Soon enough, however, a chink of brightness appeared through the mess of bodies above me and up they stood one by one, the weight gradually decreasing atop me, and when him with the bloody great arse took himself off my head I lay heavily on the ground for a moment longer, looking up as I tried to assess my options, only to see the hand of a blue reaching down and grabbing me, without courtesy, by the lapels.
‘Let’s have you up now, lad,’ said he, dragging me to my feet, and to my shame I stumbled a little as I recovered my balance and the people watching made a farce of me for it.
‘He’s drunk,’ cried one, which was a slander as I never take a drink before lunchtime.
‘A young thief, is it?’ asks the blue, ignoring whoever had offered the lie.
‘There was a young thief,’ said I, trying to brush myself down and wondering how far I’d get if he was to lose his grip for a moment and I was to make a run for it. ‘Tried to make off with the gentleman’s pocket-watch, he did, and only for I nabbed him and called for the blues he’d have had it too. A hero is what I am, only this bloody great mess leapt on me and shoddy well nearly killed me. The thief,’ I added, pointing in a direction that made everyone turn their heads for a moment before looking back at me, ‘ran yonder.’
I looked around, trying to gauge the reaction of the crowd, knowing full well that they were not stupid enough to be taken in by such a lie. But I was trying to think on my feet and this is what I came up with on the spur of the moment.
‘An Irish fella, he was,’ I added then, for the Irish were hated in Portsmouth on account of their dirty ways and their filthy manners and the habit they had of procreating with their sisters and so were easy to blame for anything that went on outside the straight and legal. ‘Babbling away in a language I didn’t understand, he was, and him with the ginger hair and the big buggy eyes as well.’
‘But if that’s the case,’ said the blue, towering over me, standing up so tall on his toes that I thought he might take flight, ‘what might this be, then?’ He reached into my pocket and extracted the French gentleman’s timepiece and I stared at it, the eyes fairly popping out of my head now in surprise.
‘The scamp,’ I cried, a note of outrage racing into my tone. ‘The vandal and miscreant! Oh, I am done for! He put it there, I swears it, he put it there before he ran. They do it, you see, when they know they can’t escape. Try to blame another. What need have I of a watch anyway? My time’s my own!’
‘Save your lies,’ said the blue, shaking me again for good effect and placing his hands about me in such a way that I swear I was giving him the motions. ‘Let’s just take a look and see what else you have secreted about your rascally person. Been thieving all the morning long, I’d warrant.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ I shouted. ‘I am slandered. Hear me now!’ I appealed to the crowd around me and what do you think happened next, only the simpleton woman came up and stuck her tongue in my ear! I leaped back out of her way, for the Saviour alone knew where that tongue had been and I didn’t want a taste of her clap.
‘Back there now, Nancy,’ said the blue and she stepped away, sticking that same filthy tongue of hers out at me now with an air of defiance. What I wouldn’t have given for a freshly sharpened knife at that moment and I might have had her tongue from her mouth in a trice.
‘Wants hanging,’ shouted one man, a fellow who I knew for a fact spent every penny of his earnings from his fruit stalls on the gin and had no business laying accusations at me.
‘Leave him with us, sir,’ shouted another, a lad who’d known a stretch or two inside himself and should have taken my side on account of it. ‘Leave him with us and we’ll teach him a thing or two about what’s belonging to him and what’s belonging to the rest of us.’
‘Constable, please . . . if I may?’ said a more refined voice, and then who should make his way through the gathered crowd but the French gentleman, him as had every right to condemn my soul to eternal damnation but who I now recognized as the one who had tried to stop my annihilation under the mound of stinking carcasses not five minutes before. The crowd, sensing a gentleman, parted as if he was Moses and they were the Red Sea. Even the blue loosened his grip on me a little and stared. That’s what a smart voice and a fine greatcoat will do for you and I resolved at that moment to be the possessor of both one day.
‘Good morning, sir,’ said the blue now, bringing his voice to a posher place now, the dirty dog, trying to equal the gentleman. ‘And are you the victim of this here miscreant?’
‘Constable, I believe I can vouch for the boy,’ he answered, sounding as if the whole mess was his fault really and not my own. ‘My pocket-watch was inauspiciously placed about my person and in imminent danger of falling to the ground, where no master craftsman would have been able to repair the damage done to it. I believe the boy was merely taking it to hand it back. We had been engaged in a conversation about literature.’
There was a silence for a moment and I have to admit that I almost believed his words myself. Could it be that I was as much a victim of this unhappy circumstance as anyone? Should I be released without further assault on my character and good name and perhaps a letter of commendation from a person in a position of authority? I looked to the blue, who considered it for a moment, but the crowd, sensing an end to their sport and a denial of due course and proper punishment, took up the cudgel in his place.
‘It’s a sham, Constable,’ shouted one, spitting the words out so hard that I had to duck to swerve away from his nasty gob. ‘I saw him with my own eyes putting the watch in that there pocket of his.’
‘Saw him, did you?’
‘And it’s not the first time either,’ roared another. ‘He had five apples off me not four days ago and I didn’t see a penny for them.’
‘I wouldn’t eat your apples,’ I shouted back at him, for it was a terrible lie. I’d only taken four apples and a pomegranate on the side for a pudding. ‘They’ve weevils in them, every one.’
‘Oh, don’t let him say it!’ shouted the woman beside him, his old hag of a wife, and her with a face on her that would send you cross-eyed. ‘Ours is a going concern,’ she added, appealing to the gathered masses with arms outstretched. ‘A going concern!’
‘That boy’s a bad ’un,’ called another now and they sensed blood, that was all. You don’t want to get a crowd against you at a moment like that. As it happened I was almost glad the blue was there for had he not been, they might have torn me limb from limb, French gentleman or no French gentleman.
‘Constable, please,’ said the very same now, stepping closer and taking the watch back, I noticed, as that blue would surely have pocketed it himself in a heartbeat. ‘I’m sure the boy could be released on his own recognizance. Do you regret your actions, child?’ he asked me and this time I didn’t bother to correct his use of the word.
‘Do I regret them?’ I asked. ‘As God is my witness, I regret them all. I don’t know what came over me in fact. The devil, no doubt. But I repent in honour of Christmas Day. I repent of all my sins and swear that I will go forth from this place and sin no more. What God has joined together, let no man tear asunder,’ I added, remembering what few of the Good Words I had ever heard and joining them together to put my devotion on display to all.