Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. George Fraser MacDonald

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      For a split second I was paralysed in mind and body, and then came the icy stab of terror as I thought: police! … Spring’s letters, my description, the alarm going out for Comber – but then why had the young man not clapped his hand on my shoulder at the station …?

      ‘Guess you don’t remember me,’ says the big shadow. ‘It’s been a whiles – N’awlins, ten years ago, in back of Willinck’s place. You thought I was Navy, then. I took you to Crixus, remember?’

      It was so incredible that it took me a moment to recall who ‘Crixus’ was – the Underground Railroad boss whose identity I never knew because he hid it under the name of some Roman slave who’d been a famous rebel. Crixus was the little steely-eyed bugger who’d dragooned me into running that uppity nigger Randolph up the river, and dam’ near got me shot – but it wasn’t possible that he could know of my presence now, within a day of my landing …

      ‘He’s waitin’ to see you,’ says the big fellow, ‘an’ the sooner we get you off the streets, the better. We’ve got a closed cab –’

      ‘I don’t understand! You’re quite mistaken, sir – I know of nobody called … Cricket, did you say?’ I was babbling with shock, and he absolutely laughed.

      ‘Say, I wish I could think as quick as you do! Ten years ago, Billy,’ says he to his companion, ‘when we jumped this fellow, he started talkin’ Dutch! Now, come along, Mr Comber – ’cos I’d know you anywhere, an’ we’re wastin’ time and safety.’ His voice hardened, and he took my arm. ‘We mean you no harm – like I once told you, you’re the last man I’d want to hurt!’

      Sometimes you feel you’re living your life over again. It was so now, and for an uncanny moment I was back in the alley behind Susie’s brothel, with the three figures materialising out of the darkness … ‘Hold it right there, mister! You’re covered, front and rear!’ I knew now it was no use bluffing or running; for good or ill, they had me.

      ‘It wasn’t Dutch, it was German,’ says I. ‘Very well, I’m the man you call Comber, and I’ll be happy to take your cab – but not to Mr Crixus! Not until I’ve been to the British ministry!’

      ‘No, sir!’ snaps he. ‘We got our orders. An’ believe me, you’ll be a sight safer with us than in the British ministry, not if your whole Queen’s Navy was guarding it! So come on, mister!’

      God knew what that meant, but it settled it. Whatever Crixus wanted – and I still couldn’t take in that he’d got word of me (dammit, he should have been in Orleans, anyway) or that these fellows were real – he’d been a friend, after his fashion, and was evidently still well disposed. And with the three pressing about me, and my arm in a strong hand, I had no choice.

      ‘Very good,’ says I. ‘But you don’t put a sack over my head this time!’

      He laughed, and said I was a card, and then they were bustling me out of the alley and into a closed growler – mighty practised, with one in front, one gripping me, the third behind. The big man shouted to the driver, and we were lurching along, back towards the station, as near as I could judge, and then we swung right across a broad quagmire of a street, and through the left-hand window I caught a glimpse in the distance of what I recognised as the Capitol without its dome – they still hadn’t got its bloody lid on, would you believe it, in 1859? – and knew we must be crossing the Avenue, going south. The big man saw me looking, and whipped down the blinds, and we bowled along in the stuffy darkness in silence, while I strove to calm my quivering nerves and think out what it all meant. How they’d found me, I couldn’t fathom, and it mattered less than what lay ahead … what the devil could Crixus want with me? A horrid thought – did he know I’d left Randolph to his fate on that steamboat? Well, I’d thought the bastard was dead, and he’d turned up later in Canada, anyway, so I’d heard, so it wasn’t likely to be that. He couldn’t want me to run niggers again, surely? No, it defied all explanation, so I sat fretting in the cab with the big man at my side and his two mates opposite, for what must have been a good half-hour, and then the cab stopped and we descended on what looked like a suburban street, with big detached houses in gloomy gardens either side, and underfoot nothing but Washington macadam: two feet of gumbo.

      They led me through a gate and up a path to a great front door. The big fellow knocked a signal, and we were in a dim hall with a couple of hard-looking citizens, one of ’em a black with shoulders like a prize-fighter. ‘Here he is,’ says my big escort, and a moment later I was blinking in the brightness of a well-furnished drawing-room, only half-believing the sight СКАЧАТЬ