstone, all tangled about with weeds and creepers, and moved from it to the next and the next, slowly approaching an area of darkness from which slight sounds of movement could be heard.
Swinburne forgot his tiredness and discomfort. He was now eager to witness whatever sepulchral events were occurring ahead. He began to shake and twitch with excitement.
Willy crawled on and poked his head over the top of a granite slab. He quickly ducked back, turned, and gestured for Swinburne to join him.
On his hands and knees, the poet quietly moved to his friend's side and peeked over the stone. Through the falling rain, he could see vague shapes moving.
He lowered his head and put his mouth next to Willy's ear to whisper, 'We have to get closer!'
The boy nodded and pointed to a mausoleum that loomed out of the darkness to their right.
'We can go around that,' he breathed.
Staying as low as possible, they sneaked across the uneven ground, through dripping bushes and patches of mud, past tilted crosses and stone angels whose shadowy eyes seemed to weep, until they reached the base of the bulky monument. Sheltered from view, but also from the glimmering light of the distant gas lamp, they fumbled their way through blackness. At the far corner, they stopped.
'We'll count them,' whispered Swinburne, 'then go back the way we've come. We'll hotfoot it to the tavern on the corner of Commercial Road and rouse some men. If we're lucky, we can get a mob to come back with us and catch the scoundrels in the act!'
He and Willy looked around the edge of the mausoleum.
There were seven figures, some bending, some crouching in the rain. They were all cloaked and hooded. Strange noises reached Swinburne's ears: snuffles and crunches, cracking and ripping.
One of the men stood, and it seemed to Swinburne that he was quite short in stature. He held a stick in his hand, which he raised to his hood.
A chill wave of revulsion suddenly numbed the poet.
It wasn't a stick. It was an arm, with a hand flapping at its end.
The figure pulled it away from its hood, tearing off a strip of polluted, wormy flesh.
Swinburne collapsed back into the shadow of the tomb, dragging the boy with him.
'Jesus Christ!' he moaned. 'They aren't robbing the graves-they're eating the corpses!'
He could feel Willy Cornish trembling uncontrollably at his side.
'I want to go home,' sobbed the youngster.
Swinburne hugged him close. 'Go!' he whispered. 'Get out of here as fast as you can, Willy. Go quietly, stay in the shadows, get over the wall, and run. Hurry to the tavern and tell what you've seen. Go now!'
The youngster wiped his nose on his wet sleeve, sniffed, and wriggled away.
Swinburne peered around the corner again. Two of the figures were drag ging a coffin out of the waterlogged earth, its rotten wood splitting, the sides falling away, the lid collapsing. The other five men, their hooded cloaks wrapped tightly around them, shambled closer, gathered around the coffin, and bent over its putrid contents. They pushed the pieces of lid aside and reached in. Swinburne heard bones breaking. He tasted bile in the back of his throat.
