The Lively Lady

by Kenneth Lewis Roberts

  Shortland dug his heel in the ground angrily. “These men are criminals I”

  I heard Simeon Hays, beside me, mumbling in his unkempt beard, and took him by the wrist to keep him quiet.

  Shortland took a quick step toward him. “What’s that you say?” “You’re a hell of a captain,” Simeon said dispassionately.

  Magrath moved between Shortland and us. “Captain,” he said, “these men are unstrung from cold and poor food and living in the dark. They feel an injustice has been done them, and I must confess to having the same feeling myself. They’ve been brooding over it. You must make allowances for them.”

  “I’ll show ’em—” Shortland began savagely.

  “I beg of you!” Magrath protested. “This is all beside the point! I’ve made up my mind. What I ask is little enough. If you find it impossible to agree, I shall be obliged to pursue the matter through other channels—at once.”

  “Of course,” Shortland said sourly, “of course, if they’d give their paroles not to—”

  “Just a moment, Captain!” Magrath broke in. “My opinion is not contingent on these men’s paroles. They’ve got to be clothed and have exercise, whether they give paroles or not.”

  Shortland glowered, his lips pressed tight together so that he looked more than ever like Punch. Then he turned to Magrath with a frank and pleasant smile. “Well, well!” he said, “we mustn’t be too hasty. I think I see your point of view—yes, indeed! I’ll give it careful consideration, Doctor: careful consideration.”

  “That’s a very generous spirit, Captain,” Magrath said. “Under the circumstances, any undue amount of consideration would be inadvisable. Ah—you’ll let me know to-morrow morning, eh?”

  Shortland whirled to look for Carley. “Put ’em back!” he snapped, jerking his thumb at us. And off he stamped through the snow without another word to Magrath, while the prisoners behind Prison Number One, gathered at the iron picket fence that separated us from the yards, began to chant, in time to his footsteps, “LOB ster! LOB ster! LOB ster!”

  * * *

  Four days later Carley brought us five prison suits of coarse blue cloth, and new prison shoes made of felt with wooden soles. In the middle of the morning of that same day Carley unlocked the iron door and called the five of us into the narrow enclosure between the inner stone wall and the iron picket fence. There were five sentries drawn up in a line, waiting. At a word from Carley they went to pacing along the enclosure, twenty-five yards one way; then twenty-five yards back to the Cachot again; and we, like five sheep, or like five merchantmen under the convoy of five sloops-of-war, paced beside them.

  The Americans came running from the yard of Prison Number One when they saw us, whereupon Carley warned us that if we attempted to talk with any other prisoners our exercise would be immediately stopped. With that he went over and stood by the iron picket fence to speak to the constantly growing crowd.

  “Yez’ll have to spread the word,” he shouted to them. “Any attempt to talk to these byes in here and they’ll get no more exercise. Look at ’em all yez want to, but don’t say nawthin’ to ’em!”

  They liked Carley, we could see; they must have known he would do whatever he could for us; so they said never a word to him or to us: only stood pressed against the iron bars, looking and looking at us; and above their ceaseless gabbling we could hear other prisoners running across the cobbles of the prison yard to see this strange new spectacle: men who had been buried alive since midsummer.

  Up and down we paced by the side of the sentries, and it was hard to tell which helped us most: the stretching of our legs in the open air, or the sympathy we could feel coming out to us from the restless, silent, strangely dressed crowd of men beyond the iron pickets.

  Every day thereafter we were taken out and marched up and down by the side of the sentries for half an hour; and every day the men came from all the yards to watch us. King Dick was there on the second day, his bearskin hat towering above the men beside him. His black face was expressionless; but whenever I looked at him I could see his enormous white eyes, round as china doorknobs, rolling from side to side, and from the ground to the top of the twelve-foot iron pickets and back again: examining, I knew; estimating; calculating.

  Because of the walks and the warmer clothes, and the decent feel of them against our bodies, we got back our self-respect and went to making hair bracelets again, and to holding our races, which we had given up.

  It was on the morning of February 6th, a Monday, that we heard Carley gabbling to someone outside, very amiable and friendly.

  When the door opened, Jesse Smith stood there, his hands on his hips, grinning down recklessly at Carley; and with him was another figure, a smaller one. Behind Jesse, a rolled blanket on his shoulder, peering and peering in an effort to penetrate the darkness of the Cachot, was Tommy Bickford—pink-cheeked, smiling, brown-eyed Tommy Bickford, whose father had taken my father on his shoulder when the Congress galley fought the whole British fleet at the Battle of Valcour Island and carried him wounded but safe to shore.

  Carley pushed them in, looking hard at Smith before he swung the door shut. “Holy Mary!” he said. “Don’t yez nivver do nawthin’ but try to escape? There ain’t nobody can say yez don’t know what yez want! Yez’ll be a great man, Mr. Smith!”

  Jesse ignored him and pushed Tommy Bickford toward me. “There he is,” he said. “Your eyes’ll get used to it in a minute. Edge over.”

  I caught Tommy’s wrist and drew him down on my heap of matted straw.

  “Cap’n Dick,” he said, “Cap’n Dick—” His voice broke.

  “That’s all right, Tommy,” I told him. “I’m glad to see you; awful glad! What on earth have you been doing, Tommy, to get yourself put in this place?”

  “Nothing, Cap’n Dick,” he said. “Honest, I didn’t do nothing! Only made out to escape.”

  “Well, you must be a born fool, Tommy, with good clothes and good food and good treatment, trying to—•” I stopped. It came to me, suddenly, that he had made the attempt so he could be put in the Cachot with me.

  “I only made out to, Cap’n Dick,” he said, grinning at me.

  “Who put you up to it? King Dick?”

  “No, sir. King Dick, he thought mebbe he hadn’t ought to let me do it on account of the way you might talk to him when you got out. He said you’d make a turrible yukkus, but I told him you wouldn’t.”

  “When I get out?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir. King Dick, he said if he could get word to you about getting out, you could probably get out.”

  The mere thought of escaping from the Cachot brought a moisture into the palms of my hands and a trembling into my knees. “The trouble with that, Tommy, is that if I should try it, the others wouldn’t be allowed to take exercise any more.”

  “No, he meant all of you, Cap’n Dick, he meant you and the other four gentlemen.”

  Simeon Hays crawled over beside me and leaned on his elbow, staring at Tommy. Elisha Whitten and Jim Rickor and John Miller sat up on their blankets as if pins had been thrust in them.

  “Go ahead, Tommy,” I told him. I was proud to have the others see him sitting there, neat and pleasant and smiling, and to have them know our town of Arundel could produce a boy like Tommy Bickford.

  “Cap’n Dick,” Tommy said, and it was easy to see he was as excited over what he had to tell us as we were to hear it, “King Dick says these militia soldiers are turrible thick-headed: thicker-headed than any of the colored gentlemen in Number Four. He says they come from Somerset, up north of here, and he says a donkey’s awful intelligent and thoughtful compared to Somerset militia. He says he’s watched their eyes when they do sentry-go with you gentlemen, and every time they turn round, their brains keep right on travelin’ for as much as a minute almost.”

  “He’s right, by Jiminy!” Simeon said. “They’re thick, and they’re mean.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tommy said. “And King Dick says any folks that have been tre
ated the way you gentlemen have been treated can pull themselves up to the top of that iron fence; and he says the time to do it is when these Somerset lobsters turn around on their beat. He says they ain’t thinking of nothing when they turn around, and it’s awful hard for ’em to start thinking.”

  “Tommy,” I said, “that fence is twelve feet high.”

  “Yes, Cap’n Dick,” Tommy said. “That’s what King Dick figured. But the cross bar between the pickets is only ten. King Dick says you can get your hands on the cross bar; then he and the others can push their hands through and shove you up.”

  I looked at Simeon Hays. He nodded. We looked at the others. They sat silent and motionless, staring at Tommy.

  “You can do it, can’t you, Cap’n Dick?” Tommy asked. It was less a question than a proud statement of fact, delivered by way of setting all doubts at rest.

  “Yes, I can,” I told him, not wishing to disappoint him, and wishing, also, to give the others as much confidence as possible. “Of course I can get over—of course we can get over; but when we get over, what do you think Shortland will be doing?”

  “King Dick says for you not to worry about nothing but getting over,” Tommy said. “King Dick says you’ll be looked after. He says if you get out of here they’ll never get you back in again.”

  Simeon Hays wiped the palms of his hands on his jacket. “When did he think?” he asked. “What day was he thinking of?”

  “Why, to-day,” Tommy said. “He’ll be waiting there, to-day, right where they turn, down at the bend.” He pointed at the door of the Cachot, and it seemed to me, as I turned my head to look where his finger was pointing, that I could see open country: the marshland along the creek behind our gray house in Arundel; the silvery-green pines that rise beyond it in unbroken ranks.

  “Tommy,” I said, “we can’t do it to-day. Car ley’s responsible for us, and he’d get the blame. Carley’s been pretty good to us, Tommy —the only one that has, barring the doctor. Shordand would have him flogged, and it might kill him.”

  Tommy’s under lip sagged.

  “Carley goes to mass on Sunday,” I told him. “He’s a papist, and he has to go to mass; but that’s six days off.”

  “It don’t make a mite of difference,” Tommy said, smiling and eager again. “King Dick said he’d wait there every day until something happened. He’ll be there Sunday. He’ll be there, Cap’n Dick! All you got to do, the day you want to try it, is to kneel down on one knee and tie your shoe when you come out of the Cachot.”

  “Tommy,” I said, “you’re a good boy.”

  * * *

  Every day our exercising was watched by a larger and larger crowd, until it seemed to us there must be a thousand men crammed into the little piece of yard behind the tall stone haunches of Prison Number One, all of them following our every move as we marched up and down, up and down, beside the sentries. Every day King Dick was there, pressed tight against the iron railings, but behaving in a casual manner, as though he had more interest in the weather or in the tall Negroes who accompanied him than in any of us.

  It was best, it seemed to me, to have the thing over as soon as possible; and so we planned, on Saturday, that when we came out on the following morning, we would walk to the end of the beat with the sentries, walk back to the Cachot, then go to the end once more and take an extra two steps when the sentries turned. With the second step we were to break for the picket fence, a matter of eight paces from our line of march.

  It was chill that Sunday morning. When we heard the rattle of the key at the door Jesse Smith slapped each one of us on the back, saying, “Don’t never let me see none of you again!” Tommy Bickford, who was hoarse with a cough, touched me on the arm and said, “Good-bye, Cap’n Dick. I’ll be out on Wednesday with Mr. Smith.”

  A sour turnkey named Parker unlocked the door for us, and we went out, blinking, into the cold February air. The prisoners were close against the iron pickets, watching for us. When we appeared they murmured among themselves, sounding like a calm sea fingering and lapping at a seaweed-covered ledge.

  I went down on my knee and fumbled with my shoe. It seemed to me the murmuring stopped.

  “What you come out here for?” Parker roared at me. “Exercise or not?”

  I jumped to my feet and fell in behind Miller. In front of him was Hays. In front of Hays were Whitten and thin Jim Bickor.

  I was chary of looking straight at the silent crowd that stood behind the pickets, for fear Parker might see guilt written on my face; but I snatched a hasty glance at their watchful ranks and caught sight of King Dick, fixing his tall bearskin hat more tightly on his head and working his arms somewhat, as though to free them of pressure. His head was thrust forward, and his eyes, which ordinarily had the look of china doorknobs, were small white slits in his black face.

  Parker, lounging against the comer of the Cachot, jingled his keys and stared lackadaisically at the silent crowd of prisoners watching us. I could see we had nothing to fear from him; for whatever was to happen would be finished before he knew it had begun.

  I looked at the heavy-lipped, heavy-eyed face of the militiaman beside me and saw he was indeed as slow witted as King Dick had said. He was the very man, I hoped and believed, to stand stock-still with his musket on his shoulder and just stare at me for some precious seconds when he saw me run.

  When we were abreast of King Dick we turned and marched again toward the Cachot. There was a slight swaying motion among the men near our huge black friend. I breathed deep, to ease the thumping of my heart. From the tail of my eye I saw King Dick shouldering himself free of those beside him. We turned at the Cachot and trudged back again.

  I looked at the top of the pickets. The cross bar, high on the fence, was higher by two feet—by three feet—than the crown of King Dick’s enormous bearskin hat.

  I heard Hays clear his throat and knew how he felt, stuffed full and blown up with waiting.

  My head was rigid on my neck, like the ball on a newel-post. I should, I felt, have set the attempt for later, when we had become more limber. My knees were stiff; my legs seemed like bean poles— thin and brittle and quite useless.

  The sentries turned. The bright bayonet on the musket barrel of the man beside me swung slowly as he wheeled. I looked away from it: fixed my eyes fiercely on the ground. I took one more step, listening. There was nothing. I took another, turned sharp to the left and moved somehow toward a wild roaring that seemed to hold me up and engulf me. There was a vague, tossing movement before me, and I was conscious of a whining close by my shoulder, a whining I knew was made by Hays, straining to reach his goal. Yet I could see nothing with clearness except the towering pickets rising from a turbulent human sea and bound top and bottom by endless cross-pieces of iron.

  I felt myself leaping at the upper cross-piece—leaping and reaching. I could see my fingers rise toward it, slowly, as a gull’s beak rises toward a fragment of biscuit tossed from the stem of a vessel. They caught it and clung.

  I could feel the hands of prisoners lifting my legs and feet. I was pushed up and up, though how I got over the top of the pickets I don’t know. I only know I did, and then pitched forward and down into a turmoil of struggling, squirming men.

  Hands clutched me anew. I was dragged rapidly through the crowd. I struggled for a footing and got one at last; and as I ran, I saw King Dick had me by the shoulder of my jacket with a huge black paw. He was clinging to his bearskin hat with one hand and whisking me along with the other. There were prisoners running ahead of us and on each side. We were the center of a rapidly moving mass of men in which it was almost impossible to distinguish individuals.

  This throng surged abruptly against the rear of Prison Number One and swirled around it, leaving a narrow alleyway. I went up the steps and through the door behind King Dick. The crowd poured in behind us, quiet no longer, but shouting and cursing with excitement.

  I was in a chair, then, and a man was daubing lather into my beard. In fro
nt of me towered King Dick, huge and black in his woolly suit, staring watchfully from one end of the building to the other.

  I drew a deep breath. “Whew!” I said, “that was close! Did they get out? Did all of them get out?”

  King Dick laughed a sudden nervous laugh, but instantly fell serious. “Nemmine ’at!” he said. “Keep yo’ pan quiet till ’at beard gits shaved! Mah lan’, Ah never see so much haiah, not on nuffin’ seppen a goat!”

  The barber’s razor dragged at my tender skin as though it had the teeth of a cross-cut saw.

  “Ah doan’ want no cuts on ’at pan,” King Dick warned him. “ ’Member what Ah tole you!” He looked around at the prisoners who filled the alleyway, gabbling and laughing. “Whah’s ’at artis’?” he demanded.

  “Right here, King,” a voice said. I looked under the barber’s elbow and saw a slender man crouched on the floor beside King Dick, a box held tenderly against his breast. The beard at length was gone. The barber passed a towel hurriedly over my face, and immediately the slender man opened his box and went at me with breathless care. I could see that the box contained a black powder, and that he was applying it with a rabbit’s foot.

  “We’s raidy!” King Dick told the watchers. “Git away to bofe ends.”

  They hurried off, part of them to the front of the building and part to the rear. The slender man rubbed my neck and chest with the rabbit’s foot.

  “’At’s enough!” King Dick said. “Cain’t be too pinnicky, not ’is minute! You come on ovah to Number Foh.”

  He took me by the arm and hurried me to the back door. “Doan bovver wiv no one,” he said. “Keep a-lookin’ down, like you’s a mad nigrah!” Fifteen or twenty prisoners sauntered out ahead of us. Others came out beside us, and still others in our rear. Surrounded by these stragglers we wandered to the covered way connecting the yards. There was a commotion among the sentries. The prison yards were filled with Americans, packed around the gates, moving aimlessly in excited clumps, hooting at the soldiers. We came safely to Prison Number Four and sedately mounted the stairs leading to King Dick’s domain.