“Burn your powder, you useless son of a Geordie coaster skipper, you!” bawls Spring from the wheel. “Look alive, Mr Sullivan!” And he sent out a perfect volley of orders as the Balliol College heeled gently and lifted to the first puffs of wind, and then I found myself tailing on a rope with the others, hauling for dear life and wondering what the d - - - l would happen next.
If I were a nautical man, no doubt I could tell you, but I’m not, thank God; the mysteries of ship handling are as obscure to me today as they were fifty years ago. If I were Bosun McHearty I daresay I could describe how we jibed with our futtock gans’ls clewed up to the orlop bitts, and weathered her, d’ye see, with a lee helm and all plain sail to the bilges, burn me buttocks. As it was, I just stuck like a shadow to a big Portugal nigger of the deck watch, called Lord Peabody, and tailed on behind him with the pulley-hauley, while Spring and Sullivan bawled their jargon, the men aloft threw themselves about like acrobats, and the Balliol College began to surge forward at greater speed. There was another shot from the sloop, and an ironic cheer from our fellows—why I couldn’t imagine, for our pursuer was soon cracking along famously, and I could make out her ensign plainly, and the figures on her deck, all far too close for comfort. I saw, in the intervals of scampering about after Peabody, and hauling on the ropes, that she would be able to fire in earnest soon, and I was just commending my soul to God and wondering if I could turn Queen’s Evidence, when Spring let loose another volley of orders, there was a tremendous cracking and bellying of sails overhead, and the Balliol College seemed to spin round on her heel, plunge over with a lurch that brought my breakfast up, and then go bowling away across the track of the sloop.
I don’t understand it, of course, but in the next hour Spring executed a similar manoeuvre half a dozen times, while the wind freshened, and although the sloop copied our movements, so far as I could see, she always somehow finished up farther away—no doubt any yachtsman could explain it. The hands cheered and laughed, although you could hardly hear them for the fearful howling that was coming from below decks, where the slaves were spewing and yelling in terror at the bucketing of the ship. And then we were standing out to sea again, and the sloop was away off our quarter, still flying along, but making no headway at all.
Only then did Spring hand over the wheel and come to the stern rail, where he delivered a catechism to the distant Navy vessel, calling them lubberly sons of dogs and shaking his fist at them.
“There’s where the tax-payer’s money goes!” he roared. “That’s what’s supposed to defend us against the French! Look at them! I could sail rings round ’em in a Blackwall coal lighter! Quo, quo, scelesti ruitis,a eh? I tell you, Mr Sullivan, a crew of All Souls dons could do better on a raft! What the blazes are they letting into the Navy these days? He’ll be some rum-soaked short-haul pensioner, no doubt—either that or a beardless brat with a father in the Lords and some ladylike Mama whoring round the Admiralty. My stars, wouldn’t I like to put them all to sea under Bully Waterman,24 or let ’em learn their trade in an opium clipper with a Down East Yankee skipper and a Scotch owner—you hear that, you Port Mahon bumboatman, you? You ought to be on the beach!”
It was fine stuff, but wasted since the sloop was miles away; by afternoon she was just a speck on the horizon, and the coast of Africa had vanished behind us. The ease of our escape, I was told, all came of Spring knowing his weather, for standing away from the Slave coast was evidently a most unchancy business, and many slavers had been caught in the calms that so often beset them there. But some of the deltas and river mouths could be relied on to give you wind, and Spring knew all about this; it was also true that he was a first-rate seaman with a prime crew, and together they were probably a match for anything. We did sight another patrol vessel on the following day, but we were tearing along at such a rate that she never came near us, and Spring didn’t even interrupt his dinner.
It was blowing fairly stiffish now, and the slaves had an abominable time. For the first few days they just lay howling and weeping in their sea-sickness, but Spring insisted that the huge coppers and tubs in which their pulse porridge was made should be kept at work, and by flogging one of the bucks down on the slave deck in the sight of his fellows he terrified them into eating, ill as they were. Murphy was constantly at work, especially among the women, to make sure that none died, and twice a day the hoses were turned on to scour out the filth which would otherwise have bred an epidemic in no time.
About the fourth day, the wind dropped, the slaves stopped spewing, and the cooks who tended the mess tubs became the hardest-worked men on the ship. One thing the Balliol College didn’t stint to its human cargo, and that was food—which was good business, of course. Spring also insisted that lime juice be issued, and the slaves forced to drink it—they hated it, but when they saw it was that or the cat they swilled it down fast enough. They were still in a fearful funk, of course, since they had no idea of what the ocean was like, and couldn’t seem to get used to the rolling of the ship; when they weren’t eating or sleeping they just lay there in their long black rows, wailing and rolling their eyes like frightened sheep. There was no spirit in them at all, and I began to see why the slavers thought of them not as humans, but as animals.
Every day they went through a curious exercise which was called dancing. They were brought up on deck in batches, and forced to caper about for half an hour, leaping up and down and trotting round the deck. This of course was just to keep them in trim; they didn’t like that, either, at first, and we had to smarten them with rope’s ends to get them moving. But after the first few times they began to enjoy it, and it was the most ludicrous sight to see them skipping and shuffling round the deck, clapping their hands and even crooning to themselves, the bolder spirits grinning and rolling their eyes—they were just like children, forgetting the misery of their condition, and sky-larking about, quite delighted if the hands cried encouragement to them. One of the fellows had a fiddle, on which he would play jigs and reels, and the niggers would try to outdo each other in capering to the music.
The men got over their fears faster than the women, who danced with much less jollity, although everyone on the ship was always on hand to watch them. You couldn’t have called any of ’em pretty, with their pug faces and great woolly mops of hair, but they had fine shapely bodies, and none of us had seen a proper woman for near on six weeks. The sight of those naked black bodies shuffling and swaying got me into a fever the first time I saw it, and the others were the same, licking their lips and muttering when was Murphy the surgeon going to set about his business?
I understood what this meant when we were all ordered to report and strip down for Murphy in his berth, where he examined us carefully to see that none of us had pox or crabs or yaws or any of the interesting diseases that wicked sailormen are prone to. When we were pronounced clean Spring had us each pick out a black wench—I thought this was by way of seaman’s comforts, but it turned out that the more black wenches who could be got pregnant by white men, the better the traders liked it, for they would produce mulatto children, who being half-white were smarter and more valuable than pure blacks. The Cuban dealers trusted Spring, and if he could guarantee that all his female slaves had been bulled by his crew, it would add to their price.
“I want all these wenches pupped,” says he, “but you’ll do it decently, d’you hear, salvo pudore,b in your quarters. I’ll not have Mrs Spring offended.”
It may sound like just the kind of holiday for a fellow like me, but it was no great fun as it turned out. I picked out a likely enough big wench, jet black and the liveliest dancer of the lot, but she knew nothing, and she reeked of jungle even when she was scrubbed down. I tried to coax some spirit into her, first by kindness and then by rope’s end, but she was no more use than a bishop’s maiden aunt. However, one has to make do, and in the intervals of our laborious grappling I tried to indulge my interest in foreign languages, which apart from horses is the only talent I can boast. I can us
ually make good use of a native pillow partner in this way, provided she speaks English, but of course this one didn’t, and was as stupid as a Berkshire hog into the bargain. So it was no go as far as learning anything was concerned, but I did succeed in teaching her a few useful English words and phrases like:
“Me Lady Caroline Lamb. Me best rattle in Balliol College.”
The hands thought this a great joke, and just for devilment I also taught her a tag from Horace, and with immense work got her perfect in it, so that when you pinched her backside she would squeak out:
“Civis Romanus sum. Odi profanum vulgus.”c
Spring almost leaped out of his skin when he heard it, and was not at all amused. He took the opportunity to upbraid me for not having sent her back to the slave-deck and taken another wench, for he wanted them all covered; I said I didn’t want to break in any more of ’em, and suggested that if this one learned a little English it might add to her value; he raised his voice and d - - - - d my impudence, not realising that Mrs Spring had come up the companion and could hear us. She startled him by suddenly remarking:
“Mr Flashman is a constant heart. I knew it the moment I first saw him.”
She was mad, of course, but Spring was much put out, because she wasn’t meant to know what was going on with the black women. But he let me keep Lady Caroline Lamb.
So it was a pleasant enough cruise to begin with, for the weather blew just enough to give us a good passage without being too rough for the niggers; their health remained good, with no deaths in the first week, which greatly pleased Spring; the work was light above deck, as it always is in a fast ship with a favourable wind, and there was time to sit about watching the flying fish and listening to the hands swapping yarns—my respect for them had increased mightily over our encounter with the British sloop, which had confirmed my earlier impression that these were no ordinary packet rats with the points knocked off their knives, but prime hands. And I’ve learned that no time is wasted which is spent listening to men who really know their work.
However, as always when I feel I can loaf for a spell, something happened which drove all other thoughts out of my head—even my daydreams about Elspeth, and how I might contrive to come home respectably before too long, and scupper old Morrison, too, if possible. What happened was little enough, and not unexpected, but in the long run it certainly saved my liberty, and probably my life.
On the seventh day out from Dahomey, Murphy came to me and said I must go directly to Comber, who was dying. Since we sailed he’d been stowed away in a little cubby off the main cabin aft, where there was a window and Mrs Spring could tend to him.
“It’s all up with him, poor lad,” says Murphy, fuming with liquor. “His bowels is mortified, I’m thinkin’; maybe that jezebel’s spear wuz pizened. Any roads, he wants to see you.”
I couldn’t think why, but I went along, and as soon as I clapped eyes on him I could see it was the Union Jack for this one, no error. His face was wasted and yellow, with big purple blotches beneath the eyes, and he was breathing like a bellows. He was lying on the berth with just a blanket over him, and the hand on top of it was like a bird’s claw. He signed feebly to me to shut the door, and I squatted down on a stool beside his cot.
He lay for a few moments, gazing blankly at the sunbeams from the open window, and then says, in a very weak voice:
“Flashman, do you believe in God?”
Well, I’d expected this, of course; his wasn’t the first death-bed I’d sat by, and they usually get religious sooner or later. There’s nothing for it but to squat down on your hunkers and let them babble. Dying people love to talk—I know I do, and I’ve been in extremis more often than most. So to humour him I said certainly there was a God, not a doubt about it, and he chewed this over a bit and says:
“And if there is a God, and a Heaven—there must be a Devil, and a Hell? Must there not?”
I’d heard that before, too, so playing up to my part as the Rev. Flashy, B.D., I told him opinion was divided on the point. In any event, says I, if there was a Hell it couldn’t be much worse than life on this earth—which I don’t believe for a minute, by the way.
“But there is a Hell!” cries he, turning on me with his eyes shining feverishly. “I know it—a terrible, flaming Hell in which the damned burn through all Eternity! I know it, Flashman, I tell you!”
I could have told him this was what came of looking at the pictures in Bunyan’s Holy War, which had blighted my young life for a spell when I first struck it. But I soothed him by pointing out that if there was a Hell, it was reserved for prime sinners only, and he probably wasn’t up to that touch.
He rolled his head about on the pillow, biting his lip with distress and the pain of his wound.
“But I am a sinner,” he gasped. “A fearful sinner. Oh, I do fear I am beyond redemption! The Saviour will turn from me, I know.”
“Oh, I’m not sure, now,” says I. “Slaving ain’t that bad, you know.”
He groaned and closed his eyes. “There is no such sin on my conscience,” says he fretfully, which I didn’t understand. “It is my weak flesh that has betrayed me. I have so many sins—I have broken the seventh commandment …”
I couldn’t be sure about this; I had a suspicion it was the one about oxen and other livestock, which seemed unlikely, but with a man who’s half-delirious you can never tell.
“What is it that’s troubling you?” I asked.
“In that—that village …” he said, speaking with effort “Those … those women. Oh, God … pity me … I lusted after them … in my mind … I looked on them … as David looked on Bathsheeba. I desired them, carnally, sinfully … oh, Flashman … I am guilty … in His sight … I …”
“Now, look here,” says I, for I was getting tired of this. “You won’t go to Hell for that. Leastways, if you do, it’ll be a mighty crowded place. You’ll have the entire human race there, including the College of Cardinals, I shouldn’t wonder.”
But he babbled on about the sin of lechery for a bit, and then, as repentant sinners always do, he decided I was right, and took my hand—his was as dry as a bundle of sticks.
“You are a good fellow, Flashman,” says he. “You have eased my mind.” Why he’d been worried beat me; if I thought that when I go I’ll have nothing worse on my conscience than slavering over a buxom bum, well, I’ll die happy, that’s all. But this poor devil had obviously been Bible-reared, and fretted according.
“You truly believe I shall be saved?” says he. “There is forgiveness, is there not? We are taught so—that we may be washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.”
“Clean as a whistle,” says I. “It’s in the book. Now, then, old fellow …”
“Don’t go,” says he, gripping my hand. “Not yet. I’m … I’m dying, you know, Flashman … there isn’t much time …”
I said wouldn’t he like Mrs Spring to look in, but he shook his head.
“There is something … I must do … first. Be patient a moment, my dear friend.”
So I waited, wishing to blazes I was out of there. He was breathing harder than ever, wheezing like an old pump, but he must have been gathering strength, for when he opened his eyes again they were clear and sane, and looked directly at mine.
“Flashman,” says he, earnestly, “how came you aboard this ship?”
It took me aback, but I started to tell him (a revised version, of course), and he cut me off.
“It was against your will?” He was almost pleading.
“Of course. I wouldn’t have …”
“Then you too … oh, in God’s name tell me truthfully … you detest this abomination of slavery?”
Hollo, thinks I, what’s here? Very smartly I said, yes, I detested it. I wanted to see where he was going.
“Thank God!” says he. “Thank God!” And then: “You will swear to me that what I tell you will be breathed to no one on this accursed vessel?”
I swore it, solemnly, and he heaved a great
sigh of relief.
“My belt,” says he. “On the chest yonder. Yes, take it … and cut it open … there, near the buckle.”
Mystified, I examined it. It was a broad, heavy article, double welted. I picked out the stitches as he indicated, with my knife, and the two welts came apart. Between them, folded very tight, was a slender oilskin packet. I unfolded it—and suddenly thought, I’ve been here before: then I remembered slitting open the lining of my own coat by the Jotunschlucht, with de Gautet lying beside me, groaning at the pain of his broken toes. Was that only a few months ago? It seemed an eternity … and then the packet was open, and I was unfolding the two papers within it. I spread the first one out, and found myself gaping at a letterhead design which showed an anchor, and beneath it the words:
“To Lieutenant Beauchamp Millward Comber, R.N. You are hereby required and directed …”
“Good G - d!” says I, staring. “You’re a naval officer!”
He tried to nod, but his wound must have caught him, for he groaned and gasped. Then: “Read on,” says he.
“… to report yourself immediately to the Secretary of the Board of Trade, and receive from him, or such subordinate official as he may appoint, instructions and directions whereby you shall assist, in whatsoever capacity the Secretary shall deem most fitting, against those persons engaged in the illicit and illegal traffic in human slaves between the Guinea, Ivory, Grain, Togo, Dahomey, Niger and Angola Coasts and the Americas. You are most strictly enjoined to obey and carry out all such instructions and directions as though they had proceeded from Their Lordships of the Admiralty or others your superior officers in Her Majesty’s service.” It was signed “Auckland”.
The other paper, which was from the Board of Trade, was really no more than a sort of passport, requesting that all officials, officers, and other persons in H.M. service, and of foreign governments, should render to Lieutenant Comber all assistance of which he might stand in need, etc., etc., but in its way it was equally impressive, for it was signed not only by the President, Labouchere, but also countersigned by my old pal T.B. Macaulay, as Paymaster, and some Frog or other for the French merchant marine.
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