Ratcatcher. James McGee

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СКАЧАТЬ drinking den in London’s most notorious rookery?

      There was a silence, then Jago said softly, “I hear you’ve been busy.” The big man took a sip of brandy and sat back. “Been makin’ a name for yourself.” He put his head on one side and fixed Hawkwood with a leery eye. “I heard tell it was you who closed down the Widow Gant.” Jago’s expression was all innocence as he added, “An’ not before time, too, if you ask me. The way the old bitch used to corrupt young minds and such.” He tut-tutted and shook his head at the sheer injustice of it all.

      Hawkwood wondered about that. Putting the Widow Gant out of business had probably done all the other criminals in the district a substantial favour. Jago and his confederates would undoubtedly profit from the decrease in competition. Which, come to think of it, might well have accounted for the reason why nobody had bothered to warn the widow about the presence of law officers in the vicinity of her clearing house. Quite obviously, the old adage about there being honour among thieves didn’t apply to the denizens of the St Giles Rookery.

      Observing his former sergeant, Hawkwood thought that Jago didn’t appear to have changed much in the months since he’d last seen him, except for having shed a little more hair and gained a few pounds. In fact, the ex-sergeant appeared to have taken to the civilian life like the proverbial duck to water; the mark of a born survivor.

      The son of a farm labourer, raised in an isolated village on the Kent marshes, orphaned after his parents had fallen victim to the cholera, Nathaniel Jago, during his formative years, had turned his hand to many things, not all of them legal – blacksmith, drover, poacher and smuggler – with varying degrees of success, until a chance meeting with a recruiting party at a Maidstone fair had changed his life for ever.

      The promise of a fine uniform, a roof over his head, and three square meals a day, not to mention the two guineas he’d receive for signing on, had seemed like a dream come true for a young man, homeless and hungry and only one step ahead of the Revenue. And so it was on a warm afternoon in early summer that Nathaniel Jago had accepted the King’s bounty and gone to war. From the lowlands of Flanders to the jungles of the West Indies and the dusty plains of India, Jago had marched and fought his way across the world. From private to sergeant, he’d served his country well.

      He’d served Hawkwood well, too.

      They’d faced the enemy together under Nelson at Copenhagen, marched with Black Bob Crauford in the Americas and with Moore in Spain and Portugal. Jago had stood with Hawkwood on the ramparts at Montevideo. He’d guarded his back at Rolica and Vimeiro and at Talavera they’d both watched in horror as the Coldstreams and the King’s German Legion had fallen victim to the French counterattack.

      It was a friendship forged on the squares at Blatchington and Shorncliffe. Since then, Jago had stood by him through ten years of war and skirmish; a staunch ally, sharing canteens on the march across the searing heat of the Spanish plains and shivering under the same blanket in the bone-chilling cold of the mountains. It had been Jago’s loyalty to Hawkwood that had caused the sergeant to become a fugitive from justice.

      When Hawkwood had taken to the mountains to join the guerrilleros, Jago had deserted from the ranks to be with him, an offence for which there could be no reprieve. At the time Hawkwood had been appalled. He had tried to persuade the sergeant to return, but to no avail. Jago had just laughed in his face.

      “Too late now, sir,” he’d said. “In any case, what would I go back to? The army don’t take kindly to deserters, even them that ‘as second thoughts. Why, if I was to go back now, they’d either flog me or ‘ang me. Seen men flogged and I’ve seen men ‘anged. Not a pretty sight. No, reckon I’ll take my chances with you, sir, if it’s all the same. Besides, you’ll need somebody to watch your back.”

      “You’re a bloody fool, Sergeant,” Hawkwood had told him. “The chances are we’ll both die in these mountains. Is it worth it?”

      “‘Tis if we take a few Frenchies along with us,” Jago had responded, and then he’d favoured the exasperated Hawkwood with an irrepressible grin. “The army can get along fine without Jago. You, on the other hand … well, admit it, Cap’n, you’d miss me if I was gone.”

      Words uttered in jest, but they had added up to one indisputable fact. For all Hawkwood’s attempts to dissuade Jago from following through with his reckless decision, he knew that not having the sergeant by his side would have been tantamount to losing his rifle or his sword. It was inconceivable that Hawkwood should continue his personal war against the French without Jago’s support. So Hawkwood had admitted defeat and they had spoken no more of the matter.

      Until Hawkwood had made his decision to return to England.

      It had been late September. The first snows of winter had begun to settle on the high peaks. Wrapped in blankets around a flickering campfire, Hawkwood had revealed his intentions, and what had surprised him had been the lack of surprise shown by his sergeant. Jago had asked only one question: “When do we leave?”

      They’d secured passage on a merchantman bound for Tilbury. They had been passing the Kent coast, close to the mouth of the Medway, when Jago had jumped ship in the early hours of a chilly dawn. Officially, Jago was still listed as a deserter and it was not unheard of for ships to be met by provost sergeants on the lookout for such individuals. By leaving the vessel before it docked, Jago had pre-empted that possibility. Hawkwood, watching Jago tread water as he made his way ashore, had felt the loss hard but, in retrospect, the sergeant’s actions had been understandable.

      Given the sergeant’s background, Hawkwood had assumed Jago would head for familiar territory, the Kent marshes, there to rekindle his skills in smuggling and other diverse activities. He’d had no fear that Jago would suffer arrest. The sergeant was too cunning for that. By the same token he had not taken it for granted that Jago would try and seek him out. He knew that if Jago felt the need to do so he would.

      And that’s how it had been. Hawkwood had heard nothing of Nathaniel Jago until, during his first few months as a Runner, he had begun to pick up vague rumours which suggested that Sergeant Jago might well have left the safety of the salt marshes behind him and embarked upon more urban pursuits.

      The capital’s criminal fraternity was close knit. When Hawkwood’s informers began to let slip snippets of information pertaining to the exploits and growing reputation of an ex-soldier who, deep in the rookery, ran a small band of ruffians with what amounted to military precision, he began to pay very close attention.

      Not that he should have been that surprised. Jago’s childhood, in the company of tinkers and horse thieves, had served as a fine apprenticeship for his life in the army, where he had gained a name for himself, not only as a first-class soldier but as a scavenger and protector to the men under his command. Twenty years in the military had only served to sharpen those skills. So it was hardly unexpected that he should have continued to utilize the same degree of artistry in his current, albeit dubious, means of employment.

      In fact, as Hawkwood had subsequently discovered, Jago had infiltrated the London underworld with considerable success. It was hinted that the sergeant had his fingers in several pies, most of them lucrative; from protection and pilfery to piracy and prostitution, though how much was fact and how much fiction, Hawkwood had been unable to determine. Where rumour led, a grain of truth was generally not far behind. What was certain was that in the short time since his arrival in the rookery Jago had won himself a position of some influence. Whether through the use of brain or brawn, one could only surmise. Knowing Jago as he did, Hawkwood presumed it was a combination of the two. Either way, it placed the ex-soldier in the position of being able to provide Hawkwood with the kind of information he sometimes sought.

      There СКАЧАТЬ