Infernal Revolutions

by Stephen Woodville

  ‘You know about Fort Washington!’

  The penny, it seemed, had belatedly dropped.

  ‘Aye, Thomas told me. Why, a secret is it?’

  Pete groaned.

  ‘It was, Harry, it was. Oh, why do I confide in such fools? If word gets out that word has got out, I’m in for a court-martial.’

  ‘Do not worry yourself, Pete. The Americans would not have built a fort there had they not expected to be attacked. They’ve got another one across the river at Fort Lee, haven’t they? You watch, I bet we attack that one too, eventually.’

  Pete regained control with the aid of a Bath cake, thanked me for the brilliance of my strategic insight, and began to dress as if for a ball at Grosvenor Square. First he exchanged his workaday wig for a smart casual affair chosen with care from the stands. He powdered it (which induced violent yet comic sneezing fits in Hartley), and placed it on his head with great ceremony, before moving over to a cheval glass and making the final adjustments. Next he rebuttoned his jacket correctly and bade me brush off any marks on the back. As I was doing so he bent down and gave his buckles and other brassware a quick polish with a cloth I’d seen him clean his teeth with earlier. A quick fiddle with his gorget, a careful placement of his hat, and he was ready to resume duties as Lieutenant Peter Wriggle, The Boy Wonder of the British Army.

  ‘You look resplendent, Peter,’ I said, with genuine admiration. ‘Very manly, yet at the same time as dandy as a Frenchman.’

  ‘I do not wish to be compared to one of that race,’ said Pete, the glow suffusing his cheeks belying the haughtiness of his remark. ‘But thank you anyway. Now, as we cannot be seen to leave together, perhaps you would kindly vacate the premises. Formalities of rank must be observed, whatever rabble rousers like Thomas Paine would have us believe. All men are created equal, indeed!’

  Pete gave another horrible snort, which quite dashed any lingering hopes I had of approaching him as a patron of my poetry. The arrogance of rank was out at last, as Sophie had predicted it would be, and an intimation of the adult Pete seemed suddenly on view. At the moment, he was still a sort of Prince Hal roughing it with the lowlife boys, but breeding would soon reassert itself, and it would not be long before the cute piglet Pete was swallowed up by the gross charmless Re-gal, to become a mere replica of his trough-fattened father.

  ‘Aye, I must be off now, anyway,’ I said. ‘I will go to visit Taylor Woodbine after all, I think. Then perhaps Burnley Axelrod. Explore all avenues, as you say.’

  ‘Good man, Harry,’ said Pete, shooing me out onto the landing, like an actor clearing his dressing room five minutes before a performance. ‘Get to the bottom of it. I would.’

  With which advice lingering in my ears, I clattered down the staircase deep in thought. As I emerged into the fading light of the autumn afternoon, I saw Thomas chatting amiably with a rough-looking pair of potential assassins. He looked up and gave me a wave of acknowledgement as I passed.

  ‘Good luck at Fort Washington!’ he called at the top of his voice. ‘Up and at the rascals, eh, Harry? Give the rogues one for me, but don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’

  This seemed to interest the rough-looking pair, possible Liberty Boys, for they managed to exchange a few meaningful glances before the second-floor window flew open and Pete’s head shot out, closely followed by Hartley’s.

  ‘Thomas, ye damned rogue, stop your blabbing! Had I wanted a town crier I would have had one pressganged. Desist, or I will send you in with the Hessians, hernia or not!’

  This would have been impressive, had Pete’s voice not broken at Hessians, but the message was conveyed in essence, for Thomas cringed with the aplomb of a family man whose lifetime had been spent in servitude. That the two loitering men were Americans seemed likely by the way they visibly winced at the sight of a grown man abasing himself to anyone, let alone a mere youngster; but as being American in New York was not yet prohibited, I left them to it and went on my troubled way to the Taylor Woodbine Spying Academy a few houses further down the street. As I did so, my eyes darted morbidly amongst the crowds for sightings of either Sophie or Burnley – or, God forbid, both of them together.

  Seeing neither, I found the leading if not the only light of the aforementioned establishment engaged upon the training of two more poor boobies, who looked to my unhappy veteran’s eye like a couple of lambs to the slaughter. Clearly of inferior mettle to earlier recruits, they were puzzling over their Dolly Potter codebook when Mr Woodbine spied me.

  ‘Gentlemen!’ he yawped. ‘I give you…a Master of the Art under discussion!’

  A distinct look of What, that? crossed the faces of the two dogs, before Mr Woodbine reminded them of the first rule of spying – Do Not Be Deceived By Appearances. The most unlikely-looking people, he went on, made the best spies, seducers, murderers, etc, simply because they did not conform to the popular image of such rogues, and were thus able to slip under people’s defences unnoticed. However, he added, never underestimate the most likely-looking people either, because these were responding to the iron laws of phrenology, and fulfilling the role for which nature had prepared them. With folded arms and an attentive expression – either a tribute to or a condemnation of my upbringing – I stood there and waited for the blathering fool to finish his summation, until even I could stand no more, and interrupted him with the most searing question I could think of.

  ‘Are you not surprised that I have returned?’

  ‘I am surprised that you have returned so soon. None of the others I sent out before you have returned yet.’

  ‘And you know why that is, do ye not?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A word in private then, please, Mr Woodbine.’

  The two apprentices were dismissed, and I sat in their place to deliver yet again an account of my adventures in the Hackensack Valley. Taking notes as he drank wine – rather than the other way round – Mr Woodbine appeared to use his skill as a flatulist to pass commentary on my narrative, a technique that was at once both noisy and noisome.

  ‘So you see,’ I concluded, waving the rotting stench away from my nostrils, ‘I have uncovered an American counter-spy network, into whose cavernous maw we have been feeding the lives of some of our bravest men.’

  ‘A shocker,’ agreed Mr Woodbine, ‘I shall order the extermination of the De Witt’s immediately.’

  ‘You mean you didn’t know of it?’

  ‘Certainly not. I am disgusted, revolted, sickened, nauseated and appalled.’

  He looked at me as if to say will that do?, then belched. Compassion was not his strong point.

  ‘Then why did General Mercer know you by name, and think you were on his side?’

  ‘It is called deception, my dear boy,’ replied Mr Woodbine, unperturbed, ‘I feed him false information; he swallows it like a gannet. He takes me into his confidence, and lets slip astounding secrets in return.’

  ‘Such as the fact that Paulus Hook was a Rebel stronghold?’

  ‘That was hardly astounding, Mr Oysterman. Nor even a secret. Everyone knew.’

  ‘Dick and I didn’t.’

  ‘Then you were the only ones, Sir.’

  He gave me a smarmy, patronising leer which quite infuriated me.

  ‘You could have prepared us better. Had it not been for our native ability to prevaricate we could have been hung instantly.’

  ‘I cannot prepare spies for every eventuality, Sir. Sooner or later, preferably sooner, all spies need to develop the art of thinking quickly for themselves. You were lucky, having the opportunity to practise that art immediately. After such a baptism of fire no doubt the whole subsequent anabasis was easy in comparison.’

  I didn’t know what an anabasis was, but I was not going to give Mr Woodbine the satisfaction of telling me. Making a mental note to look it up later, I returned to my main theme.

  ‘You are not an American spy then, Mr Woodbine?’

  ‘Do I look like
one?’

  ‘Looks have nothing to do with it, as you have just told us.’

  ‘Or then again, perhaps they do, as I have also just told you.’

  ‘The two views cancel each other out, of course. So we are back where we started. I repeat. Are you an American spy, Sir?’

  There was a short lock of eyes, then he lifted his glass and studied his wine appreciatively, a warm glow on his face.

  ‘Now, by rights, I should have you flogged for asking such a question of a superior officer, but as this wine is damned good, and I’m feeling rather mellow, I will simply say that I am as English as roast beef and mustard, and I would do nothing to harm the noble name of Britannia. If you do not believe me, then you must report me to Lord Howe. But bear in mind that one of us, not necessarily me, will have to face the consequences.’

  This was gambling of the highest order, but something about the slippery dog made me think he was telling the truth. Perhaps it was the way in which the words were spoken, or the manner in which he now swigged his wine with guiltless satisfaction, or perhaps even the way he slipped out a wet one whilst talking. Whatever it was – and the threat of being flogged for insubordination may even have had some slight effect – I felt no desire to press the charge further. Although made aware that I ought to proceed with more circumspection, I could see nothing wrong with asking for a discharge from spying duties.

  ‘So you agree that the information I have brought back is valuable to you?’

  ‘I do indeed, Mr Oysterman. Indeed I do.’

  ‘How valuable exactly?’

  ‘Very valuable,’ he slurred. ‘Very, very, very valuable.’

  ‘Could you confirm that in writing?’

  ‘Oh no – never put anything in writing, Mr Oysterman. First Rule Of Spying, that. What if, for example, you are now a double agent? I sign letter. You pass it on to, say, Thomas Jefferson. A bit of trickery with the paper and the next thing you know there is a letter in the press signed by Herod Woodbine authorizing the annihilation of all American children. Or American women. Or American trees. Or any such damned thing.’

  Fancying that Mr Woodbine was overrating his importance in the world, I could not help but scoff.

  ‘A double agent, I? Come, come, Mr Woodbine – being a single agent was more than I could cope with.’

  ‘You have an American strumpet in tow, you tell me,’ said Mr Woodbine, suddenly sly and alert. ‘Therefore your loyalties are now split. The secrets of the pillow.’

  ‘Oh, Sophie can be trusted,’ I said, realizing I was tempting fate even as I said it. ‘She’s on our side now.’

  Predictably, Mr Woodbine roared with laughter, his sphincter sending off firecrackers.

  ‘Of course she cannot be trusted, my boy! No woman can. Sexually, she’s probably cuckolding you this very minute; politically, she’s probably in the employ of some New Jersey Militia Company, spying all over you.’

  ‘The Militia are not that clever, I can assure you,’ I said glumly, ‘however right you may be on the first supposition.’

  ‘People are clever and devious when they have to be,’ said Mr Woodbine sententiously. ‘Never underestimate the dogs.’

  The perpetual cynicism was wearing me down, making me feel shop-soiled in body and spirit. I had to get away.

  ‘So you cannot provide me with the evidence I require?’

  ‘Not in writing.’

  ‘Do you know a British dragoon by the name of Burnley Axelrod?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Could you find a British dragoon by the name of Burnley Axelrod, and tell him by word of mouth that the information I have provided to you is valuable to the British cause?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  I looked daggers at him for several tense seconds.

  ‘Then I will be on my way.’

  ‘Certainly, certainly. Send the boys back in on your way out.’

  ‘What about my battalion clothes?’

  ‘They have been returned to little Lord What’s-His-Name.’

  ‘Wriggle.’

  Mr Woodbine laughed.

  ‘That’s him. Teeny weeny little fellow, he is.’ He squinted smiling into the little gap he had created between the tips of his thumb and forefinger. ‘However did he get into the army, I wonder? Ever so tiny. Miniature little boy. He could live in a quart mug. Go to Heaven, though, he will. Eye of a needle, and all that.’

  Leaving the pathetic sot to his ramblings I made for the door, disgusted that the lives of men were in the hands of this fool, and retrospectively queasy at the thought of having endured hell on his behalf. Perhaps I would risk writing to General Howe after all.

  ‘Oh, Mr Oysterman.’

  I turned back with a sigh, bracing myself for the wounding Parthian shot.

  ‘Yes, Mr Woodbine?’

  Leaning back in his chair, his eyes glittering at me above a snout almost doglike, he looked for all the world like an animated gargoyle.

  ‘A noise annoys an oyster, but a noisy noise annoys an oyster more.’

  I had not heard this for many years, and I was duly surprised by its reappearance now. I wondered what was coming next.

  ‘I nearly pulled a mussel the first time I heard that.’

  ‘Did you really?’ I said coldly, realizing my name was under bombardment, and not liking it when administered by this buffoon. ‘Well at least you are in no danger of pulling a muscle today by escorting me to the door.’ I bowed stiffly and walked away again.

  ‘And if you and your American filly were to have a baby, do you know what he’d be?’

  I had nearly escaped into the street when the answer boysterous came bounding after me, followed by loud laughter and exaggerated table-slapping. Such childish wordplay was perhaps to be expected in one who dealt with codes and the more arcane branches of espionage, but having had my suit rejected I was in no mood for levity. In fact, I was much like the aforementioned oyster, annoyed at Mr Woodbine’s noise. Out in the street, I took a few moments to think about my next course of action, then set off indecisively in the direction of King George Street, the last known lodging place of Mr Axelrod. Trying to build up my reserves of bravery as I walked, I had almost reached my destination when a detachment of dragoons emerged from nowhere and suddenly raced down the middle of the street, parting all pedestrians before them in two screaming waves of terrified humanity. Fear seizing me at the sight of the huge roaring monsters, I instantly realized the vanity of the notion that I could go unaided to Mr Axelrod’s. My painfully acquired bravery demolished at a stroke, my ear throbbing where a frantically retreating elbow had smashed into it, I veered off quickly in the direction of the tavern that Sophie had mentioned, there to seek candlelit oblivion from the gathering gloom of the day.

  32

  The Powder Keg

  Once in the tavern, the Powder Keg on Broadway Street, I needed something stronger than eggnogs, so I called for a glass and a bottle of fortified wine, and had them delivered to me at a small corner table which looked especially reserved for the troubled and the lonely. At first I pretended to admire the interior decorations of the tavern – the pots and pans hanging from the wall, the row of miniature barrels on the low crossbeams, the roaring fire with its accompanying bellows and kettles – but soon I ceased to care whether I was being stared at and simply attacked the ruby liquor like any old drunk. The first glass halted my metamorphosis to jelly, the second loosened the knot in my stomach, the third sent up pleasing visions of Axelrodian wilting in the face of Oystermanian aggression.

  But instead of acting immediately upon the artificial fire in my belly, I delayed long enough for it to mellow into a warm, contented ember that spread goodwill through every vein in my body. Caressed, in addition, by the heat of the real fire without, I was soon yawning prodigiously, barely able to muster the energy to confront a feeble wasp crawling up my chair leg, let alone a dragoon. Done for as a viable confrontational force, I tried ma
nfully to fight against gravity, but it was no use. Feeling as though I could sleep until Doomsday, I eventually cleared away a headshaped space on the table in front of me, laid my head on it, and capitulated.

  I was awakened, I knew not how long after, by the most dreadful stentorian booming of my name, like a rollcall in Hell. For one terrible moment I thought ‘twas Burnley come to get me, and I was about to hurl myself through the window and make my escape, when my ear detected in the voice the faintest of Devon twangs. Defenestration delayed if not averted, I looked up at the Stentor now looming over me, and squinted through the acrid pipesmoke for visual confirmation of suspected identity.

  ‘The last living thing that looked at me like that was a spaniel that I caught with my lamb chop in its mouth. If you don’t change your expression quickly, Oysterman, I shall associate you forever with the same cringing fear.’

  Piqued at the remarks yet pleased to see the speaker, I stood up and offered my hand to Isaac Tetley, who crushed it accordingly.

  ‘Back in one piece then?’ he roared. ‘You do surprise me.’

  ‘Hidden talents, Mr Tetley. Though how much longer I shall remain in one piece is another matter.’

  ‘Why? Don’t tell me you have Rebels on your tail.’

  ‘Well, not exactly. But before I explain pull up a chair and tell me what you have been up to. Waiter! Another bottle and another glass!’

  Isaac looked around but could not find a spare chair, so he pulled a stool from under a rough-looking villain at the next table and sat down on it, oblivious to the cries of outrage and threats to murder him. I watched with a feeling of trepidation as the upended rogue proceeded to pull away a chair from a weaker fellow elsewhere in the tavern. Eventually, it seemed logical to assume, the weakest person in the tavern, perhaps me, would be left standing.