Arthur & George

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, D462. 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 D462–7.
    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