Well, it was nothing to me. I’d done my part perforce, and all that mattered now was throwing off the grim black shadow at my side and hitting the high road. I must just wait my chance, so I leaned against one of the gate-posts, smoking a weed and wondering, in an academic sort of way, when J.B. was going to take advantage of the capital start I’d given him.
Time’s an odd thing. We hit the town about ten-thirty and secured the strongpoints, and then followed that eerie, tranquil interval of J.B.’s irresolution which no one has ever been able to explain, and which seemed to last forever – in fact it was a bare thirty minutes, until midnight. That was when things began to come adrift, and we had several hours of bloody and farcical confusion until daybreak – yet to me they seemed to pass in a few moments, one crazy incident on top of another in no time at all.
Picture the scene, gentle reader, as midnight approaches. Harper’s Ferry drowses placidly ’neath the pall of night, the last gleams of light in its windows blink out one by one as citizens seek their repose, the town drunk nestles contentedly in his gutter, the liberators of Virginia stand around in picturesque uncertainty while their venerable leader contemplates the stars like a fart in a trance, the prisoners mutter sullenly in one of the armoury sheds, and not one solitary soul (least of all J.B. himself) seems to be aware that the revolution has begun. Flashy smokes and sweats, and wishes to heaven that Joe would turn his back just for half a minute – and hark! a shot rings out … and believe it or not, no one pays the slightest bloody attention.
It came from the Potomac bridge where, unseen by us, that Canadian halfwit, Taylor, was putting a bullet through the top hair of an inopportune railway guard who had happened along, been challenged, shown fight, and got his skull creased for his pains. We heard him, soon enough, bolting out of the covered bridge, roaring and bleeding, and taking refuge in the Wager House – and, so help me, no one emerged to protest or even inquire, the town slept on undisturbed, J.B. left off contemplating to stare towards the hotel, but did nothing, our fellows confined themselves to intelligent questions like “Who the hell was that?” and “Say, did you hear shooting?” … and nothing further took place until there came a distant whistle from far down the Baltimore and Ohio track, and presently in steams the east-bound night train for Baltimore, clanking past the armoury and coming to a slow halt near the Wager House only fifty yards from where I stood, at which point the wounded railwayman erupted from the hotel, clutching his bleeding scalp and bawling that there were road agents on the loose, the train engineer, silly ass, got down to investigate, Watson Brown and his idiots opened fire for no apparent reason, an unfortunate nigger (not one of ours) came striding down the track, was challenged by Watson, turned to run and was shot in the back, the engineer leapt back into his cab and reversed twenty yards with great blasts of steam, some stout parties in the coaches began blazing away at Watson’s party, passengers were screaming and tumbling from the train, Harper’s Ferry began to wake up at last, J.B. strode to the train bellowing for everyone to hold his fire and be calm, and your correspondent began to wonder if this mightn’t be a good time to retire – and would have done if Joe hadn’t been holding a pistol in each hand and demanding to know what the hell was happening.
Either because of J.B.’s thundering, or more probably because neither side could see properly what they were shooting at, the firing died away after a few moments, and there followed a remarkable conversation between our leader and the engineer. It began, predictably, with J.B. announcing that he had come “to free the slaves at all hazards and in the name of universal liberty, God helping”, and the engineer calling him a liar, a lunatic, and a damned jayhawking rascal who’d swing for this, and by the eternal the engineer would be there to see him do it, too. J.B. rebuked him for blasphemy, assured him that no harm was intended to the train or its passengers, and that he would let them proceed so that the railroad authorities should understand that the town was closed to traffic henceforth. The engineer damned his eyes and said he’d swim through seas of blood rather than budge before dawn, when he would inspect the bridge “to see what mischief you infernal scoundrels have done to it”. J.B. agreed, and promised to walk over the bridge before the train (which he did, by the way) to show that it was safe.
This discussion took some time, with frequent interruptions, for you must imagine it taking place in darkness illuminated only by the train’s headlight and the feeble lamps of the nearest buildings, against a background of babbling passengers being helped into the Wager House, men shouting, females screaming, the shot darkie being carried away, a church bell belatedly sounding the alarm, bewildered citizens seeking enlightenment at the tops of their voices, and some of the bolder spirits who emerged from the shadows for a closer look being seized by our fellows at the armoury gates and sent to join the prisoners in the shed.
But no one from the town showed fight, for several good reasons – it was too dark to tell properly what was taking place, a rumour had spread through the town that we were over a hundred strong, and while the arsenal was bursting with weapons, there was hardly a gun in the town except for a few fowling pieces and the like. So while we held our positions (and J.B. continued to do nothing), the people kept their distance – except for one cool hand, a doctor, who approached the arsenal, was given the rightabout by Hazlett, and then crossed the street bold as brass to demand of J.B. what he thought he was about, and, on being told, denounced him for a murderer.
“The only black you’ve liberated so far is one who was free already – the poor fellow you shot down on the tracks!” He was a peppery medico this, with a jaw like a pike, and the darkie’s gore all over his hands. “Look at that! He’s dying this minute, with your bullet in his lung, you old blackguard!”
J.B. said he was sorry for it, but the man had run when called on to halt, and the doctor must consider himself a prisoner.
“Just try it, mister!” cries the sawbones. “Or shoot me in the back, why don’t you!” And he stamped off to the Wager House, stopping on the way to survey us, and Hazlett at the arsenal, and if ever a man was taking stock, he was – sure enough, two hours later he was riding hell-for-leather for the nearest town to turn out the militia … and meanwhile J.B. was waiting and doing nothing, hardly answering when spoken to, and our fellows were fidgeting and muttering, and Joe was growling at me, why wasn’t the cap’n takin’ a-holt o’ things, and why didn’t I tell him? I said I’d told him, hadn’t I … and every moment my gorge was rising higher with panic as I wondered if I dared make a run for it …
There was a clatter of wheels from the dark, and here came a fine four-horse vehicle wheeling in to the armoury gates, with three white men and about a dozen darkies aboard, and Stevens jumping down, rifle in hand. He helped down one of the whites, a bluff old cove in a grey coat who I guessed was Washington, and I heard him sing out: “This is Ossawatomie Brown of Kansas!” as J.B. strode forward to meet them. One of our darkies jumped down after them, brandishing a sheathed sabre, and calling out: “Here ’tis, cap’n – here de ole sword, sho’ ’nuff!” and J.B. seized on it and stood with it in his hand as he told Washington that he had been taken for the moral effect it would give to our cause, but he would be shown every attention, “and if we get the worst of it, your life will be worth as much as mine”, whatever that meant. Washington took it mighty cool, saying nothing, and presently he and the two other whites, a man and a youth, were put in the yard, and J.B. supervised the distribution of pikes to the slaves in the captured carriage, telling them they were free men now, and must defend their liberties, and the poor black buggers stood in terrified bewilderment, looking at the pikes as though they were rattlesnakes. A fine rebellion we’re going to have, thinks I; ah, well, they’ll shape better, no doubt, when they’ve built their forts in the hills and dug communicating tunnels.
I kept clear of all this, but so did Joe, damn him, and my gorge rose another couple of notches, for the dark was beginning to lift slowly, and I could see clear to
the nearest houses of the town, where people were peeping out, and some even gathering on the corners, staring across at us. There were faces at the windows of the Wager House, and hard by it, where the train stood, passengers were climbing aboard, with scared glances in our direction. In the armoury yard all was confusion, for the prisoners had been let out of their shed and were mingling with the newcomers in a great babble of voices, the niggers with the pikes looked ready to weep, and our men were watching anxiously as Stevens and Tidd clamoured around J.B., who now had the sword girt round his middle, and was exulting over a brace of barkers, presumably the property of the late Marquis de Lafayette.
“Why, we got more prisoners here than there is of us!” Tidd was exclaiming, and Stevens was arguing with J.B. about loading up from the arsenal, and getting nowhere; J.B.’s notion was to send Washington’s carriage, which was larger than our wagon, over into Maryland, to collect the Kennedy Farm weapons, which Owen would have shifted by now to a school-house closer to the Potomac, and bring them back to supplement the arms in the arsenal. Stevens frowned in dismay.
“But, cap’n, ’twill be full light in an hour! See here, why don’t we load up the carriage an’ the wagon from the arsenal now, with everythin’ we need, call in Kagi an’ Oliver, an’ all of us hightail it out o’ here – we can pick up Owen an’ the arms from the school-house, an’ be in the hills ’fore noon!” He gestured towards the houses, where more people were assembling, watching us. “Look at them folks yonder – how long they goin’ to let us alone, you reckon?”
J. B. gave him a stern look. “You forget, Captain Stevens, that it is here, at the Ferry, that the slaves will rally to us. Why, if we were to leave now, we should be abandoning them! No more of that, sir!”
“Well, I don’t know that the slaves are coming!” says Stevens. “We saw no sign of ’em when we came in just now, I can tell you!”
“An’ it’ll take three hours, easy, to get to the school-house an’ load up an’ come back here again!” cries Tidd. “Then we got to clear out the arsenal – cap’n, it’ll be noon ’fore we can get out o’ town! Why, the militia’ll be here by then!”
“An’ come dawn, these folks are goin’ to see how few we are!” I could see Stevens was keeping his temper with difficulty. “They ain’t goin’ to stand by!”
J.B. stilled them with a raised hand, like a patient parent. “The hostages are our assurance of safety. The people will dare nothing against us for fear of harming them. And I will not desert the negroes!” He became peremptory. “Captain Tidd, you and Captains Leeman and Cook will take the carriage away, and receive our pikes and rifles from Owen –”
“But they’re three of our best men, sir!” Stevens was near despair. “I beg you, send but one, and some of the slaves!”
But J.B. was deaf to all common sense, and presently the carriage rolled off over the Potomac bridge with Cook at the reins and Tidd and Leeman marching alongside, with a gaggle of the freed darkies in the back. Stevens pleaded with J.B. at least to start clearing the arsenal.
“First I must keep my promise to the engineer,” says J.B., and off he went to the train, his rifle cradled in his arm and his sword trailing in the mud, holloing to the engineer that he might get up steam. The townsfolk across the way set up a murmur at the sight of his commanding figure striding towards the tracks, but he paid them no mind at all, and presently the train was chugging slowly on to the covered bridge, with the old man striding ahead of it, and the crowd before the Wager House fallen silent.
“By gad, he’s cool!” says Stevens to me. “Too dam’ cool! I tell you, Josh, we ain’t got but a couple of hours ’fore we’ll have to shoot our way out! What ails him? He acts like we was in a town meetin’!”
It was true, and everyone who was through Harper’s Ferry will tell you the same – the chancier things got, the calmer grew J.B., as though he were in the grip of some soothing drug. Stevens swore through his teeth. “We’ve got to get John Kagi down here – he’ll take heed of Kagi!” And pat on his words there was a commotion at the Wager House, and one of our niggers came running from under the trees, brandishing his Sharps. The folk scattered to let him through, and he came panting up to tell us he was from the rifle works, and Kagi wanted to know when J.B. planned to retire from the town, because he’d seen a rider galloping along the Charles Town road.
“Damnation, what’d I say?” cries Stevens. “It’s but eight miles off! Two, three hours, we’ll have the militia on us –”
The crack of a shot interrupted him, sending us scurrying behind the armoury railings, and then came two more, from somewhere in the town. There was a shrilling of women as the people gave back to the houses, except for one fool who made a dart across the street towards the arsenal. One of our men – the younger Thompson, I think – loosed a shot at him, and he threw up his hands and flopped down in the mud, to a chorus of screams and oaths from the Wager House. A couple of men ran out, crouching, and hauled him away, Stevens bawled: “Stand to, men!”, and every rifle was trained on the town, but now J.B. was striding towards us from the Potomac bridge, coat flapping, calling to hold our fire.
A man came hurrying from the Wager House, waving his hands as though appealing for calm, and J.B. stopped to talk to him, and presently nodded and came on to us, while the other scampered back to safety. No further shots came, but our fellows stayed at the armoury railings, and behind them the prisoners cowered down, all save old Washington, who stood his ground, arms akimbo.
“Those were only squirrel rifles,” says J.B., unconcerned. “There will be no more of that, but be at the ready, men, and keep up a bold front.”
“Cap’n,” says Stevens, “this won’t do. We’re in no case to fight, just a handful here an’ the rest spread all over –”
“There will be no call to fight,” says J.B. “The prisoners are our security.”
“If you count on that, sir, you are in error!” It was Washington, loud and steady, not stirring a foot. “Captain Brown, you must give over this madness! Either lay down your arms or avoid the town!” Odd word to use, I remember thinking. “Look yonder, sir! You have put the people in fear, you have shot a man down, you hold us captive here – all to no purpose! Give it up, sir, before worse befalls!”
He was full of spunk and sense, the old soldier,50 both of which were wasted on our ragged Napoleon. He lifted a commanding hand to Washington.
“Be silent, sir! I have my purpose, as you shall learn – you and all others who live by human bondage! Not another word, sir!”
He stood a long moment, glaring like the wrath of God, and then looked about him, taking a slow survey of the scene, turning on his heel, his rifle at the port. It was full light now, and all plain to see – our men kneeling or standing behind the railings, pieces presented; behind them, Washington foursquare among the prisoners; across the street to our right, the houses with people peering out of the alleys in nervous silence; the arsenal, with Hazlett and his chum in the doorway, rifles ready; the Wager House, with faces at every window and at least a score of folk on the porch, and others under the trees beyond, where Gait’s saloon could be seen with a couple of fellows sitting on the roof; a few more by the railroad tracks. Hidden from our view by the Wager House, Watson and Taylor were on guard at the Potomac bridge.
And not a sound, except for the distant wail of the train whistle far away on the Maryland shore. A light rain was falling again, pattering in the muddy puddles. Everyone just stood, waiting on that gnarled, bearded old scarecrow in his soiled coat and ragged hat, his ridiculous sabre trailing at his side. He finished his survey and fixed Washington with a grim burning stare.
“If any are in fear it is a judgment on the sins of their guilty land! If any die resisting a just cause, then they have brought it upon themselves! As to the purpose of your own captivity, I have told you it was a moral one, and also because, as aide to the Governor of Virginia, you would have endeavoured to perform your duty, and perhaps you would have been a troub
lesome customer to me!” He thrust a finger like a handspike towards Washington. “I shall do my duty also, and to a higher power than a slave State! I shall be very particular to pay attention to you, sir, on my word!”
He paused, growling deep in his chest, and turned to Bill Thompson at the railing. “Captain Thompson, how many hostages are under guard? Thirty, you say – so many! Why, that is twice our own number. Well, now, we must take account of that!”
He leaned his rifle against the gate, and stood glowering at the prisoners with his hands resting on his pistol-butts, his lips moving as though in calculation, and I felt the hairs rise on my neck.
“Sweet Jesus, what’s he about?” gasps Stevens. “Is he crazy?”
A rhetorical question if ever I heard one, with the old death’s-head glaring like Dragfoot the Hangman, and then he swung towards our group, hitching his sword-hilt out of the way and fumbling in his pants pocket. He lugged out a handful of the eagles Meriam had given him, glancing across at the Wager House as he sorted the coins on his palm.
“Joe Simmons,” says he, “here is fifteen dollars. I want you to go to the hotel yonder, and tell them we require hot breakfasts for forty-five persons, to be served to us here. Oatmeal and milk, and some of their Southern fry of eggs and ham, whatever they have, you understand … oh, and Joe! They’ll send coffee, no doubt, but tell them I desire a pot of tea also.”
Chapter 18
I suppose Cardigan’s “Walk—march – trot!” at Balaclava is the most memorable battlefield command I’ve ever heard, but J.B.’s order for breakfast at Harper’s Ferry runs it close. For a moment I didn’t believe it, and neither did Joe, for he stood gaping at the coins in J.B.’s hand – and then his glance flickered in my direction, and I knew at once what he was thinking, that if he went off to the Wager House, who was going to keep an eye on slippery B. M. Comber? For a second he hesitated, and then the clever beggar saw his way out.
Flashman Papers Omnibus Page 323
