Nobody's Slave (18 page)

Tom found himself changing too. His bitterness at Simon's death had gone deep, and become mingled with a fear and distrust of the strange African continent, whose warriors had proved so much more powerful and resourceful than he had expected. He had hated the place. It had killed Simon, and at times he had feared that he, too, would never escape it - that it would turn him into a ferocious savage, as they had all become in that assault on the town. So many deaths! Such horror! Somehow he had not thought that women and children would be killed too, or that there would be so much blood and weeping.

Out at sea he felt free of it, and glad. Simon had been avenged, many times over - and perhaps in a way he would not have wanted. Tom no longer gloated over the prisoners in the hold; he tried to ignore them, to avoid the unpleasant misery in their squalid appearance. He was glad when they started to sing, taking it for a sign they found their situation tolerable. He was gladder still of Madu's new-found obedience. He was sick of revenge, and began to think of what Simon and Francis had said. Perhaps, indeed, there
was
an element of cruelty in what the English did - no-one could be entirely blameless, after all. So, after some hesitation, he decided, in his simple way, to make up for his sins towards the whole African race by making a friend of Madu.

For Tom it was a huge resolution - yet, to his surprise, it was easier than he had thought. Madu was excused from wearing his page's clothes until his back was healed, which removed the immediate cause of aggravation. Tom no longer insisted on calling him Samuel. So, over the next few days, Madu made an earnest effort to learn English, and began to show an interest in the things that Tom, too, enjoyed - the basic tasks of seamanship, learning how to set and reef the sails, and the reasons behind them.

‘This rope
leebase
?’ Madu asked, putting his hand on a line that led from the lee side of the main yardarm to the rail.

‘Lee-brace,’ corrected Tom. ‘
Brace
. You see, we brace 'em up when we go close-hauled.’

‘Close-haul? Where?’ Madu looked around him to see where this new rope might be found, ignoring the chuckles from the sailors listening on the quarter-deck. Tom chuckled too, but he found more amusement in encouraging Madu, than shutting him up.

‘No, no. Close-hauled is nowhere. 'Tis a point of sailing. Look here.’

Tom took the slate which he used for his calculations when Master Barrett taught him navigation, and began to draw a picture of the wind and ship in various positions. Madu bent over the slate carefully, watching him as he drew.

‘Look, you see as we are now, we've got the wind on our quarter, which is our best point of sailing. We brace the yards so - you can see it if you look aloft. But if the wind was to go round forward of the beam, so - see that's the wind, there, now - then if we wanted to make any way west we'd have to go close-hauled, and brace the yards thus, see - as fore and aft as they'll go. So that's when we tighten up the lee brace here.’

Madu tried to follow as best he could, struggling to see the link between the pictures on the slate, the position of the sails and ropes Tom pointed to, and the torrent of half-understood words that rippled past his ear. It had been a great triumph, three days ago, when he had understood the meaning of the word ‘
wind
’ - and a greater one still when he had seen that Tom was trying to represent its direction on the slate with an arrow. But there were so many other words: ‘
go
’ he understood, but not ‘
makeanyway
'; '
west
', '
east
', '
north
' and '
south
' were all directions, he knew that, and he thought he understood how they related to the rising and setting of the sun; but they also had something to do with the little spinning card in the glass box, the
binnacle
, which glowed in the night, and that was a mystery he could not fathom.

But it was vital to appear interested, and even pretend to understand when he did not, so that Tom would not be discouraged.

‘Not close-haul now. Wind on quarter - like this!’ He pointed carefully to one of the diagrams, and Tom nodded, pleased. ‘That's it, Madu boy - you've got it! And this one?’

‘Close-haul.’ Madu laughed too, sharing Tom's pleasure in a way that he would once have thought impossible. And yet, as always at such moments, there was a deeper pleasure in his own laughter that Tom did not know about - the thought that he was gaining the red-face boy's confidence, encouraging him to betray the knowledge that might one day put the red-face below decks, while the ship sailed '
east
' instead of '
west
'. But he was beginning to like Tom, too, a little; perhaps, when the day came, he would not kill him, but only have him whipped, and tied to the mast for a day.

‘’Tis a fine godly sight to see the young instructing one another,’ said Nicholas Antony, the thin, withered old merchant, as he watched the two heads bent over the slate together, the stillness of Madu's compact, crinkly black curls contrasting oddly with the way Tom's ragged red-brown locks rippled in the breeze. ‘It may be that the Admiral will have a black pilot one day, instead of a page, if young Samuel progresses.’

Robert Barrett chuckled into his black beard. ‘’Twill take more’n young Tom's instruction to make him one, then, judging by his calculations from the noon sighting today. He’s moved us nearly a thousand miles north in the night! In a few days he'll have us back in the deserts of the Sahara - then we'll need a black pilot, to lead us safe to the sea!’

Several gentlemen laughed, and Tom's ears reddened, though he pretended not to notice. Measuring the height of the sun from a rolling deck and then deducing the correct latitude from the mathematical tables was not his strong point. As for longitude, how far west or east they were; no-one, not even the Master, knew how to measure that. They could only guess, by counting how many days they had sailed, and estimating how fast they had gone by watching a log thrown overboard.

Nicholas Antony looked around them at the level, blue horizon, given variety only by the cloud.

‘Yet we are in a desert right enough, if a watery one. How much longer do you think it will be, Master Barrett, before we sight land?’

Barrett glanced at the full spread of canvas on the yards above, which were only just filled by a limp wind, pulling the ship dispiritedly through a sluggish sea.

‘A week or two yet, I'm afraid. ‘Tis a long passage - not at all the fast crossing we could have hoped for.’

‘Aye - and every day subject to the accursed singing of these blacks!' burst out George Fitzwilliam irritably, as yet another group of slaves was brought up on deck, and began their chanting.

‘But you will allow the wisdom of it, even so? Six weeks at sea, and little above a dozen dead! Think of the ducats, Master Fitzwilliam - good Spanish ducats!’ Nicholas Antony frowned reprovingly at the languid figure beside him. Fitzwilliam lifted an eyebrow, glancing disdainfully down at the main deck.

‘Oh, indeed, we shall profit by it. Handsomely, I hope. But are you really convinced that more would die if they were discouraged from making this infernal racket?’

‘Definitely. Don't you see the light come back into their eyes, when they start to sing? The way their poor limbs straighten and they begin to look about them a bit like men?’

Fitzwilliam snorted. ‘A poor parody of men, if you ask me. I should not give 25 ducats for one. Still, it seems to amuse the ears of the hands almost as much as it pains mine.’

Certainly the Africans' singing amused the sailors. They crowded around, smiling and encouraging them with the occasional portion of weevilly biscuit or rancid pork when they sang well, and kicks and buckets of water when they sang badly. One or two had even begun taking bets on how long or how loudly individual Africans could sing; and two days ago, as the ships drifted uselessly in circles in yet another flat calm, a competition had been arranged between the
Jesus
,
Judith
and
Minion
, judged impartially by the Admiral, to see which ship had the best African choir. To the surprise of the Jesus, Drake's
Judith
had won.

‘It surprises me that young Samuel sings with them, though,’ said Nicholas Antony, turning to Tom, who stood near the gentlemen on the quarterdeck. ‘I’d have thought he'd be above making such a fool of himself now.’

‘Oh no, Mr Antony. He'll do anything you ask!’ Tom grinned delightedly. ‘He’ll even tell us the words, if you like. Hey, Madu, you know what they're singing. Tell us what it's about.’

Madu turned back nervously from the quarterdeck rail, where he had been standing, drumming softly with his hands and listening intently to the singing. He was wearing European shoes, leggings, trunk-hose and shirt, as he always did now. Apart from his black skin, there was nothing to connect him with the filthy, half-naked figures roped together on the maindeck. Madu looked healthy, his limbs smooth and strong; they looked sick, their bodies covered with half-healed scars and open sores, their arms and legs skinny and feeble from lack of exercise.

‘What you say, Tom?’ he asked, playing for time by making the strange English words sound even more awkward and uncertain then they felt.

‘I said tell us what they're singing. You say the song in English, see?’ Tom spoke slowly, delighted to have a chance to show off the new control his kindness to Samuel had given him.

‘Yes, Tom. They ... they sing an old song of Mani people. Old story song.’

‘Yes, well, that don't help much. Tell us what the story is.’ Tom frowned, surprised a little at Madu's hesitance, his sudden look of nervousness.

‘Yes, Tom. Well ...’ and for a while Madu stumbled through a version of an old Anansi story, making it as short as he could, until at last the gentlemen laughed, and Tom looked pleased.

‘You see, you can do it! Your English is getting better.’

‘Yes, Tom.’ Madu bowed, as he had learnt, and turned away, keeping his face quite straight so that the tension showed only in his eyes. He realised he was gripping the rail too tightly, and let go, releasing his feelings in a burst of the drumming which he knew the red-face accepted as just a quaint oddity of his. And now, above all it was vital to conceal his feelings, and hear the rest of what the song really meant.

He saw the bosun, one of the strongest and cruellest of all the red-face, smiling and listening not two yards from Ezendu and Idigo, who at that very moment were singing:

The scar-necked one shall die! We shall feed him to the fishes

With the others - all his brothers! There will be a mighty slaughter

He shall throw them in the water!

With no breath, they'll meet their death. They shall die!

How foolish the red-face were, to think the prisoners were singing just out of joy, or for entertainment! The lusty song wound on, chanting out the plans that Ezendu had made, giving each man, each group of men, his task, so that when the moment came each would know where to go, who to attack; so that the red-face would be overwhelmed before they had time to think.

Obeirika and Idigo

With the men from Sunayume

Will attack the mighty fire-tube.

Kill the men and damp the powder

Throw the match into the water - This they must do!

Okafo and Okeke

Hyame, Hale and Okonkwo

Strike and kill all on the left side

Of the maindeck!

While the men from Zolufena

And the daring Uzowulo

Do the same upon the right side - We all trust them!

Let Ezendu, Ikezama

With the seven men from Conga - the great Kings' Guard!

Charge with fury on the high-deck

Where King red-face struts and postures - like a cockerel!

They will catch
some, they will kill some,

They will bind them, they will force them to give orders!

And so the song went on, loud, confident, amusing the red-face sailors, clearly telling each African warrior his duty. And yet Madu wondered, as he looked down upon their feeble, scarred bodies - were they really strong enough, any more, to fight the red-face, as they thought? But it was no use thinking like that, now - they believed they could do it, that was the main thing.

Madu wished the escape were not planned for tomorrow. He had so much more to lose than the rest, if it failed. Sometimes he felt like a traitor, for being part of it - so kind had the red-face been to him, in comparison to the others. And even if the attack succeeded, he still did not know how to sail the ship.

But Ezendu had insisted, in the brief muttered orders he gave - and so far Madu had played his part. He had managed to steal three knives - the only weapons the prisoners had - wrap them in a cloth, and drop them through the grating into the hold one night. Three knives! It seemed so absurdly little, yet it had been the best he could do - and even then he had been sure he would be discovered. Sometimes he felt he was living in a dream, in which the red-face really knew all his plans, and were deliberately pretending to be stupid for their own amusement. But he had to go on, and hope they knew nothing.

The attack was to come tomorrow, Ezendu was singing. Madu was to be ready by the gun that was always trained on the maindeck, to steal the match and dowse the powder when the moment came. As the song came to its end, Madu saw Ezendu and Idigo, and wondered if there was anything more he had to tell them, before they were sent below for the last time.

‘Now's your time, Sammy, go on! Show us how 'ee can sing and bang away like the rest of 'em!’

How foolish the red-face were! Madu actually felt Tom pushing him towards the ladder that led down to the maindeck; and a sailor gave him the little rough skin drum he had stolen from a village, which Madu had helped him mend. Several of the red-face grinned, their yellow teeth showing oddly in their ugly, hairy faces. They liked Madu's performances - were beginning to think of him as a mascot that brought them good luck, rather than any danger.