The Lively Lady

by Kenneth Lewis Roberts

  I saw Jesse Smith come out of the jam. He stopped and motioned; then ran forward and got his hands on me, pulling me to the ground. A musket exploded almost in my ear. Men ran past and over us, yelling. They had muskets, and one of them laughed wildly, stabbing at Jesse’s prostrate form with his bayonet.

  They were Somersetshire militia, all of them. Beyond us they halted and fired into the mass of men who still struggled before the locked doors. Two of the prisoners pitched downward and lay still. The others broke and ran, leaving some who limped and crawled away. Jesse was digging at the cobblestones with his fingers: but the stones were immovable, cemented in place by the black Dartmoor muck.

  Against the end of the prison sat a man holding his shoulder, his hand a smear of blood. One of the militiamen stopped before him, loading his musket, whereupon the man, John Washington, a prize master from the Baltimore privateer Rolla and a peaceable good fellow, held out his bloody hand to him as if to show he was hurt. At this the militiaman dropped the ramrod back in its socket, cocked his piece, held the muzzle against Washington’s face and fired.

  “Oh, God!” Jesse said. “Oh, my God!” We tore and tore at the cobbles with our fingers, but could do nothing with them.

  One of King Dick’s seckataries, a fine-looking boy named Jackson, fourteen years old or thereabouts, who had been impressed aboard the British cruiser Pontes but had given himself up rather than serve against his own country, ran out from the shelter of the doorway of Number Four and raced around the corner of the building, evidently making for the rear door. He was an easy mark in his neat white trousers and short blue jacket. Four muskets spat at him as he rounded the comer. He rolled over and over, like a shot rabbit: then sprawled on his face.

  More soldiers were coming from the market place. Behind us I heard Shortland’s voice, yelling words I couldn’t distinguish. “Quick, Jesse!” I said. “Get Jackson before they load again.” Jesse ran for the small sprawling form at the comer of the building; while I got my arms under Tommy, swung him up against my breast and followed. I set off down the cruel long length of Number Four, expecting each moment to hear the crash of muskets at my back.

  Jesse Smith was ahead of me. Beyond him, now that we were unprotected by the towering front of Number Four, were the points and slashes of light made by the muskets of the sentries on the walls as they sniped at the defenseless men beneath.

  We turned the lower comer at last, so close to the walls that I could feel, I thought, the heat of the musketry fire blazing in our faces. Yet we were fortunate and escaped the bullets, which we heard flirting past us and smacking against the rear of the prison.

  The door stood open, by the grace of God. I followed Jesse Smith up the steps and into the prison, my legs like lead and my lungs aflame.

  I set Tommy on his feet and looked about me. There were no lights in the prison, but in the darkness I could make out that the floor was covered with men, lying full length with their faces turned toward the entrance.

  There was a clatter of feet outside. Two more prisoners raced up the steps and threw themselves, panting, on the floor.

  “Look out!” one of them said. “They’re a-comin’!”

  The door moved to close, but before it did a group of militiamen stood enframed against the outer green light. With no word of warning they threw their muskets to their shoulders and fired among us. The door slammed shut, leaving the militiamen outside upon the steps.

  I heard Tommy cough, a distressed, bubbly cough; and I felt his hands slide down me as he slipped to his knees. “They shot me, Cap’n Dick,” he said in a faint, surprised voice.

  “Hold on, Tommy,” I said. “Nothing’ll hurt you with me here.”

  There was the sound of a long breath from him—a difficult breath, as if a pillow was pressed to his face.

  “Tommy!” I said, so frightened that I felt close to suffocation from the pounding of my heart. “Where did it hit you, Tommy?”

  There was no answer from him. “Tommy!” I said, louder; then I shouted his name and got my hands on him. I found the hole. It was under his left shoulder. My hands came away sticky. He was dead.

  When the candles were lighted there was a Somersetshire militiaman pressed into the corner of that crowded room. He had come in the yard at dusk to light the lamps and had been carried into the prison with the first rush. We sat with our dead and wounded and watched him for two hours before Magrath came to take the hurt to the hospital. With them the doctor sent the militiaman, for though no man had touched him, he was mouthing and tittering like an idiot.

  XXXII

  THUS I lost my dearest friend and came alive myself out of the massacre in Dartmoor Prison. America bears the pain of April the 6th, 1815, and England bears the shame of that day. To my mind what Britain did less than three months later at Waterloo loses its glory because of the red smear she put upon her flags so short a time before at Dartmoor.

  There were Englishmen who knew and bitterly rued the crime of Shortland. The kindly Sanderson was one of these. When he came to take me away on the day after the “one day more” that Tommy and I had talked of so happily, Emily’s brother shook my hand but said not a word to me until we were beyond the walls. Then he cursed Shortland and Dartmoor and the government, and his wife cried.

  “My dead friend and those others,” I said, “are part of history now. May justice be done to their memory there, though justice be unknown in the land where they suffered. The Peace has reached them at last.”

  Mrs. Sanderson cried harder at this, and to regain my own composure I had to comfort her.

  “You brought me news?” I asked a little later, as the carriage took us easily toward Plymouth, down those long, desolate hills up which had toiled thousands of leaden-hearted Americans. “You’ve learned what has become of Emily? You can put me on my way to her?”

  Sanderson set his lips together in a tight line and stared off across the fortress-like hedgerows that guard the roads of Devon.

  “Let’s have the worst of it,” I told him when I saw the look on his face. “I’d like to get it over with. Is she—is she—”

  “I think the worst of it, Captain Nason,” Mrs. Sanderson told me, “is that we can get no trace of where she went after she left Portsmouth. She vanished into thin air.”

  “We could have told you more, two weeks ago,” Sanderson said. “When we first came to take you out of prison we didn’t tell you because it seemed you were bearing all a man could, and we decided not to add to the burden upon you—not to tell you all we knew until you were out and free to move. Captain Nason, there was a good reason for my sister to vanish.”

  I drew a deep breath. “By vanish you mean hide—you’re telling me she had to hide from someone who followed her?”

  “From more than one who followed her,” Sanderson said bitterly. “No, it’s not what you’re thinking, Captain. We’d been to Exeter before we saw you, and the place was all too busy mouthing the pitiful story.”

  “Sir Arthur Ransome—” I began.

  “Sir Arthur Brute!” Mrs. Sanderson interrupted. “Sir Arthur Beastl”

  “I suppose he thought he was within his rights,” Sanderson said. “I suppose he fooled himself into thinking his revenge was ‘justice.’ The man is of a petty but viciously vindictive nature. We heard he spoke of ‘avenging outraged honor’ and of being an Aristides for law and justice. Ah, well, his vanity was on the raw!”

  “What did he do?” I asked huskily.

  “You see,” Sanderson explained, “you see—” He coughed and tried again. “There’s nobody who’d believe any of it—we knew it was only vindictiveness. Ah—he charged Emily, you know—an ugly fellow at bottom, I really think—he brought charges the authorities had to take cognizance of, whether or no. I assure you, Captain Nason— ah, that is, we don’t want you to think—”

  “Why, sir,” I said, “I think you and Mrs. Sanderson are the kindest of people.”

  "Well,” Sanderson went on, “he charged
her with—he charged her with—he charged he found her with you.”

  “I hated him, always,” Mrs. Sanderson assured me.

  “Even more desperate in the eyes of the law than his charge on the personal account,” Sanderson continued, “he laid an information against her for aiding and abetting the escape of an enemy prisoner; and there, of course, he had her; for she was trying to help you, and was caught in the act, as you remember he had witnesses to prove. If she’d been taken on that information there’d have been no possible defense, nor any way for her to save herself from a term of imprisonment.”

  “Well,” I said, after a few moments, “God knows I was sure there was good reason why I’d heard nothing from her.”

  “Yes,” Sanderson agreed, “it was as good a reason for lying hid as you could find; though I think that if we could get word to her that we’re in England she might come out of hiding.”

  I wrestled with the matter for a time. “Portsmouth,” I said at length. “You spoke of Portsmouth?”

  “Yes, she had a small white dog when she left Ransome Hall; and it was through the dog that the police traced her to Portsmouth.”

  “Of course!” I said, brooding over it. “Of course; and it was from a gambling club in Portsmouth that the message came to you!”

  “Yes,” Sanderson said, frowning in puzzlement. “There’s a strange thing, now, isn’t it!” He looked thoughtfully at the neat thatched cottages that he along the green hill slopes behind Plymouth, into which our carriage was clattering. “When the police went to her lodgings to arrest her, she was gone, and her dog too. The police learned then that her lodgings had been taken and paid for by a gentleman known as her brother; and all of them—the man, his servant, Emily and her dog—departed together as suddenly as they had come. The police investigated further and found that the man calling himself her brother had opened a small gaming club. On the evening before he disappeared from Portsmouth with Emily he fought an English naval officer and hurt him badly.”

  “So,” I said, “they fled together from Portsmouth?”

  “Yes—they did,” Sanderson replied uneasily. He frowned more deeply. Discomforting embarrassment seemed added to his distress, and he evaded my eye. Then he looked up at me plaintively, and his expression became one of amazement; for by the grace of heaven I had suddenly found the courage to laugh.

  “Over what had the gambler and the British naval officer fought?” I asked.

  Sanderson stared at me. “Why, I ascertained that the officer had referred slightingly to the Scotch renegade, John Paul, who fought in your navy under the name of Jones. The officer spoke of him as a traitor and pirate; and with no word of warning this small impostor, whoever he was, slapped the officer’s face, then seized him by the ears and pounded his head on a Wheel-of-Fortune table with such force as to ruin it.”

  “Are you sure of that?” I asked, puzzled. “Are you sure the officer didn’t speak flatteringly of Jones?”

  “We read the information laid against the man,” Mrs. Sanderson said. “It was sworn that the officer referred to Jones most disparagingly. I recall he used the words renegade Scotch toad’ and ‘murdering Judas’ just before the man claiming to be Emily’s brother attacked him so violently.”

  Her husband continued to stare at me; so I said to him, putting my hand on his knee: “Give me a little while to think, and I’ll tell you why I laughed, my dear good friend.”

  So they were quiet, and I did think. By the time we had arrived at the Duke of Cornwall hostelry, on the high land looking out over Mill Bay to the main harbor of Plymouth, I was satisfied I knew a part of what had happened.

  “It is good news you brought me, after all,” I told them, when the porter had left us alone in the Sandersons’ big room, from the windows of which we could look across to Drake’s Island and Mount Batten. “All the while that I spoke with Emily in the front room of Mark Tate’s cottage there was a good comrade of mine lying in the room behind us: Jeddy Tucker, a man she knew; and he wisely stayed hidden while I was taken away to Exeter jail. I was sure that if he could find means to be of service to her, he would. He’s a shrewd fellow and a true good heart. Now I know what he did. He was quick at cards and all kinds of gambling; and it had to be by gambling that he put money into their pockets—his and Emily’s and Mark Tate’s, who must have acted as his servant. Well, now what hinders us from following them?”

  I went to the window and looked out at the blue salt water. It had been more than a year since I had felt it under me, or seen it even; and the year had seemed longer than all the other years of my life. There were war craft at anchor in this safe, cup-shaped haven, and merchantmen moving in and out. I longed to be among them with the quarter-deck of a stout vessel beneath my feet and a fair wind filling my topgallant sails.

  “Following them!” Mrs. Sanderson echoed. “How can we follow them when none of us knows where they are?”

  Before I could answer, my eye caught sight of a brigantine riding at anchor off Eastern King Point—riding as gracefully, among the squat, heavy merchantmen and war craft, as a slim sheldrake among a host of clumsy gulls. She was drying her sails, from which I knew she was newly arrived in port. There was such a rake to her tapering sticks that she had something of the look, even at rest, of a slender girl straining eagerly forward, running, her head tilted back and her stomach thrust out ahead of her upper body; and I stared at her, forgetful of my friends for the moment.

  Mrs. Sanderson touched my arm. “Did you mean what you said?” she asked. “You know the man who took her away—you think you know where he’d go?”

  I turned from my study of the brig. “I think so,” I said. “Before I was taken prisoner I sent a prize into Nantes: a fine West India-man, the Pembroke. She was in charge of Cephas Cluff, my first officer; and my orders to Cephas were to he in Nantes until I should come there myself to get the ship and our prize money from my agents. If Jeddy took Emily from Portsmouth to escape the police, there’s only one guess as to what he would have done. He’d never have let her come near Dartmoor, for fear she’d be taken; nor would there have been any safe place in England, after that, for either of them. But it was easy enough to go to France; for then Bonaparte was still in Elba, and France and England were at peace; and to France they’d have gone: to France and to Nantes and to the Pembroke, where they’d be among friends.”

  Sanderson laughed abruptly and huskily.

  “If they’re anywhere,” I said, “they’re in Nantes. They’re in Nantes, and it’s to Nantes that we’ll go!”

  With that I laughed too, clapped Sanderson on the shoulder, took him by the arm and pulled him from his chair. “How soon can you be ready?” I cried. “How soon?”

  “My dear captain!” he protested, “how can we do any such thing? No English vessels can be found to carry us into a French port, now that we’re at war again! What’s more, even if you yourself have means to sail for a French port and arrive there, my wife and I are English and couldn’t accompany you while our country’s at war with France. But I see no means for you to go yourself, Captain Nason. I fear we must wait until Boney is cornered once more and put where he’ll no longer torture all the world.”

  What he said was true; the wind dropped out of my sails, and I stood staring dismally from the window. “Another war!” I groaned. “We must wait for the end of another war!” Then for a time we three were quiet, cogitating gloomily.

  A murmurous sound intruded on our silence. At first I thought it came from out of doors; but presently I recognized it as the voice of a man talking in the next room. I listened idly: it became more audible—a gentle, winning voice that seemed to have in it a note of deference and yet a tone of assurance.

  “Why,” I said, “why who—” and with that I went near the closed door that shut off our room from the next. The voice became distinct to my ear. “Oh, do you think so?” it said, “do you really think so! That is very kind and thoughtful of you, sir: very gracious and very handsomely
said!”

  I turned to look again at the brig lying off Eastern King Point. A faint breeze caught her shivered sails, bellying them a little and dimly revealing, on her mainsail, the patches where the passage of a bushel of grapeshot had been repaired. At her mainpeak a flag stirred idly. I saw it to be the Stars and Stripes. “The Chasseur!” I cried. “The Chasseur!”

  And with no more explanation than that to my two friends, I hurried from the room, ran to the door of the adjoining chamber, and went in. At the far end of the room was a table. At one side of it sat a red-faced, fat Englishman; and at the other a gentleman, neat and handsome in a brown broadcloth coat and pale-colored trousers buckled under his boots. On the table between them was a goldheaded cane and a gray beaver hat apparently in no respect different from the one that had been shot from the head of a warm friend of mine upon a certain conspicuous occasion. I saw the gentleman stroke his small black mustache and heard him say to the red-faced Englishman, “But it’s not extravagance, if you’ll permit me the correction, sir—not at all! If we’re free with our money we’ll find it easier when we wish other prisoners released; and after all, my dear sir, we can’t even be sure of civility from most of your compatriots unless we—I hope you don’t mind my mentioning it—unless we pay well for it.”

  I cleared my throat, for the sight of him moved me.

  Captain Boyle rose to his feet and raised his eyebrows, striving to see me clearly in the dimness. “Whom have I the pleasure—” he asked politely, and I saw him dart a suspicious glance at the redfaced Englishman.

  “A passenger for your packet boat,” I said, with a gruffness in my voice that was due to no desire to disguise it.

  “My packet boat!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been misinformed, I fear! I’m not in the passenger-carrying business, sir.”