Читать книгу Flashman and the Angel of the Lord - George Fraser MacDonald - Страница 14

Three times in my life I’ve been shanghaied, and each time there was a woman in the case – Miranda Spring, Phoebe Carpenter, and Fanny Duberly, although I acquit pretty little Fan of any ill intent, and the occasion in which she was concerned saw me trepanned with my eyes open; on the two others it was Flashy outward bound with a bellyful of puggle from which I didn’t awake until we were well out to sea, and there’s no worse place to come to than below deck on a windjammer when the skipper’s in a hurry.

This one was an American with a broken nose and a beard like a scarf beneath his rock of a chin; my heart sank at the sight of him, for he had Down-easter¹² written all over him. I’d hoped, when I crawled out of the stuffy hole in which I found myself and puked my heart out on a deck that seemed to be near perpendicular, that I’d find a good corruptible Frog or Dago on the poop, but Spring had chosen his man well, damn him. This one had eyes like flint and whined through his nose.

‘Spew over the side, cain’t ye!’ was his greeting as I staggered up out of the scuppers and held on for my life; he stood braced without support in a gale that was bringing green sea over the rail in icy showers, soaking me in an instant, but at least it washed my tiffin and supper away. ‘Do that in a calm an’ ye’ll swab it up yourself, mister! Now, git back below till ye can stand straight, an’ keep out o’ the way, d’ye hear?’

It’s not easy to conduct negotiations on a spray-lashed deck during a howling tempest, but I was wasting no time.

‘A hundred pounds if you’ll take me to Port Nolloth or Walfish Bay!’ I’d no notion where we were in the South Atlantic, but I doubted if we were far out as yet, and any port would do so long as it wasn’t Baltimore – or the Cape, with Spring infesting the place. ‘Five hundred if you’ll carry me to England!’

‘Got it on ye?’ shouts he. I hadn’t; I’d been stripped clean of cash, papers, even my cheroot-case.

‘You’ll have it the moment we drop anchor! Look, a thousand if you set me down anywhere between Brest and London – it don’t have to be English waters, even!’

That was when he knocked me down, grabbed me by the belt, and heaved me aft; I’m over thirteen stone, but I might have been his gunny-sack. He threw me into his cabin, kicked the door to, and watched me crawl to my feet.

‘That’s the short way of tellin’ you I ain’t for sale,’ says he. ‘Least of all to a lousy Limey slave-stealer.’

Even in my distempered state, that sounded damned odd. ‘You ain’t a Southerner! You’re a Yankee, dammit!’

‘That I am,’ says he. ‘An’ I make my livin’ ’tween Benin an’ Brazil, mostly – that satisfy ye?’ A slaver, in other words, if not this voyage. Trust Spring. So I tried another tack.

‘You’ll hang for this, d’ye know that? You’re a kidnapper, and I’m Sir Harry Flashman, colonel in the British Army, and –’

‘Spring told me that’s what ye’d say, but you’re a liar an’ he ain’t. Your name’s Comber, an’ in the States they’ve got warrants out for you for everythin’ ’cept pissin’ in the street – Spring told me that, too! So any hangin’ there is, you’ll do it.’

‘You’re wrong, you fool! I’m telling the truth, you Yankee idiot – don’t hit me –’

He stood over me, rubbing his knuckles. ‘Now, you listen, mister, ’cos I’m runnin’ out o’ patience. John C. Spring is my friend. An’ when he pays an’ trusts me for a job, I do it. An’ you’re goin’ to Baltimore. An’ we’ll lay off Sparrow’s Point a couple o’ days while the letters he give me goes ashore, to let the traps know you’re comin’. An’ then you go. An’ till then you’ll work your passage, an’ I don’t give two cents’ worth of a Port Mahon sea-horse’s droppings if you’re Comber or Lord Harry Flasher or President Buchanan! Savvy? Now you git up, and walk along easy to the focsle – it’s that way – an’ give your callin’ card to Mr Fitzgibbon, who’s the mate, an’ he’ll show you to your state-room. Now – skat!’

Having felt his fist twice, I skatted, and so began several weeks of vile hard work and viler food, but if you’ve been a slave to the Malagassies, or lain in a bottle-dungeon in India, or been toasted on a gridiron, or fagged for Bully Dawson – well, you know things could be worse. I’d been a deckhand before, but I didn’t let on, so I was never sent aloft; Fitzgibbon, and the skipper, whose name was Lynch, were first-rate seamen, so far as I’m a judge, and the last thing they wanted was some handless farmer hindering work, so I was tailing on and hauling and holystoning and greasing and painting and tarring and doing any of the countless unskilled menial tasks of shipboard – oh, I cleaned the heads, too – and because I knew better than to shirk, I rubbed along well enough, bar sea-sickness which wore off after a week, and inedible tack, and being played out with fatigue, and driven half-crazy by that hellish creaking and groaning din that never ceases on a sailing packet; you get used to that, too, though. The focsle gang were a hard-bitten crowd, Scowegians and Germans, mostly, but I was big and strong enough to be let alone, and I didn’t encourage conversation.

You may think I make light of it – being kidnapped and pressed into sea-slavery, but if I’ve learned anything it’s that when you have no choice, you must just buckle down to misfortune … and wait. It was all sufficiently beastly, to be sure, but d’ye know, I reckon Spring was cheated of that part of his vengeance; as I’ve said, I’d been through hell and back before in my chequered life, far worse than Spring had, and being a packet rat was that much less of an ordeal to me than it must have been to him. He thought he was Godalmighty, you see, lording it over riff-raff by virtue of his ‘eminence’ as he’d called it, by which I guess he meant his master’s ticket and his M.A. and simply being the great John Charity Spring, classical don and Fellow of Oriel, damn your eyes. Now, I am riff-raff, when I have to be, and so long as I can see a glimmer at the end of the passage, well, dum spiro spero,^fn1 as we scholars say. Having his high-table arse kicked must have had Spring gnawing the rigging; I took care not to be kicked. His haughty spirit rebelled; I ain’t got one.

Another thing that cheered me up was my belief that Spring, being mad as a weaver to start with, had let his harboured spite get the better of his few remaining wits; if he thought he was dooming me to death or the chain-gang by packing me off to the States, he was well out of reckoning. What he had said about my American embarrassments was true enough, but that had been a long time ago; it’s a painful story, but in case you haven’t read it in my earlier memoirs, I’ll give you the heads of it here.

Ten years back, when Spring’s slaver, the Balliol College, with Flashy aboard as reluctant supercargo, had been captured off Cuba by an American patrol, I’d deemed it prudent to assume the identity of Beauchamp Millward Comber (don’t laugh, it was his name), our late third mate, who’d told me on his deathbed that he was an Admiralty agent who was only sailing with Spring to spy on his slaving activities. If you think I’m stretching, the U.S. Navy didn’t; Comber’s papers saw me through, but it was touch and go, so I’d slipped my cable and looked for a way home. I thought I’d found one when the Underground Railroad, a clandestine troupe of lunatics who ran escaped slaves to Canada, got their hands on me – they had ears everywhere, even in the U.S. Navy Department – and offered to help me North if I’d take an important runaway nigger with me to freedom.

That enterprise had ended with me going over one rail of a Mississippi steamboat while the darkie, with a slave-catcher’s bullet in him, had gone over t’other. Subsequently I’d been overseer on a plantation, lost my situation for rogering the lady of the house, escaped North with a female octoroon slave who’d killed two men en route, been shot in the backside by pursuers while crossing the Ohio River, found refuge with Congressman Abraham Lincoln who’d dragooned me into testifying at the adjudication on Spring’s slave-ship in New Orleans, been unwillingly reunited with my dear old commander who had then murdered one Omohundro in a pub, fled with him to seek shelter with a whore of my acquaintance who’d obligingly had old J.C. shanghaied … and had at last won back to England, home, and beauty via the Great Plains, an Apache village, and San Francisco, slightly out of breath. Honestly, I’d have been better going into the Church, or banking, or politics, even.

In any event, that’s how the sparks flew upward on my first visit to America – and you can see Spring’s point. In my brief sojourn I’d been an impostor and perjurer (as Comber), stolen slaves (under the names of Prescott, Arnold, and, I rather think, Fitzroy Howard or something like that), and was wanted for murders I hadn’t committed in Mississippi, or it may have been Tennessee for all I know, as well as for aiding and abetting (which I hadn’t done, either) Spring’s stabbing of Omohundro. An impressive tally, I concede, and none the better for being all entirely against my will.

However, I doubted if the U.S. Navy was much concerned with the fugitive Comber at this late date, and I’d no intention of going near the Mississippi. I wasn’t wanted in Maryland, where Baltimore is; let me present myself to a British consul there, or in Washington, which was only forty miles away, and I was on easy street. The great thing, you see, was that I wasn’t Comber (or Prescott or those other chaps), but I was Sir Harry Flashman, not unknown by name and fame, and once I was under our embassy’s¹³ wing, warrants from far-flung states for the arrest of non-existent Combers, etc. would matter not at all. Not in Washington or the North, at least; if I were fool enough to venture South, where there might be witnesses to identify me, that would be a different and damned unpleasant kettle of fish; as Spring had pointed out, my rank and heroic stature at home wouldn’t weigh much with a Louisiana jury.

So you can see why I wasn’t over-troubled about what lay ahead; indeed, my preoccupation was how to pay Spring out when I was safe home in England. The evil-eyed bastard had terrified, drugged, and kidnapped me, subjected me to the gruelling misery of packet-ratting, and done his damnedest to deliver me to an American gallows; well, he was going to rue the day. Straight prosecution was out of the question: it would take too long, likely uncover past history which I’d rather keep dark, and almost certainly fail in the end – the whole business was too wild, and the thought of returning to testify at the Cape, with Spring frothing at me across the court … no, I’d prefer not. Especially since the most artistic revenge had already occurred to me: a detailed account, to the address of J. C. Spring, M.A., of the contortions which his saintly Miranda and I had performed aboard dear Papa’s yacht – that would bring a blush to his cheek. It would destroy him, wound him to the depths of his rotten soul, probably drive him crazy altogether. He might even murder her, and swing for it – well, the bitch deserved it. No … she’d swear blind that I was lying out of spite, and he’d believe her, or pretend to … but in his heart he’d always know it was the truth. Aye, that would teach him that Flashy’s a critter best left alone because, as Thomas Hughes pointed out, he can find ways of striking home that you ain’t even thought of.

Now I’ll not weary you with any further relation of Life at Sea when Uncle Harry was a Lad, but hasten on to Chesapeake Bay, which I reckon we reached in about eight weeks, but it may have been more.¹⁴ I made two further attempts to suborn Captain Lynch, promising him Golconda if he would put me down at New York or Boston, but I might as well have talked to the mast; I believe my speech and bearing, and my conduct aboard, had sown some doubt in his mind, for he didn’t hit me on either occasion, but perhaps because he was a man of his word, as some of these half-wit shellbacks are, or more likely because Spring had a hold on him, he wasn’t to be budged. ‘You’re goin’ to Baltimore even if the Chesapeake’s afire, so ye can save your wind!’ says he, and that was that.

We lay two days in the bay, and I didn’t doubt that Spring’s letters had gone ashore with the pilot. Now that the grip had come, all my assurance had melted like snow off a dyke, and I was in a fine funk again, dreaming hideous nightmares in which I was swimming slowly towards a misty jetty on which stood Yankee peelers brandishing warrants made out for ‘the handsomest man in the Army’ and jangling their handcuffs, and all my American ill-willers were there, singing jubilee – Omohundro, and the squirt Mandeville who’d caught me galloping his wife, and Buck the slave-catcher and his gang, and the poker-faced Navy man whose name I’d forgotten, and blasted George Randolph, the runaway nigger I’d abandoned, and vague figures I couldn’t make out, but I knew they were the Cumanches of Bent’s Fort and Iron Eyes who’d chased me clear across the Jornada, and then somehow I was in the adjudication court at Orleans, but instead of the wizened little adjudicator it was Spring on the bench, in gown and mortar board waving a birch and shouting: ‘Aye, there he is, the great toad who ravishes daughters and can’t construe Horace to save his soul, Flashmanum monstrum informe ingens et horrendum,^fn2 mark him well, ladies and harlots, for Juvenal never spoke a truer word, omne in præcipitio vitium stetit,^fn3 by thunder!’ and when I looked at the jury, they were all the American women I’d betrayed or discarded – fat Susie weeping, Sonsee-Array sulking, the French nigger Cleonie whom I’d sold to the priest at Santa Fe, willowy Cassy looking down her fine nose, coal-black Aphrodite and the slave-women at Greystones, but their faces were all turned to the bench, and now it wasn’t Spring who sat there, but Arnold in a pilot cap glowering at me, and then Miranda was tripping up beside him, swirling her hair about her like a cloak, giggling as she stooped to whisper in his ear, but it wasn’t his ear, it was Congressman Lincoln’s, and I saw his ugly face scowl as he listened, nodding, and heard his drawl as he said that reminded him of a story he’d heard once from an English naval officer who didn’t know what club-hauling meant …

I came back to waking very slowly, with sense stealing over me like a sunrise, almost imperceptibly, growing gradually conscious of a throbbing ache in my temples and a dryness in my mouth and throat that was truly painful. There was someone beside me, for I could feel the warmth of a body, and I thought ‘Elspeth’ until I remembered that I was in a ship at sea, bound for Baltimore and that awful nightmare which thank God was only a dream after all, conjured up out of my fears. But there was no motion about the place on which I lay, no gentle rocking as there should have been as we lay at anchor in the Chesapeake; I opened eyelids that seemed to have been glued together, expecting to see the knot-hole in the floor of the bunk above me, as I’d seen it with every awakening for the past many weeks. It wasn’t there, and no bunk either; instead there was a dingy white ceiling, and when I turned my head there was a bare wall with a grimy window.

I was ashore, then … but how, and for how long? I tried to conjure up my last memory of shipboard, but couldn’t with the ache in my head, and to this day I don’t know how I left the ship, drunk, drugged, or sandbagged. At the time, it didn’t signify anyway, and even as I reached that conclusion a woman’s voice said:

‘Hollo, dearie! Awake, are ye? Say, didn’t you have a skinful, though!’

An American cackle, piercing my ear, and I shuddered away by instinct, which was sound judgment, for if I felt dreadful, she looked worse, a raddled slattern grinning her stinking breath into my face, reaching out a fat hand across my chest. I almost catted on the spot, one thought uppermost.

‘Did I …? Have we …?’ It came out in a faint croak, and she leered and heaved herself half across me. The paint on her face looked about a week old, and her awful bulk was clothed only in a grubby shift.

‘Ye mean … did you and me …?’ She loosed another braying laugh, displaying bad teeth. ‘No, dearie, we didn’t … yet. You’ve bin snorin’ your big head off all night. But you’re awake now … so how ’bout my present …?’

‘Get away from me, you pox-ridden slut!’ Another hoarse whisper, but I had strength enough to thrust her away, and tumbled over her to the floor. I scrambled up, dizzy, and almost fell again, staring about me at a big, unbelievably foul whitewashed room, in which there were about a dozen beds containing various beings, male and female, in squalid undress. The stench of stale tobacco and unwashed humanity took me by the throat, and I blundered for the door, falling over a frantically courting couple on the floor, and followed by shrill obscenities from my bedmate. I found myself on a bare landing, confronting a goggling darkie with a bucket in his hand.

‘Where the hell am I?’ I inquired, and had to repeat myself and take him by the collar before he stammered, rolling his eyes:

‘Why, boss, you’ in de Knittin’ Swede’s!’

Only later did I know what he’d said; at the time it sounded like gibberish.

‘What town is this?’

‘Why … why, dis Baltimo’, boss! Yassuh, dis Baltimo’, honnist!’

I let him go and stumbled down two flights of stairs, with no notion but to get out of this beastly place without delay. There were other doors, some of them open on to sties like the one I’d left, and various creatures on the landings, but I didn’t pause until I bore up unsteadily by a big wooden counter on the ground floor, and I think there was a taproom, too, but what mattered was that there was a street door ahead of me, and open air.

There were a number of seamen lounging at the counter, and behind it, sitting on a high stool, was a figure so unlikely that I thought, I’m still drunk or dreaming. He was big and ugly, with a nose that had been spread half across his face, probably by a club, there wasn’t a hair on his phiz or gleaming skull, the huge arms protruding from his vest were covered with tattoos, but what took the eye was that he was clicking away with knitting needles at a piece of woollen work – not a common sight in a waterfront dosshouse. He purled, or cast off, or whatever it is that knitters do when they want to take a breather, and nodded to a fellow in a striped shirt who was laying some coins on the counter. Then he looked at me, and I realised that the loungers were doing the same, in a most disconcerting way.

I had got some sense back now, and saw that this was plainly the receipt of custom, where guests settled their accounts and ordered up their carriages. Equally plainly, I’d spent the night on the premises, but when I put a hand to my pocket, the bald head shook emphatically.

‘You paid for, Yonny,’ says the Knitting Swede. ‘You wan’ some grub yust now?’

I declined, with thanks, and he nodded again. ‘You got a ship, maybe?’

I was about to say no, but one look at the loungers stopped me: too many ferret eyes and ugly mugs for my liking, and I’d no wish to be crimped a second time. I said I had a ship, and a greasy disease in a billycock hat and brass watch-chain asked:

‘What ship would that be, sailor?’

‘The Sea Witch, and I’m Bully Waterman,¹⁵ so get the hell out of my way!’ says I. Being over six feet and heavy set has its uses, and I was out in the street and round the corner before he’d had time to offer me a drink and a billy behind the ear. You didn’t linger in establishments like the Knitting Swede’s, not unless you fancied a free holiday in a whaler for the next couple of years. I walked on quickly, reflecting that it had been considerate of Lynch to pay my lodging; but then, it may have been a club rule that insensible members had to be settled for in advance.

I walked for two minutes, and felt so groggy that I had to sit down on a barrel at the mouth of an alley, where I took stock. I knew I was in sailortown, Baltimore, but that was all. The growth on my chin told me I hadn’t been ashore above twenty-four hours. Whatever information Spring had sent to the authorities must have been in their hands for two days by now, and no doubt it would contain an excellent description, even down to my clothes. These consisted of a shirt and trousers, boots, and a canvas jacket, the crease not improved by a night in that verminous hole I’d just escaped from. (I’ve since learned, by the way, that it was quite celebrated among the less discriminating seafarers; if you’d stopped at the Knitting Swede’s you could dine out on it in every shebeen from Glasgow to Sydney.)¹⁶

Now, I doubted if the authorities would be scouring the streets for Beauchamp Millward Comber, but the sooner I was under the protection of my country’s flag, the better. A port the size of Baltimore must surely have a British consul, or some kind of commercial representative at least, who shouldn’t be too difficult to find; he might look askance at my appearance, but it would have to do, since Captain Lynch’s generosity hadn’t run the length of leaving a single damned penny, or anything else, in my pockets. It wouldn’t make my bona fides any easier to establish, but I’d meet that trouble when I came to it.

Although I’d been in Baltimore before, with the U.S. Navy folk, I’d no notion of how the town lay, so I took a slant along the street, which was bustling with business round the chandlers’ shops and warehouses, and approached a prosperous-looking old gent to inquire the way to the centre of town. I’d barely got a word out when he rounded on me.

‘You goddam leeches, can’t you work for a change!’ cries he. ‘I declare you’re stout enough!’ He slapped ten cents into my hand and strode on, leaving me wondering if it would buy me a shave … and now that my head was clearing, I found I was almighty hungry …

D’you know, within an hour I was richer by four dollars, and a splendid new vocabulary – the first time I ever heard the word ‘bum’ mean anything but backside was on that morning. The beauty of it was, I didn’t have to beg, even: my dishevelled clothing, unshaven chin, and most charming smile, with a courteous finger raised to the brow, marked me as a mendicant, apparently, and for every nine who brushed past, a tenth would drop a few coppers in my palm. Damned interesting, I found it. Women were altogether more generous than men, especially as I moved up-town; when I approached two fashionable young misses with ‘Pardon me, marm’ and a bow, one of them exclaimed ‘Oh, my!’ and gave me fifty cents and a fluttery look before they hurried away tittering. I left off, though, when I became aware that I was being watched by a belted constable with a damned disinheriting moustache, but I’ve calculated since that I could have cleared ten thousand dollars a year on the streets of Baltimore, easy, which is two thousand quid, sufficient to buy you a lieutenancy in the Guards in those days – and from the look of some of them, I’d not be surprised.

I was still no nearer finding the consul, and the constable had given me a scare, so after a shave and brush-up and a hearty steak and eggs at a chop-house, I looked for a fellow-countryman – and the sure way to do that in America in those days was to find a Catholic church. I spotted one, noted that the name of its priest displayed on the gilt board was Rafferty, made my way through the musty wax-and-image interior, and found the man himself delving like a navigator in the garden behind the church, whistling ‘The Young May Moon’ in his shirt-sleeves. He greeted me with a cry of ‘Hollo, me son, and what can I be doin’ for ye on this parky day?’ a jaunty little leprechaun with a merry eye.

I asked my question and he pulled a face. ‘Faith, now, an’ I don’t know there’s any such crater in Baltimore,’ says he. ‘Jist off the boat, are ye?’ The shrewd blue eyes took me in. ‘Well, if ’tis diplomatic assistance ye’re seekin’, Washington’ll be the place for you, where our minister is. He’s new come, an’ all, they tell me – Lyons, his name is, an English feller. He’ll be your man, right enough. And what would ye say, yes or no, to a cup o’ tea?’

Seeing him so affable, and with only two dollars in my pocket, it struck me that if I played smooth I might touch him for the fare to Washington, so I affected the faintest of brogues and introduced myself as Grattan Nugent-Hare (who was rotting safely in a cottonwood grove somewhere south of Socorro) of the Rathfarnham and Trinity College, lately arrived to join my brother Frank, who held a minor position in a Washington bank. Unfortunately, I had been set upon soon after landing the previous night, and was without cash or effects. He opened eyes and mouth wide.

‘D’ye tell me? Dear God, what’s the world comin’ to? An’ you wi’ your foot barely on the ground, and from Dublin, too! Have ye been to the police, man dear? Ye have – an’ got little good o’ them? Aye, well, they’ve a hard row to hoe, wi’ some queer ones in this town, I’ll tell ye! They wouldn’t know of a British consul, neither …? No, no … it’s a wonder they didn’t think to steer you to a feller-countryman, at least – there’s enough of English and ourselves hereabouts, God knows. But they didn’t; ah, well. But come away an’ we’ll have that dish o’ tea while we think what’s best to be done. An’ how’s the Liffey lookin’, eh?’

I sat in his kitchen while he prattled Irishly and made tea. Since I’d never been in Dublin in my life, I found it safest to let him run on, with a cheery agreement from time to time, waiting an opportunity to state my needs, but he didn’t give me one, being content to prose sentimentally about the ‘ould country’, until:

‘An’ ye’re in the banking line yourself, are ye?’ says he at last. ‘Ah, well, ye’re in the right furrow in Ameriky; fine grand opportunities for a gentleman like yourself, so there are; it’s a commercial world, so it is, a commercial world, but none the worse for bein’ that if the trade’s honest an’ the word’s good! An’ ye’re a Trinity man, too!’ He chuckled wistfully. ‘Ah, this is a country of grand prospects, but I wonder could a man do better than sit in the ould College court contemplatin’ the trees on St Stephen’s Green on a summer’s evenin’? You’d be there about ’45, am I right?’

I made a hasty calculation and said, rather earlier, ’43.

‘Then ye would know ould Professor Faylen!’ cries he. ‘A fine man, that, an’ a grand Hebrew scholar, so they said, not that I’m a judge. He would still be about in your day, was he not?’

I can smell a false lead as fast as anyone, but he was such a happy simpleton that I decided it was safe to say I hadn’t studied under Faylen myself, but knew of him. He nodded amiably, and sighed.

‘Ah, well, here am I blatherin’ on, an’ you itchin’ to take your way to Washington. Aye, but with your pockets all to let. Well, man dear, I was after thinkin’ yonder that I’d be makin’ ye a small loan for your train ticket, but d’ye know, I’d be party to an awful sin if I did that, so I would. Ye see,’ says he, shaking his pawky old head, ‘the day ye find a priest sittin’ in the court at Trinity is a day ye’ll be able to skate over Dublin Bay from Bray to Balbriggan – an’ as for seein’ St Stephen’s Green from the court, well, I doubt if even ould Faylen could see that far from heaven, where he’s been this five-and-thirty years, God rest his soul. An’ tellin’ me ye were a banker,’ he added sorrowfully, ‘an’ you wid spurs an’ brass buttons stickin’ out all over ye! Now, will ye take another drop o’ tea … soldier, an’ tell me all about it?’

‘You wouldn’t believe it if I did,’ says I, rising. ‘Thank’ee for the tea, padre, and I’ll bid you a very good day.’

‘Stop, stop!’ cries he. ‘Sit down, man dear, an’ don’t be takin’ offence at an ould man jist because he knows Phoenix Park shoulders when he sees them! Come, now, be easy, an’ drink your tea. Can ye not see I’m burstin’ to know the truth of it?’

His smile was so eager and friendly that I found myself smiling in turn. ‘What makes you think I’ll tell truth this time?’

‘Why shouldn’t ye? Ye’ll come to no harm from me if ye do. An’ if ye don’t – well, am I to have no diversion at all? Now then – whut’s this I wouldn’t believe? Jist you try me!’

‘Very well … I’m a British Army officer, I was on my way home from India, I was waylaid at Cape Town and crimped aboard a packet which arrived here yesterday, I’m destitute – but thanks to you I know where to find British authorities who’ll help me back to England. And if you believe that –’

‘And why would I not? It fits ye better than all that moonshine about bankin’ an’ Trinity, I’ll say that for it! What’s your name, my son?’

There was no earthly reason why I shouldn’t tell him – so I shook my head. Least said.

‘An’ why didn’t ye ask direction from the first policeman ye saw?’ I still said nothing, and he nodded, no longer smiling. I rose again to go, for the sooner I was out of this, the better, but he stayed me with a hand on my sleeve. ‘Ye’ll tell me no more? Well, now, just bide a minute while I think about … no, don’t go! Ye want the fare to Washington, don’t ye?’

I waited, while he cogitated, chin in hand, eyes bright as a bird’s.

‘Tell ye whut I think. Ye’re an officer, an’ a bit of a gentleman – I know the look. An’ ye’re a runner – now, now, don’t be addin’ to your sins by denyin’ it, for I had a parish in Leix in the Great Trouble, an’ I know that look, too – aye, twice as long in the leg as ye would be if I put a fut-rule on ye! An’, man dear, ye’re a desperate liar … but who’s not, will ye tell me? But ye’re civil, at least – an’ ye’re Army, an’ didn’t me own father an’ two uncles an’ that other good Irishman Arthur Wellesley follow the flag across Spain togither – they did!’ He paused, and sighed. ‘Now, ye’re a Protestant, so I can’t penance ye for tellin’ lies. But since I’m dreadful afflicted wid the rheumatics, and can’t abide diggin’ at all, at all … well, if ye can sink your gentlemanly pride an’ finish them two rows for me, why, t’will be for the good o’ your soul an’ my body. An’ there’ll be ten dollars to take ye to Washington – nine an’ a half in loan, to be repaid at your convenience, an’ fifty cents for your labour. Well … what say ye, my son?’

Well, I needed that ten dollars … but who’d have thought, when Campbell pinned my Cross on me, that seven months later I’d be digging a bog-trotter’s garden in Maryland? Father Rafferty watched me as I turned the last sods, observing drily that it was plain to see I was English from the way I handled a spade. Then he gave me a mug of beer, and counted ten dollars carefully into my palm.

‘I’ll walk ye to the station,’ says he. ‘No one’ll look twice at ye when ye’re keepin’ step wid the Church. An’ I can see ye don’t get on the wrong train, or lose your money, or go astray anyways, ye know?’

He put me on the right train, sure enough, but the rest of his statement proved as wrong as could be. Someone did look at us, but I didn’t notice at the time, possibly because I was busy parrying Rafferty’s artful questions about the Army and India – at least I could satisfy him I was telling the truth about those.

‘Ask at the Washington station where the British minister’s to be found,’ he advised me, ‘an’ if they don’t know, make your way to Willard’s Hotel on Fourteenth Street, an’ they’ll set ye right. It’s the great place, an’ if they turn up their noses at your togs, jist give ’em your Hyde Park swagger, eh?

‘But mind how ye go, now!’ cries he, as I mounted the step to the coach. ‘T’will be dark by the time ye get in, an’ ’tis a desperate place for garotters an’ scallywags an’ the like! We wouldn’t want ye waylaid a second time, would we?’

Gratitude ain’t my long suit, as you know, but he’d seen me right, and he was a cheery wee soul; looking down at the smiling pixie face under the round hat, I couldn’t help liking the little murphy, and wondering why he’d been at such pains on my behalf. It’s a priest’s business, of course, to succour the distressed sinner, but I knew there was more in it than that. He was a lonely old man, far from home, and he was Irish, and had guessed I was on the run, and I was Army, like his father and uncles. And he had taken to me, as folk do, even when they know I’m not straight.

‘I wish ye’d tell me your name, though!’ says he, when I thanked him. I said I’d send him my card when I repaid the ten dollars.

‘That ye will!’ cries he heartily. ‘In the meantime, though – your Christian name, eh?’

‘Harry.’

‘I believe ye – ye look like a Harry. God knows ye didn’t look like – what was’t? – Grattan? Grattan the banker from the Rathfarnham – the impidence of it!’ He laughed, and looked wistful. ‘Aye, me – sometimes I could wish I’d been a rascal meself.’

‘It’s never too late,’ says I, and he spluttered in delight.

‘Git away wid ye, spalpeen!’ cries he, and stood waving as the train pulled out, a little black figure vanishing into the hissing steam.

I reckon Father Rafferty was one of those good fools who are put into the world to grease the axles for people like me. They charm so easy, if you play ’em right, and the bigger a scoundrel you are the more they’ll put themselves out for you, no doubt in the hope that if you do reform, they’ll get that much more treasure in heaven for it. You may be astonished to know that I did repay the loan, later on, but in no spirit of gratitude or obligation, or because I’d quite liked the little ass. No, I paid because I could easily afford it, and there’s one rule, as a practising pagan, that I don’t break if I can help it – never offend the local tribal gods; it ain’t lucky.

It was dark when we pulled into Washington, and the conductor had never heard of the British ministry; oh, sure, he knew Willard’s Hotel, but plainly wondered what business this rumpled traveller without a hat could have at such a select establishment. He was starting to give me reluctant directions when a chap who’d alighted from the train directly behind me said if it was Willard’s I wanted, why, he was going that way himself. He was a sober-looking young fellow, neatly dressed, so I thanked him and we went out of the crowded station into a dark and dirty Washington evening.

‘It’s close enough to walk if you don’t mind the rain,’ says my companion, and since it seemed only prudent to save my cash, I agreed, and we set off. It wasn’t too damp, but Washington didn’t seem to have improved much in ten years; they were still building the place, and making heavy weather of it, for the street we followed was ankle-deep in mud, and so poor was the lighting that you couldn’t see where you were putting your feet. We jostled along the sidewalk, blundering into people, and presently my guide pulled up with a mild oath, glanced about him, and said we’d be quicker taking a side-street. It didn’t look much better than an alley, but he led the way confidently, so I ploughed on behind, thinking no evil – and suddenly he lengthened his stride, wheeled round to face me, and whistled sharply.

I’m too old a hand to stand with my mouth open. I turned to flee for the main street, cursing myself for having been so easily duped, and after Rafferty’s warning about footpads too – and stopped dead in my tracks. Two dark figures were blocking my way, and before I had time to turn again to rush on my single ambusher, the larger one stepped forward, but when he raised his hands it wasn’t to strike; he held them palms towards me in a restraining gesture, and his voice when he spoke was quiet, even friendly.

‘Good evening, Mr Comber. Welcome back, sir – why, you mayn’t believe it, but this is just like old times!’