The Scent of Death (34 page)

‘Shall we leave a coin or two in payment?’ I suggested the first time, when we stole the ham. I wanted to soothe my conscience.

‘No, of course not,’ Wintour said. ‘They’d probably smell a rat and run to the nearest militia officer or army post. We can’t trust anyone. Let them think it was some vagabond or other.’

I did not like it but I ate the food and was grateful.

One evening we came to a stream, which it was necessary to ford. Halfway across, Wintour stopped and turned back to me.

‘Thank God,’ he croaked. ‘Look – can you see those two trees against the skyline there? Like the letter “h”, ain’t they? I know where we are now. This stream is the Bronx.’

I had not realized how low my spirits had sunk until I heard this news. Vigour flooded through me – and through Wintour, too. We were almost cheerful as we pressed onwards.

But we were still wary. We knew from our journey with Piercefield and his men that there were enemy outposts nearby. We would not be safe until we were within range of our batteries at Fort Charles.

It seemed an age before we reached the Heights of Fordham. We descended with great caution. After about a mile we came to the head of another stream, which Wintour said was the Musholu Brook.

The light was seeping from the sky. We walked faster and faster, sacrificing concealment for speed. This was indeed the true neuter ground, belonging to neither side but under the observation of both. The grey waters of Harlem Creek gleamed below us.

King’s Bridge itself was in sight now, with the fortifications of Manhattan. The glow of lanterns gave a festive air to the scene. We broke into a stumbling run as we threaded our way through the buildings, decrepit almost beyond belief after the years of war, that huddled about the bridge. There were people milling about with great urgency but little sense of purpose, as there always are in such places. After spending days in near solitude it seemed strange to be among human beings again.

Wintour and I glanced at each other. Both of us smiled, great grins splitting our grimy faces in two. He clapped me on my shoulder.

‘We’ve done it, Edward. We’re safe now, by God.’

The sentries had seen us approaching. A corporal ordered us to halt and identify ourselves.

‘An officer of the Sixtieth and an official of His Majesty’s American Department,’ Wintour called out. ‘Where’s the Sergeant of the Guard? Take us to him at once.’

The sentries’ faces showed their surprise, as well they might. We must have looked a pair of ragamuffins in our torn and filthy clothes. But Wintour’s voice and his demeanour changed this in an instant. He had the habit of casual command and, among the army, was quite at home.

The sergeant was already running towards us. ‘What’s this? Who are you?’

‘I’m Captain Wintour, Sergeant. This is Mr Savill, Lord George Germain’s special envoy in New York. We have been conducting private business on behalf of General Clinton – here, you see his signature on our passes. Now, we wish to see your commanding officer directly. And above all we wish to have some supper.’

Perhaps the best thing – indeed, the only good thing – to come out of our journey in the Debatable Ground was the sense of rapture that both of us felt at our safe return.

The senior officer, Major Kendall, made us wait before he saw us. But he could not have been more obliging once he realized who we were. He was interested in our story, too, and so was the man who came with him, Mr Carne, an American gentleman with whom both Wintour and I were slightly acquainted. It was an open secret that Carne was an intelligence-gatherer. I knew that he was vouched for both by General Tryon and the Deputy Adjutant General at Headquarters.

It was too late for us to go on to the city that evening. Besides, Wintour and I were so tired we could barely walk. Two rooms were bespoken for us at a nearby inn. We were invited to sup with Major Kendall and Mr Carne. Kendall found us clean shirts, stockings and small-clothes. His man-servant even produced two pairs of shoes which, though much worn, fitted tolerably well. When I asked the fellow how he had come by them, he laughed and said that people were always coming and going at King’s Bridge; and usually they shed some of their possessions as they came and went.

Wintour and I spruced ourselves up as best we could at
the inn. Our chambers were small and meanly furnished but
the luxury of solitude and a bed of my own seemed a foretaste of paradise to me. Wintour finished his sketchy toilet first and came along to my room.

‘We have had quite an adventure, have we not?’ he said as he watched me fumbling with my neckcloth.

‘I’m rejoiced that it’s over,’ I said. ‘There were times when—’

‘I know. I’m sorry for it, Edward, believe me. If I could turn the clock back, I would. But now we shall reap the benefit, hey? We shall celebrate our happy return tonight – and other nights as well. And tomorrow we shall be back in New York.’

Back with the family in Warren Street, I thought, back with Mrs Arabella. And back with the mystery of Roger Pickett’s death, which had only deepened since I had discovered the true significance of the box of curiosities. In our desperate flight from Mount George all these considerations, even Mrs Arabella, had retreated from my mind; but now they flooded back.

But tonight I would ignore them, I told myself – tonight Wintour and I were in our own debatable ground, a brief neutral space between past and future, between the perils of our journey to Mount George and the difficulties of our return to New York. Tonight, at least, tonight we might enjoy ourselves.

Shortly afterwards, we strolled the short distance to the Major’s quarters. It was an extraordinary release not to be on our guard, fearful for our lives, and not to be in a desperate hurry.

Wintour was humming a marching song and beating time with his hand against his leg. He seemed almost drunk already.

I touched his arm. ‘Jack, for God’s sake have a care what you say. Don’t let slip your reason for going into the Debatable Ground. Not to anyone.’

‘I shall be as secret as the grave,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I’m famished. I shall have no time for talking.’

We reached Kendall’s door. I smelled the intoxicating scents of roasted meat. A few minutes later we were at table. The food was indifferent but we fell upon it like starving wolves. As for the wine, both of us drank deep and drank quickly.

The Major and Mr Carne were particularly interested to hear about the state of the country we had passed through, and about enemy troop movements there. They had heard that Piercefield and his men had been defeated in a skirmish, but they knew little of the circumstances apart from a rumour that Piercefield himself had been among the dead.

‘It was coming to him sooner or later,’ Mr Carne observed. ‘I could never understand the trust that Governor Franklin placed in him.’

The bottle continued to circulate. Mr Carne suggested a game of cards. Wintour agreed with enthusiasm. By now it was nearly one o’clock in the morning. My head was reeling from the unaccustomed wine. Weariness engulfed me like my feather mattress in Warren Street.

I made my excuses and left them to it. The major summoned a soldier to light me to the inn. I am sorry to say that I needed the support of his arm as well.

When at last I found myself in my chamber, I opened the bed-curtains and sat down on the bed. It took me a moment to struggle out of my coat, which seemed reluctant to be parted from me. I pulled off my necktie, unbuttoned my waistcoat and kicked off the borrowed shoes. This last exertion overbalanced me. I fell back on the bed. I looked up at the canopy, which was made of dirty green cloth and swayed to and fro like the branches of trees in the forest.

I do not remember more. I fell into a deep sleep. I did not hear Wintour’s return. I did not hear anything until I woke the next day.

My mouth was dry. My head felt as if someone had cut it in two with an axe. I lay there, allowing consciousness to seep into my head by fits and starts. I knew from the sunlight that the day was already well advanced.

I eased myself into a sitting position and swung my legs off the bed. The movement intensified my headache and brought on a fit of nausea. When I had recovered I stood up, supporting myself on the bedpost, and looked about me for the chamber pot.

Ten minutes later, I buttoned my breeches with trembling fingers and hobbled like an old man along the passage to the chamber where Wintour lay.

The door was locked or bolted. I called his name. There was no answer. I called again and then hammered on the panels with increasing vigour. I bent down and looked through the keyhole. The key was not in the lock. I could see nothing but part of the bed-curtains. I thought I heard a susurration within. It was like the purring of a cat or the humming of bees.

I banged the door again. The racket I made brought the landlord puffing up the stairs.

‘I can’t rouse Captain Wintour,’ I said.

Still panting, the man grinned. ‘He was late last night, sir, and he was merry.’

‘Have you a spare key?’

The landlord fetched his keys and unlocked the door. I pushed it open. The buzzing sound was at once louder. There was a terrible stench. Sunshine streamed through the window, which was open. Dust motes danced in the air. Despite the open window, the room was very warm. Wintour’s clothes were strewn across the floor. Somewhere in the yard below a woman was singing a ballad I did not know in a remarkably pure voice.

‘Jack?’ I said. ‘Come, you sluggard – it must be nearly midday.’

The curtains were partly drawn about the bed. I crossed the room and pulled back the nearest one.

Jack Wintour was lying on his back with his head resting on a low pillow. His throat had been cut from ear to ear. The sheet beneath him was soaked red. On and above his body were scores, perhaps hundreds, of large black flies gorging on his blood, their constant movements lending a simulacrum of vitality to the mutilated body.

‘Oh sweet Jesus,’ moaned the landlord.

He turned away and retched. The singing stopped. But the buzzing grew louder and louder.

The more I looked, the more blood I saw, and the more flies. Jack’s cheeks had been slit from the outer corners of each eye to the corners of the mouth. He was clad only in his borrowed shirt. This had been sliced open from the throat to the genitalia.

So had the skin beneath. I glimpsed the shocking white of bone, the blood and the glistening organs. And above all, the flies.

I have waking memories and, worse than these, I have dreams.
I still see the pools of blood in my nightmares and the wide, staring eyes. The guts that spilled out of the belly, the genitalia almost severed from the body. And then the flies, always the flies, the endless, buzzing, feeding, bloated flies.

The landlord, when he had done retching, set up a great wailing and howling. I retained presence of mind enough to push him out of the room. The passage was crammed with domestics and idlers and drinkers, drawn by sounds he had made. I summoned one of the maids, a sensible-looking woman for whom the first blush of youth was only a distant memory, and sent her to find Major Kendall.

‘Tell him,’ I said, ‘that Captain Wintour is dead and he must come at once.’

My mind was still clear and rational. Indeed, it seemed to me that the crisis had had the effect, only temporary alas, of intensifying my intellectual faculties and accelerating their operation. I knew exactly what I must do, and also that there was little time to do it.

Giving the landlord into the charge of his wife and daughter, I ordered them to take him downstairs and give him a dram or two of rum. Then I set one of the serving men, a big, burly fellow with the belly of an alderman and the carriage of an ex-soldier, to clear the passage of bystanders and to stand watch with me until Major Kendall’s arrival. When the situation was somewhat calmer, I slipped back into Wintour’s chamber and locked the door behind me.

The singing outside had stopped but the buzzing of the flies seemed louder than before. The sour taste of bile was in my mouth. I looked away from the bed.

The room was still obscenely cheerful with sunlight. I went to the window and glanced out. A stationary wagon stood immediately below in the yard. It had a raised seat at one end and was carrying a part load of roughly trimmed logs. If the window had been open last night, it would have been perfectly possible for a reasonably agile man to enter the chamber by using the wagon and perhaps one of the logs to raise him within reach of the sill.

I steeled myself to look at poor Jack Wintour. I thought it probable that most of his injuries had been inflicted after death: for otherwise there would have been a deal of noise that would have aroused the house, and possibly more blood as well. A robber might conceivably have killed him if Wintour had disturbed him in the course of a robbery – but why such a violent and unnecessarily prolonged attack? Such wanton violence seemed to serve no purpose; in that quality, if in no other, it reminded me of the destruction of Mr Froude’s laboratory: I simply could not understand the nature of it.

I turned aside and examined the clothes that were strewn on the floor. Some were stained with blood. Wintour had kept his purse in a concealed pocket inside his coat. I looked for it there and found it gone. So too were his pistols.

I searched the rest of the room, which was too small to
have many hiding places. I went down on hands and knees and
peered under the bed. Finally, I screwed up my courage and
returned to Jack Wintour’s mutilated body, to the congealed blood and the shifting veil of flies.

Something caught my eye – a glint of light at the end of the pillow nearer the window. I bent closer. It was a steel buckle.

Gingerly I stretched out a hand and pulled it free from underneath the pillow. With it came the strap it held together. There was a little blood on the leather, but not much because Wintour’s head was on the other end of the pillow.