“Where’s that?” says I, trying not to croak.
“Why, Harper’s Ferry, to be sure! We’ll take a good look at the country along the way, and – what’s that? Restrain your language, sir! And keep your voice down!” He was glaring disapproval, and darting nervous glances at the nearest passengers. “There’s no call for excitement,” he whispered angrily, “or that kind of foul Navy talk! I won’t have it!” Then he patted my knee, like a forgiving uncle. “I know you’re eager – I’ve watched you chafing these past weeks, and I promise you won’t have to wait much longer. Once we’ve seen how the land lies, we’re going to find ourselves a nice out of the way place between Hagerstown and the Ferry, and there we’ll make our final plans. And when the men have come in, and the arms …” He sat back, nodding his great bearded head, eyes gleaming, while I fought manfully to retain my breakfast. To find myself in Maryland had been bad enough, but the news that we weren’t a kick in the arse from Harper’s Ferry was shocking. Oh, I’d seen it on the map, often, but it had always seemed a safe distance away – America’s such a big place, you get into the habit of thinking you’re miles from anywhere – and I hadn’t realised, in Chambersburg, how close we were getting. Now, without warning, we were almost there.
When my guts had stopped fluttering, I reflected that it might have been worse. For a horrid moment, when he’d mentioned the name, I’d thought he was contemplating a sudden wild onslaught, but plainly it was just to be a scout, before we retired to some hole in the ground for another jolly discussion about Greek phalanxes or forts with connecting tunnels. I could tolerate that – not that I had any choice, with Joe at my elbow.
For now that we were south of the line he took to sticking close again, possibly because he believed the great day was approaching. I continued to doubt it, for when we reached Hagerstown J.B. was back in his indecisive mood; he took us trekking about the country for a couple of days, inquiring for properties to buy or rent, and then it was all aboard the train again, and on a bright July day we rolled across the bridge into Harper’s Ferry, and I had my first sight of that strange little town where a parcel of ragamuffins were to change the course of American history.
It’s an odd place, lying on flat land at the tip of a peninsula where the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers meet, with heights of some grandeur on either side, so that the town seems to be at the bottom of a gorge. Behind, the peninsula runs up to a third set of heights, the rearmost houses climbing the slope, with steps cut into the hillside. In those days there was a covered road and rail bridge over the Potomac from Maryland to the town, which lay in Virginia,a and a smaller bridge over the Shenandoah.
It’s changed a good deal, having been battered and burned in the war, but in my time, as you came in over the Maryland bridge, there was a great stretch of armoury buildings running for near half a mile along the Potomac bank, quite unexpected in that kind of farming country. I’d imagined a sleepy hamlet, with a store and ferry-boat, and a few barefoot loafers snoozing and spitting in the sunshine, but here was a bustling little industrial community of three thousand souls, with neat houses and workshops, and my first thought was that you’d need a regiment to take this place – and a brigade to hold it, for a less defensible position I never did see. Those commanding heights would be a besieged garrison’s nightmare, and when the bridges went, why, you’d be like a mouse in a bottle.
But it was the sight of J.B. and his boys, wandering about like a party of tramps looking for a place to doss down, that moved me to silent mirth. They gaped at the great spread of armoury workshops and the arsenal building, gazed up the Shenandoah shore to the rifle works half a mile off, considered the number of workmen moving briskly about the sheds, and the activity about Wager’s station hotel by the railroad tracks – and you could see in their eyes the question to J.B.: how the devil do we take this place? True, there wasn’t a soldier to be seen, but there were several score of likely labourers, and any number of townsfolk. I could just picture J.B. hammering at the arsenal door and getting a bucket of water over him for his pains, before the lads of the village swarmed out to chase us back over the bridge, probably in tar and feathers. As for the notion of carrying off arms and ammunition to the hills while the populace stayed obligingly in bed … well, I’d always thought the projected raid was daft, but only now did I realise it was ridiculous.
My spirits were further raised by our conference in Gait’s saloon, where we met Johnny Cook, who was J.B.’s man on the spot. He’d been at the Ferry for a year, teaching school among other things, and God help the children’s education: a pleasant fellow enough, but garrulous as a Welsh parson, and I’d sooner have trusted a secret to Elspeth. Like Kagi, he was fretting about whether the slaves would rise, and wanted to take soundings among ’em. The thought of this babbling ass tooling about asking niggers if they felt like mutiny had J.B. almost biting his tea-cup (yes, tea, in a saloon; he and Oliver were strict temperance). He told Cook, with some vigour, on no account to meddle with the slaves. Cook was crestfallen.
“But how they goin’ to know, an’ be ready, without we tell ’em? Can’t have a nigra uprisin’ if the nigras don’t know, can we? How we goin’ to get them in?” He raised a foolish laugh, and J.B. ground his teeth.
“When we strike, they will know it, and they will come in to us, I tell you, and they shall be legion!” He was wearing his mad Isaiah look, as he always did when contradicted. “The Lord will guide them to us, and they will be like the standing corn for number – so don’t you fool with ’em, John Cook, you hear me?”
And that, you should know, was the last that was ever heard about stirring up the slaves – a task which could never have been done in secret anyway; George Broadfoot would have turned his face to the wall at the mere thought.
The next thing was to find a lonely spot on the Maryland side where we could set up shop, pretending to be farmers while we girded our loins, planned, trained, drilled, accumulated arms and recruits, and generally played out J.B.’s dreams. After putting it about that we were settlers who hoped to bring in cattle from the North, he found the ideal place about four miles from the Ferry, a ramshackle three-storey farmhouse which he rented from someone named Kennedy; it had pasture and outbuildings and lay away from the road, shielded by shrubbery, in pleasant wooded country at the foot of the hills. Just the spot for a few eccentrics to waste time fooling themselves that they were on the brink of great things.
And there we stayed, God help me, for three solid months – and if you ask me what happened in that interminable time, I can only say that dusty summer drifted endlessly into golden autumn, our clothes got seedier, and our leader talked and talked and brooded and wrote letters North for money, and accomplished … absolutely nothing. While in the world outside (which I began to doubt still existed), Pam became Prime Minister again, Blondin walked across Niagara on a tightrope, someone invented the steam roadroller, people read A Tale of Two Cities (I know these things ’cos I looked them up in an encyclopedia the other day), and my loving Elspeth, I have reason to suspect, misbehaved in a potting-shed at Windsor Castle with that randy little pig the Prince of Wales, who at that time was just beginning to notice that girls were different from fellows, somehow.
And not far away from the Kennedy Farm a chap called Emmett was composing a catchy little ditty, which was rather ironic, when you consider that we were preparing to set the South ablaze: it was called “Dixie”.
You may ask, how did I stand it, and why? Easy: I’d no choice. So far as I knew, the Kuklos were still keeping a leery eye on me, and Joe certainly was. Still, I might have tried to slide out, but for one thing – I never believed it could last. Only when you know you’re in for a long haul do you grow desperate; I didn’t, because each day I could tell myself that tomorrow, or next week, must see the end, surely; J.B. would realise his folly, and give up, or go loco entirely, or the plot would leak out altogether … or something would bring the whole farce to a quiet conclusion. One thing I grew incre
asingly positive about: there would be no raid and no uprising.
I became convinced of this in the first two weeks at the farm, which I spent, at J.B.’s request, in writing plans for the great invasion. I did it in best staff-college style, covering reams of paper with instructions for the initial taking of the vital points in the town (a simple task in itself), and the development of the rebellion – a glorious exercise in impossibility, since it took for granted a force of at least a hundred well-trained men, properly equipped and led (a total which I took care not to state in bald terms), and assumed that hordes of ferocious fugitive niggers would flock to join us; it might encourage them, I suggested, if we sent riders round the country with fiery crosses – and if you think that was stretching credulity, you don’t know J.B.
He was delighted. This was what he’d needed all along, he said, a clear laying-out by an expert; there had been nothing like me since Hannibal. He read it over and over, sighing with satisfaction as he turned the pages by the light of the oil-lamps, his great lion head tilted back to scan them through his reading-glass. The fiery crosses brought an explosion of admiration, and a fist thumped on the table, and I reflected that feeding dreams is like flattery: you can’t lay it on too thick. If I’d had a spark of decency I’d have felt sorry for the credulous old clown, humbugging him so, but I didn’t – hang it all, it’s my livelihood.
Such a masterpiece had to be discussed, of course, ad infinitum, in every minute, futile detail. A copy must be sent to Kagi, who was now at Chambersburg awaiting the shipment of arms from John junior in Ohio, and Cook had to be summoned from the Ferry so that he, too, could be dumfounded by my genius. It was all there, he agreed, plain as print; he’d have to take a look up in the hills to select likely spots for the forts, but he could get tar and turpentine right away for the fiery crosses, you bet. One omission in my plan disappointed him, though: no mention of hostages. What hostages, I asked.
“Did I not tell you, Joshua?” says J.B. “When we have taken the Ferry we must lay hold on the principal slave-owners, as security for any of our people who may fall into the hands of the enemy.” By “enemy” he meant the U.S.A., if he’d only thought about it.
“I know a prime case,” says Cook. “Old Colonel Washington – he’s George Washington’s great-grandsomethin’-or-other. Has a fine place close to town – an’ hasn’t he got slaves, though!”
“We must take him without fail,” says J.B. “It will mean much to have that great name, the name of our country’s founder, as a hostage.”
“He’s a real fine gentleman, a proper arist-o-crat!” says Cook, pleased to be approved for once. “Say, you should see his house, though – that’s the bang-uppest place! The things he has there – why, there’s a pistol that Lafayette gave to George Washington, an’ Frederick the Great’s sword!”
“Are you sure – you’ve seen them?” J.B. fairly glowed. “Oh, to have those when we raise the flag of freedom over Harper’s Ferry! Precious symbols in our country’s history – Lafayette’s pistol in my belt … great Frederick’s sword in my hand …”
It kept him happy for a couple of days; if only Harper’s Ferry had also contained Franklin’s lightning-rod and Jefferson’s commode, he’d have been in wonderland for a week.
We were just a party of six when we moved into the farm, but soon we were joined by Oliver’s wife, Martha, and J.B.’s daughter, Annie, who were to keep house for us and the recruits who arrived at intervals thereafter. The two girls were bright, cheery lasses in their late ’teens, and I should put your minds at rest at once by stating that I never had carnal designs on either; they weren’t my style or passable above half – and you don’t fool with the womenfolk of John Brown of Ossawatomie, believe me. Martha was a capital cook, and little Annie a sharp sentry; it was J.B.’s great dread that we’d arouse suspicion among the local people – for Americans are the nosiest folk on earth, prying into every newcomer’s business, trying to get sight of his furnishings and guess how much money he’s got (being neighbourly, they call it), and the arrival of six mysterious stalwarts was enough to set the countryside agog.
Later, when more recruits came in, little Annie had to be on the look-out constantly, crying warning and rebuffing visitors, for it would have been fatal if the gossips had learned there were a score of men in the house. I’ve seen a dozen of us at dinner having to lift the cloth at a moment’s notice and carry it off, dishes, scoff, and all, from the big common-room off the kitchen, up into the sleeping loft. And all because Mrs Huffmaster, a barefoot slattern with half a dozen snottering brats at her heels, “came a-callin’”, peeping round Annie on the porch to get a look inside, and remarking slyly “what a smart lot o’ shirts your men-folk has”, when we’d carelessly put all our washing out at once, and there were clothes for fifteen or twenty fluttering on the green.
These recruits came by twos and threes at intervals during the summer, but I’ll list ’em all together for convenience. At first I worried in case J.B. might assemble a formidable force, but twenty proved to be the full count, far too few for the business he had in mind, and only one or two first-class experienced men. Mostly they were Jerry Anderson over again: young, eager, sworn abolitionists full of tripe about liberty and black equality, and all under the spell of J.B., for most of them had been with him in Kansas or up north, and had dispersed after last year’s postponement.
The one formidable customer was Aaron Stevens, a big black-avised rascal who at thirty was the oldest; he’d served in Mexico, been sentenced to death for mutiny, broken out of Leavenworth, and fought the slavers in Kansas, where he’d been colonel of a militia troop. He and a fellow called Taylor, a Canadian, stuck together, for they were both spiritualists, and would prose away for hours about the beyond; Stevens was sane enough, but Taylor was next-door to a padded cell – he believed his dreams and would tell you cheerfully that he’d be dead by Christmas. He was, too.
Watson Brown was another of J.B.’s boys, tall and good-looking, with a dandy beard and a gentle manner; he’d left a wife and baby up north and was yearning to get back to them. Al Hazlett and Bill Leeman were wild young blades, forever sneaking out when J.B.’s back was turned to spark the local girls or get up to larks even down in Harper’s Ferry, but Leeman was a favourite because he’d shot it out beside the old man when the Ruffians drove them from Ossawatomie. And Charlie Tidd was an ugly young brute with a temper to match.
There were two sets of brothers, the Thompsons and the Coppocs, just raw youngsters, but all I remember of them is that Dauphin Thompson was a fair-haired cherub who blushed like a girl, Bill Thompson was a jolly soul with a great fund of stories, and Ed Coppoc was a sober youth with nursery manners who called me “sir”. And aside from Joe there were three or four blacks, but they joined late in the day, and the only ones of whom I have any image were Emperor Green, an eye-rolling yes-massa critter, and a middle-aged Scotch-mulatto with the astonishing name of Dangerous Newby.45
Those, then, were John Brown’s “pet lambs”, as I remember them – lively youths without much schooling, but fanatics to a man, and as I note them down, pictures of memory rise before me: Leeman, slim of face and figure, lolling with his feet on the table, cigar at a jaunty angle, talking big; Hazlett haw-hawing at Bill Thompson’s jokes; the three Brown brothers playing nap, Oliver’s fine profile and curly hair in the lamplight, Watson intent on his cards, Owen like a benign bullock; Jerry Anderson snapping checkers across the board, telling young Ed Coppoc he knew nothing about the game; the blacks muttering quietly in a corner, except for Joe, who often as not would be in the kitchen, listening to J.B. prosing away in his chair by the stove – the old man was always there of an evening because, he said, he didn’t like to damp the spirits of the young men by his presence in the common-room; Martha peeling potatoes for next day’s dinner, pushing the hair out of her eyes with a damp hand; Stevens and Taylor on the porch, discussing the hereafter; little Annie perched on her stool, keeping an eye on the distant road fadin
g into the dusk.
All gone now, every one, and I wonder if the Kennedy Farm is still there in peaceful Maryland, or if it has crumbled into a ruin of planks and shingles, overgrown in that lonely field, or perhaps there’s a new farm altogether, whose tenants wonder what those strange conspirators were like, so long ago.
I have another strong memory of J.B. conducting communal prayers night and morning, the great bearded head with its fine mane of greying hair thrown back, eyes closed while he exhorted God fit to shake the roof; or reading aloud some blood-and-thunder passage from the Old Testament. Often he would give us a brief sermon, usually on a text describing the destruction of the Amalekites or another of those unfortunate tribes who were forever being smitten hip and thigh. If you’d seen him then, in full cry, you’d have believed all the stories about his fanaticism, yet at other times he could be as jolly as Punch. We occasionally played games on the meadow before the house (with Annie keeping watch), baseball or Tom Tiddler, and I taught them football as played at Rugby in my time, with a bladder for a ball; they took to it like sailors to rum, charging and hacking in fine style, and J.B. roared and hurrah’d and laughed so much he had to sit down. He would sometimes wrestle with his sons, and beat Watson and Owen easily, but Oliver nothing could shift. I wrestled with J.B. once myself, at his invitation, thinking I’d best go easy on the old fellow, but it was like being wrapped in wire hawsers with a scrubbing brush buried in your neck, and he grassed me before I knew it.
Sometimes he cooked breakfast, to give Martha a rest, skilleting out the eggs and ham in his shirt-sleeves – that was the time I noticed his toes sticking out of his old boots, and on that same occasion he lost his temper: he’d brewed tea for all of us, Watson wanted coffee, words were exchanged, Watson sassed him, and J.B. suddenly blazed up and let drive a fist. Watson skipped away, they glared at each other, and then J.B. fairly bawled him to bits about duty and respect for elders and ungrateful children. Watson was on the verge of tears, but still came back at him, shouting: “The trouble is you want your sons to be brave as tigers, but still afraid of you!” J.B. glowered at him a full minute, and then took Watson’s head in the crook of his arm and held it against his breast, ruffling his hair and smiling, and damned if Watson didn’t start blubbing in earnest.
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