A Place Called Freedom (1995)

They were as close as they could get, about twenty yards away. The gallows was a crude wooden structure, just three posts with crossbeams. Five ropes hung from the beams, their ends tied in nooses ready for the condemned. A chaplain stood nearby, with a handful of official-looking men who were presumably law officers. Soldiers with muskets kept the crowd at a distance.

Gradually Mack became aware of a roaring sound from farther down Tyburn Street. “What’s that noise?” he asked Cora.

“They’re coming.”

First there was a squad of peace officers on horseback, led by a personage who was presumably the city marshal. Next were the constables, on foot and armed with clubs. Then came the tumbril, a high four-wheeled cart drawn by two plow horses. A company of javelin men brought up the rear, holding their pointed spears rigidly upright.

In the cart, sitting on what appeared to be coffins, their hands and arms bound with ropes, were five people: three men, a boy of about fifteen and a woman. “That’s Dolly,” Cora said, and she began to cry.

Mack stared in horrid fascination at the five who were to die. One of the men was drunk. The other two looked defiant. Dolly was praying aloud and the boy was crying.

The cart was driven under the scaffold. The drunk man waved to some friends, villainous-looking types, who stood at the front of the crowd. They shouted jokes and ribald comments: “Kind of the sheriff to invite you along!” and “I hope you’ve learned to dance!” and “Try that necklace on for size!” Dolly asked God’s forgiveness in a loud, clear voice. The boy cried: “Save me, Mama, save me, please!”

The two sober men were greeted by a group at the front of the crowd. After a moment Mack distinguished their accents as Irish. One of the condemned men shouted: “Don’t let the surgeons have me, boys!” There was a roar of assent from his friends.

“What are they talking about?” Mack asked Cora.

“He must be a murderer. The bodies of murderers belong to the Company of Surgeons. They cut them up to see what’s inside.”

Mack shuddered.

The hangman climbed on the cart. One by one he placed the nooses around their necks and drew them tight. None of them struggled or protested or tried to escape. It would have been useless, surrounded as they were by guards, but Mack thought he would have tried anyway.

The priest, a bald man in stained robes, got up on the cart and spoke to each of them in turn: just for a few moments to the drunk, four or five minutes with the other two men, and longer with Dolly and the boy.

Mack had heard that sometimes executions went wrong, and he began to hope it would happen this time. Ropes could break; the crowd had been known to swarm the scaffold and release the prisoners; the hangman might cut people down before they were dead. It was too awful to think these five living human beings would in a few moments be dead.

The priest finished his work. The hangman blindfolded the five people with strips of rag then got down, leaving only the condemned on the cart. The drunk man could not keep his balance and he stumbled and fell; and the noose began to strangle him. Dolly continued to pray loudly.

The hangman whipped the horses.

Lizzie heard herself scream: “No!”

The cart jerked and moved off.

The hangman lashed the horses again and they struggled to a trot. The cart was drawn from under the condemned people and, one by one, they fell to the extent of the ropes: first the drunk, already half dead; then the two Irishmen; then the weeping boy; and at last the woman, whose prayer was cut off in midsentence.

Lizzie stared at the five bodies dangling from the ropes, and she was filled with loathing for herself and the crowd around her.

They were not all dead. The boy, mercifully, seemed to have broken his neck instantly, as did the two Irishmen; but the drunk was still moving, and the woman, whose blindfold had slipped, stared out of open, terrified eyes as she slowly choked.

Lizzie buried her face in Jay’s shoulder.

She would have been glad to leave, but she forced herself to stay. She had wanted to see this and now she should stick it out until the end.

She opened her eyes again.

The drunk had expired, but the woman’s face worked in agony. The rowdy onlookers had fallen silent, stilled by the horror in front of them. Several minutes went by.

At last her eyes closed.

The sheriff stepped up to cut down the bodies, and that was when the trouble started.

The Irish group surged forward, trying to get past the guards to the scaffold. The constables fought back, and the javelin men joined in, stabbing at the Irish. Blood began to flow.

“I was afraid of this,” Jay said. “They want to keep their friends’ bodies out of the hands of the surgeons. Let’s get clear as fast as we can.”