Floaters

1

The swells were drunk. There were three of them. Young toffs, their fine suits looking worse for wear after a night of East End carousing. Still joking and pulling at a shared bottle as the wherry made its way upriver. Midnight was long past and dawn too far off for Jenkins’ taste. Father Thames was in a foul mood. Night was thickest on the Surrey side, the glassworks and wharves invisible behind the greasy banks of fog. On the City side, the electric lights of the Temple Pier and Victoria Embankment glowed through the murk like will-o’-the-wisps.

Despite the dark and the fog, old Clarence Jenkins, who had been dipping his oars in these muddy waters since before the Great Stink, knew every dock and water stair on both sides of the river and could find his way blindfolded. He loved the dear old cantankerous river in all its lights and liked to think of it as his, but lately the relationship had soured. He wanted to attribute his failing affection for the river to age. He was getting on and the damp aggravated his rheumatism.

But that wasn’t it. Distrust had set in.

Though it had never happened to him personally, he imagined it was like knowing your wife’s cheating on you and not being able to prove it but deep down knowing. Not that Beth would ever and who would have her?

His oars dipped and rose and dipped and the wherry glided in little sprints. Temple Pier’s lights grew brighter.

Lately, there was gossip, tales of disappearances. A colleague, Tom Button, had gone missing last week, along with the two couples he was rowing over from Southwark to Waterloo Pier. Vanished. No bodies found. The boat was discovered mired in the mud past Blackfriars. A gentleman’s coat and a lady’s purse were all that was found of his fare. Clarence had seen the police in their steamers and longboats out searching, plying their lamps over the water. They told the watermen to take care. Of what they declined to say. Only keep a sharp eye and if you see anything unusual do not investigate but pull hard till you’ve left whatever it was behind.

Had some strange fish inhabited the Thames? Some behemoth from the ocean’s depths trying its luck in fresher waters? He’d once seen a whale beached at Gravesend, reeking worse than the old Thames in summer before Bazalgette built the embankment and diverted the sewage through his maze of brick tunnels. People had come from miles to wonder at the size of the thing. Looking across the black surface heaving beneath the drifting fog, he shuddered. No, it wasn’t old age or too long acquaintance. Lately, a change had come upon the river.

Though it was summer, the nights were cold. And though the flocks of swans that greeted ships in centuries past were greatly reduced, they were still occasionally encountered. In the past week, Clarence had seen not one.

The hanging lantern swayed with the movement of the boat. The toffs’ slurred banter accompanied the near-imperceptible dip of the oars. Apparently, the youngest of the three had been pickpocketed.

“It was her pimp that lifted your wallet,” the somewhat older, yellow-vested gentleman said.

“She was no prostitute!” insisted the hatless youth. His cravat was loose, his slurred syllables testament to his inebriation.

His fellows rolled their eyes and shared a knowing look.

“I suppose you’ll compose a villanelle about her virtue?” said the hook-nosed sporting lad.

“How much did you lose?” said the first, either to distract from the other’s tease or to further taunt.

“Four guineas.” The injured youth presented a pugilistic visage to his mates.

The others’ low whistle carried in the fog.

“You could have bought all the whores in the hall with that,” Yellow-vest ventured.

“Not to worry. His dad will replace it,” Hook-nose illumed.

“I’ll not be telling Father.”

“I should think not. Chalk it up to experience. Never carry more than you need and always ask for credit.”

“I don’t think his girl would take credit.”

“She wasn’t my girl.” The beleaguered youth was getting annoyed.

“I should say not.”

The topic exhausted, the sporting gentleman produced a cigarette case. Smokes were selected, the case returned. Lighting their cigarettes was no mean feat in the damp.

Jenkins glanced over his shoulder. The lamps of Temple Pier glowed brighter. Though no more than a dozen yards away, the pier itself remained invisible behind the fog.

He was turning the boat when an oar snagged on something. He gave a tug. It wasn’t unusual to come upon refuse, rags, dead dogs. Once a half-submerged horse floated past. Whatever it was, the boat stalled and veered back into the channel.

“What the blazes?”

“What’s wrong, Guv?”

A hand came over the gunnel. The youngest toff screamed. Yellow-vest ill-advisedly stood, rocked the boat, and staggered. Hook-nose half rose to grab his mate, further upsetting the boat, and Yellow-vest fell into the water.

Clarence saw none of this. He was mesmerized by what followed the hand.

The face that rose above the gunnel was pocked and noseless and pale as an alewife’s belly. One eye was white as fog, the other was missing.

Clarence unshipped an oar and slammed it into the boarder’s face. Hand and face disappeared. Yellow-vest was screaming, splashing frantically. The gentleman’s hand grasped the gunnel and his face appeared for an instant, eyes brimming with horror. Then, as if yanked back into the water, he was gone.

Fares forgotten, Clarence’s hands shook as he tried to return the oar to its lock, missed, got it. Then he was rowing as if the devil were coming for him. But other hands were on the gunnels, bloated faces glowing in the luminous fog.

***

Beneath a bridge on a cobbled path beside a canal, Ol’ Daniel Tobin raised a bottle to the dead and sang into the billowing fog:

No more we’ll go a sailing,

We’ll round the Horn no more,

So it’s drop the anchor laddies,

And haul the boats ashore.

For it’s Tyburn that awaits me,

The mast a gallows tree,

The rigging is a single rope,

The knot no sailor’s be.

For it’s to the tree against the gale

That’s roaring in my heart,

And on the morn hauled up the mast

I must this world depart.

But spare no sorrow laddies,

Drink up while you may,

And sing a capstan shanty,

And salute the breaking day.

So tip the jug and drink up boys,

And see me on my way,

As I shall up the Tyburn mast,

and dance until I sway.

So reef the mains’l laddies,

And haul the boats ashore,

The ship we’ll leave at anchor,

We’ll sail the sea no more.

His song done, Ol’ Dan drank and smacked his lips and, his gleaming eyes seeing bygone days, held his bottle high and danced a jig. But the stones were damp, and he slipped and fell with a booming splash and the water closed over his head. He came up sputtering and rapidly sobering and reached for the greasy curb. But a hand clenched his leg and another his belt and hauled him under where pale faces grinned. His scream rose in bubbles as they dragged him down.