Don Gutteridge - Dubious Allegiance

The felon stopped, about twenty yards away. He turned slowly to face his assailant. His eagle eye spotted the smoking pistol. A huge grin spread across his visage. He wheeled nimbly and sped off. But in doing so, he relaxed his grip on the piglet, and it scurried away, zigzagging and bewildered.

Cobb had glimpsed the face for no more than a second or two, but he recognized it. He plunged ahead into the trees in hot pursuit. When it became obvious that the fellow was gaining ground on him, Cobb halted and shouted loud enough to be heard on Gallow’s Hill.

“You won’t get far! I know your face and your name, Silas McGinty!”

But, of course, Cobb realized the moment he said it that McGinty would indeed get as far away from the city as possible, since he was now aware that his latest alias was known to the police and his mug would be popping up on posters all over town.

Cobb was just about to return to his post, empty-handed, when he spotted something dark against the snow, next to one of the thief’s footprints, something that had fallen unnoticed during his frantic escape. Cobb picked it up. It was a billfold. Inside he found a wrinkled American dollar, tucked forlornly into a much-thumbed envelope. But it was the inscription on the envelope that arrested his attention:

SERGEANT CALVIN RUMSEY

FORT NIAGARA, NEW YORK

xoxoxoxo

Silas McGinty, my fanny! Cobb thought. Could this fellow be related to the man who had been involved in a crime that he and Marc Edwards had investigated the previous year, one Philo Rumsey? What was he doing skulking about Toronto? Spying? Or looking for some sort of payback on behalf of his “wronged” brother? If so, then Marc might be in danger-were he not lying wounded in a hospital somewhere in Quebec.

It was dusk when the intrepid band of twenty, under the command of Sheriff Jarvis, turned north off King Street onto Yonge. They were a motley crew of policemen, bailiffs, deputies, and half a dozen ordinary citizens co-opted or “volunteered.” Each had been handed a British rifled musket, scavenged earlier by Lieutenant Spooner from Fort York, and two bullets in paper cartridges. Jarvis and his men were to establish a picket on Yonge Street just above College Avenue. A force of five hundred militia, who knew how to load and fire a musket, were on their way by steamer from Hamilton, and were expected to arrive around midnight. Jarvis’s orders were to stall the rebels’ advance, if possible, and otherwise watch their movements and send back reports to Government House.

Much had happened since midafternoon, but Cobb had learned only bits and pieces from a variety of unreliable sources. Members of Cobb’s class were not routinely briefed by officialdom, after all. What was known for sure was that Sir Francis had placed his wife and family and that of Chief Justice Robinson aboard a steamer on Queen’s Wharf with instructions to flee to Kingston should the capital fall and the fast-forming lake ice permit. The first truce up at Gallow’s Hill had lasted for two hours, with Mackenzie demanding a constitutional convention and the governor offering only amnesty.

The rebels then moved farther down Yonge Street, past Bloor. A second truce and parley-with the governor refusing to put his amnesty offer in writing-broke up in disarray. Now it seemed that if the rebels could somehow be tricked into further delay, the militia would arrive to save the day and do honour to the Queen.

Jarvis had ordered his pickets to remain silent as they trudged over the snowy, rutted roadway through the chill of a December twilight. There was a bright half-moon about to ascend in the East, but scudding clouds made its illumination uncertain. Cobb wasn’t sure whether it was safer to see where he was going or to be obscured in total darkness. With fellow constables Wilkie and young Rossiter on either side of him, Cobb fingered his musket nervously. It had been twelve years at least since he had fired a gun at his father’s side, hunting rabbits or grouse. And he had certainly never used one of these new-fangled paper cartridges. Besides that, there was the question of killing someone anonymously. There was every chance that one of the rebels up ahead was his nephew, Jimmy Madden, clutching his father’s stolen gun. What could have driven the boy to such a pass? To jettison his family, his new-found love, his own future? Something had gone terribly wrong, that was all Cobb knew. And good men, young and old, were about to die because of it.

It was pitch black when Sheriff Jarvis called a halt and ordered the men to set up their picket behind a snake-fence a few yards above College Avenue. But even with the moon blocked by thick cloud, the snow on the ground conspired to make their hunched silhouettes alarmingly visible. Cobb set his rifle down and tried to thaw his fingertips under his armpits. Stretched out on either side of him, his colleagues-in-arms stamped their feet incessantly, in a vain attempt to keep the blood circulating or ward off a numbing terror. There was little else to do but wait.

Just after six o’clock the white ribbon that was Yonge Street began to disappear into a tumble of shadows and to echo hollowly with the tramp of several hundred boots.

“They haven’t seen us yet,” Jarvis whispered. “When I raise my sword, I want everybody to fire at once. Take aim at a single figure. Do not shoot blindly. If we kill a dozen of them with one volley, we may stall the advance. God be with you.”

Which was precisely the prayer going round the rebel side, too, Cobb thought with a grimace. Soundlessly, those next to him laid the barrels of their rifles on top of the log-fence and began sighting a target. They had the advantage of being partially hidden and of being able to fire effectively without having to stand. Just then the moon made an untimely appearance. The front rank of the rebels, armed with rifles, had spotted them and dropped to one knee in preparation for a killing volley. The two groups were now no more than thirty yards apart. A wild susurration rose up from the rebels. Sheriff Jarvis raised his sword in defiance.

As the air was shattered by the roar of nineteen muskets exploding around him, Horatio Cobb, loyal officer of the Crown, levered his rifle aloft, took dead aim at the alabaster belly of the half-moon, and pulled the trigger.

With considerable difficulty Marc forced his eyes open, then snapped them shut. Someone was shining a bright light directly into them: they throbbed with the pain of it. He felt another throb in his left thigh, and remembered the gunshot and the indignity as the bullet struck. He listened for the sound of footsteps; surely Sergeant Ogletree had heard the explosions? He could discern only a low murmur of voices and someone groaning through his teeth.

Marc tried to get a sense of where he had fallen. He was definitely on his back, even though he recalled pitching forward as he lost consciousness. He had no memory of hitting the floor. His thought now was that he ought to roll onto his side and try to get up. He didn’t want Ogletree and the men bursting in here and blazing away at civilians. But he couldn’t move. It wasn’t only his injured leg; it was the other one, too, and both his arms. He just seemed too weary to move, even lifting his eyelids had been an effort. What had happened to him? Mustering as much courage as strength, he opened his eyes again. Blinking away the intrusive light, he kept them open. He had been staring into a thin sunbeam angling into a shadowy, dank room of some sort through a crack in the siding.

“Nurse, come quickly! He’s awake!”

The voice, off to his right, was excited, and very Scottish. He didn’t recognize it. Then came the pounding of several feet on a wooden floor. The groaning, farther off, continued, muted but piteous. A sequence of odours struck his nostrils: privy-stink, animal gore, a dankness of rot and mouldy decay, his own fetid sweat. Two shadows suddenly blocked the sunbeam. He opened his eyes wide but found he could not raise his head to see who was now hovering over him. He tried moving his lips; the ghost of a voice emerged, but no words. A woman’s moon-face swam across his vision. A stubby finger brushed his upper lip and came to rest under his nose.