Journey from darkness, by Gareth Crocker

Journey from darkness, by Gareth Crocker. The Penguin Group (South Africa). Cape Town, South Africa, 2015. ISBN 9780143539254 / ISBN 978-0-14-353925-4

Journey from Darkness is Gareth Crocker’s second adventure and history novel, which he co-wrote with his father, Llewellyn Crocker.

Gareth Crocker  

When arriving at a place where an elephant has died, even years after the animals passing, many elephants will stop walking and stand, motionless, often for minutes on end. Experts believe this is both an act of mourning and a gesture of respect for those who have fallen, unique among all living things. It is known, simply, as an elephant pause.

PROLOGUE:

6 December 1901
King's Cross Reformatory, London

A predatory fog, the kind that severed hands and feet from sight, crept up the banks of the Thames and stalked through London's grey and cobbled streets. It was a wraithlike creature whose breath turned flesh and bone into coughs of shadow and made phantoms of passing carriages. As it trawled between buildings, a soft and settled rain sweated from its back. In an alleyway, a torch lit up the edges of a sign mounted above a metal and wood-panelled door.

King's Cross Reformatory
'Submit yourselves to your masters' 1 Peter 2:18

Father Gabriel removed his gloves, withdrew from his robe a single, crooked key - like the curve of a dead mans finger - and unlocked the heavy door. As he pushed from the street into the ivy-clad courtyard, a large crowd of boys clapped and cheered his arrival. As was now an established and highly anticipated tradition at Kings Cross Reformatory, the first and last Friday of every month were 'Fight Night'. An opportunity for the boys to settle their differences safely, channelling their anger in a way that the priests could control. While frowned upon by some, the priests at King's Cross - and Father Gabriel in particular - were adamant that the orchestrated bouts prevented more serious fights from erupting in their absence. It was a claim borne out by the facts. Over the past year, only a handful of minor skirmishes had broken out in the dormitories; a calm drizzle compared to the violent deluge of previous years. The near death of a fifteen-year-old boy, stabbed with a pair of scissors three years before, remained foremost in the minds of all the priests. Many of the errant boys in their care were capable of adult levels of brutality. Some, in fact, had been sent to King's Cross for crimes committed against their own parents. Father Gabriel bent over and stepped between two sagging ropes. The boxing ring was little more than a crude wooden stage and four old mattresses lashed to wooden posts, but it sufficed. He raised his arms and waited for the boys to settle down. Then, turning in a slow arc, he reached into his robe and fished from it an old wooden whistle. He looked up at the indistinct figures standing beyond the torches on the embankment and in the dark corridors flanking the courtyard. Dulled by both the fog and the encroaching night, their faces appeared almost featureless in the gloom - without identity. Just as they appeared under bright sun and clear skies to the majority of London's aristocracy, he thought. 'King's Cross ... what is our abiding rule?' he called out, wiping the rain from his furrowed scalp. 'That which is brought here] the boys answered in chorus, 'ends here. Father Gabriel closed his eyes. 'There is no shame in defeat and no glory in victory. Only courage and honour between brothers.' The boys repeated the line. 'May the Lord forgive us our sins and may that which divides us today, bind us tomorrow' 'Amen,' the faceless boys chimed, completing the now-routine exchange. With the formalities over, a nervous energy settled over the courtyard. Father Gabriel lowered his arms and turned his attention to the two curly-haired brothers standing in opposite corners of the ring. [...]

This is an excerpt from Journey from darkness, by Gareth Crocker.

Title: Journey from darkness
Author: Gareth Crocker
Genre: Novel
Publisher: The Penguin Group (South Africa)
Cape Town, South Africa, 2015
ISBN 9780143539254 / ISBN 978-0-14-353925-4
Paperback, 13 x 20 cm, 328 pages