Dubious Allegiance (32 page)

It was Dora, apparently, who devised the plan. She took Jimmy, a skinny and beardless youth, into her bedroom. The children were sent off to the neighbours out the back door, while Cobb waited alone for the troop to arrive. To his astonishment and dismay, it was led by the infamous Colonel MacNab himself. The colonel was polite but determined. The fugitive was known to be his wife's relative and had been seen earlier in the afternoon in the eastern part of town. He asked if the lad was present and, if not, whether Cobb had seen him. Cobb gave a curt no to each question. Was Mrs. Cobb at home? Yes, but she was seriously ill and could not be disturbed. A young female cousin, her nurse, was sleeping with her.

This reply seemed to deepen MacNab's suspicion, and he demanded to be allowed to examine every room in the house, including the mistress's bedchamber. Each room was duly searched while Cobb continued to plead with the colonel that his wife was far too ill to be disturbed. MacNab announced that he himself would enter the sick-room and check it out: Cobb's pleas had only fuelled his resolve. While his nervous underlings looked on, MacNab jerked open the door of the forbidden bower and strode manfully in.

“Well, sir, he come scuttlin' outta there backwards, faster than a crawfish with the heebie jeebies. All his medals was a-janglin', and his eyes were bulgin' like a throttled cock's. And he's tossin' out a string of the foulest curses you ever heard, all the while steerin' his bum towards the front door with his
troop all a-goggle and a-gawk. He finally stops retreatin' when his arse hits the door-latch, then he turns to me and—wonder of wonders—makes a humble apology. He ain't been seen east of Parliament Street since!”

Both Cobbs roared with laughter and were soon joined by a filial echo from behind one of the bedroom doors. What Colonel MacNab—commander of the Yonge Street counterattack and instigator of the burning of the
Caroline
off Navy Island—saw when he violated the privy chamber of Dora Cobb was this: two women lying comatose and only partly covered by an eiderdown—one of them Rubenesque and bare-bosomed, the other skinny-framed but discreetly gowned and bonneted. The sight of Dora's promethean breasts, all but the nipples in vigorous view under the moonlight streaming through the window, would of itself have been shock enough for even the most battle-bitten officer, but the red splotches thereupon and those on her neck and cheeks were as terrifying as the plague itself. Dora kept her “pox” in place for the five days, until the city settled somewhat and Jimmy Madden could slip away undetected into the anonymity of the countryside.

“And we ain't seen hide nor hare of the lad since,” Cobb said.

“Mister Cobb kept sayin' it was the best use of my face-paint he'd yet seen!” Dora chuckled. “I looked like a
hip-an'-pot-moose
with the measles!”

“The whole thing give us quite a fright,” Cobb said, suddenly serious. “But what else could we do, Major?”

That was a question Marc had been compelled to ask himself on more than one occasion in the past few months.

*   *   *

Marc slept in once again. He took a late breakfast with the widow and Maisie. They both mentioned that today was the day the gibbets would be completed in the Court House square, in time for the hangings scheduled for the next morning. It was clear from their faces that neither approved of hanging in general or the hanging of Matthews and Lount in particular. Marc decided to walk along King Street to Beth's shop, for that was where she had indicated she would go as soon as she arrived by coach from Niagara. He turned south at Bay and entered the service lane that ran behind the shops on the south side of King. The entrance to Beth's apartment was off the lane, and he was certain he would see wood-smoke coming from the rear chimney if she were home. But the back windows were all dark, and the chimney-pot cold and ugly.

Marc felt he could no longer delay his return to the regiment and the difficult interview he must have with Colonel Margison. He walked somewhat aimlessly along the lane towards Yonge Street at the far end. He thought he could hear the pounding of hammers from the direction of the Court House a block farther east. Before reaching Yonge he turned into an alley between two of the King Street shops, a regular shortcut. He heard footsteps behind him but paid them little heed. It was not until the hand struck his shoulder and tried to hurl him against the nearest brick wall that he realized he was in danger. In a purely reflex action, he lurched away from the pressuring hand and, luckily, avoided the blow that would have knocked his shako silly and him unconscious.

Marc heard the “ooof” of the assailant's breath and the crack of the weapon against the brick as it grazed his forehead and spun him partly around. His cap went flying. Marc threw one arm up to ward off the next blow, but it did not come immediately. Instead, a powerful set of fingers gripped him by the neck and began to lift him off the ground. He gagged and lashed out with his boots, hitting nothing but air. He still could not see the attacker, who must somehow be twisted to one side of him. Hot, angered breath was striking him behind the left ear.

“I been waitin' a long time fer this! You're a bitch of a man to corner, but I got you now, ain't I?”

Marc tried to respond, but the fingers on his throat refused to ease their murderous grip.

“Got nothin' to say, eh? After what you done to my brother!”

Marc could not breathe. The bare, callused fingers were pressing deeply into his throat, and a thumb was squeezing his larynx with enough force to shatter it. One more ounce of pressure and it would burst, killing him instantly. But he had no strength to wriggle free or fight back, even with the adrenaline-rush surging through him. He was not the man he had once been.

“I can throttle you like a pullet, or I can beat yer brains out with this club. You got any preference?”

For a moment Marc found his throat free from those deadly fingers, but he was unable to utter a word, even as he heard the homicidal whisper of the assailant's sleeve being raised for the final, fatal strike.

It never arrived. The villain gasped, then released a long, simmering sigh. His weight slowly collapsed against Marc's left side. Reluctantly, the fingers relaxed their death-grip. He felt the assailant's body slither downward past his own. Marc himself was saved from falling into the snow by a pair of bracing hands: different hands, kinder hands. He blanked out.

When he opened his eyes moments later, someone was splashing snow gently against his face.

“Jesus, Major. You ain't been in town a day and already you got someone riled up enough to knock yer noggin inta next week!”

“Cobb?” The word came out as a raw whisper from Marc's aching throat.

“Well, you're on my patrol, ain't ya? I hope ya wasn't expectin' Wilkie?”

The assailant let out a wheezy groan next to Marc.

Cobb turned to the villain, rolled him over, and attached manacles to his wrists. “Head as hollow as a coconut—” Cobb interrupted himself. “Jesus, I know who you are!”

Dazed and still seeing a colourful array of stars, Marc leaned over to have a look at the man so determined to kill him.

“You been callin' yerself McGinty, ain't ya?” Cobb shouted at the unconscious man. Then he turned to Marc. “This is the fella I was tellin' you about, Major—the one I caught stealin' a pig at Government House. His real name's Calvin Rumsey, from Buffalo.”

Marc stared. His vision was starting to clear. Yes, this definitely could be the brother of Philo Rumsey, the man who had been involved in the death of Councillor Moncreiff a year ago last June. A man who might have good reason to hate him.

Cobb picked up Marc's shako cap. His eyes lit up as a new thought struck him. “Say, this must be the guy that tried to kill you on yer way home. I wondered why he ain't been seen around here since December. We just figured he'd scuttled back to Buffalo.”

“Thanks, Cobb. You've saved my life—again.”

“Part of the service, Major.” Cobb prodded Rumsey with his right boot. “And this fella's got a date with the magistrate. So I guess you won't haveta keep a watch on yer back no more, will ya?”

But Marc didn't answer: he had toppled against the wall.

“Say, Major, are you okay?”

Marc was in the midst of answering, “I'm just fine,” when he leaned over and retched.

M
arc spent the next six hours being swaddled, coddled, and otherwise overcared-for by Mrs. Standish and young Maisie, the former having an undue reverence for the authority of a uniform and the latter an equally undue reverence for its particular occupant. The blow to the head had been absorbed partly by the shako cap and the brick wall next to it, so that beyond an unsightly bump and a short-lived headache, no real damage had been done. The strangulation marks on the throat, however, proved least susceptible to treatment, though a warm bath and soothing poultices went a ways towards easing much of the pain and some of the indignity. That the perpetrator should be hanged, drawn, and quartered was proclaimed to the walls of every room of the boarding-house, their previous conviction against hanging notwithstanding.

There was considerable consternation among the distaff members of the establishment when the patient rose from his near-death bed, donned that reverence-inducing uniform, and asked Maisie ever so nicely if she would mind walking over to the livery stables at Government House and engaging a one-horse cutter to take him to the garrison. Maisie did not mind in the least.

Half an hour later the transportation arrived in front of the widow's porch. Marc was feeling so wonderfully recovered that he dismissed the driver with a shilling and took the reins himself. He wanted to be entirely alone as he drove the cutter south to Front Street and swung west until he reached the snow-packed path that wound its way through pretty stands of evergreen and wide stretches of marsh-ice towards Fort York. There was still an hour of brilliant light left before the sun would sink southwesterly over the vast lake.

When Marc had first arrived here, like most newcomers he had found that the brooding, primeval forests seemed to push all thought inward on itself while the freshwater seas without horizons sucked it outward to endless emptiness. But now, feeling almost native, he found a lonely drive like this—under vacant skies and over blank tundra, where snow alone defined the landscape—most conducive to serious meditation. And he had much to think about. Relieved at last of the burden of being stalked, Mark was free to reflect on what it was he was going to say to Colonel Margison.

*   *   *

“This is a decision, Lieutenant, that should not be taken hastily, especially so soon after your first engagement and an injury such as you received in the line of duty.”

They were closeted in Colonel George Margison's study. Whiskey and cigars having been aborted by mutual consent, the two men, who knew each other well, sat down opposite each other and without ceremony began to talk seriously about the matter at hand.

“I agree, sir. But during the many weeks of my convalescence in Montreal, I had nothing else to do but think.”

“Very true. And I have also known you to be a very thoughtful, highly intelligent and supremely rational officer. But that is precisely my point: you have the potential to be a true leader in Her Majesty's army. Your ability, diligence, and devotion to duty have already won you one promotion, and I have little doubt that your heroic actions at St. Denis will see you made captain. Courage and presence of mind under fire and impeccable judgement—that is a rare combination. I am simply asking you, Marc, not to throw away the nearly five years of your life that you have dedicated to a military career, a career for which, in my humble opinion, God appears to have moulded you.”

“I do appreciate the confidence you have shown in me, sir. But it is precisely because I have doubts that I can live up to the demands of being an officer that I am giving serious consideration to leaving this profession.”

“You are referring to the grim business of ordering soldiers into situations where they are likely to be killed or maimed
in front of you or beside you. But that is a common reaction during any first engagement. If you didn't have doubts, you wouldn't be human—or an effective officer.”

“I believe I can cope with that aspect of warfare, sir, especially if I am willing to expose myself to the same dangers.”

“As you amply demonstrated at St. Denis.”

Marc hesitated, searching for the right words to continue. “At first I had great difficulty convincing myself that a ragtag collection of farmers and tradesmen was actually an enemy army like the French regulars. But when they started pointing muskets at us and one of our gunners collapsed beside me with a hole in his chest, then I had no qualms about what I was expected to do at St. Denis.”

“What continues to trouble you, then?” The colonel seemed genuinely puzzled.