Matthew Brennan

The Watchman

Matthew Brennan

"That the Constables see every House shut up, and to be attended with Watchmen, which may keep them in . . . for the space of four Weeks." —Orders by the Lord Mayor, concerning the Plague, 1665

It's a chilly night as dark and still as London's boneyard when the Deathcart comes to dump the daily toll. The cart's heaped bodies— purple and swollen, green with gangrene spots— shine ghastly in the bellman's glaring torchlight. The watchman's shift will last till 9 a.m. Nothing stirs in the muddy street, not even fleas buried in the fur of rats. All dogs and cats have been butchered to stop the plague. All the watchman hears is his own breathing. Tonight the moon is down, but the red cross that marks the door still glimmers like a gash. No one's shown their face since Friday night when women yelled for him to call the cart, to carry off a maid they'd wrapped in rugs. Then Monday afternoon, wailing escaped an upstairs window; soon an angry man was screaming for the cart again. Once there, the carters knocked and knocked, louder each time. So now it's the night watchman's turn again. He stands as if in church. He fears what's next, what's happened in the house and why it's mute. At last, before dawn starts to lift the darkness, he climbs up to the casement, cracks it open, and calls inside. Hears nothing. Listens harder, barely making out a metal tinkling,