Mack was fascinated and unnerved. He had never thought about politics this way. He had discussed high-flown theories out of books, and he had been the helpless victim of unjust laws, but this was halfway between the two. This was the zone where contending forces struggled and swayed, and tactics could alter the result. This, he felt, was the real thing—and it was dangerous.
The enchantment was lost on Gordonson: he just looked worried. “I got you into this, Mack, and if you get killed it will be on my conscience.”
His fear began to infect Mack. Four months ago I was just a coal miner, he thought; now I’m an enemy of the government, someone they want to kill. Did I ask for this? But he was under a powerful obligation. Just as Gordonson felt responsible for him, he was responsible for the coal heavers. He could not run away and hide. It would be shameful and cowardly. He had led the men into trouble and now he had to lead them out of it.
“What do you think we should do?” he asked Gordonson.
“If the men agree to strike, your job will be to keep them under control. You’ll have to stop them setting fire to ships and murdering strikebreakers and laying siege to undertakers’ taverns. These men aren’t parsons, as you well know—they’re young and strong and angry, and if they run riot they’ll burn London.”
“I think I might be able to do that,” Mack said. “They listen to me. They seem to respect me.”
“They worship you,” Gordonson said. “And that puts you in even greater danger. You’re a ringleader, and the government may break the strike by hanging you. From the moment the men say yes, you’ll be in terrible danger.”
Mack was beginning to wish he had never mentioned the word “strike.” He said: “What should I do?”
“Leave the place where you’re lodging and move somewhere else. Keep your address secret from all but a few trusted people.”
Cora said: “Come and live with me.”
Mack managed a smile. That part would not be difficult.
Gordonson went on: “Don’t show yourself on the streets in daylight. Appear at meetings, then vanish. Become a ghost.”
It was faintly ridiculous, Mack felt, but his fear made him accept it. “All right.”
Cora got up to leave. To Mack’s surprise, Peg put her arms around his waist and hugged him. “Be careful, Scotch Jock,” she said. “Don’t get knifed.”
Mack was surprised and touched by how much they all cared for him. Three months ago he had never met Peg, Cora or Gordonson.
Cora kissed him on the lips and then sauntered out, already swaying her hips seductively. Peg followed.
A few moments later Mack and Gordonson left for the Jolly Sailor. It was dark, but Wapping High Street was busy, and candlelight gleamed from tavern doorways, house windows and handheld lanterns. The tide was out, and a strong smell of rottenness wafted up from the foreshore.
Mack was surprised to see the tavern’s courtyard packed with men. There were about eight hundred coal heavers in London, and at least half of them were here. Someone had hastily erected a crude platform and placed four blazing torches around it for illumination. Mack pushed through the crowd. Every man recognized him and spoke a word or clapped him on the back. The news of his arrival spread quickly and they started to cheer. By the time he reached the platform they were roaring. He stepped up and gazed at them. Hundreds of coal-smeared faces looked back at him in the torchlight. He fought back tears of gratitude for their trust in him. He could not speak: they were shouting too loudly. He held up his hands for quiet, but it did no good. Some cried his name, others yelled “Wilkes and liberty!” and other slogans. Gradually one chant emerged and came to dominate the rest, until they were all bellowing the same:
“Strike! Strike! Strike!”
Mack stood and stared at them, thinking: What have I done?
21
JAY JAMISSON RECEIVED A NOTE FROM HIS FATHER AT breakfast time. It was characteristically curt.
Grosvenor Square
8 o’clock a.m.
Meet me at my place of business at noon.
—G.J.
His first guilty thought was that Father had found out about the deal he had made with Lennox.
It had gone off perfectly. The shippers had boycotted the new coal heaving gangs, as Lennox had wanted; and Lennox had returned Jay’s IOUs, as agreed. But now the coal heavers were on strike and no coal had been landed in London for a week. Had Father discovered that all that might not have happened but for Jay’s gambling debts? The thought was dreadful.
He went to the Hyde Park encampment as usual and got permission from Colonel Cranbrough to be absent in the middle of the day. He spent the morning worrying. His bad temper made his men surly and his horses skittish.
The church bells were striking twelve as he entered the Jamissons’ riverside warehouse. The dusty air was laden with spicy smells—coffee and cinnamon, rum and port, pepper and oranges. It always made Jay think of his childhood, when the barrels and tea-chests had seemed so much bigger. Now he felt as he had as a boy, when he had done something naughty and was about to be carpeted. He crossed the floor, acknowledging the deferential greetings of the men, and climbed a rickety wooden staircase to the counting-house. After passing through a lobby occupied by clerks he went into his father’s office, a corner room full of maps and bills and pictures of ships.
“Good morning, Father,” he said. “Where’s Robert?” His brother was almost always at Father’s side.
“He had to go to Rochester. But this concerns you more than him. Sir Philip Armstrong wants to see me.”
Armstrong was the right-hand man of Secretary of State Viscount Weymouth. Jay felt even more nervous. Was he in trouble with the government as well as with his father? “What does Armstrong want?”
“He wants this coal strike brought to an end and he knows we started it.”
This did not seem to have anything to do with gambling debts, Jay inferred. But he was still anxious.
“He’ll be here any moment now,” Father added.
“Why is he coming here?” Such an important personage would normally summon people to his office in Whitehall.
“Secrecy, I imagine.”
Before he could ask any more questions the door opened and Armstrong came in. Both Jay and Sir George stood up. Armstrong was a middle-aged man formally dressed with wig and sword. He walked with his nose a little high, as if to show that he did not usually descend into the mire of commercial activity. Sir George did not like him—Jay could tell by his father’s expression as he shook hands and asked Armstrong to sit down.
Armstrong refused a glass of wine. “This strike has to end,” he said. “The coal heavers have closed down half of London’s industry.”
Sir George said: “We tried to get the sailors to uncoal the ships. It worked for a day or two.”
“What went wrong?”
“They were persuaded, or intimidated, or both, and now they are on strike too.”
“And the watermen,” Armstrong said with exasperation. “And even before the coal dispute started, there was trouble with tailors, silk weavers, hatters, sawyers.… This cannot go on.”
“But why have you come to me, Sir Philip?”
“Because I understand you were influential in starting the shippers’ boycott which provoked the coal heavers.”
“It’s true.”
“May I ask why?”
Sir George looked at Jay, who swallowed nervously and said: “I was approached by the undertakers who organized the coal heaving gangs. My father and I did not want the established order on the waterfront to be disturbed.”