like the proverbial duck to water; the mark of a born survivor.
The son of a farm labourer, raised in an isolated village on the Kent marshes, orphaned after his parents had fallen victim to the cholera, Nathaniel Jago, during his formative years, had turned his hand to many things, not all of them legal – blacksmith, drover, poacher and smuggler – with varying degrees of success, until a chance meeting with a recruiting party at a Maidstone fair had changed his life for ever.
The promise of a fine uniform, a roof over his head, and three square meals a day, not to mention the two guineas he’d receive for signing on, had seemed like a dream come true for a young man, homeless and hungry and only one step ahead of the Revenue. And so it was on a warm afternoon in early summer that Nathaniel Jago had accepted the King’s bounty and gone to war. From the lowlands of Flanders to the jungles of the West Indies and the dusty plains of India, Jago had marched and fought his way across the world. From private to sergeant, he’d served his country well.
He’d served Hawkwood well, too.
They’d faced the enemy together under Nelson at Copenhagen, marched with Black Bob Crauford in the Americas and with Moore in Spain and Portugal. Jago had stood with Hawkwood on the ramparts at Montevideo. He’d guarded his back at Rolica and Vimeiro and at Talavera they’d both watched in horror as the Coldstreams and the King’s German Legion had fallen victim to the French counterattack.
It was a friendship forged on the squares at Blatchington and Shorncliffe. Since then, Jago had stood by him through ten years of war and skirmish; a staunch ally, sharing canteens on the march across the searing heat of the Spanish plains and shivering under the same blanket in the bone-chilling cold of the mountains. It had been Jago’s loyalty to Hawkwood that had caused the sergeant to become a fugitive from justice.
When Hawkwood had taken to the mountains to join the guerrilleros, Jago had deserted from the ranks to be with him, an offence for which there could be no reprieve. At the time Hawkwood had been appalled. He had tried to persuade the sergeant to return, but to no avail. Jago had just laughed in his face.
“Too late now, sir,” he’d said. “In any case, what would I go back to? The army don’t take kindly to deserters, even them that ‘as second thoughts. Why, if I was to go back now, they’d either flog me or ‘ang me. Seen men flogged and I’ve seen men ‘anged. Not a pretty sight. No, reckon I’ll take my chances with you, sir, if it’s all the same. Besides, you’ll need somebody to watch your back.”
“You’re a bloody fool, Sergeant,” Hawkwood had told him. “The chances are we’ll both die in these mountains. Is it worth it?”
“‘Tis if we take a few Frenchies along with us,” Jago had responded, and then he’d favoured the exasperated Hawkwood with an irrepressible grin. “The army can get along fine without Jago. You, on the other hand … well, admit it, Cap’n, you’d miss me if I was gone.”
Words uttered in jest, but they had added up to one indisputable fact. For all Hawkwood’s attempts to dissuade Jago from following through with his reckless decision, he knew that not having the sergeant by his side would have been tantamount to losing his rifle or his sword. It was inconceivable that Hawkwood should continue his personal war against the French without Jago’s support. So Hawkwood had admitted defeat and they had spoken no more of the matter.
Until Hawkwood had made his decision to return to England.
It had been late September. The first snows of winter had begun to settle on the high peaks. Wrapped in blankets around a flickering campfire, Hawkwood had revealed his intentions, and what had surprised him had been the lack of surprise shown by his sergeant. Jago had asked only one question: “When do we leave?”
They’d secured passage on a merchantman bound for Tilbury. They had been passing the Kent coast, close to the mouth of the Medway, when Jago had jumped ship in the early hours of a chilly dawn. Officially, Jago was still listed as a deserter and it was not unheard of for ships to be met by provost sergeants on the lookout for such individuals. By leaving the vessel before it docked, Jago had pre-empted that possibility. Hawkwood, watching Jago tread water as he made his way ashore, had felt the loss hard but, in retrospect, the sergeant’s actions had been understandable.
Given the sergeant’s background, Hawkwood had assumed Jago would head for familiar territory, the Kent marshes, there to rekindle his skills in smuggling and other diverse activities. He’d had no fear that Jago would suffer arrest. The sergeant was too cunning for that. By the same token he had not taken it for granted that Jago would try and seek him out. He knew that if Jago felt the need to do so he would.
And that’s how it had been. Hawkwood had heard nothing of Nathaniel Jago until, during his first few months as a Runner, he had begun to pick up vague rumours which suggested that Sergeant Jago might well have left the safety of the salt marshes behind him and embarked upon more urban pursuits.
The capital’s criminal fraternity was close knit. When Hawkwood’s informers began to let slip snippets of information pertaining to the exploits and growing reputation of an ex-soldier who, deep in the rookery, ran a small band of ruffians with what amounted to military precision, he began to pay very close attention.
Not that he should have been that surprised. Jago’s childhood, in the company of tinkers and horse thieves, had served as a fine apprenticeship for his life in the army, where he had gained a name for himself, not only as a first-class soldier but as a scavenger and protector to the men under his command. Twenty years in the military had only served to sharpen those skills. So it was hardly unexpected that he should have continued to utilize the same degree of artistry in his current, albeit dubious, means of employment.
In fact, as Hawkwood had subsequently discovered, Jago had infiltrated the London underworld with considerable success. It was hinted that the sergeant had his fingers in several pies, most of them lucrative; from protection and pilfery to piracy and prostitution, though how much was fact and how much fiction, Hawkwood had been unable to determine. Where rumour led, a grain of truth was generally not far behind. What was certain was that in the short time since his arrival in the rookery Jago had won himself a position of some influence. Whether through the use of brain or brawn, one could only surmise. Knowing Jago as he did, Hawkwood presumed it was a combination of the two. Either way, it placed the ex-soldier in the position of being able to provide Hawkwood with the kind of information he sometimes sought.
There had been occasional meetings over the intervening months, always on Jago’s home territory. Nothing personal, Jago had told Hawkwood. Only you could never tell when the provosts were likely to walk round the bloody corner. As Jago had chided softly, “Don’t want to be caught with my breeches down, do I, sir?”
And so the partnership had endured, albeit in a somewhat circumspect capacity. A snippet of criminal information here, in exchange for a warning of impending interference from the authorities there. So far, both parties to the agreement had profited.
Jago placed his tankard on the table and leaned forward. “Right, Cap’n, now don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I ain’t pleased to see you, but these old bones tell me this ain’t no social visit. I doubt you’re here to chat about old times. Strikes me there’s something on your mind. You care to tell old Nathaniel what that might be?” The candle flame flickered in a draught. Jago’s shadow, cast on the wall behind him, ebbed and flowed, one moment nothing more than a vague shapeless blob, the next a crook-backed goblin about to spring out of the corner of the room.
There was a sudden commotion on the lower floor. The dog fight had resumed. Two animals had been dropped into the straw-littered pit. Snarling and yelping, their smooth-pelted bodies erupted into a frenzy of snapping teeth and gouging claws. Hawkwood turned his head away. “Information.”
Jago raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You buyin’, or sellin’?”
Hawkwood did not waste time in preamble. “Two nights ago, a coach was held up and robbed on the Kent Road. Two men were killed: the driver’s mate and a passenger.”
Jago frowned. “And you thought I might have had something to do with it?”