Bruce Alexander - The Color of Death

“Oh no, nothin’ like that, though I come to feel like I was marooned there for fair. The island was Jamaica. And they had our regiment there — that’s the King’s Carabineers, otherwise known as the Sixth Dragoon Guards — to keep order generally and to put down any rebellion amongst the slaves, should one arise.”

“So you were in the Carabineers, were you? That’s how you and Lieutenant Tabor came to be on such familiar terms.”

“Familiar maybe, but not friendly,” said he. “But indeed we was there for three years, and I don’t mind tellin’ you that they was the worst three years of my life. They put me in such a state, I wanted out of the regiment soon as I come back.”

Much was coming clear; the more he told, the more I wished to know. “What affected you so deeply, Mr. Patley? “

“You mean what stuck in my craw so bad about the place? Well, it wasn’t the look of it. It fair took your breath away, some parts were so pretty. That was what was so strange — seeing that kind of cruelty where everything was flowers and green and the sky so blue you’d swear it couldn’t be the same one as is up above us here.”

He hesitated then for a good long moment, but I had the sense that he would continue, so I said nothing. With a sharp glance at me then, as if assessing my capacity as a listener, he resumed his tale.

“It was the slaves,” said he, “the way they was treated — just like animals. Or worse, really, ‘cause the planters treated their cattle and horses better. I couldn’t quite believe it when first we come. They told me I’d get used to it — but I never did. It only got worse. The last year was worst of all.”

“Why was that?” I asked.

“Well, there was a lot of what they called ‘unrest’ there amongst the slaves then — which was just last year, come to think of it, though it seems much longer ago than that. Anyways, things was specially bad at three of the plantations, so the colonel let himself get talked into putting a platoon at each of them — just living right there on the plantations. As it happened, Tabor was our platoon commander. Now, neither the planter, or his family, or the overseer and his family, none of the whites who ran the place, would have anything to do with us troopers — only with Tabor. So we had nobody to talk to except ourselves or the slaves. We got pretty close to them that way. And we saw that the reason why this plantation had more ‘unrest’ than the others was because the slaves there got treated worse. Any fool could see that.

“So, like I said, we got pretty close to them, and we were even what you might call friendly You might not realize it — or maybe you would, working for the magistrate and all — but not all the slaves was black Africans. A number were white Englishmen, just like you and me, who was convicted and given transportation, instead of the rope. Glad they were to get it at the time, but afterwards, I just wonder if they were. There were more of them on this partic’lar plantation than on most, but they didn’t get treated any better than the Africans — if anything, they got treated worse. Anyways, I got pretty thick with one of them, called himself Johnny Skylark. He was a Londoner and a thief — he made no bones about that — but a very entertaining fellow, he was. I asked him how he managed to keep his spirits up in this awful place. And he said that he was going to escape some day. He was sure of it, and it was knowing that kept him going. I remember I told him then that if he was going to do a scarper, then he’d better do it after I’d left, ‘cause I didn’t want to be the one brought him back. He just sort of smiled at that and nodded, and we let it go. Or I did, anyways.

“So it wasn’t long, o’course, before he made his run for it, and he weren’t alone. He took all the healthiest blacks and a few whites who was working in the south field right along with him when he did. There were four troopers riding inspection through the coffee plants. One of them saw the other three get pulled off their horses, and he turned round and rode like the devil was after him for the rest of the platoon. The slaves, all of them, might have made it to the mountains where the maroons hid themselves, if he hadn’t made it back and put the lieutenant on notice what was happening. As it was, we rounded up most of them, but not all. The leaders were all up front, and just us few — the lieutenant, me, and maybe six more. I’m out in front because I was the best tracker in the platoon. Tabor was right behind me, though. We come upon them on an uphill. They was right close to the crest. We had a good look at them, and they wasn’t so far away, so Tabor yells to me that I should stop and take the shot at one of them. So I had no choice. I reins in, dismounts, pulls the carabin out of the saddle scabbard, and made ready to fire from a kneel. The lieutenant was down off his horse, and the rest of the troopers was pulling up — lot of noise and confusion just then. I take aim at one of them on the hill, but Tabor’s right behind me, sighting up my barrel. And he yells at me, he said, ‘No, get the white man. He’s the leader. They’ll all turn back if you get him.’ He meant Johnny Skylark, of course, so I took aim at him. It wasn’t really a hard shot, but he was pretty close to the top of the hill, so I’d only have the one chance at him — but after all, I was regimental champion, the king of the sharpshooters, weren’t I?

“So I aimed, I shot, and I missed. The lieutenant called for a volley from the rest of the troopers, and they let go on command. Two or three of the blacks dropped, but two or three more, as well as Johnny, made it over the hill and down into the bush where our horses couldn’t go, and our carabins wouldn’t do us no good. I lost their tracks, anyways. The lieutenant claimed I’d missed Johnny on purpose, brought me up on charges before the colonel. I just denied and denied and denied. ‘Course it didn’t help that Johnny turned and waved just before he disappeared. He knew it was me shot at him and missed. Still, there was so much going on behind me — the lieutenant yelling in my ear, the troopers reining up and dismounting — that who could say that I hadn’t missed fair and square?”

“And did you?” I put in quickly.

“No, I missed on purpose. The lieutenant was right. But the colonel said it was impossible to court-martial a man for missing a target, else three-quarters of the regiment would be up for it. So I would be permitted to resign as soon as we were back in Britain.”

“Well, that’s … that’s quite a story,” said I.

“Wait, I ain’t done yet,” said he, catching a deep breath or two. “Anyways, I resigned. Ben Bailey and Sir John took me on here, and I wasn’t working this job more than a month when the Lord Lilley house was robbed, and about two days after that, who should I run into drinking away on Bedford Street but Johnny Skylark, who now wants to be known as John Abernathy, which he swears is his rightful name. I can’t say as I was surprised to see him. First of all, he was a Londoner, and a thief must know a city well to work in it proper. And there was this about that raid on the Lilley house. It was exactly like the ones he and his crew carried out some years before when he was caught and given transportation for the term of his natural life.”

“Except for one thing,” said I. “There was a man murdered.”

“So there was, and I’ll talk about that in just a bit. So, as I say, I wasn’t so surprised when I met him right there. I was surprised, though, that he knew so much about what had happened to me — that I’d been more or less drummed out of the regiment, and that I was now a constable with the Bow Street Runners — but he did. He as good as admitted that it was him and four of his chums, including one from the Burnham plantation, who did the robbery at Lord Lilley’s. And he wound up asking me if I had a good place to dorse. ‘Why don’t you come live with us in the Dutchman’s castle?’ he asked me, and I told him I’d have to think about that, might get in the way of my work as a constable. But he said no. ‘The two might go right well together. Meet me here tomorrow.’