Rebels of Babylon

  We lingered nearly a week, feigning repairs as we kept an eye on a rumored blockade runner carrying quinine. And whispers there were in plenty of that cursed ship, the C.S.S. Alabama. She was spotted off Bermuda. No, she was last seen rounding Madeira. She was selling her loot in Vera Cruz. Or haunting the whaling routes between cliffs of ice.

  Wherever she was, that ship was on my conscience.

  But let that bide.

  Havana is a pleasant town, although its energies seem much declined. Even the stevedores do not like to sweat. And the officials of Spain’s empire much prefer fine uniforms to utility. They think themselves each one a maharajah. Still, it is a pretty place, although it wants a sweep and a daub of paint.

  Magdalena was sufficiently well to be married. But, then, what woman is not?

  She and Mr. Barnaby were joined in the eyes of God in a Roman cathedral. The decoration would have made all India blush. I stood their witness, girding my Christian loins in the face of Popery. But the thing that really put me off my ham was the Catholic priest. He made a fuss, declaiming a hundred reasons why a Protestant such as myself could not participate. I should have thought him honored that I showed.

  All come right with a gold piece dropped in the poor box. The priest looked one way, I looked the other, and we may assume the Lord looked down on all.

  I did not wish to stint such an occasion, so I invited the ship’s officers to join myself and the couple for a supper at the finest hotel restaurant in Havana. We most of us got stomach sick, but I do not believe the Navy men held it against me. Or against Mr. and Mrs. Barnaby, who were spoony as young Romeo and his Juliet.

  Two more Union vessels put into port, allowing us to sail on toward Baltimore. We had a run of wicked days on the waters, but I spent most of the voyage increasing my knowledge. Indeed, whenever I have a spare moment—and after I have spent an hour with the Bible—I believe it my Christian duty to pursue learning. We must make good use of the faculties God has given us and never forego a chance at self-improvement.

  Even as a lad I liked to read. How sweet it must be to have an education! You will call me an ambitious man, but I hope my son will attend a university. It must be the finest thing in the world to spend one’s youth surrounded by good books.

  The officers loaned me what reading they had aboard. The choice was not especially elevated, but we must make do. So when I was not bundled in my greatcoat, staring at the pewter-colored sea and wondering if I had done more evil than good, I visited again with Lord Macaulay, who is ever of firm opinion. I let myself be reminded of the price of liberty by Mr. Motley—and of liberty’s dangers by Mr. Carlyle, who is Scotch. The Navy men had no works complete, only random volumes. But I had read the missing bits before, as most men have.

  I made it my purpose to read a book each day, no matter how late the lamp burned.

  Mr. Prescott’s works were a valued discovery. I always knew the Spaniards were a bad lot, but those Aztecs were as nasty a pack as ever turned up for their breakfast. Glad I was to learn they got what was coming to them. Grown men dancing around in feathers and cutting out living hearts. In broad daylight.

  We steamed into the Chesapeake in the face of winter winds. Sleet lashed the decks as we entered Baltimore harbor. We were home. Or nearly so. And the weather almost made me miss New Orleans.

  I CONFESSED WHAT I had done to Mr. Seward, our secretary of state and a fellow who knew how each dog and cat voted in New York State. I could not keep it in, see. All through the voyage, whenever I looked up from Mr. Carlyle or Mr. Motley, I saw the spectre of my rash injustice. It may seem to you too fine a point, but I did not much regret Captain Bolt’s death. Yet, I rued the manner of it. I do believe the lad deserved to die. But his sentence of death had not been mine to pass. The law must be protected, obeyed and cherished. It is the noblest creation of sorry mankind.

  I told Mr. Seward how I had left the lad, knowing the negroes would hang him from a tree. If not worse.

  Mr. Seward, who was a banty bird no larger than myself and a fellow of both vigor and impatience, fell into a stillness foreign to his manner. He sat behind his paper-smothered desk in a morbid quiet. When he leaned back, the rasp of the springs in his chair come fierce as a gunshot.

  He made a steeple of his fingertips, then touched the fleshy construction to his lips. I heard not only the bustle without his door but the slap of winter rain upon the window. Mr. Seward looked away for so long a time I felt myself forgotten.

  Of a sudden, he snapped back to business, dropping his hands to the blotter on his desk.

  “I swear to the Great God Almighty, Jones. If you ever go into politics, I’m getting the Hell out. Unless I’m damned sure I’ve got you on my side. Behind all that pious Christian blather, you’re one nasty sonofabitch. I’d hate to be the man who got you riled.”

  He was never one for mildness of speech. Nor did I find him an accurate judge of character.

  “Oh, Hell,” he said, “done is done, I suppose.” His face grew a look that might have been either a frown or a smile restrained. “I’m half inclined to think I would’ve done the same thing myself. Old Bolt was a Douglas man, anyway. Politically unreliable. No good to Lincoln, or to me. Mean, too. Cost poor Stephen plenty, with all his bullying out in Chicago back when. A man should never make an enemy he can avoid, unless he’s damned sure he’ll make a dozen friends in the process. Even then, he shouldn’t burn his bridges.”

  He whacked his desk as though it wanted discipline. “Here’s what we’re going to do, Abel. You’re going to forget you ever breathed a word to me about your last meeting with young Bolt. Far as I’m concerned, it never happened. You say it, I’ll deny it. But you won’t say it. Because you’re going to forget about it yourself.” He took my measure with one eye narrowed and the other opened wide. “Never spoil a victory with regrets. As long as you win, the campaign’s been worthwhile. Remember that. It’s as true in a man’s life as it is in an election. Regrets are for people who can’t make up their minds.”

  He drew a cigar from an inlaid box, but offered none to me. The fellow had known me long enough to recall that I shunned such vices. For his part, Mr. Seward was a chimney. His office was near as suffocating as that vault in which I had been sealed in New Orleans. He was so fond of his cigars I half expected our Navy to seize Havana.

  That is a joke, of course. The United States will never seek an empire.

  After lighting his roll of weeds, Mr. Seward sat back again and considered me. “I’ll handle Peabody,” he said. “Can’t tell him half of what you’ve told me. Maybe none of it. I don’t know. Shame you didn’t at least get the money back. Would’ve softened the blow. But I suppose that’s lost along with young Bolt.” He snorted, which passed for a laugh. “Next time you go down there, I bet you’ll hear all about the lost treasure of Do-Nothing Plantation. Doesn’t matter. I’ll figure something out, make old Peabody happy. As happy as he can be, under the circumstances. Want to make sure he’s solidly behind us next year. He carries a lot of upstate voters with him. Can’t have him jumping to some damned Copperhead for spite.”

  He stood up and began to reach across his desk to bid me farewell. Then he realized that our persons, when paired, were inadequate to bridge the expanse with dignity.

  He stepped around the desk and thrust out his hand.

  We clasped paws firmly. But he would not let me go when it seemed time.

  “Now,” he said, “what’s all this foolery about you resigning your commission?”

  “There is true,” I told him. “I do not feel that I have more to give, sir.”

  He eyed me fiercely, gripping my hand with a strength you would not have credited in an older fellow.

  “Suppose every damned officer felt that way? Suppose they all just up and went home? Where would we be then? You tell me that.”

  “I cannot speak for others, but for myself—”

  “Not thinking about going into Pennsylvania politics, are you? Damned snake
pit. I’d be glad to put in a word with Boss McClure and Andy Curtin.”

  “I do not believe that I am suited for politics.”

  “Horseshit! You’re mean enough, that’s for damned sure. And you’re a grand master at convincing people you’re something you’re not. You even know when to wave the Bible and when to lay it aside. You’re a born political man, Abel Jones.”

  “I do not mean to enter into politics.”

  “More’s the pity.” He released my hand, which smarted a bit. “Change your mind, you let me know. Andy Curtin needs all the help he can get. Damn it, go see Lincoln. He’s got some news for you about that Reb lieutenant of yours. Get out of here. Or that damned Dutchman Nicolay’ll be all over me again. One thing I’ve learned in this town—one of many, tell the truth—is that no man should keep his president waiting.” He allowed himself a crafty little smile. “I wonder how long it’s going to take Chase to figure that out? Tell Fred to come in, would you? Jesus Christ, I wish I was back in Albany.”

  Mr. Seward was right. Twas time for my appointment across the way. But just as I was about to let myself out of his office, Mr. Seward cleared his throat and called my attention back toward his person.

  I saw him through a flannel veil of smoke.

  “Damned lot of trouble about a couple of boatloads of negroes,” he said. He sighed, although even his sighs come out like a bull’s snorts. “Lincoln puts a good face on things. Hard to tell how much he really believes. Wouldn’t want to sit down to a poker game with him. Myself, I’m not sure what the hell’s going to come of the colored man, once he’s well and truly free. You watch. Those Boston abolitionists are going to lose interest as soon as the mess is well and truly made.”

  It was a worrisome expression of doubt from a fellow placed so high. I might have left the office feeling glum. But Mr. Seward, bless him, lacked the mental repose for pessimism. He smiled with tobacco-ruined teeth.

  “One thing’s sure,” he said with a spark of glee. “If the negroes ever get the vote, the sonsofbitches are going to vote Republican.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE,

  2012

  I’M EXCITED ABOUT THE RE-PUBLICATION OF THE “BY Owen Parry” series of Civil War mysteries and am grateful to Stackpole Books for undertaking it. The novels featuring Abel Jones have attracted a cult of followers, and the most frequently asked questions I field as I travel and talk on other subjects are versions of “When’s the little Welshman coming back?” While I hope to add new books to the series in the future—after fulfilling other writing commitments—I’m glad Abel’s able to huff and puff and pontificate through these first six novels again. His character was always a joy to write.

  Rebels of Babylon was, in one way, the odd duck among the Abel Jones novels: It’s set in New Orleans, a city that offers a writer endless opportunities, but which, despite repeated visits, I’ve never been able to like: I’ve found the food overrated, the jazz lacking in subtlety, the residents even more lacking in subtlety, and the whole N’awlins shtick tiresome: In other words, I reacted precisely as if I were Abel Jones.

  So how could I not send him to New Orleans?

  Each of the novels has a subtext regarding the complex bigotries of the time, and two, Call Each River Jordan and the one in your hand, confront slavery and race head-on. But Rebels of Babylon is the novel that seeks the heart of the matter … set in a city where “race didn’t really matter,” but the slightest difference in skin tone did (and does). Hurricane Katrina didn’t “reveal” anything, because the problems were always evident for anyone willing to see.

  And yet … I must pay the Crescent City one sincere compliment: Those who describe it (as others do San Francisco) as our “most-European city” may mean well, but get it wrong. New Orleans is one of a kind.

  As Abel and I found out.

  (You can keep the beads, though.)

  —Ralph Peters, aka Owen Parry, March 4, 2012