by Jason Vail
My horse gathered himself under me and drove upward into the air, while I clung to his mane, desperately afraid of falling off. As I passed over the wagon, I have the distinct memory of a little girl sitting on the truck bed with a rag doll on her lap staring upward at me. Then I jolted into the landing, pitching forward onto the horse’s neck. I would have toppled to the ground had Willie not grasped a handful of my coat and pulled me back into the saddle.
Having slackened their pace, our pursuers did not have the momentum to jump the obstacles, and they had to whip one of the teams to force it out of the way, to a great deal of shouting and confusion. We bought a hundred yards at the delay, and were around a bend in the road just as the first rider, Tarleton, forced his way past the block.
We raced like riders at a steeplechase, bent over our horses’ necks and lashing their flanks with our reins in the absence of whips. We rounded that corner at a tavern, leaning so far into the turn that I thought the horses would lose their footing and go skidding into the fence on the other side of the street. I could have snatched the cigar out of the mouth of the fellow who had just come out the tavern door and was about to descend the steps from the sidewalk. He was so taken by surprise that he had no time to jump back to avoid our onrush.
Right after this corner, the Kennington Road toll barrier, a little round house in the middle of the street flanked by rail fences pierced by gates, blocked the way. I had forgotten about this, since toll barriers were but a minor annoyance to the traveler, yet they were a fatal nuisance to the fugitive, especially one being pursued by angry victims. For all the thought Willie and Crockett may have given this escapade, they must not have calculated the effect of the tollgates on our escape.
A wagon was just coming through right gate. Crockett could have taken that one, but instead, he passed onto the sidewalk and went through the pedestrian gate which was not barred and had only a post in the center to prevent passage of a wagon. The tollkeeper shouted a protest. Willie and Austin followed Crockett, which increased the volume of the tollkeeper’s protests. But I paused and tossed the keeper the toll, more in fact, than we owed, for it was a penny and a half per horse and rider, and I had no halfpennies.
“They’re French!” I said. “They don’t know any better!”
The tollkeeper did not seem mollified, but at least he had got his money; his complaints subsided to a grumble, and he stood out of the way.
I raced after my companions, and had the satisfaction of seeing the toll keeper hastily close the gate as I drew off. Take that, Tarleton.
The road forked at a triangular park beyond which stood a large church. Crockett looked as though he was about to bear right but I shouted to him, “Go left!”
He waved and carried on in the direction indicated. Another road loomed up branching off to the left, Camberwell Road I think it was, and I was about to caution him to hold straight ahead, but we swept by the crossroad before I could speak out. Perhaps Crockett remembered it. I was to learn that he had an unerring sense of direction when he was on land, but at the time I didn’t trust him.
The turnpike straightened out and the congestion of buildings diminished. Ahead and through the gaps between the houses, we could see countryside, where the town petered out into fields and hedgerows. If anything, the sight of the end of the city provoked Crockett to push his horse harder, while Willie cast yet another of many glances behind.
“They still there?” Crockett called back to him.
“Yep!” Willie shouted back.
“Ha!” Crockett cried. It was almost a howl, and I realized then that he was enjoying this, a fact he confirmed when he added, “Haven’t had so much fun since I got chased by a gang of Comanches.”
“What are Comanches?” I asked.
“Some of the toughest Indians you’ll ever run across. When you get to Texas I’ll see you get an introduction.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you.”
Crockett threw his eyes backward, whether to see me or the pursuit, which was clearly in view about two hundred yards behind us I don’t know. “Well,” he said, “there’s only seven of ’em.”
“That’s more than enough to be trouble,” Austin said.
“Naw,” Crockett said. “There was two hundred Comanches after me and they were no trouble. Seven English nabobs ain’t nothing to worry about.”
I doubted that there had been two hundred, but did not feel in the mood to argue. “Only one’s a nabob,” I called to him. “The others are his footmen. Rather nasty looking lot too.”
“That nabob is the worst of the bunch,” Crockett said, “even if he’s getting on.”
Horses cannot run flat out forever, and by the time we had gone about three miles beyond the city, they began to flag as we climbed a modest rise that I later learned from my study of maps was called Brixton Hill. My horse broke down to a trot and no amount of urging could make him go faster. Although the horses of the others slowed, they fell only to a canter and began to draw away. Meanwhile, Baron Tarleton and his company emerged from among a small gaggle of houses north of the foot of the rise and they charged onward as if just out of the start gate.
“Hey!” I called to my vanishing companions. “You’ll never find your way back without me!”
“Yes, I will!” Crockett replied, but he reined up and the others followed suit until I could catch up.
Somehow my horse found the heart to manage a canter. We splashed through a stream that ran over the road, passed a modest hill on the east capped by a collection of farm buildings, and there in front of us was the village of Streatham, which I remembered from our trip north. It was hard to mistake it because of the two big mansions on opposite sides of the road to the south of the village.
At this point, our horses were pretty fagged and could only be coaxed to make a trot. This pace attracted no attention from people in the road or coming out of shops — to us at any rate. Tarleton and his men, however, raced through the village at a canter, and we had to spur at the sight of them to at least match their pace.
They were closer now, and I said, “You’d think they’d give up by now.”
“After this little ways? Tarleton hates to lose,” Crockett snarled over his shoulder. “We’ll have him on our tail all the way.”
Onward we went, pushing our horses as fast as they would go: by Thornhill Heath, through Broad Green, into and out of Croydon with its long gaggle of houses and shops strung along the road, people goggling at us and our pursuers as we galloped by.
At the outskirts of Croydon, as we neared another turnpike gate barring the highway, the pursuit had closed to under fifty yards, so close that the pounding of their horses was plainly audible — close enough that I imagined I could hear the men and horses panting with the exertion of maintaining a canter.
Then there came the thump of a pistol shot and the ball whirred by my head, going zzzzzzzhhh! For some odd reason, the familiar sound of the shot was comforting, and the nervousness I felt ebbed away. “Shoot off a few more, you idiots,” I murmured to myself, checking my pistols. For if they did, I determined to wheel upon them and kill as many as I could.
But only two more shots thundered forth before Tarleton ordered the men to stop wasting powder. I glanced back to see those who had fired reloading in the saddle. It was an unaccustomed exercise for one of them, for he fumbled and almost dropped his pistol. But the others reloaded with the practiced motions of men used to recharging their pieces in the saddle, telling me they were cavalry men. So it might not have been so easy to turn and face them after all.
The shots were not without effect, however, for the gatekeeper ducked into his little round house and forgot to close the gate. We took advantage of this and raced through as if it wasn’t there, adding toll jumping to our lengthening list of crimes. From what I could tell, Baron Tarleton did not dither over that toll any more than we did.
A mile and a half on, we reached the fork at Purley Farm, the more traveled road bending left, t
he lesser one going right. Crockett unhesitatingly took the right fork. Another of those damnable turnpike gates loomed only half a mile in the distance. While they had been mere annoyances before, I had developed a great loathing for them.
We fell back to a trot to rest our horses as we neared the gate. But our pursuers were tiring as well, and we dropped into a walk together as we reached the barrier, flinging money at the surprised gatekeeper, who was angry that he had to scramble in the dirt. A slow-speed chase, but still a chase.
After we had proceeded in this fashion for about a quarter hour without any closing of the distance, Tarleton shouted in thick Leicestershire, “If you give it back I will forget this happened!”
“Give what back?” Crockett replied. “The thing doesn’t exist, remember? It’s illegal!”
Tarleton puzzled over this answer, or perhaps it was the accent. For he asked, “Do I know you?”
“We met in The Tennessee!” Crockett answered.
“You’re one of that rabble?” Tarleton said, astonished, as this could hardly have been what he expected. “What is this about?”
Before Crockett could respond, however, Willie shouted, “A debt!”
“Payback, is it?” Tarleton said. “We’ll see.” He smiled. “We’re an island nation, remember? You have to get off to be safe from me.”
“Oh, dear!” Crockett said. “We are cooked then!”
At a place called Leaden Cross, several roads came together, and as we approached, I noticed Austin consulting a paper. “Merstham!” he called to Crockett, who had not relinquished the lead. “Take the Merstham Road!”
“I know the way!” Crockett called back. He did not even glance at the white-painted marker that indicated the direction and distance to Merstham: six and a quarter miles.
In just over half an hour, that handsome little village came and went so quickly that we had no time to admire it, though there were several taverns open that called out for the weary traveler, but certainly not ones as pressed as we were.
Somewhere around here, in the midst of rolling heathland, we passed out of Surrey into Sussex, but I do not recall the place being marked. The only indication was a carved stone pillar only slightly taller than a man’s knee leaning drunkenly over the ditch announcing that Crawley, which I knew to be in Sussex, was only two miles away.
Just as the houses began to grow thicker along the road, a sure indication we were coming to a town, the sound of a horse in gallop came from behind and I saw one of Tarleton’s men bearing down with a pistol leveled at me. At first I took the fellow for one of the grooms, but before he fired I noted that he seemed both young and too well dressed, a swell in a white shirt, white riding trousers and riding boots, top hat and all. He had the dark hair and narrow face of a Tarleton, and I was marveling at the resemblance when he squeezed the trigger and the pan ignited, throwing a plume of smoke into the air. The powder charge went off an instant later, but the delay gave me time to duck and the ball passed over my back, plucking at my coat.
There could be only one reply to such rough treatment. I pulled out a pistol of my own and fired back, but the boy reined up in alarm and the ball went wide, throwing up a spurt of dirt at someone’s front doorstep.
“Waste of shot!” Crockett called. “You can’t hit shit from on top of a horse.”
I suppose that he had learned this wisdom during his adventure with the Comanches, which is probably one reason he survived. I said, “I wasn’t trying to hit him. Just scare him a bit.”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”
The exchange had been loud and unusual enough to draw heads out of windows along the way through Crawley. I almost felt like waving at the attention, but I was growing very weary by now and wished for the ordeal to be over.
We passed through villages that were hardly more than a collection of a half dozen houses, then above Hickstead, we entered a forest, where we met a train of five wagons that filled up the road so that we had to squeeze by in the ditches. They were not the kind of wagons you see in America, although they were large and covered like those of the settlers. These had wheels up to three feet wide; supposedly such contraptions were easier on the roads.
The wagon train blocked us from Tarleton’s view, and Crockett turned off the road into the forest.
We flew eastward over sharp hills, hoping that we had thrown them off, but when we emerged onto a field, we heard shouting behind us, and there they were.
“If we make southeast,” Austin panted, consulting his papers, “we should come out on the Cuckfield road below the Ansty Turnpike. We can stay on that road all the way to Brighton, with only the Preston gate to worry about.”
“How far from Cuckfield?” Crockett asked, as he changed direction.
Austin concentrated on the paper, mouth moving as he did subtraction. “About thirteen miles. If we come out below the gate.”
Night had begun to fall now and it was harder to see where we were going, but Crockett plowed forward as if he had a compass embedded in his head. I took comfort from the stars, which glittered in brilliant points overhead in a cloudless sky. The wind was sharp and bitter.
We plunged through the falling night, crossing streams and lanes, skirting a pond or two that loomed up unexpectedly, traversing fields, pressing through hedges and jumping fences— how I hated that — scattering an occasional flock of sheep, once arousing the hostility of a bull who chased us out of his field, until we reached a well-traveled road running roughly east to west. Crockett pressed across it, for it could not be the road we sought. Then we came to another going south and Crockett turned onto it, our pursuit only moments behind.
Before long we approached yet another of those beastly forks. It was unmarked. Crockett bore right. I had no idea where we were or if this was the right choice, but we could only follow him and hope for the best.
The purple twilight gave way to full night and it was hard to see ahead, and even our pursuit was lost in the dark, though we knew they were still close behind by the huffing of their horses and the thudding of their hooves.
The road was a white band within that blackness, and had it not been for that we could easily have blundered into hedges and been hung up long enough that Tarleton would have finally caught us.
Miles passed in agony, for we had had no rest since we left London, and I thought I would die of it, and God alone knew how the horses suffered.
At last, we came to a crossroads and Crockett, even before Austin could offer his advice, turned left. We headed east for a couple of miles to another crossroad, where we turned south again. Even in the dark Austin apparently could read his notes, for he called off the villages as we passed through them: down Clayton hill, passing a coach being pushed upward by its passengers; down to Piecombe with its little church by the blacksmith’s on a spur upon the downs; through Patchem and Withdean — “Not much farther,” Austin panted with some triumph as we left Withdean behind.
The mile between Withdean and the Preston gate went quickly as we cantered most of the way, for it was downhill and the horses had regained their wind.
As we approached the gate, although I could not see it in the dark and was not sure where it was, a sudden thought occurred to me. “David!” I called. “The keeper will be at supper! The gate will be closed!” So far in our flight we had the good luck to find the gates open as it was day time, and had only to throw down our toll without stopping. This was impolite, and aggravated the tollkeepers, but was not illegal.
“Should we fight?” he called back.
“Go around it!”
The prospect of such criminality did not bother Crockett, or even Austin. The road at this point was bordered by a ditch and rail fences too high to jump in the dark. Crockett and Willie leaped off their horses and kicked down one of the posts. We crossed into the field. They remounted with only a few yards to spare as Tarleton’s band closed again so near that I could have hit them with my hat.
It was a pur
e race now as we leaned over the necks of our horses and lashed them into a gallop. The cold air streamed over my face, ballooned my coat and sent my hat flying into the void. To the right, the pyramidal form of the gatehouse loomed and quickly receded, surrounded in a cloak of wood smoke and the aroma of frying bacon.
We came to a gate that a farmer had carelessly left open and swerved back onto the road, never slackening pace.
Preston with its old stone church rushed by as we sped downhill as fast as tired horses could carry us.
The last mile seemed to take no time at all.
To my great relief, the buildings of Brighton reared out of the dark, lights of candles still showing in the windows and smoke seeping from the chimneys, everything quiet and still, a perfect peaceful evening beneath sharp stars.
At last, we pushed down broad Old Steine Street with the commons just ahead and beyond that the Channel, the horses beginning to falter from the relentless pace, but with so little distance to go and with the pursuit so close, we spared neither lash nor spurs. It was too dark to see Wasp, and I hoped she was still there. We had covered almost sixty miles in just less than ten hours, and still had not lost our tail, which kept just out of pistol shot, yet so close I could hear the footmen grumbling and complaining about their aches and pains, only to be scoffed at by the young swell who made noises about long road marches as if he was a cavalryman. Tarleton didn’t complain, though he had more reason than any of them, for I think he was nearing seventy at that time. But he was made of iron in mind and body. You have to admire a man like that even if he is an enemy.
We reached the foot of Old Steine and the beach. The Channel stretched out before us, shimmering in the starlight.
And Wasp, a mere shadow on the waters, was still there, and I was ever so glad to see her.
