Flashman - Flashman and the Angel of the Lord Part 16

We've come to the parting of the trails, J.B.'s and mine - and high time, too, if you ask me. He was to take the high road to the gallows and immortal fame, and I the low road to ... well, I'll come to that in a moment. First I should tell you briefly, and at second hand, what happened to him in the little time that was left to him, and the momentous effect it had on America and, I dare say, on the world.

My last memory of him is in that paymaster's office, propped up on his mattress, battered but bright-eyed, not two pounds of his stringy old carcase hanging straight, but laying down the law in his best accustomed style, G.o.d help him .. . and I suppose I must say G.o.d bless him, too, for form's sake. Of all the men of wrath who have disturbed my chequered course, he's about the only one towards whom I feel no ill will, old pest and all that he was. He was decent enough to me, and if he led me through h.e.l.l and high water . . . well, you might as well blame the lightning or the whirlwind.

I wasn't there to see his departure from the Ferry next day, but he came near to being lynched. There was a great crowd full of drink and fury when they put him on the train to Charles Town; he and Stevens had to be carried through the throng baying for their blood in panic as well as rage, for the wildest rumours were flying - that the raid had been only the prelude to a general invasion, that the slaves were on the brink of rebellion, that a great conspiracy was brewing in the North - it was even reported that a family in a village just a few miles from the Ferry had been ma.s.sacred, but when Lee went galloping to the scene he found everyone safe in bed, and the slaves tranquil.

The fact was that not a single slave had joined in the raid, other than those taken by Stevens from Was.h.i.+ngton's farm and places nearby, and most of them had slipped off home as soon as they could, or been pa.s.sive altogether. But the mischief was done: a great thrill of fear ran through the South, Virginia was preparing for war, some places were under martial law, Dixie suspected (quite mistakenly) that it was sitting on a black powder-keg ready to explode, and the storm that broke in the newspapers only added to the hysteria. One of Lee's first acts had been to send Jeb Stuart to the Kennedy Farm, where they found all J.B.'s papers and correspondence, with the names of his Northern supporters, which the brilliant old conspirator had left behind in a carpet bag, and once the Democrats and pro-slavery journals got hold of the names, the fat was in the fire. The "Black Republicans", the Secret Six, and even moderate abolitionists, became the villains of the day, plotting to wreak havoc in the South, and among those who came in for special vilification, and serve him right, was William H. Seward, the cigar-chewing blighter who'd blackmailed me into the business in New York; he was "the arch agitator who is responsible for this insurrection", and for all I know this may have cost him the Presidency.

It did no good for him and other Northerners, including Lincoln, to condemn the raid; all the South could hear was the growing peal of admiration for Brown the champion of liberty, which came even from those who deplored what Brown the raider had done. You can see the South's point of view: he was a murderous old brigand who was out to overthrow them. And you can see the North's: he was a fearless crusader who wanted only to set black men free. Both views were true, and one can't blame the Southerners for believing that he represented the North in its true colours, or the North for believing, as one speaker put it, that whether his acts had been right or wrong, J.B. himself was right. The truth was that he'd fuelled the pa.s.sions of the wildest elements on both sides, and convinced even sensible and moderate people that the only answer was disunion or war.'

His trial, which began only a week after the raid, fulfilled Messervy's glummest fears. Here was the poor old hero, so weak and wounded that he had to be toted into court on a cot, submitting to his fate with Christian patience - in fact, he wasn't as poorly as he looked, and could walk when he had to. And he put on the performance of his life, telling them he'd never asked for quarter, and if they wanted his blood they could have it there and then, without the mockery of a trial. As to his defence, he was "utterly unable to attend to it. My memory don't serve me; my health is insufficient, although improving. I am ready for my fate."

I'll bet there wasn't a dry eye from Cape Cod to Cincinnati.

The trial was a formality, or a farce, if you like. Much was made of the speed with which it took place, but if they'd given him until 1870 it would have made no difference, for there could be no question of his guilt, or the penalty. His lawyers would have had him plead insanity (half his ancestors were barmy, you know), but the old fox wouldn't hear of it - and d'ye know, if I'd been called to testify on the point, I'd have had to back him up. I know that in these pages I've frequently called him mad, and lunatic, and suggested his rightful place was in a padded cell, but that's just Flashy talking; we all say such things without meaning that the object of our censure is seriously deranged. No, he wasn't mad; read his letters, his speeches, the things he said to reporters, and take the word of one who knew him well. A fanatic, yes; a man driven by one burning idea, certainly; a fool in some things, perhaps, but never a madman.

It wasn't a long trial, but seems to have had some interesting features; one of the prosecutors was too drunk to plead, they say, and t'other was the father of one of the men who'd murdered Bill Thompson on the bridge (which I'd have thought made for a nice conflict of interest, but I'm no lawyer). None of that, or the legal wrangling about jurisdiction and delays, was of the least importance. Only one thing mattered, and that was the bearing of the accused - that's what the world remembers, "the brave old border soldier", calm, dignified and unflinching, rising gamely to speak with a chap supporting him either side, lying patiently on his cot as sentence of death was pa.s.sed, closing his eyes in unconcern and pulling the blankets up beneath his chin. Even the most hard-bitten pro-slavers couldn't but admire "the conscientiousness, the honour, and the supreme bravery of the man". You may imagine what the good ladies of Con-cord and Boston thought, and the fervour with which they wept and prayed for him.

They made the mistake of giving him a month's grace before he was topped, which meant that all America could picture the gallant lonely old martyr in his cell, worn with struggle but wonderfully cheerful, waiting with quiet courage for the end. It gave the wiser heads time for second thoughts; some suggested that he should be jailed, or put in an asylum, for they knew the revulsion with which his execution would be greeted, not only in America but the world; they knew that his martyrdom would only harden the resolve of the North to carry on his campaign, and the determination of the South to resist. On the other hand, there were those who hoped that his death would hasten the rupture between North and South which they regarded as inevitable.

Messervy's notion of a rescue occurred to others, by the way; there was a plot, but when J.B. heard of it he wanted no part of it.62 He wanted to die, I'm sure of that, because like the wiser heads he could see clearly what it would lead to. The last note he wrote, on the morning of his execution, put it plain: I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as 1 now think; vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done.

They hanged him outside Charles Town, Virginia, on December the second before a great host of troops, among whom were John Wilkes Booth, who murdered Lincoln six years later, and Stonewall Jackson. He didn't kiss a little black child on his way to the gallows, as the sentimentalists like to believe, but as he rode on his coffin across the meadow he looked around and said: "This is a beautiful country. I never had the pleasure of seeing it before." When they asked if he wanted a signal before they dropped him, he said it didn't matter, but he didn't want to be kept waiting. His admirers, of course, treasure such details, but what struck me peculiar when I read about it, and made me think, yes, that's my old J.B., was that he was hanged in his carpet slippers.

They rang the bells for him in the North, and there was talk of statues and memorials, and such an outpouring of eulogy and grief and n.o.ble sentiment as would have done credit to Joan of Arc and Lord Nelson together; I doubt if any man in the history of the United States was more deeply or sincerely mourned - and I ain't forgetting friend Abraham, either. He was even more detested in Dixie than J.B., and he was just a politician, while J.B. was a fighting man and a rebel, a combination which no American can resist. Even in the South they respected him for his courage; I remember the verdict, delivered to me during the Civil War, of a grizzled Alabama veteran, crimson with booze and chewing on his Wheeling tobey:*(*A particularity pungent cigar.) "Ole Ossawatomie? Well, now, suh, Ah reckon he lived like a skunk - an' died like a lion."

I'm not arguing. You know my views on bravery, and by now you should know 'em on J.B. He was a bit of a crook, and a lot of a humbug, and he put me through the mangle, and there's a case to be made for saying he was the most evil influence ever let loose in North America. Three-quarters of a million is a powerful lot of dead men, to say nothing of wounded and crippled and bereaved. You may say their great war would have happened anyway, but he's bound to bear some of the blame. Maybe he would have thought it a price worth paying for the destruction of slavery - but I say slavery would have ended anyway, without the war and without him.

But that's no business of mine. I came through Harper's Ferry and the war that followed, so he did me no lasting damage, though he scared the innards out of me, and took a year out of my life. I can tolerate him, at my time of life, and when I hear the grandlings singing the old song, I can look hack, if not with pride, at least with a curious satisfaction, as the young faces pa.s.s by in memory . . . Kagi, Stevens, Oliver, Watson, Leeman, Cook, Taylor, Ed Coppoc, the Thompsons, dear old Dangerous Newby, and all the other ghosts, white and black, whose features have faded . . . and last of all, the grizzled old Ironside with his eagle face and burning eyes.

No doubt my satisfaction is because I'm still here, and they're all long gone, one way or another. Watson died of his wounds; Coppoc and Green, who'd survived the engine-house fight, were hanged two weeks after J.B., as was Cook, who got himself captured in Maryland, the duffer; Stevens survived the four bullets they took out of him, but was hanged in the spring of '60, with Hazlett, who'd escaped from the Ferry but was caught later; the black who was with him in the a.r.s.enal got clear away, and so did the fellows whom J.B. sent back with the wagon to collect arms, and the men who'd been left behind at the farm - Meriam, who'd brought the six hundred dollars, and Tidd, and another of the young men, and Owen Brown. All those who escaped served in the Civil War (two of 'em died in it), except Owen, who lived to a ripe old age.

Like your humble obedient. As I say, I take no pride in my part in Harper's Ferry, and was a d.a.m.ned unwilling actor, but ... well, I was one of John Brown's pet lambs, after all, and dine out on it regular, and am redeemed (very slightly) in the eyes of such as Miss Prentice and others of the elect, who figure that an old man, however deplorable, must have some good in him if he stood at Armageddon and battled for the poor downtrodden darkies. They don't know about Joe, of course.

Which brings me back at last to the point where the trails parted, and I went my separate way from Harper's Ferry, rejoicing, en route to Baltimore and home.

I spent the day resting in the office which Messervy had made my quarters. He was out and prowling about most of the time, like a good little civil servant, and when we dined together in the evening he told me what he'd seen and heard. I could see he was depressed and agitated, for he frowned at least twice, and stroked his moustache both sides; what was disturbing him was that Stuart (as I told you a moment ago) had found all J.B.'s letters at the Kennedy Farm, and the Wager House was agog with rage and alarm at the proof they appeared to contain of diabolical Yankee designs.

"That stupid oaf Wise -" this was the Virginia Governor "- has been reading them aloud to the drunken rabble over yonder, and you may guess the effect. By this time tomorrow half the South will have heard of them, and be convinced that a Northern army is on the march, with the Republican Party in the van, intent on rousing the slaves to butcher their masters and burn every plantation 'tween here and Texas. What immutable law," he went on, "decrees that the obtuser the politician, the higher he will rise? I suppose it takes a peculiar combination of the imbecile, the toady, and the braggart to run for office in the first place. Can't Wise see the harm he's doing . or can he, I wonder?"

I looked intelligent, and he explained that Wise was a former secessionist who might be out to make mischief. "He's put them in a rare frenzy, I can tell you. Packs of drunken ruffians are out n.i.g.g.e.r-hunting this minute, and at least two fools have been arrested who claim to be John Brown raiders. Harper's Ferry will be lucky if it's still standing in the morning. I've put you on an earlier train, by the way - no sense lingering in this madhouse."

So it was about midnight that I wrapped a scarf round my chin, pulled my hat down, and made the short walk to the station with Messervy at my arm and the beefy birds striding ahead. As we pa.s.sed the engine-house, shuttered and silent, with the Marine sentries on guard, I wondered about Joe, and Messervy must have read my thought, for he remarked: "They buried him down on the river a couple of hours ago. Lord love me, is that a.s.s Wise still at his folly? I believe he won't rest until he has the whole State in an uproar!"

It was like Mafeking Night between the armoury gates and the station, the Wager House was blazing light at every window and shaking to the uproar within, there were groups of staggering merrymakers everywhere, militiamen and roughnecks, some discharging their pieces in the air, others forming raucous glee-clubs, and in two places thronging round tub-thumpers on makes.h.i.+ft platforms who were working themselves and their listeners into a riotous frenzy; their themes seemed to be the necessity of lynching John Brown, closing ranks against the murderous Yankees, and putting every black in the State under lock and key - or lynching them, too, if they felt like it. Our escort shouldered a way through the torch-lit confusion of milling figures and flushed, yelling faces, to the comparative quiet of the station where the train stood - it had been there half an hour, and Messervy had timed our walk to arrive just as the bell was beginning to clang and the whistle was adding its plaintive wail to the general din.

He didn't shake hands, simply murmured, "Good-bye", with a tap on the arm, and I climbed aboard into the quiet, dim-lit corridor with only a brief glance at the tall figure raising his cane to his hat-brim in nonchalant salute before he turned away. The darkie, porter showed me into my cabin - and all of a sudden I was dizzy with tiredness and an overwhelming sense of relief as I sank on to the cot, the train jolted and clanked into motion, and a moment later was booming and rumbling over the trestles of the Potomac bridge across which I'd come running, rifle in hand and heart in mouth, only forty-eight hours before. Now it was behind me, the nightmare which I could hardly believe had ever happened - the rush of action in the dark, the shouted commands, the bearded faces hurrying by, the crack of shots, and the inferno of the engine-house . . . and here I was, safe and sound bar the two smarting wounds in my neck and knee, rattling over the ties out of that awful world, and back to life again.

I couldn't be bothered to undress - I'd no nights.h.i.+rt, or a blessed st.i.tch except what I was wearing, anyway. Have to do something about that . . . no time to shop in Baltimore, even if I'd been fool enough to venture into the town ... borrow some duds when I got aboard the packet, perhaps . . . the devil with it, sufficient unto the day . . . I was content to lie, exhausted, wondering idly if the porter could forage me a bottle of something sensible.

Pat on the thought there was a soft knock on the door, and his beaming black face appeared.

"Yo' podden, suh," says he. "De party in de nex' cabin axes if you kin'ly like to partake o' some refreshment, 'fore you settles to rest." He chuckled, with a knowing look. "Says if yo' sociably inclined, be honnered to make yo' acquaintance over a little gla.s.s or two."

I'd seen that look before, in French hotels, and while it was unexpected here it was by no means unwelcome - I 'wasn't as exhausted as all that. Of course, I might be misreading his expression, and find myself closeted with some boring old buffer who couldn't sleep . . . and Messervy had told me to stay close . . . but what the blazes, it was only next door, and the darkie was positively leering.

"That's most civil of the . . . gentleman?" says I, and he t.i.ttered behind his hand in a way that settled my doubts and brought me off the cot, smoothing my hair and glancing in the gla.s.s. He effaced himself, and I slipped out and knuckled the timber adjoining. No reply, so I turned the handle and found myself in an empty but well-lit cabin . . . ah, it was one with an alcove bunk, with the curtains drawn. Eureka, thinks I, twitching the curtains aside, and .. .

"Well, h.e.l.lo yo'self, handsome," says Mrs Popplewell.

I stood rooted in astonishment, partly from the shock of seeing her, of all people, when I'd expected some railroad rattler, partly because she was reclining languidly on one elbow like that Continental tart in the painting - you know the one, bare buff except for a ribbon round her neck, and a n.i.g.g.e.r maid in the background. Mrs Popplewell wasn't wearing even a ribbon; she lay there all black and glossy in the lamplight, smiling a welcome and extending a plump hand, and if I hadn't been so dumfounded I dare say I'd have pressed it to my lips on the spot, if you know what I mean.

"Seen you comin' to the train," says she, in answer to my incoherent inquiry. "Couldn't hardly b'lieve ma eyes! Why, Ah made sure you was gone, in that awful fightin' las' night, an' this mornin'! Nevuh see such doin's - shootin' an' killin'!" She seized my nerveless hand and dragged me into a sitting position beside her. "Well, don' jes' gape like a fish out o' water! Tell me whut happen, an' wheah you bin, and how you come to be heah . . . unless ..." She grinned hugely and transferred her hand from my wrist to my britches ". . . unless you can think o' suthin' better to do fust ... oh, my, Ah should think you can!"

She was right, you know. The babble of questions that rose to my lips became a muted howl as she fondled with one hand and hauled me down with the other; I seized hold, . marvelling at my luck, and fairly wallowed, partaking of refreshment as the porter had advised, and I must say de party in de nex' cabin was sociably inclined to the point of delirium. It was a wonder the train didn't jump the tracks, and only when she had subsided, moaning, and I had got my breath back, did we resume the conversation, with mutual expressions of bewilderment before all was explained.

Explained on my side, that is, for she brushed aside my demands to know how she had fared with Sinn and the ruffians who had been interrogating her. I'd have thought that my sudden descent from the skylight and my precipitate departure thereafter would have compromised her altogether, but apparently not; she had been able to satisfy Sinn of her innocence, she said, and ten dollars apiece from her purse had been enough for the others.

"They ain't used to black ladies with money - tuk the starch right out o' them," she chuckled. "But that don' mat-ter - Ah's heah, ain't Ah? But how'd you git out o' that sc.r.a.pe - why, honey, Ah nevuh thought to see you 'live again! Now you jes' tell Hannah, 'cos she's dyin' to heah say, but lemme kiss you fust, you deah big lovin'-machine! Theah, now, you jes' play gentle while you tell me . . . but don' talk too long, will yuh, 'cos we got a deal o' pleasurin' to do 'fore we gits to Baltimo' ..."

So I spun her, at greater length, the yarn I'd told her on first acquaintance - that I was in the employ of the U.S. Government, and had enlisted in J.B.'s band as a spy, even to the length of taking part in their raid. All of which was true enough, as was my explanation of why I'd taken refuge with her until such time as it was safe for me to reveal myself to someone in authority.

"You saw what it was like, all the confusion and shooting, with those drunk madmen who'd have killed me on sight ... it was only after I got away from your room - and I say, I'm awfully sorry I had to mishandle you so roughly -"

"You mishandle me any ole way you like, dahlin'," she purred, toying lazily in a most distracting fas.h.i.+on. "Go on, honey . . . tell me mo' . . . but keep right on mishandlin' . . .

"Well, I managed to get away, and by great good luck the Marines had arrived, and I was able to make myself known to Colonel Lee -"

"That the fine soldier with the moustache Ah saw this aft'noon? Came to the hotel, with Gov'ner Wise, an' the other people? Say, there was one real fine man theah, big an' han'some, kinda like you, but not neah as lovesome. Made me all s.h.i.+very, tho', jes' to look at him . . . my, but Ah jes' love men with black beards'n whiskers! Like you best with jes' yo' whiskers, tho' . . . gives me somep'n to bite at!" And she nibbled my chin.

"Yes . . . well, when I'd spoken to Lee, of course, every-thing was all right. You know what happened after that .. . the Marines caught Brown and the others, and that was the end of it. And now, I'm on my way to Baltimore, as you see, to report to my superiors."

"You sure are one lucky man," says she, stroking my whiskers. "An' Ah'm one lucky gal. Why, when Ah saw you comin' to the train, with that tall gen'leman - say, he's a right pretty feller, too. He a friend o' yours?"

"What? Who? Oh, that fellow ... no, don't know who he is - one of the Governor's people, I think." Why, I don't know, I felt the less I said about Messervy the better. "The handsome man you saw with Colonel Lee, by the way, was probably Lieutenant Stuart. Fancied him, did you? D'ye know what, Hannah, I've a notion you fancy all men, don't you?"

"You bet, dahlin'," says she, pus.h.i.+ng her tongue into my mouth. "That's mah weakness. But Ah jes' fancy 'em one at a time . . . now, hold on theah . . . you mus' be dry aftuh all that talkin'." She slipped from my grasp and got out to fill two gla.s.ses at the buffet. I put mine down at a gulp, while she sipped hers standing. Then she put down her gla.s.s, and vibrated her gleaming bulk in the lamplight, looking down at me and hefting her huge poonts in her hands, smiling wickedly at my reaction.

"Ah reckon you 'bout ready now," says she, and, once again, she was right, absolutely.

"Well, now," says she afterwards, "that was whut Ah calls ... pleasure!" She s.h.i.+vered, sitting astride, and stretched luxuriously, her arms above her head. Then she sighed, regretfully, and removed her ma.s.sive weight from my creaking thighs, climbing out and donning her peignoir. "Ah'm real sorry 'tis over . . . Shouldn't ha' done it, not once let 'lone twice. But Ah got to tell you, dahlin', you are the screwin'est man Ah ever did see! That's my 'scuse." She sighed again. "Anyway, that was pleasure ... an' now - business." She sat down carefully on the chair across the cabin, and asked mildly: "What happened to Joe Simmons?"

I gave a start that almost brought the cot loose from its moorings, but I couldn't speak for shock, and she went on: "You know Joe, now . . . he was with you when you came to the hotel, first time I saw you. Mr La Force's man, who brought you up to Noo Yawk, and then to Concord, and so on after." She fluttered her fingers, and even in my stunned bewilderment I realised that the broad Dixie-nigra voice had modulated into soft Southern tones. "We know he was in that engine-house . . . but he never came out with the others. What happened to him?"

"We?" It was all I could say.

"Sure ... the Kuklos." The plump pug face beamed in a smile. "Didn't Atropos tell you we'd be watchin' you an' Joe all the way? Sure he did . . . oh, we lost you in Noo Yawk for a spell, when the police took those three fellows ' who were shadowin' you and Miz Mandeville. Mr La Force was real grieved 'bout her . . . thought she was true to him, never suspected she was operatin' for the gov'ment . . . till you an' she showed up in company with Messervy. You see, we have a man watchin' him, permanent. Those three men of Hermes's, in Noo Yawk, they weren't the only ones we got up there."

I found I was shaking in every limb as I lay there stark on the cot; instinctively I jerked the sheets over myself, and her big lips twitched in a smile.

"Don't do that, sweethea't . . . I jus' love lookin' at you. My, but you are the finest! Now, then . . . tell me 'bout Joe."

"I . . . I don't know what you mean! If he was in the engine-house . . . well, he must have been killed or captured -"

"If he was in there? You know he was . . . you were in there your own self. We saw you come out, this mornin', with Messervy."

"You . . . you saw -"

"Not me. One of my boys. I have two of them, they're at the Ferry right now, watchin' the engine-house, waitin' to see what happened to Joe." She was regarding me almost amiably, shaking her head. "But you're all confused, so I'd better tell you. I'm Medusa . . . you know Mr La Force likes to give us those ole names. I've been in these parts all summer, havin' you watched, at the farm an' so forth. Oh, Joe didn't know 'bout that . . . didn't know 'bout me, even, bein' a lot lower down in the Kuklos than I am. All he had to do was watch you, see you did as Mr La Force desired. You know, the raid." She smiled approvingly. "You did that right well, too ... didn't you? Leastways, it happened .. . which was what we wanted. Mr La Force'll be right pleased with you. Maybe give you the ten thousand dollars you asked for . . . if you feel like collectin'. Do you?"

She was watching me closely now, as I sat palpitating, too shaken to think, let alone speak. I felt as though I'd been struck by a thunderbolt . . . it was incredible, too much to take in.

"We didn't mind you workin' for the gov'ment . . . or pretendin' to work for them, whichever it was. As things were, you didn't have a choice, did you? What did they want you to do, anyway? Stop Brown makin' the raid . . . or help him to make it? Mr La Force couldn't make up his mind 'bout that . . . My belief is . . . oh, well, it don't matter what I believe. The raid went in; that's what matters."

She rose from the chair, took my gla.s.s, and refilled it.

"You look like you need this, dahlin' ... go on, drink it down! An' don't look like you saw a ghost - all's well .. . except for Joe. We have to know what happened to him, in that engine-house. He was quite a pet of Mr La Force's, you know . . . he'll be real grieved if anythin' bad's happened to Joe." She swayed ponderously back to her seat. "So there's two questions to answer: what happened to Joe .. . and why didn't he cut loose an' run at the hotel, when you did? When I watched the two of you, from my window, comin' to the hotel yes'day mornin', I thought: clever fellers, they've done their work, an' now the raid's happened, they're gettin' away from Brown. You did - an' you know what?" She chuckled, the great body shaking with mirth. "When you came in my door, I thought, how does he know to run to me? He can't know who I am, that I'm Medusa, he can't know I'm Kuklos . . . and then pretty soon I saw that you didn't, it was just chance brought you to me. An', dahlin'," she broke into laughter, "I never miss such a chance! Oh, that was some mornin's sport we had together! I was so melted, I thought to tell you who I was . . . but then, I'd seen Joe go back to Brown - I couldn't understand that. I suspicioned somethin' was wrong, somewhere . . . so I kept quiet. Showed you the way out to the loft, tho', didn't I, when it looked like -"

It don't usually take me long to act, when I'm cornered, but I'd been so shaken that only in the last minute had I summoned my wits sufficiently to move. One ghastly fact had imprinted itself on my mind: she had men watching the engine-house, they'd have seen the Marines bring out Joe's body under cover of darkness and bury it by the river - they'd dig it up for certain, and find two bullets in his back ... and who'd put them there, then? From all that I'd seen of the Kuklos (especially in the last ten minutes) they were experts; they'd know, or soon find out, that the attackers hadn't fired a single shot . . . they'd report to Atropos that his pet n.i.g.g.e.r had been shot and buried clandestine by the government, for whom I might or might not have been acting ... by G.o.d, he'd want to get to the bottom of it .. . and he'd not ask as gently as this d.a.m.ned Medusa-Popplewell .. .

All this in a flash through my mind, to one lightning conclusion - instant flight. And she was only one woman . . . I came off the bed in a bound - and stopped dead before the Derringer in her great black hand.

"Oh, dahlin'," says she, "that was foolish. What you got to be fractious for? H'm?" She shook her head, no longer smiling. "Now, then . . . I've asked, an' I'm waitin'. Why did Joe go back to Brown . . . and what happened to him afterwards?"

Well, I could answer the first question, at least. "He went back to Brown because he was betraying you. It's the truth! He . . . he went over to Brown's side . . . I don't know why, but he . . . well, Brown convinced him, at the farm, that the raid would lead to a slave rebellion . . . and that it would succeed, and they'd all win their freedom! Joe believed him, I tell you! He changed sides! He told me so! I swear to G.o.d, it's true!"

She didn't move a muscle; the plump black features were without expression. The Derringer stayed trained on my midriff.

"An' what happened in the engine-house?"

"I don't know! I . . . I never saw him, after the attack . . . I don't know, I tell you! Maybe he was killed, or captured -"

"You didn't like him, did you? Fact is, you couldn't 'bide him. So Mr La Force figured . . . he thought it was real amusin'. Figured you an' Joe were rivals for the favours of Miz Mandeville. Were you?" When I didn't reply, she shrugged. "It don't matter. She ain't around any more. Mr La Force can't abide traitors."

"Well, Joe was a traitor! I swear he was!"

"I don't disbelieve you, dahlin'. I wouldn't trust a n.i.g.g.e.r an inch myself." She sat there, black and placid, as she said it. "Did you kill Joe?"

"No, for G.o.d's sake! Why should I?"

"Maybe 'cos you hated him. Maybe for the U.S. Gov'ment. Maybe even 'cos you're tellin' true when you say Joe went over to Brown, an' you killed him out o' loyalty to Mr La Force an' that five thousand dollars he promised you. Honey, I don't mind!" She leaned forward, smiling almost wistfully - but the Derringer was steady as a rock. "What's one black buck more or less? If you killed him, fine! It don't matter to Hannah."

"I didn't! I swear to G.o.d -"

"Dearest, you don't need to - not to me! It's what you swear to Mr La Force that signifies . . . an' whether he believes you. An' I truly do doubt whether he'll believe Joe betrayed him. You know Joe'n he were boys together? Playmates? Why, he loved that Joe like a brother . . . 'bout the only thing he ever loved, I guess. An' if Joe's dead .. . an' my boys'll find it out, if he is . . . I don't know what Mr La Force'll do." She shook her head sadly. "But if he suspicions that you killed him - an' I do, so I guess he might ... well, I jus' hope you can prove you didn't."

I sat like a rabbit before a snake, while she regarded me with pity and concern. Then she smiled again, and reached out to stroke my cheek with her free hand.

"Oh, dahlin', don't look so down! I tell you, it don't mat-ter to me! You can kill every n.i.g.g.e.r in creation if you've a mind to, far as I'm concerned. You know why?" Her eyes narrowed, and her voice was trembling. "'Cos you pleasured me like I never been pleasured before . . . I didn't know there was pleasurin' like that, an' believe me, boy, I made a study! I come over faint, jus' thinkin' 'bout you." She s.h.i.+vered and grimaced. "An' now I got to go back to Popplewell. Oh, sure, there is a Popplewell, randy little runt - all I tol' you 'bout him an' my other husbands is true, 'cept I married him two years ago, not two days, an' 'twasn't him, but one o' my white boys, left me at the Wager House." She gave one of her gross chuckles. "Think they'd take a n.i.g.g.e.r woman there, be her husband never so rich? No - but they'd take the Devil hisself, if the Kuklos is payin' the bill."

She stood up, and to my amazement slipped the Derringer into the bosom of her robe. Then she stooped over me, took my face in her hands, looking soulful, and kissed me with sudden pa.s.sion, her tongue and lips working feverishly at my mouth and cheeks and eyes and back to my mouth again, before she broke moistly away, breathing hard.

"Oh, Ah got sech a kindness fo' you, Mr Beauchamp Comber, or Mr Tom A'nold, or whatevah yo' name is! Ah don' know, an' Ah don' care! An' Ah got sech a mis'ry when Ah think whut Mr La Force'll do . . ." She shuddered enormously, with a little whimpering sigh - and I thought, now's your time, lad, and thrust my whiskers between her b.o.o.bies, going brrr! She let out an ecstatic wail, the Derringer clattered to the floor, and I sank clutching fingers into her b.u.t.tocks and munched away for dear life, for I could see only one way out of this fearful dilemma, to play on her feminine frailty in the only way I know how, but even as I grappled, roaring l.u.s.tful endearments, she heaved away from me, eyes rolling, and thrust out a mighty hand to hold me at arm's length.

"Oh, dahlin'! Oh, G.o.ddamussy!" she gasped, and in her agitation it came out in broad Dixie. "Oh, honey, don' think Ah ain't cravin' you, 'cos Ah is, sumpn cruel! But we ain't got the time, dammit!" She stamped, rattling the cabin,. and her eyes were wild. "They's on'y one stop 'tween heah an' Baltimo', an' it comin' up real soon - oh, lordy, dere's de whistle! Don' stand theah!" she panted, seizing my wrist. "You gotta git off, 'cos mah boys at the Ferry'll telegraph ahead when they fin' out whutevah's happened to Joe, an' the Kuklos'll be a-waitin' at Baltimo' . . . an' Ah cain't let 'em take yuh, Ah jes' cain't, 'cos, oh, mah dearie, if anythin' wuz to happen to yuh, Ah b'lieve Ah'd die!"

She surged to the door and wrenched it open, and d.a.m.ned if she wasn't snivelling great tears over her s.h.i.+ny black cheeks.

"So git outa heah, now, will yuh ... oh, gi' me one las' kiss, do! Now, git yore a.s.s offa this train . . . an' take care, ye heah?"

[Here the tenth packet of the Flashman Papers ends, at what one must a.s.sume is the conclusion of the author's memoir of John Brown and the Harper's Ferry episode. What followed will no doubt appear in a later instalment of Sir Harry's recollections; all that can be said with certainty is that he did not catch the Baltimore packet to Liverpool, since we know from evidence in the eighth packet of the Papers, already published, that six months after his emotional parting from Mrs Popplewell, he was in Hong Kong, without having visited England in the meantime.]

APPENDIX I:.

Flashman and John Brown Flashman's was not an affectionate nature. That he loved (or at least was enthralled by) his wife, Elspeth, is evident from his memoirs, and now and then his regard for other ladies goes some way beyond the merely physical usually, one suspects, when he is writing in a mood of brandy-a.s.sisted nostalgia. But outside his family - he plainly doted on his great-grandchildren, and felt for his natural son, Frank Standing Bear, a paternal affection which lasted for several days - he seldom finds much to like in people. He betrays an occasional fellow-feeling, at a safe distance, for such rascals as Rudi von Starnberg, and has a half-amiable tolerance of acquaintances whom he has no cause to detest, like his old chief, Colin Campbell, and his Afghan blood-brother, Ilderim Khan. But that, as a rule, is his limit.

Yet he seems to have had a kind of protective affection for John Brown. Underneath the sneers and curses there is a hint of indulgence, an inclination to defend the old nuisance and even to give him a Tuscan cheer, which is not characteristic of Flashman. We may be sure it springs from no kindly or charitable impulse, or the least sympathy with Brown's aims; he found the man and his mission ridiculous, and writes of them with contempt. At the same time, he remembers Brown as "a b.l.o.o.d.y hard man to dislike", which is a rare tribute. Of course, it may have been a gratifying novelty to Flashman to come across a strong and fearsome autocrat who treated him with some deference and respect; a strong man, moreover, whom he could manipulate, and in whom he detected an appealing streak of humbug. And however lofty his disdain of Brown, there is no doubt that he took a perverse pride in their a.s.sociation: "I was one of John Brown's pet lambs, after all." This is pure Flashman. Throughout his memoirs, he revels in reflected glory, the more so when it is ingloriously undeserved, and when it comes to "dining out", Harper's Ferry plainly ranks with Balaclava and Little Big Horn and Cawnpore. One detects a condescending grat.i.tude to Brown and his ragged commandos for adding another leaf to the Flashman laurels, and a complacent satisfaction that he helped them along the road to immortality.

Whether he liked Brown or not, he has done him justice. The figure who stalks his narrative is the man of the biographies and contemporary accounts, even to his quoted speech, thoughts, manner, appearance, and the small details of everyday. From their first meeting at Concord to the last glimpse of the weary, serene old prisoner lying in the pay-master's office, Flashman's story tallies convincingly with recorded fact, and differs no more from the standard authorities than they do from each other. His record of Brown's travels in the North may be verified in Villard, as may his account of life at the Kennedy Farm, of which Mrs Annie Brown Adams, Brown's daughter, who acted as look-out for the conspirators, has left a lively record.

As invariably happens when there is a mult.i.tude of eye-witnesses, there are many discrepancies to be found in accounts of the actual raid on Harper's Ferry. It would have been tedious and confusing to footnote them all, and most of them are trivial: it hardly matters whether John Brown visited the rifle works in person, or at which end of the Potomac bridge the watchmen were posted, or whether Lee was on horseback, or what kind of hat Jeb Stuart wore, or the precise moment when Brown retreated to the engine-house, or the exact place and time of certain incidents. There is no conflict on the main course of events, and here Flash-man is in step with other historians.

It was a weird affair, the handful of men invading in the dark, the hold-up and release of the train, the taking of the prisoners, the first haphazard shootings, the bewildered towns.h.i.+p waking to find itself menaced by terrorists, gunfight and murder alternating with parleys and demands for break-fast, the militia storming in and taking to drink, the brutal lynchings and the local doctor tending the invaders' wounded, the siege of the engine-house, the final call to surrender, the last b.l.o.o.d.y melee with the Marines, and, most bizarre of all, the wounded Brown holding court while his captors bombard him with questions. The whole thing has elements of a modern hostage drama followed by a television press conference.

It was a fiasco; the irony is that it need not have been. Brown, the most incompetent of planners and irresolute of leaders, gained an initial success of which a commando leader might be proud - and then did nothing. He could have stripped the a.r.s.enal and been in the hills without losing a man; that he could have organised a slave rebellion is highly improbable, but he would have struck a blow to shake the nation (it was shaken enough, even by his failure). Why did he delay? Did he cling to the hope that the slaves would rally to him, as Cook had a.s.sured him they would? It is possible, yet it seems more likely that Flashman's diagnosis is sound: faced with crisis Brown simply did not know what to do. His judgment failed him, as his courage never did, and with that fatal indecision which was his besetting weakness he threw away what little chance he had.

But while Flashman may have read him aright at the Ferry, and while his whole portrait of Brown is a fair one, he has probably come no closer than other biographers to explaining the old abolitionist's strange and complex character. It is not surprising. Brown was not understood in his own time, and much that has been written about him since has done more to embellish the legend than to clarify the nature of the man. He and his cause are emotional subjects, and the emotions often run to extremes. He has been described in terms that would become a saint, and vilified with an intemperance that is self-defeating. The impression persists in most people's minds of a good and simple soul on fire with a dream, a fanatical crusader pursuing a splendid goal with imperfect means, a misguided Quixote whose head was wrong but whose heart was right. Great men and women have given him the accolade, and who that reads his story can dissent? Kindness, compa.s.sion, a burning love of liberty, a gift of inspiring devotion, and matchless courage, he had; if, as has been charged, perhaps not unjustly, he was also devious, foolish, vain, selfish, unscrupulous, and irresolute in crisis, his admirers can say that these are human faults, and far outweighed by the simple n.o.bility of the martyr who died, and died gladly, to make men free. And then there is Pottawatomie.

The question of his sanity cannot be answered now. He was held fit to plead at his trial; rightly, so far as we can tell, but not many laymen would, on the evidence, call him normal or balanced. "Reasoning insanity" is the judgment of one eminent historian, and it will do as well as any other. We cannot know him, but it does not matter. He is part of history and historic legend, and if what he tried to do was not heroic, then the word has no meaning.

APPENDIX II:.

The Harper's Ferry Mystery The most remarkable thing about John Brown's raid is that it was allowed to happen at all. Months beforehand it was known in Was.h.i.+ngton's corridors of power that he intended to invade Virginia, and that his first target would be Harper's Ferry. At least eighty people in the country, including the Secretary for War and two U.S. Senators, had been told of the plan; how many others had picked up the rumours, or had reason to believe that some great stroke was imminent, it is impossible to say. Yet nothing was done to stop him. No defensive measures were taken.

This should be one of those great historical mysteries that scholars love to debate; when one considers the oceans of ink that have been spilled over Little Big Horn and the Alamo, the comparative neglect of the question: "Why wasn't Brown stopped?" is almost as baffling as the mystery itself.

Brown had invasion in mind as early as 1847, when he described to Frederick Dougla.s.s how he would use a small picked band to run off the most restless and daring slaves and wage a guerrilla campaign in the Alleghenies. In late 1854 or early 1855 he proposed a raid on Harper's Ferry to Colonel Daniel Woodruff, a veteran of the War of 1812; Brown's daughter Annie, the sentry of Kennedy Farm, remembered the Ferry being specifically mentioned at the time. Hugh Forbes knew about the plan in some detail in 1857, and revealed it to Senators Wilson and Seward in 1858, at which time the Secret Six also knew of it, and the scheme was postponed. Early in 1859, James Redpath, who had met Brown and was to become his first biographer, published a book dedicated to "John Brown, senior, of Kansas", citing him as a believer in slave insurrection, advocating revolt, and hinting at future "servile and civil wars" - not hard information, but a significant straw in a wind that had been blowing for some time.

Secret intelligence-gathering was fairly makes.h.i.+ft in the U.S. before the Civil War, and it is possible that the government had no substantial knowledge of Brown's intentions before 1859, or, if they had, that they did not take him seriously. The wild schemes of a crazy farmer might well be dismissed as moons.h.i.+ne, although given the growth of abolitionist feeling in the North, and Southern anxiety about slave unrest, it seems odd that no one thought them worthy of any inquiry at all.

But "odd" is not the word for the behaviour of John Floyd, Secretary of War, when he received a detailed and (one would have thought) compelling warning of the raid on August 25, 1859 - seven weeks before it took place. It came in a letter, admittedly anonymous*(* The writer of the letter was one David Gue, who had learned of the plot from a Quaker named Varney. Many years later Gue claimed that he had written out of no ill will to Brown, but "to protect [him] from the consequences of his own rashness and devotion" by alerting the authorities who, Gue hoped, would deter the raid by setting a guard on the a.r.s.enal. Two copies of the letter were sent to Floyd, but only one reached him.) but obviously the work of a responsible person, who named "Old John Brown" of Kansas, stated that he intended to liberate the slaves of the South by general insurrection, gave particulars of his preparation and armament, identified Harper's Ferry as the point of invasion, and predicted that the slaves would be armed and the blow struck within a few weeks.

Nothing could have been clearer, but Floyd, whom Bruce Catton generously describes as a b.u.mbling incompetent, ignored the letter because, among its wealth of cogent information, it contained one trifling error - the writer stated that Brown had an agent "in an armoury in Maryland". Floyd apparently had not the wit to connect "Old John Brown" of the letter with the notorious John Brown on whose head President Buchanan and the State of Missouri had put a price, but like a good little bureaucrat he knew that there was no armoury in Maryland - that there was a large undefended armoury within a stone's throw of Mary-land, just across the river in Virginia, did not occur to him. He decided, incredibly, that the rest of the letter must be untrue; according to Sanborn, he did not even bother to read it twice. Explaining himself later to the Mason Committee investigating the raid, Floyd said that he was satisfied that "a scheme of such wickedness and outrage could not be entertained by any citizens of the United States". And the committee decided that no one apart from Brown's gang had "any suspicion of [the raid's] existence or design".

Committees know their own business best, and there is no reason why a senior minister should not be an ill-informed idiot; such things have been known. But even if Floyd was guilty of nothing worse than stupidity and negligence, it is still remarkable that despite all the advance publicity John Brown and his projected raid had received, from the halls of Congress to the Kansas border and from the drawing-rooms of Boston to the saloons of Ohio, no one in Was.h.i.+ngton took any notice or apparently felt a moment's unease.