They would send me back to New Orleans, assuming that the prying bumpkin Lincoln kept his suspicions to himself—which seemed likely—and it was imperative that I should take french leave before there was any risk of my confronting the Balliol College crew at their trial. Washington was no place to try to decamp, so that left Baltimore or New Orleans. I favoured the former, but as it turned out there was no opportunity, for when the Navy Department finally finished with me on the following morning, I was sent back with Fairbrother to his brig, and he took me straight aboard. We sailed within a few hours, so there was nothing to do but resign myself to sitting out the voyage, and make plans for escaping when we reached Louisiana. What I would do when I slipped away, I didn’t know; if my own mother wit couldn’t get me back to England hale and sound, I wasn’t the man I thought I was. When you’ve come safe through an Afghan rising and a German revolution, with all manner of cut-throats on your tail, you regard evasion from the United States as a pretty smooth course, even if they set the traps after you for slave-running and impersonation, as Fairbrother and his superiors eventually would do. I fancied I could manage passably well, if I minded my step—oh, the optimism of youth. If I’d known what lay along the path to England, home and beauty, I’d have surrendered then and there, told Fairbrother the whole truth, and taken my chance in a slavery trial any day. Thank God I’ve never had the gift of second sight.
Chapter 7
The closer we got to New Orleans, the worse my prospects of successful desertion looked, and by the time we dropped anchor at the big bend in the Mississippi River off Customs House levee, I was well in the dumps. Having nothing to unload, you see, except me, the brig stood well out in mid-stream, so my notion of slipping down a gangplank to the quay was quite out of court. We hove to at night, with the whole splendid panorama of lights twinkling on either bank, the glow of Algiers to port and the French Quarter to starboard, but it was lost on me. Fairbrother was to take me ashore personally in the morning, so my only hope must be to give him the slip when we landed.
I already had a good idea of what my first moves would be when I had won free, so I set about my preparations. First I went through the clothes which I hadn’t worn since I first boarded the Balliol College, and which had been bundled up in my valise. There was a superb coat by Gregg of Bond Street, in fine plum broadcloth, now foully creased, but I borrowed an iron from the steward, waved away his offers of help, and working secretly in my cabin, soon put it to rights and sponged out the stains it had taken. I had two good pairs of trousers, excellent boots from Todd, a smart grey embroidered waistcoat, several shirts which were beyond redemption, and a fine neckercher of black China silk. That was my wardrobe; the coat and neckercher at least could be counted on for what I had in mind.
My other valuables consisted of a ruby pin and an old-fashioned gold and silver chain with seals which had belonged to my grandfather Paget. They could pawn for a tidy sum, but I hoped this would be unnecessary, as I had a more immediate use for them. For the rest, I had eleven gold sovereigns, which would tide me over the beginning at least.
Having completed my inventory, I packed everything carefully in my valise, and next morning when Fairbrother took me ashore I stood forth in the clothes he had lent me; since I should be staying ashore when he had presented me to the proper authorities it was natural that my valise should go with me in the boat.
We were rowed to the Algiers side by four bluejackets, Fairbrother sweating in full fig, and as we neared the bank my spirits rose. The levee and wharves were positively teeming with people, there was a forest of shipping along the bank, with small craft scudding about everywhere, half-naked negroes toiling at the derricks as cargo was swung ashore, folk bustling about every which way on the jetties, nigger children playing and squealing among the piles, ship’s officers and cargo bosses bawling above the hubbub—a tremendous confusion of thousands of busy people, which was just what I wanted.
At need I had been prepared to bolt for it, but I didn’t have to. While I was handed ashore at the levee, and one of the men swung up my valise, Fairbrother stopped a moment to give orders to the coxswain. I picked up my baggage, took three steps, and in that moment I was lost in the throng, jostling my way quickly along the wharf. I didn’t even hear a shout from the boat; in two minutes I was striding along through the heaps of cargo and cotton bales, and when I glanced back there wasn’t a glimpse of Fairbrother and his men to be seen. They would be gaping around, no doubt, swearing at my carelessness at having got lost, and would start a hunt for me, but it would be an hour or so before they began to suspicion that my disappearance wasn’t accidental. Then the fun would begin in earnest.
Now, I had considered carefully the possibility of trying to board an outgoing ship immediately, and had dismissed the notion. When Fairbrother and his navy friends eventually decided I had slipped my cable, there would be a tremendous hue and cry, and the first places they would look for me would be on departing ships. I couldn’t be sure of finding a vessel that would be out and away before that happened; anyway, I hadn’t much passage money. So I had determined to lie low in New Orleans until I could see what was best to be done, and then carefully pick my best passage home, perhaps from another port altogether.
So now, when I had put a quarter of a mile between myself and the spot where the boat touched, I halted on the levee, waited till I spotted a likely-looking craft among the hundreds that were putting in and out along the bank, and asked its rower to carry me over to the north shore. He was a big, grinning nigger with brass rings in his ears who chattered unceasingly in a queer mixture of French and English, and in no time at all he set me down on the levee from which you walked up to the Vieux Carré, the old French Quarter which is the very heart of New Orleans. I paid him in English shillings, which didn’t bother him at all; provided it’s gold or silver, the Orleanais don’t care whose head is on it.
There is no city quite like New Orleans (“Awlins” as its inhabitants called it then; outsiders called it “Nawlins”). I loved it at first sight, and I believe that setting aside London, which is my home, and Calcutta, which has a magic that I cannot hope to explain, I still think more kindly of it than of any other place on earth. It was busy and gay and bawdy and full of music and drink and pleasure; nowhere else did eyes sparkle so bright, voices sound so happy, colours look so vivid, food taste so rich, or the very air throb with so much excitement. In the unlikely event that there is a heaven for scoundrels like me, it will be built on the model of the Vieux Carré, with its smiling women, brilliant clothes, and atmosphere of easy indulgence. The architecture is also very fine, spires and gracious buildings and what not, with plenty of shade and places to lounge and sit about while you watch the ivory girls sauntering by in their gorgeous dresses. Indeed, it was sometimes not unlike a kind of tropical Paris, but without those bloody Frogs. New Orleans, of course, is where they civilised the French.
The first thing I did was to find a barber, and let him remove the fine black beard which I had sprouted in the past two or three months. I kept my whiskers, of course—where would Flash be without his tart-catchers?—but had my hair trimmed fairly short to suit the role I intended to play. Then I passed on to a good tailor, and laid out most of my cash on a new finely-frilled shirt, in the Southern style, a silver-topped cane, and a curly-brimmed white stove-pipe hat.
Finally, I sought out a printer, in one of the back streets, spun him a tale, and placed an order for a gross of cards in the name of Count Rudi von Starnberg, which was my new identity. It warmed me to think of how Rudi would have delighted in this, evil throat-cutting b - - - - - d that he was. I had the printer, who was all eagerness to oblige such a distinguished gentleman, run me off half a dozen of the cards then and there for immediate use, and promising to send round for the remainder next day, when they would be ready, bade him good morning. I had no intention of collecting them, of course, and doubtless they are still there. It occurred to me that if Rudi ever visited America he mig
ht find himself billed for them, which would have been most satisfactory.
Now I was ready to face the United States in all my glory—an immaculately dressed Austrian nobleman, speaking French and English with the accent of Vienna, and as different as you could wish from some English scoundrel calling himself Comber who had vanished, bearded and nautically attired, some hours before. True, I had little cash and no place of abode, but you would never have imagined that from a glance at the splendid gentleman who now strolled at ease through the Vieux Carré, stopping to refresh himself with wine and water at one of the wayside cafés, glancing over a newspaper, and generally spying out the land. I spent a few hours getting the sense of the place, dined extremely well at a Creole eating place where they had the good sense not to smother everything in garlic, and then went to work.
What I did, in my quest for quarters for the night, was to test a theory suggested to me years before by old Avitabile, the Italian soldier of fortune who had been governor of Peshawar. “When you’re like-a light in the pocket, boy, in a strange town, you got to find a whore-house, see, an’ wheedle-wheedle your way roun’ the madame, you know? Do I got to tell you? No, sir. Your shoulders an’ moustaches—jus’ like-a mine—it’s like-a fall under a log. You charm, you talk, you tell any goddam lies—but you get that madame into bed, boom-boom-boom—why, she’s glad to lodge you for a week, ne’ mind for a night! Didn’t Avitabile travel clear from Lisbon to Paris, an’ I didn’t pay one night’s lodgings, not-a one, you bet. Goddam it, does a gentleman got to stay in hotels?”
Well, if he could do it, so could I, and towards evening I set out to find a likely bawdy house. This, in New Orleans, was child’s play; there may have been establishments in the Vieux Carré which were not bordellos, but precious few. All I had to do was find one with a susceptible madame, and take my ease for a few days.
It took me all evening, and four false starts. What I did in each case was to select a good-class house, send my card up to the proprietress by the nigger porter, and then address myself to the arch-harpy herself. I had a story all ready, and even now I must say it sounds not half bad. I explained that I was an Austrian gentleman in search of his sister, who had eloped with a profligate Englishman and been abandoned by him during a visit to the United States. Since then we had heard nothing of her, except an unconfirmed report that she had somehow found her way into … into, er, an establishment such as madame was conducting. We were beside ourselves with grief and horror, and here was I, the son of the family, on a tragic quest to find the erring creature and bring her back to the bosom of her distracted but forgiving parents. Her name was Charlotte, she was a mere eighteen, blonde and of exquisite beauty … could madame render me any assistance in tracing her? Money, of course, was no object, if only I could rescue my dear wilful sister from the dreadful plight into which she had fallen.
This, of course, was purely introductory, to let me sum up the madame and see if she was likely game. The first four weren’t—beaky, sharp-eyed old harridans whom I wouldn’t have galloped for a pension, anyway. But they swallowed the story—no doubt it sounded well, coming from six-foot Harry with his curly whiskers and melancholy brown eyes, to say nothing of his well-cut clobber and light cavalry airs. Three of them even went the length of making fruitless inquiries among their staffs; the fourth, I’m afraid, didn’t fully understand me—she said she had never heard of my sister, but she would undertake to procure her for me for seventy-five dollars. As with the others, I bade her a courtly good-night, thanked her profusely, and withdrew.
At the fifth knocking-shop, I struck pure gold. It was a splendid establishment, all plush and crystal, with a nigger band playing wild music, and in the saloons off the main hall the finest of trollops on view, willowy creatures of every colour from cream to jet black, with beautiful gowns cut away so that their breasts were bare, and strutting like duchesses. It was plain to see that outside New Orleans, fornication was still in its infancy.
However, I had no time for these distractions. My business was with the madame, and as soon as I was ushered upstairs into her private apartment, I knew I was home. She was nearing fifty, a stately buxom piece who must have been a rare beauty and was still handsome, running to fat but well laced up in a green velvet gown which looked as though it must burst asunder at any moment. She was painted and powdered and jewelled like a May Day cuddy, with an ostrich plume in her red-dyed hair, and a big peacock fan which she used to disclose her fine bust and shoulders; it was this, and the quizzy gleam in her eye as she sized me up and down, that convinced me I need look no farther. Here was one who fancied Flashy, no error. The fact that she appeared to have been at the bottle already that evening may have helped; she swayed a mite too much as she walked, even for a retired strumpet. She was all affability—and to my astonishment, when she invited me to take a seat and state my requirements, her voice was purest Bow Bells. “Honnered to ’ave a gentleman of the nobility calling at hower little hestablish’nt,” says she, simpering and pressing my hand warmly. “’Ow may we be of service, pray?” Well, thinks I, if I can’t charm this one flat on her back, I’ve lost my way with women.
It took me exactly three-quarters of an hour by her fine grandfather clock, which I thought quite smart work on first acquaintance. Ten minutes disposed of my mythical sister, of whom my plump hostess had naturally never heard, although she expressed touching dismay (“Why, the wicked villain!” and “Ow, yore pore mama!”). Another ten were spent in idle gossip, after which she suggested some refreshment, and I sipped a very reasonable Moselle while she fluttered her eyelids and shoved her tits at me. After half an hour we were quite intimate, and I was murmuring in her ear and tweaking her bottom while she giggled and called me a great sauce; with forty minutes gone I was unbuttoning her dress at the back—I have uncanny skill at this—and in a trice I had her standing in her corset. Before she could turn round I had impaled her, and was subsiding into a chair with her on my lap. She gave one protesting squeal of “Oh, Lor’”, and then lay back against me—God, what a weight she was! I thought my thigh-bones would crack, but I bulled away for all I was worth, and the baggage revelled in it, plunging and writhing until I thought we must go over, chair and all. The clock chimed the three-quarters, I remember, just as we finished.
This broke the ice splendidly, of course, and to cut a longish and damned tiring story short, I didn’t spend only the night at Mrs Susie Willinek’s establishment, but the best part of a week. Avitabile was absolutely right, you see; if you manage to get round a madame, you’re made. But I must say in honesty that I doubt if many madames are as susceptible as Susie was. She proved to be one of those rare creatures who are even jollier and nicer—and randier—than they look; give her a man who was handsome and impudent and made her laugh and was a good mount, and she would do anything for him—so it followed naturally that she took to me from the start. Of course, the fact that I was English helped—she found that out smartly enough, on the first night, the shrewd old strumpet, but instead of being furious at the way I’d imposed on her, she just shook with laughter and called me a bonny young rascal and hauled me on to the sofa again. I had to tell her my name was Comber, and that I was on the run from the American Navy—which was true, in its way, although she naturally took it that I was a deserter. She didn’t care; I was something new, and a lusty rogue, and that was enough for her.
Mind you, I earned my keep. I’ve always been able to keep pace with most women, but this one, when roused, was like a succubus gone berserk. She had a knack of getting astride of me, pinning me down with her weight, and going to work in her own way; it was fearful, for the randy trollop would tease and plague me for close on an hour, until I was nearly bursting, and by the time she was done I would be ecstatically ruined, and certain sure I’d never be able to present arms again. On the other hand, she could be as soft as mush, and cry over me afterwards, which was rather disturbing. At first I put it down to her fondness for port, but in fact it was just that she
was a genuinely sentimental soul—where lively young men were concerned, anyway.
Mind you, I wasn’t complaining, either way: I realised I was uncommon lucky to have found just the billet I was looking for, and I’ll say this for Susie, although she was like a wild beast in bed, she was damned good to me during my stay with her. I soon recognised that it wasn’t just that she was unusually partial to Adam’s arsenal; she was one of these large-hearted females who can’t go to bed with a man without conceiving an affection for him, and wanting to cherish and own him, even. She was as soft in that way as any woman I can remember, which was remarkable, for she knew men, and was far too worldly-wise to have any illusions about me. She must have seen I was a wrong ’un from the minute she laid eyes on me, and especially when she realised I was only romping her for the sake of a few nights’ lodging. But although she knew I was the kind of heartless scoundrel who would use her shamelessly and then slide out when it suited me, she couldn’t help liking me, apparently. She knew after the first couple of days that she was growing too fond of me, and it frightened her, so that she wished me away at the same time as she wanted me to stay.
This ain’t Flashy’s vanity, by the way; she admitted it herself, when I’d been there about four days and spoke about moving on.
“I orter be thankful,” says she. “You’re as big a villain as the rest—worse, prob’ly. I know you’ll just break my heart in the end, if you stay.”
Thinking back to the previous night, it struck me that whatever was in danger of breaking belonged to me, and it wasn’t my heart. “Oh, come, now, it’s short acquaintance to be talking like that,” says I.
“You would, though,” says she, smiling kind of wry. “I know your sort, an’ what’s worse, I know me. I was a fool even to let you in the ’ouse. You’d think, with all I’ve seen, an’ the rotten swine I’ve known, that I’d ’ave more sense; I’ve been ’ere before. You men—you don’t care a button; it’s just another rattle to you, an’ thanks ever so, dearie, an’ good-night. But I like you too much as it is, an’ I know what comes of that. Another two days an’ you’d be bored, an’ a flabby ol’ faggot like me can’t ’old a man against the kind of merchandise there is in this ’ouse—little yellow sluts with hard titties—humph!” She shook her head. “The trouble is—it’d hurt. I spose you think that’s funny, from an’ ol’ bag like me.”
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