Absolute Honour

by C. C. Humphreys

  He lay there, mastering himself. The footpad – it was obvious he was Red Hugh’s cohort, the attack on Letty’s chair merely another piece of theatre – must have crept up the servants’ stair from the floor below, come through that recessed door. Where was Fagg, then? Unconscious or dead in his quarters, no doubt. There’d be no help there, no moment’s distraction as he stumbled in.

  He listened, below the music. Harsh words were being spoken. Jack thought it must be the blow rendering them unintelligible until he realized it was another language, one he recognized from his childhood though he could not speak it. Anyway, Irish Gaelic was probably different from Cornish; that he knew neither did not matter. It was clear what was being planned. They would wait till the King stood below. And then they would drop a grenade on him.

  To his ear, Gaelic was harsh anyway, but he was sure they were arguing in it. Then he heard the softer tones of Red Hugh, giving instructions, in words perhaps impossible to find in that more ancient tongue: ‘One elephant, two elephants.’

  He opened one eye. The men were crouched by the window, Red Hugh clutching a grenade, pointing at it, jabbering, the other man shaking his head. Two more of the metal balls were on the chair. From the street, the town-waits, obviously thrilled to have found notes and rhythm in common, had gone back to the beginning of ‘Rule Britannia’. The crowd was singing along.

  ‘When Britain fir … ir … ir … ir … irst

  At Heaven’s command

  Aro … o … o … o … o … o … ose

  From out the a … a … a … azure main

  Arose, Arose, Aro … o … o … ose

  From the az … ure main.’

  ‘Arise,’ thought Jack. But first he reached into his waistcoat pocket.

  ‘You’ll both step away from the window … now!’

  The men did not move, Red Hugh’s forefinger still pointing to the metal ball, the footpad’s head arrested in mid-shake. But their eyes went to the pocket pistol in Jack’s hand.

  There was a silence. Only the singing went on, a popular line increasing in volume: ‘Britons never never never will be slaves.’

  After a moment, both men stood, Red Hugh carefully laying the grenade down on the chair. ‘Now, Jack,’ he said calmly, ‘it’s only a lady’s toy.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jack replied, ‘but this time it’s loaded. Go!’ He shouted the last word, marched forward as he did, the pistol thrust before him, switching the muzzle between their two faces. The suddenness of the movement, his volume, had the false footpad stumbling back, Red Hugh trailing him. Jack kept coming, they kept retiring, until they stood by the half-open servants’ door with Jack six feet away between bedpost and window.

  Red Hugh took a step, until the pistol stopped him. He opened his hands towards it. ‘Lad,’ he said, ‘you’ll only shoot the one of us. And the other would then have to kill you. Give me the gun.’

  ‘You know, you’re right,’ said Jack, ‘I need to even the odds.’

  He stepped back suddenly. It was awkward, keeping the gun up for the second it took to bend, scoop up a grenade with his other hand, snatch the glowing cord with a trailing finger. Somehow he managed it. When he looked again, they had only taken a pace forward, the footpad now slightly ahead, his leader’s steering hand upon his shoulder.

  ‘Jack, put it down. Put it down now!’ On the shout, Red Hugh shoved the footpad forward. Jack fired. He had reloaded the gun with two balls and as much powder as he could cram in. It even gave a little kick and the discharge took the man in the chest, knocking him back, screaming in agony, into Red Hugh, who was trying to get past him. Jack ran towards the open bedroom door and, as he did, touched the cord end to the fuse.

  Red Hugh, caught in the other man’s agonized fall, was half crouched on the ground, trying to extricate himself. He looked up, just as the grenade was lit.

  ‘How many elephants?’ Jack shouted.

  ‘You crazy bastard!’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Chuck it! Chuck it now!’

  The man was too panicked to be lying. Jack turned and tossed the grenade out of the door and into the other bedroom, diving into the corner as he threw. He doubted the bomb had even hit the ground, so fast did the explosion come. It ripped the other room’s door off, sent it smashing into their room, an end catching Jack’s trailing foot with a blow that hurt. Chunks fell from the ceiling, a rain of plaster and horsehair. Simultaneously, there came the sound of windows exploding outwards, of glass panes shattering and showering debris onto the street below. Down there, most musicians had stopped playing. A few, drunker than the rest perhaps, went on a few bars more.

  Red Hugh had caught some of the door as well. He lay crumbled against the wall, his fall snapping the legs of an armoire that he now appeared to be cradling. Through the dust, Jack could see his nose was splayed at a strange angle to his face.

  ‘Shite, Jack.’ He stared through the dust. ‘You crazy bastard.’

  Dazed, his ears filled with high-pitched whining, Jack sat up. The door had bounced, knocked the chair with the grenades onto the floor where one rolled. Red Hugh’s pistol was still in the holster, its butt towards him. Jack reached forward, drew it out, cocked it.

  Through the buzz, from the street, at first all he heard was screaming. Then there came the distinct sound of the front door being pounded. He could feel the vibration of the blows through the floor.

  Red Hugh could feel it, too. Wiping blood from beneath his nose, he said. ‘They’ll be coming for me.’

  Jack shook his head, trying to clear it. ‘Good.’

  ‘It will mean the Tyburn jig. After they’ve finished with me.’

  Jack nodded. ‘You deserve it.’

  ‘Maybe so, lad. There’s many who’ve predicted my last caress would be from a noose.’ He peered through the falling plaster dust. ‘But is that the fate you’d wish for a friend?’ He nodded at the gun in Jack’s hand, now levelled at him.

  Jack snorted. ‘A friend who has betrayed me? Allied me with his treachery, sullying the name of Absolute, possibly for ever? Pandered his cousin to me, made me fall in love …’ Jack choked as he thought on Letty, knew it was not the dust that made him do so. The muzzle wavered. ‘You tell me if a friend does that.’

  The Irishman’s voice came soft. ‘Perhaps not, lad. But a friend does save another’s life.’

  The hammering below had changed. Someone had brought up something more solid, was using it to bludgeon the door. Jack looked at the Irishman, with his red hair, his red blood and remembered. Hauling him naked from the sea off Newport. Grenade lessons. The fight on the Sweet Eliza. The spider crawling around and around inside the nutshell as Red Hugh barricaded himself inside a cabin and refused to let them off-load Jack to die on a fever island. There was no question. He owed this man a life.

  He lay the pistol down on the floor. ‘Go, then.’

  ‘Truly?’ Red Hugh was up fast, throwing aside the shattered armoire. He bent to his fallen comrade, touched him at the neck. ‘Dead. Who’d have thought it?’ He straightened. ‘I’ll be off, then,’ he said casually, turning toward the servants’ staircase as if he had all the time in the world, as if the King’s Guards were not nearly through the front door.

  ‘Wait!’ Jack took a step toward him. ‘You have to knock me out. And do it better than your late friend did.’

  Red Hugh came back. ‘Are you sure? I could …’ He lifted Jack’s wrist, pressed the ball of his finger into the flesh. There was a flash of pain.

  ‘No,’ said Jack, ‘they’d never believe it. I still don’t believe it.’

  ‘Very well.’ The Irishman looked deep into Jack’s eyes for a moment. ‘You have to believe this, Jack. Yes, Letty was also working for the Jacobite cause. But she did love you. Does love you.’

  The man picked the strangest times to discuss Jack’s amours. But he couldn’t help himself. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Did she not tell me so herself?’ Red Hugh smiled. ‘Of course, the relation
to the Earl of Clare is largely fictitious. But perhaps that won’t bother you?’

  ‘It will bother my father. As to me, we shall see.’ It was too much to consider now, with the explosion still filling his ears, with men about to run up the stairs with weapons. He braced himself. ‘Now, for Christ’s sake, stop talking and hit me, man, will you?’

  The Irishman smiled. ‘You’ll not regret this, my boy.’

  ‘I already do.’

  ‘And we will meet again.’

  Jack sighed. ‘I hope not. But if we do, McClune, remember this: you and I are quits.’

  ‘I will remember.’

  The noise from below doubled in volume; a door coming off its hinges, smashing down, a hallway suddenly filled with men, shouting. Then all went instantly quiet, from the sudden pain, within the sudden darkness.

  Red Hugh did know how to hit a man. Jack wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious but, when he woke up in an entirely different place, he had no memory of the journey there, so assumed he had been out for some time. He’d been carried, undoubtedly, but how long ago, by whom and for what reason he knew not.

  The ‘where’ concerned him initially. The room was dark, but not completely so, some light slipping in from under what turned out, on a groping exploration, to be a thick oaken door, studded and banded with metal. His feeling around it was movement enough to make him nauseous, for his head pounded horribly from where he’d been struck by the footpad’s blow to the back of the head and Red Hugh’s cleaner punch to his jaw that seemed at first to have broken it but hadn’t, as Jack discovered when he stretched it wide to vomit. Cautiously, he gauged the limits of the stone-lined room, discovered the only objects within it were a metal bedstead covered with a stinking straw paliasse, and a bucket, presumably for voiding, which he’d missed. The space was square, only a little over his height across and the same above, discovered when he stubbed his finger in reaching up.

  He sat down heavily upon the bed. A stone box, he thought. Or a sarcophagus? The image made him jump up again, stagger to the faint light of the door. ‘Hallo? Is there someone out there? Hallo-oh?’

  He called and pounded till his head swam and his hand hurt, almost sobbing out the words. Then he heard something outside. Footsteps. ‘You there! Open this door!’

  The footsteps had stopped. He could feel someone on the other side. ‘Hello?’ he said, more quietly.

  Then the sound of footsteps again, but slowly receding. ‘Come back,’ he called again, slapping the wood with the palm of one hand.

  But no one came. He knew not how long he stood there hoping that they would. At last he lay down, still listening. Nothing. He took some breaths and gradually his heart calmed. There was nothing he could do but wait.

  Maybe it was an hour, maybe more. He had not slept, had not moved except to vomit once again, this time into the bucket. His mouth was a sand dune, dry and barren, but he’d checked the room again and there was nothing to relieve him. Then he heard footsteps again, not the stealthy approach of before but a rush of them, preceding a crash of bolts, inarticulate shouting, sudden light, a man storming in, grabbing Jack by the throat, running him into the wall …

  ‘You fuckin’ bastard! You fuckin’ bogtrotting fuck.’

  A monster had Jack, huge fingers gouging his Adam’s apple, enormous face thrust at him, mouth yelling obscenities. Jack tried to push the monster away, to get a breath. But he was pulled forward, slammed back, driving out what little air remained. He was beginning to faint, he could feel it. And beyond fainting lay death if this man did not let him go. Over his shoulder, he noticed someone else standing in the doorway, an indistinct shape lined in red mist.

  The shape spoke, one quiet word: ‘Enough.’

  Instantly, the hand left his throat, the monster stepped back, and Jack crumpled onto the stone floor. He lay there choking, dimly aware that other men had come quietly into the room, that one had set up a small writing table, and another had placed a lamp upon it and a chair behind it. Then the door closed again and the three of them were left together – Jack, the monster and the shape, still blurred to Jack’s water-filled eyes.

  The shape leaned forward. ‘Well, Mr Monaghan. You have given us a little fright, have you not?’

  – FIFTEEN –

  The Offer

  It was a struggle to get words formed in his battered head, then out through his bruised larynx. After several attempts, Jack managed. ‘Not … Monaghan.’

  The reaction was instantaneous. The monster – who Jack now perceived to be merely a man but at least six and a half foot of him – ran forward, hand raised.

  ‘Don’t you fuckin’ lie to the Colonel, you fuckin’ Irish …’

  Jack leaned away, hands up helplessly, knowing that a slap from this man would be like a punch from most others, even Red Hugh. But the blow didn’t fall.

  ‘Enough, I said.’ The voice was as quiet as before, and the man reacted to it as instantly, moving back behind the chair where he stood, glowering down like a dog denied meat. Jack would swear that he was panting.

  The shape had finally resolved itself into a body, small and dressed in a simple dark-blue coat with a vest of slightly lighter hue. A short, grey horsehair wig sat upon his head. He reached up and began scratching underneath it, then, with a sigh, lifted it off and laid it down beside the papers before him. ‘Dawkins doesn’t like men of your land, I’m afraid. Especially after what your colleague did to his colleague. You don’t like Irishmen, do you, Dawkins?’

  ‘Fucks,’ growled the man behind.

  ‘And he has a limited vocabulary. Still,’ he leaned forward, ‘we don’t employ him for conversation. His talents lie elsewhere.’ The man’s huge hands moved in front of him, as if aching to be filled.

  Jack mustered thought and voice. ‘But I’m not Irish, sir.’

  ‘Not Irish?’ A grey eyebrow rose quizzically. ‘But Monaghan is an Irish name.’ He riffled the papers, lifted one. ‘You rented this house, Mr Monaghan. I have your signature here.’

  ‘It cannot be mine. I never saw the lease. It was rented for me.’

  ‘By?’

  Jack tried to swallow. ‘By a friend.’

  ‘Ah. A friend.’ The man carefully slipped the paper back into place, picked out another, studied it. ‘A friend named William Leadbetter? Or is it Thomas Lawson? Or … and this is my particular favourite, Josiah Tumbril.’ Though the words came out as if he were amused there was not a trace of a smile. ‘But perhaps you always knew the man as Red Hugh McClune.’

  ‘I know a man by that name, yes. But he knows me as—’

  ‘Monaghan?’

  ‘Absolute. Jack Absolute.’

  The man sucked in his lower lip as he again scanned the sheet before him. ‘No, that’s not one of the ones we have down here. But I shall add it.’ He picked up a quill, dipped it in the ink well. ‘New aliases always interest. Even if Absolute is as unlikely a name as Tumbril.’ He began to scratch.

  ‘Nevertheless, sir, it is my true and given name.’

  ‘I fuckin’ warned you …’

  This time no command halted him. The slap came, mainly on Jack’s ear, doubling the whining and the pain.

  ‘Dear, dear,’ said the other man softly, though he seemed to be referring to a paper. ‘How would you confirm this absurd name? It would surprise me greatly if there was anyone in Bath who knew you as,’ he squinted at the page, ‘Absolute. Can you think of someone who will give me a reason not to let my man here have you for a while?’

  Dawkins’s huge hands twitched. Jack looked at them, swallowed and thought. Who? Who? Letty knew him as such, as she had mistakenly revealed. But he could not mention her. If this man and his mastiff did not know of her already, then Jack had no intention of leading them to her. Everywhere else he had introduced himself as Beverley to maintain his role. Fagg – if he were still alive – knew him so. The Cornish labourer, Trewennan, the same. Even the landlord at the Three Tuns and the billiard sharpers he’d playe
d there, all thought of him as the impoverished Cornet. There was no one …

  And then he remembered. ‘Fanny Harper,’ he blurted. ‘She’s at the theatre in Orchard Street. An actress.’

  ‘An actress?’ The word could not have come with any more contempt.

  ‘She … knew me. sir, in London. Before I joined the army. I was in Canada, with Wolfe, you see, I …’

  Jack’s faltering words had threatened to become a torrent. The hand that had halted a further assault tapped the table, commanding silence. ‘I will give you a moment to write down a few things only this woman would know of you as Jack Absolute. I will then visit the playhouse. And we shall see.’ He leaned forward. ‘But if this is just a delaying lie …’

  The monster growled again. Jack crawled forward, reaching for the quill, but the man held it away for a moment. ‘No lie, sir. I am a true-born Englishman, I swear it. And Fanny will inform you of others who can also vouch for me.’

  ‘I think we’ll just start with the player, shall we? Write.’ The quill was at last offered. ‘At the least, I shall learn what stories our enemies invent these days for their spies.’ That no-smile came again. ‘We have plenty of time. And the only space we could require.’

  Jack dipped, thought, wrote. He’d covered half a side when the paper was snatched away. ‘That will do,’ said the man. ‘If it is the truth it is enough, if lies then too much.’ He stood. ‘My name is Colonel Turnville, as I am sure you already know. And I will be back eventually.’

  He left the cell, reading as he went. Other men came in, collected the chair and papers. The last to leave was Dawkins. ‘You’ll be mine, shit-sack,’ he hissed. Jack was almost ready for the blow that came, taking it at least part on his shoulder. It still hurt. Growling, the man departed, leaving Jack to a rare prayer. Not to God, but to Fanny.

  The little light faded, indicating night, yet no one came. Jack’s thirst went from craving to torment; he was certain that if he did not drink soon, he would die. He disdained the bed – the lamplight before had shown stains Jack did not want to get near – and folded himself into a slightly less noxious corner. There, an approximation of sleep came, filled with brief dreams of snow, of water bubbling under ice, of Até offering him a drinking skin filled from a cool forest stream. He’d jerk awake, always just the moment before he drank. Once, he ran to the door, beat upon it till his palm was raw. There was a little barred window, a wood panel beyond it, and he put his lips to it, shouting for water. No one came. He’d sunk into the corner again, vowing to own the name of Monaghan next time. It might get him a drink.