“And what do you miss most?”
“Oh,” replied George, “I miss my life.”
The Chaplain seemed to imagine that George, as the son of a clergyman, would draw his principal comfort and consolation from the practise of his religion. George did not disabuse him, and he attended chapel more willingly than most; but he knelt and sang and prayed in the same spirit as he put out his slops and folded his bedding and worked, as something to help get him through the day. Most of the prisoners went to work in the sheds, where they made mats and baskets; a star man doing three months’ separate had to work in his own cell. George was given a board and bundles of heavy yarn. He was shown how to plait the yarn, using the board as a pattern. He produced, slowly and with great effort, oblongs of thick plaited material to a determined size. When he had finished six, they were taken away. Then he started another batch, and another.
After a couple of weeks, he asked a prison officer what the purpose of these shapes might be.
“Oh, you should know, 247, you should know.”
George tried to think where he might have come across such material before. When it was clear he was at a loss, the warder picked up two of the completed oblongs, and pressed them together. Then he held them beneath George’s chin. When this gained no response, he put them beneath his own chin and started opening and closing his mouth in a wet and noisy fashion.
George was baffled by this charade. “I am afraid not.”
“Oh, come on. You can get it.” The warder made noisier and noiser chomping sounds.
“I cannot guess.”
“Horses’ nose-bags, 247, horses’ nose-bags. Must be congenial, seeing as you’re a man familiar with about horses.”
George felt a sudden numbness. So he knew; they all knew; they talked and joked about it. “Am I the only person making these?”
The warder grinned. “Don’t count yourself so special, 247. You’re doing the plaiting, you and half a dozen others. Some do the sewing together. Some make the ropes for tying round the horse’s head. Some put them all together. And some pack them up for sending off.”
No, he wasn’t special. That was his consolation. He was just a prisoner among prisoners, working as they worked, someone whose crime was no more alarming than that of many others, someone who could choose to be well-behaved or badly behaved, but had no choice about his fundamental status. Even being a solicitor here was not unusual, as the Governor had pointed out. He decided to be as normal as it was possible to be, given the circumstances.
When told that he would serve six months’ separate rather than just three, George did not complain, or even ask the reason. The truth was, he thought that what newspapers and books referred to as “the horrors of solitary confinement” were grossly exaggerated. He would rather have too little company than too much of the wrong sort. He was still permitted to exchange words with the warders, the Chaplain, and the Governor on his rounds, even if he did have to wait for them to speak first. He could use his voice in chapel, singing the hymns and joining in the responses. And during exercise, permission was usually given to talk; though finding common ground with the fellow walking beside you was not always straightforward.
There was, furthermore, a capital library at Lewes, and the librarian called twice a week to take away books he had finished with and replenish his shelf. He was allowed to borrow one work of an educational nature and one “library” book per week. By “library” book he was to understand anything from a popular novel to a volume of the classics. George set himself to read all the great works of English literature, and the histories of significant nations. He was naturally permitted a Bible in his cell; though he found increasingly that after four hours struggling with board and yarn each afternoon, it was not the cadences of Holy Writ that he yearned for, but the next chapter of Sir Walter Scott. At times, shut in his cell, reading a novel, safe from the rest of the world, his brightly coloured bed-rug catching the corner of his eye, George felt a sense of order that was almost edging towards contentment.
He learned from his father’s letters that there had been a public outcry at his verdict. Mr. Voules had taken up his case in
Truth,
and a petition was being raised by Mr. R. D. Yelverton, late Chief Justice of the Bahamas, now of Pump Court in the Temple. Signatures were being gathered, and already many solicitors in Birmingham, Dudley and Wolverhampton had given their support. George was touched to discover that the signatories included Greenway and Stentson; they had always been decent dogs, those two. Witnesses were being interviewed, and testimonials to George’s character gathered from schoolmasters, professional colleagues, and members of his family. Mr. Yelverton had even been in receipt of a letter from Sir George Lewis, the greatest criminal lawyer of the day, expressing his considered opinion that George’s conviction was fatally flawed.
It was clear that some official representations had been made on his behalf, because George was allowed to receive more communications regarding his case than would normally have been allowed. He read some of the testimonials. There was a purple carbon copy of a letter from his mother’s brother, Uncle Stoneham of The Cottage, Much Wenlock. “Whenever I have seen or heard of my nephew (until these abominable things were spoken of)
I always found him nice and heard of his being nice and clever also
.” There was something about the underlining that went straight to George’s heart. Not the praise of him, which he found embarrassing, but the underlining. Here it was again. “I first met Mr. Edalji when he had been in orders for five years and had very good testimonials from other clergymen.
Our friends at that time too felt as we did that Parsees are a very old and cultivated race
, and have many good qualities.” And then again, in a post-scriptum. “My Father and Mother gave their
full consent
to the marriage and they
were deeply attached to my sister
.”
As a son and a prisoner, George could not help being moved to tears by these words; as a lawyer, he doubted how much effect they would have on whichever Home Office functionary might eventually be appointed to review his case. He felt, at the same time, both keenly optimistic and entirely resigned. Part of him wanted to stay in his cell, plaiting nose-bags and reading the works of Sir Walter Scott, catching colds when his hair was cut in the freezing courtyard, and hearing the old joke about bed-bugs again. He wanted this because he knew it was likely to be his fate, and the best way to be resigned to your fate was to want it. The other part of him, which wanted to be free tomorrow, which wanted to embrace his mother and sister, which wanted public acknowledgement of the great injustice done him—this was the part he could not give full rein to, since it could end by causing him the most pain.
So he tried to remain stolid when he learned that ten thousand signatures had now been gathered, headed by those of the President of the Incorporated Law Society, of Sir George Lewis, and Sir George Birchwood, K.C.I.E., the high medical authority. Hundreds of solicitors had signed, not just from the Birmingham area; also King’s Counsel, Members of Parliament—including those from Staffordshire—and citizens of every political hue. Sworn statements had been gathered from witnesses who had seen workmen and sightseers trampling the ground where subsequently PC Cooper had discovered his bootmarks. Mr. Yelverton had also obtained a favourable statement from Mr. Edward Sewell, a veterinary surgeon consulted by the prosecution and then not called in evidence. The petition, the statutory declarations and the testimonials together formed “the Memorials,” which were to be addressed to the Home Office.
In February, two things happened. On the 13th of the month, the
Cannock Advertiser
reported that another animal had been mutilated in exactly the same fashion as in previous outrages. A fortnight later, Mr. Yelverton submitted the Memorials to the Home Secretary, Mr. Akers-Douglas. George allowed himself the full indulgence of hope. In March two more things happened: the petition was rejected, and George was informed that on completion of his six months’ separate, he would be moved to Portland.
He was not told the reason for the transfer, and did not ask. He assumed it was a way of saying: now you will get on and serve your sentence. Since part of him had always expected to do so, part of him—though not a large part—could be philosophical at the news. He told himself that he had exchanged the world of laws for the world of rules, and they were not perhaps so different. Prison was a simpler environment, since rules allowed no latitude for interpretation; but it was likely that the change was less disconcerting to him than to those whose previous existence had always been outside the law.
The cells at Portland did not impress him. They were made of corrugated iron, and to his eye resembled dog-kennels. Ventilation was also poor, and achieved by cutting a hole in the bottom of the door. There were no bells for prisoners, and if you wished to speak to a warder you placed your cap beneath the door. This was also the system by which the roll-call was made. Upon the cry of “Caps under!” you placed your cap into the ventilation hole. There were four such roll-calls every day, but since counting caps proved less accurate than counting bodies, the laborious process often had to be repeated.
He acquired a new number,
D
462. The letter indicated his year of conviction. The system had started with the century: 1900 was year
A
; George had therefore been convicted in year
D
, 1903. A badge bearing this number, and the prisoner’s term of sentence, was worn on the jacket, and also on the cap. Names were used more frequently here than at Lewes, but still you tended to know a man by his badge. So George was
D
462–7.
There was the usual interview with the Governor. This one, though perfectly civil, was from his first words less encouraging in manner than his colleague at Lewes. “You should know it is pointless trying to escape. No one has ever escaped from Portland Bill. You will merely lose remission and discover the delights of solitary confinement.”
“I think I am probably the last person in the entire gaol who might try to escape.”
“I have heard that before,” said the Governor. “Indeed, I have heard everything before.” He looked down at George’s file. “Religion. It says Church of England.”
“Yes, my father—”
“You can’t change.”
George did not understand this remark. “I have no desire to change my religion.”
“Good. Well, you can’t anyway. Don’t think you can get round the Chaplain. It’s a waste of time. Serve your term and obey the warders.”
“That has always been my intention.”
“Then you’re either wiser or more foolish than most.” With this enigmatic remark, the Governor waved for George to be taken away.
His cell was smaller and meaner than at Lewes, though he was assured by a warder who had served in the Army that it was better than a barracks. Whether this was true, or intended as unverifiable consolation, George had no means of knowing. For the first time in his prison career, his fingerprints were taken. He feared the moment when the doctor assessed his capacity for work. Everyone knew that those sent to Portland were given a pickaxe and ordered to break rocks in a quarry; leg-irons doubtless came into the reckoning as well. But his anxieties turned out to be misconceived: only a small percentage of the prisoners worked in the quarries, and star men were never sent there. Further, George’s eyesight meant that he was judged fit only for light work. The doctor also deemed it unsafe for him to go up and down stairs; so he was located to No. 1 Ward on the ground floor.
He worked in his cell. He picked coir for stuffing beds, and hair for stuffing pillows. The coir had to be first combed out on a board, and then picked as fine as thread: only thus, he was told, would it be suitable to make the softest of beds. No proof of this claim was afforded; George never saw the next stage of the process, and his own mattress was definitely not filled with finely picked coir.
Halfway through his first week at Portland, the Chaplain visited him. His jovial manner implied that they were meeting in the vestry at Great Wyrley rather than a dog-kennel with a ventilation hole cut from the bottom of the door.
“Settling in?” he asked cheerily.
“The Governor seems to imagine my only thoughts are of escape.”
“Yes, yes, he says that to everyone. I think he rather enjoys the occasional escape, just between the two of us. The black flag raised, the cannon booming, the barracks turning out. And he always wins the game—he likes that too. No one ever gets off the Bill. If the soldiers don’t get them, the citizenry does. There’s a five-pound bounty for turning in an escaper, so there’s no incentive to look the other way. Then it’s a spell of chokey and a loss of remission. Just not worth it.”
“And the other thing the Governor told me was that I am not allowed to change my religion.”
“True enough.”
“But why should I want to?”
“Ah, you’re a star man, of course. Don’t know the ins and outs yet. You see, Portland has only Protestants and Catholics. About six to one, the ratio. But no Jews at all. If you were a Jew, you’d be sent to Parkhurst.”
“But I’m not a Jew,” said George, rather doggedly.
“No. Indeed not. But if you were an old lag—an ordinary—and you decided that Parkhurst was an easier billet than Portland, you might be released from Portland this year as an ardent member of the Church of England, but by the time the police caught you next time, you might have decided you were a Jew. Then you’d get sent to Parkhurst. But they made it a rule that you can’t change your faith in the middle of a sentence. Otherwise prisoners would be coxing-and-boxing every six months, just for something to do.”
“The rabbi at Parkhurst must get some surprises.”
The Chaplain chuckled. “Strange how a life of crime can turn a man into a Jew.”
George discovered that it was not just Jews who were sent to Parkhurst; invalids and those known to be a little bit off the top were also despatched there. You might not change religion at Portland, but if you broke down physically or mentally, you could be transferred. It was said that some prisoners deliberately put pickaxes through their feet, or pretended to be a little bit off the top—howling like dogs and tearing out their hair in clumps—in an attempt to gain a move. Most of them ended up in chokey instead, a few days’ bread and water their only reward.