I reckon he’d summed the old man up pretty well. J.B. was a natural tyrant, and his sons treated him as the Children of Israel served God, with terrified affection. Watson told me an astonishing story of how he’d punished them in childhood: he’d announce a number of strokes of his belt, say twelve, but he’d give them only six, and then they had to give him the other six. “’Twas the most awful punishment anyone could give a child,” says Watson. “Imagine, havin’ to lick your own father! I tell you, Josh, it near broke my heart. Say, didn’t it keep us good, though!”
It wouldn’t have kept this infant good; I’d have laced the old bugger till his arse fell off. But then, I never had any proper filial regard, and if you’d ever met my guv’nor you’d understand why.
While I remember, J.B. had a great way with animals; he knew horses and they knew him, and he could quiet a barking hound just by glancing at it. But the strangest thing was when a brace of wrens flew into the common-room where he was writing, fluttering about his head. When he went upstairs, they flew away, but later, when he was writing again, back they came to pester him. At last he went outside, and they flew ahead, twittering, to their nest in the brush – and there was the ugliest copperhead you ever saw, hissing and buzzing its tail. J.B. blew its head off with one shot – and when next he sat down to write, damned if the wrens didn’t bowl in, perching on his table, even hopping on to his sleeve, doing everything but shake his hand. “They know a friend when they see one,” says he, and for weeks afterwards, when he was writing, the wrens would look in to pass the time with him.
Another critter whose regard for J.B. piqued my interest as the weeks went by was … Joe. In all our time at the farm I doubt if he ever strayed ten yards from me, but he played it well, and no one ever suspected he was my watchdog, ready to bite. He was at pains to conceal his intelligence and schooling, too, taking the silent dignified line, but always showing willing – he was the keenest hand in our football games, scrimmaging with the best of them – and was pretty well liked, especially by J.B. What intrigued me was that Joe seemed equally taken with the old man; I’ve told you how he’d listen to J.B.’s gassing in the kitchen of an evening, and in the talks where we all sat round debating half-baked philosophy and how society ought to be put right, or religion and military tactics, and J.B. started laying down the law, I’d catch Joe watching him with a strange, intense look in those awful bloodshot eyes. And when J.B. got on his slavery hobby-horse, as he always did, Joe would sit back with his lids half-closed, and I would wonder what was going on in that shrewd black mind.
* * *
a Now West Virginia (see town map.)
Chapter 16
The arms arrived in August, fifteen cases of Sharps rifles and the revolvers. Owen Brown had been our teamster in the early weeks, driving the wagon up to Chambersburg to take letters to Kagi, and to pick up supplies discreetly in villages along the route; now Joe and I went with him to collect the arms, and while Joe and Owen stowed them in the wagon, Kagi drew me aside, looking grave.
“This plan of yours,” says he. “I’ll allow it’s sound – but you’re counting on a hundred men! Joshua, I don’t see us raising half that number!”
I asked, what about the free blacks in Canada, who were supposed to be in a great sweat to join us, and he grunted.
“Junior’s up there now – you may guess how many he’ll raise! Oh, I should have gone myself, instead of wasting my time here, being a postmaster! And no sign of funds coming in, either; you’ll be out of food shortly, and the boys daren’t look for work down yonder.” He shrugged angrily, then brightened again. “Still there’s hope yet, for money and men – you know J.B. is coming up here to meet Frederick Douglass next week?”
Even I had heard of Douglass, the greatest black man in America, an escaped slave who moved in the highest circles, published his own newspaper, lectured all over, even in Europe, and was the nearest thing to a black messiah since Toussaint l’Ouverture.
“J.B. hopes to persuade him to join the raid,” says Kagi. “Oh, if he but could – why, it would change our fortunes at a stroke! Every black in America and Canada would flock to him … well, enough, anyway! The trouble is, he’s always declared against violence, blast it! We must just see what J.B. can do with him.”
This was the worst news I’d heard in months. Suppose this infernal nigger did throw in with Brown, and brought even fifty with him? The old buzzard would be into Harper’s Ferry like a shot – and where would poor Flashy be then? Skipping for the timber, that was where … with the likes of Joe Simmons looking to put a bullet in my back. But, steady on – Douglass most likely wouldn’t come to scratch, and all would be well. One thing was sure: when J.B. met him at Chambersburg, I was going to be on hand.
Luckily, J.B. was all for it, saying it was right and useful that Douglass should meet “our strategian”, as he called me, and when Joe, inevitably, asked to come along, he agreed right off; it would be good for Douglass to see such a fine upstanding man of colour in the forefront of the cause, he said.
The meeting took place in great secrecy, because J.B.’s fears of betrayal were mounting by the day, what with neighbours prying and our young men behaving carelessly, showing themselves about the farm and writing indiscreet letters to wives and sweethearts, making no secret of what was afoot. I remember Leeman reading aloud an effusion to his mother, about “our secret association of as gallant fellows as ever pulled trigger”, and how we were soon going to “exterminate slavery”, and J.B. overheard him and pitched right in.
“It isn’t enough that folk come spying about us, stopping us on the road, demanding to know our business – you have to write this kind of foolishness, too! Think of the burden of secrecy you put on your mother! And the rest of you, writing to girls, and special friends, telling of our location and all our matters! We might as well get it published in the New York Herald and be done with it! Now, drop it, d’you hear?” He scorched them with a look, and stumped off, and Leeman rolled his eyes and told Dauphin Thompson that he’d better mind what he wrote to those saucy little snappers of his; the infant blushed like a beetroot.
So we stole into Chambersburg by night, J.B. and Joe in the wagon, myself on the mule, and lay up in a deserted quarry. The old man was more nervous than I’d ever seen him, probably because he was in such a sweat to enlist Douglass – and I nearly caught a bullet as a result. It was around dawn that Joe and I heard someone coming, and when Joe shook J.B. awake, damned if he didn’t come to with his Colt in his fist, loosing off a shot that blew splinters from the rock beside my head. It shook the old fool as much as it did me, and he was fairly twitching by the time Kagi hove in view, with Douglass and a young nigger in tow.
Douglass was one of those mulattos who are more white than black; but for the wiry hair he might have been Spanish or Italian, and I found myself reflecting yet again on the oddity that the smallest visible touch of the tar-brush in a white man makes him “black”, but a trace of European in a negro don’t make him “white”. Douglass was altogether white in speech and style, but I doubt if he knew it or cared; he had a fine sense of his own dignity, which would have irked me whatever colour he was, but while he talked down his fine straight nose at least he had none of the resentful spite or childish airs that had made George Randolph such a confounded bore.46
It soon became plain that he was far too level-headed to be swayed by J.B.’s nonsense, or to beat about the bush. He listened soberly while the old man told him that the die was cast, it was Virginia or bust, and what did Douglass think of that? Douglass told him, straight, that it was not only wrong, and crazy, but downright wicked: it was an attack on the U.S.A., it would rouse the country against the abolitionists, do untold harm to their cause, and be fatal not only to Brown and his gang but to every slave who was fool enough to run off and join the rebellion. I wanted to cry hear, hear, and wondered why none of Brown’s supporters had had the spirit to say it to him long ago.
J.B. said he didn’t c
are two cents if the country was roused; it needed rousing. And Douglass couldn’t conceive what the taking of Harper’s Ferry would mean – why, it would be a sign to the slaves that deliverance was at hand, they would burst their chains and rally to his banner in thousands, not only in Virginia but throughout all Israel, amen! He was in his best raving style, pacing about the quarry, arms flailing and eyes flashing, while Douglass waited stern-faced for him to run out of wind. When he did, Douglass asked me to describe the men and means at our disposal.
It was my chance, and I took it, telling the simple truth without opinion, while J.B. stood nodding triumphantly as though to say: “There – you see!” Douglass sat back against the rock and looked up at him.
“I can’t debate the cause with you, John; I’m no match for you in such matters. But from what your comrade tells me of the place, and all you’ve said, I’m convinced you are going into a perfect steel trap. You’ll never get out alive, you’ll be surrounded with no hope of escape –”
“If we’re surrounded we’ll find means to cut our way out!” cries J.B. “But it won’t come to that – we’ll have the leading men of the district prisoners from the start! With such hostages we can dictate our terms, don’t you see?”
Douglass stared in disbelief. “You can’t think it! Why, man, Virginia will blow you and your hostages sky-high rather than let you hold Harper’s Ferry an hour!” He turned to me. “Is that not so, Mr Comber? You are a soldier, I believe –”
“He’s a sailor!” roars J.B. “Oh, can you not see, Douglass, that even if we were destroyed altogether, we should have won the victory? The fire would have been kindled, the flag unfurled, the nation shaken from its slumber …”
And so on, ranting and pleading by turns, while Douglass exclaimed in anger or shook his head in despair. They argued back and forth for hours, J.B. insisting on a sudden war-like stroke, Douglass trying to persuade him that if he must go south he should do it gradually, helping slaves to escape to havens in the hills and so building a resistance that couldn’t be ignored. They left off only at dusk, agreeing to meet again next day, and when we parted Douglass stepped aside to shake my hand.
“You are English, are you not? Well, sir, I must tell you that your country is dear to me beyond all others, for it gave me sanctuary from my enemies here. Indeed,” says he, looking stuffed, “I owe my name to Scotland, and my liberty to England. ‘Douglass’ I borrowed from ‘The Lady of the Lake’, and English friends purchased my freedom.” He sighed, with a wry smile. “Ironic, is it not? America cast off a royal tyranny to found a free republic, yet it was the land of royal tyranny that bought my liberty from the free republic which had stolen it.”
“Ah, well,” says I, “always happy to oblige, don’t ye know.” It sounded a bit lame, so I added: “Cost a bit o’ brass, did it?”
He blinked. “Seven hundred and ten dollars,” says he, rather stiff. “And ninety-six cents.”
“Bless my soul!” says I. “Well, there it is. Easy come, easy go, what?”
He gave me an odd look, and a brief good-night, and steered clear of me when the meeting resumed next day. He and J.B. were still altogether at odds, and when the old man begged him to join the raid, Douglass refused point-blank; much as he loved and respected J.B., his conscience wouldn’t let him. Aye, thinks I, we’ve heard that tale before. Still J.B. wouldn’t let up, putting his arm round his shoulders and breathing zeal.
“Come with me, Douglass!” cries he. “I will defend you with my life! I need you, my friend, for when I strike, the bees will start to swarm, and I shall want you to help hive them! Oh, think what it will mean to them if you, of all black men, aye, with the stripes of the lash upon you, are there to greet them sword in hand amidst the smoke of battle!”
That’s the way to drum up recruits, thinks I. Douglass, sensible chap, wouldn’t have it, but he told the young darkie he might go along if he liked, and to our surprise the fellow, Emperor Green, snuffled and muttered: “Ah guess Ah’ll go wid de ole man.” He looked as though he’d sooner have gone to China, but I suspect that word of J.B.’s plan had spread among the wealthier free blacks, and they were eager to have as many coloureds in the business as possible, so poor old Emperor may just have been doing what he was told.
It was a fine cheery trip back to the farm, I don’t think, with J.B. deep in the dumps; he’d been so sure he could persuade Douglass, and all he’d got was a complete damper and one run-down nigger. To make matters worse (or rather better), we soon had word from Kagi that John junior had made nothing of the Canadian blacks, and that various white men on whom J.B. had been relying weren’t coming – some wanted a definite date, others wanted to get the harvest in, or didn’t fancy Virginia, and one had decided to study law instead. But the worst blow of all to J.B. was when two of his sons, Salmon and Jason, who were up north, wrote that they weren’t joining. Salmon was quite brutal about it, saying that he knew the old man, and he would just dally until he was trapped.
So there it was, as autumn advanced: no more men, no more money, J.B. in the sullen frets and growling about betrayal, our situation at the farm growing more precarious by the day, and the young men restless and writing ever longer letters home – I couldn’t have wished for a better state of affairs, and looked forward to the enterprise being abandoned any day.
It was interesting to watch the nerves starting to fray with the uncertainty. It’s always the way: men facing a definite task, however desperate, are manageable, but give ’em a leader who can’t make up his mind and they go all to bits. Quarrels became more frequent, Bill Thompson ran out of jokes, Leeman and Hazlett no longer got up to larks, and for the first time I heard murmurs that the raid should be given up, that it was madness with no more men coming in, and Harper’s Ferry would prove a death-trap. The youngsters, who’d been so full of ginger a month before, were looking uneasy, Watson Brown confided to me that he wanted nothing but to be home with his wife and baby, and even Oliver, the coolest of hands, wore a tired frown on his handsome face – I’d seen dried tears on Martha’s cheeks, and knew she’d been trying to talk him out of it.
To add to the gloom, she and Annie went back north in September, but one who wasn’t missed was J.B. himself on the occasions when he went up to Chambersburg to confer with Kagi. He was at his wit’s end for funds, and bit the heads off Leeman and Tidd just for lighting cigars, crying that if he had half the money that was wasted on smoking, he could have outfitted an army. Leeman threw down his weed in a temper, and Tidd flung out of the house, saying he’d had enough. He came back, though, after three days spent croaking to Cook down at the Ferry. Meanwhile J.B. was off to Chambersburg again, and the general feeling was that he could stay there, and the rest of us could go home.
No such luck. He drove up next day, bringing the famous thousand pikes with him, and tried to make it an occasion for rejoicing, saying here was proof that our friends had not forgotten us, but the mere sight of that great heap of lumber and metal lying in the yard sent everyone’s spirits into their boots. He drove us to work fitting the pike heads and stowing them in the loft, and then had Stevens call a drill parade; we’d been getting slack in his absence, he said, and must brisk up directly, for the time was coming when we must prove ourselves in earnest.
“Sure, next summer, maybe,” mutters Jerry Anderson, and Bill Thompson cried no, no, we mustn’t be in such a rush, 1869 would be soon enough, if we weren’t all dead of boredom by then. The niggers haw-hawed at this, but Joe rounded on them, telling them to mind what they were about, and fall in like the captain said. Stevens marched ’em up and down for an hour, while I watched from the veranda (chiefs of staff don’t drill, you see), and a more ill-natured parade I never saw. Now’s your time, Flash, says I to myself, and when they’d fallen out and eaten supper in sullen silence, I joined Stevens, who was having a brood to himself in the yard.
“Aaron,” says I, mighty earnest, “I’d value your opinion. This plan of mine … I’ve done it as best I k
now how, J.B. is all for it, and so, I believe, is Kagi – but you’re the only real soldier in this outfit.” I looked him in the eye. “Straight, now – what d’ye think of it?”
“Well, it’s a real fine plan, I guess,” says he, in his slow way. “For a full company of soldiers. For our poor few …” He shrugged his big shoulders. “I reckon Harper’s Ferry could be a right pretty place to die.”
I nodded solemnly. “So think I. Well, my life don’t matter.” God, the things I’ve said. “And I know you don’t count yours – like me, you feel it’s a small price to pay for the cause. But …” I paused, a noble soul troubled “… what of the younger men – and the blacks? Is it right that they should be sacrificed? You see my plight, old fellow – it’s my plan that is dooming them … their deaths will lie to my account … ah, that’s what burdens my spirit!”
This kind of soul-lashing was small talk at Kennedy Farm that summer, and meat and drink to mystic idiots like him. I knew I’d hit pay-dirt when I saw his jaw tighten; he shook his head sternly.
“Everyone counted the cost before he came,” says he. “They’ll give their lives gladly – after all, there is a better life beyond, and the door is always open. To pass through is but a small step,” continues the great loony, “and if in passing it falls to us to do a noble thing, then who shall mind a moment’s affliction, knowing that in death lies victory, not only for us but for the thousands enslaved and oppressed?”
“God bless you, old fellow!” cries I, and wrung his hand. “Gad, but you put it well! You’ve lifted a weight from my mind, I can tell you!” I hesitated. “See here, Aaron, will you do something for me?”
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