The strange affair of Spring-heeled Jack

Thwack!

"Please-no-yes-aah!"

Thwack!

"Oh my-my-ceh-yow!"

Thwack!

"Oh! Ah!-Oh! Ha! Ha!-It burns!"

Again and again, the leather belt struck Algernon Swinburne's buttocks with terrific force, sending wave after wave of pleasure coursing through his diminutive body. He shrieked and howled and gibbered rapturously until, finally, Master Sweep Vincent Sneed grew tired, threw the belt aside, took his hand from the back of the poet's neck, stepped away from the wooden crate over which Swinburne was bent, and wiped his sweaty brow.

"Let that be a lesson to yer," he snarled. "I'll 'ave none o' yer backchat, yer little toerag. Stand up straight!"

Swinburne stood, rubbing his backside through his trousers. He was wearing a flat cap, a stained white collarless calico shirt, a threadbare waistcoat, fingerless woollen gloves, and trousers that were too short-they stopped some inches above his ankles. On his feet were ill-fitting boots with loose soles. His face, hands, and clothes were smeared with soot and his teeth had been made to look yellow and rotten.

"Sorry, Mr. Sneed," he whined.

"Shut yer cakehole. I don't want another peep outa yer. Pack the tools. We've got a job on an' it's gettin' late."

Swinburne left the crate-which the master sweep used as a table-and limped over to the workbench where the brushes and poles, which he'd been cleaning all morning, were laid out. He started packing them into a long canvas holdall.

Sneed plonked himself onto a stool and sat with legs akimbo, elbows on knees, and a bottle of moonshine in his right hand. He watched Swinburne and sneered. The League had supplied him with this new boy three days ago and the little git was too mouthy by half.

"I'll beat some respeck inter yer, that I will," he mumbled, "yer blinkin' whippersnapper."

In aspect, Sneed resembled a stoat. His thin black hair was long and greasy, combed backward over his narrow skull, his gleaming scalp shining through it. His low forehead slid down into a pockmarked and sly-looking face, the whole of which seemed to have been pulled forward by his gargantuan nose-so much so that his beady black eyes, rather than being to either side of it, seemed to be on the sides of the astonishing protuberance. That nose had earned him his nickname, which he despised with a passion. Woe betide anyone who uttered the words "the Conk" within range of his little cauliflower ears!

His small lipless mouth and receding chin were partially hidden by a ragged, nicotine-stained moustache and beard. Through the tangled hair, two big uneven front teeth could be glimpsed.

Over his short, thin but powerful frame, the Conk was wearing baggy canvas trousers held up by a pair of suspenders, a filthy shirt with a red cravat, and a bizarre blue surtout with epaulettes, which may well have been a relic from Admiral Nelson's day.

"29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields," he grunted. "One flue, narrow. We'll take a goose, just in case."

Swinburne stifled a yawn. He'd experienced three days of exhausting work. His hands were cut and blistered. His pores were clogged with soot.

"Ain't you finished yet?"

"Yes," answered the poet. "All packed."

"So shove it in the wagon and 'itch up the 'orse. Do I 'ave to tell yer everything?"

Swinburne went out into the yard and did as directed. His buttocks were burning from the beating he'd taken. He would have whistled happily were he not so tired.

A little later, he and the Conk, wrapped in overcoats and with their caps pulled down tightly, were seated at the front of the wagon and heading northwestward across Whitchapel. As the vehicle rumbled over the cobbles, its bumps and jolts sent pain lancing up through the poet's sensitised backside.

"Heavenly!" he muttered gleefully.

"What's that?" grunted the Conk.

"Nothing, sir," Swinburne replied. "I was just thinking about the job."

"Think about steering this old nag. There'll be time to think about the bleedin' job when we get there."

It was half past four. Spots of rain began to fall. The weather, unpredictable as ever, was taking a turn for the worse but it could never rain hard enough to wash away the stench of the East End. After three days, Swinburne's nose was becoming attuned to it, blocking out the mephitic stink. There were always surprises, though; areas where the putrid gases threatened to overpower him and bring up what little he had in his stomach.

The sights, too, were sickening. The streets were crowded with the worst dregs of humanity, most of them shuffling, slumping, or sprawling aimlessly, their eyes desolate, their poverty having pushed them into an animalalmost vegetative-state. Others moved about, seeking a pocket to pick, a mug to rob, or a mark to swindle. There were beggars, prostitutes, pimps, drug addicts, and drunkards in profusion; children, too, playing desultory games in puddles of filth; and, occasionally, the white bonnets of the Sisterhood of Noble Benevolence could be seen bobbing through the mob; the women travelling in threes, trying to do good-distributing gruel and roughly woven blankets-managing to move through this destitute hell without being harmed; how, no one knew, though some claimed they possessed a supernatural grace which protected them.

There were labourers, too: hawkers, costermongers, carpenters, and coopers, tanners, slaughterhouse workers, and builders. There were publicans, of course, and pawnbrokers, betting touts, and undertakers; but the majority of the employed were invisible, locked away in the workhouses and factories where they slaved backbreaking hour after backbreaking hour in return for a short sleep on a hard bed and a daily bowl of slop.

Through this milling throng, the wagon passed. Swinburne steered it along tight lanes bordered by rookeries whose gables leaned precariously inward, threatening to topple into each other, burying anyone on the cobbles beneath. Grimy water dripped onto him from strings of hanging garments.

The sweep and his apprentice stopped and picked up a goose from a poulterer's, pushing it into a sack that the Conk kept squeezed between his legs as they continued their journey.

"It's a struggler," he noted, approvingly.

Ten minutes or so later they reached the Truman Brewery and turned into Hanbury Street, drawing up outside number 29. The premises was a large building with many rooms and an ironmonger's shop at the front. A notice in the window announced: "Rooms to Let. Apply Within only if Respectable. Strictly No Foreigners."

"'Obble the 'orse and unload the 'quipment," ordered Sneed, jumping down to the pavement. With the sack in his hand, he went into the shop while Swinburne chained the horse's ankles together.

The poet dragged the heavy holdall from the back of the wagon and waited. A moment later Sneed emerged and gestured to a second door.

"This way," he grunted, pushing it open.

Swinburne followed his master down a passageway and through a second door which opened onto a backyard; a patchwork of stone, grass, and dirt. It was surrounded by a high wooden fence and contained a small shed and a privy. Three steps rose to a back door, which the Conk knocked on. It was opened by an elderly crinoline-clad woman, her hair in curlpapers, who gestured for them to enter.

They moved through a scullery and kitchen into a short hallway then passed through a door to the right and found themselves in a small parlour.

"All right, ma'am-you can leave us to it," said Sneed.

"Mind you don't chip me china," advised the old lady as she departed.

Swinburne looked around but couldn't see any china. The room smelled musty and damp.

"Jump to it!" snapped the Conk. "Lay out the sacking."

He sat on a shabby armchair and pulled the bottle of moonshine from his pocket, taking swigs, watching Swinburne work, and giving the sack between his knees an occasional slap.

Swinburne soon had the floor and furniture, what there was of it, covered.

The master sweep slipped the bottle back into his jacket, slid off the chair, and poked his head into the fireplace, looking up.

"Nope," he grunted. "You'll not get up there. Why the Beetle 'ad to send me a hulking great helephant like you I don't know."

Swinburne grinned. He'd been called many things in his time but "hulking great helephant" was a first.

The Conk twisted, shot out a hand, and slapped the poet's face. Swinburne gasped.

"You can wipe that smile off yet ugly mug!" snarled the Conk. "You've got too much hattitude, you 'ave."

They returned to the wagon outside and Swinburne untied the ropes that secured the ladder. Sneed slid it off-it was too heavy for Swinburne-and heaved it up until its top rested against the side of the roof, its topmost rung just below the eaves.

"Get up there and drop down the rope, an' be quick about it!"

"Yes, sir," said the poet, whose face was stinging pleasantly.

While the Conk returned to the room behind the shop, Swinburne wound a long length of rope around his little shoulders then scrambled up the ladder. He now faced his most dangerous task: he had to cross the sloping roof to the chimney pot, a sloping roof whose tiles were slick from the spitting rain.

Lifting himself off the top rung and over the eaves, he lay on his right hip and pressed the sides of his boots against the wet surface. With his palms flat against the tiles, he began to push himself up. Bit by bit, he advanced over the shingles toward the ridge.

It took nearly ten painstaking minutes but he made it without slipping and, with a sigh of relief, stood and braced himself against the chimney. He unravelled the rope and lowered it into the flue.

"About bleedin' time, you lazy bugger," came a hollow voice from below.

The rope jumped and jerked as the Conk tied its end around the goose's legs. Swinburne could hear the bird honking in distress.

"All right, up with 'er," came Sneed's command.

Swinburne started to haul the unfortunate-and very heavy-goose up the shaft. Its panicked flapping and cries echoed up the flue.

This was the method they used to loosen the caked soot from the inside of the chimney when the space was too narrow for Swinburne to climb up and do it himself. Though he felt sympathy for the traumatised bird, the poet preferred it this way, for climbing a flue was an intensely difficult and dangerous affair, as the bruises and grazes on his knees, elbows, shoulders, and hands testified.

All the way to the top he pulled the fowl, until its flapping wings came into view amid a cloud of soot; then he lowered the blackened bird down again; his shoulders afire with the effort; the rope slipping through his hands and ripping his blisters.

"Done!" echoed Sneed's voice. "Get down 'ere!"

Dropping the rope into the chimney, Swinburne sat, twisted himself around, lay flat, and gingerly made his way down over the tiles.

The spits and spots of rain gave way to a more serious shower and the increasing gloom made it difficult to locate the top of the ladder, which projected just a couple of inches over the eaves. Swinburne-tiny, excitable, and oversensitive-was not, however, a man who felt fear, and despite the precar iousness of his position, he remained calm as he carefully shifted himself over the slick shingles at the edge of the roof until the toe of his left boot bumped the ladder. He manoeuvred onto the topmost rung and climbed down until, with a sigh of relief, he felt his boots touch the pavement.

By now, his whole body was aching and he longed for a brandy. It had been three days since his last drink and he was finding sobriety thoroughly disagreeable.

He returned to the Conk, who snarled, "Too slow, boy! This ain't a bleedin' 'oliday!"

"Sorry, sir-the roof was wet."

"I'll 'ave none o' yet excuses! Finish the job!"

The sweep sat back and took a swig of moonshine while Swinburne knelt on the sacking, which was now covered with the soot the goose had loosened from the flue, and started removing the rods from the long holdall. He affixed the large round, flat, and stiff-bristled brush to the end of one and pushed it up the chimney. Soot showered down and billowed around him. Screwing a second rod into the end of the first, he pushed again, with the same result. This routine continued until he stopped feeling any resistance from the brush, which meant that it was now poking out of the top of the chimney. He then reversed the process, unscrewing the rods one by one and pulling them down until the brush reappeared.

Sneed, who was by now quite drunk, mumbled: "Job done. Pack up."

Of course I will, thought Swinburne. You must be exhausted with all you've done!

He placed the rods and brush back into the holdall then rolled up each piece of sacking, carefully catching all the soot in the material. Nevertheless, once done, there remained a layer of black powder over every surface in the room, and this he had to clean up with a dustpan and brush and a damp rag.

As he was finishing, a broomcat poked its head around the door, surveyed the room, and licked its lips.

"Just in time. Grub up!" exclaimed Swinburne as the feline sidled in and started to walk up and down the length of the room. Its long, statically charged hair would attract the last remnants of soot, then, once every inch of floor had been covered, the broomcat would lick itself clean and digest the particles.

It was past seven o'clock by the time they steered the wagon out of Hanbury Street. Coins jingled in Sneed's pocket; in short measure they'd be exchanged for ale, though he'd have to keep a few back in order to pay the League of Chimney Sweeps, thus avoiding a visit from the organisation's infamous "punishers."

Had Swinburne been a real member of the League, he'd have received payment from them at the end of each week; a fixed amount, no matter how many jobs he had or hadn't done. It was a good system for the young boys, who were assured of a regular income while being protected from the worst brutalities inflicted by the master sweeps, who'd themselves been League members until they turned fourteen years of age.

Once ejected and no longer under the auspices of the Beetle, the exLeague members soon fell prey to the degradations of the East End, for scarcely any of them could afford to live elsewhere. They had their own union-the Brotherhood of Master Sweeps-but without the iron hand of the Beetle to run it, the corrupting influence of poverty, crime, and alcohol quickly caused little boys like Charlie and Ned to degenerate into sadistic louts like Vincent Sneed. In the Cauldron, that was the natural order, and even Charles Darwin would have been hard-pressed to find any signs of evolution there.

Algernon Swinburne drew the wagon to a halt outside the poulterer's and handed the reins over to the Conk. He jumped down and took a sack from the back; it contained the dead goose, its neck having been broken by Sneed after its horrible ordeal in the chimney.

"You can clean the 'quipment in the morning," announced Sneed in an uncharacteristic fit of generosity. He clicked his tongue and shook the reins and the horse moved off. Swinburne would have to make his own way back later. For now, he had another job to do.

He entered the poulterer's shop.

"Evening, Mr. Jambory," he said cheerfully to the tall, fat, treble-chinned proprietor.

"Hullo, sonny. I told you she was a flapper! You're as black as pitch!"

"She certainly was, sir. Very efficient! Very efficient indeed!"

"Jolly good show. Take her out back and get her plucked, then."

Swinburne nodded and carried the sack through to the small yard behind the shop. He sat on a small stool, pulled out the bird, and started yanking out the blackened feathers.

The rain dribbled down the back of his neck. It turned the feathers and soot into a grey mush around his feet.

Half his mind seemed to disengage, dozing, while the remaining half guided his fingers over the goose. He shivered with exhaustion and cold.

Slightly under an hour later, Swinburne presented the pink carcass to Mr. Jambory.

"Good lad!" exclaimed the fat man. "Are you hungry?"

"Starving!" admitted Swinburne.

"How about a glass of milk and some bread and dripping?"

To the poet, who'd eaten in London's best restaurants, this sounded like food of the gods.

"Wow! Yes please!" he gasped.

Some time later, feeling much recovered and with his stomach comfortably full, Swinburne was walking through the thinning crowd on Commercial Road when he was hailed from the other side. He looked across and saw a small ragamuffin with sandy blond hair, wearing a too-big cap, a too-big greatcoat, and too-big boots. It was Willy Cornish-a fellow member of the League of Chimney Sweeps.

"Hallo, Carrots!" cried Willy, crossing the road. "Been on a job?"

"Yes, up Whitechapel way. What are you up to?"

Willy lowered his voice and leaned close, his blue eyes very wide. "Have you heard about the Squirrel Hill Cemetery?"

"No, what about it?"

"Resurrectionists!"

"What?"

"Resurrectionists! They've been digging up the dead 'uns on Squirrel Hill! Wanna come and have a look? Maybe we can catch 'em at it!"

Swinburne hesitated. He was dog-tired. On the other hand, Squirrel Hill wasn't far away and he'd embarked on this adventure not just to help Richard Burton but also to experience life in its raw and bloody nakedness; seeking inspiration for his poetry; a quest for creative authenticity. Men digging up cadavers to sell to crooked medical practitioners-could life be any less embellished than that?

He nodded. "All right, Willy, let's go and spy on the grave robbers!"

"Really?" said Willy. He hadn't expected that answer. Most boys, if they were able, were rushing home now that it was dark, afraid of the werewolves. "You're not scared?"

"No. Are you?"

Willy stuck out his chest. "Course not!"

Swinburne's normally springy step was decidedly heavy as he trudged through the rain with his young companion. Willy, by contrast, jumped about excitedly and created extravagant plans for capturing the resurrectionists-plans which included booby-trapped pits, dropping nets, manacles, and blindfolds; and which inevitably climaxed with gibbets and bodies kicking at the end of swinging ropes.

"You're a bloodthirsty little beggar, Willy Cornish," observed the poet, and your plans are admirable if a mite impractical. Perhaps we should settle for reconnaissance for the time being."

"Re-conny-who?" responded the boy.

"Reconnaissance. It means we go and find out what the ghouls are up to and, if we see them, we run like blazes to get help!"

"'Spose so, Carrots," said Willy disappointedly. "I'd much rather capture the fellows myself, though!"

They turned off Commercial Road and followed an unlit alley down toward Hardinge Street. A girl, perhaps twelve years old, stepped out of a doorway and gave them a price. Even in the gloom, Swinburne could see Willy's face burning red. He shook his head at the girl and pushed his companion on.

They emerged onto Hardinge, which was quiet, though the perennial hubbub of the city could, of course, be heard in the background, and followed it down to the corner of Squirrel Hill, then began to climb the steep incline. There were no houses nearby, no people, and just one gas lamp, right at the top beside the cemetery gates.

"Keep quiet now, Carrots," advised Willy. "We don't want to scare the rogues away!"

Swinburne followed his little friend up to the corner of the tree-lined burial ground and squatted with him in the shadows next to a wall.

They listened but could hear nothing but the rain pattering on the pavement and rustling through the leaves of the trees.

"Give me a leg up," said Willy.

Swinburne sighed, thinking of the sacking mattress and thin blanket waiting for him back at Sneed's place. He bent, hooked his hands around Willy's knee, and lifted. The boy grabbed the top of the wall and pulled himself up, lay flat, and extended a hand down to the poet, who took it and scrambled after him. They dropped into the cemetery.

"I'm soaking wet," complained Swinburne.

"Shhh!"

Willy crept forward through the undergrowth and Swinburne followed.

A snapping noise came from somewhere ahead.

"What was that?" hissed Swinburne.

"Shhh!" repeated Willy. Then, in the faintest of whispers: "Resurrectionists!"

They came to a headstone, all tangled about with weeds and creepers, and moved from it to the next and the next, slowly approaching an area of darkness from which slight sounds of movement could be heard.

Swinburne forgot his tiredness and discomfort. He was now eager to witness whatever sepulchral events were occurring ahead. He began to shake and twitch with excitement.

Willy crawled on and poked his head over the top of a granite slab. He quickly ducked back, turned, and gestured for Swinburne to join him.

On his hands and knees, the poet quietly moved to his friend's side and peeked over the stone. Through the falling rain, he could see vague shapes moving.

He lowered his head and put his mouth next to Willy's ear to whisper, "We have to get closer!"

The boy nodded and pointed to a mausoleum that loomed out of the darkness to their right.

"We can go around that," he breathed.

Staying as low as possible, they sneaked across the uneven ground, through dripping bushes and patches of mud, past tilted crosses and stone angels whose shadowy eyes seemed to weep, until they reached the base of the bulky monument. Sheltered from view, but also from the glimmering light of the distant gas lamp, they fumbled their way through blackness. At the far corner, they stopped.

"We'll count them," whispered Swinburne, "then go back the way we've come. We'll hotfoot it to the tavern on the corner of Commercial Road and rouse some men. If we're lucky, we can get a mob to come back with us and catch the scoundrels in the act!"

He and Willy looked around the edge of the mausoleum.

There were seven figures, some bending, some crouching in the rain. They were all cloaked and hooded. Strange noises reached Swinburne's ears: snuffles and crunches, cracking and ripping.

One of the men stood, and it seemed to Swinburne that he was quite short in stature. He held a stick in his hand, which he raised to his hood.

A chill wave of revulsion suddenly numbed the poet.

It wasn't a stick. It was an arm, with a hand flapping at its end.

The figure pulled it away from its hood, tearing off a strip of polluted, wormy flesh.

Swinburne collapsed back into the shadow of the tomb, dragging the boy with him.

"Jesus Christ!" he moaned. "They aren't robbing the graves-they're eating the corpses!"

He could feel Willy Cornish trembling uncontrollably at his side.

"I want to go home," sobbed the youngster.

Swinburne hugged him close. "Go!" he whispered. "Get out of here as fast as you can, Willy. Go quietly, stay in the shadows, get over the wall, and run. Hurry to the tavern and tell what you've seen. Go now!"

The youngster wiped his nose on his wet sleeve, sniffed, and wriggled away.

Swinburne peered around the corner again. Two of the figures were drag ging a coffin out of the waterlogged earth, its rotten wood splitting, the sides falling away, the lid collapsing. The other five men, their hooded cloaks wrapped tightly around them, shambled closer, gathered around the coffin, and bent over its putrid contents. They pushed the pieces of lid aside and reached in. Swinburne heard bones breaking. He tasted bile in the back of his throat.

What happened next occurred so suddenly that Swinburne found himself acting without knowing what he was doing.

Something-maybe the snap of a twig or a careless movement-attracted the cannibalistic grave robbers. As one, their heads turned, and Swinburne knew straightaway that Willy Cornish had been spotted.

The poet rose to his feet and stepped away from the mausoleum.

"Hey!" he shouted.

Seven hoods swung in his direction and seven sets of seething red eyes fixed on him. One of the figures took two steps forward and the dim lamplight angled across its face, revealing a wrinkled snout and white canines.

Loups-gdrous!

For the first time in his life, Swinburne experienced fear. He turned and started to run but went pelting into a gravestone, stumbled, lost his balance, and fell. His legs kicked franticly as he tried to crawl into the shadows but when claws dug into his ankle he knew that the creatures were upon him. He was dragged back over the wet soil, his fingers digging into it but finding no purchase.

Hands gripped and lifted him, and a dread of being torn apart and eaten alive overpowered him, pushing him to the brink of unconsciousness.

The wolf-men snarled and gripped his limbs tightly, pushed their snouts into his clothing, and sniffed at it. They grunted and began to move, the ground rushing past Swinburne's eyes as they raced across it.

In the last seconds of awareness, before he fainted, Swinburne realised that he was being borne away.