Flashman - Flashman and the Angel of the Lord Part 10

"That is all determined!" cries he, glowing.

"Then I've a question."

"Ask away, my boy!"

"Very good," says I, all business. "Am I to carry out your orders without question? Or will you look to me for advice?"

He threw his head back, frowning, and I knew I must follow up at once. "I'm a man of war, Captain Brown. It's my trade - but I practise it against only one enemy - slavery. Did you know," says 1, "that William Wilberforce was my uncle? Oh, it don't matter; I only tell you so that you may understand the ... the force within me." I was the one leaning forward now, going red in the face with holy zeal, and just a touch of the fanatical stare. "I am with you because you are Liberty's champion in America. It all rests on you whether the oppressed black people of this land are brought forth into the light, or languish in bondage. You must not fail!" I gave him my grim, do-or-die smile. "I'll not have you fail! When we strike, it must be a sure, shattering blow - not a pin-p.r.i.c.k, not a hasty foray which miscarries for want of planning, but the breach in the d.y.k.e through which the flood of freedom will surge to sweep away the foul growth of slavery forever!"

It's listening to folk like Crixus that does it, you know; they supply the words, and I'm the boy who can carry the tune. I was out to convince Brown that I was as crazy as he was, and that if I found fault with his plans, it wouldn't be from half-heartedness or lack of abolitionist frenzy. I was the seasoned professional, you understand, but with the fire in my belly. Having let him feel the heat, I collected myself again, with an apologetic shrug.

"I beg your pardon, sir. I'm presumptuous and to you, of all people! But, you see ... I must be sure of victory - oh, not for myself, but for those thousands of poor black souls crying out for deliverance!"

Ringing stuff, and he took it like a man, mangling my fingers again. "We shall win that victory!" cries he. "And we'll win it with your good counsel, be sure of that! Why, Moses hearkened to his Joshua, didn't he?" He chuckled and clapped me on the shoulder, saying I'd turned his hope to certainty. And now it was time for me to meet "our friends - good men one and all, bound to the cause ... but not men of action," says he with a sigh. "Still, we depend upon them, and it will put heart into them to see you take the oath.

This, it turned out, was a rigmarole which Joe and I had to repeat before the company in the other room, a motley bourgeois crew of about a dozen, male and female. Among them were three of the "Secret Six" - Sanborn; a truly enormous beard which went by the name of Stearns; and Dr Howe, a keen-looking citizen who had in tow the only pa.s.sable female present, a spanking little red-head with a sharp eye.17 They were affability itself, but I guessed they were wary of me and Joe, possibly because we looked fit for spoils and stratagems; they beamed approval when Brown bade us raise our hands and swear to fight slavery with all our might, and keep secret all our transactions, but while the women clapped and murmured "Amen!", I wondered if one or two of the men were altogether easy about witnessing the men J blood getting their baptism, so to speak.

played strong and silent, and Joe, of course, didn't say a word, but it didn't matter, for the purpose of the gathering was to pledge money, which apparently they'd already done, and thereafter to admire Brown, to the accompaniment of coffee and sandwiches. Sanborn took the lead by reading a press report by one Artemus Ward of a meeting which Brown had addressed in Cleveland some weeks earlier, after his triumphant return from the Missouri raid in which he'd s.n.a.t.c.hed eleven n.i.g.g.e.rs and various horses.

"Listen to this, will you?" cries Sanborn, adjusting his gla.s.ses. "'A man of pluck is Brown. You may bet on that. (Cries of "Hear, hear!" and "I should say so!") He must be rising sixty, and yet we believe he could lick a yard full of wild cats without taking off his coat. (Laughter) Turn him into a ring with nine Border Ruffians, four bears, six Injuns and a brace of bull pups, and we opine that the eagles of victory would perch on his banner!"'

Loud laughter and applause, and Sanborn cries: "He writes further that Captain Brown is 'refreshingly cool', and could make his jolly fortune by letting himself out as an ice-cream freezer!" Delighted cries from the ladies, while Brown stood gravely regarding the carpet. "What d'you say to that, captain?"

"He has one thing right," says Brown drily. "I'm rising sixty."

At this they all cried, no, no, Ward had hit it dead on, and cl.u.s.tered round him, filling his cup and offering sugar cookies. He took it all pretty cool, with that stern modesty that's worth any amount of brag. One shrill old sow in a lace cap said she had been told that at that same meeting Captain Brown had said that the only way to treat Border Ruffians was as though they were fence-stakes, and whatever had he meant by that? Brown looked down at her, stroking his beard, and asked, what did she suppose people did to fence-stakes?

"Why, they strike them, I suppose!" says the beldam.

"Just so, ma'am," says Brown. "You drive 'em into the ground, so that they become permanent settlers."

She cried "Oh, my!" and fanned herself, while the other women t.i.ttered, Sanborn said "Yes, indeed!", and the men chortled that it was the only way. One said he had much admired Captain Brown's reply to a heckler who had accused him of stealing horses and looting the property of pro-slavery people; Brown had answered that since the pro-slavers had started the war in Kansas, it was only right that they should defray its expenses.

"But even better," cries a small snirp with a cow-lick and gla.s.ses, "was your hit at the expense of the wiseacre who questioned your right to sell horses taken from Missouri!" He beamed at Brown. "Do tell the company, captain, what you retorted!" He nudged his female companion. "Listen, Sally, 'twas the neatest thing!"

"Why," says J.B., very serious, "I believe I told him they were not Missouri horses, but abolitionist horses, since I had converted them!"

This had them in fits, while I watched with approval, for knew this game of old, having played it myself a hundred times in the days when I was being hero-worshipped. It's almost a ritual: they flatter you by praising your words or actions, and you play it easy and modest, but just giving a hint every now and then, in a humorous way, what a desperate fellow you are, because that's what they love above all. We had a prime example of it that night when a young fellow came in with the news that one Governor Stewart was expected in Boston soon, at which there was a sensation, lor this Stewart was the man who'd put a price of $3000 on Brown's head in Missouri. The women squealed, and the men looked anxious; Brown, standing by the fireplace, asked the young chap, whose name was Anderson, if it was Stewart's intention to set the U.S. marshal after him, and were the reward posters up in Boston?

"You bet, cap'n," says Anderson, who was a jaunty bantam. "But I reckon you may stand under 'em, and the marshal won't trouble you."

"Indeed, he'd better not!" cries Howe. "Ma.s.sachusetts won't stand for any Missouri warrants being served here!"

"I think Ma.s.sachusetts need feel no alarm," says Brown. "'There were posters in Cleveland, and I stood under those, an(] made myself conspicuous outside the marshal's office down the street. But he chose to ignore my presence, I can't think why." He was resting an arm on the mantelpiece, and now he turned so that his coat fell open, to reveal an enormous Colt strapped to his hip. "I guess it was just civility on his part, in case I'd feel embarra.s.sed."

There was a great whoop of laughter, and arch glances at the pistol, while they nudged each other and agreed that it would have been real embarra.s.sing - for the marshal, ha-ha! The old biddy in the lace cap said it was monstrous that .Southern reward posters should be permitted in a Northern city, and what would happen if the marshal and his "government hounds" should try to arrest Captain Brown "why, they might have the gall to try it in one of our very own houses!"

"If they do, ma'am," says Brown, "we shall bar the door against them. I should hate to spoil your carpet."38 That seemed to set them in the mood for a few blood-thirsty hymns, with Sanborn thrashing the harmonium; one was about a small, weak band going forth to conquer, strong in their captain's strength '39 which was sung with approving smiles in our direction, and a scrawny female had the impudence to press my hand in encouragement; if she'd been worth it I'd have arranged a prayer meeting with her later, for there's nothing like religious fervour to put 'em in trim, you know. I gave her my brave, wistful smile instead, and devoted my energies to "Who Would True Valour See?", which concluded the soiree, with Brown in great voice, eyes shining and beard at the charge, as he roared defiance at the hobgoblins and foul fiends.

When the guests had gone, Sanborn gave us a slap-up supper in his kitchen, during which Brown made a point of engaging Joe in talk, plainly to make him feel at home, and an equal member of the band - which was ironic, in its way, since Joe was a sight better educated than Brown or, as it turned out, any of his other followers. He took care not to show it, though, which wasn't difficult, since Brown prosed on at length, telling him that when they'd been in Chicago, and a hotel had refused to take the coloured people who were along with him, Brown and his gang had trooped out en ma.s.se, and hadn't rested until they'd found a place where there was no colour bar. It amused me to see Joe trying to look impressed by this earnest recital, but I didn't overhear much more, for young Anderson, who was seated next to me, had that curious American compulsion to tell you his life-story, as well as his views on everything under the sun.

He was an engaging lad, fresh-faced and full of beans, with a Colt in his armpit and that restless eye that you develop from years of learning not to sit down with your back to the door. He called me "Josh" right away, told me he was "Jerry", that he'd fought on the Kansas frontier as lieutenant of an irregular troop of Free Soilers, skirmished with the U.S. Cavalry, been jailed by pro-slavers, ridden on the recent Missouri raid, and thought Brown was the next best thing to G.o.d. He was one of your true-blue h.e.l.l-fire abolitionists, and itching to prove it.

"It's this way, Josh," confides he solemnly, "I reckon this fight is more mine than most folks' -'cos my family held slaves once, till my daddy came up North, so I figure I have to wipe the slate clean, don't you see? Maybe you can't understand that, bein' Canadian - oh, sure," grins he, winking, "I guessed that straight off, from your ac-cent - but I feel it in my heart, don't ye know? I just wish I could make everyone feel that way. Why, those poor black folk are cryin' out for help down yonder - but does anybody listen? Oh, I know there's lots o' good people, like we seen tonight, who'd wish slavery away tomorrow, an' they talk, an' 'tend meetin's, an' take up collections - but they don't do anythin'!" He had dropped his voice, so that Sanborn didn't hear; now lie gritted his teeth. "Well, there's a few of us ready to do, an' dare - people like you an' me - an' we'll be enough, you'll see! Yes, sir, when Cap'n Brown gives the word, we'll shake this land of liberty and equality clear to its centre!"40 I hope the rest of the gang are your sort, my son, thinks young and full of ideals and without a brain among you when it comes to sober planning; the last thing I wanted was older and wiser heads competing with me for Brown's ear. Fortunately, the old man seemed to have taken to me; he wrung my hand fiercely at parting - he and Jerry were staying at a hotel in Concord, but Joe and I were to bed down in Sanborn's attic - and a.s.sured me that as soon as he'd finished his work in Boston, the two of us would start to plan "the campaign", as he called it. Joe p.r.i.c.ked up his ears at that, and as soon as he and I were alone under the eaves, where mattresses had been provided, he rounded on me.

"What did Brown say to you befo'- when you was alone?"

"Well, Joe, I don't know that that's any of your concern," says 1, just to provoke him, but before he could do more than glare, I went on: "If you must know, he wants to be in Harper's Ferry by the Fourth of July. There, now. Does that satisfy you?"

le came swiftly, stooping under the beams, and squatted down by me, whispering.

"Fourth July! You reckon the others know - them as was heah tonight?"

"I doubt it. I don't think they want to."

He nodded; he was quite smart enough to guess that San-born and his friends were scared of the whole business.

"He say how many men he's got? How he's gonna do it?"

"No. He's waiting for me to show him. That's bound to take time - and I don't know how long it'll take to a.s.semble his men, or how many he can count on, or what arms he's got, or what money. I don't know if he can be ready, in just two months -"

"Listen!" His ugly black face was thrust into mine, whispering furiously. "You better see he's ready, you heah me? An' you -"

"Now you listen!" I hissed, as loud as I dared, giving him back glare for glare. "The sooner we have this straight, the better! I'm being paid five thousand dollars to see that this d.a.m.ned farmer takes Harper's Ferry - and no blundering black fool is going to queer my pitch! I know how to do it - you don't! If it takes me all summer to make it sure, that's my affair! I'm his lieutenant, not you - and the farther you stay clear of me, the safer we'll both be. D'ye think you can prowl at my elbow, looking like my b.l.o.o.d.y keeper? D'ye want to make 'em suspicious of us?" I sat back, sneering. "How long d'ye think we'd last if they guessed you were a Kuklos spy? Why, we -"

Before I knew it I was staring into the muzzle of a c.o.c.ked revolver, his eyes rolling with rage behind it.

"The day they guess that, Mistuh Comber," hisses he, "yo' gone! An' case you think you kin get up to any shines with me ... jes' remembah ... I ain't the only one watchin' you! So now!"

I forced myself to look unmoved down his barrel, with my bowels doing the polka - by G.o.d, he was a quick hand with a barker - and then to fetch an elaborate sigh as I stretched out on my mattress.

"You're a fool, Joe. You don't understand me at all, do you? Why, if I'd wanted to split on you, I could have done it when I was alone with Brown, couldn't I? But I didn't, because I've got five thousand good reasons, and when I make a deal, I keep to it. Now go to sleep - and in the morning, do try to remember that you're not my watchdog but a grateful darkie abolitionist who's fairly sweating to set his brethren free. Give 'em a chorus of doo-dah-day, why don't you?"

He stood looming over me for a long moment, then stirred his hand, and the pistol had vanished. He turned on his heel, and went without a word to his mattress - but not to sleep with a tranquil mind, as I became aware in the small hours, when I woke, discovered that there wasn't a p.i.s.s-pot to be had, descended the attic ladder to a window where I relieved myself into the night ... and turned to find him within a yard of me, pistol in hand and glowering as though he'd just escaped from Sinbad's bottle. It gave me a horrid scare, but got my own back by offering to hold the pistol and keep a look-out while he took his turn at blighting Sanborn's geraniums. He wouldn't, though, and when I dropped off to sleep again I guessed he was still brooding watchfully, wondering what to make of me, no doubt.

In fact, I didn't sleep that long; there was too much to think about, and this was the first real leisure I'd had to do it. Brown was an odd case; I'd expected a brimstone-breathing fanatic, and instead I'd met a steady, pretty decent, but plainly determined old man with an admirable gift for modest showing off. There was no doubt that he was fixed in his resolve; he'd invade Virginia if it was the last thing he did -- which it probably would be, if he ever got round to it. But that was out of the question, for the simplest of reasons: he didn't have the brains for it. He was a slow thinker, if ever saw one, and a dreamer; Messervy was right - I doubted if he could have directed a nursery tea. Rampaging into Missouri and grabbing the first n.i.g.g.e.rs and horses he saw was his mark, but planning a military raid ... no, I couldn't credit it. That aside - where were his men? Scattered, visiting supporters, raising funds, working at odd jobs, or just loafing, from what Anderson had told me. And I'd heard about money and weapons ... well, I'd believe them when saw them.

As I lay there, staring up at Sanborn's skylight, my thoughts kept jumping between hope and dread. One moment I felt my confidence growing that I could keep Brown busy, planning and dreaming and getting nowhere, for as long as need be ... and then doubts would creep in, and I'd have to tell myself fiercely that I was in the business now and no turning back; I'd been a helpless cork, borne on the tide, until my meeting with Seward - then, I'd had a plain choice, and made it, and while it had landed me in this ridiculous galley, it had been the right one ... and it was too late to run now, anyway, with this black gunslick watching my every move ...

I was too hot and clammy to go back to sleep now - it's wonderful how fears can sprout in the dark, when you're as naturally windy as I am. As I writhed fretfully on the lumpy mattress, it struck me as d.a.m.ned sinister that Messervy hadn't arranged some means whereby I could get a message to him - why, I could have let him know that Harper's Ferry was the certain target, and he could have had the Marines deployed around the place, and word of that would surely have reached Brown, and caused him to give up the business altogether ... my G.o.d, was it possible that Messervy and his "superiors", whoever they were, absolutely wanted Brown to raid the Ferry, for some ghastly political reason which I didn't understand? Never - in that case, why the h.e.l.l were they employing me to stop him? Well, Flashy, you fool, to kill him, for taking six bits off that infant ... for it was plain as print that Lincoln and Palmerston were in the thing, too, and it was all a devilish plot to make the Queen withhold my knighthood, as she certainly would do once Seward had told Prince Albert that I'd p.i.s.sed in Charity Spring's flowerbed ...

At which point I awoke with a wordless cry, lathered in cold sweat, to discover that it was growing light, and that I was in bursting need of another visit to the window below, so I rolled out, cursing, and clambered miserably down the ladder again - and blow me if Simmons didn't follow me every step of the way.

There's a photograph which may still be kicking about somewhere, showing John Brown enthroned in an armchair, with Joe seated scowling alongside him, while Jerry Anderson and your correspondent stand behind wearing expressions of ruptured n.o.bility, each of us resting a comradely hand on Joe's shoulders - although, as Jerry observed, from the look on Joe's face you would think we were trying to hold him down. The reason for the picture was that Brown wanted a new hat, and in those days daguerreotypers used to dispense free headgear to their sitters, with a miniature copy of the plate attached to the inside lining. The hat was rubbish, but Brown reckoned it was a saving; he had no more money sense than my beloved EIspeth, and was always short; and it's my belief that we only had our "likenesses took" so that he could sit there Hooking like Elijah, with his faithful followers about him, the darkie being given the other chair to show that all men are equal in the sight of G.o.d and daguerreotypers.

It was posed in New York in that strange month of May, 1859, which I still look back on with wonder. I'd been harried halfway round the world, through the strangest series of chances, and now, after one of the most topsy-turvy weeks of my life, I found myself loafing about in the wake of an eccentric revolutionary, with nothing to do but wait to see what might happen next. Most odd, and my recollection of it is fairly incoherent, with one or two episodes standing out in relief.

This time, you see, was the last tranquil twilight in the remarkable career of John Brown of Ossawatomie, when he was saying his farewells to his Eastern friends, scrounging his final subscriptions, and preparing for the great day which probably he alone believed was coming at last. It was a sort of royal progress in which he addressed meetings, shook hands with legions of admirers, and stoked up the support which he hoped would burst into a great Northern crusade once he'd lit the fire in Dixie; it took us from Boston to New York and various places around, and since I'd decided that my own eventual profit and present safety would be best served by going along quietly, I used the time to study the man and take the measure of his prospects.

An encouraging sign was that his health was none too good; he complained of what he called ague, and I had hopes that he'd be in no shape to start a war that summer. But he was a tough old bird, and wouldn't pamper himself; he was a great one for Spartan living, and at one place we stayed the maid of the house found him at daybreak fast asleep on the front steps; she made the mistake of shaking him, and found a Colt presented at her head. Even up here, surrounded by a friendly population, he never went unarmed, usually with Jerry as bodyguard, an office which gradually pa.s.sed to me, for Jerry dressed like an out-of-work scare-crow, and didn't fit too well in the Boston hotel's or the halls where J.B. harangued the faithful.

Messervy was proved right: he wasn't a good speaker, but he had a presence, and the mere sight of that Covenanter figurehead, with its flashing eyes and rasping voice, was enough to set them stamping and rummaging in their purses. His message was plain: talk was futile,. it was time for action - and sure enough, some oratorical gesture would give them a glimpse of the gun-b.u.t.t under his coat. Once or twice he waxed philosophical, and came adrift: I remember him pouring scorn on those who felt that their strength lay in the greatness of their wrongs, and so neglected action; his point was that the negro had the greatest wrongs of all, and a fat lot of strength that gave him - you could see the folk wondering what he was talking about, and fidgeting, but when he came out thundering that whoever took up arms to defend slavery had "a perfect right to be shot", they raised the roof. Ringing phrases about striking off the shackles, and troubling Israel, and h.e.l.l being stirred from beneath, were received with wild applause, but what moved them to wrath and tears (aye, and excitement) were his accounts of blood and battle. in Kansas, and his promise of more to come. It was after one of these addresses, when they were crowding round to bless him and shake his hand, that I heard someone say that his speech had been "like that of Cromwell compared to an ordinary king."" That delighted him; Cromwell was one of his heroes, and people were forever likening him to the old warthog.

When he wasn't speechifying or paying calls, he was writing letters to all and sundry. One I remember him composing at the U.S. Hotel in Boston, reading it aloud with particular care, because it was to his five-year-old daughter; I looked it up in his biography the other day, hoping to edify my own grandlings, who need all the morality they can get. It will give you some notion of his style: My Dear Daughter Ellen, I will send you a short letter. I want very much to have you grow good every day. To have you learn to mind your mother very quick; & sit very still at the table; & to mind what all older persons say to you that is right. I hope to see you soon again; and if I should bring some little thing that will please you; it would not be very strange. I want you to be uncommon good-natured. G.o.d bless you my child. Your Affectionate Father, John Brown Couldn't punctuate worth a dam, you see, and used to say he "knew no more of grammar than the farmer's calves", but there ain't a man of letters in my time who could have put it better. My grandbrats received it in polite silence, and then John said "We-1-1 ... what was she to do when an older person said something wrong?", Jemima asked if Ellen was pretty, Alice wanted to know what the promised "little thing" was, and Augustus belched. G.o.d help Miss Prentice, say.

The rest of his time he spent in talk, and since I was a new listener I had to endure a good deal of his prosing in those first weeks. Silly cracker-barrel stuff, mostly, although he had a curious store of half-learned knowledge; Bunyan was a favourite, and he was well up on Napoleon and Caesar and a.s.sorted military history. He was thirsty for anything that might be of use in fighting slavery, but had no time for soldiers or soldiering, and had gone to all lengths to avoid service in his youth, the notion of drilling and training to kill being anathema - until the abolitionist bug had bitten, and he'd found an enemy to hate. And when he got onto the subject of his first encounters with slavery - look out. A change would come over him, and from talking in his usual opinionated style he would go into a sort of brooding study, staring ahead and growling as though a steam-kettle was coming to the boil inside him. It was an unnerving sight, I can tell you, and I shan't forget the first time I saw it, one evening when we were seated alone on some front porch or other.

"I was twelve years old," says he, gritting his teeth, "and had druv some cattle a long way to the house of a gentleman with whom I had to stay for a spell. He was a good man, kindly and feared G.o.d, and made a great pet of me, and showed me off to his folks, saying what a smart brave little chap I was, to come a hundred miles alone. Well, that was fine. But you know, he had a young black slave boy, just my age, and bright as a bra.s.s b.u.t.ton - and I tell you, the way he tret that child would ha' broke your heart! Oh, it was the best vittles for me, and a seat at table nearest the fire, but for that little coloured lad - why, he barely fed him but sc.r.a.ps, and beat him like a dog, with a stick, or a shovel, or any old thing at hand! He didn't have pity on him at all!"

He choked on that, and sat with his great hands working on his knees; when he turned on me, there were tears in the blazing eyes, and his voice was hoa.r.s.e as though he were on the brink of a seizure. That was the moment when I first understood how the man who wrote that letter to his daughter could also be the man who'd ma.s.sacred the pro-slavers at Pottawatomie; he was a man possessed, no other word for it.

"I didn't see how G.o.d could let such things be!" cries he. "Or could put such fell cruelty into the heart of that good, kindly man - why, he was a U.S. marshal - yes, he was! He heard my prayers at night, and gave me a spinning top, the first I ever had! I asked him, if G.o.d was my Father, wasn't he Father to the little black boy, too, and he told me not to trouble my head about such things! Not to trouble!"

ft wasn't canny, those eyes, and the huge hawk nose and heaving beard, all directed at me as though I was the b.l.o.o.d.y U.S. marshal; he seemed to be inviting comment, but all I could think to say was that it was pretty rotten, and had the fellow been tight, perhaps?

He didn't seem to hear me, luckily, so I let it be, and after a while he sighed and launched into a tale about a runaway n.i.g.g.e.r whom he'd hidden from the slave-catchers a few years later. The darkie had crawled into a wood, and wben the alarm was over, he'd gone to look for him.

"Can you guess how I found him?" says he, and the fit seemed to have pa.s.sed, for while he gripped my arm in his talons, he spoke quite calmly. "He was lying deep in the bushes, in terror of his life ... and I located him by the sound of his heart beating! Yes, and it's a sound that has stayed in my ears these many years, that awful drumming of a human heart, in agony and fear!""

Well, I didn't believe it for a minute; if a beating heart could give you away when you're cowering in cover, I'd have been dead meat before I was twenty. But I said that was an astonishing thing, the poor chap must have been in a dreadful funk, but he'd got over it, had he?

"I vowed in that moment that I would never rest until the last slave had been set free," says he solemnly. I said hear, hear, and he asked me what had been my moment of revelation. Since I hadn't had one, I had to choose at random, and said it had been when I'd first watched blacks being packed aboard on the Dahomey coast, bucks to starboard, wenches to port with the shapeliest females nearest the hatches, for convenience, but I didn't mention that.

He shook his head and murmured something about the waters of Babylon, but a moment later he was telling me about a dinner to which he'd been bidden the next night, and would I care to accompany him, and when he bade me good-night he was absolutely cheerful again. It left me quite shaken, though; for a moment he'd looked as though he was ready to foam at the mouth, and I concluded that if he wasn't barmy, as Messervy claimed, there was still a screw loose somewhere.

Mostly, though, he was as calm and measured as you could wish, going about his business of paying calls and spouting claptrap, writing letters, ga.s.sing to Joe and Jerry and me - but never a word of substance about the great stroke we were meant to be preparing; no talk of planning or gathering men and arms, or any of the work that should have been going ahead. Of one thing I became surer by the day: if he was bent on taking Harper's Ferry, it wouldn't be by the Fourth of July. Reflecting on that, it seemed a pity that I'd no way of conveying the glad news to Messervy - and then by a sheer fluke I was presented with the perfect opportunity.

I mentioned a moment ago a dinner to which J.B. had invited me; it was at one of the big Boston hotels, full of quality and local bigwigs, and the two of us were guests of Dr Howe. We'd barely stepped into the lobby when he cried to J.B. that here was someone he must meet - and who should it be but the podgy Senator who'd tried to dragoon me into this business in the first place, and whom I'd last seen outside Seward's cabin.

We bore up short at the sight of each other, but he kept his countenance, paying me no heed beyond the usual courtesies of presentation, and fixing on J.B., who seemed to know who he was but took no joy of the knowledge, for he drew himself up tall, looked down his nose, and says, pretty cool: "I have heard, Senator, that you don't approve of my course of action."

I could have told him that our fat friend wasn't the sort to take any d.a.m.n-you-me-lad airs. He stuck out his jowls and came straight back.

"If you refer to your recent rash foray into Missouri - no, sir, I do not!"

J.B.'s beard went up a couple of notches. "Indeed, sir. My friends tell me also that you have spoken in condemnation of it.

"That I have!" snaps the Senator. "I regard every illegal act as doing very great injury to the anti-slavery cause."

"Freeing slaves injures the cause - is that so?" growls J.B. , and the Senator started to swell and go crimson.

"Let me tell you, sir," says he, "it was an imprudence that might have cost countless lives! There was a time, sir, not long ago, when such a thing might have led to the invasion of Kansas by ... by a great number of excited people, sir!"

J.B. made a rumbling noise, his hand twitched at his coat, and for an awful second I thought he was going for his gun, but he just hooked his thumbs into his weskit.

"Well, I think differently, sir!" says he. "I acted right, and it will have a good influence, you'll see. Good-night to you, Senator!"

"Good-night to you, Mr John Brown!" cries the Senator, and they bowed and stalked off opposite ways, leaving me wondering how I might seize this unexpected chance. I daren't go after the Senator, but within ten seconds I was in the deserted lavatory, scribbling frantically: "Tell Messervy - Harper's Ferry for certain. July 4". I daren't go out for a waiter, not knowing who might be spying on me, so sent the black attendant to fetch one. He brought another darkie, in a liveried coat, on whom I pressed the note, telling him to deliver it to the fat, ugly Senator with the yellow flower in his b.u.t.tonhole, and he cried: "Sho' nuff, suh!" and bowled off, chortling. But whether the note ever reached the Senator, I never found out; if it did, he must have ignored it, or else Messervy did - and you may make of that what you will. Anyway, I'd done my best.43 It was in early June that I started to earn my corn as a military adviser, when J.B. took me into Connecticut to see the pikes which he'd commissioned two years earlier; he was full of misunderstood nonsense about Swiss infantry and Greek phalanxes and Scottish schiltrouns, and plainly had visions of n.i.g.g.e.rs forming squares to repulse cavalry charges. I couldn't believe my eyes when the blacksmith hauled out half a dozen which he'd got up as samples, amazing instruments six feet long with bowie blades clamped to their ends, but asked my opinion, I said they were capital weapons - the more money J.B. spent on trash, the less he'd have for serious equipment. He ordered a thousand on the spot, and the smith said admiringly that he hadn't realised that Richard the Lionheart was operating in Kansas, but a thousand would cost $450, and he couldn't deliver until August. Fare-well July 4th, thinks I, this is splendid. J.B. was well pleased, though; you could see he was itching to fight Bannockburn o'er again in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

A few days after this we said adieu to New England, J.B. going north to visit his family, while Jerry, Joe and I were packed off to Ohio to join two of his sons who were supposed to be recruiting in that state. They were the first of his celebrated brood that I'd met, and I found them vastly rea.s.suring: Owen Brown, J.B.'s right-hand man, was big, tough, genial, and fat-headed, and John junior, the oldest son, was a poor critter in low spirits, plainly bound for Bedlam. Like all the Brown boys they were strapping, fine-looking fellows, but you'd not have trusted either of them to light the fire. Owen would have made a fairish corporal, given no work more taxing than lifting heavy weights and advancing into the cannon's mouth, but Junior had always been slightly wanting, Jerry told me, and the Kansas fighting had sent him off the rails altogether. He'd never got over his father's butchery at Pottawatomie, and soon after had fallen into the hands of Border Ruffians who had chained him and flogged him sixty miles over hard going, which had reduced him to raving idiocy. He was better now, Jerry opined, but J.B. would never have him in the field again, so he'd been made quartermaster and chief of recruiting, at which he was making no headway at all.

If these two are a fair sample, thinks I, we'll have a quiet summer of it - but there was a third man in Ohio, whom I didn't meet until J.B. returned from up north, and as soon as I shook his hand and met his eye I scented two qualities we could have done without: brains and bravery.

He was a Switzer, though American-born, named Kagi, and he was to prove to be the only man in Brown's conspiracy who knew what he was about. He was in his middle twenties, dapper, sharp, well-read, and keen, and if there had been half a dozen like him well, American history books might have a chapter today about the great Virginia slave uprising. He'd been a teacher and had fought in Kansas, where he'd distinguished himself by shooting a judge - who in turn had put three slugs into Kagi, which gives you some notion of what life at the American bar was like in those days.

"My Gideon," says J.B. in high good humour, putting one hand on Kagi's shoulder and the other on mine, "and my Joshua, who together shall be a scourge of Midian; yea, and of Canaan," and from Kagi's quick, cool smile I knew that this smart, clean-shaven youngster (who was styled "Secretary for War", by the way) was itching to steer his chief into action. He lost no time in drawing me aside and showing me a map of Harper's Ferry (hand-drawn, but far better than Messervy's) and asking if I had formed any plan for taking it, and for the campaign that must follow. I said J. B. hadn't asked for one yet, but as I understood it, taking the place was the least of it.

"You're right," says he briskly, and tapped the map. "See here: armoury, rifle works, a.r.s.enal, all within a half-mile. No troops on guard, only watchmen. I know the place well, 'twill be easy as pie -"

"Given the men, the arms, and secrecy," says I, and decided to impress him. "Then, strip the a.r.s.enal and armoury; have wagons and mules to carry the stuff to a prearranged rendezvous in the hills; food, bedding, clothes and boots for the slaves when they come in; despatch scouts to watch for the nearest militia companies and bring word of their movements; cut the wires; blow the railroads ..."

paused for breath. "But that, of course, is just for a beginning."

I'd expected his face to fall, but he was beaming. "Thank G.o.d!" cries he. "A man who knows his business!"

"If I didn't, I wouldn't be here," says I, the grim professional. Then I grinned, to show him I was human. "See here, though ... John Henry, isn't it? Aye, well, answer me this, John: these slaves J.B. is counting on to run away and join us. How many? How soon? How does he intend to bring 'em in to us? We're going to need 'em quick - but they mustn't know too soon that we're coming, or the whole South will know it, too. Then they'll have to be fed, clothed, armed, and trained. I can plan for all of that - given the a.s.surance of men and equipment. But getting 'em moving in the first place - that's the key to this whole affair, my boy. That's where we stand or fall!"

D'ye know, it was only while I was talking that the sheer lunatic impossibility of the whole ridiculous business rose up and hit me a facer for the first time. You see, until now, I hadn't thought beyond J.B.'s intended capture of Harper's Ferry - why should I, when I didn't believe it would ever happen? But now, in showing off for this bright spark, I found myself considering the sequel - a slave uprising, followed by a guerrilla campaign - and when I did, I wanted to burst out laughing. To put it plainly, J.B. was hoping that thousands of slaves would rise up spontaneously, which seemed unlikely - and suppose they did, how in G.o.d's name did he hope to feed, clothe, equip, house, doctor, and train the poor b.u.g.g.e.rs - probably the worst raw material on earth - to fight the American Army?

J.B., of course, had the answer: the Lord would provide. Kagi, being blessed with common sense, could see that the Lord would need considerable help, but being an optimistic disciple of J.B., and no soldier, he probably hoped that all would come right on the night - after all, this brilliant fellow Comber was taking the thing seriously, so it must be feasible. I knew it wasn't, not for the Duke himself, let alone these rustic dung-slingers.

But it wasn't for me to say so - my task must be to let the impossibles appear, slowly but surely, until Kagi saw the thing was hopeless. It would take time, and delicate handling, but from the respect that J.B. showed him, I realised that he was the one to convince; if Kagi cried quits, that would be the end of it. I found myself revising my view of him: far from being a dangerous nuisance, he should be a G.o.dsend who unwittingly would help me to kill J.B.'s plan stone dead. I didn't know, then, how reckless a canny Swiss can be when he hears the bugles.

To my question about stirring up the slaves, he frowned, and said we had a man in Harper's Ferry already who was looking into it. I asked him about arms, and he showed me the cases of carbines which the Brown brothers had hidden in a warehouse, under a pile of coffins. They were good weapons, but I doubted whether there would ever be men to use them; Junior was in despair because the fellows who'd been ready to march the year before weren't turning up as expected. Left to him, the whole scheme would have been abandoned, but he daren't say so for fear of the old man, and when Kagi reminded him that there were hosts of free n.i.g.g.e.rs up in Canada just waiting to answer the call, he pretended to perk up, saying he'd see to them when he'd collected all the weapons and shipped them down closer to the border.

It was the unlikeliest beginning to a desperate venture that I can remember in a lifetime of lost causes - I think of doddering old Elphy Bey before the Kabul retreat, changing his mind by the minute; Custer twitching and unshaven in his tent on the Rosebud, determined to have his way; Raglan imperturbable in his refusal to admit that he didn't know what the devil he was doing; Wheeler grey with fatigue and old age, tying his britches up with string as he prepared to surrender at Cawnpore. Each going to h.e.l.l in his own way, torn between hope and despair, but at least they understood warfare and had good advisers about them. J.B. didn't have the understanding or the men; and for all his iron purpose he was no James Brooke or Fred Ward or Charlie Gordon.

have a memory of a room somewhere, in Akron or Youngstown perhaps, with J.B. haranguing us about how well things were going, what with arms to hand, money in the bank, everyone back East cheering us on, and G.o.d letting the light of his countenance shine on our enterprise - and Owen Brown, bearded and ma.s.sive, hanging on Pa's every word; Junior looking glum and running his hand through his hair; young Oliver Brown, who had joined us, staring before him in his dreamy, soulful way; Kagi twitching with impatience; Jerry Anderson yawning and picking threads from his ragged sleeve; Black Joe watching J.B. with an intent, puzzled scowl that I couldn't read ... all told, it was a d.a.m.ned uninspiring sight, and I found myself wondering what Guy Fawkes and the boys must have looked like on November the Fourth.

When J.B. wasn't lecturing us about troubling Israel and letting the foxes loose in the Philistine corn, he was on the go in the towns around the Ohio-Pennsylvania line, which was strong abolitionist country, a.s.suring the people that the dawn was nigh, and he was girding his loins to invade Virginia - he made no secret of that, although I don't recall that he mentioned the Ferry by name, and he certainly glossed over the fact that his great slave insurrection would be in effect a rebellion against the U.S.A. and its Const.i.tution. If the good folk who cheered, and pressed round to shake his hand, and sent Jenny scurrying home to fetch the ten dollars in the cookie jar for the good cause, had realised that he was ready to shoot the Stars and Stripes to ribbons, I reckon they'd have thought twice.

All this aimless jaunting about the country was fine by me. It wasn't the Grand Tour, what with pa.s.sable food, middling accommodation, and no hope of vicious amus.e.m.e.nt, but I tolerated it in the knowledge that I'd be home-ward bound presently having earned the grat.i.tude of next-President Seward and the approval of Her Majesty. In the meantime I conferred endlessly with J.B. and Kagi, listening straight-faced to the old idiot's fierce enthusiasms, conscious that Kagi was watching to see how I took them, and I had to be on my guard not to approve anything too half-witted. For example, J.B. had a great bee in his bonnet about building forts in the hills from which his vast army of liberated darkies would sally forth like Boer commandos; I didn't remark that such forts would have taken a battalion of sappers weeks to build (give me the men and I'll do it, was my line), but when he said the forts must have underground tunnels of communication between them, I had to point out that liberated slaves might not take too kindly to hacking their way through several hundred feet of granite, and any-way there wouldn't be time to spare from their military training (G.o.d forgive me). J.B. glowered like a spoilt child, for Kagi backed me up, and our discussion was pretty strained until he got his way on another ridiculous point - the establishment of a school in the hills for piccaninnies. Then he was happy again.

We had four or five of these staff meetings as we travelled about, and while I took care to hide my disgust,, I could see Kagi's frown deepening by the day. J.B. talked interminably and vaguely, as though he didn't know what to do next, there was no sign of more recruits, and I'd made it plain that our operations must depend on numbers, black or white; I acted as though I expected them to roll up in troops at any time, but meanwhile, I said privately to Kagi, I could only plan in theory, and wait for J.B. to give his orders.

It was after the last of these talks, at a place called Chambersburg, that Kagi asked me to come for a walk. It was a lovely summer afternoon, and we strolled along the dusty road out of town - with Joe, I noticed to my amus.e.m.e.nt, d.o.g.g.i.ng us at a distance. Kagi sat down under a finger-post and asked me straight out: "Joshua - can we do this thing?"

Time to start sowing the good seed, so I answered right back.

"Take the Ferry? Given the men, certainly. Fight a campaign in the hills? If the blacks rise in sufficient numbers ..." I shrugged.

"Sure ... if they rise," says he, and started pulling petals off a flower. "Oh! ... truth to tell, there ain't all that many blacks around the Ferry - and they ain't like the plantation nigras down south. They're farmhands, mostly, and house slaves - not much cotton thereaway, you see - and pretty much part of their masters' families. I don't know whether they'll want to rise!" He pitched the flower away irritably.

"Maybe after the harvest ... that's when they're at their orneriest, and the suicides happen -"

"Suicides, for heaven's sake?"

"Yes, sir - see, when the harvest's in, that's when they're liable to be sold. South, maybe, with cotton-picking time coming on. So families are parted, and they get depressed and mean. But that's not till fall." He kicked absently at the dust. "I wish J.B. would make up his mind."