Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. George Fraser MacDonald
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