“And I you, skinny Lizzie. Who will mend my stockings?”

She grinned through her tears, gave him a shove. “Get away with you! I have shown you how to use a needle and ye sew well.”

Then two gaolers came and took the women back to the prison, waving, howling, protesting.

And back to the iron belt around the waist, the four sets of chains joined together at its front.

In appearance this wagon looked the same as the one from Bristol to Gloucester—rawn by eight big horses, covered with a canvas semicircle. Inside it was quite different, having a bench down either side long enough for six men to sit with plenty of space between each. Their belongings had to be piled on the floor between their legs and would pitch and slide every time the vehicle jarred, thought the experienced Richard. What road was smooth, especially at this time of year? Dead of winter, and a rainy one.

Two gaolers traveled with them, but not inside with them; they sat with the driver up front, which had a fine shelter built over it. No one in the back was going to slip out and escape; once seated, a length of chain was run through an additional loop on each man’s left fetter and bolted to the floor at either end. If one man moved, his five companions had to move.

The pecking order was now established. Muffled in his warmly lined greatcoat, Richard sat at the open end of the wagon on one side, with Ike Rogers, leader of the youngsters, facing him.

“How long will it take?” asked Ike Rogers.

“If we cover six miles in a day we will be lucky,” answered Richard, grinning. “Ye’ve not been on the road before—in a wagon, I mean, Ike. I do not know how long. It depends which way.”

“Through Cheltenham and Oxford,” said the highwayman, taking the joke in good part. “Whereabouts Woolwich is, however, I do not know. I have been to Oxford, but never to London.”

Richard had conned his first geography book, a text on London. “It is well east of London but on the south bank of the Thames. I do not know if they mean to make us cross over—we are going to hulks moored in the river, after all. If we go through Cheltenham and Oxford, then we have about a hundred and twenty miles to travel to Woolwich.” He did some calculations in his head. “At six miles a day, it will take almost three weeks to get there.”

“We sit here for three weeks?” asked Bill Whiting, dismayed.

Those who had already been on the road in a wagon laughed.

“No need to worry about sitting idle, Bill,” said Taffy. “We will be out and digging half a dozen times in a day.”

As indeed proved to be the case. Wayside hospitality, however, fell far short of that extended to Richard and Willy by John the wagoneer. No barns, no warm horse blankets, nothing to eat save bread, nothing to drink save small beer. Each night saw them bed down in the wagon by transferring their belongings to the seats and occupying the floor to stretch out, greatcoats for covers, hats for pillows. The canvas roof leaked in the perpetual rain, though the temperature stayed well above freezing, a small mercy for damp and shivering prisoners. Only Ike had boots; the rest wore shoes and were soon caked to above their fettered ankles in mud.

They did not see Cheltenham or Oxford, the driver preferring to skirt both towns with this cargo of felons, and High Wycombe was no more than a short row of houses down a hill so slippery that the team of horses became entangled in the traces and nearly turned the wagon over. Bruised by flying wooden boxes, the prisoners were set to work righting the perilously leaning vehicle; Ike Rogers, who had a great affinity with horses, engaged himself in calming the animals down and sorting out their harness.

Of London they saw absolutely nothing, for one of the gaolers fixed a shield over the open back and blinded them to what was going on outside. Soon came a trundling motion rather than a lurching one; they had reached some paved main road, which meant that their services would not be needed to dig the wagon out. Noises percolated inside: cries, whinnies, brays, snatches of song, sudden babbles which perhaps meant they passed by an open tavern door, the thump of machinery, an occasional crash.

When night fell the gaolers pushed bread and small beer in through the shielding flap and left them to their own devices; he who needed to urinate or defecate was now provided with a bucket. More bread and small beer in the morning, then onward through that confusing racket, joined now by the cries of vendors and some very interesting stenches—rotten fish, rotten meat, rotten vegetables. The Bristolians stared at each other and smirked, while the rest looked a little sick.

For two nights they lay somewhere within the reaches of the great city, and on the afternoon of the third day—their twentieth since leaving Gloucester—someone yanked the shield away and let in the London daylight. In front of them lay a mighty river, grey and slick and bobbing with refuse; judging from the position of the sun, a pale and watery brilliance in the midst of a whitish sky, they had crossed the stream somewhere, and were now on its south bank. Woolwich, Richard decided. The wagon stood alongside a dock, to which was moored a dilapidated semblance of a ship which bore a barely discernible name on a bronze plate: Reception. Most appropriate.

The gaolers removed the chain which had linked them together and told Richard and Ike to get out. Legs a little shaky, they jumped down, their companions following.

“Remember, in two groups of six,” said Richard to Ike softly.

They were marched up a wooden gangplank and onto the vessel before anyone had a good opportunity to take in much of the river or what lay upon it. Once inside a room they were divested of their chains, manacles, belts and fetters, which were handed back to the Gloucester gaolers.

Boxes, sacks and bundles around them, they stood for some time aware of the guards at the door of this ruined wardroom or whatever it might have been; escape was impossible unless all twelve of them made a combined rush—but after that, what?

A man walked in. “Dowse yer nabs n toges!” he shouted.

They looked at him blankly.

“Nabs n toges orf!”

When nobody moved he cast his eyes at the ceiling, stormed up to Richard, who was closest, knocked his hat off and yanked at his greatcoat and the suit coat he wore beneath it.

“I think he wants us to take off our hats and coats.”

Everybody obeyed.

“Nah kicks araon stampers n keep yer mishes orn!”

They looked at him blankly.

He ground his teeth, shut his eyes and said, with a very odd accent, “Britches round your feet but keep your shirts on.”

Everybody obeyed.

“Ready, sir!” he called.

Another man strolled in. “Where are you lot from?” he asked.

“Gloucester Gaol,” said Ike.

“Oh, West Country. Ye’ll have to speak something akin to the King’s English, Matty,” he said to the first man, and then to the prisoners, “I am the doctor. Is anybody sick?”

Apparently assuming that the general murmur was a negative, he nodded and sighed. “Lift your shirts, let us see if there are any blue boars.” He inspected their penises for syphilitic ulcers, and having found none, sighed again. “Bene,” he said to Matty, and to them, “Ye’re a healthy lot, but all things change.” About to leave the room, he said, “Put your clothes on, wait here, and keep quiet.”

They put their clothes on and waited.

It was a full five minutes before Bill Whiting, the chirpiest of the twelve, recovered enough of his cheek to find speech. “Did anybody understand anything yon Matty said?” he asked.

“Not a word,” said young Job Hollister.

“Perhaps he was from Scotland,” said Connelly, remembering that no one in Bristol had understood Jack the Painter.

“Perhaps he was from Woolwich,” said Neddy Perrott.