Disclaimer: These are works of fan-fiction created for entertainment. It is not the intention of the author to infringe on anyone's copyright. No rights infringement intended. Warning: General Audience

The Sharpe Fan Fictions of Paul K.

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Sharpe's Family

PART I

London, England
Wapping, 1789

Chapter 1

JUNE, 1780
LONDON, ENGLAND – Brewhouse Lane



Life in Howick Place for many is short and squalid. Dirt, disease and drunkenness are common. The houses have few windows because the city taxes the owners of buildings based on number and size of windows. In the Summer, diarrhea and dysentery carried by flies that swarm to human and animal waste, dead animal carcasses and garbage from homes and butcher stalls ravage the neighborhoods. In Winter, tuberculosis, influenza and typhus afflict those able to shelter within buidings or left to the streets.

Wheels splatter the muck from mud and slush throughout the year and splatter walls and humans. When the sun shines it the muck bakes onto surfaces as if applied crazily as a layer of paint. The houses are mainly black. The old bricks are patched with crude timbers to support them upright when the mortar has begun to fail. Some have fallen into heaps of rubble. Cesspits stink. Dogs bark everywhere. The people seen on the streets have faces pinched and sunken from hunger.

Here where Wapping Lane turns into Brewhouse Lane is Jem Hocking’s Kingdom. Brewhouse Lane was named for a brewery that has long been closed. Across the street from the dilapidated brewery stand the workhouse walls that house the foundling home. The poorhouse and the foundling home were there and no one went close to those grim high walls unless they were forced.

Jem and his wife run this workhouse on Brewhouse Lane. As London grew, too many people came to the city. Conditions were unhealthy. People could not find enough work to feed their families. Many died leaving their children with no one. The Brewhouse Lane parish was infested with orphans. The leaders of the parish had appointed a Board to cope with so many children becuaes they didn’t know how to deal with the problem. Jem saw an opportunity. He went to the Parish Board to offer to take the responsibility for the ‘the care of the orphans’ immortal souls. And while he was taking care of their souls, he would take care of his own purse. He proposed to establish a workhouse to keep the orphans and adults who are too incapable to work any hard job while giving them food, shelter and a regular exposure to the scriptures. He presented his proposal with all due humility and sanctity. While the members of the Board were skeptical because Jem was known to conduct other businesses that we less Christian, they were delighted to give him the chance to solve their problem.

Since then, Jem and his wife have been godsends to the parish leaders. Jem collected all the orphans and indolents from all the streets of the parish and even a few streets beyond. With a staff of overseers and matrons, he put the children and adults to work picking oakum, washing, pressing and delivering laundry and preparing food for those at the workhouse. All he has asked to take all of the indolent from the streets, is to be given four pence, three farthings per day for each pauper.

The care of souls by itself yields no profit. But, Jem makes sure that he more than covers his costs to care and feed all. He takes two pence from each daily allotment. Grudgingly he spends the remainder on stale bread, onions, barley and oatmeal to pass as the meals that are given three times per day. As many a child found, these meals and the shelter are not free. Every child works at some job that brings further revenue to Jem Hocking.

Landlords of the parish, too, saw an opportunity as soon as Jem opened the doors to the workhouse. The landlords turned out tenants who could not pay the rents onto the street. The parish beadle would bring them to Jem Hocking’s kingdom, where the men were put in one ward and the women in the other. Many died here. Husbands are forbidden to speak with their wives. As with the children, all are half starved through each day until they no longer can go on and their corpses are carried in a knacker’s cart to a pauper’s grave.

Jem has been been so successful that in addition to orphans and the poor, the magistrates send pregnant girls to him as well. The girls are too poor to have a home or sick to sell their swollen bodies on the streets. When their bastards are born, often the mothers die of fever. Those that survive go back to the streets and leave their children in the tender care of Jem Hocking and his wife to grow to become a new generation to work.

The Lord of this world stands now before Richard Sharpe. Jem Hocking is a bull of a man with wide shoulders, stout legs and a face as flat as a shovel. His thick jowls hang beneath bushy brown side-whiskers. Jem lives in London, but dresses in a manner that when others see him, an observer may take him for a prosperous farmer from the country. He likes to wear a chequered waistcoat under a black coat. Today he wears a Scots plaid of blues and greens with fine lines of red woven into the pattern. From the waistcoat’s pocket, a golden watch chain loops to one of the buttons. In his left hand, he carries a varnished black staff with a silver knob. Both the staff and knob gleam from being polished well and often.

The Board has confined themselves only to a quarterly examination of the accounts and to review only the funds that they provide. They ignore all aspects of the work that the children perform. As long as the children appear to be taken care of and are relatively healthy, they are satisfied. At no time, when the Board adds up the accounts, the numbers balance to the exact penny. This pleases every member such that at Christmastime, the Board votes Jem an annual motion of thanks, but otherwise the Board ignores the orphanage.

Jem leads Richard into the brick building, then stands Richard to his front. Richard doesn’t know what to do, so he stares at his feet.

Jem looks at Richard. “Boy. You live ‘ere now. Ye look big and strong. Ye could be trouble for us. Whenever you think to break one of our rules, I want you to remember,

BE SURE YOUR SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT.”

“My sins?”

“Yes, from the Bible. Book of Numbers, Chapter 32, Verse 23. Learn this. Remember this in all that you do. Otherwise, you will be punished.”

Richard doesn’t understand. He has never heard of the Bible. “What are sins?”

“Your sins are anything that ye want to do that does not follow our rules.” Jem looks straight at Richard. “My rules”

“What rules? Don’t know rules here.”

“Ye will be taught them. Make sure ye learn every one.” Jem signals to a woman who stands nearby. She is one of the attchants who helps care for the children.

Richard stands with Alice. Jem looks down at him one more time. Towering over the boy, he says, “Learn the rules. Obey the rules. If you sin, you will be found out and you WILL be punished.” Jem scowls once more at the boy, then turns to walk away. As he goes he calls, “Alice, take this boy, Sharpe is it?, to a bed. Then show him where to work. No reason he can’t earn any food that he will eat today.”

Alice takes Richard’s hand to lead him away. “Yes, Mr. Hocking.”

Richard holds his ‘treasure chest’ under his clothes close to him while he walks away with Alice. Neither Jem nor Alice have noticed that he carries anything.

Alice led Richard towards the foundling home inside the courtyard. On the right is the poorhouse. The poorhouse holds mostly men and women who are too old or too sick to work, or had been abandoned by their children. The poorhouse is divided from the foundling home by a narrow, three-story brick house with white-painted shutters and an elegant wrought-iron lantern suspended above its well-scrubbed front steps. This is Jem Hocking’s small palace, which overlooks the foundling home.

On the left, the foundling home, like the poorhouse, has its own gate. Alice reaches to open a small wicker door set into the foundling home’s larger gate which is a black slab of heavy timber smeared with tar and surmounted with rusted iron spikes four inches long. Through the door, they enter the great hall. Richard is in awe of how big the vast room is. All he has known is the inside of Mr. Drake’s inn. This room could hold three or four inns like Mr. Drake’s.

Before them, children of ages like Richard and older sit at benches with piles of oakum and the tar-encrusted rope fenders that is their daily work. Further into the room, are piles of clothing and bedding near tubs and vats. Children here work to launder the soiled materials, then fold them to be returned to the owners.

At the rear of the hall, wool blankets or linen sheets are hung from frames to divide the room into spaces for the boys and girls to sleep. One panel is pulled to the side to allow access to each ‘chamber’.

Alice leads him into the entry to the left. On the floor are blankets that each child uses as a bed. Under the blanket, some have straw to cushion the sleeper. The beds are arranged by ages. The older children have their space to the rear, the younger to the front.

“What’s yer name, boy?”

“Richard.”

“Richard? Full name, boy.”

“Richard Sharpe.”

“Your ma call you Richard? Dick? Dickie?”

“She called me Richard.”

“Well, Richard, that’ll be your space.” With older children and adults, the attendants would search the the person for coins or valuables of any kind or with the more surly, weapons, that they might hide. Alice thinks that as Richard is so young, he has nothing so foregoes searching him. She points to a blanket near the corner of the room. “Put yer things there, then come back ‘ere.”

Richard is reluctant to leave his things alone. These are all he has left of what he knew as his home. At the blanket, he removes the few coins and the knife from his box to put into his pockets. He rewraps the box in his clothes then returns to Alice.

Outside the ‘room’, Alice points to a row of buckets. “Those are your ‘chamber pots’.”

Richard can smell the sour odor. He looks at the buckets. Only a single blanket is hung to give the user some privacy. At Cat Lane, he was used to having adults see him or him to see others use a chamber pot. Here would be different. There were girls here. He had no time to think about how he will feel about that because Alice had continued to walk back to the front of the room. Richard trotted quickly to follow her.

At the pile of oakum, she stops.

“Sit there.” She points to a small three-legged stool that stood barely off the floor.

Richard sat on the stool that she signaled. Alice takes two sections of black-tarred rope. Each is about a foot long. She gives one to Richard.

“Take th’ rope. This is how you pick oakum. Use yer thumb and fingers to find a string end.” With the one in her hand, she demonstrates. With one strand in hand, she tugs until the strand is free. “Pull it until it is free from the rest o’ the rope.” She then tosses the strand into a basket that sits in front of Richard.

“Yer hands are not big. But, ye are under six, ye must pick apart a 7-foot length every day. Today is your first day. Learn how to do it right. Tomorrow we will weigh what ye pick.

“Why?”

“Why? Why what?”

“Why pick the ropes?”

“The Navy uses the oakum to seal ships so they don’t leak or sink.

“Navy?”

“Yes, Navy. The men on the ships who protect our country against our enemies.”

“Enemies?”

“Yes, like the Spanish and the French.”

“Spanish? French?”

Alice grows annoyed as she responds to Richard’s unending questions.

“Yes, the Spanish and the French. They are our mortal enemies. All ye are doing a patriotic thing. Every day, this oakum goes to shipyards to fix or build our great fleet.”

“Pay tree ott?”

“Enough!

Richard cowers at the rebuke. He sees some children who are separate from those where he sits. Those children paw through baskets to select ropes for other children to separate. They select lengths of rope that will weigh about a pound and a half in each basket. One of the children carries the baskets to the stools for others to pick apart.

“Can I do that?” He points.

“They hurt their hands. Can’t pick for a while. They separate the ropes for ye.” An eight-inch cable is as stiff as frozen leather.

Picking oakum is tedious and harmful. Picking a pound or more everyday will make the fingers bleed. Alice knows that for those that pick oakum for long periods, their hands develop thick, black scars. Even longer, they suffer bursitis, tendonitis or other nerve damage.

“Why do we pick ropes?”

Alice has no more patience for Richard’s questions. “You stay here. We feed ye. It is not free. Ye work. Picking rope, you can do. Learn how.”

Before Alice can walk away Richard has one more question after hearing Alice mention food. He says,. “I’m hungry. When do we eat?”

“We feed ye three times a day. Next meal is in two hours. Now work.”

“How?”

“Watch the girls behind ye.”

“Missy. Teach the new boy.”

Richard watches Alice walk away. Before he starts on a piece of rope, he explores the people near to him. Behind him are two girls who are about the same size as he.

Both of them slowly and deliberately are picking at ropes. The one on his left whispers, “Don’t speak to Miss Thatcher unless she talks to ye first. They’ll punish ye.”

Richard wondered how much oakum he would have to pick before he would eat. He doesn’t know how long two hours is. He looked around him. All of the children had their heads down. When he could see faces, the face had no expression.

The girl behind Richard whispers. “Missy, be quiet. They’ll punish ye.”

Missy turns quickly to give the girl to her right a look. “Miss Thatcher told me to teach the new boy. Can’t teach if I don’t talk.”

To Richard, Missy whispers when the attendants aren’t watching.

“Talk before ‘n after work.”

“Or at meals.”

“Today is y’ first day.”

“Learn to go slow. Slow saves yer fingers.”

“When y’ finish early, they jus’ give y’ more work”

“But not more food.”

Richard sits with a piece of rope in his hands, but does nothing with it.

Missy again whispers, “Richard, ye need to pick the rope.”

“They are watching us.”

The other girl adds. “They will punish ye if ye pick nought.”

Richard listens to them. Carefully he turns to watch Missy and the other girl work. He looks at the rope in his hands, then begins to pick at it. He copies the way the girls pick and their speed. Softly he says,

“Thank ‘e Missy.”

Getting the hemp free from the tar is difficult. It hurts his fingernail to get it loose. His fingers are not much bigger than the separate strands of hemp in the rope. Finally, he frees one strand and throws it into the basket.

The girls note that he finished one strand. “First one done.”

“Fingers hurt.”

“Yes. Will.”

Richard frowns, then starts on the next strand. As he finishes the first rope, His hands hurt a lot. He wonders how he can pull the rope but not hurt his hands.

Maybe he can use his knife. The knife should be strong enough to pick the rope. Without hurting his fingers. How can he use the knife without anyone seeing him use it. At the inn, he saw men hide knives up the sleeves of their clothing. How did they do it? His shirt is big on him. The knife can be hidden in his sleeve, Can he slide it into his hand, like the men did, with no one seeing it? At night, he will try.

He hopes that soon they will eat. “Missy, do we eat soon?”

“Pick another rope.”

“Oh, not soon.” He pulls another cable from the basket. “How many more ropes until we eat? “

“At least one more.”

Richard sighs. If he were at the inn with Mr. Drake, he could get food whenever they made some for those that paid, when he helped the cooks. Now he must wait. And, he must pick at the ropes. So, to eat, Richard Sharpe learned how to pick oakum.

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