“It’s not public knowledge yet, I believe, but the Prince of Wales is to visit Washington next year.” Seward was beaming at me like a happy ferret. “The first British royalty ever to stand on American soil – another precious link in the chain that is being forged anew …”
And a fat chance there would be of that once Flashy’s churlish refusal had fouled the transatlantic cable … no, it was unthinkable. This smooth-spoken blackmailing little swine had got me by the essentials – and John Brown was going to get his lieutenant. That was that, and no help for it … and my nature being what it is, I did a lightning reckoning of the possible advantages that might follow. If I did what they wanted, and could keep this idiot Brown from flying off the handle (and heaven knew I had enough experience of disaster to be able to scupper the half-baked military ambitions of a pack of backwoods yokels, surely?), if, in a word, I rendered this “signal service” to the Great Republic … by gum, but Mr President-in-waiting Seward would have a different tale to tell to little Vicky and her awful husband, wouldn’t he just?
“… volunteered like a shot, ma’am … knew it was irregular, but felt sure Your Majesty would wish it … sacred task … blood thicker than water … who would true valour see …” “We are most gratified, Mr Stew-hard … so obliging of the dear colonel, was it not, Albert? …” “Hoch-hoch, yess! Colonel Flash-mann to Rugby School wass going, ja!”
Gad, I might get a title out of it … but no, it would all have to be kept mighty quiet and unofficial … still, there would be whispers, and knowing royal smiles when I got home … and no doubt a confidence from Her Majesty to Elspeth over the tea-cups … and stern questions, followed by a rebuke for form’s sake and a wink and clap on the shoulder, from old Pam.
It ran through my mind in seconds, while Seward busied himself clipping another cigar, and when I stood up those bright eyes searched my face for several seconds before he glanced at the clock and said, why, how time had run past, and he expected they would be casting off soon.
“I thank you for coming to see me,” says he. “We have had a most valuable talk, I’m sure.” He paused. “I expect to be in England for two months at least; perhaps I may have the pleasure of your company again – or have you decided to prolong your stay in America?”
Well, two could play at that game. “By George, Mr Seward, I’d been intending to take the first ship, but you’ve roused my curiosity, don’t ye know? I rather think I’ll stay on a while – see something of the country, what?” And just for devilment I added: “Any special sights of interest you think I ought to see? Some people have urged me to visit Virginia, but I’ve a notion it might be rather warm at this time of year, eh?”
It took him aback, but only for a second. “That is my understanding, too,” says he. “Good-bye, colonel, and God speed.”
They tell me he was a man quite devoid of principles, whatever they are, but I’d put it another way and say he was a consummate politician. Clever, no question; he knew exactly how to turn me round in short order, which argues some kind of capacity, I suppose, and there’s no denying he saved the United States a few years later when he wriggled out of the Trent Affair. He was no friend of ours, by the way, for all the humbug he’d given me, and I can think of only one good reason for wishing he’d become President: Lincoln wouldn’t have got shot.31
* * *
a Affair, concern (Swahili, council).
Chapter 12
The fellow with the lantern-jaw was called Messervy, and as soon as I stepped out of Seward’s stateroom and announced my change of heart, he took charge, cutting off the Senator’s cries of satisfaction and reminding Pinkerton, who surprised me by clasping my hand, that there was a day’s work to do in two hours, so good-bye, Senator, and let’s go. Then it was ashore in haste to the Black Maria, which was beginning to feel like home, with Pinkerton firing instructions at me as we rattled along, while Messervy sat aloof, stroking his moustache.
“Mandeville an’ yoursel’ will return to the Astor House tonight as though nothin’ had happened, and wait for Black Joe Simmons. He sent a telegraph tae Crixus this mornin’, sayin’ ye’d been found and were willin’ tae enlist wi’ Brown; Crixus’s reply has been at the New York telegraph office this three hours past, but Joe hasnae seen it yet – and won’t, until you’re safe back at the hotel. We’ve seen it, though – sure enough, Crixus is over the moon, haverin’ on about the returned prodigal, an’ biddin’ Joe take ye tae Concord wi’out delay, where ye’ll be presented tae Brown at the house of Frank Sanborn. So ye’ll be off tomorrow, likely – an’ neither Crixus nor Atropos will have an inkling o’ what’s happened today.” He permitted himself a sour grin. “The three Kuklos men who followed you this mornin’ are safe under lock an’ key, and will not see the light o’ day until this whole Brown business is by and done wi’ –”
“And when’ll that be?” In the rush of events I’d given no thought to it. Messervy spoke without looking round.
“Weeks. All summer, maybe.”
“What? But, my God –”
“Wheesht, and listen!” snaps Pinkerton. “Once you an’ Joe have left for Concord, Mandeville will return tae Washington tae inform Atropos that all’s well. It’ll be days afore he begins to wonder what has happened tae his three bravos – an’ we’ll have one or two ploys tae keep him guessin’, never fear. The main thing is, he’ll be satisfied that you’re safe wi’ Brown, workin’ your mischief – he thinks. Crixus will be under the same misconception.” He glanced at Messervy. “That’s my part done, I think.”
Messervy nodded, and we sat in silence until our paddywagon drew up behind the big brown building. It was growing dusk, and as we alighted Pinkerton turned to me:
“I’ll bid ye good-bye, colonel – but I’ll be keepin’ an eye on ye until ye leave for Concord.” He hesitated, and held out his hand. “Glad ye’re wi’ us. Take what care ye can of auld John Brown. He’s worth it.” He wrung my hand hard. “An’ my respects tae your good lady when ye see her. She’ll no’ mind me, but I carried her portmantle once, tae the Glasgow coach.”
Then he was gone, and Messervy swung his cane idly as he looked after him. “There goes a worshipper of John Brown … h’m. Follow me, colonel.”
In my time I’ve been sent into the deep field by some sharp politicals – Broadfoot, Parkes, Burnes, and Gordon, to say nothing of old Pam himself – but Messervy, the long-chinned Yankee Corinthian with his laconic style, was as keen as any and straight to the point, coaching me briskly even before we’d sat down, turning up his desk-lamps as he spoke in that lordly half-English accent that they learn in the best Eastern colleges.
“Whatever you’ve heard, Brown’s not mad. He’s a simple man with a burning purpose. His admirers like to think of him as a latter-day Oliver Cromwell. He is no such thing. He’s not a fool, but he lacks all capacity to organise and direct. His strength –” here he sat down, shooting his cuffs as he clasped his fingers before him on the desk “– which you would do well to remember, is a remarkable gift of inspiring absolute devotion, even in men far above him in education and ability – Pinkerton, for example, and the Eastern liberals who furnish him with money and arms. But it is among his personal followers – his gang – that this loyalty is most marked.”
He drew a sheet from a stack of papers at his elbow, and pushed it across.
“Those are their names – you can study them later. They are almost all young men, staunch abolitionists for the most part, and dangerous beyond their years. They include several of Brown’s sons; the others are adventurers, jacks-of-all-trades, a crank or two, some free blacks and escaped slaves; a number of them have been soldiers, one was a militia colonel, and most of ’em have fought in the Kansas troubles. Only one or two are what you would call educated.” He considered. “They’re tough, eager, and love nothing better than shooting up slave-owners, as they did a couple of months ago when they rescued a few niggers from Missouri and chased the militia. But for the most part they cam
p in the woods, do a little drill or target practice, a few gymnastics, and sweetheart the local girls. Brown will be looking to you to lick ’em into shape and plan his great stroke in Virginia.”
“How,” says I, “d’you suggest I stop him?”
He indicated the paper in my hand. “There aren’t above a dozen names on that paper – that’s his weakness, lack of numbers. Many have come and gone; those names you may regard as permanent. He’s never been good at recruiting – when he was camped out in Iowa, rallying support, he managed to muster the grand total of nine. It may well be that his want of men, his inability to plan anything sensible, and his habitual indecision, will be his ruin – with a little judicious hindrance from you, skilfully contrived. One thing you must not do, and that is try to undermine his men’s loyalty: it would be fatal. They love him; no other word for it.”
“What weapons has he got?”
“That we know of, two hundred revolvers and two wagonloads of Sharps rifles. And you heard about the thousand pikes.”
“Yes, to arm the niggers when he invades Virginia. It all sounds damned unlikely,” says I, “but you take him seriously.”
“Like nothing since the Revolution,” says he quietly. “He’s a man on fire, you see. And if the fit suddenly takes him, he may go storming into Virginia at half-cock, with his handful of gunfighters … and it just might start a war.”
“And you say he isn’t mad! Has he got any money?”
“He’s spent much of the past two years, when he hasn’t been raiding or writing half-baked constitutions, trying to drum up funds here in the East. Said he needed $30,000, and may have got close to a third of it, but in arms and equipment rather than hard cash.” He shrugged. “In other ways, though, I suspect he’s found it rewarding work. Unless I’m in error, his vaunted simplicity masks a substantial vanity: he seems to like nothing better than being received in abolitionist Society, playing the Old Testament prophet, preaching the wrath of God – he’s a poor speaker, by the way – being adored by maiden ladies from Boston who know Uncle Tom by heart, and admired by social superiors who treat him as another Moses. That’s one of them …”
He took a card from his stack of papers and pushed it across to me: a daguerre print of an earnest weed with flowing locks and a wispy goatee, like a poetic usher.
“… Frank Sanborn, one of the so-called ‘Secret Six’, the committee of influential abolitionists who are Brown’s leading supporters.32 You may meet some of ’em when you’re presented to him at Sanborn’s place in Concord. They hang on Brown’s lips, applaud his speeches, pass the hat, shudder deliciously when they think of him sabring Border Ruffians, go into prayerful ecstasies whenever he runs a nigger across the British border – and are in mortal terror that he’ll do something truly desperate.” He stroked his silky moustache. “Like attacking Harper’s Ferry.”
“They know he means to?”
“He told ’em so, a year ago – and they almost had apoplexy. You see, they thought the cash and arms they’d been giving him were to be used in the Free Soil campaign in Kansas; when he sprang it on ’em that he was planning to invade Virginia, arm the blacks, set up a free state in the hills, hold slave-owners hostage, and dare the U.S. Government to come on … you may guess what effect that had on our pious idealists. They besought him to give up the idea, he thundered Scripture and told them slavery is war and must be fought, they pleaded, he stood fast … and they gave in, like the old women they are. However, he decided to postpone his invasion when your compatriot, Hugh Forbes, his right-hand man, fell out with him over money, and betrayed the whole plot to various Republican senators … among them Mr Seward, whose eloquence so charmed you, I’m sure, this afternoon.” He raised an eyebrow at me, studied his nails in the lamplight, and went on:
“Seward’s a true-blue abolitionist, but he’s not a fool or a firebrand – and he has Presidential ambitions. He warned the ‘Six’ they were playing with fire, and must leave off. That set them shivering … but instead of cutting off Brown without a penny, they renewed their tearful pleas to him not to do anything rash, but if he did, please they’d rather not hear about it beforehand.”
Messervy sat back in his chair, and arched his fingers together. “And there, colonel, you have the liberal abolitionists of the North, in a nutshell: half hoping Brown will go wild, while they pull the blankets over their heads. Seward has more sense. He wants Brown stopped, which is why he spoke to you today, once we’d convinced him that you were the likeliest means of doing it. At the same time,” he added drily, “Senator Seward finds this a convenient moment to make the Grand Tour of Europe, which is a capital place for the Republicans’ favoured candidate to be while Brown is rampaging around breathing fire.”
“Hold on,” says I. “You say ‘we’ convinced Seward – by which you mean the secret service, and don’t tell me different! Aren’t you meant to be working for President Buchanan, who I believe is a Democrat? Not that I understand American politics –”
“I work for the United States,” says he coolly, “whose next President will not be a Democrat. My task is the peace and security of this country, by any means, despite the efforts of its politicians.”
“Spoken like a man!” I was beginning to take to this chap. “But if it’s peace and security you’re after, and you can’t stop Brown by arresting him, or openly interfering with him, for political reasons … tell me, as one government ruffian to another, why don’t you just shoot him quietly in the back of the head some dark night?”
“And have all hell break loose – North accusing South, the government itself (which is headed by a ‘doughface’,a remember) suspected of political assassination, people like Pinkerton outraged and demanding inquiry, the wild men calling for bloody retribution? God knows where it would end.” He gave a faint smile. “In any event, I don’t work for Lord Palmerston – my political masters didn’t learn their ethics at Eton College.”
“Oh, you’re out there! I’ve a notion Pam was at Harrow … what are you grinning at?”
“A kindred spirit, I suspect.” He rose, shed his coat, and loosed his cravat. “Please, be comfortable. Will you join me?” He produced a bottle – Tokay no less, and poured. “Now we can get down to cases,” says he, settling himself. “By the by, how much of the yarn you spun us this afternoon was true – and how much did you leave out?”
“Every word of it – and about half as much again.”
He nodded. “I guess that qualifies you. Well, here’s confusion to John Brown … one way or another.” He sipped, and sighed, a frown on the long clever face. “Now then – I’ve told you about him, and his gang, and his supporters; at least you know what to expect. If you can keep him quiet, by fouling his traces for him and helping him not to make up his mind – which, with your experience, you very well may – then that’s fine. But …” he set down his glass and gave his moustache another thoughtful tease, “…just suppose you fail … and Brown does cut loose and raises cain in Virginia for a day or two – for he’ll last no longer than that, you may be certain –”
“You’re sure of that? Even if he were to take Harper’s Ferry? Damn it all,” I demanded, “why don’t you put troops into the place?”
He made a disdainful noise. “The official answer to that is that we can’t be sure he’s still set on the Ferry – Forbes’s blowing the gaff may have scared him off it, he may be thinking of some other target altogether, and we can’t guard the whole Mason-Dixon line. Myself, I’d say a squad of Marines at the Ferry wouldn’t hurt – but try telling that to Washington mandarins who are too lazy or too dense or too smug to take Brown seriously.” He shrugged. “But ne’er mind that. Consider, I repeat, what happens if Brown does invade Virginia, tries to stir up the niggers, and shoots a few Southern citizens? What then?” Without waiting for a reply, he went on, tapping off the points on his slim fingers.
“I’ll tell you. The South will explode with fury and accuse the Republicans of being behind it. The Repub
licans, including the two Senatorial gentlemen you met today, will deny it. The North will bust with ill-concealed delight because Simon Legree has been kicked in the balls. The Southern States will raise the cry of ‘Disunion or death!’ … and then?”
“Then the bloody war will break out, according to you and that fat Senator!” says I, impatiently, and he nodded slowly and sipped the last inch from his glass.
“Yes, it very well may. I’d lay odds on it. But then again … there’s a chance – oh, a very slim one – that wiser counsels might prevail, provided …” he raised a finger at me “… provided Brown had been killed or lynched along the way. You see, if his raid had been a fiasco, and he had met his just deserts – well, it might take a little heat out of the South’s temper. And Northern rejoicing might be a little muted – oh, they’d go into mourning for their hero, and Mr Emerson and Mr Longfellow would write odes to the saint departed, and the Secret Six (having disclaimed Brown faster than you can blow smoke) would beat their breasts in public and give thanks in private that dead men can tell no tales … but many sober Yankees would be appalled and angry at the raid, and condemn Brown even while they mourned him. Many would say he’d been proved wrong, and that violence is not the way.” He shrugged again. “Who knows, in that mood, common sense might assert itself. The country might shrink back from war … provided John Brown were dead.”
“I don’t see that,” says I. “What odds would it make whether he was dead or alive?”
“Considerable, I think. Here, let’s finish the bottle.” He tipped the remains into my glass. “You see, if Brown survived the raid, and was taken, he’d stand trial – probably for treason. I’m no lawyer, but when a man writes constitutions for black rebel states, and fires on the American flag, I guess I could make it stick. But whatever the charge, one thing is sure: they’ll hang him.”
The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection Page 313