The Wanderers of the Water-Realm (4 page)

A nearby church clock had struck half past ten before the boatmaster settled his bill in the ordinary and began walking off his huge breakfast of bacon, eggs, sheep’s kidneys, black puddings and fried potatoes. He stepped out briskly, with the taste of the sweet South-American coffee still on his palate, and, within half an hour, he traversed the district of Piccadilly and was standing before the banking premises of ‘Downes & Sons’ the firm who managed his modest savings.

Young Mr Downes welcomed Darryl into his office and as business was quiet, he entertained the boatmaster with tea and idle conversation for well over an hour. It was therefore almost midday before Darryl emerged from the bank with a total of thirty guineas stowed within the stout money belt that was hidden beneath his clothing. His next task was now to deliver the cash to his maternal Uncle Robert. This would require a substantial journey on foot, for the retired boatman lived on the extreme edge of the city in the district of Ancoats; his cottage being conveniently situated near the line of the Ashton canal navigation where the old man could sit and watch the boats sailing past.

For a moment, the young man considered retracing his steps through Piccadilly, but the cobbled streets were choked with traffic at this hour, instead, he settled upon a slightly longer but less strenuous route; one that would lead him past the nearby Castlefield wharves and along the towpaths and side-streets running eastwards in a roughly parallel line to the route of the Rochdale and Ashton-Under-Lyne canals.

Darryl felt perfectly safe from danger, as he tramped eastwards, even though his route took him through a poverty stricken district where the cash in his belt would have been a sure invitation to robbery. However, the ex-fighter was a well known and popular figure in the vicinity of the Manchester canals and his progress was often delayed by friends and acquaintances who greeted him in the street. On more than one occasion, he was invited to share a beer with the day labourers who toiled on the canal wharves whenever work was available, and who spent the remainder of their lives in the rat infested cellars lying below the level of the city’s grimy streets, but he always declined their invitations and pressed onwards.

By mid-afternoon, the boatmaster had reached the outer limits of the city and was littlemore than a mile from his uncle’s cottage, when the brutal and unexpected event occurred that was destined to alter the entire course of his life.

On the very edge of Ancoats, close to a newly constructed district of textile factories and terraced cottages, stood an isolated group of noisome hovels and temporary workshops that would soon be swallowed up by the ever advancing suburbs of Manchester.

The hamlet was known to the local populace as ‘Hells Corner.’ and the boatmaster would certainly have been well advised to have given the place a wide berth, for its inhabitants were drawn from the dregs of the city workhouses, but Darryl also knew that he would shorten his journey by a good half a mile if he cut through this squalid district. He also recalled the fact that the broken and sick inhabitants of ‘Hells Corner’ had never attempted to impede his progress in the past and he resolved to run the slight risk of passing through the disreputable hamlet.

Darryl entered the tangle of buildings and was passing through a narrow alleyway running between a ruined hovel, a disused smithy and a rag and bone warehouse, when the attack suddenly occurred.

Without warning, a massively built man sprang from the gaping front door of the hovel and delivered a powerful shoulder charge, sending the boatmaster crashing against the wall of the smithy with sickening force. The young man’s huge assailant, whose lower face was obscured by a thick woollen scarf, immediately stepped behind his victim and threw his left arm around the youth’s throat. He instantly turned the move into a strangling hold by grasping his left wrist with his right hand then hauling backwards upon Darryl’s windpipe with the whole of his considerable strength. Meanwhile, a second man whose features were similarly disguised, emerged from the door of the smithy and repeatedly drove his fist into the boatmaster’s unprotected stomach. The second attacker was slightly built and the ex-fighters well developed abdominal muscles enabled him to absorb the force of the blows without difficulty.

Even so, Darryl knew that he must react quickly before the stranglehold to his throat rendered him unconscious. The boatmaster was the veteran of a score of bitter wharf-side brawls and twisting sideways he attempted to win enough room to drive his elbow backwards into his attacker’s midriff.

Unfortunately, the move failed and the arm around his windpipe tightened alarmingly.

In desperation, he reached upwards, tearing at the hand that was locking-on the stranglehold, succeeding in forcing away his assailant’s little finger. He summoned up the remainder of his strength and bent the digit back against the joint; his efforts were rewarded by a crack resembling the breaking of a twig. The attacker grunted with pain and Darryl immediately felt the pressure release from his throat allowing his lungs to fill with gulps of life-giving air.

Darryl followed up this success by driving an elbow into his injured opponent’s solar plexus with a force that would have felled most normal men. The man merely gasped and countered by grasping hold of the young man’s right arm and delivering a whip-throw, sweeping him off his feet and crashing to the ground.

The two attackers now closed in upon the helpless boatman, the slighter of the assailants drawing back his boot in order to deliver a finishing kick to the head. But Darryl’s hand brushed against a pole-like object lying abandoned in the alleyway.

He desperately grasped the object thrusting it upwards in an attempt to fend off the fatal attack. The assailant halted for a second, as though frozen and then collapsed in a heap alongside the boatmaster with blood pouring from a terrible rent in the side of his throat.

Darryl immediately glanced at the object that had delivered such a terrible wound and he perceived it to be a long handled agricultural billhook probably abandoned by some departed smallholder. The implement was dirty and covered with rust, yet the blade was as sharp as a razor and had cleaved through the man’s neck without difficultly.

The remaining assailant lunged forward with the obvious intention of avenging his fallen comrade, when something very strange occurred.

A tiny dark-haired girl, wearing a white blouse and a long red skirt, suddenly appeared and interposed herself between Darryl and his massive attacker rapping out a few words in a language that was totally unknown to the boatmaster. She took the man by his undamaged hand and quickly led him down the alleyway and out of sight.

Darryl rested for a few moments to regain his strength, then clambered to his feet and began examining his fallen opponent.

The man was quite dead, for the lifeblood had poured out of his body that was now surrounded by a veritable pool of gore. The boatmaster, out of curiosity, bent down and pulled the scarf from the dead man’s face and he found himself looking at the pale features of Stovepipe Arkwright.

Darryl pondered upon his situation and decided that it was his duty to inform the local constabulary as quickly as possible. Yet another portion of his brain advocated immediate flight, for he had publicly inflicted physical violence upon the runner that very morning. Furthermore, only the unknown girl had witnessed the ambush and she was nowhere to be seen. He could not help fearing that he would be accused of murdering Arkwright out of sheer spite.

However, the boatmaster’s dilemma was destined to be quickly resolved, for the door of the nearby rag and bone warehouse suddenly burst open and a flood of shabbily dressed humanity poured into the alleyway. The denizens of ‘Hells Corner’ occasionally found casual employment by sorting out the piles of stinking rags that were stored inside the establishment, and the young man’s presence in the alleyway had unfortunately coincided with the end of their working day.

The motley gathering halted as one at the very moment they spotted the blood soaked body of the runner, with the boatmaster crouching over it and still holding the gory billhook that had inflicted such a terrible wound.

At first, they stood in silence, then a boy with a pockmarked face pointed at the corpse and then at the boatmaster.

“God help us!” He began, in a shocked whisper that grew into a shout of anger.

“There’s been a right horrible murder and yon bugger with the billhook in his fist must be the one who’s done it!”

“Aye, you’re right,” broke in another member of the crowd. “That’s Stovepipe Arkwright lying there with the blood drained out of him. Aye, and I know the name of his killer, that’s ‘Black Darryl’ standing there, I’ve seen him fightin’ over at Pike’s gymnasium on more than one occasion.”

“It’s ‘Black Darryl’right enough,” shouted a third member of the crowd. “He’s still armed, so we’d best soften him up a bit before we lay hands upon him.” The man picked up a stone and flung it towards the boatmaster, narrowly missing his head. The remainder of the ragged group then joined in and began pelting the young man with stones, billets of wood and anything they could lay their hand upon. Darryl, with missiles flying around his head had no choice but to take to his heels.

A portion of the tattered mob attempted to give chase, but the boatmaster was almost at the peak of physical fitness and he swiftly left them behind. The pursuers were soon out of sight but Darryl maintained a blistering pace eating up the remaining distance between ‘Hell’s Corner’ and his uncle’s dwelling that lay close to the banks of the Ashton canal.

Darryl was gasping for breath as he ran through the dense grove of oak trees surrounding his relatives cottage and found Robert Littlewood sitting in his front garden busily repairing the shaft of his broken spade.

The older man immediately realized that something was seriously amiss when the youth burst through his front garden gate and halted before him with his chest heaving from his exertions. He wisely allowed his nephew time to recover his breath before requesting the reason for the young man’s hasty appearance and waited patiently as Darryl recounted the events of that disastrous day.

Afterwards, Robert led him into the cottage, seated him at a stout table and handed him a mug filled to the brim with hot water and strong navy rum. The old waterman made himself comfortable by the hearth, then lit his pipe and began reviewing his nephew’s situation.

“You’ll hang for sure if the constabulary takes you.” He said quietly. “Or else they’ll send you to the Dartmoor rock-pile for the rest of your life and you’ll probably suffer a far worse fate than the rope, for there seems to have been witnesses enough at the gymnasium to prove that bad blood existed between you and Stovepipe Arkwright. Aye, and there seems to be none who’ll swear that you were the innocent victim, and not the assailant in that bloody ambush at ‘Hell’s Corner.’ Indeed, you can rely upon that bunch of rag-picker’s to damn you as Stovepipe’s killer and send you to the gallows without a single care in their drink sodden minds. Best thing that you can do lad is cut and run whilst you still have a chance of staying alive!”

Darryl, however, was far from convinced.

“The police might find witnesses to prove my innocence,” he suggested. “At any rate, I’m bound to receive a fair trial and…”

“Afair trial be buggered,” shouted the old waterman angrily striking his pipe against the side of the fireplace. “Remember that you’re a boatman, living and working on the canals, do you suppose that any of the property owning shopkeepers who will make up the jury, will consider you to be anything more than living slime? Why, a gypsy or a common felon would be afforded more respect. I tell you lad, those sanctimonious bastards would give you the ‘nine o’clock drop’and then go to the chapel on the following Sunday and strut around as proud as punch, whilst boasting about making sure that justice was done and a felon hung.”

Darryl was reluctantly forced to agree with his uncle’s reading of the situation, for he had personally experienced the fear and hatred that a great many land-dwellers harboured for the boat people; folk whom many regarded as moronic thugs, whose itinerant lifestyle was often regarded as ungodly and an affront to civilized society. Indeed, it was not uncommon for some unfortunate bargee, caught poaching a rabbit to feed his hungry family, to become the recipient of a long and brutal prison sentence that far outweighed the gravity of his crime.

“Perhaps I can make it to Liverpool or Bristol and get aboard a ship bound for America?” He suggested. But the old waterman shook his head.

“You’d never even make it to the docks, let alone get passage to America with the police being on your tail. No lad, your best hope is to make your way back to Elfencot and seek your mother’s assistance. Hetty will know how best to direct you to a place of safety.”