“No,” says I, “but since I’m not staying anyway, you needn’t worry. I’ll tell you this much—I may not love you, Susie, but I like you, and you’re a damned sight better in bed than any of your yellow girls would be.”
“Gammon!” says she, hitting me with her fan, but she looked pleased. She didn’t believe me for a moment, of course, but for once I wasn’t buttering her. It’s one of the great truths, that young pieces aren’t in it where love-making is concerned, compared with their mothers and aunts who have been about long enough to enjoy it. For the real thing, give me a well-fleshed matron every time, with her eyes wide open and a mind of her own. But women, of course, will never credit this.
The difficulty about my leaving, of course, was that the best way to get out of New Orleans was by the river, and that meant running the gauntlet of the Navy people who might be looking for me. Thanks to Susie, whose acquaintances were legion, there was no trouble about getting a passage to England, and it was arranged that I should go two days later, on a packet bound for Liverpool. One advantage to it was that she would weigh anchor at night, when I’d have a good chance of slipping aboard unnoticed.
There was the question of my fare, and here Susie turned up trumps. She would advance me the cash—not, she said, that she expected it back. I protested at this, and she laughed and chucked me under the chin.
“I’ve heard that, an’ all,” says she. “If I’d a guinea for every dollar I’ve given to stake a man out of town, I’d be a rich woman, an’ never once did I see a penny of it back. Oh, I know—you’re full o’ good intentions now, when you need the cash, but come next week you’ll ’ave forgotten all about it.”
“I’ll pay it back, Susie,” says I. “I promise.”
“Ducky,” says she, “I’d rather not—honest. I don’t want to hear from you no more—really, I don’t.”
“Why ever not?”
“Oh, hold your tongue!” snaps she, and turned away, dabbing at herself. “There—now! Me face’ll be all to do up again. Go on, let me alone!” And she went off, sniffing. Which, I must admit, I found very gratifying.
You may think I’ve dwelt on my meeting with Susie at some length, but there’s reason for it. For one thing, it may be a valuable pointer to young men who come after, and who find themselves adrift in a strange town. Secondly, it had a bearing on my life many years on, as my later memoirs will show. And she was unique, too: among all the women I’ve known she must be about the only one that I never had hard feelings with, on either side. And she could touch me, somehow—at least I remember thinking, the night I left, that in all the journeys I’d set off on before, never a woman had been at such pains to see I had everything packed and ready, and that my clothes were brushed, and my money safe, and the rest of it. She fussed over me in a way that none of the others—wife, aunts, mistresses, whores, legions of them—had ever done. It’s strange, and no doubt significant, that the warmest leave-taking I remember should be from a bawdy-house.
I set out about ten, with a nigger carrying my valise, and Susie hustled me away. “Give us a kiss, dearie. Now, be off with you. ’Ave a glass in the Cider Cellars for me.” She was absolutely crying, the soft old slut. “An’ take care of yourself you—you big scallawag, you!”
We slipped out of the side gate into the alley. It was one of those lazy, warm nights, with many stars, and above the hum of the town I could hear a distant steamboat whistle on the river, where my ship, the Anglesey Queen, would be lying. We set off down the dark lane together, and just as we reached its end a dark shadow loomed up before us and I was aware of others suddenly coming in at my back. I stopped dead, and the figure in front of me, a tall man in a broad-brimmed hat, said:
“Hold it right there, mister. Hands away from your sides. Now, don’t make a move, because you’re covered front and rear!”
Chapter 8
I must have heard the same sort of thing barked at me in a dozen different languages, and it has never failed to paralyse me on the spot. My first thought was that these must be American Navy men, and my heart froze inside me. How the devil had they traced me? Could I bolt?—but there wasn’t a hope. They knew their business too well—one a couple of yards ahead, and two others on my flanks, slightly behind me. But if I couldn’t bolt I could bluff.
“Wer ruft mich?” I demanded, trying to sound angry. “Was wollen sie?”
“Don’t come your Dutch on me, Mr Comber,” says the big one, and that settled it. They were Navy men, and I was done for.
“You, nigger, gimme that bag,” he went on. “Billy, take him down to the levee and let him go. And now, mister, you step ahead right lively. Do as you’re told and you won’t get hurt; try to run and you’re a dead man.”
Sick with fear I started forward, with the big man and his mate right behind me, down a side-street and then, at their direction, into a maze of alleys until I had no earthly idea where I was. Why were they taking me out of the main ways, and why had they taken the nigger to the levee before letting him go? My G - d, were they going to murder me?—and at that instant the big fellow growls:
“Stop right there,” and came up beside me.
At this my nerve broke. “What d’you want with me? What are you going to do? In God’s name, if you’re the Navy, I can explain, I can—”
“We ain’t the Navy,” says he, shortly. “And we ain’t gonna hurt you.” And amazingly he added: “You’re the last man on God’s earth I’d want to hurt.”
I gaped at him, trying to make out the shadowy face beneath the hat brim, but he went on:
“I’ve got a black bag here, and I’m gonna put it over your head, so you don’t see where you’re goin’. Now, don’t fret ye’self; do as you’re told an’ you’ll come to no harm.”
He slipped the bag over my head, and I choked in its coarse muffled folds, panicking, but he took my arm and said:
“Straight ahead now. Easy does it.”
We walked for three hundred and sixty eight paces through innumerable turns, and then stopped. I heard a gate creak, and when we went forward there was gravel beneath my feet. Then up stone steps, and a door opened, and we were in a house. Forward up stairs—thickly carpeted, too. I was suffocating with dread and astonishment by the time we had passed down a well-carpeted corridor, and I heard knuckles knock on a door and a voice call: “Enter!” I was pushed forward, the bag was whipped from my head, and as the door closed behind me I found myself blinking in the light of a great, well-furnished library. Behind a big oak desk a little bald-headed man was standing eyeing me benevolently over his spectacles, and waving a hand to an empty chair.
“Pray be seated, Mr Comber. And before you assail me with angry protests—which you’re perfectly entitled to do, I confess—allow me to extend my most sincere and heartfelt apologies for the rather … er … cavalier manner of my invitation. Now, won’t you be seated, sir, please? No one intends you the least harm—quite the contrary, I assure you. Sit down, sir, do.”
“Who the blazes are you?” I demanded. He was obviously friendly, and a kindly-looking little fellow in his old-fashioned neckercher and breeches, with bright grey eyes that peered eagerly at me. “And what’s the meaning of this?” Now that I was half-past fear I was prepared to be angry.
“There, now, that’s exactly what I mean to tell you, if you’ll only be seated,” says he soothingly. “That’s better. A glass of port?—no, perhaps brandy would be better. Settling for the nerves, eh?—though I don’t think yours are nerves that need much settling, young man, from all I’ve heard.”
Well, I’ll always take brandy when it’s kindly offered, so I fastened on the glass and gulped a mouthful down. And as he went back to his desk I took stock of the richly-furnished room, with its fine carpet and dark panelling, and found myself reassured, if bewildered.
“Now, then,” says he, “that feels better, eh? Well, Mr Comber, I owe you an explanation as well as an apology, so you shall have it.” He was American, but well-educated, and whe
n you took a closer view of him you saw that he wasn’t quite such an old Cheeryble as he looked. “Let me begin by astonishing you. I have been waiting to make your acquaintance this past few days. Indeed, if you hadn’t left tonight to board the Anglesey Queen—there, there, sir, all shall be made plain presently—I was preparing to come and call on you. Oh, yes, I much wanted to meet you. We have kept a very close eye on you indeed, sir, since you arrived in Washington, although I confess we lost you for a moment when you gave the good Captain Fairbrother the slip.” He chuckled. “Very neat, that. Of course, we quite understood. Quite understood. Didn’t we?”
This was bewildering, but I had my nerve back. “Did you? If you understand so much, you won’t mind enlightening me. Who or what are you—are you American government?”
He smiled. “No—not exactly. Although we have great influence, and many highly-placed friends, in that same government—that government which, I’m afraid, has been rather embarrassing you lately with insistent questions. Naturally—you’re in possession of what I believe one senior official called dangerous information, and Washington wants it. But you want to take it straight home to England—perfectly right, sir. So you gave them the slip, and behold you tonight preparing to set sail secretly for Liverpool.”
He hadn’t quite got hold of the wrong end of the stick, you see, but very nearly. His only mistake lay in believing that I was Comber, and in deducing the wrong reason for my attempted flight from New Orleans. A flight which, rot him, he was putting in severe jeopardy.
“Then would you kindly tell me,” says I, “why you have hauled me here at gun-point, instead of letting me catch my ship? In heaven’s name, sir, I must get aboard her—”
“You would never have got aboard her,” says he. “The Navy Department want you, Mr Comber, as a witness against those slaver friends of yours, and the U.S. Government, I know, wish to question you further about—those certain names you have in your head. Slave-trade names, I believe.” And suddenly he wasn’t a genial little buffer any more; his mouth was like a rat-trap. “Believe me, Mr Comber, the levee is well-watched; they know which way you’ll try to go.”
“And by what right would they try to stop me?” says I, brazening. By George, if they ever found out I wasn’t Comber, they’d have right enough. Maybe they had found out—but if they had my omniscient little friend evidently hadn’t.
“Oh, no right at all,” says he. “But governments can generally arrange diplomatic reasons for delaying departures. I suppose they might hold on to you for a few weeks—until your ambassador pressed them into letting you go home. By then, Washington would hope, you might have let slip those names they want to know about.”
I saw I must play Comber’s part for all I was worth, so I smiled grimly. “They have no hope of that; those names are for my chiefs in London, and no one else. And if you think—whoever you are—that you can get them out of me—”
“My dear Mr Comber.” He held up a hand. “I’m not interested. My concern with the slave trade lies in quite another direction—the same direction, I believe, as your own. That is why you are here. That is why my agents have traced you, even into the house of ill fame where you took refuge.” Well, thinks I, I hope they didn’t trace too close, or they must have got an eyeful. “Thus we knew of the passage home its proprietress arranged for you—I take it she is an English anti-slavery agent … but there, the less said, the better. Thus we were able to intercept you tonight.”
“You know a lot,” says I. “Now, look here; I’ve heard everything but what I want to know. Who are you, and what d’you want with me?”
He looked at me steadily. “You have heard, I am sure, of the underground railroad.”
Six months earlier I wouldn’t have known what he meant, but when you’ve been in the company of slavers, as I had been, you recognise the phrase. Spring had mentioned it; I’d heard it spoken about, low-voiced, in Susie’s brothel.
“It’s a secret society for stealing slaves, and helping them to escape, isn’t it? To Canada.”
“It is an organisation for saving souls!” snaps he, and once again he didn’t look half amiable. “It is an army that fights the most horrible tyranny of our time—the blasphemous iniquity of black slavery! It is an army without colours, or ranks, or pay—an army of dedicated men and women who labour secretly to release their black brethren from bondage and give them liberty. Yes, we steal slaves! Yes, we run them to free soil. Yes, we die for doing it—like them we are hunted with dogs, and tortured and hanged and shot if we are caught by the brutes who own and trade in human flesh. But we do it gladly, because we are marching in Christ’s army, sir, and we will not lay down our weapons until the last shackle is broken, the last branding iron smashed, the last raw-hide whip burned, and the last slave free!” 33
I gathered he was an abolitionist. By gad, he was in a fine sweat about it, too, but now he sat back and spoke in a normal voice.
“Forgive me. As though I need to say such things to you. Why, you take a thousand risks for our one, you put your life in the hazard in the nethermost hell of this foul traffic. Oh, we know all about you, Mr Comber—as you yourself said in a certain Washington office, ‘Walls have ears.’ The underground railroad has ears, certainly, and it heard your name in Washington, and the heroic work you did in bringing the Balliol College and that scoundrel Spring to book. Which reminds me of a privilege I had promised myself tonight, but have overlooked.” He got to his feet. “Mr Comber, may I have the honour to shake your hand?”
And blow me, he seized my fist and pumped it hard enough to start water out of me. I didn’t mind, but the thought occurred to me, here I was again being congratulated on my dauntless devotion, when all the time it had been frantic poltroonery. But it had done the trick, which just goes to show: we also serve who only turn and run.
“Thank you, sir, thank you,” says he. “You have made me a happy man. Now, may I tell you how you may make me happier still?”
I wasn’t sure about this, but I sat down again and listened. I couldn’t decide whether this little blighter was going to turn out well for me or not.
“As you know, we of the underground railroad rescue slaves wherever we can—from plantations, markets, pens, wherever they may be—and send them north secretly to the free states beyond the Ohio river and the Mason-Dixon line. Alone, they could never hope to make the journey, so we send with them our agents, who pose as slave-owners and slave-dealers, and convoy the unfortunates to safety. It is perilous work, as I have said, and the roll of martyrs grows longer every day. This is a savage country, sir, and while there are many in government who love and assist our work, government itself cannot condone or protect us, because we break the law—man’s law, not God’s. We are criminals, sir, in the eyes of our country, but we are proud of our crimes.”
He was almost away again, but checked himself.
“Now, all slaves are important to us, however lowly, but some are more important than others. Such a one is George Randolph. Have you heard of him? No, well you shall. You have heard of Nat Turner, the slave who led a great rebellion in Virginia, and was barbarously executed by his tormentors? Well, Randolph is such another—but a greater man, better educated, more intelligent, with a greater vision. Twice he has tried to organise insurrection, twice he has failed; three times he has escaped; twice he has been recaptured. He is a fugitive at this moment—but we have him safe, and God willing they shall never take him again.”
Comber would have applauded, so I said, “Oh, bravo!” and looked pleased.
“Bravo indeed,” says he, and then looked solemn. “But all is not done. Randolph must be taken in safety to Canada—what a blow that will be in our cause! Why, sir, think of what such a man can do, when he is on free soil. He can talk, he can write, he can go abroad, not only in Canada but in England, in our own free states—I tell you sir, the burning words of such a man, striking the ears of the civilised world, will do more to rekindle the fire against slavery than all our wh
ite journalists and orators can accomplish. The world will see a man like themselves, and yet greater—a man fit for a chair in our finest universities, or to sit in the highest councils of a nation—but a black man, sir, with the whip-marks on his back and the shackle-scars on his legs! They will understand, as they have never understood, what slavery is! They will feel the whip and shackles on their own bodies, and they will cry out: ‘This infamy shall not be!’”
Well, it seemed to call for something, so I said:
“Capital. First-rate. This news will be welcomed with joy in England, I’m sure, and as soon as I am home again you may rely …”
“But Mr Comber,” says he, “this is still to be achieved. George Randolph is not in Canada yet—he is still here, a hunted runaway. The journey to freedom lies ahead of him.”
“But is that difficult? For your splendid organisation? I mean, you have shown me, tonight, how far-reaching it is. Why, you know as much about me as I do myself—almost. Your agents …”
“Oh, we have many agents; our intelligence system is extensive. We have an eye at every window in this land, sir, and an ear at every door; information is no difficulty. But most of our spies are black; most are still slaves. Collecting intelligence is one thing, but running slaves to Canada is quite another. Here we need white agents, dedicated, resolute, and bold, and these are pitifully few. Many are willing, but only a handful are able. And even then, they have become too well known. Of the gallant young men who ran our last three convoys one is dead, one in jail, and the third in Canada, unable to return because he would certainly be arrested. I have not one that I can send with Randolph, sir, not one that I could trust. For with a cargo of such importance, I cannot risk sending any but the hardiest, the bravest, the least suspected. Do you see my plight, sir? Every day that Randolph hides in New Orleans his danger grows—the enemy has spies also. I must get him out, and quickly. Can you understand?”
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