The arms arrived in August, fifteen cases of Sharps rifles and the revolvers. Owen Brown had been our teamster in the early weeks, driving the wagon up to Chambersburg to take letters to Kagi, and to pick up supplies discreetly in villages along the route; now Joe and I went with him to collect the arms, and while Joe and Owen stowed them in the wagon, Kagi drew me aside, looking grave.
“This plan of yours,” says he. “I’ll allow it’s sound – but you’re counting on a hundred men! Joshua, I don’t see us raising half that number!”
I asked, what about the free blacks in Canada, who were supposed to be in a great sweat to join us, and he grunted.
“Junior’s up there now – you may guess how many he’ll raise! Oh, I should have gone myself, instead of wasting my time here, being a postmaster! And no sign of funds coming in, either; you’ll be out of food shortly, and the boys daren’t look for work down yonder.” He shrugged angrily, then brightened again. “Still there’s hope yet, for money and men – you know J.B. is coming up here to meet Frederick Douglass next week?”
Even I had heard of Douglass, the greatest black man in America, an escaped slave who moved in the highest circles, published his own newspaper, lectured all over, even in Europe, and was the nearest thing to a black messiah since Toussaint l’Ouverture.
“J.B. hopes to persuade him to join the raid,” says Kagi. “Oh, if he but could – why, it would change our fortunes at a stroke! Every black in America and Canada would flock to him … well, enough, anyway! The trouble is, he’s always declared against violence, blast it! We must just see what J.B. can do with him.”
This was the worst news I’d heard in months. Suppose this infernal nigger did throw in with Brown, and brought even fifty with him? The old buzzard would be into Harper’s Ferry like a shot – and where would poor Flashy be then? Skipping for the timber, that was where … with the likes of Joe Simmons looking to put a bullet in my back. But, steady on – Douglass most likely wouldn’t come to scratch, and all would be well. One thing was sure: when J.B. met him at Chambersburg, I was going to be on hand.
Luckily, J.B. was all for it, saying it was right and useful that Douglass should meet “our strategian”, as he called me, and when Joe, inevitably, asked to come along, he agreed right off; it would be good for Douglass to see such a fine upstanding man of colour in the forefront of the cause, he said.
The meeting took place in great secrecy, because J.B.’s fears of betrayal were mounting by the day, what with neighbours prying and our young men behaving carelessly, showing themselves about the farm and writing indiscreet letters to wives and sweethearts, making no secret of what was afoot. I remember Leeman reading aloud an effusion to his mother, about “our secret association of as gallant fellows as ever pulled trigger”, and how we were soon going to “exterminate slavery”, and J.B. overheard him and pitched right in.
“It isn’t enough that folk come spying about us, stopping us on the road, demanding to know our business – you have to write this kind of foolishness, too! Think of the burden of secrecy you put on your mother! And the rest of you, writing to girls, and special friends, telling of our location and all our matters! We might as well get it published in the New York Herald and be done with it! Now, drop it, d’you hear?” He scorched them with a look, and stumped off, and Leeman rolled his eyes and told Dauphin Thompson that he’d better mind what he wrote to those saucy little snappers of his; the infant blushed like a beetroot.
So we stole into Chambersburg by night, J.B. and Joe in the wagon, myself on the mule, and lay up in a deserted quarry. The old man was more nervous than I’d ever seen him, probably because he was in such a sweat to enlist Douglass – and I nearly caught a bullet as a result. It was around dawn that Joe and I heard someone coming, and when Joe shook J.B. awake, damned if he didn’t come to with his Colt in his fist, loosing off a shot that blew splinters from the rock beside my head. It shook the old fool as much as it did me, and he was fairly twitching by the time Kagi hove in view, with Douglass and a young nigger in tow.
Douglass was one of those mulattos who are more white than black; but for the wiry hair he might have been Spanish or Italian, and I found myself reflecting yet again on the oddity that the smallest visible touch of the tar-brush in a white man makes him “black”, but a trace of European in a negro don’t make him “white”. Douglass was altogether white in speech and style, but I doubt if he knew it or cared; he had a fine sense of his own dignity, which would have irked me whatever colour he was, but while he talked down his fine straight nose at least he had none of the resentful spite or childish airs that had made George Randolph such a confounded bore.46
It soon became plain that he was far too level-headed to be swayed by J.B.’s nonsense, or to beat about the bush. He listened soberly while the old man told him that the die was cast, it was Virginia or bust, and what did Douglass think of that? Douglass told him, straight, that it was not only wrong, and crazy, but downright wicked: it was an attack on the U.S.A., it would rouse the country against the abolitionists, do untold harm to their cause, and be fatal not only to Brown and his gang but to every slave who was fool enough to run off and join the rebellion. I wanted to cry hear, hear, and wondered why none of Brown’s supporters had had the spirit to say it to him long ago.
J.B. said he didn’t care two cents if the country was roused; it needed rousing. And Douglass couldn’t conceive what the taking of Harper’s Ferry would mean – why, it would be a sign to the slaves that deliverance was at hand, they would burst their chains and rally to his banner in thousands, not only in Virginia but throughout all Israel, amen! He was in his best raving style, pacing about the quarry, arms flailing and eyes flashing, while Douglass waited stern-faced for him to run out of wind. When he did, Douglass asked me to describe the men and means at our disposal.
It was my chance, and I took it, telling the simple truth without opinion, while J.B. stood nodding triumphantly as though to say: “There – you see!” Douglass sat back against the rock and looked up at him.
“I can’t debate the cause with you, John; I’m no match for you in such matters. But from what your comrade tells me of the place, and all you’ve said, I’m convinced you are going into a perfect steel trap. You’ll never get out alive, you’ll be surrounded with no hope of escape –”
“If we’re surrounded we’ll find means to cut our way out!” cries J.B. “But it won’t come to that – we’ll have the leading men of the district prisoners from the start! With such hostages we can dictate our terms, don’t you see?”
Douglass stared in disbelief. “You can’t think it! Why, man, Virginia will blow you and your hostages sky-high rather than let you hold Harper’s Ferry an hour!” He turned to me. “Is that not so, Mr Comber? You are a soldier, I believe –”
“He’s a sailor!” roars J.B. “Oh, can you not see, Douglass, that even if we were destroyed altogether, we should have won the victory? The fire would have been kindled, the flag unfurled, the nation shaken from its slumber …”
And so on, ranting and pleading by turns, while Douglass exclaimed in anger or shook his head in despair. They argued back and forth for hours, J.B. insisting on a sudden war-like stroke, Douglass trying to persuade him that if he must go south he should do it gradually, helping slaves to escape to havens in the hills and so building a resistance that couldn’t be ignored. They left off only at dusk, agreeing to meet again next day, and when we parted Douglass stepped aside to shake my hand.
“You are English, are you not? Well, sir, I must tell you that your country is dear to me beyond all others, for it gave me sanctuary from my enemies here. Indeed,” says he, looking stuffed, “I owe my name to Scotland, and my liberty to England. ‘Douglass’ I borrowed from ‘The Lady of the Lake’, and English friends purchased my freedom.” He sighed, with a wry smile. “Ironic, is it not? America cast off a royal tyranny to found a free republic, yet it was the land of royal tyranny that bought my liberty from the free republic which had stolen it.”
“Ah, well,” says I, “always happy to oblige, don’t ye know.” It sounded a bit lame, so I added: “Cost a bit o’ brass, did it?”
He blinked. “Seven hundred and ten dollars,” says he, rather stiff. “And ninety-six cents.”
“Bless my soul!” says I. “Well, there it is. Easy come, easy go, what?”
He gave me an odd look, and a brief good-night, and steered clear of me when the meeting resumed next day. He and J.B. were still altogether at odds, and when the old man begged him to join the raid, Douglass refused point-blank; much as he loved and respected J.B., his conscience wouldn’t let him. Aye, thinks I, we’ve heard that tale before. Still J.B. wouldn’t let up, putting his arm round his shoulders and breathing zeal.
“Come with me, Douglass!” cries he. “I will defend you with my life! I need you, my friend, for when I strike, the bees will start to swarm, and I shall want you to help hive them! Oh, think what it will mean to them if you, of all black men, aye, with the stripes of the lash upon you, are there to greet them sword in hand amidst the smoke of battle!”
That’s the way to drum up recruits, thinks I. Douglass, sensible chap, wouldn’t have it, but he told the young darkie he might go along if he liked, and to our surprise the fellow, Emperor Green, snuffled and muttered: “Ah guess Ah’ll go wid de ole man.” He looked as though he’d sooner have gone to China, but I suspect that word of J.B.’s plan had spread among the wealthier free blacks, and they were eager to have as many coloureds in the business as possible, so poor old Emperor may just have been doing what he was told.
It was a fine cheery trip back to the farm, I don’t think, with J.B. deep in the dumps; he’d been so sure he could persuade Douglass, and all he’d got was a complete damper and one run-down nigger. To make matters worse (or rather better), we soon had word from Kagi that John junior had made nothing of the Canadian blacks, and that various white men on whom J.B. had been relying weren’t coming – some wanted a definite date, others wanted to get the harvest in, or didn’t fancy Virginia, and one had decided to study law instead. But the worst blow of all to J.B. was when two of his sons, Salmon and Jason, who were up north, wrote that they weren’t joining. Salmon was quite brutal about it, saying that he knew the old man, and he would just dally until he was trapped.
So there it was, as autumn advanced: no more men, no more money, J.B. in the sullen frets and growling about betrayal, our situation at the farm growing more precarious by the day, and the young men restless and writing ever longer letters home – I couldn’t have wished for a better state of affairs, and looked forward to the enterprise being abandoned any day.
It was interesting to watch the nerves starting to fray with the uncertainty. It’s always the way: men facing a definite task, however desperate, are manageable, but give ’em a leader who can’t make up his mind and they go all to bits. Quarrels became more frequent, Bill Thompson ran out of jokes, Leeman and Hazlett no longer got up to larks, and for the first time I heard murmurs that the raid should be given up, that it was madness with no more men coming in, and Harper’s Ferry would prove a death-trap. The youngsters, who’d been so full of ginger a month before, were looking uneasy, Watson Brown confided to me that he wanted nothing but to be home with his wife and baby, and even Oliver, the coolest of hands, wore a tired frown on his handsome face – I’d seen dried tears on Martha’s cheeks, and knew she’d been trying to talk him out of it.
To add to the gloom, she and Annie went back north in September, but one who wasn’t missed was J.B. himself on the occasions when he went up to Chambersburg to confer with Kagi. He was at his wit’s end for funds, and bit the heads off Leeman and Tidd just for lighting cigars, crying that if he had half the money that was wasted on smoking, he could have outfitted an army. Leeman threw down his weed in a temper, and Tidd flung out of the house, saying he’d had enough. He came back, though, after three days spent croaking to Cook down at the Ferry. Meanwhile J.B. was off to Chambersburg again, and the general feeling was that he could stay there, and the rest of us could go home.
No such luck. He drove up next day, bringing the famous thousand pikes with him, and tried to make it an occasion for rejoicing, saying here was proof that our friends had not forgotten us, but the mere sight of that great heap of lumber and metal lying in the yard sent everyone’s spirits into their boots. He drove us to work fitting the pike heads and stowing them in the loft, and then had Stevens call a drill parade; we’d been getting slack in his absence, he said, and must brisk up directly, for the time was coming when we must prove ourselves in earnest.
“Sure, next summer, maybe,” mutters Jerry Anderson, and Bill Thompson cried no, no, we mustn’t be in such a rush, 1869 would be soon enough, if we weren’t all dead of boredom by then. The niggers haw-hawed at this, but Joe rounded on them, telling them to mind what they were about, and fall in like the captain said. Stevens marched ’em up and down for an hour, while I watched from the veranda (chiefs of staff don’t drill, you see), and a more ill-natured parade I never saw. Now’s your time, Flash, says I to myself, and when they’d fallen out and eaten supper in sullen silence, I joined Stevens, who was having a brood to himself in the yard.
“Aaron,” says I, mighty earnest, “I’d value your opinion. This plan of mine … I’ve done it as best I know how, J.B. is all for it, and so, I believe, is Kagi – but you’re the only real soldier in this outfit.” I looked him in the eye. “Straight, now – what d’ye think of it?”
“Well, it’s a real fine plan, I guess,” says he, in his slow way. “For a full company of soldiers. For our poor few …” He shrugged his big shoulders. “I reckon Harper’s Ferry could be a right pretty place to die.”
I nodded solemnly. “So think I. Well, my life don’t matter.” God, the things I’ve said. “And I know you don’t count yours – like me, you feel it’s a small price to pay for the cause. But …” I paused, a noble soul troubled “… what of the younger men – and the blacks? Is it right that they should be sacrificed? You see my plight, old fellow – it’s my plan that is dooming them … their deaths will lie to my account … ah, that’s what burdens my spirit!”
This kind of soul-lashing was small talk at Kennedy Farm that summer, and meat and drink to mystic idiots like him. I knew I’d hit pay-dirt when I saw his jaw tighten; he shook his head sternly.
“Everyone counted the cost before he came,” says he. “They’ll give their lives gladly – after all, there is a better life beyond, and the door is always open. To pass through is but a small step,” continues the great loony, “and if in passing it falls to us to do a noble thing, then who shall mind a moment’s affliction, knowing that in death lies victory, not only for us but for the thousands enslaved and oppressed?”
“God bless you, old fellow!” cries I, and wrung his hand. “Gad, but you put it well! You’ve lifted a weight from my mind, I can tell you!” I hesitated. “See here, Aaron, will you do something for me?”
“What’s that, Joshua?”
“Talk to the others … the younger men … as you’ve talked to me – you know, about passing through, and victory, and … and so on. They’ll heed you, because … well, you have such faith, you see, and a gift of words! I mean, if I were to say to ’em: ‘We’re all dead men, but it’s worth it’ … well, there you are, you see! I don’t put it too well, do I? But you can, old boy! Oh, ’twill raise their hearts – why it may make all the difference, and ensure that dear old J.B.’s dream comes true!”
You see my game: being a respected senior, and a spiritualist, he was just the man to put the wind right up our younger enthusiasts with his reassuring chat about the life to come; with luck he’d reduce the low spirits of Kennedy Farm to absolute zero. Well, he did more than that; God knows what he said to them, privatim et seriatim, over the next two days, but it dam’ near caused a mutiny. Suddenly, Harper’s Ferry was finding no takers at all on ’Change. Owen got wind of the disaffection, and reported to J.B., reminding him glumly of what happened to Napoleon when he marched on Moscow against the popular will, and the old boy took his head in his hands and groaned. Then he called us all into the common-room, and brooded at us like a vulture on a tombstone.
“I hear,” growls he, “that with the exception of Kagi, who I know is staunch, you are all opposed to striking the blow at the Ferry. I feel so depressed that I am almost willing to abandon the undertaking for the time being.” He threw back his head, waiting, but only Owen contradicted him, saying we had come too far, and must go ahead.
“Must we?” grunts J.B., and glanced at me. “Joshua?”
I drew myself up, all Horse Guards, and spoke with deep feeling. “You know my sentiments, captain. But since the plan is mine, I don’t feel entitled to a voice. I must beg to be allowed to abstain.”
Rather neat, I thought, but one who obviously didn’t think so was Joe. He was glaring at me fit to kill – my abstention looked to him like a rank betrayal of my engagement to the Kuklos. He burst out: “Well, Ah ain’t abstainin’! Ah say we go, like cap’n says!”
J.B. stared, frowning in astonishment – it came as a shock to him, I think, to be reminded that Joe knew all about the plan – the other blacks didn’t, you see, being mere cannon-fodder who hadn’t been admitted to our councils. No one else spoke; even Stevens stood mum, and I could only conclude that in talking to the young men he had realised their deep reluctance, and lost heart himself. Personally, I was offering up a silent thanksgiving, for I was sure that in the presence of those sullen, uneasy faces, J.B. was going to have to call it a day at long last. He gave Joe a weary, wintry smile.
“I thank you for your trust and loyalty, Joe,” says he, “but I fear that you and I and Owen and Kagi – and Joshua, too, I believe – can hardly do the thing alone. For myself, I have only one life to live, and to lose, but I am not so strenuous for my plans as to carry them through against the company’s wishes.” He paused, sighing, and rubbed his forehead. All over, thinks I – and then the cunning old bastard faced his hole card. “Very well … I resign. We will choose another leader, and I will faithfully obey him, reserving only the right to advise when I see fit.”
There was a gasp of dismay. J.B. bowed his head and walked from the room without another word … and would you credit it, within five minutes that pack of brainless sheep had re-elected him! Unanimously, too – for when I saw where they were going, two of the youngest shedding tears of remorse, the others shamed into a renewal of holy zeal, you may be sure I cast my lot with the majority. I could have throttled the old swine; the whole crazy scheme had been within a shaving of collapse, and he’d swung them round simply by passing the decision to them. I still say he wasn’t a good leader, but he was one hell of a farmyard politician.
You’d have thought, with that moral victory under his belt, that he’d have gone for the Ferry then and there, while the boys were still excited in their reaction, and indeed for a couple of days I was in a mortal funk that he would do just that. Kagi, who must have got wind of our little mutiny, was writing urgently from Chambersburg, insisting it was now or never: the harvest had been good, so we’d have ample forage in Virginia, the moon was right, and the slaves were restive because the suicides had started.47 Further, Kagi pointed out, we didn’t have five dollars left even to buy food – we daren’t delay any longer.
Neither, I decided, dare I. All of a sudden, thanks to the mutiny producing the opposite effect to what I’d expected, the raid seemed to be on the cards for the first time, and my thoughts turned to the horse stabled beneath the house, and the road to Washington. The fly in the ointment was Joe, whose suspicions of me had become thoroughly roused; his baleful eye was on me every minute, and he had taken to sleeping across the doorway in the loft. I evolved and rejected half a dozen schemes for evading him – and still J.B. gave no sign of making up his mind. If anything, he was more sunk in despond than ever, fearful that at any moment we might be discovered, and on the other hand fretting that we daren’t move without what he called “a treasury to sustain our campaign”.
“There’s a bank in Harper’s Ferry, ain’t there?” cries Jerry Anderson, and J.B. exploded.
“We are not thieves!” cries he. “Oh, for a few hundred dollars! I shall write to Kagi again – he must find us something!”
And Kagi, damn him, did.
It was a dirty October night when the blow fell. J.B. was in the kitchen, writing, and the rest of us were yawning and snarling after a day which had seen us mooning indoors, confined by the driving rain, with nothing to do but clean weapons and make do and mend and croak at each other. Supper had been a meagre affair, and I was noting with satisfaction that the feverish burst of enthusiasm which had followed J.B.’s re-election had dwindled altogether after days of inaction. What had damped everyone’s spirits most of all had been an announcement from the old man that he was contemplating “a decisive act in two or three weeks” – we’d heard that before, and as Leeman pointed out, in less than a week, never mind two or three, we’d be forced to disperse, if only to find some grub … and then there was a clatter of boots on the veranda, every hand was suddenly reaching for a rifle or revolver, the lamp was doused, and Stevens was challenging: “Who goes there?”
“It’s Santa Claus – old Kriss Kringle, and see how you like it!” laughs an exultant voice, and in an instant the bar had been slipped and the lamp rekindled, and Kagi was standing grinning all over his face in the doorway, with the rain pouring off his shawl. There was a tall fellow with him, and as Kagi ushered him into the light I saw that he limped heavily and had one eye missing in his pale, sickly face.
“This is Frank Meriam!” cries Kagi. “Where’s the captain?”
J.B. emerged from the kitchen. “Captain Kagi! What does this mean? Why are you not at Chambersburg?”
“Chambersburg, nothing, I’ve just come from the Ferry!” Kagi was afire with excitement. “Frank just came in by train today – oh, go ahead, Frank, show ’em!”
The tall fellow pulled out a satchel from beneath his coat, undid the strap, and opened it over the table – and out poured a cascade of dollars, glittering and jingling. There were cries of amazement as Kagi stirred them on the table, laughing, and J.B. plumped down in a chair, staring in disbelief, while Kagi explained that Meriam was a friend from the North who had heard of J.B.’s dire need of funds, and here he was, at the eleventh hour, with his personal contribution to the cause. J.B. rose with tears in his eyes and seized Meriam’s hand.48
“God has sent you!” cries he. “He has seen His children’s need and filled their measure, yea, to overflowing! How much is there?”
“Six hundred bucks!” cries Kagi, and J.B. laid his hands on the gelt and raised his shaggy head in prayer, praising the Lord that He had furnished means to take His servants over Jordan and loose the whirlwind in Israel … and it seemed to me to be just the right time, as they all stood with bowed heads, muttering their amens, to slip quietly out of the still-open door, button my coat, vault over the veranda rail, and make a bee-line for the stable door at the end of the lower storey.
For I’d known, when the first coin clattered on the table, that all my hopes of many months had been dashed at the last minute: he would go to Harper’s Ferry, and I’d never get a better chance to light out for Washington and safety; I’d done my best, I had my boots on, my Tranter in my belt, and a clear road to Frederick (or any station bar Harper’s Ferry) where I could board a train south. As I fumbled for a match, lighting the stable lamp, I was telling myself that once I’d ridden a hundred yards I’d be free, for there wasn’t but the one horse, a sorry screw, but he’d do. I saddled him in feverish haste, soothing him as I slipped the bridle over his head … ten seconds and I’d be out and away, and I was leading him to the door, gulping with excitement, when I bore up with a whinny of terror and stood rooted. Black Joe was standing in the doorway, hands loose at his sides, looking like the Wild Man of Borneo.
“You stinkin’ snake!” says he. “I always knew you’d run at the last! Git yo’ hand away f’m yo’ belt!”
There was no point in pretending I was taking the beast out for exercise. I lifted my hands.
“Don’t be a fool, Joe!” I croaked. “You don’t need me – he’s going to the Ferry, dammit! That’s all Atropos wanted – it don’t matter whether I’m there or not! Look, if you let me go, I’ll –”
“I ought to burn yo’ brains!” snarls he, taking a pace forward. “An’ git away f’m that hoss! Now, Mistuh Comber, you come ahead good an’ slow – an’ git yo’ dirty ass back inside that house!”
“What for? For Christ’s sake, man, see sense! He can run his bloody raid without me – or you! Look, we can both slide out –”
“You made a deal, you dam’ traitor! Fi’ thousan’ dollahs, ’member? An’ yo’ goin’ through with it, the whole way!” I must have moved a hand, for suddenly there was a pistol in his fist, the hammer back. “An’ you know why you’s goin’ through with it, Mistuh Comber? ’Cos that good ole man up theah, he’s a-countin’ on you! He needs you, ’cos they ain’t another man in his jackass outfit can plan or plot wo’th a dam, ’cept you!” The hideous black face split in an awful grin. “So yo’ goin’ to be at his side … Joshua, to keep him right in his raid, an’ when he takes to the hills with the coloured folks, an’ when he rides south to set the people free! All the way, Joshua, you heah me?”
I was so flabbergasted I could hardly find words to protest. “You’re crazy! He’ll never raise a rebellion! He’ll come adrift before he’s clear of the Ferry, you fool! His raid’ll be a farce – but it don’t matter! The raid itself is all that Atropos wants –”
“– Atropos!” cries he. “– him an’ every other lousy slaver! You think Ah’m doin’ his dirty work?” He lunged towards me, waving the pistol in my face. “You think Ah’m jes’ ’nother yes-massa nigger, don’t yuh? You think Ah’m a chattel of that fat bastuhd M’sieu Atropos Goddam La Force, ’cos he petted me an’ let me screw his woman, an’ done me all kinda benefits? Well, mebbe Ah was once, but not no mo’!” His breath hit my face like a furnace blast, and the dreadful yellow-streaked black eyes rolled in frenzy. “You know why? ’Cos Ah foun’ me a man – a real man, a simple, no-’count ole farmer that tret me like a man, an’ talked with me like a man! Not like Ah wuz dirt, or a pet dog like when Ah was in the schoolroom with that – Atropos La Force that allus got fu’st pick o’ the sugar cookies an’ to ride the rockin’-hoss while Ah wuz the goddam groom!” He stepped back, shaking, and lowered the pistol from beneath my petrified nose. “An’ he’s gonna set ma people free! John Brown’s gonna do that! An’ yo’ gonna see he does, too, oh, right sure you are, Mistuh Joshua Comber! An’ Ah’m gonna be right theah to see you do it!”
His hand flickered, and the pistol was gone. Another flicker, and it was in his hand again. He grinned at me, nodding. “See?”
Another bloody madman – my God, was anyone in America sane? In a flash I understood the way he’d watched Brown, and hung on his words, and sat in the kitchen listening to his babblings – why, the old bugger had converted him! I couldn’t credit it – not Black Joe, the shrewdest, wickedest, best-read nigger in Dixie, whose slavery had been a rosebed compared to anything he could hope for as a free man? But it had happened, plainly; one look at those blood-injected eyes told me that, and God knows I’d seen enough of human lunacy not to waste speculation on the why’s and wherefore’s. And I was to be driven to sure destruction, just because this demented darkie had seen the light! I hadn’t a hope of running now, with this fearsome black gunslick dogging my every move. But I could still try to reason with him.
“Joe, in God’s name, listen! You’re wrong! He doesn’t have a hope, I tell you! He’s going to his death – so are all the rest of ’em! Nothing I can do will save him! Damnation, man, you’ve heard the talk – the slaves won’t rise, and he’ll be –”
“Shut yo’ lyin’ mouth!”
“It’s the truth, man! Dammit, you say yourself I’m the only one who can make a plan and reckon the odds – d’ye think I don’t know, you bloody fool?”
He hit me a back-hander that sent me sprawling on the straw, then leaned down to drag me to my feet. “We goin’ to the Ferry, you an’ me, ’long o’ the ole man – an’ then to the hills!” says he, his face close to mine. “You play false – you even look false, an’ Ah kill you dead!”
A voice shouted, outside and overhead; it was Stevens. “Joshua, you down there? Josh?”
Joe let go and stepped to the door. “Jes’ seein’ to the wagon, Mass’ Aaron! We be theah d’reckly!” He beckoned to me, stepping aside to let me pass out into the rain. “Dead …’member?”
Some wiseacre once said that the prospect of death concentrates the mind wonderfully, but I’m here to tell you that the chance to work for a reprieve concentrates it a whole heap more. I was in the true-blue horrors when I came up from that stable, with Joe looming at my heels, and was no way cheered by the celebration taking place in the common-room. That pile of cash seemed to have acted like a tonic, heaven knows why, and all around were smiling faces and bustling activity, Kagi was pumping my hand and crying, at last, at last!, and J.B. was like a man transformed, eyes shining fiercely and beard bristling as he stood by the table, fingering the dollars while he dictated to Jerry Anderson, whose pencil was fairly flying across the paper. Tidd, I remember, was singing “The Girl I Left Behind Me” in his fine tenor, and the younger men were joining in and larking about – and all because it was now certain that in a few hours they’d likely be getting shot to pieces and dying along the Potomac or Shenandoah. I’d seen it before, the hectic gaiety that can take hold of young fools at the imminent (but not too imminent) prospect of action after they’ve waited long; I’ve never been prone to it, myself. I had my work cut out keeping the upper lip in good order, while asking myself fearfully how the devil I was going to keep a whole skin this time.
There was only one way that I could see, and I bent my mind to it with everything I knew. If Harper’s Ferry could be taken with no heads broken – and I knew it could be, just, provided my plan was followed to the letter, and nothing went amiss – then there must arise a moment, surely, when I could give Joe the slip. A few seconds was all I’d need (it’s all I’ve ever needed), and I’d be into the undergrowth and going like hell’s delight, on foot if need be. He couldn’t watch me every second, not with the confusion that must occur in taking the armoury gates, the arsenal, and the rifle works. So that same evening, when J.B. was poring over my plans and consulting with Kagi and Stevens, and next day when (after a damned sleepless night, I can tell you, with Joe on a hair-trigger at my side) the final preparations were made, I worked on every last detail of the scheme as though my life depended on it – which it did …
Kagi and Stevens to silence the watchman on the Potomac bridge as we approached – they were the best men, for the most vital task. The surly Tidd, next best, to cut the telegraph wires, with the garrulous Cook, who knew the Ferry well, to show him the way. Oliver, the best of the Browns, to take and guard the Shenandoah bridge; his brother Watson to guard the Potomac bridge. (The third brother, Owen, I insisted must stay at the farm, to hold our base – the truth was that I wanted him as far from J.B. as could be, because he was the kind of ass who’d argue with the old man and set him dithering with indecision.) With the bridges in our hands, I’d see to the armoury gates myself, with J.B. and Stevens … then to the arsenal across the street, leave Hazlett on guard, with anyone but Leeman (they were too harum-scarum to trust together) … the rifle works were nearly half a mile off – aye, Kagi could see to them … and that would be Harper’s Ferry receipted and filed … for a few hours at least. Provided the bridge and armoury watchmen could be dealt with quietly, there was no reason why we shouldn’t remain undetected until daybreak … and long before then I’d have slipped Joe, if I had to kill him to do it, and be on my merry way.
I didn’t consult or argue about these dispositions, but rapped them out in my sharpest style, with J.B. nodding alongside, and the fellows accepted them without a murmur. They spent that last day cleaning weapons and assembling gear, and Stevens and I inspected ’em to the last button, while J.B. did the really useful work – writing out our commissions, if you please! Half the men were “captains” in his army, and the others “lieutenants”, except for Taylor, the Canadian, who was too cracked for anything, and of course the niggers, who were all privates. I was a “major”, you’ll be charmed to know … and I have the faded paper beside me as I write, with “John Brown, Commander-in-Chief” in his spidery hand at the foot. I keep it in my desk, alongside my appointment as “Sergeant-General” in the Malagassy army, my Union and Confederate commissions, the illuminated scroll designating me a Knight of the San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth (Third Class), the Order of the Elephant which I picked up in Strackenz, and all the other foreign stuff. Gad, I’ve been about, though.
Anyway, I left nothing to chance, talking to each man in turn to be sure he knew his duties, and J.B. doled out the “commissions” and read his Constitution, and administered his oath of allegiance to the late-comer Meriam and a couple of the blacks, who hadn’t taken them before. Only once was there a cross word, when J.B. tried to interfere with my arrangements for the town; he said our first task must be to detach a party to take hostages, but I put my foot down hard, insisting that it must wait until we had both bridges and the three vital targets – armoury, arsenal, and rifle works – all secure.
He thrust his beard at me, glittering. “My will must prevail in this, Joshua!”
“No, Captain Brown, it must not!” says I. “The hostages can wait a few minutes, until our dispositions are complete. I’ll not answer for our safety, or our success, unless the plan is followed to the letter.”
It took him aback, but Stevens backed me up, and said he’d ’tend to the hostages himself when the time came. J.B. gave in, sulkily, and then in a moment he was off on another tack, telling Stevens that when he took Colonel Washington hostage, he must on no account forget to bring away Lafayette’s pistol and Frederick the Great’s sword, and see to it that Washington in person handed the sword to one of our blacks. “If he doesn’t care for that, no matter. It is symbolic, and right and fitting that the sword of liberty should be placed in a coloured hand.” That was J.B. all over.
And then, before I knew it, dusk was falling, and we were sitting down to our last supper in the Kennedy Farm. It was blowing up a wild night outside, and the rain was leaking in – almost as fast as my courage was leaking out, for I was scared as I’ve seldom been in my misspent life. The last desperate venture of this kind that I’d sweated over had been when the Hyderabadi Cavalry had charged the breach at Jhansi so that I could be deposited, disguised and petrified with funk, inside the fortress wall, there to worm my way into the presence of the delectable Lakshmibai … my God, that had been only last year, on the other side of the world! And here I was again, on the lion’s lip, forcing my dinner down with Joe’s noisy chewing sounding like a deathknell at my ear.
Then supper was over, and we sat about in silence, waiting. There were no jokes now, and the only smiles were nervous grimaces on the fresh young faces round the table. It struck me harder then than it had ever done before, what babes they were, half of ’em with barely a growth of beard on their cheeks, torn between fear and the crazy belief that they were doing the Lord’s work, and I felt a sudden anger at bloody John Brown who was leading them to it – and what was a sight worse, leading me. I can see the faces still – Watson Brown poring over a letter from his wife, Oliver’s fine features pale in the lamplight, Leeman drumming his fingers and chewing an unlit cheroot, Hazlett sitting back, brushing the fair hair out of his eyes, Tidd scowling as he traced a finger in a puddle of spilt coffee on the board, Aaron Stevens with his hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the ceiling, Kagi pacing about, tight as a coiled spring, old black Dangerous Newby whittling at a stick, the youngest men stifling those yawns that are born not of weariness but of fear, Charlie Cook cursing the rain, Bill Thompson whistling softly through his teeth … and Joe seated against the wall, never taking those baleful eyes off me.
J.B. came out of the kitchen, putting on his coat and hat.
“Get on your arms, men,” says he. “We will proceed to the Ferry.”