The Halifax Connection (25 page)

F
OR ALMOST TEN DAYS
Erryn had been hinting to Jack Follett that he would soon have to return home. Above all things, he wanted his departure to seem planned, to appear to have no connection with events in the expatriate community except by sheer coincidence. Still, it troubled him to be saying goodbye the same day the story hit the papers.

All the papers. The Conservative
Gazette.
The Liberal
Herald.
The abolitionist
Daily Witness.
The three French dailies. In each, the slant and the interpretation of the story varied; the facts were essentially the same. The Canadian government had discovered a plan to seize a vessel on Lake Erie and attack Johnson’s Island. Governor General Monck, as required by international law between nations at peace, had promptly notified the Americans. The U.S. military was sending reinforcements to Sandusky. Ships
operating in the region of the Welland Canal were instructed to refuse passage to any suspiciously large group of men, and to report their presence to the authorities.

He read the story twice in every paper, thoroughly content. The grand plan was all undone. There would be no war with the United States, at least not today. On the contrary, Lord Monck’s quick response would soothe many a ruffled feather across the border and encourage a bit of trust to get them through the next Confederate shenanigans.
Listen, lads, we’re not your enemies; we want peace, and we’re doing our very best to keep it.

Moreover, a communication had come last night from Latour, who had set a man to watching Daniel Carroll. Early Monday morning—the morning immediately after his dinner with Erryn Shaw—Carroll had sent word to cancel all of his appointments, rushed to the home of his member of Parliament, and remained closeted there for three and a half hours. This could mean many things, he knew, but the likeliest thing was that he, Erryn, was walking out of this free and clear.

A splendid performance, he thought; they could all take a bow. He dressed in his almost-best, went downstairs for a shave and shoeshine, and strolled out into the noonday sun. He was absurdly happy. He was going home, and Sylvie Bowen was going with him. His future lay before him like a rich harbour, filled with possibilities.

He had served well.

It was still there, he noticed, that old hard kernel of duty drilled into him from boyhood. Under the relief, under the gratitude for dangers averted to the country and to himself, there was a fierce and unexpected pride that would not—could not—separate the thing he had accomplished from the man he was raised to be. He had served well.

He wondered what the admiral would think.

It was odd how the old man would turn up, all unlooked for, out of small, quiet corners in his mind. They had never been close. By
the time Erryn was grown, making the critical decisions that changed his life, his great-uncle was dead, wrapped in a Union Jack and covered over with stones, another family legend, another stern portrait on the wall. If he knew of all this, perhaps he would approve. “Capital, my boy, capital, a fine piece of work!” Or perhaps he would glower. “Spies? In
our
family? Bloody damned
spies
?

Well. Erryn sighed inwardly and wiped the smile off his face. Little Richmond was dead ahead.

St. Lawrence Hall was a magnificent brick building, five storeys high and taking up a full city block between St. James and Craig Street. It was, without question, the most elite hostelry in the city, with every amenity its guests might require—porters and couriers, reading rooms and private antechambers, a telegraph desk, and of course the very best of food and drink. In England, the well-to-do ate four meals a day. In St. Lawrence Hall, one was offered five: breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, and supper, all at the cost of two dollars per plate.

Erryn ambled past the dining room, bright with crystal and white linen, and calculated that his yearly stipend from England would feed him, at this level of luxury, for approximately one month out of twelve. Clothing, medicine, books—to say nothing of a roof above his head—would all be extra. Whatever else, he thought, this did say something about the resources of the Confederacy’s expatriate elite.

The bar was, as he expected, solemn. What he did not expect was the chill that greeted him. Always before, when he walked into St. Lawrence Hall, the Southerners he knew would welcome him with smiles and pleasant talk, or wave and call him over to their tables: “How are you, Mr. Shaw! Here’s a friend of mine who wants to meet you!” Now many of them offered only brief, curt nods. A few pointedly did not look up at all, or looked away.

God almighty, he thought, did they know? Had Carroll betrayed him after all?

He kept walking, half expecting to be challenged, or called a filthy, rotten traitor to his face. But there was no open hostility. A few of his old acquaintances seemed friendly enough, albeit in a quiet, down-hearted fashion. Jackson Follett, they told him, had retired to his room a couple of hours ago, with George Kane and several other close associates. As far as anyone knew, they were still there.

“Thanks,” Erryn said.

The staircase was painfully short, and the small length of hallway even shorter. He paused for a long moment by the door, wondering quite seriously, if he went in, whether he would be carried out again in a sack. Perhaps, he told himself, this was the worst possible moment to meet with them. Perhaps he should slip quietly back to Halifax and hope they wouldn’t notice.

Then again, perhaps the one safe thing he could do was walk through that door like a man with nothing to hide.

“Mr. Shaw.” It was George Kane who answered his knock, the blunt-faced, hard-eyed former police marshal of Baltimore. “Good to see you. Come in.”

Everything about Kane’s manner was normal, right from the first flash of recognition, as though Erryn Shaw were merely Erryn Shaw, a man he knew, but not particularly well, a man for whom he had no feelings whatever, neither affection nor dislike. Erryn began to breathe a little easier.

The large, well-furnished room had the appearance of a council chamber after the debates were over. A large map hung halfway off the bed; several newspapers lay scattered in disarray. Jackson Follett sat slumped in a huge cane chair by the window, with a glass of whiskey and the freshly opened bottle close to hand. He was thirty-six years old; today, still in his shirt sleeves, unshaven and probably unfed, he could have passed for fifty.

He rose to shake Erryn’s hand, offering a drink and the best smile he could manage.

“Jack, how are you?”

“Hello, Erryn. You’ve heard, I suppose?”

“Yes. A damnable business altogether.”

Five others were present in the room, along with Follett and Kane. Two he remembered as escaped prisoners of war, including the young lieutenant he had met at Edmund Morrison’s party. They sat at a small table where, along with another Southener, Darius Gavin, they were tearing the
Daily Witness
into pieces and rolling the pieces into various indifferent shapes. The sort of thing you did in a prison camp, he supposed, when you had read the paper fifty-seven times and had absolutely nothing else to do.

“We were this close.” Jackson Follett held up his hand, thumb and forefinger almost touching. “The boys were in St. Catharines, all of them, and the boat was due any day.” He shook his head and sank back into his chair, staring at the whiskey glass in his hand. “This close.”

“It was …
your operation?”

“Well, no. It was Wilkinson and his navy boys that were in charge. But we helped them put it together, George and I.”

“Ah, shit!” Erryn made a huge gesture of sympathy and dismay. “Damn it, Jack, that’s too bad!”

“Can you think how they’re feeling on the island?” Follett went on. “Reading this?” He kicked briefly at a piece of newspaper on the floor. “Knowing how close they were to getting out?”

“I don’t even want to think about it,” Erryn said. It was the bleak side of his triumphant little mission, those fifteen hundred men on Johnson’s Island, locked away without proper shelter or proper food, and a lakeshore winter coming on. “What about the lads in St. Catharines? Are they safe?”

“I don’t know. I sent a couple of telegrams first thing when I heard, telling them to scatter. Christ knows what that bastard Monck will do to us next.”

Which was, no doubt, what they had been discussing for the past two or three hours—what might lie ahead, and what they
should do to shield themselves and continue with their work. Erryn hoped the conversation would return to this question, but instead Follett asked if he had any immediate plans.

“Actually, I do. It’s one of the reasons I came by. I’m heading home tomorrow. I wondered if there was anything you wanted me to take. Or anything I can do for you in Halifax.”

Follett glanced at Kane, who shook his head. He seemed completely engrossed in what was happening at the table.

“I’ll send a couple of letters with you,” Follett said, “if you can stop by tomorrow and pick them up. But what I’d really like you to do is look after Wilkinson’s boys on their way back through Halifax. See that they have somewhere decent to stay, money for food, a doctor if they need one, all that sort of thing, until they can get themselves on a blockade-runner. Al MacNab has funds for it, but I’ll give you a letter of credit in case you need more.”

“Certainly, Jack. I’d be happy to do that.”

“I had a long talk with Maury Janes yesterday. He left last night on the boat west, never quite said where he was headed.” Follett looked up, his gaze thoughtful, speculative. “What did you think of the fellow, yourself?”

“I’m not sure,” Erryn replied. “He certainly seemed … enthusiastic.”

“Yes. He is that, sure enough.” Follett drained his glass, offered more to Erryn, and then served himself. “I used to think it was a fine quality in a man, such enthusiasm. Now I’ve been burnt twice, I’m not so certain.”

“Twice?” There was the Reverend Andrew Boyle, of course, with his dream of homesick runaways. That was once.

“Yes.” Under the Southerner’s melancholy surface was a core of bitter anger. It showed now in his eyes, in the hard line of his mouth. “You remember that Irishman? Carroll? I think you met him. He was all enthusiastic too. Full of grand ideas.”

“Right. At Morrison’s last week. I spoke with him a bit. He seemed like a nice chap, actually.” Erryn paused a fraction and
went on, seemingly bewildered. “He hasn’t gone off chasing phantoms too, has he?”

“I think he was the one who wrecked this operation.”

“God in heaven …”

“I can’t prove it, of course. But only four men knew every detail of it: Captain Wilkinson, George, Dan Carroll, and myself. Now maybe one of us bungled and never knew it. Or maybe a Yankee spy got into somebody’s closet. But judging from what’s in the papers, wherever that bastard Monck got his information, he got all of it. And Carroll’s packed up his wife and kids and gone off to see her folks in Hamilton. Seems one of them suddenly turned up sick.”

“Sounds awfully convenient, I’d say.”

“Yes.” Follett shook his head. “You know, when he came in with us, I was so impressed. He knew the lakeshore like his own backyard—the shipping, the business interests, the climate, everything. He had contacts from Detroit to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. And he was so …
enthusiastic
…”

“Was he working for the Yankees, do you suppose?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he just folded. Some do, you know. As soon as it might cost them something, they lose their nerve and quit. Anyway, I wanted you to know, in case he turns up again—”

A loud grunt of satisfaction drew both men’s attention to the table. Erryn caught his breath in surprise and then got to his feet to have a better look. Using nothing, as far as he could tell, except wads of newspaper and bits of string, the men had fashioned an impressive paper sculpture: a scaffold with two gibbets. From one of them a small paper figure already dangled. Judging by the large shamrock stuck to its back, it represented Daniel Carroll. Another figure, draped in paper robes, was about to have its cowled head slipped through the second noose.