Flash for Freedom!. George Fraser MacDonald
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we’ll no’ hush up the scandal, for a’ that. Ye cannae come home – ye’re aware o’ that, I suppose?’
I didn’t argue; I couldn’t, but I was ill-advised enough to mutter something about Elspeth, and for a moment I thought he would strike me. His face went purple, and his teeth chattered.
‘Mention her name tae me again – jist once again, and as Goad’s my witness I’ll see ye transported for this week’s work! Ye’ll rue the day ye ever set eyes on her – aye, as I have done, most bitterly. Goad alone knows what I and mine have done tae be punished by … you!’
Well, at least he didn’t pray over me, like Arnold; he was a different kind of hypocrite, was Morrison, and as a man of business he didn’t waste overmuch holy vituperation before getting down to cases.
‘Ye’ll be best oot o’ England for a spell, until this d---able business has blown by – if it ever does. Your fine relatives can mak’ your peace wi’ the Horse Guards – this kind o’ scandal’ll be naethin’ new there, I daresay. For the rest, I’ve been at work tae arrange matters – and whether ye like it or not, my buckie, ye’ll jump as I whistle. D’ye see?’
‘I suppose I’ve no choice,’ says I, and then, deciding it would be politic to grovel to the old b-----d, I added: ‘Believe me, sir, I feel nothing but gratitude for what you are doing, and –’
‘Hold your tongue,’ says he. ‘Ye’re a liar. There’s no more tae be said. Now, ye’ll pack yer valise, and go at once tae Poole, and there take a room at the “Admiral” and wait until ye hear from me. Not a word to a soul, and never stir out – or ye’ll find my protection and Locke’s is withdrawn, and that’ll be a felon’s cell for ye, and beggary tae follow. There’s money,’ says he, and dropping a purse on the table he turned on his heel and stamped out.
I made no protest; he had me by the neck, and I didn’t waste time reflecting on the eagerness with which my relatives and friends have always striven to banish me from England whenever opportunity offered – my own father, Lord Cardigan, and now old Morrison. They could never get shot of me fast enough. And, as on previous occasions, there was no room for argument; I would just have to go, and see what the Lord and John Morrison provided.
I slipped away from the house at noon, and was in Poole by nightfall. And there I waited a whole week, fretting at first, but gradually getting my spirits back. At least I was free, when I might have been going to the condemned hold; whatever lay in front of me, I’d come back to England eventually – it might be no more than a year, and by that time the trouble would be half-forgotten. Curiously enough, the assault on Bryant would be far less to live down than the business over the cards, but the more I thought about that, the more it seemed that no sensible men would take Bryant’s word against mine – he was known for a toady and a dirty little hound, whereas I, quite aside from my popular fame, was bluff, honest Harry to everyone who thought they knew me. Indeed, I even toyed with the notion of going back to town and brazening the thing then and there, but I hadn’t the gall for that. It was all too fresh, and Morrison would have thrown me into the gutter for certain. No, I would just have to take my medicine, whatever it was; I’ve learned that there’s no sense in kicking against the prick – a phrase which fits old Morrison like a glove. I would just have to make the best of whatever he had in store for me.
What that was I discovered on the eighth day, when a man called to see me just as I was finishing breakfast. In fact, I had finished, and was just chivvying after the servant lass who had come to clear away the dishes from my room; I had chased her into a corner, and she was bleating that she was a good girl, which I’ll swear she wasn’t, when the knock sounded; she took advantage of it to escape, admitting the visitor while she straightened her cap and snapped her indignation at me.
‘Sauce!’ says she. ‘I never –’
‘Get out,’ says the newcomer, and she took one look at him and fled.
He kicked the door to with his heel and stood looking at me, and there was something in that look that made me bite back the d--n-your-eyes I’d been going to give him for issuing orders in my room. At first glance he was ordinary-looking enough; square built, middle height, plain trousers and tight-buttoned jacket with his hands thrust into the pockets, low-crowned round hat which he didn’t trouble to remove, and stiff-trimmed beard and moustache which gave him a powerful, business-like air. But it wasn’t that that stopped me: it was the man’s eyes. They were as pale as water in a china dish, bright and yet empty, and as cold as an ice floe. They were wide set in his brown, hook-nosed face, and they looked at you with a blind fathomless stare that told you here was a terrible man. Above them, on his brow, there was a puckered scar that ran from side and side and sometimes jerked as he talked; when he was enraged, as he often was, it turned red. Hollo, thinks I, here’s another in my gallery of happy acquaintances.
‘Mr Flashman?’ says he. He had an odd, husky voice with what sounded like a trace of North Country. ‘My name is John Charity Spring.’
It seemed d----d inappropriate to me, but he was evidently well enough pleased with it, for he sat himself down in a chair and nodded me to another. ‘We’ll waste no time, if you please,’ says he. ‘I’m under instructions from my owner to take you aboard my vessel as supercargo. You don’t know what that means, I daresay, and it’s not necessary that you should. I know why you’re shipping with me; you’ll perform such duties as I suppose to be within your power. Am I clear?’
‘Well,’ says I, ‘I don’t know about that. I don’t think I care for your tone, Mr Spring, and –’
‘Captain Spring,’ says he, and sat forward. ‘Now see here, Mr Flashman, I don’t beat about. You’re nothing to me; I gather you’ve half-killed someone and that you’re a short leap ahead of the law. I’m to give you passage out, on the instructions of Mr Morrison.’ Suddenly his voice rose to a shout, and he crashed his hand on the table. ‘Well, I don’t give a d--n! You can stay or run, d’ye see? It’s all one to me! But you don’t waste my time!’ The scar on his head was crimson, and then it faded and his voice dropped. ‘Well?’
I didn’t like the look of this one, I can tell you. But what could I do?
‘Well,’ says I, ‘you say Mr Morrison is your ship’s owner – I didn’t know he had ships.’
‘Part owner,’ says he. ‘One of my directors.’
‘I see. And where is your ship bound, Captain Spring, and where are you to take me?’
The pale eyes flickered. ‘We’re going foreign,’ says he. ‘America, and home again. The voyage may last six months, so by Christmas you’ll be back in England. As supercargo you take a share of profit – a small share – so your voyage won’t be wasted.’
‘What’s the cargo?’ says I, interested, because I remembered hearing that these short-haul traders on the Atlantic run did quite well.
‘General stuffs on the way out – Brummagem, cloths, some machinery. Cotton, sugar, molasses and so forth on the trip home.’ He snapped the words out. ‘You ask too d----d many questions, Mr Flashman, for a runner.’
‘I’m not all that much of a runner,’ says I. It didn’t sound too bad a way of putting by the time till the Bryant business was past. ‘Well, in that case, I suppose –’
‘Good,’ says he. ‘Now then: I know you’re an Army officer, and it’s in deference to that I’m making you supercargo, which means you mess aft. You’ve been in India, for what that’s worth – what d’you know of the sea?’
‘Little enough,’ says I. ‘I’ve voyaged out and home, but I sailed in Borneo waters with Rajah Brooke, and can handle a small boat.’
‘Did you now?’ The pale eyes gleamed. ‘That means you’ve been part-pirate, I daresay. You look like it – hold your tongue, sir, it doesn’t matter to me! I’ll only tell you this: on my ship there is no free-and-easy sky-larking! I saw that slut in here just now – well, henceforth