Infernal Revolutions (24 page)

I was glad I was not fickle, though I was disheartened by the contrast between the lovely girl I had first met and the one I had seen pouting and sullen in her room. If my perceptions could change so in a day, what chance did a lifetime's union have? Still, Dick seemed to know what he was talking about, his extraordinary performance in Clara's room giving his words a certain authority, and with a mixture of excitement and shame I wondered what sort of girl he would find for me. To help narrow his search, I was about to throw in a few specifications of my own (not as lascivious as Clara; not as chaste as Eloise; not as flighty as Vickie Tremblett; not as warty as Nutmeg Nell) when I noticed something strange about a cow in the field to our right.

‘Dick, what is that on the side of that cow?'

Dick squinted.

‘Blood, is it not?'

‘Then why is the cow still standing?'

‘Perhaps
rigor mortis
has set in.'

‘No, its head is moving, look.'

We moved nearer for a closer look.

‘Watch it, Dick – it could be packed with explosives.'

‘The only thing it is stuffed with is milk, by the looks of it.'

We swung our horses round in order to investigate the phenomenon from a less oblique angle, and saw that the ‘blood' was in fact red paint, and spelt out the words BRITS GO HOME, or nearly did. It seemed that the cow had been licking the paint off, for its tongue was red, and the letters B and R were badly smeared.

‘Either Eloise has been experimenting with different work surfaces,' said Dick, ‘or Hell starts here.'

He could be so melodramatic, but the power of imagination being what it is, the second Dick said this the countryside changed from placid to hostile. I looked with fresh trepidation at the surrounding fields, convinced that our reaction to the bovine banner was being noted by distant devils through telescopes. Quelling a mad desire to wave, I hoped they would misinterpret my trembling as the effects of heat haze, or an insecure mounting.

‘Cold, Harry?' said Dick, no telescope required.

‘Merely the after-effects of the squirrel pie, Dick.'

‘That's good. For a moment there I though
timor mortis
had set in.'

I scoffed at this diagnosis of my condition.

‘One uncontrollable shake looks much like another to an unpractised eye. Now, shall we go on, or are we going to stare at this cow all day?'

‘'Twas your idea to come and examine it.'

‘Yes, and now we have examined it!' I snapped. ‘Therefore pray let us go on.'

Dick tutted, pulled a cowface at the cow to no recognition, and followed me back to the road.

‘God knows what we will see next,' he said with relish, after twenty minutes of contemplative clopping. ‘Dolly Potter skewered to a tree…Parson Blood tied to the clappers of a church bell…Twenty British soldiers baked in a pie…'

I had long suspected Dick of assuaging his own fears by playing on mine, and this gratuitous remark only confirmed those suspicions. A turn of the tables was necessary, so I tossed a powerful image back at him, making sure my own imagination was closed down in advance.

‘Dick Lickley's brains spattered over my jacket…grey, sticky and pulsating…whoops of Rebel joy…no more girls…no more tobacco…his head a shattered shell…a ball rattling about where the yolk had once been….'

To my delight, the images caught him defenceless, and I could almost hear his imagination whimpering. Even the ears of his horse went down, and the dog lapsed into gloomy brooding.

‘But anyway, Dickie boy,' I said cheerily, after watching him suffer for a few minutes, ‘let us waste no more time rhapsodizing on the danger we're in – there's a girl with my name on her somewhere out there. And I want to find her before the ball with my name on it finds me.'

‘Don't worry,' said Dick lugubriously, ‘they probably haven't made the musket with your name on it yet.'

This remark unintentionally amused us both, and it spurred us on to invent ever more ludicrous things that had my name on them until we were crying with laughter. This in turn drove away the fear, and soon we were in excellent spirits, ready to face anything the Damned Rebels might choose to throw at us. Whatever our different views on life, Dick and I really did know how to cheer each other up.

There was no doubting where we were this time, for Hackensack town proclaimed its name on a signboard nailed to an oak tree, along with other information considered essential to travellers and spies, such as its population (1,176), its strange real name (The Township of New Barbadoes), its founding father (Captain John Berry, c1619 – c1712), and its ubiquitous political credo (Taxation Without Representation Is Tyranny).

‘They would not know what tyranny was if it hit them on the head,' said Dick, leaving the scrapings of his lungs dripping from the sign. ‘Nice-looking place though,' he added ten minutes later, surveying the straggle of buildings that started to appear on either side of the road.

‘No cultural life, by the looks of it,' I said, viewing with distaste the various shops and stores dedicated to commerce and Mammon. Blacksmiths, chandlers, barbers, braziers, coopers, bakers, weavers, masons, tanners, glaziers, tailors, drapers, carpenters, housewrights and shoemakers all variously came to their doors to watch us pass, as did some of their families and customers. ‘I doubt whether any of this lot even know what a book is.'

My nervous contempt obviously communicated itself to them, for several gawpers began to spit at us, while an infant, one of those unformed Lumps of Raw Emotion, threw his fists down in a temper, and showered marbles on the road in front of our horses, causing me intense terror until we were safely past the rolling orbs. Its mother, a leathery scowling harpy, disentangled herself from the clutches of a man who I suspected was not her husband, and ran over to comfort it. Shouting insults at me, she lolloped out a gross breast with her right hand and stuffed it into the infant's mouth, until it was fully plugged and glassy-eyed.

‘We must look British or something,' I said furtively to Dick, who was picking a particularly accurate volley of phlegm out of his ear, his face as black as thunder.

‘No, I am sure this is the standard reception for all strangers, Harry. But this time they have chosen the wrong strangers to spit upon. If I remember nothing else from this mission I will remember the name of this town, and advocate strongly to Lord Howe that it be wiped off the face of the earth.'

‘What, all because of a bit of phlegm? Where is your tolerance, Sir?'

I had no sooner said this than a ragged gobbet splattered onto my cheek, expectorator unseen.

‘Hackensack, is it not?' I said, grim with Cromwellian resolve. ‘1,176 souls should not take long to bayonet, or burn alive in their damned hayricks.'

I must have said this a little too loud, for instead of spitting, the next man we encountered looked at us with openmouthed horror, before running off and trying by frantic sign language to alert others to our intentions. Fortunately for us, he appeared unable either to speak or make coherent gestures, and was soundly thrashed by his neighbours for his efforts.

‘
Fortuna Imperitrix Mundi
,' I sighed, much relieved, as I watched the fellow fall beneath a ruck of fist-flailing ruffians.

‘What's that?' said Dick.

‘Fortune Is The Goddess Of The World.'

‘Aye,' said Dick, unimpressed, ‘and Fortune is the only goddess you will find in this cesspit of a town. God, look at these women – I've never seen such plug ugliness. I mean, look at that one: she would not be out of place in a shoal of turbot. Something has gone wrong in the minds of these people, I tell you; otherwise how can you account for ugly people living in a beautiful place? Ugly people in an ugly place, like Brighthelmstone, fair enough, but here there is no excuse.'

‘Perhaps they all bunch together for mutual assurance,' said I, refusing to be goaded. ‘But if what you say is true, is there any point in stopping at the
Ax and Plow
? Shall we simply carry on to the next town and hope for better girls there?'

‘No, I need to sup, and be damned if I will let poltroons, dogs and scoundrels drive me straight out of town. Besides, it will give me great pleasure to drink with men who will shortly be fertilizing the fields they now piss upon.'

There was surely greater pleasure to be had in finding a town with decent girls in it, but I acquiesced to Dick's determination and we rode on until we came to

a sight that drew Dick up short.

‘Look, Harry, there's a Quaker!'

He pronounced the word
Quacker
, either out of ignorance or facetiousness, and laughed sarcastically, as though one had interfered with him as a child. I, on the other hand, had always had a sneaking admiration for the sect, and looked with interest at the sombre-suited figure in the broad-rimmed hat.

‘Good day, Friend,' said the Quaker seriously, oblivious to Dick's rudeness. ‘And a fine one it is indeed.'

Dick roared, as though he had just heard a dog speak.

‘Wonderful, Harry. Great entertainment! Let's get some more words out of him.' He leaned over and shouted down happily: ‘Life is not a dress rehearsal, you know,
Friend
! You should be enjoying yourself now, while you can, on this Earth.'

‘Well we think it is a dress rehearsal,' the Quaker replied, swivelling his head up as he passed, so that he could see Dick from under the rim of his hat. ‘Everything you do on Earth has consequences in Heaven.'

‘Pish!' shouted Dick, most rudely. ‘Pie in the sky.'

‘We shall see, Brother, we shall see.'

And off he strolled, impressively unperturbed.

‘I did not know you were so atheistic, Dick.'

‘I'm not; ‘tis just that I like to test the faith of do-gooders now and again. Some of them don't like to hear their beliefs slandered, and those are the ones I have no time for, because none of us know what really happens when we die; one view is as good as another really. That Quaker passed the test, though. Not bothered what I thought.'

‘Well, I hope he's right, if only for the sake of these gentlemen up ahead.'

An assortment of blind and limbless beggars sat by the roadside, dishes in their hands and signs around their necks reading INJURED IN THE FRENCH/INDIAN WAR. PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY.

‘Do you not have Parish Relief, gentlemen?' I asked as I approached within speaking distance, the Night Poet in me reviving.

‘We do, but ‘tis the very devil to qualify for,' said a blind man. ‘We usually end up being shunted from one parish to another. Nobody wants us.'

‘Then have these, and do with them what you will.'

I tossed them what I hoped would be sufficient coinage for a good drinking session. A sighted man with arms collected and divided them, then rather too quickly chuckled and put his thumb up in gratitude. I hoped I had not given too much.

‘The common fate of old soldiers,' observed Dick, ‘something we have discussed often. ‘Tis all the more proof to me that we must try for Heaven here on Earth, just in case Monsignor Death lives in a bottomless black hole after all.'

‘Well, it does not look as though we shall find Heaven in Hackensack….or wait a minute, will we? What does that say?'

Stretched above the road in front of us was a cloth banner whose words we could not make out. We approached nearer and found that it was advertising some sort of festival.

‘HACKENSACK MUSTER DAY, 11th SEPTEMBER 1776,' I read out, squinting. ‘Why, that is today, Dick.' I had to get even nearer to read the tiny writing squashed underneath: ‘PICNICS, PRIVATE THEATRICALS, DANCING, FISHING PARTIES, COCKFIGHTING, TURKEY SHOOT, CARDPLAYING, FOXHUNTING, SLACK ROPE WALKING, CONJURING, PERFORMING DOGS, FORTUNE-TELLING, WRESTLING, FIST FIGHTS, FIREWORKS.' I drew in lungfuls of restorative air. ‘Well, we seem to have stumbled across the Vauxhall Gardens of New Jersey.'

‘And if ‘tis anything like our own Vauxhall Gardens, you know what that means – girls. Doxies, mainly, I suppose, but there might be a few nice ones coming in from the outlying districts accompanied by their parents. I can see them now, all dressed up in their finery, their last chance to find a boy before war engulfs the whole damned lot of them, and ends their revels forever. This, Harry, could be where the Lickley Promise takes effect.'

Suddenly having extra incentive, we trotted on further until we came to what was clearly the very heart of Hackensack itself, a village green where milled around a year's supply of potential fertilizer. Everyone was dressed in what passed for their best clothes, and a sort of over-excitement was in the air, as if the rascals half-suspected that Nemesis was nigh. Luckier cattle, poultry and pigs mixed promiscuously with the townsfolk, almost as Revolutionary equals, whilst the less lucky revolved on spits at the many food stalls dotted around. On a part of the green that was roped off several of the activities advertised had already begun: a group of youths were taking it in turns to shoot a turkey that was tied to a tree; a pair of bewildered dogs in wigs, jackets and trousers danced together on their hind legs; two bare-chested men grappled with each other as fan-wafting ladies looked on drooling. Further in the distance, between two low trees, a young man could be seen clinging upside-down to a sagging rope, a small audience quivering with laughter. As my eyes scanned the scene further I noticed that the surrounding streets were starting to clog up with arriving wagons. Watching these with keen interest, I was delighted when they started to disgorge, in fits and starts, wide-eyed beauties and their scowling mothers. Very excited myself now, I was just about to congratulate Dick on his sagacity when the nightmarish thud of a recruiting drum started up not ten yards behind me. Shaking, I looked round to see that a Continental Army recruiting stall had been set up on the back of a cart. According to a poster, twenty dollars was being offered to every man willing to enlist for the duration of the war, in addition to land bounties that varied from one hundred acres for a non-commissioned officer or private to five hundred acres for a colonel.

‘You look like Hot Whigs, gentlemen!' called one soldier to us, as we were digesting this information. ‘Come and join the glorious cause and together we shall whip the damned British!'

‘Perhaps later, Sir,' Dick called back. ‘After a bottle and a lass.'

The soldier laughed good-humouredly, and accosted another pair of visitors.

‘Good rewards,' said Dick. ‘Perhaps I will take him up on his offer later, then bugger off home with the bounty.'

‘You can,' I shuddered, ‘but not I. Knowing my luck with recruiting, I will find myself being marched off directly into battle.'

‘A good way for you to recoup the money you threw at the beggars, though.'

‘No, Dick. I will not even countenance the notion. I am adamant.'

‘And I am thirsty. Now, where is this damned tavern?'

We looked around the edge of the green, searching, but saw only buildings dedicated to the more respectable life of the town, such as meetinghouses and courthouses. At the northern end stood the clapboard church by whose spire and bells we had been navigating, and I noticed that in and out of its open doors scurried men and women whose faces betrayed none of the awe normally associated with the Deity. Though not a conventional religious man, I was somewhat shocked by the hard, horny, secular look on their ratty faces.

‘I hope they are not using that church as a brothel,' I said to Dick, pointing out what I'd seen.

‘No, they will be using it as an armoury, I'll wager. Stuffing guns under pews is no way to win the protection of their Creator though. I will recommend to Lord Howe that he torch the place. Now, I ask again, where is this tavern?'

I was assisting Dick in the search when out of the corner of my eye I noticed something approaching us quickly off the common. I turned, and instinctively drew my pistol in fright, for what I saw, even though I could not believe it, was a bayonet charge coming straight towards us. At first I thought my attackers were merely a long way off, or that the common was a bigger place than I'd first thought, but as they got nearer I saw that they were younger and even smaller than Light Infantrymen, being a gang of whooping, yelling boys no older than eight or nine, with bayonets made of wood. Blowing a sigh of relief, I returned my pistol to its holder and waited for the whooping wave to hit, which it did with a surprising force that had my horse snorting with irritation.

‘Die! Die! Die! Lobby!' yelled one tenacious fellow, his little face contorted in hatred as he jabbed his stick repeatedly into my saddle.

‘Whoah there!' I cautioned in the patronizing voice I used with all children and dogs. ‘Steady on. You will do yourself an injury, little chap.'

‘Not before I have done you one, Lobby!'

His imaginary bayonet became an imaginary sword, with which he proceeded to rain very real blows on my thigh.

‘Careful, Harry,' said Dick, as I grasped the stick off one little brat and poised to beat a tattoo on his head. ‘Hitting children never looks good, and we need to ingratiate ourselves with these people, remember.'

Dick was right, of course, but after checking that no adults were watching, I could not resist giving the rogue a sharp crack on the side of his head, which pleasingly stunned him, and cut short his capers in a flood of tears.

‘Sorry! Accident!' I said to his little comrades, whose eyes darted accusingly from the stick to me and then to their fallen leader. ‘One of those things. You all right, little chum?'

This Machiavellian display of concern seemed to appease all but the fallen leader, who writhed and screamed like a castrated monkey despite my offer of a helping hand. Such unseemly behaviour, I could tell, turned his comrades' sympathy from him to me, making me wish that adults were as easy to manipulate.

‘We attack all strangers,' explained one touslehaired boy seriously, ‘just in case.'

‘Just in case of what?'

‘'Case they are spies or spec…or spec…'

‘Spec'lators,' helped out a fat boy still panting from the charge.