“Ah, the outflanking of the ne plus ultra,” Daniel exclaimed. “Thirty miles in a day, wasn’t it?”

“Thirty-six miles in sixteen hours, sir.”

“Magnificent.”

Daniel did not inquire about the campaign of ’12, which had been a disgrace-the Queen had fired Marlborough on the first day of that year. “I once knew a fellow, a sergeant in this regiment-he did me a favor, and I did him one in turn. Since then, there have been twenty-five years of war. He couldn’t possibly still be here-”

“Only one man saw those twenty-five years through, sir,” the private returned.

“That is a dreadful figure. What is that man’s name?”

“It’d be Sergeant Bob, sir.”

“Bob Shaftoe?”

The private rationed himself a grin. “The same, sir.”

“Where is he now?”

“On a Mint detail, sir.”

“Mint detail?”

“Doing a job that needs doing for the Mint, sir.”

“So he is-?” Daniel pointed back up Mint Street.

“No sir, you’ll find him on London Bridge, sir. ’Tis a task of an unusual nature, sir.”

DANIEL SAW NO SOLDIERS doing anything, usual or unusual, as he walked most of the length of the bridge. Here, at least, was a part of London that had changed very little during his lifetime. The clothing worn by the people, and sold in the shops lining the carriageway, was of course different. But it was late in the afternoon and the sun was shining horizontally downriver, throwing the built-up segments of the bridge into a gloom too profound for his old eyes to penetrate, and so in these stretches he could phant’sy himself a ten-year-old boy again, out running an errand in the Puritan republic of Oliver Cromwell. But these day-dreams were interrupted when he came to the open fire-breaks, where the buildings ceased and the bridge hurried on for a stone’s throw as a naked causeway. As he ventured into these gaps, the sun blasted him on the right side of his face, and when he turned his head away from it and looked down the Thames, he saw two thousand ships-which annihilated the dream that he was back in the simple days of old. He scuttled across these open stretches like a rat across an unwelcome stripe of lanthorn-light, and found refuge in the cool dark canyons between the old buildings.

The last and shortest of these open stretches was practically in Southwark, seven-eighths of the way across. On the far end of this gap the carriageway was over-arched by a stone castle, of ancient-looking design, but only about three hundred years old. It was the highest structure on the Bridge, for it served both as watch-tower and as choke-point. It dated to an ?ra when military operations were of a more straightforward character, so that a bloke on the top of the tower, looking south to discover Frenchmen or Saracens coming up in force, could sound the alarm and slam the doors to the Bridge. It was called the Great Stone Gate.

The last of the old wattle-and-daub houses was supported by one starling, and the Great Stone Gate by the next one to the south, and the fire-break between them, above the carriageway, coincided with the broad stone arch that spanned the interval between the starlings below. The flume of Thames-water that raced through that arch was called Rock Lock, and was the broadest of all London Bridge’s twenty locks. Passengers who were willing to brave the rapids of the Bridge were sometimes offered the option of detouring all the way down here to take Rock Lock, which was the least dangerous, being the widest; but to do so was generally scorned, by your inveterate Bridge-shooters, as unmanly.

The Bridge’s several fire-breaks exerted a mysterious attraction upon contemplative or insane Londoners. Daniel passed one-he was not sure which-standing with his back to the carriageway, looking upstream. He was wearing a pinkish or flesh-colored coat. He was not enjoying the distant view of west London. Rather, his grizzled, scarred, close-cropped head was bent down to look at the starling beneath. He was gesticulating with an ebony walking-stick, and jabbering: “Have a care, have a care, remember the object of the exercise-there’s no point in doing it, is there, if the result is crack-pated, and cannot hold milk.” The words sounded insane, but he spoke them with the weary patience of a man who has been ordering people around for a long time.

A soldier in a red coat was planted to one side of the carriageway, craning his neck to look almost vertically upwards. Daniel stepped to the side, so that he would not be run over, and followed that soldier’s gaze to the top of the Great Stone Gate, where a pair of young men in filthy old shirts were at work.

In company with Ludgate, Temple Bar, Aldgate, amp;c., this was one of the old gates of the City of London. And in accordance with an ancient and noble tradition, common to most all well-regulated Christian nations, the remains of executed criminals were put on display at such gates, as a way of saying, to illiterate visitors, that they were now entering into a city that had laws, which were enforced with gusto. To expedite which, the top of the tower above Great Stone Gate had been fitted with numerous long iron pikes that sprayed out from its battlements like black radiance from a fallen angel’s crown. At any given time, one or two dozen heads could be seen spitted on the ends of these, in varying stages of decomposition. When a fresh one was brought in from Tower Hill, or from one of the City’s hanging-grounds, the wardens of the gate would make room for it by chucking one of the older heads into the river. Though here as in every other aspect of English life, a strict rule of precedence applied. Certain heads, as of lordly traitors who’d been put to death at the Tower, were allowed to remain long past their Dates of Expiration. Pick-pockets and chicken-stealers, by contrast, were swapped through so rapidly that the ravens scarcely had time to peel a good snack off of them.

Some such operation was seemingly underway now, for Daniel could hear some authoritative chap atop the tower, chiding those men in the ragged shirts: “Don’t-even-think-of touching that one, it is Baron Harland of Harland-peculation, 1707, hanging by a thread as you can see…yes, you may inspect that one.”

“Thank you, sir.” One of the wretches gripped an iron pikestaff and lifted it carefully out of its socket, then brought it round so that the head mounted to its end was face to face with the other wretch-who proceeded to feel the skull all over, like a phrenologist.

“I phant’sy this’n’s sound, sir. It don’t give when I mash it.”

“Bring it down,” shouted the red-coated soldier on the carriageway.

A few moments later the wretch emerged from an internal stair-way, which he had descended with conspicuous gallantry and athleticism. He passed the head under the gaze of the soldier, who responded with a perfunctory nod, and then tucked it back under his arm and sauntered over to the western edge of the carriageway, within arm’s length of the grizzled man in the pink coat. Taking it up in both hands, he hollered, “Oy! Heads up, mate!” and gave it a good toss. Daniel could not see its trajectory, but could read it in the postures of the head-thrower and the pink-coat, both of whom were tracking it carefully: quiet anticipation as the head traced a parabola downwards, then shock and dismay as someone down below bobbled it, ending with explosive relaxation as it was caught. The man who’d thrown it wheeled about smartly, like a soldier in a drill. His face looked very much as if he had dodged a cannonball. He marched back to the Great Stone Gate.

Daniel strolled over to take his place. Looking over the bridge’s parapet he could now see down to the flat top of the starling below: a puddle of rubble circumscribed by a line of pilings, just an arm’s length above the level of the river. Down there were two more redcoats, supervising the labors, but standing well clear, of another pair of unfortunates, who were surrounded by partially decomposed and dismantled heads. These two chaps were working shirtless in the cold, probably because their backs were covered with whip-marks that were still bleeding. But they, too, were vigorous young men. Daniel reckoned they were private soldiers guilty of some infraction, being made to undertake this work as part of their punishment. The work consisted of catching the heads thrown down to them, and cutting off the tops of the skulls with handsaws.