John Drake's Blog, page 2
August 16, 2019
The bald man in the cable tier
I'm pleased to say that my two latest books seem to have attracted attention. Thus I've received two comments questioning a special peril that Fletcher faces in book 5, 'Fletcher and the Samurai'.
The comments - questions really - concern his adventures vs 'the bald man in the cable tier'. Thus
I have been asked what exactly is going on with regard to the 'now-you-see-him-now-you-don't' bald man.
I based this story on one that my Uncle Harry told me, when I was a little boy. Uncle Harry had served in the Royal Navy in WW2, and was once a chief petty officer on a cruiser - which was a big ship. He used to tell tales to fascinate me, and one of them was about the young ratings aboard this ship, being frightened to go deep down in the ship at night, alone, for fear of seeing - out of the corner of an eye - a bald man who wasn't there when you took a good look, and he wasn't a member of the crew, and nobody knew who he was, and he just vanished if you looked at him. I remember my dad laughing at the story, and Uncle Harry saying:
'No! It's true. I saw him myself once.'
So: because anyone who has been to sea will tell that there are mysteries that seamen know and landmen don't, I put in one such mystery into the latest Fletcher. I put it there, and I invite readers to make of it what they will.
However ... there are some suggested explanations in the introduction at the very beginning of the book.
So you might like to read it, and see what you think.
The comments - questions really - concern his adventures vs 'the bald man in the cable tier'. Thus
I have been asked what exactly is going on with regard to the 'now-you-see-him-now-you-don't' bald man.
I based this story on one that my Uncle Harry told me, when I was a little boy. Uncle Harry had served in the Royal Navy in WW2, and was once a chief petty officer on a cruiser - which was a big ship. He used to tell tales to fascinate me, and one of them was about the young ratings aboard this ship, being frightened to go deep down in the ship at night, alone, for fear of seeing - out of the corner of an eye - a bald man who wasn't there when you took a good look, and he wasn't a member of the crew, and nobody knew who he was, and he just vanished if you looked at him. I remember my dad laughing at the story, and Uncle Harry saying:
'No! It's true. I saw him myself once.'
So: because anyone who has been to sea will tell that there are mysteries that seamen know and landmen don't, I put in one such mystery into the latest Fletcher. I put it there, and I invite readers to make of it what they will.
However ... there are some suggested explanations in the introduction at the very beginning of the book.
So you might like to read it, and see what you think.
August 10, 2019
Honoring the Fallen
Please note the American spelling of 'Honoring'. This is no accident.
I have received a critique of my WW2 Super-Weapon book 'Agent of Death'. The book is about the late development (1945) by the Nazis of a super weapon more deadly than the Atom bomb, and the efforts of the book's hero - David Landau - to stop the weapon's deployment.
In one chapter I have a scratch crew of supposedly, unfit and unsuitable (because they are too young) US Navy aviators flying off a carrier on a heroic mission to stop the super weapon being used.
I called these men the 'baby aviators' and to stress their heroism, I listed the names of every man and every aircraft of the flight.
A recent critique has said that I went too far, in a work of fiction (which this is) in making up such names. My response is that I most profoundly wanted to honor the fallen, the real fallen, the real young men who died for our freedom in WW2, and therefore I made up a list of names to focus the attention of readers on the fact that those who fought, were individual human beings, not just numbers.
Thus my fiction is dedicated with utmost respect and reverence to the real thing, and in this particular case to the US Navy.
John Drake
I have received a critique of my WW2 Super-Weapon book 'Agent of Death'. The book is about the late development (1945) by the Nazis of a super weapon more deadly than the Atom bomb, and the efforts of the book's hero - David Landau - to stop the weapon's deployment.
In one chapter I have a scratch crew of supposedly, unfit and unsuitable (because they are too young) US Navy aviators flying off a carrier on a heroic mission to stop the super weapon being used.
I called these men the 'baby aviators' and to stress their heroism, I listed the names of every man and every aircraft of the flight.
A recent critique has said that I went too far, in a work of fiction (which this is) in making up such names. My response is that I most profoundly wanted to honor the fallen, the real fallen, the real young men who died for our freedom in WW2, and therefore I made up a list of names to focus the attention of readers on the fact that those who fought, were individual human beings, not just numbers.
Thus my fiction is dedicated with utmost respect and reverence to the real thing, and in this particular case to the US Navy.
John Drake
August 6, 2019
Nasty to poor Jim Hawkins?
After writing this book I did suffer some guilt that I had been rather nasty to poor Jim Hawkins in 'Traitor of Treasure Island'.
Well ... yes indeed I have. I have been very nasty and it crosses my mind that Robert Louis Stevenson would not be pleased at what I have done.
And that's a shame because, although I'd never met him, I think he was a decent chap. On the other hand he's long since passed to another and better place. Which of course means that just possibly I might meet him some day.
And so, I point out that in turning the innocent Jim-lad, into ... Sir James 'Slippery Jim' Hawkins. Then I have had a lot of fun, and I hope readers will too, and meanwhile Stevenson's magnificent original Jim-lad, is still there in 'Treasure Island', still waiting to be read, and it's even free online, so give it a look!
Go on. Give it try, and then try my version.
All best,
John Drake
Well ... yes indeed I have. I have been very nasty and it crosses my mind that Robert Louis Stevenson would not be pleased at what I have done.
And that's a shame because, although I'd never met him, I think he was a decent chap. On the other hand he's long since passed to another and better place. Which of course means that just possibly I might meet him some day.
And so, I point out that in turning the innocent Jim-lad, into ... Sir James 'Slippery Jim' Hawkins. Then I have had a lot of fun, and I hope readers will too, and meanwhile Stevenson's magnificent original Jim-lad, is still there in 'Treasure Island', still waiting to be read, and it's even free online, so give it a look!
Go on. Give it try, and then try my version.
All best,
John Drake
January 31, 2018
Romans loved children
It has been suggested that I present only favourable aspects of ancient Rome, especially my claim that child abuse was barely possible in Roman society. This has been questioned since a Roman Paterfamilias (head of family) had the legal right to use all slaves - including children - for sexual purposes. So please note:
1) The Roman attitude to sexual abuse of under-aged children is neatly expressed in a law which prescribed the death penalty for men who seduced free-born boys.
2) Seutonius in his 'Twelve Caesars' does report sexual abuse of children by e.g. Nero, but Seutonius was a scandal-monger pointing out behaviour which was seen as disgraceful.
3) Romans loved their children every bit as much as we do, including slave children. There is plenty of evidence for this.
4) There was no privacy in a Roman city. Slaves were everywhere and saw everything and gossiped. So anyone abusing children would know that his crime would become public knowledge.
5) But a Paterfamilias was obsessed with polishing his reputation, not destroying it. He lived in one city all his life, his neighbours knew everything about him and he depended on a good reputation to get the civic jobs Romans prized, and to be respected by his equals in society. He would therefore be insane to abuse children, since this would ruin him.
I therefore have not the slightest doubt that the vast majority of Romans regarded sexual abuse of children, as a vile and despicable crime, and that the best thing to do with abusers was to throw them to the beasts in the arena, and what a pity it is that we cannot do the same thing today.
1) The Roman attitude to sexual abuse of under-aged children is neatly expressed in a law which prescribed the death penalty for men who seduced free-born boys.
2) Seutonius in his 'Twelve Caesars' does report sexual abuse of children by e.g. Nero, but Seutonius was a scandal-monger pointing out behaviour which was seen as disgraceful.
3) Romans loved their children every bit as much as we do, including slave children. There is plenty of evidence for this.
4) There was no privacy in a Roman city. Slaves were everywhere and saw everything and gossiped. So anyone abusing children would know that his crime would become public knowledge.
5) But a Paterfamilias was obsessed with polishing his reputation, not destroying it. He lived in one city all his life, his neighbours knew everything about him and he depended on a good reputation to get the civic jobs Romans prized, and to be respected by his equals in society. He would therefore be insane to abuse children, since this would ruin him.
I therefore have not the slightest doubt that the vast majority of Romans regarded sexual abuse of children, as a vile and despicable crime, and that the best thing to do with abusers was to throw them to the beasts in the arena, and what a pity it is that we cannot do the same thing today.
January 5, 2018
The Romans had no Police
I have stated repeatedly in 'Death in Londinium' and the forthcoming sequal 'Games in Londinium' that the Romans had no police force, and some historians have asked me to justify this statement. So: in about 100 AD when my books are set, in Rome itself there were three organisations who might have been a police force: The Praetorian Guard, the Urban Cohorts, and the Vigiles. But the Praetorians were a legion of elite solders, who defended Rome, and had the last word in civil, military and political matters. They certainly did not patrol the city with a cheery wave, nor chase thieves, nor help old ladies across the street.
The Urban Cohorts (four of them, with about five hundred men to the cohort) were closer to being policemen, though of the heavy-handed kind. Their job was riot control, and perhaps their mothers loved them, but nobody else did and you wouldn’t want to be on the street when they were.
Finally the Vigiles (seven cohorts) who patrolled at night, and might well have arrested drunks if they fell over them. But the Vigiles were really the Roman fire brigade. Their job was to find and put out fires, and that is what they mainly did.
What Rome did not have was a body of men whose primary duty was to prevent crime if they could, and investigate it if they could not: seeking evidence, pursuing criminals and then handing them over to a State prosecution service to be charged in court. In fact nobody could take that last step, because the Romans had no state prosecution service either.
All this suited the Romans because of the way their society worked. Thus a Roman Paterfamilias (head of the family) lived all his life in his city where he knew his neighbours and they knew him, and everyone knew everyone’s business thanks to gossiping slaves who knew absolutely everything that went on in the house. Then, within that house, Paterfamilias had absolute power to deal with any crime. He could beat, fine, imprison or even kill any member of his household.
How, then, did this affect some of the crimes that we fear most, starting with the worst fear of all: abuse of our children by paedophiles?
In a Roman city, if someone’s son had a sexual interest in children, then everyone knew because there was no privacy in a Roman house. I repeat that there was no privacy because the slaves would see everything and then gossip. So the son’s oddity would be common knowledge, and his Paterfamilias would warn him to behave or else, and if Paterfamilias himself was odd, then all his neighbours would know and he would never be allowed near their children.
Burglary in the night while you are asleep? In Roman law, men armed with military weapons could be seen as a rebels against the State (very dangerous! See below). So the burglar might have just a knife, which could be met by the house-folk with kitchen knives. But more important, a Roman family could be very large. Even a small household might be two parents, several children (some full-grown) plus numbers of slaves, while a large household would contain dozens of slaves. Thus burglary meant breaking into an armed and hostile community, and I doubt that any Roman criminal would even attempt anything so stupid.
Street crime? Muggers, pick-pockets and such? Romans relied on their neighbours against them since it was in everybody’s interest to defend one another. Also, Paterfamilias would always be attended by one or more slaves who were legally compelled to defend him.
So most petty crime was dealt with by Paterfamilias himself, or with the neighbours, as a private matter in which the State did not intervene. Big crime: legal, financial, commercial or political, was different. It was indeed a matter for the State, via the law courts. But Paterfamilias was expected to bring charges, produce evidence, summon witnesses, and even drag the accused to court.
Also dragged into court were the criminals Rome detested most: the noxii (scum) including rapists, kidnappers of children for ransom, and rebels against the state. They were damnatio ad bestias (condemned to the beasts) providing light entertainment in the arena before the gladiators came on.
That was the Roman defence against crime and it worked for hundreds of years. It wasn’t perfect but neither is London’s Met or the NYPD.
The Urban Cohorts (four of them, with about five hundred men to the cohort) were closer to being policemen, though of the heavy-handed kind. Their job was riot control, and perhaps their mothers loved them, but nobody else did and you wouldn’t want to be on the street when they were.
Finally the Vigiles (seven cohorts) who patrolled at night, and might well have arrested drunks if they fell over them. But the Vigiles were really the Roman fire brigade. Their job was to find and put out fires, and that is what they mainly did.
What Rome did not have was a body of men whose primary duty was to prevent crime if they could, and investigate it if they could not: seeking evidence, pursuing criminals and then handing them over to a State prosecution service to be charged in court. In fact nobody could take that last step, because the Romans had no state prosecution service either.
All this suited the Romans because of the way their society worked. Thus a Roman Paterfamilias (head of the family) lived all his life in his city where he knew his neighbours and they knew him, and everyone knew everyone’s business thanks to gossiping slaves who knew absolutely everything that went on in the house. Then, within that house, Paterfamilias had absolute power to deal with any crime. He could beat, fine, imprison or even kill any member of his household.
How, then, did this affect some of the crimes that we fear most, starting with the worst fear of all: abuse of our children by paedophiles?
In a Roman city, if someone’s son had a sexual interest in children, then everyone knew because there was no privacy in a Roman house. I repeat that there was no privacy because the slaves would see everything and then gossip. So the son’s oddity would be common knowledge, and his Paterfamilias would warn him to behave or else, and if Paterfamilias himself was odd, then all his neighbours would know and he would never be allowed near their children.
Burglary in the night while you are asleep? In Roman law, men armed with military weapons could be seen as a rebels against the State (very dangerous! See below). So the burglar might have just a knife, which could be met by the house-folk with kitchen knives. But more important, a Roman family could be very large. Even a small household might be two parents, several children (some full-grown) plus numbers of slaves, while a large household would contain dozens of slaves. Thus burglary meant breaking into an armed and hostile community, and I doubt that any Roman criminal would even attempt anything so stupid.
Street crime? Muggers, pick-pockets and such? Romans relied on their neighbours against them since it was in everybody’s interest to defend one another. Also, Paterfamilias would always be attended by one or more slaves who were legally compelled to defend him.
So most petty crime was dealt with by Paterfamilias himself, or with the neighbours, as a private matter in which the State did not intervene. Big crime: legal, financial, commercial or political, was different. It was indeed a matter for the State, via the law courts. But Paterfamilias was expected to bring charges, produce evidence, summon witnesses, and even drag the accused to court.
Also dragged into court were the criminals Rome detested most: the noxii (scum) including rapists, kidnappers of children for ransom, and rebels against the state. They were damnatio ad bestias (condemned to the beasts) providing light entertainment in the arena before the gladiators came on.
That was the Roman defence against crime and it worked for hundreds of years. It wasn’t perfect but neither is London’s Met or the NYPD.
May 4, 2016
Fletcher Spin-Off
My latest book, 'Thief Catcher' is a spin-off from 'Fletcher's Glorious 1st June' which introduced a character that badly needed another book.
Any author will say that characters develop a life of their own, and this one certainly did as far as I am concerned, such that I could not let him rest.
He is Sam Slym the thief catcher: a grim, bone-faced, immaculately-dressed man, with a chin shaved glossy black-red by the closeness of the razor's daily passage.
He was raised by a pugilist father and is Cockney to the core, but has tremendous aspirations to rise in society. His love-affair with Lady Sarah Coignwood, should have raised him up, but she spurned him and deeply wounded him, and he is overthrown with conflicting emotions when he meets her again.
Slym has sent more villains to the gallows than any other man in London, and always went to watch them swing. He is an acutely-intelligent detective, who now must work with his 'Dr Watson': Sir John Leicester-Fleming, a kindly, natural aristocrat, a thorough gentleman and Slym's character opposite.
There's plenty of crime and murder in 'Thief Catcher' but a touch of James Bond too, because Slym uncovers a threat to the very existence of the British Nation.
And he falls in Love with Sarah Coignwood all over again, even though he knows that he shouldn't, because even Slym had his weaknesses, and she is all of them all in one lovely body.
It's characters that drive a book, and I hope you will like Sam Slym and Sir John, though perhaps not Lady Sarah. However beautiful she may be, I don't like her at all, and that's a fact. But she's worth reading about.
Why are the bad girls always so much more interesting than the good girls?
All best,
John Drake
Any author will say that characters develop a life of their own, and this one certainly did as far as I am concerned, such that I could not let him rest.
He is Sam Slym the thief catcher: a grim, bone-faced, immaculately-dressed man, with a chin shaved glossy black-red by the closeness of the razor's daily passage.
He was raised by a pugilist father and is Cockney to the core, but has tremendous aspirations to rise in society. His love-affair with Lady Sarah Coignwood, should have raised him up, but she spurned him and deeply wounded him, and he is overthrown with conflicting emotions when he meets her again.
Slym has sent more villains to the gallows than any other man in London, and always went to watch them swing. He is an acutely-intelligent detective, who now must work with his 'Dr Watson': Sir John Leicester-Fleming, a kindly, natural aristocrat, a thorough gentleman and Slym's character opposite.
There's plenty of crime and murder in 'Thief Catcher' but a touch of James Bond too, because Slym uncovers a threat to the very existence of the British Nation.
And he falls in Love with Sarah Coignwood all over again, even though he knows that he shouldn't, because even Slym had his weaknesses, and she is all of them all in one lovely body.
It's characters that drive a book, and I hope you will like Sam Slym and Sir John, though perhaps not Lady Sarah. However beautiful she may be, I don't like her at all, and that's a fact. But she's worth reading about.
Why are the bad girls always so much more interesting than the good girls?
All best,
John Drake
May 2, 2016
Thief Catcher' Excerpt
THE BEGINNING
The Cider Cellar,
Off Covent Garden,
London,
9.00 p.m.,
Friday 13th April 1798.
Mr Atty Clerk strutted across the shabby stage. He leered at his audience: a dense-packed greasy mob, crammed into a vast cavern where the brickwork glistened with the steam of two thousand bodies.
He winked knowingly and the candles winked back in the tin-plate footlights. His belly and buttocks were hugely padded. His sweating face was powdered and rouged, and a great white wig curled over his head. He wore stage imitation of gold-laced court clothes, and mockeries of the order of the Garter and the Bath. He was the incarnation of the print-shop caricatures of Prinny the Prince of Wales.
"Lah, m'good people!" said, he in booming parody of a nobleman's voice, "Stap me vitals if I ain't fresh from Downing Street, an' young Billy Pitt the Prime Minister, an' all his cabinette, and …” In the midst of his speech he broke off, stopped dead, and a sudden strain came over his face. He groaned, bent deep at the knees, and broke wind thunderously.
A roar of laughter came from the masses packed in front of him. They were chairmen, sailors, coal-heavers, 'prentices, tinkers, foundrymen, thieves, rogues and beggars, together with their tarts and bulldogs. A good third of the company was Irish and the entirety of it was drunk or getting drunk. To this end, potmen forced their way through the press delivering an unending stream of bottles and tankards.
"Whoops!" cried Atty, with an embarrassed expression. He paused, and judged his moment, "I begs yer pardons one and all ... It must have been," he said …
“Something I ate!" they cried - a beloved and familiar line – for Arthur Clark was the most popular clown in London, and the mob adored him.
Meanwhile, ignored by the company, a small, middle-aged woman, dark haired, in shabby clothes made her way to a door in one of the vaulted arches that ran along the side walls of the Cider Cellar. The door was thick and strong; it was iron-bound and locked, and it led into the premises immediately adjoining the Cider Cellar: Mrs Hoskins's Bagnio and Celestial Hotel, one of London’s finest whore-houses, serving a clientele celestially superior to that of the Cider Cellar.
Tonight, the door was about to be unlocked by the little dark woman: Mrs Masha Abrahams, whose husband owned the Cider Celler and was indeed allowed to conduct much of its routine business, as were her sons Izzy and Jude. Being large and strong the three of them were a credit to Mrs Abrahams in all matters of humping and lifting, and of throwing drunken Irishmen out into the street. But tonight there was business involving keys and money. That sort of work, Masha Abrahams did herself.
Masha was a careful woman who’d oiled the locks to make sure they'd open without fuss. But she looked over her shoulder first. She shuddered even in the comfort of the long coat with the fur collar that she always wore for the cold , even in summer. This was the dangerous moment. It could be nasty. A poor woman could be killed like this.
She turned the key and pulled. Her heart thumped as the door stuck. She tugged with small, smooth hands. Full of guilt, and fear, she looked again into the seething mass of the audience. She moaned and snivelled. Was that some madman looking at her? Oh, God of Moses and Abraham! Pity a pious woman fallen among gentiles! Then someone actually rose to his feet among the drunken herd of swine, and she knew that he looked straight at her, and she clutched her heart, bypassed God, and prayed direct to her revered and blessed mother, dead these past twenty years. And her prayer was answered! The villain sank back into the seething mass and was gone.
In the same instant, the door swung open into Mrs Hoskins's side and three men came through. Masha had been pulling the wrong way. A wave of relief washed over her. She was safe now. She looked at the men.
Two were bully-boys dressed exclusively in black with no shiny metal to catch the light. Each clutched a peculiar bludgeon in his fist: tubes of leather filled with lead shot and provided with a plaited wrist loop so they couldn't be dropped, and which would stun a man without killing him. These arms and the plain black dress were the requirements of a man even more thorough than Masha Abrahams herself: Mr Samuel Slym, the celebrated Thief-Catcher, who was first through the door.
"Good evening Mr Slym," said Masha, pronouncing the word as slime, because some years ago, the then Mr Samuel Slim had decided that the sound of his name was unbecoming to such a man as himself. He’d therefore replaced he letter “i” with “y” to dictate the longer vowel which he perceived as more gentile, never guessing how the sniggering world would perceive it. Then, when realisation dawned, he stuck to his choice, hoping tenacity would stop the laughter, which it did – in his presence – for it was most unadvisable to laugh at Sam Slym.
"Mrs Abrahams!" said Slym and Masha's eyes shifted away from his unblinking stare. The light was bad but Masha knew him well Slym was a man of about thirty five, of medium height but seeming taller by virtue of his overpowering physical presence. He was broad in the shoulder and waist, but without a scrap of fat anywhere on his body. He had heavy, muscular calves and thick hands with protruding knuckles. His face was all bone, with sharp black eyes under thick brows.
He was always clean shaved: shaved red-black and glossy from the exquisite closeness of the razor's passage. He habitually wore a tall, round, black hat with a curling brim and a dull black hatband, but he took it off and passed it to Masha because it made him conspicuous. His hair was jet black, cropped short, and slicked down with macassar oil. His final badge of identity was a heavy, polished blackthorn walking stick with six ounces of lead let into the thickness of the handle. Masha had never seen Slym without it, and suspected that he would rather go out without his breeches, than leave it at home.
The Cider Cellar,
Off Covent Garden,
London,
9.00 p.m.,
Friday 13th April 1798.
Mr Atty Clerk strutted across the shabby stage. He leered at his audience: a dense-packed greasy mob, crammed into a vast cavern where the brickwork glistened with the steam of two thousand bodies.
He winked knowingly and the candles winked back in the tin-plate footlights. His belly and buttocks were hugely padded. His sweating face was powdered and rouged, and a great white wig curled over his head. He wore stage imitation of gold-laced court clothes, and mockeries of the order of the Garter and the Bath. He was the incarnation of the print-shop caricatures of Prinny the Prince of Wales.
"Lah, m'good people!" said, he in booming parody of a nobleman's voice, "Stap me vitals if I ain't fresh from Downing Street, an' young Billy Pitt the Prime Minister, an' all his cabinette, and …” In the midst of his speech he broke off, stopped dead, and a sudden strain came over his face. He groaned, bent deep at the knees, and broke wind thunderously.
A roar of laughter came from the masses packed in front of him. They were chairmen, sailors, coal-heavers, 'prentices, tinkers, foundrymen, thieves, rogues and beggars, together with their tarts and bulldogs. A good third of the company was Irish and the entirety of it was drunk or getting drunk. To this end, potmen forced their way through the press delivering an unending stream of bottles and tankards.
"Whoops!" cried Atty, with an embarrassed expression. He paused, and judged his moment, "I begs yer pardons one and all ... It must have been," he said …
“Something I ate!" they cried - a beloved and familiar line – for Arthur Clark was the most popular clown in London, and the mob adored him.
Meanwhile, ignored by the company, a small, middle-aged woman, dark haired, in shabby clothes made her way to a door in one of the vaulted arches that ran along the side walls of the Cider Cellar. The door was thick and strong; it was iron-bound and locked, and it led into the premises immediately adjoining the Cider Cellar: Mrs Hoskins's Bagnio and Celestial Hotel, one of London’s finest whore-houses, serving a clientele celestially superior to that of the Cider Cellar.
Tonight, the door was about to be unlocked by the little dark woman: Mrs Masha Abrahams, whose husband owned the Cider Celler and was indeed allowed to conduct much of its routine business, as were her sons Izzy and Jude. Being large and strong the three of them were a credit to Mrs Abrahams in all matters of humping and lifting, and of throwing drunken Irishmen out into the street. But tonight there was business involving keys and money. That sort of work, Masha Abrahams did herself.
Masha was a careful woman who’d oiled the locks to make sure they'd open without fuss. But she looked over her shoulder first. She shuddered even in the comfort of the long coat with the fur collar that she always wore for the cold , even in summer. This was the dangerous moment. It could be nasty. A poor woman could be killed like this.
She turned the key and pulled. Her heart thumped as the door stuck. She tugged with small, smooth hands. Full of guilt, and fear, she looked again into the seething mass of the audience. She moaned and snivelled. Was that some madman looking at her? Oh, God of Moses and Abraham! Pity a pious woman fallen among gentiles! Then someone actually rose to his feet among the drunken herd of swine, and she knew that he looked straight at her, and she clutched her heart, bypassed God, and prayed direct to her revered and blessed mother, dead these past twenty years. And her prayer was answered! The villain sank back into the seething mass and was gone.
In the same instant, the door swung open into Mrs Hoskins's side and three men came through. Masha had been pulling the wrong way. A wave of relief washed over her. She was safe now. She looked at the men.
Two were bully-boys dressed exclusively in black with no shiny metal to catch the light. Each clutched a peculiar bludgeon in his fist: tubes of leather filled with lead shot and provided with a plaited wrist loop so they couldn't be dropped, and which would stun a man without killing him. These arms and the plain black dress were the requirements of a man even more thorough than Masha Abrahams herself: Mr Samuel Slym, the celebrated Thief-Catcher, who was first through the door.
"Good evening Mr Slym," said Masha, pronouncing the word as slime, because some years ago, the then Mr Samuel Slim had decided that the sound of his name was unbecoming to such a man as himself. He’d therefore replaced he letter “i” with “y” to dictate the longer vowel which he perceived as more gentile, never guessing how the sniggering world would perceive it. Then, when realisation dawned, he stuck to his choice, hoping tenacity would stop the laughter, which it did – in his presence – for it was most unadvisable to laugh at Sam Slym.
"Mrs Abrahams!" said Slym and Masha's eyes shifted away from his unblinking stare. The light was bad but Masha knew him well Slym was a man of about thirty five, of medium height but seeming taller by virtue of his overpowering physical presence. He was broad in the shoulder and waist, but without a scrap of fat anywhere on his body. He had heavy, muscular calves and thick hands with protruding knuckles. His face was all bone, with sharp black eyes under thick brows.
He was always clean shaved: shaved red-black and glossy from the exquisite closeness of the razor's passage. He habitually wore a tall, round, black hat with a curling brim and a dull black hatband, but he took it off and passed it to Masha because it made him conspicuous. His hair was jet black, cropped short, and slicked down with macassar oil. His final badge of identity was a heavy, polished blackthorn walking stick with six ounces of lead let into the thickness of the handle. Masha had never seen Slym without it, and suspected that he would rather go out without his breeches, than leave it at home.
April 28, 2016
'Wayfinder' Excerpt
THE VERY BEGINNING
Snorre Red-Beard strained with all his might. He really tried. He did his utmost even though he was in pain, even though his thoughts came so slowly and even though it was getting unaccountably dark in the full of the morning. He did everything that a brave man could do, because despite certain flaws in his character, he was undoubtedly brave. In fact he did everything that any kind of man could do in the attempt to understand what had just happened to him.
To the best of his recollection, he’d been at the head of thirty men, facing three opponents mounted on expensive horses with a pack mule trotting behind, and displaying a richness of loot that Snorre had been anxious to acquire. This was plain fact and there was no question of it in Snorre’s mind. Likewise it was plain fact that the three men had been hopelessly out-numbered in a nice, narrow road, with rocks on one side and a sheer drop on the other.
Of all this, Snorre Red-Beard was certain.
He was also certain of the conversation that had followed. As usual he’d begun by promising to spare their lives if they didn’t fight, because it was amazing how often this promise was believed by naïve persons. But then the conversation had spun off in new ways, because none of the three seemed in the least afraid, and the eldest (the leader) had spoken most strangely. Snorre frowned as he lay in the road, and wondered why there was no feeling in his legs? But he pushed this thought aside and tried to remember precisely what the eldest man had said. Snorre nodded to himself as memory cleared.
“Ah!” the man had said, looking mournfully at Snorre, “What sorrow has fallen upon me, great chieftain, because I see that you must relieve me of all the gold in my saddle bags.”
He’d said that and all Snorre’s rat-pack had gasped in delight, and Snorre had winked at them merrily.
“Right, then!” Snorre had said, “So get your arses off your ‘osses and hand it over,” and all his men had laughed.
“Sadly, I cannot,” the eldest man had said, “I mean no dis-respect, but I am old and tired and all I ask is two things: first that I should remain mounted, and second that your good fellows should approach me, that I may hand out the gold with the least trouble.”
That’s just what he’d said and it’d seemed very reasonable, and Snorre had lowered his axe, and beckoned his men to come forward, which they’d done like children to a feast, including the archers who’d been told to stay up in the rocks, but weren’t going to do that when there was gold being handed out! Snorre couldn’t blame them for that.
Then Snorre frowned, because he could barely feel his arms now and there was a fierce ache in his chest and the sky was going black, and also because everything had happened so fast once his men got near the horses. Snorre stirred his mind and remembered the two younger men hurling spears from the saddle. He gaped in realisation that the spears had been for him. Then he recalled much shouting, and then he’d fallen over, but he’d managed to turn his head and he’d seen blades flashing and men going down … his men.
“No,” thought Snorre, as another memory stirred: memory of the tiny gap in his mail coat where the links were broken, and which he’d always meant to get mended. “No,” he thought, “They couldn’t have aimed at that. Not so small a target as that.” But the gap was precisely over the pain in his chest, and struggling hard Snorre managed to get his right hand moving and to fondle the two spear shafts, sticking out of the hole in his mail. He was a heavy man, and with him laid flat on his back and the spears driven in hard, they were sticking up as if hammered into firm ground. “Well bugger me,” he said, “Now that’s artistry that is. Hitting a mark like that? Sheer bloody artistry!”
These fair and dispassionate words were his last on Earth, reflecting great credit upon his professionalism as a bandit and horse-thief. Thus none can doubt (there can be no doubt at all) that he was heard by the Valkyrs, those weird sisters (lovely yet hideous in the same eye-blink) ever circling the dying, ready to swoop and carry them across the rainbow bridge Bifrost, to Valhalla, provided only that they die in battle.
And that included even Snorre Red-Beard.
Snorre Red-Beard strained with all his might. He really tried. He did his utmost even though he was in pain, even though his thoughts came so slowly and even though it was getting unaccountably dark in the full of the morning. He did everything that a brave man could do, because despite certain flaws in his character, he was undoubtedly brave. In fact he did everything that any kind of man could do in the attempt to understand what had just happened to him.
To the best of his recollection, he’d been at the head of thirty men, facing three opponents mounted on expensive horses with a pack mule trotting behind, and displaying a richness of loot that Snorre had been anxious to acquire. This was plain fact and there was no question of it in Snorre’s mind. Likewise it was plain fact that the three men had been hopelessly out-numbered in a nice, narrow road, with rocks on one side and a sheer drop on the other.
Of all this, Snorre Red-Beard was certain.
He was also certain of the conversation that had followed. As usual he’d begun by promising to spare their lives if they didn’t fight, because it was amazing how often this promise was believed by naïve persons. But then the conversation had spun off in new ways, because none of the three seemed in the least afraid, and the eldest (the leader) had spoken most strangely. Snorre frowned as he lay in the road, and wondered why there was no feeling in his legs? But he pushed this thought aside and tried to remember precisely what the eldest man had said. Snorre nodded to himself as memory cleared.
“Ah!” the man had said, looking mournfully at Snorre, “What sorrow has fallen upon me, great chieftain, because I see that you must relieve me of all the gold in my saddle bags.”
He’d said that and all Snorre’s rat-pack had gasped in delight, and Snorre had winked at them merrily.
“Right, then!” Snorre had said, “So get your arses off your ‘osses and hand it over,” and all his men had laughed.
“Sadly, I cannot,” the eldest man had said, “I mean no dis-respect, but I am old and tired and all I ask is two things: first that I should remain mounted, and second that your good fellows should approach me, that I may hand out the gold with the least trouble.”
That’s just what he’d said and it’d seemed very reasonable, and Snorre had lowered his axe, and beckoned his men to come forward, which they’d done like children to a feast, including the archers who’d been told to stay up in the rocks, but weren’t going to do that when there was gold being handed out! Snorre couldn’t blame them for that.
Then Snorre frowned, because he could barely feel his arms now and there was a fierce ache in his chest and the sky was going black, and also because everything had happened so fast once his men got near the horses. Snorre stirred his mind and remembered the two younger men hurling spears from the saddle. He gaped in realisation that the spears had been for him. Then he recalled much shouting, and then he’d fallen over, but he’d managed to turn his head and he’d seen blades flashing and men going down … his men.
“No,” thought Snorre, as another memory stirred: memory of the tiny gap in his mail coat where the links were broken, and which he’d always meant to get mended. “No,” he thought, “They couldn’t have aimed at that. Not so small a target as that.” But the gap was precisely over the pain in his chest, and struggling hard Snorre managed to get his right hand moving and to fondle the two spear shafts, sticking out of the hole in his mail. He was a heavy man, and with him laid flat on his back and the spears driven in hard, they were sticking up as if hammered into firm ground. “Well bugger me,” he said, “Now that’s artistry that is. Hitting a mark like that? Sheer bloody artistry!”
These fair and dispassionate words were his last on Earth, reflecting great credit upon his professionalism as a bandit and horse-thief. Thus none can doubt (there can be no doubt at all) that he was heard by the Valkyrs, those weird sisters (lovely yet hideous in the same eye-blink) ever circling the dying, ready to swoop and carry them across the rainbow bridge Bifrost, to Valhalla, provided only that they die in battle.
And that included even Snorre Red-Beard.
April 26, 2016
'Agent of Death' Excerpt
THE VERY BEGINNING:
Princeton, New Jersey,
USA
Thursday 21 November, 2.35 a.m. 1935
‘Einstein, God damn it, it’s Einstein!’ said Pritchett, shuddering in horror, ‘His wife just phoned in hysterics. It’s something awful but she wouldn’t say what.’ Pritchett groaned and uttered his worst fear, ‘D’you think it’s the sailboat? D’you think he’s finally killed himself in that goddam sailboat?’
Mrs Pritchett gasped, hands going to mouth. ‘He never wears a lifejacket,’ she said.
‘And he can’t swim,’ said Pritchett, ‘And he won’t learn how, and he won’t even look at a damned compass let alone a chart.’
Professor Louis Charles Pritchett, Director of Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Studies, trembled. Albert Einstein was the star of stars, the jewel of jewels, the greatest scientist in history, and the institute existed only to house him. Among the pseudo-gothic colleges of Princeton, it stood out as an oddity, having no undergraduates, no fraternities, no sport, and no degrees. It was an intellectual monastery designed to keep Einstein’s genius safe and warm in the USA, and not stolen away by selfish, jealous, wicked rivals in Cambridge, Zurich, Brussels, and all the others that hungered and thirsted after Einstein, and that fawned upon Einstein, and that grovelled on their bellies to try to lure him away.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Einstein himself was famously unworldly and careless of his own safety, as exemplified afloat in his sailboat Tinef, which he constantly capsized or ran aground. Consequently, Einstein was in Pritchett’s care. He was in Pritchett’s personal care, and Pritchett knew, because he’d been assured of it by his superiors, that if America lost Einstein, or if anything happened to Einstein, then America would never, never, never forgive Pritchett.
‘Go,’ said Mrs Pritchett, pushing her husband out of the house to where Collins the chauffeur was waiting, hurriedly crammed into his uniform and holding open the rear door of the Pritchett’s’ Buick 8-90 Sedan. ‘Go on!’ said Mrs Pritchett, and her husband and his chauffeur scrambled into the car, and the 8-cylinder 5.6 litre engine bellowed into life, sending the glossy black monster lurching forward with grinding gears, blazing headlights, and whitewall tyres hurling grit into the night.
Minutes later, the Buick sped down the wide avenue of Mercer Street, with its fine trees and bright gardens, and skidded into silence outside number 112: a wooden, two-storey house, white-painted with green shutters. There was big veranda at the front, with five steps leading up to the porch, and Pritchett saw that Mrs Elsa Einstein was there and ready and waiting for him.
‘Herr director!’ she screamed as Pritchett – the patrician, ponderous Pritchett – threw open a door before his chauffeur had time to touch it, leapt out, and lumbered at such breathless speed as he could muster through the neat gate and across the lawn to the house.
‘Mrs Einstein,’ cried Pritchett, ‘Madame!’ And he staggered as Elsa leapt forward and threw herself into his arms and the two middle-aged people wobbled and clung. In that moment Pritchett knew that Einstein was dead and that he, Pritchett, was finished, undone, ruined, and broken; jerked out of his fat-paid job, never to hold academic office in any state of the Union, not ever again. He wouldn’t get a job picking cigarette butts out of the student urinals
Princeton, New Jersey,
USA
Thursday 21 November, 2.35 a.m. 1935
‘Einstein, God damn it, it’s Einstein!’ said Pritchett, shuddering in horror, ‘His wife just phoned in hysterics. It’s something awful but she wouldn’t say what.’ Pritchett groaned and uttered his worst fear, ‘D’you think it’s the sailboat? D’you think he’s finally killed himself in that goddam sailboat?’
Mrs Pritchett gasped, hands going to mouth. ‘He never wears a lifejacket,’ she said.
‘And he can’t swim,’ said Pritchett, ‘And he won’t learn how, and he won’t even look at a damned compass let alone a chart.’
Professor Louis Charles Pritchett, Director of Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Studies, trembled. Albert Einstein was the star of stars, the jewel of jewels, the greatest scientist in history, and the institute existed only to house him. Among the pseudo-gothic colleges of Princeton, it stood out as an oddity, having no undergraduates, no fraternities, no sport, and no degrees. It was an intellectual monastery designed to keep Einstein’s genius safe and warm in the USA, and not stolen away by selfish, jealous, wicked rivals in Cambridge, Zurich, Brussels, and all the others that hungered and thirsted after Einstein, and that fawned upon Einstein, and that grovelled on their bellies to try to lure him away.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Einstein himself was famously unworldly and careless of his own safety, as exemplified afloat in his sailboat Tinef, which he constantly capsized or ran aground. Consequently, Einstein was in Pritchett’s care. He was in Pritchett’s personal care, and Pritchett knew, because he’d been assured of it by his superiors, that if America lost Einstein, or if anything happened to Einstein, then America would never, never, never forgive Pritchett.
‘Go,’ said Mrs Pritchett, pushing her husband out of the house to where Collins the chauffeur was waiting, hurriedly crammed into his uniform and holding open the rear door of the Pritchett’s’ Buick 8-90 Sedan. ‘Go on!’ said Mrs Pritchett, and her husband and his chauffeur scrambled into the car, and the 8-cylinder 5.6 litre engine bellowed into life, sending the glossy black monster lurching forward with grinding gears, blazing headlights, and whitewall tyres hurling grit into the night.
Minutes later, the Buick sped down the wide avenue of Mercer Street, with its fine trees and bright gardens, and skidded into silence outside number 112: a wooden, two-storey house, white-painted with green shutters. There was big veranda at the front, with five steps leading up to the porch, and Pritchett saw that Mrs Elsa Einstein was there and ready and waiting for him.
‘Herr director!’ she screamed as Pritchett – the patrician, ponderous Pritchett – threw open a door before his chauffeur had time to touch it, leapt out, and lumbered at such breathless speed as he could muster through the neat gate and across the lawn to the house.
‘Mrs Einstein,’ cried Pritchett, ‘Madame!’ And he staggered as Elsa leapt forward and threw herself into his arms and the two middle-aged people wobbled and clung. In that moment Pritchett knew that Einstein was dead and that he, Pritchett, was finished, undone, ruined, and broken; jerked out of his fat-paid job, never to hold academic office in any state of the Union, not ever again. He wouldn’t get a job picking cigarette butts out of the student urinals
'Death in Londinium' Excerpt
DEATH IN LONDINIUM: the very beginning
‘They’ll kill us,’ he said, ‘all of us,’ The huge, fat man grabbed my arm, but looked over his shoulder at the hysterical mass of slaves cramming into the great atrium and he wished he had kept his mouth shut, because there was a wild moan of terror. He was Agidox the major domos, an expert from Gaul, who ran the biggest staff in the city with effortless ease. Normally he went upon his way with stately tread and serene authority. But not now. Now he was barely in control of his bladder.
‘Come here,’ he said, and dragged me into a corner between a pair of big marble statues, and he shook me, trying to spring me into action. ‘You’re clever,’ he said, ‘You must know what to do.’ I searched for words, but before I could speak a woman came shrieking through the mob followed by five children.
‘Agidox!’ cried the woman, ‘Don’t let them take us!’ and she howled in fear: her and her little ones, and the slaves gaped as Agidox’s family threw themselves on him. ‘Husband!’ she said, because slaves pretend marriage even if the law denies them it, and she clung to Agidox while the girls screamed and hung to his robes, and the boy: the youngest and smallest, climbed into his father’s arms and bawled in terror.
‘Hush, hush,’ said Agidox to his favourite, and patted the boy with infinite tenderness, as a sudden, higher pitch in the crowd’s noise, showed it was not just Agidox’s woman that had heard the news and run to her man with her young behind her. The whole building echoed with cries and running feet, then a sudden shout of surprise as the atrium gates crashed inwards and a centurion staggered in with a dozen square-shield regulars behind him, and more filling the vestibule that led to the streets. They were identical in their uniform gear: inhuman and infinitely menacing.
‘Oh no,’ said Agidox, ‘They’ve come to kill us!’
‘They’ll kill us,’ he said, ‘all of us,’ The huge, fat man grabbed my arm, but looked over his shoulder at the hysterical mass of slaves cramming into the great atrium and he wished he had kept his mouth shut, because there was a wild moan of terror. He was Agidox the major domos, an expert from Gaul, who ran the biggest staff in the city with effortless ease. Normally he went upon his way with stately tread and serene authority. But not now. Now he was barely in control of his bladder.
‘Come here,’ he said, and dragged me into a corner between a pair of big marble statues, and he shook me, trying to spring me into action. ‘You’re clever,’ he said, ‘You must know what to do.’ I searched for words, but before I could speak a woman came shrieking through the mob followed by five children.
‘Agidox!’ cried the woman, ‘Don’t let them take us!’ and she howled in fear: her and her little ones, and the slaves gaped as Agidox’s family threw themselves on him. ‘Husband!’ she said, because slaves pretend marriage even if the law denies them it, and she clung to Agidox while the girls screamed and hung to his robes, and the boy: the youngest and smallest, climbed into his father’s arms and bawled in terror.
‘Hush, hush,’ said Agidox to his favourite, and patted the boy with infinite tenderness, as a sudden, higher pitch in the crowd’s noise, showed it was not just Agidox’s woman that had heard the news and run to her man with her young behind her. The whole building echoed with cries and running feet, then a sudden shout of surprise as the atrium gates crashed inwards and a centurion staggered in with a dozen square-shield regulars behind him, and more filling the vestibule that led to the streets. They were identical in their uniform gear: inhuman and infinitely menacing.
‘Oh no,’ said Agidox, ‘They’ve come to kill us!’
