Flashman and Madison's War

by Robert Brightwell

  I was already pressing on, I had been through enough. The Indians could hold the Americans and buy me time to get away. The cacophony of battle echoing through the trees was deafening. If I needed any more encouragement to move quickly, I got it when a musket ball slammed into a tree just a yard from my side. Staring around I saw a slight incline and headed for it; the ground must be dryer there, I thought, as I slipped in another muddy pool.

  “Little Father!” It was amazing I heard him above the noise of battle, but my head whipped around and there was Black Eagle reloading behind a tree twenty yards away. I pointed to the higher ground and beckoned him to follow. As I started to run up the slope I took a glance back. Like the Indians before them, most of the Americans had fired and now they were more vulnerable. Groups of warriors were charging forward to regain their lost ground. One group was led by a tall slim Indian with a white ostrich feather in his hair. He was halfway across a small clearing when he went down, clutching his side. There was so much gunfire you could not have made out the sound of the shot, but I saw a dark stain begin to spread across his shirt as he tried to pull himself up on one knee. The warriors he was with let up a terrible whooping. They pushed forward again to rescue their chief, but a ferocious fire from the Americans forced them back. I watched as the battle raged just fifty yards away, transfixed by that slim figure in the middle of the clearing. I could not see who had shot him, but he seemed done for to me. The bullet must have smashed though his ribs. Finally he toppled over to his side, his limbs relaxed and I knew he had gone.

  “Little Father, are you all right?” Black Eagle was shaking my arm. “Come we must get away.” It says something about my feelings for Tecumseh that for a brief moment I forgot about my own self-preservation. I barely knew the man and had seen for myself that he could be blinkered about achieving his own goals. But he had natural nobility to him, a leadership that impressed even those who could not understand him; and most importantly of all, he had just saved my life. I shook myself from my reverie and turned to continue running up the slope towards safety. As we reached the crest of the hill I had one last look back. The battle was still raging near where Tecumseh fell. Warriors were whooping and darting backwards and forwards, but I could make out other warriors who were slipping back in the same direction as us. “They won’t stand for long when they learn that their chief is dead,” warned Black Eagle. “Come, we must get on our way. Morag is waiting further down the track.

  We ran on down the track for nearly half a mile before a voice barked out, “This way.” Black Eagle smiled endearingly at his woman while she gave me her normal pinch-faced glare of disapproval. Her red hair was mostly hidden by a deerskin bonnet and she had a blanket over the top of her deerskin clothes to keep out the cold. But instead of being a beast of burden, this time she had Black Eagle’s horse laden with her possessions. As we ran over she untied the creature and led it deeper into the forest.

  I glanced up into the sky, looking for the sun. I had lost my bearings over the last few minutes, but the low light shining through the trees confirmed my suspicion that we were heading north-west when we should have been heading north-east. “Aren’t we going the wrong way?” I asked hesitantly, pointing in what I thought was the right direction.

  “Fool,” Morag glared at me. “Every British soldier will be running for Moraviantown and beyond with all of the American army chasing them. Do you think we can pass through two armies without being seen and killed or robbed?

  “Where are we going then?” I asked.

  “We are going to a hidden place to wait for the armies to go away.” What she said made some sense. We would need our supplies to make our way to the Grand River lands; the first snows would be coming soon. Black Eagle just grinned and shrugged his shoulders as he set off after his woman and I had little choice but to follow.

  We spent the next three days in a small hidden glade that Morag must have found before as she led us straight to it. There were three other Indian families there already and several warriors joined us during the late afternoon. The battle, they claimed, had been lost and the Indians were dispersing. When I asked about Elliot one of them said that they had seen him leading Tecumseh’s son away from the battle. No one lit a fire until it was dark and then we sat warming ourselves, listening to the occasional crackle of musket fire from what I judged to be the direction of Moraviantown. At dawn the fire was doused and we stayed restlessly in the camp. Black Eagle managed to climb high up a tree and called me to join him. “It is easier than a big canoe mast,” he shouted before being hissed to silence by Morag. I had not climbed a tree since I was a boy, but with nothing else to do I scrabbled up as high as I could. We could see for miles but with most of the ground covered by forest we could spot little of interest. I got out the glass from my pocket and scanned the land around. I could just make out the clearing of the battlefield which the Americans now seemed to be camped on. Moving the glass to the left I found some bluffs which marked the settlement of Moraviantown. I could not see much, but a smudge of smoke indicated that at least one building had been burned. The only gunfire we heard now was the occasional single shot. Those in the British force had either escaped or been captured. There was no sign of any further pursuit among the Americans. They had beaten their enemy. I just hoped it would not take them long to decide to go back south.

  We were not to be disappointed for when we climbed the tree on the second day we could see the Americans striking camp and watched as their wagons started to head back in the direction they had come. Later we observed a long column of men being marched south. I could not make out uniforms at that distance but as they seemed to have a heavy mounted guard I guessed that those poor devils were British prisoners. Dawn on the third day showed that the field was clear and Morag finally agreed that it was time to head east.

  Chapter 26

  We made our way cautiously at first, skirting around to the north of Moraviantown. When we crossed the road that headed towards York we found it littered with the detritus of a fleeing army. There were empty pouches and packs, an abandoned shako and, in a ditch, a near naked corpse that some wild animal had already feasted on. I searched around for a musket – with just my sword, pistol and tomahawk I missed having a weapon I could hunt with or use to help see off an intruder. There were none of those to be found and even if I had discovered one, there was no ammunition left behind either.

  We pressed on and soon lapsed into a similar routine to that with which we had headed out west in the first place. Morag cooked from some supplies she had tied to the horse, while I tagged along with Black Eagle as he hunted, usually without success. After about a week we struck the Grand River and travelled along it for a while. There were normally plenty of people travelling up and down the river before it froze. We kept an eye out for boatmen, but ominously none were to be seen. The last we had heard the Americans had been pushed to the far eastern end of the Niagara peninsula and I hoped that the lack of river traffic did not indicate a new assault. The Grand River after all fed into Lake Erie, which was now dominated by Perry’s fleet.

  On our third day down the river we came across a small jetty and I almost walked past it when I realised I had seen it before. I looked around and there was the little cabin in which Magda and I had spent that first magical night together.

  “Do you mind if we stop for a while?” I suggested. “There is someone who lives nearby that I would like to see.

  Black Eagle grinned, guessing who it was. He must have already told the story to Morag for she looked up and said, “If it is that Christian woman, her husband will not want you sniffing around like an autumn buck.”

  “Well I want to see her anyway,” I replied stiffly before turning towards the overgrown path. “You can go on – I can find my own way from here.” I strolled off but when I looked back I saw that Black Eagle and his woman were following. Morag had a rare soft expression on her face as she led the horse with one hand and had her other arm linked in with the
warrior’s. I wondered if Magda now walked arm in arm with her husband. They could have a child now, I speculated. I regretted coming with Black Eagle and Morag in tow now, for if Magda looked happy I would not want to disturb her. Then Black Eagle would mock me for coming all that way without even saying hello. But I remembered my previous secret visits over a year ago now and the unsmiling faces as Magda and her husband went about their business on the farm. Call me a sentimental old fool, but I just wanted to know that she was now happy.

  I reached the edge of the trees that surrounded their fields and ducked down behind a bush.

  “What, are you not going down to see the woman?” queried Morag.

  “No, I just want to look to check that she is content with her new life,” I replied somewhat embarrassed. Morag gave a snort of derision at the white man’s strange ways while I took out my glass and slowly focussed on a figure wearing the plain grey smock dress in the far field. It had to be Magda but because of her bonnet I could not see her features as she was facing away from me. She was bent over the handles of a plough and from the way she stood, she looked almost as exhausted as the poor donkey that was in the harness in front of her.

  My muscles tensed in anger, but then I heard Black Eagle say behind me, “There is the preacher.” I took my eye away from the glass for a wider view and there, riding away from the farmhouse, was Johannes. He was riding a fine horse and wearing what must have been his Sunday best clothes. I put my eye to the glass again. It was him all right. I could see his strange grey fuzzy hair poking out beneath the wide-brimmed black hat. He was riding towards his wife.

  If I thought he was there to offer any comfort I soon realised that I was to be disappointed. As she heard him approach she looked round. She was too far away to make out her expression clearly, but I saw a flash of her blonde hair beneath the bonnet. Seeing her husband she picked up a long-handled whip and, cracking it in the air, tried to encourage the donkey forward. It managed a few steps before Johannes appeared in the glass again. He sat glaring down at his wife and gesturing to the field. She in turn gestured to the exhausted donkey. They seemed to be arguing over how much ground she had covered with the plough. He reached down and at first I thought he was going to strike her. So it seemed did she as she flinched away. Instead he grabbed the whip from her hand and raised it high in the air before bringing the lash down on her back.

  I was up and running before Magda’s body had hit the floor, not that her husband cared; he had already spurred his horse to ride away. I shouted at him but he was too far away to hear and just rode off without a backwards glance. I kept on running. I remember that I had my sword in my hand then; God knows why I had drawn it, but I do know that I had not wanted to kill someone as badly as I wanted to kill Johannes for a very very long time.

  Magda looked up puzzled when I called her name. She had last seen me clean-shaven in a British officer’s coat and now a bearded wild man in buckskin was charging wildly across the fields towards her, followed by two rather intimidating Indians.

  “Thomas,” she shouted at last when she recognised me. Then she was on her feet and a moment later her thin body was pressed into my arms. We hugged and kissed and then I realised that my hands were wet. When I looked they were covered in blood from a vicious cut across her back.

  “Let me see her,” insisted Morag pushing me out of the way and then without waiting to be invited she swiftly unbuttoned the top of Magda’s smock.

  “It is all right now,” I told Magda as Morag pulled the top of the smock open to look at the cut and then gave a snarl of anger.

  “If a man beat me like this he would die with his balls in his mouth!” Morag exclaimed and then she turned to Black Eagle. “Go and bring the horse down to the house. There are some ointments I need.” As she spoke I moved round to look at Magda’s back. It had been beautifully smooth before but now it was criss-crossed with a series of scars, some old and others quite fresh. “Bring her to the house,” Magda barked at me before striding off in that direction herself. I swept my arms around Magda, careful to hold her below her latest wound to avoid stretching it and then swept her up. She was much lighter than I expected and I could feel her ribs easily through her smock.

  “What has that devil done to you?” I asked but she did not reply. She just sobbed and pressed her face into my chest. I carried her into the little cabin and turned into the bedroom. The big bed was still there and I laid her gently on it. Then I saw that there was another thin straw mattress on the floor in the corner of the room. Compared to the embroidered coverlet on the main bed this looked a meagre affair, but needlework present there too. The rough sacking blanket had the word ‘harlot’ sewn into it. I felt my blood boil with fury. When I got my hands on Johannes I was going to thrash him to within an inch of his life. I heard Black Eagle arrive with the horse outside and Morag went out to get her potions. She was gone a couple of minutes and Magda tried to pull herself together.

  “Who are these people, Thomas?”

  “They are friends, good friends,” I grinned. “That big warrior was the one who threw himself into the river when we first met.” She smiled but in her eyes there was a look of infinite sadness as she remembered that day. Before I could say more Morag bustled into the room with some cloth and several jars and I got up to leave.

  “Thomas, please stay with me.” Magda held out her hand and I gripped it, settling down on a chair by the side of the bed. Morag poured her a draught of poppy juice to start with and watched as it slowly started to take effect. Before Magda got too drowsy Morag made her roll over onto her front and then started working her ointments into the scars. The most recent one was still bleeding and its edges were wide apart. Morag dug in her bag for a needle and thread and made six quick stitches along its length. It was as good a job as I had seen done by an army surgeon and I told her so.

  “I learned to do it while stitching my brother up,” she told me. “He was always getting cut in fights and falling out of trees.”

  “I did not know you had a brother, you have never mentioned him before.”

  “He died of the wasting sickness before you came here,” she told me and I got the distinct impression that she did not want to talk about it. I watched as she made a poultice and spread it over the new wound and then carefully bandaged it. By now Magda was fast asleep and snoring quietly. I stayed with her when Morag left the room. Even in sleep Magda’s hand gripped mine and I was content to stare at her still beautiful face. I must have slept a little myself, for I was awoken by cooking smells from the next room. Looking at the window it was getting dark. I disentangled my fingers from Magda’s and got up to stare out across the farm. There was no sign of Johannes returning and so I closed the shutters to keep out the cold.

  Magda stirred at the noise. “Who is there?” she called out.

  “It is me, Thomas. Do you remember we found you after Johannes cut you across the back?”

  The mere mention of her husband made her half sit up in alarm. “Johannes will be back at any moment, you must go. He cannot know that you were here.”

  “Don’t you worry about Johannes,” I told her grimly. “I will be wanting a word with him when he gets here.”

  “You don’t understand. It is not his fault it is mine. If he finds you here it will only make things worse.”

  “What on earth happened between you?” I asked. “He looked delighted to see you when you first met.”

  “You did,” she replied glumly. After a moment’s silence she continued softly, “Johannes was not like you in bed, he hurt me and seemed to want to do things as quickly as possible. When I suggested that we do things differently, I thought it would bring him pleasure, but instead he flew into a rage. He demanded to know if I had been with another man. I could not lie to my husband and so I told him of you and his anger got even worse. He calls me a harlot and a whore and lots of other words and makes me stay here on the farm, instead of going with him to church. I have to sleep on the floor unless he
wants to….” Her voice tailed off.

  “Well you won’t have to worry about him any more,” I told her.

  “But he is still my husband,” she replied tearfully, “I must stay with him, I have taken vows of marriage. If only I had not been with you, I would not have known any better and none of this would have happened.”

  “A vicious swine like him would have just found some other excuse to beat you,” I told her.

  “You must not hurt him, Thomas, he is my husband and I have a duty to look after him. Promise me you will not hurt him.” I stayed silent; that was one promise I was not willing to make. “Please, Thomas, promise me,” she begged.

  I remembered her telling me of how her people abhorred violence and her fear that I had shot Black Eagle and Smoke Johnson when we first met. It was a shame Johannes did not detest beating his wife to the same degree. “I promise you that I will not kill him,” I declared at last. But, I thought, by the time I have finished with him, he will probably wish I had.

  Morag’s voice called from the other room. “If you two are awake, come in and get some food.” We went through and sat at the table. Morag served us from an iron pot over the fire. There was a quarter of a fowl each, potatoes and a rich gravy.

  Magda looked fearfully at the plate. “Johannes does not like me killing the birds without his permission.”

  Morag snorted. “Don’t worry about that, you need feeding up.”

  I had forgotten how hungry I was and tucked in with relish. Hesitantly at first, Magda joined in, until she was sucking the bones clean as though it was the first good meal she had enjoyed in months. From the look of her, it probably was.

  I was just sitting back in my chair when the door to the cabin opened. Magda gave a startled shriek and sprang to her feet, knocking her stool over and shrinking back from the door. But instead of her husband it was Black Eagle. He exchanged a glance with Morag that seemed full of meaning and then stepped into the cabin and shut the door behind him.