Flashman - Flashman and the Angel of the Lord Part 4

[Flashy: We'll leave the "wondrous vision" for the moment, if you don't mind, and deal with "Bleeding Kansas", which like everything to do with American politics is difficult, dull, and d.a.m.ned dirty, but you need to know about it if you're to understand John Brown. The great question was: should Kansas be a free state or a slave one, and since it was up to the residents to decide, and America being devoted to democracy, both factions rushed in "voters" from the free North and the slave South (Missouri, mostly), elections were rigged, ballot-boxes were stuffed, and before you knew it fighting and raiding had broken out between the free Staters and the "Border Ruffians" of the slavery party. B own and his sons had joined in on the free side, and taken to strife like ducks to water. It was the first real armed clash between North and South, and you get the flavour of the thing from the Missouri orator who advised: "Be brave, be orderly, and if any man or woman stand in your way, blow 'em to h.e.l.l with a chunk of cold lead!"]"

"Nor was it long," says Crixus, "before Captain Brown's fame as a champion of freedom was heard throughout the land. Too late to prevent the wanton destruction of the town of Lawrence by Border Ruffians, he was moved to wrath by the news that the conflict had spread to the halls of Congress, where the brave Senator Sumner raised his voice against the despoilers of Lawrence, and was clubbed almost to death in his very seat by a coward from South Carolina! In the very Senate, Mr Comber! Conceive if you can, sir, the emotions stirred in the honest bosom of John Brown - and ask your-self, is it matter for wonder that when, a few hours later, he came on Southern bullies threatening violence to a Free Slate man, he should smite them with the sword? Yet there are those who would call this just chastis.e.m.e.nt murder, and clamour for the law to be invoked against him!"

Flashy: Well, Crixus was only saying what he and most of the North believed, but the truth of the matter was that Brown and his boys had gone to the homes of five pro-slave men who weren't threatening anybody, ordered them out-side, and sliced 'em up like so much beef with sabres; the men were unarmed, and it was done in cold blood. J.B. himself never denied the deed, though he claimed not to have killed anyone himself. That was the Pottawatomie Ma.s.sacre, the first real reprisal by the Free Staters, and the most notorious act of J.B.'s life, bar Harper's Ferry three years later, and even his worshippers have never been able to explain it away; most of 'em just ignore it.]

"So now," says Crixus, "he was a hunted outlaw, he and his brave band. They must live like beasts in the wild, while the full fury of the Border Ruffians was turned on the unhappy land. Men were slaughtered, homes and farms burned - two hundred men, Mr Comber, died in the fighting of that terrible summer of '56, property valued at thousands of dollars destroyed - but John Brown held the banner of freedom aloft, and his name was a terror to the tyrants. At last the Border Ruffians descended in overwhelming force on his home at Ossawatomie, put it to the torch, slew his son Frederick, and drove the heroic father from the territory - too late! John Brown's work in Kansas was done! It is free soil today, and shall so remain, but more, far more than this, he had lighted Liberty's beacon for all America to see, and shown that there can be but one end to this struggle - war to the bitter end against slavery!"

[Flashy: On the whole, I agree. J.B. hadn't ensured Kansas's freedom - the will of the majority, and the fact that its climate was no good for slave crops like cotton and sugar and baccy saw to that. But Crixus was right: he had lit the beacon, for while he and his boys were only one of many gangs of marauders and killers who fought in "Bleeding Kansas", his was the name that was remembered; he was the symbol of the fight against slavery. The legend of the Avenging Angel grew out of the Pottawatomie Ma.s.sacre and the battle at Black Jack, where he licked the militia and took them prisoner. To the abolitionists back east he was the embodiment of freedom, smiting the slavery men hip and thigh, and the tale lost nothing in the telling by the Yankee press. You may guess what the South thought of him: murderer, brigand, fiend in human shape, and arch-robber - and I'm bound to say, just from what he later told me himself, that he did his share of plundering, especially of horses, for which he had a good eye. But whatever else he did in Kansas, John Brown accomplished one thing: he turned the anti-slavery crusade into an armed struggle, and made North and South weigh each other as enemies. He put gunsmoke on the breeze, and the whole of America sniffed it in - and didn't find the odour displeasing.]18 Crixus had paused for breath and another sip of brandy, but now he leaned forward and gripped my hands in his excitement.

"Do you know what he said, Mr Comber, this good and great old man, as he gazed back at his burning home, his 'evolvers smoking in his hands, his eyes brimmed with tears for his murdered child? Can you guess, sir, what were those words that have rung like a trumpet blast in the ears of his countrymen?"

I said I couldn't imagine, and he gulped and raised his eyes to the ceiling. "He said: 'G.o.d sees it. I have only one death to die, and I will die fighting in this cause. There will be no peace in the land until slavery is done for. I will carry the war into Africa!'"

"I say! Why Africa? I mean, it's the dooce of a long way, and what about transport and -"

"No, no!" cries he impatiently. "By Africa he meant the South - the land of darkness and savage oppression. For now he knew that the time was come to realise his dream - that vision of which I spoke!" He was spraying slightly, and I could see that the great news was coming at last. "The invasion of Virginia - that, sir, was his plan, and the hour is nigh for its fulfilment, after years of maturing and preparation. He purposes an armed raid to seize a federal a.r.s.enal, and with the captured munitions and supplies, to equip the slaves who will cast off their bonds and rush to on his standard! They will withdraw into the mountain fastnesses, and there wage guerrilla war against their former masters - oh, he has studied the ancient wars, sir, and Lord Wellington's campaign in Spain! Formerly it was his design too found an independent black republic, but now his vision has soared beyond, for can it be doubted that once his army is in the hills, every slave in the South will rise up in arms? There will be such a rebellion as was never seen, and what-ever its outcome, the greater battle will be joined! Free men everywhere will rally to the standard that John Brown has raised, and slavery will be whelmed forever in the irresistible tide of liberty!"

He was almost falling out of his chair with enthusiasm, and Moody had to settle him while Joe refilled his gla.s.s and helped him take a refreshing swig; neither of them said anything, but Crixus was staring at me with the eager expectancy of a drawing-room tenor who has just finished butchering "The Flowers on Mother's Grave", and awaits applause. Plainly this fellow Brown was a raving loose screw, and I knew Crixus was no better, but it behoved me to respond as Comber would have responded, and then take my leave for the British ministry. So .. .

"Hallelujah!" says I. "What a splendid stroke! Why, it will give these . . . these slavers the rightabout altogether! A capital notion, and will be well received . . . er, every-where, I'll be bound! I suppose it's a well-kept secret at the moment, what? Just so, that's prudent - I'll not breathe a word, of course. Well, it's getting late, so -"

"It is no secret, Mr Comber," says he solemnly. "The where and when John Brown has yet to determine, but the intent is known, if not to the public at large, certainly to all who labour secretly for liberty - aye, even in Congress it is known, thanks to the treachery of Captain Brown's most trusted lieutenant. You stare, Mr Comber? Well you may, for the traitor was a countryman of your own, a rascal named Forbes, enlisted for his military experience, gained in Italy with Garibaldi. He it was who babbled the secret, abusing Brown's name because, he claimed, his pay was in arrears! Fortunately, those Senators in whom he confided were no friends to slavery; so no great harm was done, and Brown at least became aware what a viper he had nourished in his bosom.19 Nor has he himself sought to conceal his design. Since leaving Kansas he has been about the North, preaching, exhorting, raising the funds necessary for his great enter-prise, purchasing arms, rifles and revolvers and pikes -"

"Pikes, did you say?"

"Indeed, to arm the slaves when the hour strikes! Wherever he has gone, men have fallen under his spell, seeing in him another Cromwell, another Washington, destined to bring his country liberty! Everywhere he rallies support. Alas," he shook his head, glooming, "more have promised than performed; his treasury is low, his army stout of heart but few in number, and even those devoted leaders of opinion who wholeheartedly approve his end, shrink timidly at the mention of his means. Oh, blind! Do they think pious words can prevail against the shackle and the lash and the guns of the Border Ruffians? The dam' fools!" cries he, in unwonted pa.s.sion. "Oh, they are sincere-Parker and Gerrit Smith, Sanborn and Higginson, members of the Secret Six who are heart and soul in the cause, yet fearful of the storm that John Brown's scheme would unloose! The North is with him in sympathy, Mr Comber, aye, many even in the halls of Congress, but when his hand goes to his pistol b.u.t.t, they quake like women, dreading lest he destroys the Union - as if that mattered, so it is made whole again when slavery is dead -"

"But hold on - a moment, sir, if you please!" I tried to calm him before he did himself a mischief. "You say they know in Congress - in the government? And he goes about, er, preaching and so forth . . . well, how does he escape arrest, I mean to say?"

"Arrest John Brown?" He gave a bitter cackle. "Why, then, sir, we should have a storm indeed! The North would not abide it, Mr Comber! He is our hero! And he goes silently, without fanfare, appearing only in those public places where his enemies would not dare raise their voices, let alone their hands! Oh, Missouri has set a bounty of $3000 on his head, and that pusillanimous wretch who calls himself our President, and whose cowardice has rent the Democratic Party in twain, has sunk so low as to offer $250 - why not thirty, in silver, false Buchanan? - for his apprehension! But who in the North would try to claim such rewards?"

That's America for you: a maniac at large, threatening to stir up war and slave rebellion, and nothing done about it. Not that I gave a dam; what with brandy and sitting down I was feeling easier than I'd done all day, and was becoming most infernally bored with Captain Brown and his madcap plans for setting the darkies against their owners (with pikes, I ask you!), and anxious to be gone. So I shook my head in wonder, expressed admiration for Brown and his splendid activities, didn't doubt that he'd win a brilliant triumph, and hinted that I'd like to get to the British ministry this year, if possible. D'ye know, Crixus didn't seem even to hear me? He was sitting back in his chair, brooding on me with an intense stare which I found rather unnerving. Suddenly he asked me if I'd had food lately, and it came as a shock to realise that my last meal had been in Baltimore that morning ... my G.o.d, it had been turmoil since then, with no time to think of eating. I was famished, but said I could wait until I reached the ministry; he wouldn't hear of it, reproaching himself for his thoughtlessness, bidding Joe rustle up sandwiches and drumsticks, waving me back to my chair, while Moody filled my gla.s.s and set a restraining hand on my shoulder, with a warning nod to me to humour the old buffoon.

So I sat, fretting, but wolfed the grub down when it came, while Crixus resumed his tale. It seemed that Brown, having squeezed as much cash as he could out of well-wishers, liberal philanthropists and rich free blacks, had lately returned to Kansas under the name of Shubel Morgan f and had set the border in uproar by raiding into Missouri, stealing eleven n.i.g.g.e.rs, and bringing them to free soil, dodging posses all the way. (He also liberated several horses and a large amount of plunder, and left one unfortunate householder with his head blown off, but Crixus didn't see fit to mention that.) "The gallantry, the audacity of the deed has won all Northern hearts, and spread terror through the South," says he. "From the very heart of the enemy camp he plucked them forth, shepherded them north through the bitter depths of winter, the pursuers baying at his heels, and brought them at last to safety. And only last month, Mr Comber, he saw them across the line to British soil - oh, my boy, does not your heart swell with patriotic pride at the thought that those poor fugitives, lately bound in the h.e.l.l of slavery, dwell now in freedom beneath the benevolent folds of your country's flag?"

I a.s.sured him, between sandwiches, that I was gratified beyond all measure, and was mentally rehearsing a tactful farewell when he startled me by pushing aside his rug, rising unsteadily, and confronting me with a pointing finger and bristling brows. He spoke slow and solemn.

"But that raid, Mr Comber, was only grace before meat. For now, his little army tried and tested, he is ready for the great attempt. In his last letter to me - for we are in weekly correspondence - he tells me that the hour is nigh. Only one thing -" he flourished the finger "- is lacking, and in this one thing he seeks my help. The defection of the traitor Forbes has left him without a lieutenant, without a trusty deputy practised in arms to train and marshal his band of adventurers, for though their hearts are high they are not soldiers, sir - and soldiers they must be if they are to foray into Virginia, storm a federal a.r.s.enal, overwhelm its garrison troops, and form the Praetorian Guard of the greatest slave army since Spartacus challenged the power of Rome!"

He stooped towards me, bright-eyed and panting, and seized my wrist as I was in the act of raising a drumstick to my mouth. "A lieutenant he must have, a clear military mind - aye, or a naval one! - to plan and to order, to chart the course and lead the charge, a strong right arm on which to lean in time of trial. 'Find me a Joshua!' is his cry to me. It has rung in my ears these nights past, and until yesterday I knew not where to turn. Oh, I have prayed - and now my prayers have been answered beyond my dearest hope!" He was gazing at me like a dervish on hashish, clutching my wrist, his eyes burning with the flame of pure barminess, as I sat open-mouthed, the chicken leg poised at my ashen lips. "I say it yet again: G.o.d has sent you to us - a Joshua for John Brown!"

Looking back on life, I guess I can't complain on the whole, but if I have a grievance against Fate, it's that I seem to have encountered more than my fair share of madmen with a mission. Perhaps I've been unlucky, or possibly most of mankind is deranged; maybe it was my stalwart bearing, or my derring-do reputation, but whatever it was, they came at me like wasps to a saucer of jam. At this time in '59, I was already an experienced loony-fancier, having been exposed to the brainstorms of Bismarck, Georgie Broadfoot, the White Raja of Sarawak, Yakub Beg the Khirgiz, and sundry smaller fry, to say nothing of Crixus himself, ten years earlier, and I'd learned that when they unfold their idiocies to you, and flight is impossible, you must take time, decide what mask to a.s.sume, and rely on your native wit and acting ability to talk your way out.

Oddly enough, this wasn't a difficult one. For a split second his appalling proposal had frozen my blood, until I remembered who I was meant to be, and that I had a cast-iron excuse for refusal. Comber wouldn't have laughed in his face or told him what to do with his disgusting suggestion, or dived for the window; all I must do was play Comber to the hilt, and I was safe.

So I stared at him bewildered for a second, and then with great deliberation I set down my drumstick, wiped my lips, rose, and with a smile of infinite compa.s.sion gently pressed the old Bedlamite back into his chair. I adjusted his rug, knelt down, took one of his claws in both hands (an artistic touch, that) and gazed on him like a wistful sheep-dog.

"Oh, my dear old friend!" says I, fairly dripping emotion. "You do me honour far beyond my deserts. That you should think me worthy to play a part in this . . . this great enterprise ..." I bit my lip, trying like h.e.l.l to start a tear. "I shall never forget it, never! But, alas, it cannot be. I have my own country's service, my own mission which I must fulfil, before all others." I sighed, shaking my head, while his wrinkled features sagged in dismay. "It grieves me to say you nay, but -"

"But you don't understand!" cries he. "Whatever your mission, it cannot compare to this! That it is worthy and honourable, I am sure, but don't you see - this is the crux, the vital moment! At one stroke, the whole rotten edifice of slavery will be cast down in ruin! America is its last vile stronghold! How can you hesitate? Oh, dear Mr Comber, all your work, all your valiant service in the cause, can be as nothing beside this crowning -"

"I'm sorry, sir! Believe me, it breaks my heart to deny you . . . but I'm bound by my duty, you see -"

"That's what you said last time!" cries he petulantly.

"I know that, sir, and it was true - but you prevailed on me then to turn from it for George Randolph's sake." Blackmailing old swine. "But this time I cannot in honour turn aside -"

"Why not?" he bleated. "What could be more honourable than John Brown's cause?" He twitched fretfully, like a baby denied its rattle, his dismay turning to anger. "You can't fail him! I . . . I shan't let you!" He tried another tack, stretching out a hand to me, whimpering. "Oh, my boy, I entreat you! Our need is desperate! Once before you served us, n.o.bly and well - again, I implore you, for the sake of the great crusade which we both -"

"Ah, don't make it harder for me, sir!" groans I, in n.o.ble anguish. I stood up, and I'm not sure I didn't beat my fist against my brow. "I cannot do it. I must go to the British minister. If I could postpone or delay, I would, but I dare not. You won't stay me, I know."

You can't, was what I meant. Again, history was repeating itself, but with a difference this time. Ten years ago he'd threatened to throw me to the U.S. Navy traps, and I'd had no hole to hide in; now, I had the ministry, wherever the h.e.l.l it was - and both Crixus and I were ten years older. I wasn't as easy to bully now, and his cold steel had lost its edge with age - he sat now plucking at his rug, fit to burst with vexation, looking in distress to Moody and Joe, both of whom were regarding me hard-eyed.

"No!" He struck his bony hand on the chair. "No! It can't be! I'll not have it! You have come to us by a miracle - I can't let you go, unpersuaded! I can't!" It sounded like a tantrum, and then he gave a sudden squeal; for a moment I thought he was having a seizure, but it was just inspiration from on high. "I have it!" He turned to me, bright with pa.s.sion. "You must see John Brown himself ! That's it - where I have failed, he shall prevail! Oh, my boy, once you have looked on his countenance, and heard him, and felt the power of his spirit - believe me, you will hesitate no longer. No one can resist him. Let me see - he's in upper New York at present, but I know he means to visit Sanborn at Boston - yes, in a few days, you could see him and -"

"I can't go to Boston, sir. I must report to my chief at once." I said it as firmly as I dared, and he shot me such a glare that I thought it best to have an inspiration of my own. "Of course," I added thoughtfully, "if the minister could be prevailed on to give me leave - to release me from duty .. . why, then . . ." I left it there, looking keen, thinking once let me inside that ministry and you won't get me out with a train of artillery, you selfish little b.a.s.t.a.r.d. For a moment his face lit up, and then his lip came out, and I knew he was calculating that there wasn't a hope in h.e.l.l of the British minister giving me leave to join a foreign rebellion, and was wondering what card to play next.

"Yes," says he at last. "Yes, that would be best, I think. Yes . . . I could see Lord Lyons myself . yes, I shall! In the meantime, you should remain here." He gave a convulsive grimace that was meant to be a rea.s.suring smile. "Yes, indeed, Mr Comber, you will be safer from prying eyes here - you may trust the Railroad, sir! And you lose nothing, you see, for I shall wait upon his lordship in the morning - first thing, sir, I a.s.sure you!" He forced a broader smile, half-pleading, half-cunning. "That's settled, then, eh? You'll stay, my boy, won't you?"

He was lying in his teeth, and I wondered why. Did he think' that by detaining me he could somehow dragoon me into John Brown's hare-brained war? Possibly, for when you're as besotted a fanatic as Crixus you can believe any-thing, but more probably he was playing for time. One thing he was sure of: if he let me go, he'd have to find his hero another lieutenant, so he'd hold me, by force if necessary, and hope for the best.

For a moment I toyed with the idea of telling him who I truly was, and threatening diplomatic reprisals - but it wouldn't have served for a moment. Sir Harry Flashman would mean nothing to him, and G.o.d knew how he'd react when he learned that I wasn't Comber after all. And since I couldn't hope to tackle Joe and Moody together, I must pretend to submit, gracefully - and take the first opportunity to slide. If they thought they could hold Flashy for long, they were in for a surprise.

I sighed, spreading my hands, and gave him my rueful, affectionate smile. "Oh, Mr Crixus, you're too much for me! I believe you could wheedle a duck from a pond. Well, I guess the minister wouldn't thank me for waking him at this hour, anyway, and truth to tell, I'm too tired to think .. . But you'll see him yourself, sir, first thing?"

"Yes, yes!" cries the old liar eagerly, and after that it was good fellowship all round, and he must embrace me again with more of his babble about G.o.d having sent me, and from that he pa.s.sed to praying, while we stood with bowed heads, and then Joe sang "Hark, the song of jubilee" in a rolling ba.s.s that billowed the curtains, after which Moody conducted me aloft to bed, not before time.

I kept my eyes open, noting that the stairs were uncarpeted, and the upper floors, so far as I could make out by candlelight, were bare as a crypt; evidently this was a station the Underground Railroad used only on occasion. My room, under the eaves, held only a bed, a chair, and a washing bowl and jug; there were bars on the window and the door bolted on both sides. At my request Moody brought me a clean shirt and shaving tackle, waiting while I sc.r.a.ped my chin and then carefully pocketing the razor. He hesitated before handing me the shirt, clearing his throat uneasily.

"This here shirt . . . you're a pretty big feller, an', well, the only one to fit you is this 'un . . . of Joe's. D'ye mind?"

I asked him what he meant, why should I mind, and he avoided my eye. "Well, Joe ... I mean, he ain't white."

I'll be d.a.m.ned, thinks I, and on the Underground Rail-road, too.

"He needn't worry," says I. "You can tell him I'm not lousy."

"What?" He stared bewildered. "No, no, you don't get it . . . Joe didn't say . . . what I mean," he stammered, "is him bein' . . . well, some folks wouldn't . . . I mean, I just thought I'd mention it . . . but if you don't mind ..."

I gave him my most innocent smile, while he fumbled the shirt and then handed it to me, looking confused. He said if I needed anything I should stamp on the floor and holler, bade me a rather puzzled good-night, and left, shooting the outer bolt. I do love to twist tails, especially liberal ones; I wondered if his delicacy extended to black women.

I was so tuckered that I supposed I'd fall fast asleep as soon as I lay down, but my mind was in such a whirl that I lay waking, trying to make sense of it all. It seemed an age since I'd woken beside that awful wh.o.r.e in Baltimore, and so much had happened that it was difficult to order my thoughts. One thing, though, was paramount: thanks to Spring's informations, "Comber's" presence was known; it didn't surprise me, on reflection, that the Railroad had sniffed me out, for they were sharp men, but I wondered what other eyes might be on the look-out for me? I couldn't begin to imagine that, and once I'd escaped from my present hosts and reached the ministry, it wouldn't matter anyway.

From that my thoughts turned 'to what Crixus had told me, not only about the lunatic Brown, but about the state of play in the States generally, which had been absolute news to me. To hear him, the place seemed to be on the brink of civil war, and that was hard to take, I can tell you: such wars and revolutions were for foreigners - heaven knew, we'd seen that in '48 - but not for us or our American cousins. I didn't understand, then, that America was two countries - but then, most Americans didn't, either.

As you know, it was slavery that drew the line and led to the war, but not quite in the way that you might think. It wasn't only a fine moral crusade, although fanatics like Crixus and John Brown viewed it as such and no more; the fact is that America rubbed along with slavery comfortably enough while the country was still young and growing (and getting over the shock of cutting loose from the mother country); it was only when the free North and the slave South discovered that they had quite different views about what kind of country the U.S.A. ought to be on that distant day when all the blank s.p.a.ces on the map had been filled in, that the trouble started. Each saw the future in its own image; the North wanted a free society of farms and factories devoted to money and Yankee "know-how" and all the hot air in their ghastly Const.i.tution, while the South dreamed, foolishly, of a ma.s.sa paradise where they could make comfortable profits from inefficient cultivation, drinking juleps and lashing Sambo while the Yankees did what they dam' well pleased north of the 36' 30" line.

They couldn't both happen, not with Northern money and morality racing forward in tandem while the South stood still, sniffing the magnolias. Slavery was plainly going to go, sooner or later - unless the South cut adrift and set up shop on their own. There had been talk of this for years, and some Southerners had the amazing notion that left to them-selves they could expand south and west (for cotton needs land, by the millions of acres), embracing Mexico and the Dago countries in a vast slave empire where the white boss would lord it forever. But their wiser heads saw no need for this so long as the South controlled the Congress (and the Army), which they did because their states were united, while the Northerners were forever bickering amongst them-selves.

The situation was confused by a thousand and one political and social factors (but, believe me, you don't want to know about the Missouri Compromise or the "doughfaces" or the Taney ruling or the Western railroad or the Democratic split or the Know-Nothings or the Kansas-Nebraska Bill or the emergence of the Republican Party or the Little Giant or gradual emanc.i.p.ation, you really don't). It's worth noting, though, that there were folk in the South who wanted an end to slavery, and many in the North who didn't mind its continuing so long as peace was kept and the Union pre-served. Congressman Lincoln, for example, loathed slavery and believed it would wither away, but said that in the mean-time, if the South wanted it, let 'em have it; if slavery was the price of American unity, he was ready to pay it. Being a politician, of course, he had a fine forked tongue; on the one hand he spouted a lot of fustian about all men being equal (which he didn't believe for a moment), while on t'other he was against blacks having the vote or holding office or marrying whites, and said that if the two were to live together, whites must have the upper hand.

But over all, the anti-slavery feeling grew ever stronger in the North, which naturally made the South dig its heels in harder than ever. The Fugitive Slave law for recovering runaways was pa.s.sed in '50, to the rage of the abolitionists; Uncle Tom's Cabin added fuel to the fire; and Crixus wasn't far out when he said that it only needed a spark to the powder-train to set off the explosion. I didn't pay him too much heed, though; what I've just been telling you was unknown to me then, and I figured Crixus's talk of gathering storms and trials by combat was just the kind of stuff that he, being a crazed abolitionist, wanted to believe.

Well, he was right, and I, in my excusable ignorance, was wrong; the storm was gathering in '59 - but what astonishes me today is that all the wiseacres who discuss its origins and inevitability, never give a thought to where it really began, back in 1776, with their idiotic Declaration of Independence. If they'd had the wit to stay in the Empire then, instead of getting drunk on humbug about "freedom" and letting a pack of firebrands (who had a fine eye to their own advantage) drag 'em into pointless rebellion, there would never have been an American Civil War, and that's as sure as any "if " can be. How so? Well, Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, and slavery in 1833, and the South would have been bound to go along with that, grumbling, to be sure, but helpless against the will of Britain and her northern American colonies. It would all have happened quietly, no doubt with compensation, and there'd have been nothing for North and South to fight about. Q.E.D.

But try telling that to a smart New Yorker, or an Arkansas ehawbacon, or a pot-bellied Virginia Senator; point out that Canada and Australia managed their way to peaceful independence without any tomfool Declarations or Bunker Hills or Shilohs or Gettysburgs, and are every bit as much "the land of the free" as Kentucky or Oregon, and all you'll get is a great harangue about "liberty and the pursuit of happiness", d.a.m.n your Limey impudence, from the first; a derisive haw-haw and a stream of tobacco juice across your hoots from the second; and a deal of pious fustian about a new nation forged in blood emerging into the sunlight under Freedom's flag, from the third. You might as well be listening to an intoxicated Frog.

It's understandable, to be sure: they have to live with their ancestors' folly and pretend that it was all for the best, and that the monstrous collection of plat.i.tudes which they call a Const.i.tution, which is worse than useless because it can be twisted to mean anything you please by crooked lawyers and grafting politicos, is the ultimate human wisdom. Well, it ain't, and it wasn't worth one life, American or British, in the War of Independence, let alone the vile slaughter of the Anglo-Saxon-Norman-Celtic race in the Civil War. But perhaps you had to stand on Cemetery Ridge after Pickett's charge to understand that.

I put these thoughts to Lincoln, you know, after the war, and he sat back, cracking his knuckles and eyeing me slantendicular.

"Flashman the non-Founding Father is a wondrous thought," says he. "Come, now, do I detect a mite of imperial resentment? You know, paternal jealousy because the mutinous son didn't turn out prodigal after all?"

"You can't get much more prodigal than Gettysburg, Mr President," says I. "And I ain't jealous one little bit. I just wish our ancestors had been wiser. I'd be happy to see the Queen reigning in Washington, with yourself as Prime Minister of the British-American Empire." Toady, if you like, but true.

"Lord Lincoln . . . of Kaintuck'?" laughs he. "Doesn't sound half bad. D'you suppose they'd make me a Duke? No, better not - the boys would never let me in the store at New Salem again!"

He was the only American, by the way, who ever gave me a straight answer to a question I've asked occasionally, out of pure mischief: why was it right for the thirteen colonies to secede from the British Empire, but wrong for the Southern States to secede from the Union?

"Setting aside the Const.i.tution, of which you think so poorly - and which I'd abandon gladly in order to preserve the Union, if you'll pardon the paradox - I'm astonished that a man of your worldly experience can even ask such a question," says he. "What has 'right' got to do with it? The Revolution of '76 succeeded, the recent rebellion did not, and there, as the darkie said when he'd et the melon, is an end of it."

And a few hours after that he was dead, the last but not the least casualty of that rotten war. It's fitting that my digression (which has some bearing on my present tale, though what it treats of was mostly hidden from me in '59) has brought me back to dear devious old Abraham, because he was in my thoughts as I lay waking in Crixus's attic; I was remembering how he'd got me out of another tight spot, when the slave-hunters came to Judge Payne's house, and if now my door had swung suddenly open to reveal his ugly, lanky figure, I'd not have minded a bit. He'd been a junior Congressman when I'd last seen him, but I'd heard nothing of him since .. .

The faint click of the bolt being slipped broke in on my thoughts, and as I sat up the door opened noiselessly, and someone slipped quickly in - it wasn't Congressman Lincoln, though, it was Joe the negro, the whites of his eyes glinting in the candleshine as he set his back to the door and raised a finger to his lips. To my astonishment he was in stockinged feet; he listened for a moment and then sped silently to the window, raising it slowly to make no sound before beckoning me to join him. Wondering and suddenly alive with hope, I watched as he stooped to examine the bars; he gave a little chuckle, motioned me to stand clear, and bracing his sole against one bar he laid hold on its neighbour and pulled. He was a huge fellow, as tall as I and a foot broader, and I heard his muscles crack as he heaved to wake the dead, twice and then again, and the bar suddenly bent like a bow, snapping free with a sharp report at its lower end.

We waited, ears p.r.i.c.ked, but there wasn't a sound, and Joe swiftly unwound a slender rope from his waist and pa.s.sed one end to me.'

"Ketch holt, an' I'lI set tight while you slide down the roof," whispers he. "When you hit the gutter, it ain't but a little ten-fut drop to the groun'. Go out the side-gate, turn lef' up the alley, an' you's on the street. Turn lef' again, an' keep goin' till you meets a carriage comin' by - they's allus one aroun' this time o' night." His teeth glittered in a huge grin in the black face. "Then tell 'em where you wants to go. Git slidin', brother!"

You don't wait to ask questions. I shook his hand, whipped the cord round my wrist, and squeezed out on to the sill, scuffing his fine borrowed shirt in the process and tearing my jacket. The roof sloped sharply down for about fifteen feet from the window, but with Joe paying out the cord I slithered gently across the tiles and eased myself over the gutter. It was black as sin beneath, but I lowered my feet into the void, tugged on the gutter to test its weight, hung for an instant by both hands, and let go, landing on gra.s.s and measuring my length in what felt like a flowerbed. In a second I was afoot, listening, but there was no sound save that of the window being closed overhead. I waited until my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, saw the gate, and a moment later was striding up the alley and then left on the street to which the growler had brought me hours earlier.

What it meant I couldn't fathom at all. Why the devil should Joe turn me loose? Was it some wild ploy of Crixus's?

No, that made no sense - but then, nothing did any longer. What mattered was that I was free, and once I'd found a hack to convey me to the ministry, or Willard's Hotel, I was home and dry. I had no notion what time it was, somewhere in the small hours, probably, but I hadn't even had time to start doubting Joe's a.s.surance that cabs were to be found in Washington suburbs at this o'clock when I heard the squeak of wheels ahead, and round the corner comes a one-horse buggy, its lamps shining dimly through the gloom.

I took a quick glance back at Crixus's house, no more than forty yards away, but it looked dead to the world, so I called softly and waved as I hurried towards the carriage. The driver reined in as I came up, and I was preparing to give him direction when I saw that he already had a fare, a vague figure barely visible in the faint glow of the side-lamps. I was about to wave him on when it struck me that the whole neighbourhood was about as lively as Herne Bay in November, with not a light in a house or a soul on the street, and no prospect of another conveyance; there was a warm drizzle improving the mud no end, so I approached the window in my best Hyde Park style.

"Your pardon, but I'm looking for a cab, and there seems to be none about - would it inconvenience you if I shared yours until we meet one?"

"Why, honey," says a soft feminine voice from the interior, "'twill be mah pleasure to take yuh wheah-evah yuh wanna go," and a slender hand gloved in lace was extended through the window. "Why'nt yuh-all jump right in, now? It's real cosy in heah."

A cruiser, biG.o.d, of all the luck! - though what custom she expected in this deserted backwater I couldn't imagine. I was inside in a bound, expressing my thanks to the neatest little cracker you ever saw, who rustled her skirts aside with a flurry of petticoats and slim fish-netted ankles to make room for me and made no effort to disengage her hand from mine. It was too dim to see much, but I could make out blonde curls and a small, rather childlike face behind the veil of her saucy bonnet; she was decidedly on the pet.i.te side, in a fashionably low-cut gown that felt like silk, and her scent was subtle enough to be expensive - but then, she was one who could afford to ply her trade on wheels.

"An' what is yore destination, suh?" cries she pertly, showing neat little teeth and bright eyes behind the veil. "Or would yuh-all prefeh to leave that to me?" She transferred her hand to my thigh. "Ah know the most elegant li'l place."

1'd been about to say the British ministry, but paused - she'd probably never heard of it, anyway. Besides, I was in no mood to decline her invitation: I'd been two months at sea, remember, and celibacy's a double trial when your last rattle has been someone as delectable as Miranda. Her per-fume was reviving all sorts of jolly memories, the touch of her fingers was distracting . . . and the ministry would be fast asleep. I hadn't a dollar to my name, but we'd fret about that later.

"I'm in your hands, my dear," says I. "Take me where you will."

"Ah won' jes' take yuh, honey," purrs she. "Ah'll transpo't yuh. Home, Andy!"

The cab lurched off, and I lurched on, so to speak, encircling her tiny waist with an arm and undoing her veil from the velvet neck-ribbon which secured it. It wouldn't come loose, and in my impatience I kissed her through it, which was a novel sensation, while she squeaked and giggled and said I was so vig'rous she feared I would do her an injury.

"Jes' you rest quiet a li'l bit," she protested, "an' quit chewin' up mah veil, you naughty boy! Theah - now it's out the way, yuh kin chew me instaid, yuh greedy ole thing! My, Ah nevah did know sech whiskers; you must be about the whiskeredest man in town, Ah reckon! Gently, now, honey, gently - Ah's fragile!"

I had lifted her bodily on to my knee, for she was the daintiest little bundle imaginable, and if the cab had been roomier I'd have done the deed then and there, for she kissed most artistically, and what with abstinence and encountering a little goer so unexpected, I was randier than the town bull. When I became more familiar, she wriggled and squealed, so I pinned her tiny wrists in one hand, scooped out her b.o.o.bies, and began nibbling, at which she became unmanageable, swearing that she'd scream an' scream, it was so awful ticklish, an' ifn I'd jes' wait, now, she'd show me the highest ole time when we got to her place.

We were on busier streets by now, with some traffic and pa.s.sers-by, so I desisted, and she popped her bouncers away and patted my hand.

"Ah don' believe yore f'm Washin'ton at all," says she. "Yuh sure don' taste like Washin'ton, all of seegars, yuh know? An' Ah think Ah detect an English accent, ain't that so?"

Smart, too. I said I was Canadian, and she said, uh-huh, which is the most expressive word in the American language, surveying me through her veil as she adjusted it. She asked where I was staying, and I said Willard's, naming the only hotel I'd heard of. She said, "Well, Ian's sakes!", and I guessed she was weighing my dishevelled appearance - creased pants, torn jacket, no hat or tie or choker even .. . and a finger of doubt began to stir in my mind. This was a twenty-dollar wh.o.r.e if ever there was one, yet she'd picked me up (most convenient, too) in my shabby condition, played up like a good 'un when I'd a.s.sailed her, and never a word about cash or her "present" to a client who looked as though he'd just crawled out of a hawsehole (which I had, more or less). Dooced rum . . . unless her maiden heart had been smitten by my manly address and Flashy charms .. . but even I ain't that vain. Something was amiss, and my coward's instinct was just considering whether to leap out and run for it, when the cab stopped, and she was smiling invitingly through the veil.

"Heah we are, honey! Home, sweet home!"

To my astonishment we had drawn up on a street broad enough to be the Avenue, outside a palatial building which was plainly a hotel - for a moment I wondered if it might be Willard's, and she expected to be entertained in my room. There was a fine marble frontage,20 carriages were coming and going, with black porters .holding doors, gas-flares sparkled on the jewellery and glossy evening tiles of the fashionably dressed folk crowding the steps, even at this unG.o.dly hour; some grand function must be dispersing.

"Well, c'mon, honey, han' me down, why don't yuh!" cries my companion, so there was nothing for it but to jump out into the usual two feet of mud and the appalling stink of sewer gas. She hesitated on the step, drawing up her skirt with plaintive squeaks, so I swung her up in my arms and ploughed to the sidewalk, grateful to have my scarecrow duds shielded from the gaze of the throng.

"Don' set me down!" she whispered, and giggled. "Ah guess we cain't go in the front do' thisaway, kin we? Theah - down the alleyway, an' we'll go in the side-do'. Say, ain't this some fun, though?"

Some fun - what the deuce was I, Harry Flashman, V.C., and soon to be knighted by Her Majesty, en route from India to England, doing toting a t.i.ttering wh.o.r.e down a reeking lane in America's capital city? Well, the wind bloweth where it listeth, you see, and if it carries you up several flights of back stairs, along corridors where the air has been replaced by cigar smoke and the carpet fairly squelches with tobacco juice, and at last into a dimly lit salon whose ornate gilt-and-plush decor would do credit to a Damascus brothel, why, you must make the best of it and get her stripped and on to the bed before your luck changes. Which mine was about to do, with the most incredible coincidence that I can remember in a long career which has had more than its ration of freaks of chance. It had been staring me in the face, but l.u.s.t is blind, alas, and I hadn't seen it.

I was undressing her with one practised hand and myself with the other even as I kicked the door to, and such is my skill in these matters that I had my pants round my ankles and her bare to her stockings by the time we reached the bed, where she tried to break free, breathless and giggling.

"Lemme take off mah hat, for mercy's sake!" cries she. "No, honey, jes' you hold on - Ah gotta see mah maid! Calm yo'self, do - Ah won' be but a second!" She slipped from my ardent grasp and scampered to an inner door, pop-ping her head through and calling: "Ah'm back, Dora!", and then something in a lowered voice that I didn't catch a maid, forsooth, and not just a bedroom but a suit of apartments; my blonde charmer was evidently at the top of her tree. I could believe it, too, gloating at the white perfection of that little body as she closed the door, turning towards me and making a fine coquettish show of slipping off her garters and rolling down her stockings. She sauntered forward, stretching up to the chandelier chain to turn the gas up to its full brightness, and began to untie the bow securing her veil, all coy and playful.

"Well, now, big boy," drawls she, "let's have a real good look at yuh . . . my, Ah do declare Ah never ..." And then she stopped, with something between a gasp and a cry, her knuckles flying to her veiled lips, starting back as I went for her with a l.u.s.tful "Tally-ho!"

"No ... no!" she faltered, and for an instant I checked in astonishment: the sight of Flashy stark and slavering might well strike maidenly terror in amateurs and virgins (my second bride, d.u.c.h.ess Irma, near had the conniptions on our wedding night) but this was a seasoned strumpet .. . and then I twigged, this must be her special ploy to rouse the roues, playing the helpless fawn shrinking before the roaring ravisher. Wasted on me, absolutely; cowering or brazen, it's all one to your correspondent; as she turned to flee, whimpering, I seized her amidships, tossed her into the air, planted her on hands and knees, and was installed before she could budge, roaring feigned endearments to soothe her pretended alarm and bulling away like fury. With two lost months to make up for, I'd no time to waste on further refinements, nor, I fear, did I treat her with that solicitude which a considerate rider should show to his mount, especially when she's barely five feet tall and half his weight. Having slaked what the lady novelists would call my base pa.s.sion, I staggered up and collapsed on the bed, most capitally exhausted, leaving her p.r.o.ne and gasping on the carpet with her little bottom a-quiver, very fetching, and her hat and veil still in place.

What with weariness and contentment, I must have dozed off, for I didn't hear her leave the room. It may have been five minutes or twenty before I became drowsily aware of voices not far away; I stirred and sat up, but there was no sign of her. Gone to make do and mend, thinks I - and since H didn't have a red cent to requite her, it struck me as a capital time to resume my scattered togs and make tracks for the ministry. In a trice I had my shirt and pants on, and was slipping on a boot, well pleased at having had a most refreshing gallop for nothing, when a man's voice spoke loud and close at hand. Starting round, I saw that the door to the adjoining room was slightly ajar, and other voices were being raised in exclamation, the blonde wh.o.r.e's among them. For perhaps five seconds I sat stricken with wonder, and then the man's voice was raised again, sharp with impatience, and my blood turned to ice.

"What d'ye mean - he ain't Comber? 0' course he's Comber - dammit, Joe heard that skunk Crixus call him so - didn't ye, Joe?"

My hair stood upright at the deep ba.s.s reply - for it was the voice of the n.i.g.g.e.r who'd broken me out of Crixus's house: "Sure he did, Ma.s.sa Charles, over'n over! Ain't no doubt about it -"

"Don't dare tell me, you black fool!" That was the wh.o.r.e, shrill with fury - but where was the Dixie drawl? Gone, and in its place the voice of a Creole lady, sharp and imperious. "He's the wrong man, I say! I know him! His name's Tom Arnold! He ran off a slave wench from my husband's plantation ten years ago, and killed two men! He's wanted for murder and false bills and slave-stealing, I tell you! d.a.m.n you, colonel, do you think I don't know a man who's been my lover?"

I was over the bed like a startled hare, boots in hand, and was racing for the outer door when a huge black shape came storming in from the adjoining room, and Old Brooke would have picked him first of the Schoolhouse chargers, for he came at me in a flying lunge that would have had every cap in the air on Big Side. His shoulder took me flush on the thigh, and it was like being hit by the Penzance Express; I went headlong, smashing into the furniture and fetching up against the wall with a jar that shook every bone in my body. Joe was up like a cat, fists clenched as he stood over me, shouting: "It's him, sho' 'nuff ! You bet it's him - Comber! Ain't no doubt, Miz Annette!"

And there she stood in the connecting doorway, the tiny body wrapped in a silk robe, and as I saw her face in full light for the first time, I could only lie and stare in utter disbelief. The slim, childlike shape had filled out in ten years, she'd put on an inch or two in height, the sharp elfin features were fuller (and all the prettier for it, I may say), and her hair that had been fair was dyed bright gold, but there was no mistaking the icy little vixen with whom I'd rogered away the clammy afternoons at Greystones in her abominable husband's absence. Annette Mandeville, fragile blossom of the Old South, half-woman, half-alligator,. who wore spurred riding boots to bed and whose diminutive charms I must have explored a dozen times - and now I'd just spent an hour in her company, conversing, kissing, caressing, carrying her bodily up five flights of stairs, rattling her six ways from Sunday - and never for a moment suspecting who she was!

Impossible, says you; even the coa.r.s.est voluptuary (guilty, m'lud) couldn't have failed to recognise her, surely? Well, consider this: in your lifetime you probably wear as many as three hundred pairs of boots and shoes, perhaps more; I ask you, if when you were forty your orderly laid out a pair of pumps which you'd worn for a week when you were thirty, would you remember 'em? No, you admit, likely not, unless there was something singular about them. You see my point: by '59 I'd known, in the scriptural sense, 480 women (I'd reckoned up 478 when I was confined in the Gwalior dungeon the previous year, and since then there'd been only the Calcutta bint and Miranda), so was it wonderful that I shouldn't recognise Annette Mandeville after ten years? I think not. Oh, you may point out that of all my prancing-partners she was by far the smallest, and that when I saw her in the buff, even with her face veiled, I should have recollected the tiny nymph of Mississippi. But against that I argue that the vulgar, cracker-voiced hoyden of Washing-ton was as unlike the high-bred frigid midget of Greystones as could be. They were two different women (and I wasn't surprised to learn later that in the intervening years, after the demise of the disgusting Mandeville, little Annette had carned a fine living on the boards, her doll-like stature being admirably suited to juvenile roles, including Little Eva, which she'd played with great success in Northern theatres). So I can't blame myself for being taken in.

It's not the only case of female double jeopardy that I've experienced, by the way. Elsewhere in my memoirs you'll find mention of a French-mulatto trollop with whom I dallied in my salad days, and who came to my carnal attention again twenty-seven years later, and I'm d.a.m.ned if I recognised her, either.

That's all by the way; what mattered, as I wallowed amidst the shattered furniture, was not that I'd failed to identify La Mandeville's dainty b.u.t.tocks in ecstatio, but that she was here at all, and in company with yet another branch of the B. M. Comber Admiration Society, to judge by the s.n.a.t.c.h of talk I'd heard from the adjoining room a moment since. To add to my confusion, Black Joe, who'd been a friend an hour ago, had just tried to hurl me through the wall and was now standing over me sporting his fives in a threatening manner. I didn't know what to make of him, or her, or any d.a.m.ned thing - and now men were surging into the room, and Mandeville was pointing and shrilling: "Comber or not, that man is Tom Arnold! He was our slave-driver. Let him deny it if he can!"