Voyage of Midnight

by Michele Torrey

  VOYAGE OF MIDNIGHT

  Being the true story of my, Philip

  Arthur Higgins’, misfortunate childhood,

  of my subsequent voyage from Africa

  with a cargo of slaves, of the frightful

  sufferings endured during that middle passage,

  and of what happened afterward.

  As told to

  MICHELE TORREY

  Once again, a hearty thank-you goes to Ron Wanttaja, my fellow writer and Washingtonian, for his assistance with all things nautical. His keen sensibilities and sharp “weather eye” kept me from going too far adrift (or so he thinks!). Also, my heartfelt appreciation goes to Susan Marlow of Washington and Erick Cordero of Costa Rica for their help with the Spanish. ¡Gracias! As in all my previous books, if there are any remaining errors or exaggerations, whether nautical or otherwise, they remain my responsibility alone, as to write a story of this nature it is often necessary to perform a balancing act between “fact” and “fiction.”

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2006 by Michele Torrey

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  KNOPF, BORZOI BOOKS, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at

  www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Torrey, Michele.

  Voyage of midnight / Michele Torrey. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  SUMMARY: In the early nineteenth century, when his sea-captain uncle invites him to assist the ship’s surgeon on his next voyage, orphaned fourteen-and-a-half-year-old Philip, eager to be with family, accepts, only to find out that his uncle is a slave trader.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-77119-3

  [1. Orphans—Fiction. 2. Physicians—Fiction. 3. Slave trade—Fiction.

  4. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 5. Uncles—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.T645725Voo 2006

  [Fic]—dc22 2005036269

  v3.1

  To my father,

  who sowed the seeds

  of equalíty,

  justice,

  and human rights

  in my heart

  And to those

  who have died

  without a voice

  Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound,

  that saved a wretch, like me!

  I once was lost but now am found,

  was blind but now I see!

  —John Newton,

  former slave trader, 1779

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Glossary of Sea Terms

  Bibliography

  I never saw my father. He was a seafaring man and died before I was born, lost overboard in the middle of an Atlantic gale.

  My mother and I lived together for four and a half years at our cottage in Magford, England, before she fell ill and breathed her last, leaving me with nothing but her cold hand pressed against my cheek and the pound of rain against the shutters.

  Thus, in the year 1811, I became an orphan and a ward of the parish.

  I needn’t relate in detail my life in the Magford workhouse—the watery gruel and hard bread; the scowling face and long cane of Master Crump; the nights, the years, spent shivering beneath my moth-eaten blanket—no, for it’s the story of many an orphan and so holds no uniqueness other than that it happened to me. It’s enough to say that I was miserable, praying each night to God Almighty that I might join my father and mother in heaven. For what, indeed, was the purpose of living if I was only to suffer?

  When I reached the age of ten, I was sent to work for a cushion maker. I’d have thought it impossible for my suffering to increase, but increase it did. Already I was a sickly lad, pale, scrawny, no larger than a child of seven or eight years old. I was placed in a confined, hot shed where it was my task to pick the sticks from piled moss before feeding it into enormous, clattery, steam-powered rollers with teeth that looked as if they’d fancy nothing better than to devour the arm of an orphan. Clouds of dust constantly swirled about the room, into my nostrils, my mouth, my lungs. My eyes swelled and smarted, red and itchy. Each evening, I was let off from work to eat my supper of black bread and thin beer, after which I curled up in the shed loft on a pile of dirty cushions stuffed with moss.

  Oh, Father in heaven, I’d ask, coughing, already knowing the answer, does nobody love me? Me, Philip Arthur Higgins, who once had a mother who kissed his cheek and a father who promised to return from the sea to see his first son born? Does nobody love me anymore?

  After endless months of working for the cushion maker, one day my hand caught in the roller. Pain raced up my arm, and I shrieked and fainted as the rollers mercifully shuddered to a halt.

  “Philip Higgins? Come, lad, wake up. Look sharp, I say. There’s someone here to see you.”

  I opened my eyes, my hand smarting, my body raging with fever. I lay in a bed in the workhouse infirmary. Master Crump towered over me, scowling, reeking of camphor. He poked my ribs with his cane. Once he saw I’d awakened, he stepped aside and another man took his place. A stranger whose blue eyes glittered with curiosity as he peered at me and I at him.

  I blinked the sleep away and sat up.

  He was handsome, about thirty years of age, swarthy, his skin weathered and darkened by the sun, his hair dark brown and curly. Two gold hoops dangled from his ears. His shirt was striped red and white, his trousers made of tarred canvas, wide-legged and chopped off just below the knee. Stockings covered his muscular calves, silver-buckled shoes his feet.

  I made a pitiful object compared to him.

  “I’m your uncle,” he growled, not unkindly. “Your mother’s elder brother. Isaac Smythe is my name.” He smiled then, his teeth glinting of gold, shining, to my eyes, like heaven’s glory.

  I burst into tears.

  I’m no longer alone. I’ve an uncle.… Dear God, an uncle …

  “Come now, lad, stop your blubbering and dry your eyes.” Uncle produced a handkerchief and I blew heartily into it, wiping my eyes and staring at him as if he’d disappear were I to blink.

  “But how … but why …?” The words twisted in my throat and I blubbered again, the pain of so many years of hardship making it impossible for me to speak.

  Uncle laid a hand upon my shoulder, a strong hand that near collapsed me with its weight. “When I was your age, or a bit older perhaps, I ran away to sea. I’ve only just come
home to find my sister long dead, with her child living like a pauper.” He fell silent then while I blubbered on and my head clogged with happiness.

  An uncle! An uncle!

  When I finally composed myself enough to dry my eyes again, Uncle dropped a few halfpence into my uninjured hand. They clinked together, making a jolly sound. “See that you’re a good lad, Philip, and that you get well. Pray, try to be a man, and maybe you’ll find your tongue.”

  I’d always believed the thin-lipped scowl upon Master Crump’s face to be a permanent fixture, but when Uncle placed two quid into his hand, the scowl vanished. “I’ll be sending money for his upkeep. Mind his hand and his health or it’ll go poorly for you.” Turning to me, he said, “Take care, Nephew, for I shall return someday.”

  And with a wave, Uncle was gone.

  The next few months were the happiest of my life, at least since before the day my mother had died. My hand healed—though I’d carry the mark of the accident to my grave—and my health improved. But more than that, I knew somebody loved me and that I was no longer alone.

  Scarce a moment went by when I didn’t recall Uncle’s kindness, his glinting teeth of gold, his jaunty air of adventure, his dropping the coins into my hand, and, best of all, his warning Master Crump to look after me or it’d go poorly for him. I knew that someday Uncle would return as he’d promised and we’d live together as a family, and I’d never have to smell the moldy stench of the workhouse nor eat pauper gruel again. I imagined a home, warm and smelling of meat pies, with a roaring hearth and real beds with posts and pillows. I imagined attending a regular school, for though I’d received some basic reading and writing, and of course my catechism, from the parish fathers, they seemed more interested in how fast and long I could work before I fell ill once again.

  Six months passed, and my memory of Uncle’s face began to dim.

  I was certain too that Master Crump was pocketing Uncle’s money without any benefit to me. The one time I dared to ask Master Crump about it—and couldn’t he afford to feed me more than gruel?—I felt the sting of his cane and was told that impertinence was a sin. I was then locked in a dark cupboard until the next evening, a frequent punishment in which Master Crump took pleasure and which I feared more than death.

  On nights when the wind rattled the roof and rainwater sluiced down the windows, nights when I shivered under my blanket, staring at the single burning candle that the night warden secretly allowed me, I worried for Uncle. Perhaps, like my father, he’d been lost at sea, swallowed by an Atlantic gale.

  After a year, to my bitter disappointment, I was let out to work once again. Upon my leaving, Master Crump presented me with a catechism in blue paper covers. It smelled of camphor. “Mind your catechism, lad,” Master Crump pronounced. “You’re not long for this world anyhow, but while you are spared, you must work sharp and mind your catechism.”

  As usual, I cowered under his presence, wishing that I’d my uncle’s strength and force of character. “Th-thank you,” I muttered, wondering if it was a sin to thank someone for making your life a misery.

  Finally, standing on the stoop with my hand on the latch, I summoned the courage to speak. “Master Crump, please, m-must I truly go out to work? Is—isn’t my uncle providing for my welfare?”

  I hardly took another breath before he grabbed my arm. I heard the whoosh of the cane. Felt it crack against my back.

  “Why, you ungrateful wretch!” Master Crump was yelling, loud enough for everyone in the workhouse to hear.

  Whack!

  “There are necessary evils—”

  Whack!

  “—in this life—”

  Whack!

  Whack!

  “—and we must all do—”

  Whack!

  “—our part—”

  Whack!

  “—by enduring what—”

  Whack!

  “—must be—”

  Whack!

  “—endured!”

  Whack!

  Whack!

  This time I worked in the cotton mill. I was forced to stand on a crate for sixteen to eighteen hours every day, and if I sagged from exhaustion, I was quickly roused by a sharp box on the ears or a savage kick on my backside. It was difficult to tie up the threads while my eyes were blinded by tears, while I breathed in lint dust, and while my head swirled with dizziness. Finally my legs gave way and I collapsed into such a state that no amount of kicking could rouse me. Back I went to the workhouse, where I nearly died of fever.

  By the time I recovered, I’d reached my twelfth year and it was time that the parish authorities were relieved of my charge. Unfortunately, no one wanted me. I was known among the townsfolk as a “luckless lad,” not very useful and so chronically ill that I’d soon be at heaven’s gate. I was summoned before the parish board, where three stout, red-faced, bewigged gentlemen peered at me over their spectacles.

  “Do you wish to go live with your uncle?” one of them asked me.

  I gasped. “He’s alive?”

  “Of course he’s alive, lad.”

  “Oh yes! Please, I want to live with my uncle!”

  And so, to my profound relief and joy, it was arranged. I, Philip Arthur Higgins, would board a ship in Liverpool and sail to a city called New Orleans, in America, where my uncle lived.

  On a crisp September day in 1818, I gladly left my native soil.

  I stepped aboard the ship Hope, firmly believing that her name represented my new status—that of a lucky lad, on his way to a relative who joyously awaited his arrival. I clutched my blue catechism to my chest (the book now worn and dog-eared), my spare clothing and a letter from the parish authorities stuffed inside a large knotted handkerchief. (Though I’d not read the contents of the wax-sealed letter, I imagined it stated Uncle’s desire that I reside with him, granting him custody.)

  With a shilling in hand, dressed in my new corduroy breeches, a new shirt, a new red leather hat, and new leather brogans that squeaked when I walked, I stood on the deck and peered through the crowd, wondering who’d been appointed as my guardian during the long voyage over. After the Hope cast off, I wandered a bit, knocked about by sailors and shoved aside by rough passengers. But after both dinner and supper had come and gone and no one had yet to appear as guardian, I made my way down to steerage and squeezed into a corner of the bulkhead where a dim light fell. There I collapsed into a fitful sleep, my head on my bundle, my stomach squalling louder than a baby.

  For the entire night, I lay, scarce able to breathe as the ship rocked and lurched. The air was stifling and smelled like a privy. I believed I might die as my stomach turned inside out again and again. By morning I could hardly raise a finger from weakness. About me I saw throngs of people, some ill like me, some laughing, quarreling, talking. Children played. Men smoked pipes. Women cooked meals and greasy smells fattened the suffocating air. Throughout the day I heard cursing and moaning. Feet tramped constantly past my little nook, and no one gave me a second glance. In this position I passed a second night, and a third, until fever raged once again and my mouth hung open, parched with thirst.

  I’d have died, I suppose, had not a family noticed my condition. By their brogue I knew them to be Irish. Their clothing was patched and thin, their faces pinched with hunger. Though they’d nothing to spare, they fed and nursed me throughout that long voyage.

  “Thank you,” I’d whisper.

  “Think nothing of it, child,” they’d reply.

  The Hope was beaten by storms and tossed about like a cork while hundreds of souls moaned and cried. Halfway through our voyage many of us became ill with typhus, and bodies were being cast overboard daily. Sharks followed so closely that sometimes families saw their dead relations torn to shreds before the bodies could sink. Upon our arrival in Baltimore seventy-seven days later, over forty of the four hundred fifty passengers had died. That I wasn’t among their number was a miracle.

  My Irish family bade me farewell after a period of q
uarantine. They gave me a few shriveled potatoes to keep me until I reached New Orleans but refused the shilling I offered, saying I’d have need of it. By this time I was well enough to stand by the rail. My heart beat fiercely as I waved goodbye. I wished I could go with them, even though my uncle waited for me in New Orleans.

  I’d thought New Orleans was just a few days’ sail away. But I was to spend eleven more weeks aboard the Hope. My potatoes and shilling long gone, I’d no choice but to beg for food and drink. Ashamed, I roamed the decks, a mere skeleton, my new clothes turned to rags long ago.

  “Please, mister, can you spare a crumb?”

  “Please, ma’am, can you help a poor orphan?”

  “Please, mister, I’m quite hungry.”

  I hated my words. I hated my condition.

  Then and there, I vowed to never be hungry again. Never. Once I arrived in New Orleans, that is.

  I wondered what Master Crump was eating for dinner, and whether it was hot, and whether he had to pick the mouse droppings out of it first. I hoped it was cold, moldy, weevily gruel. And whatever the nourishment, God forgive me, I prayed he’d choke to death.

  When the Hope finally arrived in New Orleans, I clambered over many ships to reach the wharf. There were so many that they moored five, six deep, with wooden planks placed from gangway to gangway for crossing.

  The wharf was a frightening place. It was a quarter of a mile broad and stretched in both directions forever. Bales of cotton lay stacked about, walls of white. Shouts and cries came from every angle—merchants hawking oranges, oysters, and fish. A never-ending stream of half-naked Indians, coarse riverboat-men, immigrant families, and gangs of slaves flowed by. Though I’d heard of slaves, I’d never seen one before. I gawked at the color of their skin, some so dark it shone like blacklead polish. They shuffled past and I shrank back, looking up and down the wharf. How would I ever find Uncle? How would he ever find me?

  Panting, I scrambled atop a cotton bale, dragging my grimy clothes-filled handkerchief, in which I still carried the sealed letter. “Uncle?” I called, searching the crowd. “Uncle?”