Instruments of Darkness

by Imogen Robertson

  He paused and looked up. All three of them were staring at him as if he had just performed some terrible or miraculous trick in the neat salon. He felt a little at a loss.

  “I hope you don’t think I have done wrong in sharing this information with you.”

  Crowther smiled narrowly at the top of his cane. “So Alexander is called ‘Adams’ now, is he?”

  Mrs. Westerman stood, her face was flushed, her eyes bright. “He has a child! Crowther!”

  Miss Trench leaned forward over her knees in apparent deep concentration.

  “Shush, Harry,” she said urgently. “That name . . . I remember this morning . . .” Then with a cry of horror she leaped to her feet and ran to the desk at the far end of the room, plucking the Daily Advertiser from it and running back to them.

  Crowther rose to meet her and Clode stood in confusion to avoid being the only member of the group sitting down. Harriet caught her sister’s elbow.

  “Rachel, what is it?”

  The younger woman began turning the pages of the paper in her hands, then thrust it into her sister’s hand.

  “There—oh Harry—there!”

  She took a step back, and would have stumbled if Mr. Clode had not steadied her elbow, and guided her to her seat. She looked up at him gratefully.

  Harriet scanned the page and put her hand to her mouth. Crowther tapped the bottom of his cane on the carpet.

  “Mrs. Westerman, for the love of God, do not keep me in suspense.”

  Harriet began to read in an unsteady voice, “Horrid murder done in Tichfield Street.” Crowther’s eyes snapped to her face. She glanced at him, felt her hand tremble and had to steady it before she could read on. “‘On this Friday past, among the many disturbances of the crowd was done a most terrible murder in the music shop and printers of Mr. Alexander Adams of Tichfield Street.’ Oh Crowther! They have killed him!”

  “Read on, if you would, Mrs. Westerman.”

  “‘A man, his identity at this time still a mystery, came into the shop as Mr. Adams and his children were at supper and killed the proprietor with one cruel knife blow to his stomach. It seems that were it not for the accidental arrival of a friend, this devil in human form may have snuffed out too the young lives of Mr. Adams’s two defenseless and motherless children, Susan Adams, only nine years of age, and her younger brother Jonathan.’ Oh, the children live then!” She caught Crowther’s look and continued to read. “‘The murderer lost himself in the crowds, and though Mr. Adams lived long enough to comfort his children and confide them to the care of his friend, the efforts of the surgeon were not enough to save his life.’”

  She looked around, Rachel pale, Clode confused but horrified, Crowther, his hands clasped so tightly around the ball of his cane, his fingers were white.

  She almost whispered, “Who is this friend? He must be warned! There’s a little more...‘The motive for the killings may most likely be robbery, but what a matter, oh England, when such murder is done in daylight in the home of a respectable man leaving his little son and daughter alone and adrift in this cruel and chaotic world. Mr. Adams’s funeral was well attended by his many friends, filled with respect for the murdered man’s great knowledge of the glorious music available in the city at this time, and his commitment to introduce the finest qualities to the most advanced tastes.’”

  Harriet dropped the paper to her side. Crowther could almost see her fears and horrors crowding around her in the growing shadows, monsters of imagination and sympathy pulling at her dark red skirts and plucking her hair with long waxy fingers.

  Clode looked about him amazed. “I do not understand. This is the man who was Nurse Bray’s benefactor?”

  Rachel turned to him, her face calm, but a little emptied; there was a hollow ring in her voice that made Clode feel as if he were lost in the night and cold.

  “We believe that Alexander Adams was by birth Alexander Thornleigh. Heir to Thornleigh Hall and Viscount Hardew.”

  It was Clode’s turn to look pale. Harriet spoke to the air around her.

  “And he had children.”

  Crowther stooped a little over his cane. “They may not be legitimate.”

  Harriet shook her head. “If Alexander gave up his family for the love of their mother, I cannot think but he married her and they are legitimate.”

  Clode stood again, with sudden urgency.

  “They are in danger,” he said. No one replied. He appealed to Crowther. “Mr. Crowther, are they not? I have not your understanding of this business, but I can see there is some desperate hand at work here, and it has stretched its influence to London. Any child can see that. We must warn them, warn their friends, as Mrs. Westerman said—take them to some place of safety till the danger is past.”

  Crowther did not look up from the top of his cane. He could feel the young rush of blood, the quivering energy in the man across the space between them. One corner of his mouth twisted into a wary smile.

  “Yes. I think you have grasped the fundamentals of the situation, Mr. Clode.”

  Clode glanced down briefly at Rachel, who was staring off intently into a corner of the room, then back to the figures of Harriet and Crowther, each seemingly cut off in their own worlds. He spoke softly.

  “Let me go.”

  Harriet seemed to wake and turned with a frown. “No, Mr. Clode, I shall.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Westerman, but that makes no sense.” The young man stepped forward. “These children will not be safe until whoever is behind this is brought to justice. You can help that happen more effectively than I. Let me go. I can set off at once and be in London by dawn.”

  Harriet hesitated. She thought of her own children asleep upstairs, then gave a quick nod and turned away. The fears and confusions of the evening still had her by the throat.

  Clode continued, “I only wish I knew of some place to take the children if the need arises. The closer they are to Tichfield Street, the greater their danger, yet I do not think their grandfather’s house to be a place of safety for them now, if,” he looked at them. “If I understand the situation correctly.”

  Crowther walked over to Harriet’s writing table with quick steps.

  “You do, sir. And the place of safety I believe I can supply.” He pulled out paper and examined Harriet’s quills till with a grunt he selected one he believed would suit him. “I am writing a note for you to take to a Mr. John Hunter. He has been a teacher of mine in London, a great man for many reasons and with better sense than most. He has a house out at Earl’s Court. He’ll take you in if you think it necessary. He’s a rough man, and has a queer household.” Crowther shook sand onto the sheet. “He also knows some individuals who may be of use if you come under threat.” He folded the note and handed it to Clode. The latter’s face wore a slight frown. “Grave robbers and their like, Mr. Clode,” Crowther explained further. “He is an anatomist, like myself, and a great one, but his needs for material have led him into some strange alliances. You may trust him with your life, however, and those of the children. He’d not betray you if the king and the archbishop of Canterbury knocked at his door asking for them.”

  Harriet shook herself free from her imaginings and also stepped swiftly behind the desk, making Crowther move quickly out of her way in her impatience to open a little drawer in its honey-colored side. She withdrew a money box and, opening it with a key from her own pocket, pulled out a handful of notes. Mr. Clode looked a little offended and tried to wave her away. She all but stamped her foot.

  “Oh, take it, Mr. Clode! You may have need of it and have expenses you did not envisage when you left your home this morning.”

  He hesitated again, but seeing the sense of what she said, took it from her with a bow.

  “I am grateful that you trust me, Mrs. Westerman.”

  The thought seemed to surprise her, and he watched her exchange a glance and shrug with Crowther.

  “It seems we do, Mr. Clode. Are we wrong to do so?”

 
; He shook his head. “No. You are not wrong. I can leave from here now. May I write a note to be sent on to Pulborough in the morning? I would rather not leave my parents worrying for me. I shall say business detains me here a few days.”

  “Of course,” Harriet said. “Good. Rachel, go and fetch one of David’s riding cloaks for Mr. Clode. We shall tell him what we know.”

  Without even troubling to take their seats again, Harriet and Crowther told the young man everything they had seen, thought or suspected since the dawn of Friday. The young man said very little and what questions he had were intelligent and to the point. He had the best of it by the time Rachel returned with the cloak, and a little bag of provisions culled from the kitchen, including half a bottle of Harriet’s most expensive brandy. Then he was gone.

  The door swung to behind him, and Rachel, Harriet and Crowther looked at each other a little dumbfounded. When Mrs. Heathcote came in to clear the almost untouched refreshments as brisk as a lieutenant clearing the decks for action, Harriet drew herself up behind her desk.

  “Very well,” she said. “What next?”

  17 JUNE 1775, BREED’S HILL NEAR CHARLESTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS BAY

  Try to imagine a fog. It is as dense as that which crawls from a still river in darkness so you can see only a few feet in either direction, but it is still tinged yellow by a sun you can no longer see, and it is acrid and smoking in your nose and mouth. Gunsmoke. A world of burned powder. The noises around you are like thunder, but muffled; you can no longer tell the difference between the sound of your own and your companions’ feet hitting the ground under your boots and the thump of your own blood. Your eyes are streaming, one is swollen shut and tears at you like a rat trapped in your skull. You would pluck it out and throw it from you, but your hands will not part from the musket they hold. The air is alive with hisses and explosions. There are groans and cries, some in the distance, then suddenly almost under your feet. You can feel wet heat and sear on your cheek. Evil little balls of shot rattling past you. You cannot see where they come from, or from how close. Now, you catch a flash of gunpowder in the gloom in front of you. You are almost upon them. The man to your right stumbles, you curse the broken ground and reach down to pull him up again; only when you are bent by the effort, bring his lolling head up to the level of your stooped shoulder, do you see the man is dead, the side of his face broken away. You let him fall. You call out to the men around you and plow forward again, bayonet raised, knowing that it is impossible you will survive, only sure you will take one of these murderous bastards, cowering behind their defensive arrows, with you, determined to bring a little of your hell over their redoubt and into their midst.

  You are there. The fence between you and the other man gives under your weight, he has fumbled his reload. He looks up into your face, you tower above him as he crouches over his cartridge case in his homespun shirt, his ill-shaped cap. There is a scrap of old newspaper at his feet, scattered with crumbs. He must have eaten between the last attack and this. He brought something from home. You see it all without looking away from his face. You lift the barrel and drive the foot of steel at the end of your gun into his chest, thrusting as you breathe out, even while he stares at you. Blood bubbles in his mouth, his eyes go slack. The bayonet is buried so far into his chest you have to stand on his breastbone to pull it clear. You turn to find another. This is dancing. The world has slowed, your movements are fluid and there is time and time to take another partner, obey the impulse of movement, pull free and turn to take another, and another—his flashpan fizzing—lets fly almost into your face. You wait for the world to blacken; it does not, the shot failed him. There is a moment when he realizes this as you lift your weapon and fall foward. He crumples, you stumble into him, then back onto your feet. Your eye is caught by another man scrambling away; he is too slow. A shot flashes to your right and he is lifted and thrown forward onto the ground, among the grass, his body shivering with shock and despair.

  The dreaming ends, the world speeds up again and you are aware of the desperate gasping for breath, your hands on the stock of your gun slippery with other men’s blood. Someone is standing beside you. Their eyes are as black and burning as your own.

  “We’re done here, Thornleigh. They have taken the redoubt. Christ, man! Your face!”

  You spit on the ground. There are bodies all around you. Some in the local linen, some in the blood red of your own coat. You turn back toward the beach without replying. There is a groan on your right-hand side. You crouch down, recognize one of your own. Get his arm around your neck, yours around his waist, pull him back toward the beach. By the time you reach the boats, you are carrying a corpse.

  The streets were full of men, bloody and broken, dragged in carts toward the hospitals, or staggering behind them. Some nodded as he passed. Thornleigh paused only long enough at the docks to deliver his report before he started to make his way to the hospital he had visited with Hawkshaw only a few weeks before. He wanted to see if any of his company were there, and if so, what could be done for them. Of the thirty men in his command, only four were capable of walking unaided from the fight. He had seen the bodies of ten. Now he came in search of the rest. The windows of the respectable houses in Boston were mostly shuttered. Here and there civilians, old men mostly in wigs and tight-fitting jackets, dithered at the tops of their steps, jaws hanging slack, all amazement and confusion as they watched the slow, bloody parade. When Hugh turned into the wide gates of the old warehouse, he found a butcher’s yard.

  The forecourt was full of injured men, groaning and bleeding, waiting their turn with the surgeon. Some of the women of the town moved among them, offering water, the fringes of their long skirts reddening. One girl had turned away into a patch of shadow, her handkerchief at her mouth; even in the dark he could see the whiteness around her lips, one hand pressed against the stone wall. When she moved away it left a rust stain of some man’s blood behind her. He wondered whose last minutes she had watched over.

  He fetched water from the drinking butt and distributed it; the calls for water came from every side. Some asked after his company, others put a black and red hand on his sleeve and tried to stop him long enough to tell their own stories of the slaughter they had seen around them on the hill. Howe’s entire staff dead or wounded, half the companies of grenadiers down to single figures like his own. A victory, but a disastrous one.

  If they had grown less sanguine about their powers on the retreat from Lexington, they were as sober as hell now. A marine was curled up next to the wall, sobbing, and trying to stop his tears with a fist in his mouth. Another young woman tried to approach Hugh, make some move toward his wound; she carried a cloth and basin already pink and dirty. Hugh pushed her away, saying nothing, then heard his own name called, and looked up. A young man from Hawkshaw’s company lay propped up against the white wall. Thornleigh walked toward him. The lad’s face was gray and waxy. Thornleigh let his eye scan down his body. It was a stomach wound. There was nothing the surgeons could do for this one. Without speaking, Thornleigh crouched beside him and drew out a hip flask from under his jacket, still half-full of his father’s celebratory brandy. He put it to the man’s lips. The latter drank and grimaced as the heat of it reached down his throat.

  “Thanks, Captain. Tastes good.”

  Thornleigh did not smile. “Only the best.”

  The man laughed; it pulled at his wound and became a cough which spat a thick red from his mouth. Thornleigh gave him the flask again. He drank, and tried apologetically to wipe the opening clean with his sleeve before Thornleigh gently took it back.

  “Don’t know if you’ve heard, sir. I’m afraid Captain Hawkshaw is dead.”

  Thornleigh felt it in his own gut like a soft blow of the fist. He bowed his head.

  “You saw?” he managed to say.

  The man nodded. “Second wave, he was up front and charging. The skinny bastard he was bearing down on waited till he was almost there and got him right in the for
ehead. He just dropped.” The man paused again. “Got nerve, these little shits, some of them at any rate. I did for him a minute later, then . . .” he put his hand on the red mess at his middle... “then his mate did for me.”

  Thornleigh nodded his throbbing head. The man looked at him. “Musket blow up on you, sir?” Thornleigh put his hand to the right side of his face. He felt flesh rather than skin. The touch seemed to wake the wound; it burned across his cheek in a wave, exploding in a spasm of pain under his eye, scrabbling at his vision until it seemed he could see the pattern of it. He steadied himself. Willed it down.

  “Yes. Mine was shot from my hand in the first wave. Made do with a dead rebel’s till I could get it back. I suppose it did not like me for a master.”

  The man smiled. “A rebel gun, you see?” He laughed at his own joke, repeating it with a shake of his head. “A rebel gun.”

  “Sorry about Hawkshaw, Captain. He was a good sort of bloke.” The grin became a little lopsided. “So was I.”

  Thornleigh put the hip flask back into his hands and stood. The man looked at it.

  “You’ll never get it back, Captain.”

  Thornleigh waved his hand. “Drink to Hawkshaw.”

  “Will do, sir. Good luck to you.”

  Thornleigh stood. The light was softening into the evening of another beautiful summer’s day. He turned into the building itself. The groans became screams in the shadows, the smell rank and rusty. The surgeon was hard at work with the saw, the ground below him a swill of blood and vomit. Just visible behind them was a wide barrel; over its edge hung a bloody hand, bent at the wrist, oddly perfect. Thornleigh wondered if the rest of the man had survived.