Flashman and the Angel of the Lord

I was about to say no, but one look at the loungers stopped me: too many ferret eyes and ugly mugs for my liking, and I’d no wish to be crimped a second time. I said I had a ship, and a greasy disease in a billycock hat and brass watch-chain asked:

‘What ship would that be, sailor?’

‘The Sea Witch, and I’m Bully Waterman,15 so get the hell out of my way!’ says I. Being over six feet and heavy set has its uses, and I was out in the street and round the corner before he’d had time to offer me a drink and a billy behind the ear. You didn’t linger in establishments like the Knitting Swede’s, not unless you fancied a free holiday in a whaler for the next couple of years. I walked on quickly, reflecting that it had been considerate of Lynch to pay my lodging; but then, it may have been a club rule that insensible members had to be settled for in advance.

I walked for two minutes, and felt so groggy that I had to sit down on a barrel at the mouth of an alley, where I took stock. I knew I was in sailortown, Baltimore, but that was all. The growth on my chin told me I hadn’t been ashore above twenty-four hours. Whatever information Spring had sent to the authorities must have been in their hands for two days by now, and no doubt it would contain an excellent description, even down to my clothes. These consisted of a shirt and trousers, boots, and a canvas jacket, the crease not improved by a night in that verminous hole I’d just escaped from. (I’ve since learned, by the way, that it was quite celebrated among the less discriminating seafarers; if you’d stopped at the Knitting Swede’s you could dine out on it in every shebeen from Glasgow to Sydney.)16

Now, I doubted if the authorities would be scouring the streets for Beauchamp Millward Comber, but the sooner I was under the protection of my country’s flag, the better. A port the size of Baltimore must surely have a British consul, or some kind of commercial representative at least, who shouldn’t be too difficult to find; he might look askance at my appearance, but it would have to do, since Captain Lynch’s generosity hadn’t run the length of leaving a single damned penny, or anything else, in my pockets. It wouldn’t make my bona fides any easier to establish, but I’d meet that trouble when I came to it.

Although I’d been in Baltimore before, with the U.S. Navy folk, I’d no notion of how the town lay, so I took a slant along the street, which was bustling with business round the chandlers’ shops and warehouses, and approached a prosperous-looking old gent to inquire the way to the centre of town. I’d barely got a word out when he rounded on me.

‘You goddam leeches, can’t you work for a change!’ cries he. ‘I declare you’re stout enough!’ He slapped ten cents into my hand and strode on, leaving me wondering if it would buy me a shave … and now that my head was clearing, I found I was almighty hungry …

D’you know, within an hour I was richer by four dollars, and a splendid new vocabulary – the first time I ever heard the word ‘bum’ mean anything but backside was on that morning. The beauty of it was, I didn’t have to beg, even: my dishevelled clothing, unshaven chin, and most charming smile, with a courteous finger raised to the brow, marked me as a mendicant, apparently, and for every nine who brushed past, a tenth would drop a few coppers in my palm. Damned interesting, I found it. Women were altogether more generous than men, especially as I moved up-town; when I approached two fashionable young misses with ‘Pardon me, marm’ and a bow, one of them exclaimed ‘Oh, my!’ and gave me fifty cents and a fluttery look before they hurried away tittering. I left off, though, when I became aware that I was being watched by a belted constable with a damned disinheriting moustache, but I’ve calculated since that I could have cleared ten thousand dollars a year on the streets of Baltimore, easy, which is two thousand quid, sufficient to buy you a lieutenancy in the Guards in those days – and from the look of some of them, I’d not be surprised.

I was still no nearer finding the consul, and the constable had given me a scare, so after a shave and brush-up and a hearty steak and eggs at a chop-house, I looked for a fellow-countryman – and the sure way to do that in America in those days was to find a Catholic church. I spotted one, noted that the name of its priest displayed on the gilt board was Rafferty, made my way through the musty wax-and-image interior, and found the man himself delving like a navigator in the garden behind the church, whistling ‘The Young May Moon’ in his shirt-sleeves. He greeted me with a cry of ‘Hollo, me son, and what can I be doin’ for ye on this parky day?’ a jaunty little leprechaun with a merry eye.

I asked my question and he pulled a face. ‘Faith, now, an’ I don’t know there’s any such crater in Baltimore,’ says he. ‘Jist off the boat, are ye?’ The shrewd blue eyes took me in. ‘Well, if ’tis diplomatic assistance ye’re seekin’, Washington’ll be the place for you, where our minister is. He’s new come, an’ all, they tell me – Lyons, his name is, an English feller. He’ll be your man, right enough. And what would ye say, yes or no, to a cup o’ tea?’

Seeing him so affable, and with only two dollars in my pocket, it struck me that if I played smooth I might touch him for the fare to Washington, so I affected the faintest of brogues and introduced myself as Grattan Nugent-Hare (who was rotting safely in a cottonwood grove somewhere south of Socorro) of the Rathfarnham and Trinity College, lately arrived to join my brother Frank, who held a minor position in a Washington bank. Unfortunately, I had been set upon soon after landing the previous night, and was without cash or effects. He opened eyes and mouth wide.

‘D’ye tell me? Dear God, what’s the world comin’ to? An’ you wi’ your foot barely on the ground, and from Dublin, too! Have ye been to the police, man dear? Ye have – an’ got little good o’ them? Aye, well, they’ve a hard row to hoe, wi’ some queer ones in this town, I’ll tell ye! They wouldn’t know of a British consul, neither …? No, no … it’s a wonder they didn’t think to steer you to a feller-countryman, at least – there’s enough of English and ourselves hereabouts, God knows. But they didn’t; ah, well. But come away an’ we’ll have that dish o’ tea while we think what’s best to be done. An’ how’s the Liffey lookin’, eh?’

I sat in his kitchen while he prattled Irishly and made tea. Since I’d never been in Dublin in my life, I found it safest to let him run on, with a cheery agreement from time to time, waiting an opportunity to state my needs, but he didn’t give me one, being content to prose sentimentally about the ‘ould country’, until:

‘An’ ye’re in the banking line yourself, are ye?’ says he at last. ‘Ah, well, ye’re in the right furrow in Ameriky; fine grand opportunities for a gentleman like yourself, so there are; it’s a commercial world, so it is, a commercial world, but none the worse for bein’ that if the trade’s honest an’ the word’s good! An’ ye’re a Trinity man, too!’ He chuckled wistfully. ‘Ah, this is a country of grand prospects, but I wonder could a man do better than sit in the ould College court contemplatin’ the trees on St Stephen’s Green on a summer’s evenin’? You’d be there about ’45, am I right?’

I made a hasty calculation and said, rather earlier, ’43.

‘Then ye would know ould Professor Faylen!’ cries he. ‘A fine man, that, an’ a grand Hebrew scholar, so they said, not that I’m a judge. He would still be about in your day, was he not?’

I can smell a false lead as fast as anyone, but he was such a happy simpleton that I decided it was safe to say I hadn’t studied under Faylen myself, but knew of him. He nodded amiably, and sighed.

‘Ah, well, here am I blatherin’ on, an’ you itchin’ to take your way to Washington. Aye, but with your pockets all to let. Well, man dear, I was after thinkin’ yonder that I’d be makin’ ye a small loan for your train ticket, but d’ye know, I’d be party to an awful sin if I did that, so I would. Ye see,’ says he, shaking his pawky old head, ‘the day ye find a priest sittin’ in the court at Trinity is a day ye’ll be able to skate over Dublin Bay from Bray to Balbriggan – an’ as for seein’ St Stephen’s Green from the court, well, I doubt if even ould Faylen could see that far from heaven, where he’s been this five-and-thirty years, God rest his soul. An’ tellin’ me ye were a banker,’ he added sorrowfully, ‘an’ you wid spurs an’ brass buttons stickin’ out all over ye! Now, will ye take another drop o’ tea … soldier, an’ tell me all about it?’

‘You wouldn’t believe it if I did,’ says I, rising. ‘Thank’ee for the tea, padre, and I’ll bid you a very good day.’

‘Stop, stop!’ cries he. ‘Sit down, man dear, an’ don’t be takin’ offence at an ould man jist because he knows Phoenix Park shoulders when he sees them! Come, now, be easy, an’ drink your tea. Can ye not see I’m burstin’ to know the truth of it?’

His smile was so eager and friendly that I found myself smiling in turn. ‘What makes you think I’ll tell truth this time?’

‘Why shouldn’t ye? Ye’ll come to no harm from me if ye do. An’ if ye don’t – well, am I to have no diversion at all? Now then – whut’s this I wouldn’t believe? Jist you try me!’

‘Very well … I’m a British Army officer, I was on my way home from India, I was waylaid at Cape Town and crimped aboard a packet which arrived here yesterday, I’m destitute – but thanks to you I know where to find British authorities who’ll help me back to England. And if you believe that –’

‘And why would I not? It fits ye better than all that moonshine about bankin’ an’ Trinity, I’ll say that for it! What’s your name, my son?’

There was no earthly reason why I shouldn’t tell him – so I shook my head. Least said.

‘An’ why didn’t ye ask direction from the first policeman ye saw?’ I still said nothing, and he nodded, no longer smiling. I rose again to go, for the sooner I was out of this, the better, but he stayed me with a hand on my sleeve. ‘Ye’ll tell me no more? Well, now, just bide a minute while I think about … no, don’t go! Ye want the fare to Washington, don’t ye?’

I waited, while he cogitated, chin in hand, eyes bright as a bird’s.

‘Tell ye whut I think. Ye’re an officer, an’ a bit of a gentleman – I know the look. An’ ye’re a runner – now, now, don’t be addin’ to your sins by denyin’ it, for I had a parish in Leix in the Great Trouble, an’ I know that look, too – aye, twice as long in the leg as ye would be if I put a fut-rule on ye! An’, man dear, ye’re a desperate liar … but who’s not, will ye tell me? But ye’re civil, at least – an’ ye’re Army, an’ didn’t me own father an’ two uncles an’ that other good Irishman Arthur Wellesley follow the flag across Spain togither – they did!’ He paused, and sighed. ‘Now, ye’re a Protestant, so I can’t penance ye for tellin’ lies. But since I’m dreadful afflicted wid the rheumatics, and can’t abide diggin’ at all, at all … well, if ye can sink your gentlemanly pride an’ finish them two rows for me, why, t’will be for the good o’ your soul an’ my body. An’ there’ll be ten dollars to take ye to Washington – nine an’ a half in loan, to be repaid at your convenience, an’ fifty cents for your labour. Well … what say ye, my son?’

Well, I needed that ten dollars … but who’d have thought, when Campbell pinned my Cross on me, that seven months later I’d be digging a bog-trotter’s garden in Maryland? Father Rafferty watched me as I turned the last sods, observing drily that it was plain to see I was English from the way I handled a spade. Then he gave me a mug of beer, and counted ten dollars carefully into my palm.

‘I’ll walk ye to the station,’ says he. ‘No one’ll look twice at ye when ye’re keepin’ step wid the Church. An’ I can see ye don’t get on the wrong train, or lose your money, or go astray anyways, ye know?’

He put me on the right train, sure enough, but the rest of his statement proved as wrong as could be. Someone did look at us, but I didn’t notice at the time, possibly because I was busy parrying Rafferty’s artful questions about the Army and India – at least I could satisfy him I was telling the truth about those.

‘Ask at the Washington station where the British minister’s to be found,’ he advised me, ‘an’ if they don’t know, make your way to Willard’s Hotel on Fourteenth Street, an’ they’ll set ye right. It’s the great place, an’ if they turn up their noses at your togs, jist give ’em your Hyde Park swagger, eh?

‘But mind how ye go, now!’ cries he, as I mounted the step to the coach. ‘T’will be dark by the time ye get in, an’ ’tis a desperate place for garotters an’ scallywags an’ the like! We wouldn’t want ye waylaid a second time, would we?’

Gratitude ain’t my long suit, as you know, but he’d seen me right, and he was a cheery wee soul; looking down at the smiling pixie face under the round hat, I couldn’t help liking the little murphy, and wondering why he’d been at such pains on my behalf. It’s a priest’s business, of course, to succour the distressed sinner, but I knew there was more in it than that. He was a lonely old man, far from home, and he was Irish, and had guessed I was on the run, and I was Army, like his father and uncles. And he had taken to me, as folk do, even when they know I’m not straight.

‘I wish ye’d tell me your name, though!’ says he, when I thanked him. I said I’d send him my card when I repaid the ten dollars.

‘That ye will!’ cries he heartily. ‘In the meantime, though – your Christian name, eh?’

‘Harry.’

‘I believe ye – ye look like a Harry. God knows ye didn’t look like – what was’t? – Grattan? Grattan the banker from the Rathfarnham – the impidence of it!’ He laughed, and looked wistful. ‘Aye, me – sometimes I could wish I’d been a rascal meself.’

‘It’s never too late,’ says I, and he spluttered in delight.

‘Git away wid ye, spalpeen!’ cries he, and stood waving as the train pulled out, a little black figure vanishing into the hissing steam.

I reckon Father Rafferty was one of those good fools who are put into the world to grease the axles for people like me. They charm so easy, if you play ’em right, and the bigger a scoundrel you are the more they’ll put themselves out for you, no doubt in the hope that if you do reform, they’ll get that much more treasure in heaven for it. You may be astonished to know that I did repay the loan, later on, but in no spirit of gratitude or obligation, or because I’d quite liked the little ass. No, I paid because I could easily afford it, and there’s one rule, as a practising pagan, that I don’t break if I can help it – never offend the local tribal gods; it ain’t lucky.

It was dark when we pulled into Washington, and the conductor had never heard of the British ministry; oh, sure, he knew Willard’s Hotel, but plainly wondered what business this rumpled traveller without a hat could have at such a select establishment. He was starting to give me reluctant directions when a chap who’d alighted from the train directly behind me said if it was Willard’s I wanted, why, he was going that way himself. He was a sober-looking young fellow, neatly dressed, so I thanked him and we went out of the crowded station into a dark and dirty Washington evening.

‘It’s close enough to walk if you don’t mind the rain,’ says my companion, and since it seemed only prudent to save my cash, I agreed, and we set off. It wasn’t too damp, but Washington didn’t seem to have improved much in ten years; they were still building the place, and making heavy weather of it, for the street we followed was ankle-deep in mud, and so poor was the lighting that you couldn’t see where you were putting your feet. We jostled along the sidewalk, blundering into people, and presently my guide pulled up with a mild oath, glanced about him, and said we’d be quicker taking a side-street. It didn’t look much better than an alley, but he led the way confidently, so I ploughed on behind, thinking no evil – and suddenly he lengthened his stride, wheeled round to face me, and whistled sharply.

I’m too old a hand to stand with my mouth open. I turned to flee for the main street, cursing myself for having been so easily duped, and after Rafferty’s warning about footpads too – and stopped dead in my tracks. Two dark figures were blocking my way, and before I had time to turn again to rush on my single ambusher, the larger one stepped forward, but when he raised his hands it wasn’t to strike; he held them palms towards me in a restraining gesture, and his voice when he spoke was quiet, even friendly.

‘Good evening, Mr Comber. Welcome back, sir – why, you mayn’t believe it, but this is just like old times!’

For a split second I was paralysed in mind and body, and then came the icy stab of terror as I thought: police! … Spring’s letters, my description, the alarm going out for Comber – but then why had the young man not clapped his hand on my shoulder at the station …?

‘Guess you don’t remember me,’ says the big shadow. ‘It’s been a whiles – N’awlins, ten years ago, in back of Willinck’s place. You thought I was Navy, then. I took you to Crixus, remember?’

It was so incredible that it took me a moment to recall who ‘Crixus’ was – the Underground Railroad boss whose identity I never knew because he hid it under the name of some Roman slave who’d been a famous rebel. Crixus was the little steely-eyed bugger who’d dragooned me into running that uppity nigger Randolph up the river, and dam’ near got me shot – but it wasn’t possible that he could know of my presence now, within a day of my landing …

‘He’s waitin’ to see you,’ says the big fellow, ‘an’ the sooner we get you off the streets, the better. We’ve got a closed cab –’

‘I don’t understand! You’re quite mistaken, sir – I know of nobody called … Cricket, did you say?’ I was babbling with shock, and he absolutely laughed.

‘Say, I wish I could think as quick as you do! Ten years ago, Billy,’ says he to his companion, ‘when we jumped this fellow, he started talkin’ Dutch! Now, come along, Mr Comber – ’cos I’d know you anywhere, an’ we’re wastin’ time and safety.’ His voice hardened, and he took my arm. ‘We mean you no harm – like I once told you, you’re the last man I’d want to hurt!’

Sometimes you feel you’re living your life over again. It was so now, and for an uncanny moment I was back in the alley behind Susie’s brothel, with the three figures materialising out of the darkness … ‘Hold it right there, mister! You’re covered, front and rear!’ I knew now it was no use bluffing or running; for good or ill, they had me.

‘It wasn’t Dutch, it was German,’ says I. ‘Very well, I’m the man you call Comber, and I’ll be happy to take your cab – but not to Mr Crixus! Not until I’ve been to the British ministry!’

‘No, sir!’ snaps he. ‘We got our orders. An’ believe me, you’ll be a sight safer with us than in the British ministry, not if your whole Queen’s Navy was guarding it! So come on, mister!’

God knew what that meant, but it settled it. Whatever Crixus wanted – and I still couldn’t take in that he’d got word of me (dammit, he should have been in Orleans, anyway) or that these fellows were real – he’d been a friend, after his fashion, and was evidently still well disposed. And with the three pressing about me, and my arm in a strong hand, I had no choice.

‘Very good,’ says I. ‘But you don’t put a sack over my head this time!’

He laughed, and said I was a card, and then they were bustling me out of the alley and into a closed growler – mighty practised, with one in front, one gripping me, the third behind. The big man shouted to the driver, and we were lurching along, back towards the station, as near as I could judge, and then we swung right across a broad quagmire of a street, and through the left-hand window I caught a glimpse in the distance of what I recognised as the Capitol without its dome – they still hadn’t got its bloody lid on, would you believe it, in 1859? – and knew we must be crossing the Avenue, going south. The big man saw me looking, and whipped down the blinds, and we bowled along in the stuffy darkness in silence, while I strove to calm my quivering nerves and think out what it all meant. How they’d found me, I couldn’t fathom, and it mattered less than what lay ahead … what the devil could Crixus want with me? A horrid thought – did he know I’d left Randolph to his fate on that steamboat? Well, I’d thought the bastard was dead, and he’d turned up later in Canada, anyway, so I’d heard, so it wasn’t likely to be that. He couldn’t want me to run niggers again, surely? No, it defied all explanation, so I sat fretting in the cab with the big man at my side and his two mates opposite, for what must have been a good half-hour, and then the cab stopped and we descended on what looked like a suburban street, with big detached houses in gloomy gardens either side, and underfoot nothing but Washington macadam: two feet of gumbo.

They led me through a gate and up a path to a great front door. The big fellow knocked a signal, and we were in a dim hall with a couple of hard-looking citizens, one of ’em a black with shoulders like a prize-fighter. ‘Here he is,’ says my big escort, and a moment later I was blinking in the brightness of a well-furnished drawing-room, only half-believing the sight of the bird-like figure crying welcome from a great chair by the fireplace. He was thinner than I remembered, and terribly frail, but there was no mistaking the bald dome of head and the glinting spectacles beneath brows like white hedgerows. He had a rug over his knees, and from his wasted look I guessed he was crippled now, but he was fairly whimpering in rapture, stretching out his arms towards me.

‘It is he! My prayers are answered! God has sent you back to us! Oh, my boy, my brave boy, come to my arms – let me embrace you!’ He was absolutely weeping for joy, which ain’t usually how I’m greeted, but I deemed it best to submit; it was like being clutched by a weak skeleton smelling of camphor. ‘Oh, my boy!’ sobs he. ‘Ave, Spartacus! Oh, stand there a moment that I may look on you! Oh, Moody, do you remember that night – that blessed night when we set George Randolph on the golden road to freedom? And here he is again, that Mr Standfast who led him through the Valley of the Shadow to the Enchanted Ground!’

With one or two stops at Vanity Fair, if he’d only known, but now he broke down altogether, blubbering, while my big guardian, Moody, sucked his teeth, and the black, who’d come into the room with him, glowered at me as though it were my fault that the old fool was having hysterics. He calmed down in a moment, mopping himself and repeating over and over that God had sent me, which I didn’t like the sound of – I mean to say, what had he sent me for? It might be that Crixus, having heard of my arrival, God knew how, was merely intent on a glad reunion and prose over good old slave-stealing times, but I doubted it, knowing him. He might have one foot in the grave and t’other hopping on the brink, but the grey eyes behind his glasses were as fierce as ever, and if his frame was feeble, his spirit plainly wasn’t.

‘God has sent you!’ cries he again. ‘In the very hour! For I see His hand in this!’ He turned to Moody. ‘How did you find him?’

‘Cormack telegraphed when he boarded the train at the Baltimore depot. Wilkerson and I were waiting when the train came in. He didn’t give any trouble.’

‘Why should he?’ cries Crixus, and beamed at me. ‘He knows he has no truer, more devoted friends on earth than we, who owe him so much! But sit down, sit down, Mr Comber – Joe, a glass of wine for our friend … no, stay, it was brandy, was it not? I remember, you see!’ he chuckled. ‘Brandy for heroes, as the good doctor said! And for ourselves, Joe! Gentlemen, I give you a toast: “George Randolph, on free soil! And his deliverer!”’

It was plain he didn’t know the truth of how dear George and I had parted company, and I was not about to enlighten him. I looked manly as he and Moody and Black Joe raised their glasses, wondering what the deuce was coming next, and decided to get my oar in first. I didn’t need to pitch him a tale, much less the truth; you see, to him, Comber was the British Admiralty’s beau sabreur in the war against the slave trade; that was how he’d thought of me ten years ago, as a man of intrigue and mystery, and he’d not expect explanation from me now. So, once I’d responded with a toady toast of my own (‘The Underground Railroad, and its illustrious station master!’, which almost had him piping his modest eye again), I put it to him plain, with that earnest courtesy which I knew Comber himself would have used, if he hadn’t been feeding the fish off Guinea since ’48.