He raised his head and looked about him again, eyes bright and far away, and just the glimmer of a smile on the old face. “It doesn’t end here,” says he. “It begins.”
They left us alone all night, and you may well wonder why. There were more than a thousand men ringed about that dingy building by the armoury gates, besieging half a dozen; very well, most of ’em were green militia and drunken louts, but there were near a hundred of America’s crack regiment, too, the vaunted Leathernecks from the Halls of Montezuma – why the devil didn’t they walk in on our pathetic rabble then and there? I’ve heard it asked since (at a safe distance) by the usual valiant know-alls, and the answer is because my old chief Robert Lee knew his business, that’s why, and wasn’t about to waste lives, and risk the hostages, by brawling in the dark when he could wait until daylight – and until the spirits of those in the engine-house were that much lower, and possibly open to reason.
So he waited, canny, imperturbable Lee, and if that long cold night did nothing to weaken the resolve of the idiot-in-chief of our ridiculous garrison, it played havoc with the yellow belly of the chief-of-staff, cowering in his corner in despair. I’m not at my best wounded and in the dark, with corpses at my feet, and not even a ray of hope visible – for I’d quite given up the notion of making myself known to old Washington: I doubted if he’d believe me, he never came within whispering distance anyway, and I didn’t dare try to attract his attention, what with J.B. prowling about armed to the teeth, and Joe turning every now and then to view my recumbent form with scowling suspicion.
I’d half-expected him to be at my throat over my desertion at the Wager House, but of course he wasn’t. There was nothing he could say or do, however much he mistrusted me; we were both sailing under false colours with J.B., and he couldn’t expose me without exposing himself. But I can’t pretend to know what was passing in that strange black mind. I knew that from having been a loyal agent of the Kuklos, and devoted to Atropos, he’d apparently found his Road to Damascus in the months at Kennedy Farm, and become a worshipper of J.B. and a fervent enemy of slavery – or at least so he said, and the glimpse I’d had of him during the retreat to the engine-house bore him out, for he’d been fighting like a Ghazi, blasting away and damning the militia. Well, I’ve known stranger changes of heart, and I’d seen enough of J.B. to know the kind of spell he could cast; Joe might be educated, but he had all the black’s deep-seated hatred of the white race, and I guess J.B. had given him a different slant on his slave condition. Again, he may simply have been as mad as a hatter; many people are, you know.
He was certainly in the grip of some kind of brainstorm on that last night in the engine-house. Violent action does that to some folk; faced with death, they lose all sense of habit and ingrained conduct, and their primitive nature, hidden under years of custom and training, comes raging out – why, even I, in extremity, have been moved to belligerence against chaps bigger than I am, and run risks that I go weak to think of afterwards. Mind you, in my case the madness don’t last above a split second.
Not with Joe; his derangement was permanent, and it took the oddest form – a growing anger against J.B. If that astonishes you (and it did me) I can only illustrate it by telling you what I heard passing between them in the long watches of that awful night.
I never slept, you see, what with distress of mind and body, and there was nothing to do but lie and quake in the dark – for the lamp burned out after an hour, leaving us in pitch black, so no one moved about much: Old Washington came round to talk with J.B. at one time, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying: it wasn’t a quarrel though, for their voices never rose. I heard Jerry Anderson and Emperor Green croaking that they’d never understood that what they were doing was treason (a fine time to realise the error of their ways, you may think); Jerry shut up after a while, but the nigger crawled under one of the engines and sobbed his soul out, calling himself a pore blind fool, and railing against J.B. and Douglass who had brought him to this mis’able end, an’ he hadn’t wanted to do hurt to nobody, or free any niggers, ’cos he was jes’ a plain pore nigger hisself, an’ oh Lawd ha’ mussy on an unhappy sinner.
His cries made a doleful chorus with the groans and pleas of young Oliver, who was delirious most of the time, but would wake now and then with a scream, and his agony was terrible to hear. When he fell silent, J.B. called his name a couple of times, and then I heard him say, “I guess he’s dead.”
It was after this that Joe pitched in his two penn’orth; I may have dozed, for I was suddenly aware that he was nearby, whispering angrily, and J.B. was snapping back at him: indeed, the first words I heard were J.B. growling to him to keep his place and mind who he was talking to.
“Min’ ma place! An’ whut place is that, hey?” That was when I realised we had a new Joe on our hands: he’d never have dreamed of taking that tone with J.B. at the farm. “Ah’ll tell yuh, John Brown – it’s right heah, waitin’ to git kilt, when Ah should ha’ bin in the hills this minute! That’s wheah ma place should ha’ been!”
“You forget yourself, Joseph!” J.B. sounded more shocked than angry. “Get to your post, my boy, and no more of this!”
“Ah ain’t forgettin’ nothin’! You the one that’s forgettin’ – how we was goin’ to free the niggers and make an army in the hills! Wheah is they – all them slaves you was goin’ to free, that was goin’ to come in to us? You nevah looked near ’em – you didn’t try to rouse ’em! All you roused wuz hostages – an’ that dam’ toy sword you wearin’! Call this a rebellion? – gittin’ ou’selves caged in heah like dam’ runaways in a bottom, gittin’ shot down –”
“Hold your tongue!” barks J.B. “You dare raise your voice to me – are you mad? Or in fear of your life –”
“Ain’t feared o’ nothin’! ’Tis a lie – an’ not th’only one you tol’, neethah! You say we wuz goin’ clear out th’arsenal, an’ hightail! Well, you didn’t! Jes’ set heah, doin’ nothin’ – an’ Stevens tellin’ yuh to git out, an’ Kagi sendin’ messages, an’ you di’nt pay no heed, an’ they gits theyselves kilt ’cos o’ yo’ foolin’ an’ playin’ wi’ yo’ dam’ sword’n pistols!” J.B. was making outraged noises, but Joe swept on: “Whyn’t you git while we cud? Even that rat Comber had tole you we dassn’t stay heah! Why, you goddam ole fool, you destroyed us! An’ wuss – you betrayed us, an’ the coloured folks an’ all, with yo’ fine talk an’ promises, an’ gittin’ us trapped an’ all git kilt, ’cos high’n mighty John Brown ain’t got the brains of a buzzard! An’ didn’t need to – cud ha’ been in the hills right now, rousin’ the niggers to tear up you white slavin’ bastards if you’d jes’ listened –”
The oily double click of a Colt hammer stopped him dead, and I knew J.B. was covering him.
“Get to your post, Joe.” His voice was firm, but almost gentle. “I might shoot you for mutiny, but you are not in your right mind, so I have not heard you. Now – go!”
There was a long moment in which I held my breath in sudden excitement – for J.B. didn’t know what he was dealing with, the blinding speed with which Joe could unlimber and fire … suppose he blew the old man to blazes, we might win clear yet, arrange a surrender – no, Joe himself would never allow that, he’d likely try to shoot his way clear …
“Go!” says J.B. again, while I strained my eyes uselessly against the darkness – and then there was the shuffle of the straw as Joe turned away and went to the open doorway; I saw his outline for a moment against the night sky glowing faintly with the torches of the besiegers, then he crouched down in the shadow. I could picture the black face contorted with anger, glaring out into the night – who’d have thought it, eh? Joe, of all people, to tell J.B. the truth to his face. Much good it would do now – Oh, lord, why hadn’t I lain doggo in the hotel loft instead of barging about like a headless fowl? I might have been snug and warm and larruping Mrs Popplewell this minute. Why hadn’t I bolted from the farm, or jumped out of the train to Hagerstown, or dived do
wn an alley in New York? Why, for that matter, had I let myself be lured into that Washington hotel by the designing dwarf Mandeville, and gone like a lustful lamb to the slaughter with Spring’s diabolical daughter, or slavered after that dough-faced heifer in Calcutta? That had been less than a year ago, and here I was like a rat in a pit awaiting the terriers … and around me the blackness was fading to grey, figures and objects were coming into view in the dim interior of the engine-house, and in the distance a cock was crowing.
There was a stirring in the surrounding host, a whistle blowing, shouts of command, and the clatter of equipment; the militia were standing to. A kettle drum began to beat in a sharp staccato roll followed by the tramp of marching feet; Washington stood up beyond the engines, listening with his grey head to one side, signing to the other hostages to be still. J.B. was already on his feet; he put down his Sharps, carefully examined the cylinder of his pistol, and finally drew Frederick’s sword with a slow grating noise that had every head turning towards him.
“Stand to your arms, men,” says he. “Be ready for a sudden rush.”
I picked up the pistol he’d given me, and checked the loads with trembling fingers. God alone knew what I was going to do with it, but I wanted it ready – God knew what I was going to do about anything, if it came to that … wait, and fight back my fear, and hope for some miracle. I eased myself up against the wall, moving my wounded leg. I’d flexed and tested it in the darkness, and knew it would bear my weight; the flesh around the bloody pock caused by the slug was one great black bruise, and it ached abominably, but that mattered less than the stiffness in my joints. Could I run if need be? I hauled myself up by the wall, leaned on the limb, and almost came a cropper – Jesus, I’d be lucky if I could manage a hobble!
I clung to the rough brick for support, the sweat running off me, for all that it was bitter cold. J.B. glanced round and saw me; for a second he seemed puzzled, then he gave me a grim approving nod; faithful to the last, he’d be thinking …
“Someone comin’, cap’n!” Jerry Anderson was at a loophole, shrill with excitement. “Two officers – an’ they ain’t armed! Oh, cap’n, don’t shoot ’em – we don’t want to fight no more!”
Chapter 20
I was lurching along the wall before the words were well out of his mouth, clinging to the brickwork like a stricken lizard and praying that my leg wouldn’t betray me, for the news he’d shouted could mean only one thing – another parley before the storm, and I was going to be in on it, if I had to crawl every inch of the way. Pain stabbed through my knee, and I’d have fallen if I hadn’t wrenched Jerry’s carbine from his hand and thrust it into the ground as a crutch. It was too short by half, and I tottered there like Long John Silver in drink, roaring for assistance, until Emperor, who’d emerged from under the engine where he’d been weeping, gave me a shoulder. J.B. was already at the doorway, cocking his rifle, motioning Joe to stand aside, when I arrived at a stumbling run, grabbing at the closed side of the door. J.B. shot me a startled look, so I gave him a glaring grin, a hand on the Colt in my waistband, to let him see I was at his side, ready to sell my life dearly; he said nothing, and we both turned our eyes to the crack of the door.
Two men were walking towards us, a tall, black-avised fellow striding like a guardsman, and a smaller chap in the dark-and-light blue of the U.S. Marines. But what took my eye was the dense throng of people watching, hardly more than a long stone’s throw away – there were hundreds of ’em, among the armoury sheds and outside the gates on the open ground towards the railroad tracks, militia mostly, but many townsmen, and women and children, too, all spellbound in a strange silence broken only by the steady tread of the two approaching officers.
They stopped about twenty yards off, conferring, then the Marine turned and marched back, and the big fellow came on alone, more slowly. He wore what looked like a cavalry cloak and uniform cap, an erect soldierly figure, and I was wondering where I’d seen him before when it dawned: he was devilish like me. Not a double, perhaps, and lacking a couple of inches of my height, but like enough, what with his handsome head, broad shoulders, and damn-you-m’lad carriage. He walked up to the door, and J.B. shoved out his carbine and demanded his business.
“James Stuart, lieutenant, First Cavalry,” says he, in a pleasant Southern voice. “Am I addressing Mr Smith?”
J.B. pushed the door wider, and Stuart surveyed him a moment with keen blue eyes (mine are brown, by the way) before glancing briefly at me, propped panting against the timber and looking like the last survivor of Fort Despair, I don’t doubt. He pulled a paper from his breast and offered it to J.B.
“I have a communication from my superiors, Colonel Lee, commanding the troops … and Mr Messervy of the Treasury Department,” he added, his eyes averted from me – and as I caught his slight emphasis on the second name, and realised what it meant, I almost cried out – he knew who I was, and was letting me know it! Of course, he must have had my description from Messervy himself, and had recognised me under all the blood and filth, the alert resourceful subaltern – I was to form a good opinion of Jeb Stuart in later years, but I never held him in higher esteem than at that moment. For whatever happened now, even if J.B. refused to chuck in the towel and it came to a final storming party, the attackers would be looking out for me, and I’d be immune, and safe, at last … Even as Stuart, at J.B.’s request, began to read the letter aloud, I was warily scanning the distant spectators – the militia, the Marines, a group of officers apart, a regimental-looking buffer in civilian duds astride a horse by the trees (Lee himself, as it turned out), and, sure enough, a tall, graceful figure pacing leisurely to and fro by his stirrup: Messervy, all careless elegance at six in the morning.
People were crowding behind us to hear the message – Washington, a couple of other hostages, Jerry, and Joe absolutely breathing down my neck. It was a plain demand for surrender, promising that we’d be held pending orders from President Buchanan, but that if we resisted, Lee couldn’t answer for our safety. J.B. listened in grim silence, and if you’d been there, and seen that huge crowd hemming us in, and the militia standing to their arms, and out before them the navy frocks and sky-blue pants and white belts of the Marines drawn up at attention … well, you’d have known he must give in at last. But damme if he didn’t come straight back at Stuart with his own impudent demand that we be allowed to march out unmolested, and given time to get clear away. Stuart said politely that there could be no terms but Lee’s – and still the stubborn jackass went at him, sounding ever so calm and reasonable, never raising his voice, but keeping his carbine trained on Stuart’s midriff and refusing to budge: let us go, or we’d fight to the end.
How long these futile exchanges lasted, I don’t know – Jeb said later that it was a long parley – but they became quite heated, with Washington and his friends joining in, begging Stuart to bring Lee in person, Stuart shaking his head, Jerry protesting that he hadn’t known it was treason, Joe grunting most alarmingly in my ear, and J.B. prosing away blandly as though he were passing the time of day with a fellow-idler on a street corner. At one point he asked if he and the lieutenant hadn’t met before, and Jeb smiled and said, yes, when his cavalry had dispersed J.B.’s riders after some scrimmage on the Santa Fe Trail three years before. “You were Ossawatomie Brown in those days,” says he, and J.B. said solemnly that he was glad to see that Jeb was well and prospering in the service.
“You behaved with great good sense on that occasion,” says Stuart. “Will you not do the same now, and spare many lives?”
“My life is a small thing,” says J.B. “I am not afraid to lose it.”
“I dare say not,” says Stuart. “It may be forfeit sooner than you think.”
“That is all one to me,” says J.B.
“Well, I’m sorry,” says Stuart. “But if you are determined, and there is no more to be said …”
There he paused, and all of a sudden there was that electric feeling in the air that comes in moments
of crisis. J.B. sensed it, his hand tightened on his carbine stock, and imperceptibly Stuart shifted his weight from his heels to his toes. He hadn’t looked at me since that first glance, but now he did, without any expression at all, and then his eyes travelled to the Colt at my waist and back to my face again before returning to J.B., all in a couple of seconds, while J.B. waited for him to finish his sentence, and Stuart waited … for me? I could hear Messervy’s voice in that Washington office, clear as a bell: “John Brown must die somewhere along the road … for the sake of this country, and tens of thousands of American lives, he must not survive for martyrdom …”
Stuart glanced at me again – and I’ve no wish to impute anything to a chivalrous Southern gentleman, but if his look wasn’t saying: “Mr Messervy’s compliments, and if you’ll be good enough to shoot the old bastard on the spot, and roll out of harm’s way, he’ll be much obliged to you”, then I’ve never seen an unspoken invitation in my life.
He didn’t have a hope. Not my style at all – especially not in the immediate presence of a highly unpredictable coloured gentleman who was one of the fastest guns I’d ever seen and had been itching to give me lead poisoning for months. I’ve often wondered how Joe, in his excited condition, would have reacted to the assassination of his erstwhile hero, but I’d no intention of finding out; I let my right hand fall loose at my side – and what happened next is history.
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