Absolute Honour (2 page)

God damn it, will that jolly boat never return? Jack thought now, but did not say. Not for the cruelty of his pressing desire
to be away. Cursing was just not something you did before the Widow Simkin. She knew – and demanded – things that would have
made a Covent Garden courtesan blush. Yet take the name of the Lord in vain in her house …

Some moisture had come into her downcast eyes. The bitter wind, he assumed, for he knew the Widow only cried in the night,
when held in the aftermath of passion. Yet when she spoke again, there was a tremor in her voice. ‘We have discussed how …
beneficial it would be for us both for you to return. Your abilities …’ she coloured slightly, ‘… your abilities with the
savages have been of great use in my dealings with them. You have increased my profit and have, I believe, profited yourself.’

Indeed I have, Jack thought, with another hundred ermine skins aboard the ship and the name of a furrier in Whitechapel to
visit who would pay full price. If he was returning to a Dragoon lieutenant’s salary, he must find ways to supplement it,
or London would be dull indeed.

‘And you have but seen our little town in its winter coat. Believe me, it is quite a different place when warm. And when the
summer comes and the real trade begins, a strong man such as yourself would be of—’

He interrupted her. ‘It is not a trade I wish to be involved in, madam. As I have told you before.’

He hadn’t thought much about slavery in his former life, despite his mother’s occasional diatribe on the subject. His time
as a slave of the Abenaki tribe the previous year had, however, revolutionized his attitude. And he still could scarce believe
that the Widow was one of the foremost slave traders
in Newport, the main port for such activity in the Northern Colonies. She and her fellow Quakers were dominant in it.

‘Well. Enough of that.’ She reverted to the silence that ended arguments. But the colour on her cheeks and the moisture in
her eyes lingered, and he remembered the first time he saw her flush, a week after he’d accepted her invitation of a room
above her barn together with a salary for his interpreting skills and a share of profits. She was over twice his age, in her
late thirties, and a good and God-fearing widow since the death of Mr Simkin ten years before. Then, one Sunday evening, she
came to tell him that her bathing water was still warm in a barrel in the kitchen and his if he should desire it. He’d trodden
the snowy path to the main house, found the kitchen empty of servants – they all had the Lord’s day off to return to their
families, it transpired – and lowered himself into water still gloriously hot, the first surprise. The second was when the
Widow Simkin – not clothed in black, not clothed at all – lowered herself in beside him. The barrel was snug anyway and she
was a large woman, yet of near perfect proportions. He’d nearly drowned twice; once in the water, once in her breasts.

The memory gave him a blush to match hers and he turned to the ocean, to see that the
Sweet Eliza’s
jolly boat had set off again for the shore. It would be dockside in moments. Time for a last farewell.

He’d left a little something in verse under her pillow but he also had a speech prepared. He was about to deliver it when,
to his great surprise, she took his hands. ‘Jack,’ she whispered, another shock because she never used his name except when
they were alone, ‘I want you to know that I have never … never done before the things I have done with you …’

Well, Jack thought, you must have read some bloody good books! Though he had done some things in that line – a few anyway
– he was about to echo her, for sentiment’s sake, but
she rushed on. ‘I have never felt like this before. That is why I need to tell you … to tell you—’

‘Lieutenant Absolute! Sir, sir!’ One of the sailors was calling from the water. The jolly boat was nearly at the dock.

The Widow Simkin stepped back, leaving something in Jack’s hands. Without looking at him, she said, ‘Read it when you are
at sea. Question your heart. Perhaps what is within will bring you back to me.’

He looked at the plain envelope, felt the sheet of paper inside. How sweet, he thought, she writes me a farewell as I have
written her. (Though not in Alexandrine couplets, I suspect.) ‘I will treasure it,’ he declared.

‘No,’ she said, ‘you—’

‘Lieutenant Absolute!’ The call followed the bang of wood on wood as the boat reached the jetty. A rope landed near Jack,
followed by a sailor. ‘If you please, sir,’ the seaman said, ‘the Captain says bugger the Irishman … er, beggin’ yer pardon,
ma’am. Wait any longer an’ we’ll miss the poxy tide. And if we dock again we’ll lose half the crew, for they’ve already drunk
their joining bounty.’

Whether it was the sailor’s cursing or the emotion of the moment, the Widow had turned, was walking swiftly up the sloping
wood to the shore. Jack called after, ‘Thank you, Mrs Simkin. Thank you for your … kindnesses.’

But there was no acknowledgement in the black back, hunched against the wind. The wind that will blow me back to England,
Jack thought, suddenly exultant. It had all ended rather well. A touch of sentiment, a few written words to supplement the
memories across the Atlantic. He would miss the Widow and her ways. Yet …

One sailor helped him down into the prow of the jolly boat, the other cast off. Soon they were rowing fast through the choppy
water toward the
Sweet Eliza,
his home for the next … weeks? months? With a good wind and a good navigator, ships could make the Atlantic crossing in five
weeks. But bad luck with both, or either … he’d heard of vessels taking six months.

Perhaps the thought of discomfort ahead added to the poignancy of the parting, and he fixed his eyes upon that black cloak,
fast receding up the slope that led from the harbour. He didn’t hold her farewell missive to his heart – sailors had a way
of talking and he was careful of her reputation – but he held it there in his mind as well as his hand while she was yet in
his sight.

She was nearly at the top of the hill when he saw her jerk to a stop, step swiftly to the side. A moment later, what had been
a faint noise beneath the sound of waves, wind and gulls became clearer: men shouting. But the first to appear over the crest
was not one of the shouters. No doubt because he was engaged in running so very fast.

Jack couldn’t at first make out what was wrong with the vision. A halloo was not uncommon in towns either side of the Atlantic.
A cut-purse perhaps, caught in the act, making a break for it. But strangely it was the black figure of the Widow, turning
away from the sprinting figure that made Jack see what previously he’d missed.

The runner was stark-bollock naked.

Jack clearly heard, ‘Stop him’, from the pack who had now crested the hill in pursuit, followed by a word that might be ‘trader’,
which seemed, however, an odd thing to yell in a port.

The sailors had stopped rowing to stare, although shouts from the
Sweet Eliza
urged them on. Even Jack, no seafarer, could see that if the wind veered much more there’d be no putting to sea that day.
Under orders, they began to row again.

On the shore, the naked figure had reached the dock, the pursuit about fifty yards behind. Jack could now see that the man
was tall, his naked physique strong, and that he had bright red hair trailing out behind him like a flame. Arriving
at the water’s edge, the man skidded to a stop. Jack didn’t blame him; it was a brisk day for a plunge. But he had mistook;
for the man paused only to survey the water before him, note the one other rowboat pulled up to the jetty, pick up a small
barrel that awaited collection and hurl it into the vessel, sinking it almost on the instant. Then, pausing only to raise
two fingers to the pursuing men, he hurled himself into the Atlantic.

The sailors had stopped rowing again in shock, despite the continuous calls from their officers. Reluctantly, they hefted
their oars once more. ‘Hold there,’ countermanded Jack. Since he was dressed in the uniform of the King, they obeyed. ‘By
God,’ he said, rising a little on his bench, ‘I think that fellow is making for us.’

It was true. With a scrambling motion that drove him powerfully through the water, the red-haired man moved towards them like
a spaniel after a shot duck. Behind him, the men on the dock continued yelling, the wind still making their yells indistinct.
Some gesticulated for the
Sweet Eliza’s
jolly boat to return, others ran further down the dock, seeking a vessel for pursuit.

Despite his obvious strength, the man was labouring, flailing. Then a combination of stroke and tide brought him close.

‘Here, sir, here,’ yelled Jack. ‘Take hold.’

While the sailors shouted warnings and leaned away to counterbalance him, Jack reached out. The man’s fingers brushed Jack’s,
a wave forced them apart, then together again. Jack grabbed, held a finger, a thumb. Bringing over his other arm, he grasped
the hand of the swimmer. Another wave sucked at him again but the man reached his other hand and this time Jack had him. With
an immense heave, he pulled him into the boat like a gaffed tuna.

It nearly spilled them. But, with the man lying in the scuppers, Jack sitting and the sailors back at their oars, the boat
gradually steadied.

Jack looked at the newcomer. He was blue where he wasn’t red with hair, which was in most places but especially thick at chest
and groin, like the pelt of some huge scarlet sea otter. The only lightness came from scars, of which he had an inordinate
supply, criss-crossing his body like worm casts. Instantly Jack had his cloak off, and thrown over the man, who clutched at
it but remained unable to speak.

‘Which way, sir?’ said one sailor to Jack. ‘Ship or shore?’

Having been a fugitive himself – on several occasions – Jack paused now to consider the plight of the quarry. The blue-tinged
nakedness gave a sort of infant innocence to the fellow; and there was only one person in slaver’s Newport he cared a fig
about. ‘Are you a cut-purse, sir? Should we be returning you to the authorities and a deserved noose?’

The head shook. Chattering lips tried to form words. ‘Ne … Ne …’

‘I fink ’e’s the last passenger we was waitin’ for,’ the other sailor, a Cockney, said.

The man nodded and words came, the Irish accent unmistakeable. ‘That I a- a- am! And if y- y- you take me back, oagh, boys
… well,’ he threw back the cloak, and gestured to his shrunken privates, ‘the lady-in-question’s hu- hu- husband will finish
the job that the sea has st- started and render me truly the last King of Ireland!’

The sailors laughed and Jack joined them. ‘Row,’ he said, then reached down, grasped the hand before him. ‘Jack Absolute,
sir, at your service.’

‘A service I will repay for plucking me from the waves like Anchises from the flames of Troy. For, faith, I forget neither
slight nor favour. And that’s as sure as my name is Red Hugh McClune.’

It was only when Jack drew back his hand that he realized that something had lately occupied it. When he remembered
what, he looked again swiftly to the sea. But water had drowned the Widow’s parting words.

Never mind, thought Jack, patting his chest. I have her here. And she will always have a little piece of me in her.

‘What the Honourable fails to realize,’ Captain Link declared, ‘is that when I impregnate one of these black heathen sluts,
I serve God, my employers and the slut herself.’

‘How so, Captain?’ The purser, Durkin, ever the crony, fed him the question.

‘Because the slut receives a Christian’s blessing, her offspring the inheritance of England’s blood – and my employers get
half as much again for a proven brood mare!’ He guffawed as he raised his mug of rum. ‘To profit, gentlemen. Profit and fornication!’

‘Fornication!’ came the echo from the purser and the surgeon, the cry briefly rousing the slumbering First Lieutenant Engledue,
who lifted his mug, sipped then slid his head back onto his hand.

Jack sighed and did not drink. He abhorred the toast, but he’d also had quite enough. This Guinea rum, Newport’s finest export
and the ship’s main cargo for the run to Bristol – where it would be sold to traders who would eventually swap it for slaves
– had the strength of a donkey’s kick. He had vowed this night to be moderate, to dilute it half and half with rainwater.
However, he was aware that he had promised himself the same every night from the end of the
second week of the voyage when his nausea had passed. The only thing worse than being in Captain Link’s company was being
drunk in his company. Yet he had failed to keep his vow above a half dozen times, such failures resulting in outbursts that
had given the Captain weapons to use against him. He never called Jack anything other than ‘the Honourable’ since he’d blurted
out that he was the son of a baronet and would be treated with respect. He’d also reacted badly to the realization that the
ship transporting him was a slaver, and had been foolish enough to voice his opposition to the trade. Since that night, Captain
Link had not let an evening pass when he would not lecture Jack as to the Christian rightness of it and describe its every
detail. And having once seen Jack’s disgust when he’d volunteered how he always fucked at least a dozen of the slave women
on the voyage, he returned again and again to the subject, like a dog to his own vomit.

Link slammed his empty mug down. Immediately, his body slave, Barabbas, limped up to refill it. Jack found himself staring
yet again at the Negro’s pouring hand. Three fingers and half a thumb, and not a knuckle on what remained unbroken. Link often
boasted that Barabbas was the most spirited among a group of rebellious slaves he’d transported ten years before, and that
he’d tamed him with whips and thumbscrews. He’d done Link’s bidding ever since.

As the laughter continued and Barabbas slipped again into the shadows, Jack glanced away, to the man who shared his side of
the table. The Irishman returned his gaze, a slight shake of the head indicating that Jack should leave this conversation
well alone. But Jack had always found that hard to do.