Voyage of Midnight (12 page)

“Then here’s to us and the continued health of all concerned,” I said, scarcely able to sit in my seat for joy.
Two thousand four hundred eighty dollars per slave!
If even I received the profits from just
one
slave, it’d be more money than I’d ever dreamed of in my life! We touched our wooden goblets together, sipped, and exchanged looks of satisfaction.

“Jonas says you’re doing quite well; that you’re learning, though you’re still a bit squeamish.”

“Really? Jonas thinks I’m doing well?”

“I believe you’re rightly suited for the business. It’s not everyone who is. You’d a difficult start, I’d say, but you’ve jolly well come about.”

I thanked him, then asked a question I’d been pondering. “You told me once that you started in the business when you were just twelve. Is that why you ran away to sea, so you could be in the business?”

Uncle looked a bit surprised by my question. But he recovered himself quickly, wiped his mouth with his serviette, stood, and moved to the stern windows, gazing out absently. The breeze blew the hair back from his face. “What do you know of my father? What did my sister tell you?”

“You mean, my grandfather? Well, my mother didn’t tell me much of anything. Only that he died long before I was born.”

“He’s dead, yes, thank the heavens.” Uncle sighed heavily. “What she didn’t tell you was that he was a wretched man. Made my life a misery with his drinking and his iron fist. After he died, I left home. Wanted to get away, see the world. I fell in with a slaver in Liverpool. Didn’t know the first thing about the business, any more’n you did.” Here Uncle smiled and returned to
his chair. “But it was wages, food, a chance to be a man, and that was more’n I’d ever had from my father.”

“And now you’re rich.”

“Indeed.”

“Something else I’ve been meaning to ask you …” When he said nothing, instead tearing off a mouthful of bread and butter, I continued. “Jonas told me that the United States has made slaving punishable by death, by hanging. Is—is this true?”

Uncle laughed. “He’s a sour sort of fellow, Jonas. Always ready to douse any fire worth burning.”

“Is it true, though?”

“Aye. In May of last year it became law.” He hastened to add, “Why do you look so glum? You’re not American; you’re English. Even so, the United States government hasn’t yet acted upon the law, to my knowledge. Probably never will. Again, it’s a ploy designed to make them look good in the eyes of the British—as if they mean to stop the slave trade when they really don’t give a fig. It’s all about foreign relations.”

I remembered the face of the blond, mustached captain of the American warship, illuminated in the first startling flash of lightning. Despite Uncle’s reassurances, I did not believe that this man didn’t give a fig. Even in that split second, I saw the devil in his eyes. And he certainly put up a deuce of a fight.

“Your uncle says a lot of things.…”

Jonas’ words—rising unbidden. And like the press of icy fingers against my spine, the thought
Perhaps Uncle doesn’t know everything
. I took a gulp of wine, swallowing down the thought, not wanting to argue. Not with Uncle. He was helping me to better my position in life, and for that I owed him my gratitude.

Uncle was saying, “I hear that your servant—what’s his name, Pea Soup, is it? I understand that he’s still in confinement. Has been for ten days. Anything you want to tell me?”

I suddenly paid great attention to my roasted chicken, feeling my pulse jump in my throat. Even the mention of Pea Soup’s name made my stomach seethe and roil like snakes in a basket. How could I forget his treachery? His hatred of me, his leaving me to die in a most frightful way, his desire to jeopardize the entire crew of the
Formidable …
and for what? Why? I’d decided that when I reached New Orleans, I’d sell him.

Though I’d not looked up, I could feel Uncle watching me, waiting for an explanation. “I—he—you see, he …” I pushed my chicken about on my plate, from port to starboard, fore and aft. Gravy slopped over the side in a trail of grease. “You see, he—there was—I’ve never been—he—”

“Philip,” he said, not unkindly, “a slave knows when you’re afraid of him.”

I looked up, blinking with surprise. “Wh-what?”
Am I that transparent?

Uncle filled his goblet, then leaned back in his chair. The chair squawked in protest. In the waning light, Uncle’s eyes looked not blue, but black, and deep as the ocean. “You see, there’s something you mustn’t forget. No matter your size or age, no matter your social position, no matter whether this is your first slave or your five hundredth,
you
are the master. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“Masters do not shrink from their duties. Masters do not cower in fear from their slaves. You must show him who is master and who is slave, otherwise—and you must trust me in this—he is worthless to you, and will defy you at every opportunity.”

My head suddenly swam with wine. Queasiness rocked through me.
What the devil’s the matter with me?
I clenched my
jaw and swallowed hard, thinking that I must tell the cook to use less grease.

“Remember, slavery’s a necessary evil, and can’t be helped.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“If you can’t handle one slave, how do you expect to handle a ship loaded to the gunwales with Africans, and you the captain?”

He made to pour me more wine, but I covered my goblet with my hand, realizing I was shaking. “No more, Uncle. Please, no more.”

For the briefest moment, his eyes met mine. Then he burst into laughter and whacked me between the shoulder blades. “I’ll make a man of you yet, Nephew. Ha!”

I wished I were six feet tall. I wished I were burly-chested, well muscled, with a deep voice and big hands.

Instead, I pushed my way through Africans taller than me, a slight lad who looked as if he should still be in grammar school, afterward having tea and biscuits. Dark eyes stared down at me, as if remembering that this was the lad who’d branded them.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” I said, shoving people aside, thankful for McGuire, who trailed behind me as I’d asked, pistol and whip ready.

I heard him before I saw him. His voice, easily recognizable, for I’d heard it a thousand times in my nightmares. “Master,” he implored. “Master Philip, please. Please.”

Africans moved aside now, parting the way as if I were Moses parting the Red Sea. To my surprise, Pea Soup was on his knees, his hands clasped before him, looking wretched as a beggar. “Master, please.”

Sores covered his body. His loincloth, once clean, was now
soiled and shabby. The stench from him was the same as from any of those about me—like animals that have been caged too long. Beneath the iron shackle, his ankle chafed and bled.

“Master Philip, please. I will be good.” Tears streamed down his face while I gawked at him.
Is this the same Pea Soup who hates me? Who hissed through pointed teeth and left me to be eaten by sharks?

Where there had been fear just a second before—a wobbling of knees, a dryness of mouth, a clamminess of hands—now there was only pity. Pea Soup’s time of confinement had done wonders. “I’m your master,” I said to him, delighted with the firmness in my voice and wishing Uncle were here to see me. “Do you understand?”

Pea Soup nodded vigorously.

“From now on, you’ll do what I tell you. Do you understand?”

Still on his knees, he shuffled forward, then pressed his forehead to my feet. “I will be good. I promise.”

“Release him,” I said to McGuire, thinking,
Now that’s how to handle it. Just like that, the situation has been righted
.

McGuire unshackled Pea Soup, whereupon the boy stood shakily on his feet, a good half a head taller than me. “I am grateful,” he said.

“My cabin’s a shambles, and my bedding needs airing. Please see to it, and then take your dinner and rest.”

“Thank you, Master Philip, thank you.” Pea Soup nodded and, with a quick glance at someone in the crowd, turned and left.

I stood, blinking daftly, as the Africans watched me.

“Let’s go,” said McGuire. He was tugging at the back of my shirt.

I looked to where Pea Soup had glanced. There stood Ikoro, head bowed, meek as a daisy. An unsettled feeling came over me
like a spell, for when Pea Soup had glanced at Ikoro, I saw not the wretched expression and the tears he’d given me, but instead a look of triumph.

“Yes,” I replied, “let’s go,” suddenly anxious to be out of there, feeling as if I’d just made a horrible, horrible mistake.

F
evers, boils, bad eyes, sores, and rashes …

I wiped my face with my handkerchief and then straightened my stiffened back, feeling it pop. I filled my lungs, praying for fresh air, praying for my head to clear. But the infirmary air still stank of candle smoke and the most vile of body odors and excrements. Much as I’d tried to keep up with the washing and cleaning of the infirmary, it was getting the better of me—rats, dirty medical instruments, and every towel and rag filthy.

I’d told Jonas that we needed to do something about the deteriorating conditions in the infirmary, but Jonas, lately falling into long periods of drunkenness, was of little help.

And if I’d thought that Pea Soup would be of assistance, remarkably transformed from his imprisonment, I could think again. If possible, he worked slower than before, disappearing entirely for hours at a time. Yesterday, overwhelmed, I’d commanded Pea Soup to help me in the infirmary. Acting deaf and dumb, he did nothing but get in my way and trip over things, in the process spilling the surgical tray and breaking two crockery bowls. I next gave him laundry duty, but the articles came back damp, gray, wrinkled, and smelling like seaweed and rotten eggs. Today I’d not the strength nor time to deal with him, and so let him be—wherever he’d disappeared to. I didn’t want to admit it, but I feared Pea Soup’s promises and tears had only been a charade, masterfully performed to obtain his release.

A headache was beginning at my temples. In the five hours I’d worked, I’d seen how many people? Twenty? Thirty? A stream of ailments and complaints.

Jonas himself was groaning in our cabin, too ill to venture out today, he said.

Only the most desperately ill slaves stayed in the infirmary. On this day, just our twelfth day out from the river Bonny, every pallet was full, sometimes with two to a pallet, stacked up the sides of the hull like shelves. Already four slaves had been tossed overboard that day to the ever-present sharks who shadowed our wake. Each death became personal to me, as if I’d somehow failed, failed in my effort to bring the slaves to a better life.

“Hold still now, lass,” I told the slave girl who lay before me on a raised pallet. She was eight years old or so, her two front teeth large as a rabbit’s. “This won’t hurt a bit, I promise.”

One of her eyes was gummed shut. As she clutched my wrists, no doubt fearful of what I was about to do, I drizzled warm water over the lids, then gently pried them open and began to cleanse the eye. It was reddened, swollen, and the
other eye showed indications of following in the same unhealthy direction.

Second case of it today. Must remember to tell Jonas
.

I bathed both eyes in mucilage of sassafras, hushing the girl when she started to wail and grip my wrists, kicking her legs up and down, almost preventing me from performing my duties. My temples began to throb. The familiar nausea rose inside me, as if I stood on the top of the highest mast of a ship as it rolled heavily, creaking and groaning through the swells.

When I finished, the girl closed her eyes. Her body relaxed and she released her grip. Her breathing evened, and I knew she’d fallen asleep. After wiping my hands, I gently tucked a doll made of oakum under her arm. It was something I gave to each of the girls, a gift that took me but a few minutes to make and that seemed to calm them. Often I was rewarded with a smile through the tears. For the lads, I made a braided length of oakum with a cowrie shell at each end.

She’s too thin
, I thought.

Many of the slaves were too thin—bone-thin, some of them. I’d mentioned this to Uncle: that perhaps we needed to increase their portions, that sometimes the stronger at the mess ate more food, while the weaker received less than their share. But he said he’d been in the business for twenty years. That he knew what he was doing. That yams were particularly bulky storage items and we could only store so many. Feed them too much now, he said, and we wouldn’t have enough to reach the Americas. Couldn’t have them dying of starvation at the very time they went to market. Buyers wanted healthy negroes.

I sighed and turned to the next fellow. He’d been sitting propped against the bulkhead, but now he lay slumped over sideways, eyes open, not moving.

He’s dead
, I thought.

And indeed he was.

My nausea surfaced just as someone whipped open the door to the infirmary. Normally, fresh air would brush through a cabin upon the opening of a door, but there was only more humidity and heat.

It was Billy the Vermin, as I’d come to call him.