The Looting of Washington City - Part Three
The ugly soldier caught Paul looting as Washington burned. But then the teenage thief realized that the British soldier was a deserter. If both men were going to start anew -- the ugly soldier in America, Paul alone with no mother -- they'd need a money-making plan. The chaos in the capital would certainly provide one.
It was nighttime. He went down to the kitchen and found the ugly soldier in the light of two candles, slowly scratching his back side-to-side against a corner.
Paul sat in a small wooden chair and asked, "How did the women look in Spain?" He had certain glamorous ideas of soldiering.
"Some are beautiful. Dark eyes." The ugly soldier shrugged. "I never had any great success with them."
"Women are beyond my understanding," said Paul.
"They are a strange and wondrous type of creature."
Together, they pondered a moment.
"The army is a bastard," the ugly soldier said. "General Ross marches us as if we were animals. So many mules, who cares if a few fall by the side of the road? Ross needs a tourniquet for his head. We fight with our sacred lives for the crown to come into these places. But, having won a city, we are not to take the women, not to take anything we find, not even so much as a teaspoon."
"What will happen if they catch you?"
"They will whip me, or perhaps they will hang me." He shrugged. "How is this country?"
"Fine enough," Paul said. But then he admitted, "I have known no other."
"Well, they're all so proud of their splendid British army, best trained and most disciplined in the world. Yes. Yes. We put your absurd militia on the run didn't we? Set them off to the races, certainly. It's all very fine, but it's not for me anymore. It all may be quite splendid for King and Empire, but a man has to think of himself also."
They went outside and walked. The walls of the President's House were holding upright, but the roof had collapsed, and an orange glow shimmered inside. In the distance someone shouted that the slaves were in revolt.
"If we could get some rifles," said the ugly soldier, "or muskets, from the Armory. Where is the Armory? We could sell them to the slaves."
"Slaves haven't any money."
"They might have some if they've been busy with uprisings and thieving."
"I don't believe there's any uprising. That rumor goes around at every opportunity. It's never happened. For an uprising, the slaves would need the weaponry that we cannot sell them because they haven't any money."
"Perhaps we might take pictures off the walls of the houses and cut them into smaller pictures."
"That is stupid."
"In certain instances it might be profitable."
"Stupid."
"Well, and what is your idea?"
"Take everything of value, preferring smaller items."
"You have no imagination."
"We must obtain something," Paul said. A load of broken crockery lay scattered over the roadway, and Paul kicked irritably at the pieces in his path. "Soon. While there is still the opportunity. I'll work alone if I must."
The ugly soldier sighed. "Reduced to petty, unimaginative theft." He sighed again, a great upwelling and collapse of his chest. "Fine. If it must be. Such is the lot I have granted myself."
They went to the backside of the nearest house, and the ugly soldier watched as Paul pried open a pair of shutters, then picked up a rock. The ugly soldier stopped him with a hand on the shoulder. He put his hands on the window and pushed it open. He crawled inside. Paul set down his rock and followed.
They were in a parlor, with a fireplace, armchairs, a large round table, and, set into the dark corners, a cabinet and a lowboy with cabriole legs. An empty black hallway ran from the far end of the room. The ugly soldier flung open the cabinet, while Paul peered into the lowboy. He found only a single wooden tobacco pipe, roughly carved, chewed on the stem. The ugly soldier came away from the cabinet empty-handed, his buckteeth gnawing against his lip in disgust. Paul offered him the pipe and the ugly soldier took it and hurled it down the dark hallway. It struck a far wall loudly.
Immediately there followed a scream, a door at the end of the hall crashed open, and a figure sprang into the hallway. Paul started and nearly cried out, for among the shadows at the end of the hall stood a spirit shape that wore Paul's mother's own wide white collar and cuffs, and he knew her reprimand and punishment for him would be inventive, dreadful, and merciless, would involve teeth and needles and heat and would leave him empty, boneless. But then he saw this woman's long skinny limbs, and it was only a woman, a stranger to him, gazing with wide, yellow-rimmed eyes, her rather flat chest heaving. She looked precarious on her long legs, and she reached slowly to the wall to support herself. In her other hand she clutched several pieces of silver flatware.
The ugly soldier shuffled a couple of steps toward her.
"It's a woman," Paul said.
"Leave me be," she said.
"By God," said the ugly soldier, in a tone that could have meant nearly anything.
The woman's skirts were muddy around the hem, and her hair hung in loose disarray. But she held herself very much upright, like those trained in posture by daily use of a backboard. Her long legs twitched. "I live here," she said. "What business do you have?"
"I've heard that before, haven't I?" The ugly soldier glanced at Paul and laughed. "If you live here, why steal the silver?"
"I am putting it away for safekeeping."
The ugly soldier bowed slightly. "Of course."
The lady took a step back. "You must leave."
"As you wish," said the ugly soldier. He then failed to move.
"You don't really live here," Paul said.
The woman's eyes widened, and she abruptly flung down the silver. It crashed with wild bright noise on the floor. "You are thieves," she said.
The ugly soldier glanced at Paul. "She thinks us thieves."
"We have merely noble motives," Paul assured.
"Incidentally, have you any rum or the like?" the ugly soldier asked her.
"Noble motives," Paul repeated, liking the sound.
"I come of good family," said the woman.
"Of course," said the ugly soldier. He suddenly moved his legs and hips in a weird capering of lewd dance.
The woman clutched herself and issued a tiny piping scream.
The scream frightened Paul, more than he dared let show. He looked away a moment, feeling wet-eyed. He was startled at himself, shaken to find he had come into this scene. Events had begun to seem dreamlike. The ugly soldier now appeared particularly hideous of visage. The woman had her hand on a door, and suddenly she pulled it open. The ugly soldier lunged down the hallway after her, and vanished behind her through the doorway.
Paul followed after, more slowly. He found the ugly soldier alone in the foyer with the front door open and the road below empty. The ugly soldier looked at Paul unhappily.
"What?"
The ugly soldier said, "You were distinctly and absolutely reluctant."
"Well," Paul shouted at him, suddenly maddened, "what if I was? I thought you wanted to find a fortune! Now you want to pass the time pursuing horrid bird-legged tarts? That's fine. Fine! I'll go off on my own. I don't know why I'm with you anyway. Your ideas are terrible, and we've got little enough time left now."
"Oh," said the ugly soldier. "Oh, don't say that."
Paul paced in a small, impatient circle. "It's quite true. There is not a great deal of time."
"You have to understand I have never--" The ugly soldier came over and took Paul's hand in his own. "Most women cannot bear even to glance at me."
"You are quite foul looking," said Paul.
"Yes, that's it exactly." The ugly soldier passed his fingers slowly and very lightly over his face, as if probing at filth; it did make Paul feel bad for him. "But," added the ugly soldier, "what you say is true. There will be time for the female folk after we've made our fortunes."
