Flash For Freedom!

first reports had been greatly exaggerated, and now it was being said that the first reports had been true enough, and it was the rumours of disappointment that were false. Thousands were already heading west, braving the seas round Cape Horn or the perils of starvation, weather and Indian savages on the overland trails. Most of the men at that dinner agreed that there was obviously gold in quantity along the Pacific streams, but doubted if many of the enthusiastic seekers would find quite as much as they expected.

'You are the cynic, Abraham,' says one. 'What will the Tennessee wiseacres say of the New Eldorado?'

When the laugh died down, Lincoln shook his head. 'If they are real Tennessee wiseacres, Senator, they won't 'say nuthin'.' But what they'll do — if they're real wiseacres — is buy themselves up every nail, every barrel-stave, every axe-handle, and every shovel they can lay hold on, put 'em all in a cart with as many barrels of molasses as may be convenient, haul 'em all up to Independence or the Kanzas, and sell them to the fortunate emigrants at ten times their value. That's how to make gold out of a gold strike.'

'Well, you can handle a team, surely?' cries the merry Senator. 'Why not make your fortune out of axe- handles?'

'Well, sir, I'll tell you,' says Lincoln, and everyone listened, grinning. 'I've just put the return on axe-handles at one thousand per centum. But I'm a politician, and sometime lawyer. Axehandles aren't my style; my stock-in- trade is spoken words. You may believe me, words can be obtained wholesale a powerful sight cheaper'n axe- handles — and if you take 'em to the right market, you'll get a far richer return for 'em than a thousand per cen turn. If you doubt me — ask President Polk.'

They guffawed uproariously at this, and presently we went to join the ladies for the usual ghastly entertainment which, I discovered, differed not one whit from our English variety. There was singing, and reading from the poetic works of Sir Walter Scott, and during this Lincoln drew me aside into a window alcove, very pleasant, and began asking me various questions about my African voyage. He listened very attentively to my replies, and then suddenly said:

'I tell you what — you can enlighten me. A phrase puzzled me the other day — in an English novel, as a matter of fact. You're a naval man — what does it mean: to club-haul a ship?'

For a moments my innards froze, but I don't believe I showed it. This was the kind of thing I had dreaded: a question on nautical knowledge which I, the supposed naval man, couldn't have answered in a thousand years.

'Why,' says I, 'let's see now — club-hauling. Well, to tell you the truth, Mr Lincoln, it's difficult to explain to a landsman, don't ye know? It involves … well, quite complicated manoeuvres, you see …'

'Yes,' says he, 'I thought it might. But in general terms, now what happens?'

I laughed, pleasantly perplexed. 'If I had you aboard I could easily tell you. Or if we had a ship model, you know …'

He nodded, smiling at me. 'Surely. It's of no consequence. I just have an interest in the sea, Mr Comber, and must be indulging it at the expense of every sailor who is unlucky enough to — lay alongside me, as you'd call it.' He laughed. 'That's another thing, now, I recall. Forgive my curiosity, but what, precisely, is long-splicing?'

I knew then he was after me, in spite of the pleasant, almost sleepy expression in the dark eyes. His canny yokel style didn't fool me. I gave him back some of his own banter, while my heart began to hammer with alarm.

'It's akin to splicing the mainbrace, Mr Lincoln,' says I, 'and is a term which anyone who is truly interested in the sea would have found out from a nautical almanac long ago.'

He gave a little snorting laugh. 'Forgive me. Of course I wasn't really interested — just testing a little theory of mine.'

'What theory is that, sir?' asks I, my knees shaking.

'Oh — just that you, Mr Comber — if that is your name — might not be quite so naval as you appear. No, don't alarm yourself. It's no business of mine at all. Blame my legal training, which has turned a harmless enough fellow into a confounded busybody. I've spent too long in court-rooms perhaps, seeking after truth and seldom finding it. Maybe I'm of an unusually suspicious nature, Mr Comber, but I confess I am downright interested when I meet an English Navy man who doesn't smother his food with salt, who doesn't, out of instinct, tap his bread on the table before he bites it, and who doesn't even hesitate before jumping up like a jack-rabbit when his Queen's health is proposed. Just a fraction of a moment's pause would seem more natural in a gentleman who is accustomed to drinking that particular toast sitting down.' He grinned with his head on one side. 'But all these things are trivial; they amount to nothing — until the ill-mannered busybody also finds out that this same English Navy man doesn't know what club-hauling and long-splicing are, either. Even then, I could still be entirely mistaken. I frequently am.'

'Sir,' says I, tiying to sound furious, with my legs on the point of giving way, 'I fail to understand you. I am a British officer and, I hope, a gentleman …'

'Oh, I don't doubt it,' says he, 'but even that isn't conclusive proof that you're a rascal. You see, Mr Comber, I can't be sure. I just suspect that you're a humbug — but I couldn't for the life of me prove it.' He scratched his ear, grinning like a gargoyle. 'And anyway, it's just none of my business. I guess the truth is I'm a bit of a humbug myself, and feel a kind of duty to other humbugs. Anyway, I'm certainly not fool enough to pass on my ridiculous observations and suspicions to anyone else, I just thought you might be interested to hear about the salt, and the bread, and so forth,' said this amazing fellow. 'Shall we go and listen to them laying it off about the Last Minstrel?'

It was touch and go at this point whether I launched myself head first through the open window or not; for a moment it seemed that the wiser course might well be headlong flight. But then I steadied. I cannot impress too strongly on young fellows that the whole secret of the noble art of survival, for a single man, lies in knowing exactly when to make your break for safety. I considered this now, with Lincoln smiling down at me sardonically, and decided it was better to brazen things through than to bolt. He knew I was an impostor, but he could hardly prove it, and for some whimsical reason of his own he seemed to regard the whole thing as a joke. So I gave him my blandest smile, and said: 'I confess, sir, that I have no idea what you're talking about. Let us by all means rejoin the company.'

I think it puzzled him, but he said nothing more, and we turned back into the room. I kept a bold front, but I was appalled at being discovered, and the rest of that evening passed in a confused panic for me. I recall that I was dragooned into singing the bass part in a group song — I believe it was 'Tis of a sailor bold, but lately come ashore', which no doubt caused Mr Lincoln some ironic amusement — but beyond that I can remember little except that eventually we all took our leave, and Fairbrother carried me off to quarters at the Navy Department, where I spent a sleepless night wondering how I could get out of this latest fix.

They would send me back to New Orleans, assuming that the prying bumpkin Lincoln kept his suspicions to himself — which seemed likely — and it was imperative that I should take french leave before there was any risk of my confronting the Balliol College crew at their trial. Washington was no place to try to decamp, so that left Baltimore or New Orleans. I favoured the former, but as it turned out there was no opportunity, for when the Navy Department finally finished with me on the following morning, I was sent back with Fairbrother to his brig, and he took me straight aboard. We sailed within a few hours, so there was nothing to do but resign myself to sitting out the voyage, and make plans for escaping when we reached Louisiana. What I would do when I slipped away, I didn't know; if my own mother wit couldn't get me back to England hale and sound, I wasn't the man I thought I was. When you've come safe through an Afghan rising and a German revolution, with all manner of cut-throats on your tail, you regard evasion from the United States as a pretty smooth course, even if they set the traps after you for slave-running and impersonation, as Fairbrother and his superiors eventually would do. I fancied I could manage passably well, if I minded my step — oh, the optimism of youth. If I'd known what lay along the path to England, home and beauty, I'd have surrendered then and there, told Fairbrother the whole truth, and taken my chance in a slavery trial any day. Thank God I've never had the gift of second sight.

7

The closer we got to New Orleans, the worse my prospects of successful desertion looked, and by the time we dropped anchor at the big bend in the Mississippi River off Customs House levee, I was well in the dumps. Having nothing to unload, you see, except me, the brig stood well out in midstream, so my notion of slipping down a