by A. A. Glynn
Through this swirling mass of bodies moved three men whose garb gave away their nationality as American. All three were tall and skinny, thin-faced and with hollow cheeks which suggested they had all endured periods of deprivation. They wore long black topcoats and black hats whose broad brims spoke of their New World origins. One had a limp which caused him to drag his toes along the ground.
It would strike any observer who was familiar with the details of the great war between the States, now nearly two years into history, that if this trio had served in it, they must have been with the defeated ill-fed and ill-equipped forces of the Southern Confederacy.
Such was indeed the case. Ex-Sergeant-Major Lewis Sadler; ex-Sergeant-Major Jefferson Dobbs and ex-Sergeant Ned Grandon were Georgians and a special breed of Georgian at that. They were “Georgia Crackers”, men who claimed they could trace their ancestry back to the earliest settlers in the State—some of whom were British convicts—when it was a British province. They had a reputation as great boasters but not every Georgian was happy with the title of Cracker because, to some, it signified a poor white class. Sadler, Dobbs and Grandon took pride in it for their regiment, nicknamed “Vavasour’s Georgia Crackers” distinguished itself trying to hold back the vastly superior force with which Union General William Tecumsah Sherman invaded Georgia, killing, burning and plundering. They were the only Georgia troops to stand up to Sherman; the others were withdrawn from facing his murderous progress but its commander defied military authority and, with inferior numbers, continued fighting.
This worked a reversal of fortune for the regiment. Hitherto and for most of the war, its commander, General Edmund Vavasour was known for his blunders and some had even handed him the dubious palm of the South’s most incompetent soldier.
Post war, when he saw the tit-for-tat reprisals that the Reconstruction policies of Union President Andrew Johnson and his South-hating colleagues in the Radical wing of the Republican Party unleashed in Georgia, retired General Vavasour devised his own plan for the future of the State to which he had a fierce devotion. He also founded a movement to support and further his plan. This gathered strong support in Britain where Georgia had well-wishers as well as manufacturers and merchants who had been involved in the risky wartime business of seeking profits by sending precious cargoes into the Confederate States, hopefully eluding the blockade of the Southern coast by the US Navy.
In the great shadowy post-Civil War conflict in Georgia, anyone might be shot at any time, often with flimsy justification, so Vavasour kept his movement strictly secret. Some word of it leaked out and many old Confederates laughed and said it looked as if old Vavasour was setting up another blunder. Men of his old command, however, rallied to him. Where once they reviled him, they now honoured him for ridding the regiment of its blundering reputation and for earning glory with the heroic but futile resistance to Sherman’s brutal invasion of their native State.
Sadler, Dobbs and Grandon were despatched to England to accomplish certain tasks for the General’s movement. They were to meet their supporters in London to clarify for them the aims of the movement; to firm up its establishment in England and to organise a regular system of communication between the English group and the headquarters in Georgia. They were also to investigate the possibilities of the English group finding supporters further afield, in Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
Using the trans-Atlantic cable, General Vavasour had already placed a notice, in one of the leading London papers, warning of the forthcoming initial meeting. It was couched in prearranged code. Further meetings would be arranged by the three visitors.
There was one task which the General declared was first, foremost and paramount. While in Liverpool, the three were to cross the Mersey to the Birkenhead home of a distinguished American who would give them a large, firmly sealed box. They were not to open it nor to examine it but guard it with their lives and bring it to the General.
As they walked through the waterfront crowd, they had just left the ferry from Birkenhead. Sadler and Dobbs looked disgruntled and worried. Both were similar types: tough and uncompromising in their views, though Sadler had a measure of thoughtful discretion that fitted him for a leadership role. Dobbs had a more mercurial streak in him. He was a hardy Cracker, well suited to the battlefield. A resort to firearms seemed to him the swiftest way to settle a grave difference.
Ned Grandon seemed not particularly concerned that the trio had failed in the task on which the General laid most emphasis. In fact, his two companions noted that, as usual, there was a temperamental gulf between themselves and Grandon. His mind seemed always to be on something concerning himself and not on the mission in hand.
They had just suffered a severe blow that appeared to have blighted that mission from the very start. Arrived in England only the day before, they spent the night in a dockland hotel, in reality little more than a mariners’ doss house and, the next morning, set out for Birkenhead and the box. They were ordered to take it with them to London, the next destination on their itinerary, then ultimately back to Georgia. However, their plans went badly awry when they met the distinguished exile at his Birkenhead home.
For he did not have the mysterious box. It was recently stolen in an audacious burglary.
The exile had no idea who had taken it and he stipulated that he must be obeyed. For his own good reasons, he did not want any word of the theft to leak out and reach the British authorities. The trio from Georgia now faced an acute dilemma; the box was stolen; they were required to go to London to further the General’s plans and they had been given only a limited amount of money to cover their operations in England. The General had insisted that bringing the box to Georgia was a major objective of their expedition to Europe. But could they be diverted into a search for it, which could eat into their limited finances when other duties ordered by the General were pressing? Each man had an issue of money and there was a fund of ready finance for general use. It was agreed that if need be, each man would contribute whatever remained of his allowance to the general funds.
Lewis Sadler, being the senior of the two Sergeants-Major, was designated leader of the trio. Almost since the start of this venture, he had been quietly observing the demeanour of ex-Sergeant Ned Grandon. There was no doubt of Grandon’s courage and devotion to duty during the war. In the regiment’s attempt to hold back Sherman’s savage progress through Georgia, he led his platoon by example. He took personal risks while, at the same time, he kept any hint of panic among the men dampened down and urged them to fight as an effective unit. Then, he was carried out of the thick of the action when a Yankee musket ball shattered his ankle, leaving him with a permanent limp.
Back home in post-war Georgia, he assisted the General in forming the defiant organisation which the controversial old warrior began to call “The League” and smacked of some old European brotherhood of patriots serving an heroic cause. He was, however, a changed man. Always with something on his mind, it seemed.
When it came to planning the expedition to Britain, Grandon positively pestered General Vavasour to be allowed to go with Sadler and Dobbs. The General felt the move called for only two men but allowed Grandon to go after he revealed something of his wandering life. As a boy, he had lived for time with a great uncle in London and still had a cousin there. Later, as a young seaman, he visited Liverpool several times and had some knowledge of the city.
As a travelling companion, Grandon proved less than desirable. Naturally morose, he seemed to become more so as their sea voyage proceeded. He was given to long spells of silence and hardly seemed at all interested in the business in hand. Even the news of the theft of the box failed to stir him where it brought forth colourful soldiers’ expletives from Sadler and Dobbs. The latter had the urge to go forth and shoot someone, but he did not know who. Grandon was notably quiet and almost unconcerned. It was almost as if Ned Grandon was following his own strictly secret agenda.
Sadler was grateful that Jefferson Dobbs, for all his impetuous character, was a stolid Georgia Cracker, keeping his wits about him and ready for whatever came next in this mission which, with the loss of the Birkenhead box, looked to be unravelling at its very start.
The trio shoved their way through the dockland crowd, heading for their hotel-cum-dosshouse where they could talk their problems over. Sadler and Dobbs had a faint hope that they might discover the thieving hands into which the box had fallen and retrieve it. Grandon shrugged and said whatever they tried would be all right by him. The trouble with this move was that it would mean spending more time in Liverpool where, originally, they planned to leave for London the day after they collected the box from Birkenhead.
At heart, Sadler and Dobbs knew that their faint hope really amounted to no hope. They knew that Liverpool, like any large seaport, must have a widespread underworld of assorted villainy, dealing in every class of crime. They also knew that if the box was lost in such a sinister morass of lawlessness, it was likely to stay lost. With Ned Grandon contributing nothing to the decision, it was decided to stay one more day in Liverpool to try to locate the box. But, to themselves, Sadler and Dobbs admitted that the decision was chiefly a face-saving device for when they appeared before the General in Georgia minus the box. They wanted to be able to give him the impression that they had made a lengthy search for it before giving up hope and moving on to London.
Why the General set such store by the box and whatever it contained was a mystery to them but when he spoke of it, he seemed to think of it as a Holy Grail which would bestow some kind of blessing on what he called “the Objective” meaning the end his “League” was set up to achieve. Lewis Sadler was painfully aware that failure to secure the stolen object General Vavasour desired so earnestly might be an omen and the expedition to England was doomed to end as another Vavasour blunder.
The trio returned to their lodging where Sadler and Dobbs discussed their chances of finding the box. Both knew it was merely a token exercise because they did not have an inkling as to where they should even begin. Again, Ned Grandon took no part in the discussion. He sat to one side, looking morose as ever and when Sadler sneaked a glance he looked positively shifty.
The following morning brought a shock.
The trio’s docklands resting place could justify its claim to be an hotel by having a set of cubby holes, not much better than cramped closets which were dignified by the name of “rooms” in which the guests slept. These imparted a measure of privacy.
Sailors’ doss houses usually accommodated their guests in large dormitory type rooms. These offered no privacy and, at night, were rendered anything but restful with unmusical snoring and coughing, all under a low-hanging pall of harsh tobacco smoke.
The following morning, after a sleep troubled by anxious dreams, centred on the loss of the Birkenhead box, Lewis Sadler stepped out of his cubby hole of a “room” expecting to find at least one of his companions already up. The plan was that the three would go downstairs together to the canteen-like room where breakfast was served.
Sadler found he was the only one up but a couple of minutes later, Jefferson Dobbs came out of his cramped resting place, yawning. It looked as if Ned Grandon was oversleeping so Sadler and Dobbs looked into his “room” then recoiled and looked at each other in bewilderment.
Grandon and all his baggage were gone.
‘Maybe he’s forgotten we’re staying an extra day and we’re going tomorrow,’ said Dobbs. ‘Maybe he’s packed his gear and taken it downstairs, ready to move off.’
Sadler remembered Grandon’s demeanour ever since they took ship for Liverpool and his brooding attitude of recent days.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I felt all along he was up to something—and now I know it.’
The two went downstairs where in the entrance hall, they found the proprietor of the establishment, a hefty, heavily bearded ex-mariner named Salty Sheldon, who looked as if he could give a good account of himself in a brawl in any waterfront dive from China to Peru. The air was thick with the odour of cooking issuing from the kitchen which Sheldon referred to as “the galley”.
‘Ah, gents, your mate left a short time ago. Said he was going on ahead of you.’ He had a harsh, nasal Merseyside accent. ‘He was up so early I thought he was out to shoot the moon—y’know, jump ship without paying his score—y’never know what some of the scallies that stay here will do next. But he was all right. Paid up right as rain when he’d had breakfast, picked up his cargo and shoved off.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’ asked Sadler.
Sheldon appeared slightly surprised.
‘No, I figured you were all bound for the same place and he’d just gone ahead of you but he did ask if the London train still left from Lime Street Station. Seems he knows something about Liverpool. I told him I thought so but I know more about ships than trains.’
Dobbs looked at Sadler excitedly. ‘Lime Street Station is not far,’ he said. ‘It’s just a short distance down Paradise Street. If we hurry, we might catch him before he gets on a train.’
Salty Sheldon moved quickly, putting his bulk between Dobbs and the street door. His pugnacious face was frowning and his hands were balled into outsize fists.
‘Not so fast,’ he growled. ‘I was too long before the mast to fall for this kind of Swell Mob dodge. You get your mate to leave all proper, then you make out he’s jumped ship and chase after him, leaving payment for your beds and breakfasts behind you. And I never see you again. Oh, sure, you’ve left your gear here but the whole cargo’ll turn out to be not worth a bean. Smart AIecky Yankee tricks won’t wash with me.’
‘Don’t call us Yankees’, hooted Dobbs angrily.
‘That’s not our game’, said Sadler. ‘We can’t go outdoors as we are. It’s too cold and our topcoats are upstairs. We’ll get them and we’ll pay you before we go out.’
He and Dobbs clattered up the uncovered wooden stairs, weaving their way between half a dozen newly awake fellow lodgers going down for breakfast. They came down again in their topcoats and hats and Sadler had a fistful of golden coins. Salty Sheldon was standing at the foot of the stairs. Sadler thrust the coins into his hand.
‘That’s probably more than we owe you but you can give us the change when we come back—and we will come back!’ he said, glowering at Sheldon.
Salty Sheldon looked mollified and, as the two rushed down the hall towards the street door, he called: ‘Listen, gents, I didn’t mean to—’
But Sadler and Dobbs, moving at top speed, were already out of the front door and running for Paradise Street. When they reached that link with the noisy and colourful world of the docklands it was busy with early morning traffic. Dockers, brawny and skinny, hastened towards the crowded masts of vessels being loaded or unloaded and bespectacled clerks from shipping offices hastened toward their desks. Heavily laden wagons, drawn by plodding, big-boned horses, conveyed cargoes of infinite variety bound for every quarter of the globe.
Sadler and Dobbs ran against this moving stream of humanity, animals and vehicles, dodging pedestrians and sometimes shoving them aside to make speedy progress which was accepted behaviour on a crowded Victorian street. All the time, they kept their eyes skinned for Ned Grandon’s characteristic, toe-dragging limp, but did not see it. Possibly, he had a greater start on them than they realised.
They left Paradise Street behind and were in Lime Street with the bulk of railway station’s building, modelled on a French chateau, in front of them. Lime Street, was one of Liverpool’s busiest thoroughfares and the two Georgians were panting and slowing in pace as they neared the station. They had few kindly thoughts for Salty Sheldon who had delayed their start with his quibbling and probably caused Grandon to gain the advantage over them.
By the time they reached the long flight of stone steps leading up to the entrance to the station, both felt
almost unable to continue running. Panting heavily and on leaden legs, they mounted the steps slowly. The great cavern of the station was noisy with hissing steam, the clanging and shunting of rolling stock and the hubbub of a mass of passengers moving in every direction. The pair threaded their way through the travellers with their eyes skinned but there was no sign of Ned Grandon among them.
‘Where does the London train go from?’ shouted Dobbs to the first porter he saw.
‘Platform Seven, up yonder, Skipper,’ answered the man.
They hurried to that platform and found its entrance barrier guarded by the customary ticket-collector. There was no train standing at the platform but in the far distance one was heading out of the gloom of the station into the wintery sunshine.
Sadler asked about the London train and the ticket-collector jerked his thumb at the one dwindling in the distance, leaving rags of smoke straggling behind it.
‘That’s her’, said the man. ‘You missed her by a minute and a half, lad.’
‘Did you see a man with a lame foot get aboard her?’ asked Sadler.
‘Yes, he was almost the last man aboard.’
Sadler grunted and Dobbs growled in frustration, each thinking how they might have caught up with Grandon but for Salty Sheldon delaying the start of their pursuit.
‘We have a regular talent for losing things,’ Dobbs said. ‘First the box in Birkenhead yesterday and Grandon here today. I’d give my eye teeth to know what game he’s playing. He was a sure enough damned cuss to get along with but I never figured on him running out on us that way.’
‘Nor I,’ Sadler said. ‘I watched him for some time. He seemed to support the General and his objective all the way but I couldn’t help feeling his mind was on something else all the time. When we nail him in London—and, by thunder, I’m determined that we shall—we’ll get to the bottom of his antics. He has a heap of money with him that really belongs to our common pot.’