“We workin’ English got to stand up agin’ ye Yankees. We got nothink, no money, no bed, no job. We’re ’ard up we are. Yer ship is in England now, and as yer in English waters, it’s fine and proper that yer should share yer wealth with poor Englishmen like us.”
At that point, the man turned to his compatriots for support, and they nodded their heads in agreement. Morgan tried to get more information from them about how they chose the Hudson, but they weren’t talking. He had his suspicions. He had heard of spies in Portsmouth on the lookout for cargo ships that they could later plunder on the slow-moving run up the Thames. But who would have been their informant in Portsmouth?
An obliging steamer came and threw them a line, and they began the twenty-five-mile journey upriver to London. Morgan came up for air from the dank steerage just as the ship wound its way past a shipyard near Tilbury. They passed barges stranded in the mud, and he could see the tips of masts reaching over the rooftops of warehouses. He stood by the bulwarks, gazing out to some waterside stairs that emerged from the foggy gloom. He was lost in his troubling thoughts as the ship wound its way toward the Isle of Dogs. The haunting sight of Brown in the midst of the fighting stayed with him.
By afternoon, they had reached the busy section of the river. A parade of small boats followed them in and around the constant flow of barge traffic. Word had gotten out on the Thames that a Yankee packet had been attacked by some scuffle hunters. Just a few miles south of Blackwall, he returned to his guard duty, relieving Icelander. He was left alone with his half-dozen prisoners. He looked at one man with a pigtail hanging down his back, and yellow and blue gewgaws dangling down the sides of his curly hair. His left eye was closed shut from a blow he’d received. His shirt was open, revealing tattoos running across his chest and down to his arms. On his hands, swollen knuckles; a silver-colored skull ring on one, and a deep scar from a burn on another. Morgan’s eyes paused suddenly. The tattoo of a scaly red serpent spiraling down one of the man’s white arms caught his attention. Not expecting any reply, Morgan threw out the question he’d been asking around the London docks for months now.
“Ever heard of William Blackwood?”
“What if I ’ave? What’s it to ye, Yank?”
“I heard he was looking for sailors,” Morgan replied quickly, too stunned to say anything more.
“Why yer asking about Blackwood,” another man asked suddenly, clearly suspicious. “’Ow’s it yer know about my old China Bill? Ye be a copper’s nark?”
“What’s a copper’s nark?” Morgan asked innocently.
“A Blue Bottle’s blower? Is that what ye are, Yank?”
The man with the pigtail glowered at Morgan with undisguised disdain. His one good eye seemed clearer, a sharper, more intelligent tool than moments before, as if suddenly it had spotted an opportunity.
“If ’e’s in London you might find ’im down by Wapping Old Stairs,” the man volunteered with a malevolent grin. “’E’s got some ale’ouses there ’e frequents. One of them is called the Frying Pan Tavern on Vinegar Lane just north of the ’ighway in Shadwell.”
9
The drizzle was now a drenching rain. Lightning flashed to the west over Tower Hill, illuminating London’s skyline off in the distance. Morgan watched from the sodden foredeck as several burly constables with the Marine Police kicked and shoved their prisoners off the ship onto the London docks. The river pirates who could walk slinked and shambled in the steady rain past the stern of the ship, their heads down and their hands manacled. The other three were thrown into a small wagon and carted away. Morgan spotted the man with the pigtail who had told him where he might find Blackwood. He whispered softly as he went by, “Say ’ello to Bill for me when ye find ’im.”
A horse-drawn wagon waited to carry them away to what some of the sailors said would be a dark hole in a watch house, probably in White-chapel or Bethnal Green. Morgan had heard about these places, narrow dungeons with dirt and gravel floors steaming with stagnant air reeking of human feces. Poor wretches, Morgan thought to himself, even as he recognized them for what they were, mean and squalid creatures from London’s unforgiving streets.
Morgan knew well enough that these crime-ridden places surrounding the docks were haunts where sailors sometimes disappeared forever. Still, he fully intended to go there to follow this latest lead. Before that, he wanted to talk to Hiram about his suspicions. He hadn’t had a chance to talk with his friend since the attack on the ship. He watched the wagon loaded with the prisoners lurch and rattle its way out of the well-guarded dock area into the streets, the heavy-set truck horses straining at their leather harness. Once it had disappeared, and the heavy, creaking iron gates had closed behind them, he found Hiram and told him what he’d seen during the attack.