I was striding past him towards the ladder, as he stood with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, eyeing me under the brim of his hat. Suddenly he shot out a hand, and with surprising strength swung me round in front of him. The pale eyes gazed into mine, and then his fist drove into my belly, doubling me up with pain; I reeled back, and he came after me, smashing me left and right to the head and sending me sprawling against the cargo.
“D - - n you!” I shouted, and tried to crawl away, but he pinned me with his foot, glaring down at me.
“Now, see here, Mister Flashman,” says he. “I didn’t want you, but I’ve got you, and you’ll understand, here and now, that while you’re on this ship, you’re mine, d’ye see? You’re not going ashore until this voyage is finished—Middle Passage, Indies, homeward run and all. If you don’t like slaving—well, that’s too bad, isn’t it? You shouldn’t have signed aboard, should you?”
“I didn’t sign! I never—”
“Your signature will be on the articles that are in my cabin this minute,” says he. “Oh, it’ll be there, sure enough—you’ll put it there.”
“You’re kidnapping me!” I yelled. “My G - d, you can’t do it! Captain Spring, I beg you—set me ashore, let me get off—I’ll pay you—I’ll—”
“What, and lose my new supercargo?” says the devil, grinning at me. “No, no. John Charity Spring obeys his owner’s orders—and mine are crystal clear, Mister Flashman. And he sees to it that those aboard his ship obey his orders, too, ye hear me?” He stirred me with his foot. “Now, get up. You’re wasting my time again. You’re here; you’ll do your duty. I won’t tell you twice.” And those terrible pale eyes looked into mine again. “D’ye understand me?”
“I understand you,” I muttered.
“Sir,” says he.
“Sir.”
“Come,” says he, “that’s better. Now, cheer up, man; I won’t have sulks, by G - d. This is a happy ship, d’ye hear? It should be, the wages we pay. There’s a thought for you Flashman—you’ll be a d - - - - d sight richer by the end of this voyage than you would be on a merchantman. What d’ye say to that?”
My mind was in a maze over all this, and real terror at what the consequences might be. Again I pleaded with him to be set ashore, and he slapped me across the mouth.
“Shut your trap,” says he. “You’re like an old woman. Scared are you? What of?”
“It’s a capital crime,” I whimpered.
“Don’t be a fool,” says he. “Britain doesn’t hang slavers, nor do the Yankees, for all their laws say. Look about you—this ship’s built for slaving, ain’t she? Slavers who run the risk of getting caught aren’t built so, with chains in view and slave decks and all. No indeed, qui male agit odit lucemd—they pose as honest merchantmen, so if the patrols nab ’em they won’t be impounded under the equipment regulations. The Balliol College needs no disguises—for the simple reason we’re too fast and handy for any d - - - - d patrol ship, English or American. What I’m telling you, Mister Flashman, is that we don’t get caught, so you won’t either. Does that set your mind at rest?”
It didn’t, of course, but I knew better than to protest again. All I could think of was how the h - - l I was going to get out of this. He took my silence for assent.
“Well enough,” growls he. “You’ll begin on this lot, then”—and he jerked a thumb at the cargo. “And for Christ’s sake, liven up, man! I’ll not have you glooming up this ship with a long face, d’ye see? At eight bells you’ll leave off and come to my cabin—Mrs Spring will be serving tea for the officers, and will wish to meet you.”
I didn’t believe my ears. “Mrs Spring?”
“My wife,” he snapped, and seeing my bewilderment: “Who the d - - - l else would Mrs Spring be? You don’t think I’d ship my mother aboard a slaver, do you?”
And with that he strode off, leaving me in a fine sweat. Thanks to an instant’s folly, and the evil of that rotten little toad, my father-in-law, I was a member of the crew of a pirate ship, and nothing to be done about it. It took some digesting, but there it was; I suppose that after all the shocks I’d had in my young life this should have been nothing out of the way, but I found myself shuddering at the thought. Not that I’d any qualms about slaving, mark you, from the holy-holy point of view; they could have transported every nigger in Africa to the moon in chains for all I cared, but I knew it was a d - - - - d chancy business—aye, and old Morrison had known that, too. So the old swine had his fingers in the blackbird pie—and I’ll lay my life that was a well concealed ledger in his countinghouse—and had taken advantage of the Bryant affair to shanghai me into this. He had wanted me out of the way, and here was a golden chance of making sure that I would be away for good; no doubt Spring was right, and the Balliol College would come through her voyage safe, as most slavers did, but there was always the chance of being caught, and rotting your life away in jail, even if they didn’t top you. And there was the risk of getting killed by niggers on the Slave Coast, or catching yellow jack or some foul native disease, as so many slaving crews did—oh, it was the perfect ocean cruise for an unwanted son-in-law. And Elspeth would be a widow, I would never see her, or England, again, for even if I survived the trip, word of it might get home, and I’d be an outlaw, a felon …
I sat down on the cargo with my head in my hands, and wept, and raged inwardly against that little Scotch scoundrel. G - d, if ever I had the chance to pay him back—but what was the use of thinking that way in my present plight? In the end, as usual, one thought came uppermost in my mind—survive, Flashy, and let the rest wait. But I resolved to keep my spite warm in the meantime.
In the circumstances it was as well that I had work to do; going through that cargo, as I did when a couple of hands and the ship’s clerk came down presently, at least occupied part of my thoughts, and kept me from working myself into a terror about the future. After all, thinks I, men like these didn’t sign on in the expectation of dying; they seemed handy, sober fellows who knew their business—very different from the usual tarry-john. One of them, an oldish man named Kirk, had been a slaver all his days, and had served on the notorious Black Joke;12 he wouldn’t have shipped on any other kind of vessel.
“What,” says he, “at £15 a month? I’d be a fool. D’ye know, I’ve four thousand quid put by, in Liverpool and Charleston banks—how many sailormen have the tenth of that? Risk? I’ve been impounded once, on the Joke, shipwrecked once, and seen two cargoes of black ivory slung overside—which meant a dead loss for the owners, but I drew me pay, didn’t I? Oh, aye, I’ve been chased a score o’ times, and been yard-arm to yard-arm in running fights wi’ Limey an’ Yankee patter-rollers, but no harm done. An’ for sickness, ye’ve more chance of that from some poxed-up yellow tart in Havana than on the coast these days. You’ve been east—well, you know to keep yourself clean an’ boil your water, then.”
He made it sound not half bad, apart from the stuff about fighting the patrols, but I understood that this was a rare event—the Balliol College had never been touched in five trips that he knew of, although she had been sighted and chased times without number.
“She’s built light, see, like all the Baltimore brigs an’ clippers,” says Kirk. “Save a patch o’ calm, she’ll show her heels to anything, even steam-ships. West o’ Saint Tommy, even wi’ a full load o’ black cattle, she could snap her fingers at the whole Navy, and wi’ the fair winds coming south, like we are now, she’s gone before they see her. Only risky time is on the coast itself, afore we load up. If they was to catch us there, wi’ the Government wind pinning us on the coast, they could impound us, empty an’ all, ’cos o’ the law as lays down that if you’re rigged and fitted for slavin’, like we are, they can pinch you even wi’out a black aboard. Used to be that even then they couldn’t touch ye, if ye had the right papers—Greek, say, or Braziliano.” He laughed. “Why, I’ve sailed on a ship that had Yankee, Gyppo, Portugee, an’ even Rooshian papers all ready for inspection, as might serv
e. But it’s different now—ye don’t talk, ye run.”13
He and the clerk and the other man—I think he was a Norwegian—harked back a good deal to the old days, when the slaveships had waited in turn at the great African barracoons to ship their cargoes, and how the Navy had spoiled the trade by bribing the native chiefs not to deal with slavers, so that all the best stretches of coast nowadays were out of court, and no niggers to be had.
“Mind you,” says Kirk, winking, “show ’em the kind o’ goods we got here, an’ they’ll spring you a likely cargo o’ Yorubas or Mandingos, treaty or not—an’ if sometimes you have to fight for ’em, as we did two trips back, well, it comes cheaper, don’t it? An’ Cap’n Spring, he’s got a grand nose for a tribal war, or a chief that’s got too many young bucks of his own people on his hands. He’s a caution, he is, an’ worth every penny the owners pay him. Like to guess ’ow much?”
I said I had no idea.
“Twenty thousand pounds a trip,” says Kirk. “There now! An’ you wonder I ship on a slaver!”
I knew slavers made huge profits, of course, but this staggered me. No wonder old Morrison had an interest in the trade—and no doubt paid a subscription to the Anti-Slavery Society and thought it well worthwhile. And he wasn’t laying out overmuch in trade goods, by the look of this cargo—you never saw so much junk, although just the kind of stuff to make a nigger chief happy, no doubt. There were old Brown Bess muskets that probably hadn’t been fired in fifty years, sackfuls of condemned powder and shot, rusty bayonets and cheap cutlasses and knives, mirrors and looking glasses by the dozen, feathered hats and check trousers, iron pots and plates and cauldrons, and most amazing of all, a gross of Army red coats, 34th Foot; one of ’em had a bullet-hole and a rusty stain on the right breast, and I remember thinking, bad luck for someone. There was a packet of letters in the pocket, which I meant to keep, but didn’t.
And there was case after case of liquor, in brown glass bottles; gin, I suppose you’ld call it, but even to sniff the stuff shrivelled the hairs off your arse. The blacks wouldn’t know the difference, of course.
We were searching through all this trash, I counting and calling out to the clerk, who ticked the manifest, and Kirk and his fellow stowing back, when Looney, the idiot steward, came down to gape at us. He squatted down, dribbling out of the corner of his mouth, making stupid observations, till Kirk, who was bundling the red coats, sings out to him to come over. Kirk had taken two of the brass gorgets off the officers’ coats—they must have been d - - - - d old uniforms—and winking at us he laid the gorgets on the deck, and says:
“Now, Looney, you’re a sharp ’un. Which is the biggest? If you can tell, I’ll give you my spirits tomorrow. If you can’t you give me yours, see?”
I saw what he was after: the gorgets were shaped like half-moons, and whichever was laid uppermost looked bigger—children amuse themselves with such things, cut out of paper. Looney squinted at them, giggling, and pointing to the top gorget, says:
“That ’un.”
“Ye’re sure?” says Kirk, and taking the gorget which Looney had indicated, placed it beneath the other one—which now looked bigger, of course. Looney stared at it, and then said:
“That un’s bigger now.”
Kirk changed them again, while his mates laughed, and Looney was bewildered. He gaped round helplessly, and then kicking the gorgets aside, he shouted:
“You make ’em bigger an’—an’ littler!”
And he started to cry, calling Kirk a dirty b - - - - - d, which made us laugh all the more, so he shouted obscenities at us and stamped, and then ran over to a pile of bags stowed beyond the cargo and began to urinate on them, still swearing at us over his shoulder.
“Hold on!” cries Kirk, when he could contain his mirth. “That’s the niggers’ gruel you’re p - - - - - g on!”
I was holding my sides, guffawing, and the clerk cries out:
“That’ll make the dish all the tastier for ’em! Oh, my stars!”
Looney, seeing us amused, began to laugh himself, as such idiots will and p - - - - - d all the harder, and then suddenly I heard the others’ laughter cut off, and there was a step on the ladder, and there stood John Charity Spring, staring at us with a face like the demon king. Those pale eyes were blazing, and Looney gave a little whimper and fumbled with his britches, while the piddle ran across the tilting deck towards Spring’s feet.
Spring stood there in a silence you could feel, while we scrambled up. His hands clenched and unclenched, and the scar on his head was blazing crimson. His mouth worked, and then he leaped at Looney and knocked the cowering wretch down with one smashing blow. For a moment I thought he would set about the half-wit with his boots, but he mastered himself, and wheeled on us.
“Bring that—that vermin on deck!” he bawled, and stamped up the ladder, and I was well ahead of the seamen in rushing to Looney and dragging him to the scuttle. He yelled and struggled, but we forced him up on deck, where Spring was stamping about in a spitting rage, and the hands were doubling aft in response to the roars of the Yankee first mate.
“Seize him up there,” orders Spring, and with me holding Looney’s thrashing legs, Kirk very deftly tied his wrists up to the port shrouds and ripped his shirt off. Spring was calling for the cat, but someone says there wasn’t one.
“Then make one, d - - n you!” he shouted, and paced up and down, casting dreadful glances at the imploring Looney, who was babbling in his bonds.
“Don’t hit us, cap’n! Please don’t hit us! It was them other b - - - - - ds, changin’ things!”
“Silence!” says Spring, and Looney’s cries subsided to a whisper, while the crew crowded about to see the sport. I kept back, but made sure I had a good view.
They gave Spring a hastily made cat, and he buttoned his jacket tight and pulled his hat down.
“Now, you b - - - - r, I’ll make you dance!” cries he, and laid in for all he was worth. Looney screamed and struggled; each time the lashes hit him he shrieked, and between each stroke Spring cursed him for all he was worth.
“Foul my ship, will you?” Whack! “Ruin the food for my cargo, by G - d!” Whack! “Spread pestilence with your filth, will you?” Whack! “Yes, pray, you wharfside son-of-a-b - - - h, I’m listening!” Whack! “I’ll cut your b - - - - y soul out, if you have one!” Whack! If it had been a regulation Army cat, I think he’d have killed him; as it was, the hastily spliced yarn cut the idiot’s back to bits and the blood ran over his ragged trousers. His screams became moans, and then silence, and then Spring flung the cat overboard.
“Souse him and let him hang there to dry!” says he, and then he addressed the unconscious victim. “And let me catch you at your filthy tricks again, you scum, so help me G - d I’ll hang you—d’ye hear!”
He glared at us with his madman’s eyes, and my heart was in my mouth for a moment. Then his scar faded, and he said in his normal bark:
“Dismiss the hands, Mr Comber. Mr Sullivan, and you, supercargo, come aft. Mrs Spring is serving tea.”
There were a few curious glances at me as I followed Spring and the Yankee mate—I was new to the crew, of course—and as we went down the ladder to his cabin, Spring looked me over. “Go and put on a jacket,” he growled. “G - d d - - n you, don’t you know anything?” so I scudded off smartly, and when I came back they were still waiting. He examined me—and in a flash of memory I thought of waiting with Wellington to see the Queen, and being fussed over by flunkeys—and then he threw open the door.
“I trust we don’t intrude, my dear,” says he. “I have brought Mr Sullivan to tea, and our new supercargo, Mr Flashman.”
I don’t know what I expected—the Queen of Sheba wouldn’t have surprised me, aboard the Balliol College—but it wasn’t the mild-looking, middle-aged woman sitting behind a table, picking at a sampler, who turned to beam at us pleasantly, murmured something in greeting, and then set to pouring tea. Presently Comber came in, smoothing his hair, and the grizzled
old second mate, Kinnie, who ducked his head to me when Spring made us known to each other. Mrs Spring handed over cups, and we stood round sipping, and nibbling at her biscuits, while she beamed and Spring talked—she had little to say for herself, but he paid her as much respect as though it had been a London drawing-room. I had to pinch myself to believe it was real: a tea-party aboard a slaver, with this comfortable woman adding hot water to the pot while a flogged man was bleeding all over the deck above our heads, and Spring, his cuff specked with the victim’s gore, was laying it off about Thucydides and Horace.
“Mr Flashman has had the beginning of an education, my dear,” says he. “He was with Dr Arnold at Rugby School.”
She turned a placid face in my direction. “Mr Spring is a classical scholar,” says she. “His father was a Senior Fellow.”
“Senior Tutor, if you please, my dear,” says Spring. “And it’s my belief he achieved that position by stealing the work of better men. Scholarship is merely a means to an end these days, and paucis carior est fides quam pecunia.e You remember Sallust, Mr Comber? No? There seems to be little to choose between the ignorance of Rugby and that of Winchester College.” (Oho, thinks I, Winchester, that accounts for a lot.) “However, if we have some leisure on this voyage, we may repair these things, may we not, Mr Flashman?”
I mumbled something about being always eager to learn.
“Aye,” says he, “pars sanitatis velle sanari fuit,f we may hope. But I imagine Seneca is yet another among the many authors with whom you are not acquainted.” He munched on a biscuit, the pale blue eyes considering me. “Tell me, sir, what do you know?”
I stole a glance at the others; Kinnie had his head down over his cup, and Sullivan, the big, raw-boned Yankee, was gazing bleakly before him. Comber was looking nervous.
“Well, sir,” says I, “not very much …” And then, like a fool, I added, toady-like: “Not as much as a Fellow of Oriel College, I’m sure.”
Comber’s cup clattered suddenly. Spring says, very soft: “I am not a Fellow, Mr Flashman. I was dismissed.”
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