Open Writing

They rode slowly down the track to Moorbridge. Heavy clouds covered the moon and the night was dark. Harry felt specks of rain on the wind that blew into their faces.

“Better be bloody worth it, Harry,” said Arthur, swaying gently in the saddle.

The only lights in the village were from the tollhouse and the inn. They rode past and began to follow the turnpike alongside the river which was swollen from two days of heavy rain.

“Cold?” asked Harry. “Will the stallion be able to perform?”

“Always.”

Harry reined in his horse and held up a pewter flask.

“Something to warm the cockles.”

“It’s not my cockles that are cold,” said Arthur, stopping his horse alongside him.

He took the offered flask and tipped his head back to drink and didn’t see Harry swing the cudgel he had taken from his saddle bag and which hit him behind the ear. Arthur fell out of the saddle onto the banking of the river.

Harry dismounted and tied his horse to a bush before walking to his prone friend. The flask lay in the grass alongside him. The river was too black to see but he could hear it, rushing past with a dreadful purpose. He squatted by Arthur’s side and the drunken aristocrat groaned and lifted his head and stared at Harry in surprise. Blood showed on the side of his head.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” said Harry.

“What?”

“I paid you once. I was never going to pay you again.”

“Pay me?” Arthur gulped to gain his senses, despite the drink and the blow. “We’re friends, Harry. You don't have to pay me.”

“I know.”

He pushed him by the shoulders and Arthur’s legs began to slide over the edge of the bank towards the water. He grabbed at the grass to save himself and cried out as the momentum took him most of the way. At the last moment, he found a root and grasped it with both hands. He hung there, gasping and twisting as the water buffeted his lower body.

“For God’s sake, Harry.”

Harry smiled.

“It’s nothing personal, Arthur. We did have some good times. But I know you can’t be trusted. You really should have stayed in Australia.”

Arthur’s face contorted between fear and anger. He knew he was moments from death and, at the last, the anger won and he stared defiantly up the bank.

“Damn you, Harry. I swear I’ll come back and take you to hell where you belong.”

“Make sure you keep your promise, Arthur. For I fear heaven will be an awfully dull place.”

He raised the cudgel but before he could strike another blow, the Honourable Arthur Petty released his grip of his own volition and was taken by the river. Harry got to his feet and stared after him into the blackness and sighed.

The damn fool shouldn’t have come back with his threats of memoirs and demands of funding in the Indies. Harry had paid for his silence once and once was enough and now the best place for his secrets was the river. Poor Arthur. It was impossible not feel sorry for him. He’d never got anything right, apart from drunkeness and debauchery. Not even blackmail. Harry had found the memoirs secreted in his saddle holster: half a dozen pages of vellum written in Arthur’s unmistakable scrawl, rolled and wrapped in a waterproof cloth. Not exactly a literary masterpiece that would have had Mr Dickens quaking in fear of competition, but containing enough unsavoury facts to cause Harry severe problems.

Farewell, old friend, he said, to himself. Bravely met. You were never meant to grow old disgracefully. And keep a place for me by the hearth, next to Betty Barnstaple.

**

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