been practicing my trade in Petersburg.’ Burroughs tried to plead his case with dignity.
‘He’s a dentist!’ the big man shouted delightedly.
‘Pull his teeth out!’
Another cheer announced the return of the borrowed wagon, which now bore on its bed a great black steaming vat of tar. The wagon clattered to a halt close to the two prisoners, and the stench of its tar even overwhelmed the smell of tobacco, which permeated the whole city.
‘Starbuck’s whelp first!’ someone shouted, but it seemed the ceremonies were to be conducted in the order of capture, or else the ringleaders wanted to save the best till last, for Morley Burroughs, the Philadelphia dentist, was the first to be cut free of the bars and dragged toward the wagon. He struggled, but he was no match for the sinewy men who pulled him onto the wagon bed that would now serve as a makeshift stage.
‘Your turn next, Yankee.’ The small bespectacled man who had first discovered Starbuck’s identity had come to stand beside the Bostoner. ‘So what are you doing here?’
The man’s tone had almost been friendly, so Starbuck, thinking he might have found an ally, answered him with the truth. ‘I escorted a lady here.’
‘A lady now! What kind of lady?’ the small man asked. A whore, Starbuck thought bitterly, a cheat, a liar and a bitch, but God, how he had fallen in love with her, and how he had worshiped her, and how he had let her twist him about her little finger and thus ruin his life so that now he was bereft, impoverished and homeless in Richmond. ‘I asked you a question,’ the man insisted.
‘A lady from Louisiana,’ Starbuck answered mildly, ‘who wanted to be escorted from the North.’
‘You’d better pray she comes and saves you quick!’ the bespectacled man laughed, ‘before Sam Pearce gets his hands on you.’
Sam Pearce was evidently the red-faced bearded man who had become the master of ceremonies and who now supervised the stripping away of the dentist’s coat, vest, trousers, shoes, shirt and undershirt, leaving Morley Burroughs humiliated in the sunlight and wearing only his socks and a pair of long drawers, which had been left to him in deference to the modesty of the watching ladies. Sam Pearce now dipped a long-handled ladle into the vat and brought it up dripping with hot treacly tar. The crowd cheered. ‘Give it him, Sam!’
‘Give it him good!’
‘Teach the Yankee a lesson, Sam!’
Pearce plunged the ladle back in the vat and gave the tar a slow stir before lifting the ladle out with its deep bowl heaped high with the smoking, black, treacly substance. The dentist tried to pull away, but two men dragged him toward the vat and bent him over its steaming mouth so that his plump, white, naked back was exposed to the grinning Pearce, who moved the glistening, hot mass of tar over his victim.
The expectant crowd fell silent. The tar hesitated, then flowed off the ladle to strike the back of the dentist‘s balding head. The dentist screamed as the hot thick tar scalded him. He jerked away, but was pulled back, and the crowd, its tension released by his scream, cheered.
Starbuck watched, smelling the thick rank stench of the viscous tar that oozed past the dentist’s ears onto his fat white shoulders. It steamed in the warm spring air. The dentist was crying, whether at the ignominy or for the pain it was impossible to tell, but the crowd didn’t care; all they knew was that a Northerner was suffering, and that gave them pleasure.
Pearce scooped another heavy lump of tar from the vat. The crowd screamed for it to be poured on, the dentist’s knees buckled and Starbuck shivered.
‘You next, boy.’ The tanner had moved to stand beside Starbuck. ‘You next.’ He suddenly swung his fist, burying it in Starbuck’s belly to drive the air explosively out of his lungs and making the young man jerk forward against his bonds. The tanner laughed. ‘You’ll suffer, cuffee, you’ll suffer.’
The dentist screamed again. A second man had leaped onto the wagon to help Pearce apply the tar. The new man used a short-handled spade to heave a mass of thick black tar out of the vat. ‘Save some for Starbuck!’ the tanner shouted.
‘There’s plenty more here, boys!’ The new tormentor slathered his spadeful of tar onto the dentist’s back. The dentist twitched and howled, then was dragged up from his knees as yet more tar was poured down his chest so that it dripped off his belly onto his clean white drawers. Trickles of the viscous substance were dribbling down the sides of his head, down his face and down his back and thighs. His mouth was open and distorted, as though he was crying, but no sound came from him now. The crowd was ribald at the sight of him. One woman was doubled over, helpless with mirth.
‘Where are the feathers?’ another woman called.
‘Make him a chicken, Sam!’
More tar was poured on till the whole of the dentist’s upper body was smothered in the gleaming black substance. His captors had released him, but he was too stricken to try and escape now. Besides, his stockinged feet were stuck in puddles of tar, and all he could do for himself was to try and paw the filthy mess away from his eyes and mouth while his tormentors finished their work. A woman filled her apron with feathers and climbed up to the wagon’s bed where, to huge cheers, the feathers were sprinkled over the humiliated dentist. He stood there, black-draped, feathered, steaming, mouth agape, pathetic, and around him the mob howled and jeered and hooted. Some Negroes on the far sidewalk were convulsed in laughter, while even the minister who had been so pathetically protesting the scene was finding it hard not to smile at the ridiculous spectacle. Sam Pearce, the chief ringleader, released one last handful of feathers to stick in the congealing, cooling tar then stepped back and flourished a proud hand toward the dentist. The crowd cheered again.
‘Make him cluck, Sam! Make him cluck like a hen!’
The dentist was prodded with the short-handled spade until he produced a pathetic imitation of a chicken’s cluck.
‘Louder! Louder!’
Doctor Burroughs was prodded again, and this time he managed to make the miserable noise loud enough for the crowd’s satisfaction. Laughter echoed from the houses and sounded clear down to the river where the barges jostled at the quays.
‘Bring on the spy, Sam!’
‘Give it him good!’
‘Show us Starbuck’s bastard!’
Men seized Starbuck, released his bonds and hurried him toward the wagon. The tanner helped them, still striking and kicking at the helpless Starbuck, spitting his hatred and taunting him, anticipating the humiliation of Elial Starbuck’s whelp. Pearce had crammed the dentist’s top hat onto its owner’s grotesque, tar-thick, feathered head. The dentist was shaking, sobbing silently.
Starbuck was pushed hard against the wagon’s wheel. Hands reached down from above, grabbed his collar and heaved up. Men pushed at him, his knee cracked hard against the wagon side, then he was sprawling on the wagon bed, where his hand was smeared by a warm patch of spilt tar. Sam Pearce hauled Starbuck upright and displayed his bloody face to the crowd. ‘Here he is! Starbuck’s bastard!’
‘Fillet him, Sam!’
‘Push him in, Sam!’
Pearce rammed Starbuck’s head over the vat, holding his face just inches from the stinking liquid. The vat had been stolen from its coals, but it was big enough and full enough to have retained almost all its heat. Starbuck tried to flinch away as a bubble slowly erupted just beneath his bleeding nose. The tar plopped tiredly back, then Pearce jerked him back upright. ‘Let’s have your clothes off, cuffee.’
Hands pulled at Starbuck’s coat, tearing off its sleeves and ripping it clean off his back. ‘Strip him naked, Sam!’ a woman screamed excitedly.
‘Give his pa something to preach about!’ A man was jumping up and down beside the wagon. A child stood by the man, hand at her mouth, eyes bright, staring. The dentist, unremarked now, had sat on the wagon’s box, where