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Source ISBN: 9780007217199
Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007449514
Version 2013–09–17
FLASHMAN AND THE ANGEL OF THE LORD
From The Flashman Papers, 1858–59
Edited and Arranged by
GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER
Dedication
For Kath, ten times over
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Explanatory Note
Map
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Appendix I: Flashman and John Brown
Appendix II: The Harper’s Ferry Mystery
Appendix III: John Brown’s Men
Notes
Copyright
Explanatory Note
Of all the roles played by Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., in the course of his distinguished and deplorable career, that of crusader must seem the least likely. The nine volumes of his Papers which have been presented to the public since their discovery in a Midlands saleroom in 1966, make a scandalous catalogue in which there is little trace of decent feeling, let alone altruism. From the day of his expulsion from Rugby School in the late 1830s (memorably described in Tom Brown’s Schooldays), Flashman the man fulfilled the disgraceful promise of Flashman the boy; the toadying bounder and bully matured into the cowardly profligate and scoundrel who, by chance and shameless opportunism, became one of the most renowned heroes of the Victorian age, unwilling leader of the Light Brigade, fleeing survivor of Afghanistan and Little Big Horn, tarnished paladin of Crimea and the Mutiny, and cringing chronicler of many another conflict, disaster, and intrigue in which he bore an inglorious but seldom unprofitable part.
So it is with initial disbelief that one finds him, in this tenth volume of his memoirs, not only involved but taking a lead in an enterprise which, if hopeless and misguided, still shines with the lustre of heroic self-sacrifice and occupies an honoured niche in the pantheon of freedom. John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry was a dreadful folly which ended in bloody and inevitable failure and helped to bring on the most catastrophic of all civil wars, yet its aim was a great and worthy one; the road to hell was never paved with nobler intentions. Needless to say, they were not Flashman’s. He came to Harper’s Ferry with the utmost reluctance, through the malice of old enemies and the delusions of old friends, and behaved with characteristic perfidy in every way but one: his eye for events and people was as clear and scrupulous as ever, and it may be that his narrative casts a new and unexpected light on a critical moment in American history, and on notable figures of the ante-bellum years – among them the President Who Never Was, a legendary detective and secret agent, and the strange, terrible, simple visionary, known to the world only by a name and a song, who set out to destroy slavery with twenty men and forty rounds apiece.
It is an amazing story, even for Flashman, but my confidence in that honesty which he brought to his writing (if to nothing else) seems to be justified by the exactness with which his account fits the known facts. As with previous packets of the Papers, I have observed the wishes of their custodian, Mr Paget Morrison, and confined myself to amending the author’s spelling and providing footnotes and appendices.
G.M.F.
Map
Chapter 1
As I sat by the lake at Gandamack t’other day, sipping my late afternoon brandy in the sun, damning the great-grandchildren for pestering the ducks, and reflecting on the wigging I’d get from Elspeth when I took them in to tea covered in dirt and toffee, there was a brass band playing on a gramophone up at the house, a distant drowsy thumping that drifted down the lawn and under the trees. I guess I must have hummed along or waved my flask to the old familiar march, for presently the villain Augustus (a frightful handle to fix on a decent enough urchin, but no work of mine) detached himself from the waterweed and came to stand snottering before me with his head on one side, thoughtful-like.
“I say, Great-gran’papa,” says he, “that’s Gory Halooyah.”
“So it is, young gallows,” says I, “and Gory Halooyah is what you’ll catch when Great-grandmama sees the state of you. Where the devil’s your other shoe?”
“Sunk,” says he, and gave tongue: “‘Jombrown’s body lies a-moulderin’ inna grave, Jombrown’s body lies –’”
“Oh! Gweat-gwampapa said a wicked word!” squeals virtuous Jemima, a true Flashman, as beautiful as she is obnoxious. “I heard him! He said ‘d—I’!” She pronounced it “d’l”. “Gweat-gwanmama says people who say such fings go to the bad fire!” Bad fire, indeed – my genteel Elspeth has never forgotten the more nauseating euphemisms of her native Paisley.
“He shan’t, so there!” cries my loyal little Alice, another twig off the old tree, being both flirt and toady. She jumped on the bench and clung to my arm. “’Cos I shan’t let him go to bad fires, shall I, Great-grampapa?” Yearning at me with those great forget-me-not eyes, four years old and innocent as Cleopatra.
“’Fraid you won’t have a vote on the matter, m’dear.”
“‘Devil’ ain’t a bad word, anyway,” says John, rising seven and leader of the pack. “The Dean said it in his sermon last Sunday – devil! He said it twice – devil!” he repeated, with satisfaction. “So bad scran to you, Jemima!” Hear, hear. Stout lad, John.
“That was in church!” retorts Jemima, who has the makings of a fine sea-lawyer, bar her habit of sticking out her tongue. “It’s all wight in church, but if you say it outside it’s vewwy dweadful, an’ God will punish you!” Little Baptist.
“What’s moulderin’ mean, Great-gran’papa?” asks Augustus.
“All rotten an’ stinkin’,” says John. “It’s what happens when you get buried. You go all squelchy, an’ the worms eat you –”
“Eeesh!” Words cannot describe the ecstasy of Alice’s exclamation. “Was Jombrown like that, Great-grampapa, all rottish –”
“Not as I recall, no. His toes stuck out of the ends of his boots sometimes, though.”
This produced hysterics of mirth, as I’d known it would, except in John, who’s a serious infant, given to searching cross-examination.
“I say! Did you know him, Great-grandpapa – John Brown in the song?”
“Why, yes, John, I knew him … long time ago, though. Who told you about him?”
“Miss Prentice, in Sunday School,” says he, idly striking his cousin, who was trying to detach Alice from me by biting her leg. “She says he was the Angel of the Lord who got hung for freeing all the niggers in America.”
“You oughtn’t to say ‘niggers’.” Jemima again, absolutely, removing her teeth from Alice and climbing across to possess my other arm. “It’s not nice. You should say ‘negwoes’, shouldn’t you, Gweat-gwampapa? I always say ‘negwoes’,” she added, oozing piety.
“What should you call them, Great-grandpapa?” asks John.
“Call ’em what you like, my son. It’s nothing to what they’ll call you.”
“I always say ‘negwoes’ –”
“Great-gran’papa says ‘niggers’,” observes confounded Augustus. “Lots an’ lots of times.” He pointed a filthy accusing finger. “You said that dam’ nigger, Jonkins, the boxer-ma
n –”
“Johnson, child, Jack Johnson.”
“– you said he wanted takin’ down a peg or two.”
“Did I, though? Yes, Jemima dearest, I know Gus has said another wicked word, but ladies shouldn’t notice, you know –”
“What’s a peggatoo?” asks Alice, twining my whiskers.
“A measure of diminution of self-esteem, precious … yes, Jemima, I’ve no doubt you’re going to peach to Great-grandmama about Gus saying ‘damn’, but if you do you’ll be saying it yourself, mind … What, Gus? Yes, very well, if I said that about the boxer-man, you may be sure I meant it. But you know, old fellow, when you call people names, it depends who you’re talking about …” It does, too. Flash coons like Johnson1 and the riff-raff of the levees and most of our Aryan brethren are one thing – but if you’ve seen Ketshwayo’s Nokenke regiment stamping up the dust and the assegais drumming on the ox-hide shields, “’Suthu, ’suthu! ’s-jee, ’s-jee!” as they sweep up the slope to Little Hand … well, that’s black of a different colour, and you find another word for those fellows. And God forbid I should offend Miss Prentice, so …
“I think it best you should say ‘negroes’, children. That’s the polite word, you see –”
“What about nigger minstrels?” asks Alice, excavating my collar.
“That’s all right ’cos they’re white underneath,” says John impatiently. “Shut your potato-trap, Alice – I want to hear about John Brown, and how he freed all the … the negro slaves in America, didn’t he, Great-grandpapa?”
“Well, now, John … no, not exactly …” And then I stopped, and took a pull at my flask, and thought about it. After all, who am I to say he didn’t? It was coming anyway, but if it hadn’t been for old J.B. and his crack-brained dreams, who can tell how things might have panned out? Little nails hold the hinge of history, as Bismarck remarked (he would!) the night we set out for Tarlenheim … and didn’t Lincoln himself say that Mrs Stowe was the little lady who started the great war, with Uncle Tom’s Cabin? Well, Ossawatomie Brown, mad and murderous old horse-thief that he was, played just as big a part in setting the darkies free as she did – aye, or Lincoln or Garrison or any of them, I reckon. I did my bit myself – not willingly, you may be sure, and cursing Seward and Pinkerton every step of the way that ghastly night … and as I pondered it, staring across the lake to the big oak casting its first evening shadow, the shrill voices of the grandlings seemed to fade away, and in their place came the harsh yells and crash of gunshots in the dark, and instead of the scent of roses there was the reek of black powder smoke filling the engine-house, the militia’s shots shattering timber and whining about our ears … young Oliver bleeding his life out on the straw … the gaunt scarecrow with his grizzled beard and burning eyes, thumbing back the hammer of his carbine … “Stand firm, men! Sell your lives dearly! Don’t give in now!” … and Jeb Stuart’s eyes on mine, willing me (I’ll swear) to pull the trigger …
“Wake up, Great-grandpapa – do!” “Tell us about Jombrown!” “Yes, wiv his toes stickin’ out, all stinky!” “Tell us, tell us …!”
I came back from the dark storm of Harper’s Ferry to the peaceful sunshine of Leicestershire, and the four small faces regarding me with that affectionate impatience that is the crowning reward of great-grandfatherhood: John, handsome and grave and listening; Jemima a year younger, prim ivory perfection with her long raven hair and lashes designed for sweeping hearts (Selina’s inevitable daughter); little golden Alice, Elspeth all over again; and the babe Augustus bursting with sin beneath the mud, a Border Ruffian in a sodden sailor suit … and the only pang is that at ninety-one2 you can’t hope to see ’em grown …
“John Brown, eh? Well, it’s a long story, you know – and Great-grandmama will be calling us for tea presently … no, Alice, he didn’t have wings, although Miss Prentice is quite right, they did call him the Angel of the Lord … and the Avenging Angel, too …”
“What’s ’venging?”
“Getting your own back … no, John, he was quite an ordinary chap, really, rather thin and bony and shabby, with a straggly beard and very bright grey eyes that lit up when he was angry, ever so fierce and grim! But he was quite a kindly old gentleman, too –”
“Was he as old as you?”
“Heavens, child, no one’s that old! He was oldish, but pretty spry and full of beans … let’s see, what else? He was a capital cook, why, he could make ham and eggs, and brown fried potatoes to make your mouth water –”
“Did he make kedgewee? I hate howwid old kedgewee, ugh!”
“What about the slaves, and him killing lots of people, and getting hung?” John shook my knee in his impatience.
“Well, John, I suppose he did kill quite a few people … How, Gus? Why, with his pistols – he had two, just like the cowboys, and he could pull them in a twinkling, ever so quickly.” And dam’ near blew your Great-grandpapa’s head off, one second asleep and the next blasting lead all over the shop, curse him. “And with his sword … although that was before I knew him. Mind you, he had another sword, in our last fight – and you’ll never guess who it had once belonged to. Frederick the Great! What d’you think of that?”
“Who’s Frederick the Great?”
“German king, John. Bit of a tick, I believe; used scent and played the flute.”
“I think Jombrown was howwid!” announced Jemima. “Killing people is wrong!”
“Not always, dearest. Sometimes you have to, or they’ll kill you.”
“Great-gran’papa used to kill people, lots of times,” protests sturdy Augustus. “Great-gran’mama told me, when he was a soldier, weren’t you? Choppin’ ’em up, heaps of –”
“That’s quite diffewent,” says Jemima, with an approving smile which may well lead me to revise my will in her favour. “It’s pwoper for soldiers to kill people.” And pat on her words came an echo from half a century ago, the deep level voice of J.B. himself, recalling the slaughter of Pottawatomie … “They had a right to be killed.” It was a warm afternoon, but I found myself shivering.
“Great-grandpapa’s tired,” whispers John. “Let’s go in for tea.”
“What – tired? Not a bit of it!” You can’t have grandlings taking pity on you, even at ninety-one. “But tea, what? Capital idea! Who’s for a bellyful of gingerbread, eh? Tell you what, pups – you make yourselves decent, straighten your hair, find Gus’s other shoe, put your socks on, Alice – yes, Jemima, you look positively queenly – and we’ll march up to tea, shall we? At least, you lot will, while I call the step and look after remounts. Won’t that be jolly? And we’ll sing his song as we go –”
“Jombrown’s body? Gory Halooyah?”
“The very same, Gus! Now, then, fall in, tallest on the right, shortest on the left – heels together, John, eyes front, Jemima, pull in your guts, Augustus, stop giggling, Alice – and I’ll teach you some capital verses you never heard before! Ready?”
I don’t suppose there’s a soul speaks English in the world who couldn’t sing the chorus today, but of course it hadn’t been written when we went down to Harper’s Ferry – J.B.’s army of ragamuffins, adventurers, escaped slaves, rustlers and lunatics. “God’s crusaders”, some enthusiast called us – but then again, I’ve read that we were “swaggering, swearing bullies and infidels” (well, thank’ee, sir). We were twenty-one strong, fifteen white (one with pure terror, I can tell you), six black, and all set to conquer Dixie, if you please! We didn’t make it at the time, quite – but we did in the end, by God, didn’t we just, with Sherman’s bugles blowing thirty miles in latitude three hundred to the main …
Not that I gave a two-cent dam for that, you understand, and still don’t. They could have kept their idiotic Civil War for me, for (my own skin’s safety apart) it was the foulest, most useless conflict in history, the mass suicide of the flower of the British-American race – and for what? Black freedom, which would have come in a few years anyway, as sure as sunrise. And all those boys could
have been sitting in the twilight, watching their Johns and Jemimas.
Still, I’ve got a soft spot for the old song – and for J.B., for that matter. Aye, that song which, the historian says, was sung by every Union regiment because “it dealt not with John Brown’s feeble sword, but with his soul.” His soul, my eye – as often as not the poor old maniac wasn’t even mentioned, and it would be:
Wild Bill Sherman’s got a rope around his neck,
An’ we’ll all catch hold an’ give-it-one-hell-of-a-pull!
Glory, glory, hallelujah, etc …
Or it might be “our sergeant-major”, or Jeff Davis hanging from a sour apple tree, or any of the unprintable choruses that inspired the pious Mrs Howe to write “Mine eyes have seen the glory”.3 But all that’s another story, for another day … in the meantime, I taught my small descendants some versions which were entirely to their liking, and we trooped up to the house, the infants in column of twos and the venerable patriarch hobbling painfully behind, flask at the high port, and all waking the echoes with:
John Brown’s donkey’s got an india-rubber tail,
An’ he rubbed it with camphorated oil!
followed by:
Our Great-grandpa saved the Viceroy
In the – good – old – Khyber – Pass!
and concluding with:
Flashy had an army of a hundred Bashi-bazouks
An’ the whole dam’ lot got shot!
Glory, glory, hallelujah …
Spirited stuff, and it was just sheer bad luck that the Bishop and other visiting Pecksniffs should already be taking tea with Elspeth and Miss Prentice when we rolled in through the french windows, the damp and dirty grandlings in full voice and myself measuring my ancient length across the threshold, flask and all. Very well, the grandlings were raucous and dishevelled, and I ain’t at my best sprawled supine on the carpet leaking brandy, but to judge from his lordship’s, disgusted aspect and Miss Prentice’s frozen pince-nez you’d have thought I’d been teaching them to smoke opium and sing “One-eyed Riley”.
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