THE EMIGRANTS: The Brothers Five

By JJ Barrie

It was not really a choice – starve, emigrate or be transported!
Face death by drowning, disease or fire. Steal a loaf of bread and hang or be transported to the same colonies anyway... but in chains.

The Emigrants: The Brothers Five is the thrilling tale of the brutality and cruelty of life at the time, the challenging story of migration to the colonies... and the hope, desire and love that went with them.

The historically based novel chronicles the lives of four English families, each from dramatically different classes in 19th century Victorian society. Incongruent relationships are traced from Cambridgeshire to migration in 1853 and the tumultuous journey aboard the Harriet to the colony of New South Wales.
In England, the vicious crimes of the Sheathers shadow the two brothers. Soon an urgent departure is needed to defeat the hangman.
For the Bunch brothers, opportunity calls but murder stalks the three young men, making escape their only option.
Wealth fails to insulate an aristocratic family from misadventure and death. For the only son of the Earl of Shipton, the colonies are a place to forget.
For a God-fearing woodcutter’s family, a new beginning beckons.

With famine gripping the country and more mouths to feed, thousands took any available ship, totally unprepared for the rigours and agonies to be faced. Strangers to the sea, most had no knowledge of the tempestuous oceans to be encountered, not that long ago sailed only by intrepid explorers.

Departing from the ancient port of Southampton, there were many changes to the once pretty seaside town as it became one of the major emigrant ports.

Timber wharves replaced the stony beaches. Filth and open sewers discharge into the previously pristine, deep waters of the River Test and a forest of masts from all over the world substitute for the tall trees of yesteryear

Warehouses, bawdy houses, brothels, bars and inns provided refuge to spivs, pickpockets, pimps, prostitutes and all manner of crooks to sell their wares or ply their trades. Men were robbed or shanghaied, women raped or kidnapped – there was nothing that could not be bought, begged, stolen or sold along the waterfront.

Ships invariably departed with a human cargo. The wretches for transport to the colonies as convicts were chained in long sad rows, hands secured to hands, legs to legs, shuffling forward to some unheard cadence. Now the human exodus was voluntary but no less sad, leaving their loved ones for the uncertainties of the colonies.

For many, the only differences were the lack of chains and the crack of the cat-o-nine tails.

The 120,000-word The Emigrants: The Brothers Five the first volume of a trilogy – has all the crime, action, suspense and romance of the best-selling novel tempered with the realism of the true story of the stoicism of the lower classes making up most of the emigrants – and the foundation of the colonies.

Nearly half the English-speaking world is directly related to the greatest diaspora in recent history. The reality is that they are the result of the new start in life that their forebears sought and for which they suffered.
Many of our forebears were such an emigrant family – this is their story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CUSTOM BOOK PUBLICATIONS
• Release date: Jan 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466186439

JJ Barrie

J J BARRIE, the Australian born author and novelist, recently retired after years of involvement in general business writing in order to concentrate on a love of historical crime and investigative procedure. The first historical crime novel was published in 2009.An abiding interest over decades in English family history largely related to Cambridgeshire and adjacent counties continues. Particular interest and research into industrialisation and the resultant migration to the colonies has resulted in THE EMIGRANTS. The trilogy is almost complete with the first volume - THE BROTHERS FIVE - published in eBook and print formats by Custom Books. The second volume - GOLD & GLORY - is in edit for release towards the end of 2012. The final volume is in draft and planned to be released in 2014.Now writing fulltime and extensively traveled, with a close knowledge of much of Europe and Asia, each novel has a particular affinity with their locales as reflected in the revised historical novel just released – MONA LISA: THE VIRGIN MOTHER. Several other historical thrillers are works in progress, notably CURSE OF THE DIAMONDS and THE SHELFORDS OF SHELFORD – both set predominantly in England.More information is at www.jjbarrie.com

Book preview

PROLOGUE

THE BOOKMAKER 1832-1842 Chapters 1-4

THE EARL 1841-1853 Chapters 5-18

THE BROTHERS 1849-1853 Chapters 19-27

THE WOODCUTTERS 1836-1853 Chapters 28-31

EXODUS 1853 Chapters 32-38

VOLUME TWO – GOLD & GLORY

VOLUME THREE – THE SISTERS THREE

PROLOGUE

One of the last of the all-sail clippers to be specially built for the run from England to the colonies of Australia, the Harriet was constructed of fine oak and yellow pine to the exacting specifications of the shipyards at Harlow-on-Thames. Completed, the hull was towed to Southampton ready to be fitted out by Blythe Bros. Established for a hundred years or more, there was no better firm to fashion, step and rig the three fine masts and align the bowsprit. With the masts and spars in place, the finishing of the decks and the building of the cabins and facilities commenced. The sails, manufactured in their workshops, were hung and readied for the mid-January test down the Solent to the Needles and return.

The Harriet would be delivered on schedule in the first week of February, ready to be victualled for its maiden voyage on the afternoon of the sixteenth of February 1853. Blythe Brothers had not been late with a new ship for nearly forty years.

Apart from its cargo of merchandise and the below decks steerage passengers quarters, the ship possessed a quite luxurious weather deck. Situated in the upper rear, there were accommodations for six passengers, the Captain and Surgeon-Superintendent. On the Harriet, cabin passengers would enjoy all the privileges of first class.

The nine hundred and twenty-five-ton wooden hulled ship was, in Captain Sharrick's mind, almost perfect. Boarding to the pipes of his erstwhile bosun, he broke open the white ensign and saluted crisply. Unable to watch a bottle of champagne crash against the fine polished timber, he was pleased the ship had already been christened.

Inspecting the ship from stem to stern, he waited for his officers and Dr. Ward – the Surgeon-Superintendent for the maiden voyage – and his full compliment of crew to board.

He found everything, as it should be – fine splicing, strong fibre rope, perfect plaiting and finely turned belaying bins and davits. Brassware was already highly polished and his ships bell rang true, his final test of a fine sailing ship. In their lockers, the extra sails were folded; the shrouds above correctly fixed. He checked below decks, 'tween decks and the staterooms. Satisfied the accommodations of the Harriet met his rigorous standards and those required of emigrant ships, Sharrick made for his own cabin. At his tiny desk, he opened the new, embossed leather-bound, brass cornered ship's log at the first page.

He took up a quill and dipping it into his inkwell, wrote:

1100 – 15th day of February in the year of our Lord 1853

Final acceptance inspection of this fine ship completed this day at mooring-wharf eleven, port of Southampton. Well-rigged and ready to sail on time – on the tide at eight bells in the aft'noon of tomorrow. May God sail with this fine ship.

George Sharrick (Captn)

By the middle of the nineteenth century, with famine gripping the country and the onset of the industrial revolution changing the face of England, migration to one of the new colonies resulted in the biggest diaspora in recent history. With more mouths to feed, there were few choices and thousands took any available ship, totally unprepared for the rigours and agonies to be faced. Strangers to the sea, most had no knowledge of the tempestuous oceans to be encountered, not that long ago sailed only by intrepid explorers.

At Waterloo's platform two, the British Midland train chuffed its way out of the station. Tired from walking the sights and trying the treats of London since early morning, most passengers already dozed. Heading west through Berkshire, during the night the train passed into Hampshire before stopping for breakfast at the new refreshment rooms on the railway station at Basingstoke, an old Roman town at the headwaters of the River Test.

The train departed two hours later for the final run to the coast, green fields shone in the morning sun and the misty fog in the valleys parted miraculously it steamed through its clouds.

After the village of Eastleigh, the line followed the wide estuary towards Southampton and the wharves. Skirting the main town, the twin steel rails curved past the huge coal gasworks in construction, past the grimy columns of factories spewing acrid black smoke, the first of the wharves and the grubby warehouses.

The train slowed onto the loop railway line at the long wharf at one-forty, almost a full hour late. Amongst the many ships, one fine sailing ship moored to the huge bollards, sparkled in the light, cool breeze. The polished hull swayed slightly at anchor, a spider web of stays and rigging holding aloft her three proud main masts, the bare spars of which would soon be dressed with billowing white canvas.

The steerage passengers, laden with all kinds of luggage, boxes, bags and cases, struggled up the narrow gangway; a child clinging to skirt or a screaming baby under an arm. They were directed to their tiny cubicles by seamen – their home for the next three months. Steerage contained three hundred and eighty-three assisted migrants and eleven unassisted. Among the eighty-one males were farmers, carpenters and stonemasons, shepherds, gardeners and bricklayers, dairymen, a plumber, horsemen and a single wheelwright.

Only sixteen of the males were single compared to the seventy-nine females over fourteen. The prisons and workhouses of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk had provided many, destined to be servants and wives to the men in the colony.

The emigrating families would spend the voyage in this shared, unhygienic space, with only a modicum of privacy, poor ventilation, little light and temperatures that could vary over the full scale. Upon arrival in the colony of New South Wales, many would be little better off than in England – but at least there was plentiful work and they would be free.

The paying cabin passengers fared much better – their chests and hand luggage was taken by seamen at the wharf, the climb much less difficult unladen and with the gangway to themselves.

The youngest, Fanny Campbell, the teenage daughter of David and Adele Campbell, remarked brightly, 'Oh, Daddy, my cabin even has a window.'

She sipped the refreshing glass of lemonade. The uniformed steward, who welcomed her aboard, had just settled Captain James Bushby and his petite wife. He now awaited the last of his cabin passengers listed on the manifest as Sir Edward Cole.

A ship's officer met the young man alighting from the first-class train carriage. 'Good day, sir; Frazier, the first mate – Captain Sharrick sends his compliments.'

'Good afternoon, Mister Frazier; a fair day at last.'

'Aye, it is, sir – a good omen. Your luggage will be placed aboard. If you follow me, I'll introduce you to your quarters.'

'Quite a number to the colonies today. The ship's first voyage, as I understand it.'

'It's the maiden voyage, that's true, but she's a fine ship. Mind the step, sir.'

At the top of the gangway, the captain said, 'Sir Edward, I'm Captain Sharrick; pleased to have you aboard, sir.'

'Gentlemen, could I request a favour. While on board, I wish to be Mister Cole. I have no use for titles, so plain 'mister' would be appreciated – your secret, gentlemen.'

'As you wish, sir; I shall ensure the manifest is changed,' responded Captain Sharrick with a smile. 'Mister Frazier will show you to your stateroom. We sail on time at four on the tide; would you excuse me, sir? We shall meet again at dinner?'

'Of course, captain. I am sure I will enjoy your ship.'

From his commodious cabin, Edward peered down at the wharf, mouthing a silent prayer as the steward unpacked his sea chests. 'Goodbye Father, and Emilée – May God and time heals our wounds.'

On deck, looking down over the still crowded wharf where chaos seemingly reigned, Henry Bunch commented to his two brothers. 'What a sight but some pretty lasses, that's for sure.'

'See that one, I'm going after her when we sail,' replied Isaac.

'I like 'em with a bit o' meat… too scrawny' added William, grinning. They would soon find meeting the girls quite difficult.

The single males were at one end of the ship; families, couples and children located in the middle. At the other end, a matron controlled the single females with religious fervour.

William wrote in his journal that night:

Henry, Isaac and me are in the back quarters squashed into the smallest corner space you can find. The seaman, Tom, says that the Harriet is the best of the ships with a full space. He said that this is really for four people but we are only three, so we are lucky. There are many girls but we just found out they are at the front end and we have to get past the matron. Isaac reckons it wont be a problem. Our hearts were merry but not for long. We let off the pilot and passed the last land, then we got a good wind. Many of us got sick.

For Charles and John Layton and their families, there were mixed emotions. Sarah and her elder brother, Robert waved to no one in particular. 'Well, sis, its goodbye to old England.'

'I'll not miss it,' replied her sister, Maryanne. 'I might even meet someone. Just look at him.' Robert did not hear the comment – a young girl on the upper deck had already taken his interest.

Sarah responded, 'His eyes are elsewhere, Maryanne but you could be right. Did you know the Earl of Shipton's son is on board?' asked Sarah. 'He was on the train. Bit of a toff, though.'

'No, really now! We're away…' exclaimed the third and youngest Layton sister, Elizabeth.

Reverend Jacob Pearson struggled aboard with his wife Agnes. Along with the other emigrants, they moved their worldly goods to the tiny quarters on one of the lower decks where many family groups were part of his charge – more than forty families had signed up to the church-sponsored migrant scheme.

He called his group together, Pearson bowing his bald pate, intoning a prayer to the faithful. In various stages of excitement, most ignored his entreaties, remaining crowded at the outward rails. Eager and waving indiscriminately, those on shore waved back with renewed vigour but with the widening distance, the enthusiasm was short-lived.

Sixteen-year-old John Sheather exclaimed, 'The ropes are off – we're on our way!'

'Good luck to us all,' Samuel Sheather commented.

The two brothers grinned at each other. 'Good picking's more like it, Sam – and she's right on time, too,' replied Edward, expertly flipping open the case of his fob watch.

Captain Sharrick and his crew completed preparations for the fine ship to depart its moorings on time. The Harriet started its outward swing slowly from the wharf. Moving away from the filth, garbage and detritus of Southampton wharves with its pickpockets, whores, pimps and small-time crooks, the ship edged from the wooden piles abutting the wharf.

The euphoria of departure soon changed to despair, however, as the first taste of seasickness overcame many passengers in the cramped quarters. The cabin passengers tried not to succumb – equally without success – supper a quiet affair that evening.

The ship's bell sounded across a darkening sea, heralding the end of the second day. Many of the passengers, leaving loved ones for the first time, were already depressed as the realism sunk in. In the early evening darkness, the Harriet lay wrapped in the moist air. Her sails whispered, only the silent evening watch under Second Officer Sean Frazier trod the decks. Most of the passengers and most of the sixty crew members dozed in the languid air, seeking even the slightest breath. The barque remained almost motionless.

By the fourth day, now under full canvas, the sleek ship sailed clear of England. Bending to the wind, she headed towards the halfway port of call at Capetown. Before the run ahead to Sydney-town on the eastern coast, the fine ship would take on supplies and provide a welcome break in the now British colony.

They would then undertake the uninterrupted stretch to Australia following the Roaring Forties – or for adventurous captains, the fifties or even the sixties of the Great Circle Route.

The sleek new timbers of her decks were already scrubbed clean with holystones. Brass was polished and the untouched paint of her deckhouse glistened in the somnolent moonlight. Stretched full length from bowsprit to stern, the Harriet was more than three hundred feet with a beam of near seventy feet.

The web of stays and shrouds, rigging and rope works held aloft her proud masts, her spars normally dressed with billowing white canvas. Now they were almost devoid of sails as the wind dropped to a lethargic sea breeze.

Even bare, she was still a magnificent sight to behold.

*****

THE BOOKMAKER

1832-1842

The fens of middle England covered vast low-lying areas of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. As the ice age drew to a close and the snows retreated, ancient tribes roamed the virgin forests, camping on the rich uplands and fishing its streams. The fertile soil soon attracted farming – and invaders.

Over the next several thousand years they raped, pillaged and burned before finally settling. Peasants were born and raised, worked and died and in time, their hovels formed villages – often around a church or manor house.

Although the Romans first drained the fens, successive Dukes of Bedford were responsible for much of the modern works. In the seventeenth century, Alfred, the fifteenth duke – after draining yet another six thousand acres – built a fine, cut-stone manor for his favourite mistress, Anne Beaumont of Beaupré.

Shortly after his premature death, Anne married the handsome Earl of Shipton. The vast acreages, Beaumont Hall, the ancient villages of Outwell and Upwell, a mill, market and two churches, and the original manor house – Needham Abbey to the west – passed out of the Duchy forever.

The hereditary title passed through the third and fourth Earls until the predilection of the fifth Earl to gamble, brought the estates of the Earldom of Shipton to the brink of bankruptcy.

CHAPTER ONE

Morning dawned dull and overcast with grey clouds hanging low in the sky. Mist languished over the valleys most of the day, while thick fog encumbered the fens and the river lowlands. The leaves of the elms along the road near Susan's Green yellowed in the autumn crispness. Only Plaw Field was a hive of activity as the herd boys brought in the cows for their daily milking.

Samuel Sheather was eighteen this day, but he neither knew nor cared. Although his father, Robert, had baptised each of their eight children at St. Peter's at Upwell, he could not recall the details. With the exception of Samuel and Edward – two years the younger – the others each died within months of their birth. The peasant stoicism of the parents was slowly eaten away by their silent grief. They expunged it from their minds, their only means of coping. As Ellen birthed their ninth child, the butcher's wife – the local midwife – scowled. 'Sorry luv, its not made it,' she said, wrapping the limp, stillborn baby in a dirty blanket. 'You rest dearie, an' I'll do what's needed.'

'One more o' me babies dead,' she mumbled. 'Another lost to this bloody world.'

The Sheather family hailed from the ancient village of Upwell. A long line of fens dwellers, their humble cottage, one of a group built on a rise off the Walshingham Fens, occupied a single acre of land. As with Upwell, and Outwell, its sister village of a few miles north, the lands were all part of the estates of the Earldom of Shipton. The now barren cottage had not always been in such disrepair – during the tenure of the fourth Earl, Robert Sheather could still recall the beauty, the bountiful fishing and the prolific eels, with a little poaching in the pristine forests for a rabbit or two on the side.

While his wife was alive, the fifth Earl's indulgences were restricted but after her death, he buried himself in his gambling, in earnest. The villages were neglected and investment in the estates dwindled as he made up for lost time. Robert Sheather, however, did not see his Lord's ruin, dying in despair after forty years of faithful service to the now decaying land. Ellen followed him a year later, dead from a broken heart.

The two boisterous sons surviving the union, failed to follow in the footsteps of their poor but honest father. Their lot in life became more difficult and Samuel and Edward turned to petty crime. Always a partnership, as teenagers they graduated to thugs for hire, the penalty hanging or if they were unlucky, long prison sentences or transportation.

The Sheathers remained lucky.

Five miles north at Needham Abbey – unknown, and in any event of no interest to the Sheather family – Lady Elizabeth Cole was also in labour. The young wife of Robert, the twenty-two year old son of Charles, the Earl of Shipton, would soon give birth to their first son and heir to the titles and estates.

With the birth becoming more difficult, her doctors became concerned but with a lusty bellow, Edward Charles Robert Cole entered the world. Cleansed thoroughly before being swaddled in crisp, embroidered blankets, he was taken to his expectant father dozing in his study.

After a perfunctory smile at the crinkled face of his son, the midwife returned the child to the nurses, finding the doctors trying to stem the copious bleeding in the mother.

Within the hour, Elizabeth was dead.

Distraught, Robert screamed at the doctors.

'What on earth happened?'

'There was just nothing we could do – I am sorry, m'lord but it is God's way,' intoned one doctor solemnly. It was the usual excuse when they lacked the knowledge necessary for a medical explanation.

'Get out, get out all of you!' stormed Robert. The doctors and staff fled before the wrath of their young but formidable employer. Alone Robert calmed himself, lifting the sheet covering his beloved wife of just a year. He lovingly touched her matted hair, her lips and finally closed her eyes with the tip of his finger.

'Goodbye, my love; thank you for my son but the price…' He broke down and wept until he could cry no more.

He sat in his favourite wing-backed leather chair, addressing the ancient butler, 'Don't bother with lunch but send a messenger to Beaumont Hall and inform Father what has happened. Then I don't want to be disturbed, James …and pass me the brandy.' Pouring a good two fingers, Robert held up the amber liquid to the light before adding another, '…and James, have someone visit the rector at St. Clements. We shall bury my wife on Friday. On that day, we will wear black, but every other day will be a celebration on the birth of our son. Elizabeth would have wanted it that way, and my father will expect no less.'

Robert was surprised to see the ageing Earl himself enter the study. 'Father, you need not have come.'

'Nonsense, my boy; its times like this one needs family most. Your mother is with the midwife – inspecting the boy, no doubt. Quite terrible; I trust Elizabeth is in peace, God rest her soul,' commented the visibly upset but stoic old man, wiping away a single tear edging down his cheek.

'Robert, you must be tough; people need to see you strong and in control.' He put his arm around his son's shoulder – the closest they had been for years. 'Your mother will make sure everything is organised; you know, arranging the wet nurse and all that.' To the ever-present butler, the Earl remarked, 'James, you look younger than I recall. Bring me a good brandy, as well. Tea won't suffice at a time like this.'

'Yes, m'lord, at once.'

'Robert, it would be best if you moved back to Beaumont Hall. The boy will need his grandmother. You must consider it.'

'Not at the moment, father; I need to think, maybe in a few weeks. We shall talk upon your return from the Lords, but I promise to talk with mother. Thank you, anyway, father.'

The funeral passed and life returned to a semblance of normality. Robert resumed the responsibility of running both estates. When a year later his mother died, his father spent much of his time attending race meetings, occupied in his favourite pastime of gambling. The rest of the time, he was in London attending variously the House of Lords, his favoured clubs or the bed of his long-time mistress.

He pursued his passion betting entirely on credit, not for any reason other than the lowly bookmaker was loath to ask for cash, from one of his station. The old Earl, like others of his aristocratic class, sent his manservant to place bets and settle wagers. Even though his wins outnumbered losses, his estates and investments handed down over the last century earned substantial returns each year, and he accepted the luxury of an occasional defeat. Like every gambler, he believed in his infallibility, assuming he had an intrinsic ability to turn a loss into a win, never occurring to him that one day he might lose more than he could afford.

In the warmth of the old Globe Tavern around the rough table, Abe Bunch and the two brothers sipped ales. Bunch repeated his request, 'I want old Benchley dead before tomorrow morning.'

'Jesus, Abe… Why so bleedin' quick? These things need to be done right,' replied Samuel, wiping the froth from his wispy moustache.

'Because, Sam, me lad. Tomorrow's the Grand National, that's why. He's got a fortune bet an' the favourite's goin' lame tonight, ain't he... an' its gotta look like an accident.'

'It'll cost you plenty,' replied Edward Sheather, pondering the fee. 'If you seriously want it tonight, we'll have to get goin' after this beer. Half now, awright, an' the rest in the mornin'. A hundred quid, it'll be,' he added.

Although taken aback, the bookmaker's senior clerk recovered quickly, 'Bloody highway robbery… but by dawn,' responded Abe. He placed two pouches of coins on the table and rose to depart, adding, 'Forty guineas in those, with the rest after you've done it right. I'm orf, so don' let me down.'

In front of the fire in the back room of the inn, Edward and Samuel quietly discussed the best means of carrying out the deed. 'A hundred – I thought he'd keel over an' die himself,' laughed Samuel. ''e must have plenty at stake. He's always a tight bastard.'

'Yeah, he was goin' for about 'alf that so they've got a fair bit on tomorrow, that's for sure,' replied Edward, pleased with himself. 'Yer know it's not such a bad idea to have him fall off a horse, except that old Benchley hasn't ridden fer years.'

'Maybe that's the beauty of it; the more reason no one will even question it, Ed,' commented Samuel. 'You think about it. If he hasn't put a foot in the stirrup for years an' he falls an' breaks his neck… well, now I ask yer? He's a widower, so he'll be the only one at his place along the creek.'

'Yer right; anyway, we don't have any more time. We can nick a horse from his stables behind the office. One of those used by Bunch and his boys will have to do, but that'll work fine.'

Waiting furtively in the shadows, the light from his lantern suddenly disappeared – the stableboy had finally gone. Inside, the brothers saddled a grey mare, leading her towards the river road and the cottage owned by the ageing bookmaker, Robert Benchley.

Moonlight silhouetted Samuel Sheather entering through the unlocked rear door, guided by loud snoring from the only bedroom. Fully clothed except for the boots on the floor, Benchley was asleep in the narrow bed. Outside, the brother stood guard.

Samuel quickly covered his mouth with his hand. The bookmaker awoke with a startled look in his bulging eyes, rapidly turning to one of terror when he saw the shadow of the figure and felt the pressure on his face. Although struggling frantically, he was no match. Robert Benchley suffocated to death, feeling nothing but an encompassing blackness as he floated into oblivion. A soft whistle brought Edward Sheather to the room.

'He's done for,' commented Samuel sardonically. 'We'll move him before dawn.'

'Roll 'im off an' 'ave a snooze. I'll wake you in a few hours,' Edward replied.

The first rays of the dawn lightened the eastern sky. 'Let's be goin', help me put 'is boots on,' Edward said, rubbing his eyes.

At the back door, Samuel Sheather nonchalantly snapped the thin, wrinkled neck before placing the body into the saddle. 'That's it, Ed, put that boot in the stirrup.'

In the early morning darkness, they walked the horse quietly along the back road to the front of the Benchley bookmaker's shop where they allowed the limp form to slip to the ground. Edward wound the reins tightly in the dead man's hand.

'Perfect! Come on, we're out of here,' whispered Edward, going back to the stables where their own horses were still tethered.

'Easy money, Ed.'

No one was in sight; the only movement was the gold on black sign over the door – Benchley the Bookmaker – swinging easily in the light breeze. An awakening cock, disturbing the dawn, was the single sound. Luck had held out for the Sheather brothers, once again.

On the morning of the Grand National, Abe Bunch walked the half-mile from his house to the bookmaker's office. The sign over the front door still swung gently in the morning breeze.

Greeted by a small crowd outside, all talking in hushed tones, Abe feigned surprise. To one of the bystanders, he asked, 'What's goin' on, lad?'

'The ol' boy's 'ad it,' the young man responded, bobbing his head towards the body.

The bewhiskered publican commented offhandedly, 'Fell orf 'is 'orse, 'e did.'

'…but 'e don't ride,' the local farrier replied. 'Never seen 'im on one, I ain't.'

'Well, 'is neck's broken an' he didn't do it 'is self, now did he – that's for sure?'

With only a cursory look at the body of Robert Benchley resting at his feet, obviously dead, Abe held back a smile. An office boy was standing with his mouth open, gaping at the spectacle. Abe spoke with authority, 'You'd better get the doc, lad; certainly looks like poor Mister Benchley 'as bitten the dust.'

In Benchley's office, Abe nodded to the tall, dark-haired and unshaven young man. Taking out a small leather pouch from a drawer, he passed it into the man's open hand.

'Well done, Ed. Clean as a whistle. Here's the rest I owe yer.'

'Next time, give us a bit more notice,' he replied, weighing the purse in his hand before departing through the rear door. Samuel and Edward Sheather had done their job – Robert Benchley was indeed dead.

By eight, there was a mood of despair. Assuming control, Abe called the staff together. 'It's all very sad,' he said, putting an arm around a sniffling Ellie, a young woman employed in the counting room. 'You'll be alright, lass. Now everyone, listen to me. We have a business to run, particularly on this day of days. We got a fortune laid today.'

He turned to one of the trusted callers, 'John, give the doc' a hand to move the … Mister Benchley into the front room, will yer?'

Childless and without a proper will, nobody even thought to object to Abe taking over the business – he was simply the natural successor. Within weeks, the business was his by default, acquired for a miniscule sum from an estranged widow while the money owing from gamblers – most of which was not recorded in the books – was a bonus yet to be collected. A week after the funeral of Robert Benchley, the business was firmly in Abe's control. Benchleys had a new owner, and a new name. With the murder, the Sheather brothers had graduated to a new level of crime.

*****

CHAPTER TWO

In the early years of the new century, Heinrich Blünck had emigrated across the North Sea from his native Saxony. Between Rotterdam and the Norfolk port of Great Yarmouth, he anglicised his name to Henry Bunch. At twenty-nine, he had a wife and a son, Abraham – and the enthusiasm of a young craftsman.

Abraham grew tall and blond, and Henry searched earnestly for a German, and Jewish, wife. When sixteen year-old Heidi Wagner arrived to work for a local family, Henry bought her heart and the swiftly arranged marriage took place six months later.

Abe knew his father's jewellery business was not for him. His singular interest, and soon his addiction, was gambling. Escaping the strictures of a demonic father and his dominant religion, he and Heidi moved to Newmarket where Abe started as a lowly caller in order to learn the intricacies of the trade. The erudite bookmaker, Robert Benchley, soon sensed the young man's mathematical skills, elevating him to the more august position of penciller, responsible for the recording of bets and calculating the wins and losses.

By the end of the first year, Abe had tired of Heidi's constant ranting against the evils of gambling. When a messenger brought him the news his father had died of a heart attack, he dutifully consoled his mother and attended to the funeral in Ely. Rejecting her blandishments, he sold the business and its valuable stock.

Pregnant, Heidi pleaded to remain with his mother to await their first baby. He readily agreed and William arrived unheralded on a night when Abe was enjoying the carnal pleasures of Newmarket.

Two years later, Isaac entered the world a few days before his broken-hearted grandmother departed. Heidi, overwhelmed with grief and two young children, moved back to Newmarket to an increasingly taciturn Abe. Two years later and a month early, Heidi came into labour, giving birth to the third of her sons, Henry.

Over the years, Benchleys prospered under the ownership of Abe Bunch. With his natural ability with figures, he gambled, stretching the odds and laying off to improve his profits. His most active client was Charles Lord Cole – the fifth Earl of Shipton. The two men engaged in combat two or three times each week at race meetings in Kings Lynn, Ely and at Newmarket.

The huge sums gambled by the Earl were laid off with other bookmakers to reduce much of his exposure. 'Better to take a small profit than none at all,' he explained to his assistants. 'When the Earl wagers, everyone wants to do the same. We slip the odds up a point or two and make gains that way. A profit's a profit.'

These returns multiplied into large surpluses, the firm only held back by the sporadic phenomenal winning streaks of the gambling earl. His wins were not the problem – it was the fortune it cost to pay the smaller punters following his every move.

After more than a decade dealing with the whims of the erratic Earl, Abe was used to his unusual bets. The light-hearted but deadly serious negotiations over offered odds brought life to his otherwise mundane existence. Come most Mondays, he would send his man to settle, although occasionally the old Earl would collect his wins in cash on the day.

Neither noticed the increasing size of the bets, nor the occasions where one or the other required a delay in the settlement date. It was an unwritten gentleman's game – the pitting of their two minds in a battle of wits.

Even though neither breached the very proper class distinctions between the aristocratic, crusty old Earl and the Jewish descended bookmaker, each saw the other as a worthy opponent even though neither had ever used as much as a Christian name.

With the Earl's gambling more constant, bets became still larger, and the outstandings at any time were often a small fortune. The Earl continued to increase his stakes tangentially, some weeks wagering huge sums on all six races on a Saturday meet, again on a Sunday, greyhounds on Wednesdays and the occasional prize fight. Abe did not know his account was now only one of a number – not only in Newmarket but also in London, Ely and Cambridge.

The Earl was chasing his mounting losses. He also could not know that the Earl of Shipton had quietly sold much of the family investments to pay his debts and had borrowed heavily from his London bankers against the security of his estates.

Heidi brought up the three boys with strict Germanic discipline. Mirroring the build of their father, each grew tall, light-haired, with Teutonic faces and strong features. They could pass for triplets except for the regular twenty months between their ages.

As the growing boys entered their teens, Abe became more arrogant, dominating his simple wife – occasionally beating her for even minor infractions. The eldest son, William, was fourteen before he realised the prim, high-necked and long-sleeved dresses habitually worn by his frail mother, covered the bruises from the abuse regularly handed out by a drunken Abe rather than her modesty. Powerless to confront his moody father, William became reticent and angry – watching his mother age before his eyes.

By sixteen, his body was almost that of a man. Leaving the security of school, he became a runner in the bookmaking business where he did any chore to satisfy his father's desire that he should take over the business in time. The fact that gambling appalled William was of no consequence. 'Father, I want to work with horses, not gambling. The reverend says it's a sin.'

'A bloody sin, eh? It kept you at school,' he yelled, trying to slap the quick-footed boy. 'Stand still when I talk, I say.'

'Not when you're going to whack me, I won't,' he replied, watching his father seethe with anger as he tried to catch him.

'You'll do as you're told and take over one day. You're going to be a bookmaker even if it's over my dead body, and that's that!'

The donnybrook continued. Henry, just eleven, bawled, 'Stop, come on Pa, stop the fighting.' Tears welled in the young boy's eyes. Isaac, however, already the firebrand, quickly went to the active defence of his mother, sensing rather than seeing or understanding the continuing cruelty. The born leader, his brothers acquiesced to him as he became older and stronger.

It was only after he commenced working for the firm that William found an even darker side to his father.

With thirty trainers in residence, more than two hundred horses in its many stables and possessed of the best racecourse outside Ascot, Newmarket was the centre of horse racing in eastern England. It was equally the home of the bookmaking fraternity inexorably following the thoroughbred.

Bookmaking was not for the faint-hearted, the industry suffered from slow payers and defaulting gamblers. Each firm employed at least one enforcer, all seemingly pressed from a single mould – large, heavily built men, swarthy complexion, sleek oiled hair, muscled and mean. A misshapen, once-broken nose or a scar down one cheek was optional. Benchley, and now Abe, employed the best. Mean enough to compel the most intractable to pay – at Benchleys, there were few debts.

Abe thought nothing of maiming, beating or bashing a slow or defaulting customer. He rarely gave any time to pay, listened to even a genuine excuse, or granted the smallest of favours. He simply sent out his enforcers, taking perverse pleasure in leaving a bruise or a slash or two as a reminder of his rules of play. Every day he reviewed his outstandings before giving his two enforcers their instructions. 'Collect from this bastard. He came in and paid only half – had some lame excuse. Benny, leave him a