I had wandered away from the main streets of Washington and into a series of residential streets full of those fine terraced houses reminiscent of our own Regency squares and crescents. The houses, however, were much run-down. In most cases there was no glass in the windows and many doors showed signs of having been forced. I guessed that there had been fighting here, not by an invading army, but between the Negroes and the whites.
I was speculating, again, on the nature of the animal cages placed along the walls of the city, when I turned a cornet and was confronted with a long line of black workers, chained ankle to ankle, shuffling along the centre of the road and pulling a big, wheeled platform on which had been piled a tottering mountain of sand-bags. There was hardly one of these people who was not bleeding from the cuts of the long whips wielded by armed overseers. Many seemed hardly capable of putting one foot in front of the other. They seemed destined, very shortly, for the lime-pits - and yet they were singing. They were singing as the Christian martyrs had been said to sing on their way to the Roman arena. They were singing a dirge of which it was difficult to distinguish the words at first. The white men, clad in heavy hoods, were yelling at them to stop. Their voices were muffled, but their whips were eloquent. But still the Negroes sang and now I made out some of the words.
'He will come - he mil come -Out of Africa - he will come -
He will ride the Beast - he will come -He will set us free - he will come -
He will bring us Pride - he will come - '
There was no question, of course, that the song referred to Hood and that it was being sung deliberately to incense the whites. The refrain was being sung by a tall, handsome young man who somehow managed to lift his head and keep his shoulders straight no matter how many savage blows fell upon him. His dignity and his courage were so greatly in contrast to the hysterical and cowardly actions of the whites that it was impossible to feel anything but admiration for him.
But I think that the gang of slaves was doomed. They would not stop singing and now, ominously, the hooded whites lowered their whips and began to take their guns from their shoulders.
The procession stopped.
The voices stopped.
The first white ripped off his hood and revealed a hate-filled face which could have seen no more than seventeen summers. He raised his weapon to his shoulders, grinning.
'Okay - you wanna go on singing?'
The tall Negro took a breath, knowing that it was probably bis last, and began the first words of the chant.
That was when, impulsively, I went for the boy, throwing my whole weight against him so that his shot went into the air. I had grabbed the gun even as I fell on top of him. I heard confused shouts and then heard the sharp report of another rifle. I saw a bullet strike the body of the boy and I used that body as cover, shooting back at my fellow whites!
I should not have lasted long, of course, had not the tall Negro uttered a bellow which was almost gleeful and led his companions upon the whites, who had their backs to the blacks while they concentrated on me.
I saw white hoods bobbing for a moment in a sea of black, blistered flesh. I heard a few shots fired and then it was over. The whites lay dead upon the pavement and the blacks were using their guns to shoot themselves free of the chains on their legs. I was not sure how I would be received and I stood up cautiously, ready to run if necessary, for I knew that many Negroes felt little sentimentality to whites, even if those whites were not directly involved in harming them.
Then the black youth grinned at me. 'Thanks, mister. Why ain't you wearing your hood?'
'I have never worn one,' I told him. 'I'm British.' I suppose I must have sounded a little pompous, for the youth laughed aloud at this, before saying: 'We'd better get off the streets fast.'
He began to direct his people into the nearby houses, which proved to be deserted. The wheeled platform and the corpses of the whites, stripped of their guns and, for some mysterious reason, their hoods, were left behind.
The youth led us through the back yards of the houses, darting from building to building until he came to one he recognused. This he entered, leading us into the cellars and there pausing for breath.
'We'll leave those who're too sick to go any further here,' he said. 'Also the kids.' He grinned at me. 'What about you, mister? You can give us that rifle and go free, if you want to. There were no witnesses. You'll be all right. They'll never know there was a white man involved.'
'I think that they should know,' I found myself saying. 'My name's Bastable. I was until recently an observer attached to General Hood's staff. Recently I deserted and came over to the white cause. Now I have decided to serve only the cause of humanity. I am with you, Mr -'
'Call me Paul, Mr Bastable. Well, that was a fine speech, sir, if, might I say, a little on the prim side! But you've proved yourself to me. You've got grit and grit's what's needed in these troubled times. Let's go.'
He pulled back a couple of packing-cases and revealed a hole in the wall. Into this hole, which proved to give access to a passage connecting a whole series of houses, he led us, speaking to me over his shoulder as we went. 'Have they started filling the cages, yet, do you know?'
'I know nothing of the cages,' I told him. 'I was wondering what function they were to serve. Somebody said they were Washington's "secret weapon" against General Hood, but that mystified me even more.'
'Well, it might work,' said Paul, 'though I'm sure most of our people would rather die.'
'But what will they put in the cages? Wild beasts?'
Paul darted me an amused look. 'Some would call them that, mister. They're going to put us in them. If Hood starts to bombard the walls, then he kills the people he intends to save. He can't liberate Washington without killing every Negro man, woman and child in the cityl'
If I had been disgusted with the whites up to now, I was stunned completely by this information. It was reminiscent of the most barbaric practices I had read about in history. How could the whites regard themselves as being superior to Hood when they were prepared to use methods against him which even he had never contemplated, no matter how strong his hatred of the Caucasian race?
Washington was to be protected by a wall of living flesh.
'But all they can achieve by that is to stalemate Hood,' I said. 'Unless they threaten to kill your people in the hope of forcing Hood to withdraw.'
'They'll do that, too, I suppose,' Paul told me. We were squeezing through a very narrow tunnel now, and I heard the distant sound of rushing water. 'But they've had news from the Austrajaps. If they can hold Washington for twenty-four hours, there'll be a land fleet coming to relieve them. Even those big ships of Hood's we've heard about won't be able to fire without killing their own people. Hood will have to make a decision - and either way he stands to lose something.'
'They are fiends,' I said. 'It is impossible to regard them as human beings at all.'
'I was one of Hood's special agents before I was captured,' Paul said. 'I was hoping to work out a way of helping him from inside, but then they rounded up every black in the city. Our only chance now is somehow to get into the main compound tonight, arm as many people as possible and try for a break.'
'Do you think you'll be successful?' I asked. Paul shook his head. 'No, mister, I don't. But a lot of dead niggers won't be much use to them when Hood does come, will they?'
My nose was assailed by a sickening stench and now I realized where the sound of water had been coming from -the sewers. We were forced to wade sometimes waist-deep through foul water, emerging at last in a large underground room already occupied by about a score of Negroes. These were all that remained of those who had planned to rise in support of Hood when the moment came. They had a fair-sized arsenal with them, but it was plain that there was very little they could do now except die bravely.