A Place Called Freedom (1995)

Charlie shrugged and left to do his assigned task. A woman rushed in, pushing past him, and approached Mack’s table, breathless and flustered. Mack recognized Sairey, the wife of a bellicose coal heaver called Buster McBride. “Mack, they’ve caught a sailor bringing a sack of coal ashore and I’m afraid Buster will kill him.”

“Where are they?”

“They’ve put him in the outhouse at the Swan and locked him in, but Buster’s drinking and he wants to hang him upside-down from the clock tower, and some of the others are egging him on.”

This kind of thing happened constantly. The coal heavers were always on the edge of violence. So far Mack had been able to rein them in. He picked a big, affable boy called Pigskin Pollard. “Go along there and calm the boys down, Pigskin. The last thing we want is a murder.”

“I’m on my way,” he said.

Caspar Gordonson arrived with egg yolk on his shirt and a note in his hand. “There’s a barge train bringing coal to London along the river Lea. It should arrive at Enfield Lock this afternoon.”

“Enfield,” Mack said. “How far away is that?”

“Twelve miles,” Gordonson replied. “We can get there by midday, even if we walk.”

“Good. We must get control of the lock and prevent the barges passing. I’d like to go myself. I’ll take twelve steady men.”

Another coal heaver came in. “Fat Sam Barrows, the landlord of the Green Man, is trying to recruit a gang to uncoal the Spirit of Jarrow,” he said.

“He’d be lucky,” Mack commented. “Nobody likes Fat Sam: he’s never paid honest wages in his life. Still, we’d better keep an eye on the tavern, just in case. Will Trimble, go along there and snoop about. Let me know if there’s any danger of Sam getting sixteen men.”

“He’s gone to ground,” said Sidney Lennox. “He’s left his lodgings and no one knows where he went”

Jay felt awful. He had told his father, in front of Sir Philip Armstrong, that he could locate McAsh. He wished he had said nothing. If he failed to deliver on his promise, his father’s scorn would be blistering.

He had been counting on Lennox to know where to find McAsh. “But if he’s in hiding, how does he run the strike?” he said.

“He appears every morning at a different coffeehouse. Somehow his henchmen know where to go. He gives his orders and vanishes until the next day.”

“Someone must know where he lays his head,” Jay said plaintively. “If we can find him, we can smash this strike.”

Lennox nodded. He more than anyone wanted to see the coal heavers defeated. “Well, Caspar Gordonson must know.”

Jay shook his head. “That’s no use to us. Does McAsh have a woman?”

“Yes—Cora. But she’s as tough as a boot. She won’t tell.”

“There must be someone else.”

“There’s the kid,” Lennox said thoughtfully.

“Kid?”

“Quick Peg. She goes robbing with Cora. I wonder …”

At midnight Lord Archer’s coffeehouse was packed with officers, gentlemen and whores. The air was full of tobacco smoke and the smell of spilled wine. A fiddler was playing in a corner but he could hardly be heard over the roar of a hundred shouted conversations.

Several card games were in progress, but Jay was not playing. He was drinking. The idea was for him to pretend to be drunk, and at first he had tipped most of his brandy down the front of his waistcoat; but as the evening wore on he drank more, and now he did not have to make much effort to appear unsteady on his feet. Chip Marlborough had been drinking seriously from the start of the evening, but he never seemed to get drunk.

Jay was too worried to enjoy himself. His father would never listen to excuses. Jay had to produce an address for McAsh. He had toyed with the idea of making one up, then claiming McAsh must have moved again; but he felt his father would know he was lying.

So he was drinking in Archer’s and hoping to meet Cora. During the course of the evening numerous girls had approached him, but none fitted the description of Cora: pretty face, flaming red hair, age about nineteen or twenty. Each time, he and Chip would flirt for a while, until the girl realized they were not serious and moved on. Sidney Lennox was a watchful presence on the far side of the room, smoking a pipe and playing faro for low stakes.

Jay was beginning to think they would be unlucky tonight. There were a hundred girls like Cora in Covent Garden. He might have to repeat this performance tomorrow, and even the day after, before running into her. And he had a wife waiting at home who did not understand why he needed to spend the evening in a place where respectable ladies were not seen.

Just as he was thinking wistfully of climbing into a warm bed and finding Lizzie there, eager and waiting, Cora came in.

Jay was sure it was she. She was easily the prettiest girl in the room, and her hair really was the color of the flames in the fireplace. She was dressed like a whore in a red silk dress with a low neckline and red shoes with bows, and she scanned the room with a professional gaze.

Jay looked over at Lennox and saw him nod slowly twice.

Thank God, he thought.