Beyond it there were great rough cakes bucking about in the current, but so close together that we were able to scramble across them. Once my leg went in, and I just avoided plunging headlong; Cassy was twenty yards ahead, and I remember roaring to her to wait for me—God knows why, but one does these things. And then behind me came the crack of a shot, and glancing over my shoulder I saw that our pursuers were leaving the bank and taking the ice in our wake.
God! It was a nightmare. If I’d had a moment to think I’d have given up the ghost, but fear sent me skipping and stumbling over the pack, babbling prayers and curses, sprawling on the ice, cutting my hands and knees to shreds, and staggering up to follow her dark figure over the floes. All round the ice was grinding and groaning fearfully; it surged beneath our feet, cracking and tilting, and then I saw her stumble and kneel clinging to a floe; she was sobbing and shrieking, and two more shots came banging behind and whistled above us in the dusk.
As I overtook her she managed to regain her feet, glaring wildly back beyond me. Her dress was in shreds, her hands were dark with blood, her hair was trailing loose like a witch’s. But she went reeling on, jumping another channel and staggering across the rugged floe beyond. I set myself for the jump, slipped, and fell full length into the icy water.
It was so bitter that I screamed, and she turned back and came slithering on all fours to the edge. I grabbed her hand, and somehow I managed to scramble out. The yelping of the dogs was sounding closer, a gun banged, a frightful pain tore through my buttock, and I pitched forward on to the ice. Cassy screamed, a man’s voice sounded in a distant roar of triumph, and I felt blood coursing warm down my leg.
“My God, are you hurt?” she cried, and for some idiot reason I had a vision of a tombstone bearing the legend: “Here lies Harry Flashman, late 11th Hussars, shot in the arse while crossing the Ohio River”. The pain was sickening, but I managed to lurch to my feet, clutching my backside, and Cassy seized my hand, dragging me on.
“Not far! Not far!” she was crying, and through a mist of pain I could see the lights on the Ohio bank, not far away on our right. If only we could make the shore, we might hide, or stagger into Portsmouth itself and get assistance, but then my wound betrayed me, my leg wouldn’t answer, and I sank down on the ice.
We weren’t fifty yards from the shore, with fairly level ice ahead, but the feeling had gone from my limb. I looked round; Buck and his fellows were floundering across the ice a bare hundred yards away. Cassy’s voice was crying:
“Up! Up! Only a little farther! Oh, try, try!”
“Rot you!” cries I. “I’m shot! I can’t!”
She gave an inarticulate cry, and then by God, she seized my arms, stooped into me, and somehow managed to half-drag, half-carry me across the ice. There must have been amazing strength in the slim body, for I’m a great hulking fellow, and she was near exhaustion. But she got me along, until we fell in a heap close to the bank, and then we slithered and floundered through the ice-filled shallows, and dragged ourselves up the muddy slope of the Ohio bank.39
“Free soil!” sobs Cassy. “Free soil!” And a bullet smacked into the bank between us to remind her that we were still a long way from safety. That shot must have done something to my muscular control, for I managed to hobble up the bank, with Cassy hauling at me, and then we stumbled forward towards the lights of Portsmouth. It was only half a mile away, but try running half a mile with a bullet hole in your rump. With Cassy’s arm round me I could just stagger; we plunged ahead through the gloaming, and there were figures on the road ahead, people staring at us and calling out. Just before we reached them, we passed a tree, and my eye caught the lettering on a great yellow bill that had been stuck there. It read something about “Great Meeting Tonight, All Welcome”, and in large letters the names “Lincoln” and “Smith”. I was gasping, all in, but I remembered that the little tubby man on the steamboat had been Smith, and he had said Lincoln was speaking in Portsmouth. And I had sense enough to realise that wherever Lincoln was there would be enemies of slavery and friends to all fugitives like us. Two hours ago I’d been wanting to avoid him like the pox, but now it was life or death, and there was something else stirring in my head. I don’t know why it was, but I remembered that big man, and his great hard knuckles and dark smiling eyes, and I thought, by God, get to Lincoln! Get to him; we’ll be safe with him. They won’t dare touch us if he’s there. And as Cassy and I stumbled along the road, and I heard voices calling out in concern: “Who are they? What is it? Great snakes, he’s bleeding—look, he’s been shot,” I managed to find the breath to cry out:
“Mr Lincoln—where can I find Mr Lincoln?”
“Great snakes, man!” A face was peering into mine. “Who are you? What’s—”
“Slave-catchers!” cries Cassy. “Behind us—with guns and dogs.”
“What’s that, girl? Slave-catchers! My stars, get them up—here, Harry, lend a hand! John, you run to your uncle’s—quick now! Tell him slave-catchers come over the river—hurry, boy, there’s no time to lose!”
I could have cried out in relief, but as I turned my head I saw in the distance figures clambering the bank, and heard the yelp of those accursed dogs.
“Get me to Lincoln, for God’s sake!” I shouted. “Where is he—what house?”
“Lincoln? You mean Mr Abraham Lincoln? Why, he’s up to Judge Payne’s, ain’t he, Harry? C’mon, then, mister, it ain’t that far, ifn you can manage along. Harry, help the lady, there. This way, then—best foot forward!”
Somehow I managed to raise a run, and by blessed chance the house proved to be not more than a few furlongs away. I was aware of a hubbub behind us, and gathered that Buck and his friends had run into various Ohio citizens who were disputing their progress, but only verbally, for as we turned into a wide gateway, and our helpers assisted us up a long pathway to a fine white house, I heard the barking again, and what I thought was Buck’s voice raised in angry defiance.
We stumbled up the steps, and someone knocked and beat on the panels, and a scared-looking nigger put his head round the door, but I blundered ahead, pushing him back, with a man helping Cassy beside me. We were in a big, well-lit hall, and I remember the carpet was deep red, and there was a fine mural painted on the wall above the stairs. People were hurrying out of the rooms; two or three gentlemen, and a lady who gave a little shriek at the sight of us.
“Good God!” cries one of the men. “What is the meaning—? who are you—?”
“Lincoln!” I shouted, and as my leg gave way I sat down heavily. “Where’s Lincoln? I want him. I’ve been shot in the backside—slave-catchers! Lincoln!”
At this there was a great hubbub, and women swooning by the sound of it, and I hobbled to the newel post of the stair and hung on—I couldn’t sit down, you understand. Cassy, with a man supporting her, tottered past me and sank into a chair, while the nicely-dressed ladies and gentlemen gaped at us in consternation, two horrid, bleeding scarecrows leaving a muddy trail across that excellent carpet. A stout man in a white beard was confronting me, shouting:
“How dare you, sir? Who are you, and what—?”
“Lincoln,” says I, pretty hoarse. “Where’s Lincoln?”
“Here I am,” says a voice. “What do you want with me?”
And there he was, at my shoulder, frowning in astonishment.
“I’m Fitzhoward,” says I. “You remember—”
“Fitzhoward? I don’t—”
“No, not Fitzhoward, blast it. Wait, though—Arnold—oh, God, no!” My mind was swimming. “No—Comber! Lieutenant Comber—you must remember me?”
He took a pace back in bewilderment. “Comber? The English officer—how in the world—?”
“That’s a slave girl,” I gasped out. “I—I rescued her—from down South—the slave-catchers found us—chased us across river—still coming after us.” And praise be to providence I had the sense to hit the right note. “Don’t let them take her back! Save her, for God’s sake!”<
br />
It must have sounded well, at least to the others, for I heard a gasp of dismay and pity, and one of the women, a little ugly battleship of a creature, bustles over to Cassy to take her hands.
“But—but, here, sir!” The stout chap was all agog. “What, a runaway girl? Septy, shut that door this minute—what’s that? My God, more scarecrows! What the devil is this? Who are—?”
I looked to the door, and my heart went down to my boots. The old nigger was clinging to the handle as though to support himself, his eyes rolling, the people of the house were rustling back to the doorways off the hall, the stout man—who I guessed was Judge Payne—had fallen silent. Buck stood in the doorway, panting hard, his clothes sodden and mud-spattered, with his gun cradled in his left arm, and behind him were the bearded faces of his fellows. Buck was grinning, though, with his loose lower lip stuck out, and now he raised his free hand and pointed at Cassy.
“That’s a runaway slave there, mister—an’ I’m a warranted slave-catcher! That scoundrel at the stair there’s the thievin’ skunk that stole her!” He took a pace forward into the hall. “I’m gonna take both of ’em back where they belong!”
Payne seemed to swell up. “Good God!” says he. “What—what? This is intolerable! First these two, and now—is my house supposed to be a slave market, or what?”
“I want ’em both,” Buck was beginning, and then he must have realised where he was. “Kindly sorry for intrudin’ on you, mister, but this is where they run to, an’ this is where I gotta follow. So—jus’ you roust ’em out here to me, an’ we won’t be troublin’ you or your ladies no further.”
For a moment you could have heard a pin drop. Then Buck added defiantly:
“That’s the law. I got the law on my side.”
I felt Lincoln stiffen beside me. “For God’s sake,” I whispered. “Don’t let them take us!”
He moved forward a pace, beside Judge Payne, and I heard one of the ladies begin to sob gently—the first sobs before hysterics. Then Lincoln says, very quietly:
“There’s a law against forcing an entry into a private house.”
“Indeed there is!” cries the judge. “Take yourself off, sir—this instant, and your bandits with you!”
Buck glared at him. “Ain’t forcin’ nuthin’. I’m recapturin’ a slave, like I’m legally entitled to. Anyone gits in my way, is harbourin’ runaways, an’ that’s a crime! I know the law, mister, an’ I tell you, either you put them out o’ doors for us, or stand aside—because if they ain’t comin’ out, we’re comin’ in!”
Judge Payne fell back at that, and the other people shrank away, some of the women bolting back to the drawing room. But not the ugly little woman who had her arm round Cassy’s shoulders.
“Don’t you move another step!” she cries out. “Nathan—don’t permit him. They don’t touch a hair of this poor creature’s head in this house. Stand back, you bully!”
“But my dear!” cries Payne in distress. “If what they say is true, we have no choice, I fear—”
“Who says it’s true? There now, child, be still; they shan’t harm you.”
“Look, missus.” Buck swaggered forward, limbering his rifle, and stood four-square, with his pals at his back. “You best ’tend to what your ol’ man says. We got the law behind us.” He glanced at Lincoln, who hadn’t moved and was right in his path. “Step aside.”
Lincoln still didn’t move. He stood very easy and his drawl was steady as ever.
“On the subject of the law,” says he, “you say she’s a runaway, and that this man stole her. We don’t know the truth about that, though, do we? Perhaps they tell a different tale. I know a little law myself, friend, and I would suggest that if you have a claim on these two persons, you should pursue it in the proper fashion, which is through a court. An Ohio court,” he added. “And I’d further advise you, as a legal man, not to prejudice your case by armed house-breaking. Or, for that matter, by dirtying this good lady’s carpet. If you have a just claim, go and enter it, in the proper place.” He paused. “Good night, sir.”
It was so cool and measured and unanswerable that I could have wept with relief to hear him—but I didn’t know much about slave-catchers. Buck just grunted and sneered at him.
“Oh, yeah, I know about the courts! I guess I do—I bin to court before—”
“I’ll believe that,” says Lincoln.
“Yeah? You’re a mighty fancy goddam legal beanpole, ain’t you though? Well, I’ll tell you suthin’, mister—I know about courts an’ writs an’ all, an’ there ain’t one o’ them worth a lick in hell to me! I’m here—them dam’ runaways is here—an’ if I take ’em away nice an’ quiet, we don’ have to trouble with no courts nor nuthin’. An’ afterwards—well, I reckon I’ll answer right smart for any incon-venience caused here tonight. But I ain’t bein’ fobbed by smart talk—they’re comin’ with me!”
And he pushed the barrel of his piece forward just a trifle.
“You’ll just take them,” says Lincoln. “By force. Is that so?”
“You bet it’s so! I reckon the courts won’t worry me none, neither! We’ll have done justice, see?”
I quailed to listen to him. God, I thought, we’re finished; he had the force behind him. If he wanted to march in and drag us out bodily, the law would support him in the end. There would be protests, no doubt, and some local public outcry, but what good would that be to us, once they had us south of the river again? I heard Cassy moan, and I sank down, done up and despairing, beside the newel. And then Lincoln laughed, shaking his head.
“So that’s your case is it, Mr—?”
“Buck Robinson’s my—”
“Buck will do. That’s your style, is it, Buck? Brute force and talk about it afterwards. Well, it has its logic, I suppose—but, d’ye know, Buck, I don’t like it. No, sir. That’s not how we do things where I come from—”
“I don’t give a damn how you do things where you come from, Mr Smart,” Buck spat out. “Get out of my way.”
“I see,” says Lincoln, not moving. “Well, I’ve put my case to you, in fair terms, and you’ve answered it—admirably, after your own lights. And since you won’t listen to reason, and believe that might is right—well, I’ll just have to talk in your terms, won’t I? So—”
“You hold your gab and stand aside, mister,” shouts Buck. “Now, I’m warnin’ you fair!”
“And I’m warning you, Buck!” Lincoln’s voice was suddenly sharp. “Oh, I know you, I reckon. You’re a real hard-barked Kentucky boy, own brother to the small-pox, weaned on snake juice and grizzly hide, aren’t you? You’ve killed more niggers than the dysentery, and your grandma can lick any white man in Tennessee. You talk big, step high, and do what you please, and if any ‘legal beanpole’ in a store suit gets in your way you’ll cut him right down to size, won’t you just? He’s not a practical man, is he? But you are, Buck—when you’ve got your gang at your back! Yes, sir, you’re a practical man, all right.”
Buck was mouthing at him, red-faced and furious, but Lincoln went on in the same hard voice.
“So am I, Buck. And more—for the benefit of any shirt-tail chawbacon with a big mouth, I’m a who’s-yar boy from Indiana myself, and I’ve put down better men than you just by spitting teeth at them.40 If you doubt it, come ahead! You want these people—you’re going to take them?” He gestured towards Cassy. “All right, Buck—you try it. Just—try it.”
The rest of the world decided that Abraham Lincoln was a great orator after his speech at Gettysburg. I realised it much earlier, when I heard him laying it over that gun-carrying bearded ruffian who was breathing brimstone at him. I couldn’t see Lincoln’s face, but I’ll never forget that big gangling body in the long coat that didn’t quite fit, towering in the centre of the hall, with the big hands motionless at his sides. God knows how he had the nerve, with six armed men in front of him. But when I think back to it, and hear that hard, rasping drawl sounding in my memory, and remember the force
in those eyes, I wonder how Buck had the nerve to stand up in front of him, either. He did, though, for about half a minute, glaring from Lincoln to Cassy to me and back to Lincoln again. Twice he was going to speak, and twice thought better of it; he was a brawny, violent man with a gun in his hands, but speaking objectively at a safe distance now, he has my sympathy. As a fellow bully and coward, I can say that Buck behaved precisely as I should have done in his place. He glared and breathed hard, but that was his limit. And then through the open door came the distant sound of raised voices, and a hurrying of many feet on the road.
“I doubt if that’s the Kentucky militia,” says Lincoln. “Better be going, Buck.”
Buck stood livid, still hesitating; then with a curse he swung about and stumped to the door. He turned again there, dark with passion, and pointed a shaking finger.
“I’ll be back!” says he. “Don’t you doubt it, mister—I’ll be back, an’ I’ll have the law with me! We’ll see about this, by thunder! I’ll get the law!”
They clattered down the steps, Buck swearing at the others, and as the door closed and the exclamations started flying, Lincoln turned and looked down at me. His forehead was just a little damp.
“The ancients, in their wisdom, made a great study of rhetoric,” says he. “But I wonder did they ever envisage Buck Robinson? Yes, they probably did.” He pursed his lips. “He’s a big fellow, though—likely big fellow, he is. I—I think I’d sooner see Cicero square up to him behind the barn than me. Yes, I rather think I would.” He adjusted his coat and cracked his knuckles. “And now, Mr Comber—?”
The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection Page 164