Except for his coughing and wheezing, Jonas didn’t move.
I shook him. “I said, one of our men is down! He could be dying!”
Jonas stirred. “Then what are you waiting for, you stupid boy? Go and fetch him. Do your duty.”
Me? Fetch him? Under enemy fire? But what if I’m hit?
These were my thoughts even as I shoved away from Jonas and dashed through the darkness toward where I’d last seen the wounded fellow. Forward, near the foremast.
Lightning branded the sky. In that instant my breath caught. A sword glittered in its sweep toward my neck. Behind the sword was a man, his face hard and murderous. I ducked and dropped to the deck just as darkness swallowed us, just as the sword swished through nothingness. I crawled away, knees thumping, water sloshing, hearing someone’s frightened panting and realizing it was my own.
Oh God! Save me!
Crawling, crawling, expecting at any second to have my head parted forever from my body, I bumped into something. Something warm, wet, and hairy. And with the next eerie flash, eyes stared out at me from a doughy face. Pale. Sightless. Dead.
It was the man I’d been after.
I stood, muscles tensed, wanting to run, shrieking, back to Jonas.
But at the next stroke of lightning, all thoughts of the dead man vanished. For I spied Pea Soup at the bow, dagger clamped between his teeth, climbing out onto the bowsprit. He glanced back. And in his eyes I saw it again.
It …
That dreadful, murderous hatred.
With a clarity as searching as lightning, I knew there was only one reason Pea Soup would be crawling out on the bowsprit with a dagger.
Sabotage.
No doubt he was off to sever the tow-line that stretched from the end of the jib-boom to the longboat. And if it was severed, the Formidable would be dead in the water. We’d be finished in minutes.
I understood this in the time it took me to leap over the dead man and dart to the bowsprit, heart pounding.
I had to stop him.
Lightning flashed every couple of seconds, illuminating Pea Soup in an eerie light display.
Already he was several feet out over the water, crawling like a caterpillar atop the gigantic wooden spar that thrust outward and upward from the bow of the Formidable like a sword.
Light …
Darkness …
Light …
Darkness …
“Pea Soup!”
He hesitated, then looked back, the shock of discovery registering on his face.
“Pea Soup! I order you to return! Now!”
Light …
Darkness …
“Now! Do you hear me? I—I demand you obey me! I’m your master!” I heard my voice, shrill, hysterical almost, punctuated by earsplitting cracks of thunder.
Narrowed, hate-filled eyes glared back at me. Rain pounded and ran in rivulets down both our faces. Then Pea Soup took the dagger from his mouth, turned away from me, and continued to crawl into the darkness.
I peered at the water below, remembering what lurked beneath.
But I’d no choice. Not if I wished to save Uncle. Not if I wished to save myself and the Formidable.
Taking a shaky breath, I climbed out on the bowsprit. My hands grasped and pulled, slipping on the smooth, wet surface. Water streamed into my eyes. And every few seconds, total darkness surrounded me, except for the images seared into my brain as with a hot iron.
Images of a jutting bowsprit. Pea Soup in front of me, naked except for a loincloth, black as tar, inching along, dagger in hand. The myriad of ropes and lines arced beneath me, sweeping like evil grins—footropes, sheets, and stays, attached at both ends. Creek water, black with night, seeming to roil with shapes beneath. Dreadful, hungry shapes.
By the devil, whatever you do, Philip Arthur Higgins, don’t fall now.
On I struggled.
Desperate, I took a conciliatory tone, though I knew he couldn’t understand a word. “Pea Soup, come back, please. I promise I’m not angry. And if I’ve ever done anything to hurt you, I’m sorry. Tell you what, I’ll give you some extra food—I will, really I will—if you’ll just turn round. All right, several extra portions. Cook’s got some fine jam. You can have bread and jam. Really, I swear I’m not angry. I’m not even angry that you’ve a knife. A gigantic, bloody knife. Just please, please, come back. Pea Soup, Pea Soup, don’t do this.”
And then he stopped. Or rather, he was stopped, by the tangle of spars, lines, and blocks, all coming together at the juncture of the bowsprit with the jibboom—the extra spar that stretched even farther from the ship, maybe forty feet, all told.
I caught his heel.
He kicked me away.
I inched forward and seized his ankle.
He grunted and flailed his leg, catching me in the teeth.
I let go, tasting blood.
Thunder cracked like a musket blast in my ear.
On he crawled.
No!
I lunged for him, grabbing both his ankles.
He kicked. And kicked.
He’s strong, I realized. Far stronger than me.
And with that realization, a brilliant bolt of lightning dazzled my eyeballs and sizzled my spine, and Pea Soup bashed me in the nose with his foot.
Stars exploded.
Off the bowsprit I slid.
Down I went, heart lurching.
Flailing, screaming, I caught one of the arced ropes under the bowsprit with a hand. I dangled over the water. Indeed, there were shapes below. The water boiled with activity. I gasped. “Help me! Pea Soup, help me! For pity’s sake!”
Pea Soup peered down at me.
“Save me! Please! There are sharks in the water!”
And in the stark white light, his eyes hardened. As if they’d suddenly turned to stones.
Then he spoke, the first words I’d ever heard him say. His words, like a stab through my heart. Spoken through wickedly pointed teeth, each word seethed with hatred. “Tonight you will die!”
I saw the flash of steel an instant before he swiped the knife through the air, severing one end of my rope. At that very instant, three things happened. The Formidable shuddered with the firing of her long guns. Pea Soup lost his grip on the knife and it tumbled out of his hands as he bellowed with rage. And I plummeted down before I jerked to a stop, toes skimming the water, desperately clinging to what was left of the rope, wet hemp burning my hands.
I raised my legs, but not before something scraped my foot. Something rough and wet and alive.
“No!” I shrieked.
I don’t want to die! Not like this!
I looked up. Pea Soup had turned about and was crawling back toward the ship. Probably to fetch another knife.
“Help me! Whatever I’ve done, I’m sorry! Pea Soup, don’t leave me! I’ll die! Blast it, Pea Soup, help me!”
I begged and pleaded until Pea Soup was gone and my begging faded to weeping.
I was alone. Although a battle raged about me—men crying out, cutlasses singing, muskets firing, cannon blasting—I was alone.
I squeezed my eyes shut, panting, my heart jumping like a rabbit.
Jaws snapped beneath me.
Something splashed.
My arms began burning, quivering like harp strings. For a moment, a dreadful, awful moment, I thought of letting go, of giving up and letting the night—letting death, the sharks—just take me. All I’d have to do would be to release my hands.
Just let go.
But in that instant I thought of Mrs. Gallagher, of her kind face. Of her saying, Do you promise, absolutely promise, to come home and see us again, my little English boy? I promise, I’d replied. And now I knew I’d do anything in the world to see her and Mr. Gallagher again.
I thought of my miserable life under Master Crump. I thought of my vow to make something of myself. To be like Uncle. To never be hungry again. I thought of the thin-lipped satisfaction Master Crump would feel if he knew I’d been devour
ed by sharks.
A strength born of resolve flowed through me.
Climb, I ordered myself. Climb, Philip Arthur Higgins!
And where moments before I’d have doubted my ability and my strength, indeed I climbed the rope. Amid the battle, sharks snapping beneath me, I climbed the rope like a born sailor.
After, I tumbled onto the deck, collapsing in a heap. I wanted to put my face in my hands and cry, sob, weep, wail—do all sorts of unmanly things—but someone shook me by the shoulder. It was McGuire, the second mate. “Surgeon’s been looking for you. There’s wounded to attend to. Do your duty, he says to tell you.”
“You—you must find Pea Soup and place him in confinement. Immediately. And—and please don’t ask why.”
So, for the rest of that night, I did my duty. Long after we left the American vessel far behind. Long after every naval soldier or officer had been beaten back and either slain or forced overboard.
And as I did my duty—sawing, sewing, bandaging, covered with bodily fluids so wretched I thought I’d surely never eat again and surrounded by shrieks, thunder, and lightning—three thoughts kept running through my head.
Pea Soup hates me.
Pea Soup wants me dead.
Pea Soup speaks English.
The air was hot as a kiln. A sultry breeze whispered over the deck, this way, that way, seeming undecided whether to move us forward or backward, forcing the crew to trim the yards again and again.
Finally the slaves were allowed to come on deck. As it was one of my few moments of rest and relaxation, I leaned against the bulwarks, watching as, two by two, the Africans crawled out of the hold. Day after day, while we’d finished loading our cargo and subsequently battled with the American cruiser (the British cruiser we never saw again), the slaves had been locked below, without fresh air other than what filtered through the grated hatch coverings. Now, six days after our escape out of the Bonny, they were a miserable lot, moaning and crying and gasping, some so bent they could hardly stand, all of them covered with filth, their stench unbearable. At the sight of them, my breast swelled with pity. I couldn’t have endured it, except I knew that from now on the slaves would be able to take their air and exercise. From now on, I told myself, all will be well.
I’d been in the hold, twice. On the day we’d first received slaves into our hold, I’d followed Jonas as he visited them in his capacity as ship’s surgeon. But no sooner had I stepped off the companionway into the suffocating darkness than, to my embarrassment, my chest had tightened and I couldn’t breathe, as if someone were squeezing the life out of me. “Jonas,” I managed to say. That was the last thing I remember as I fainted dead away, lantern glass shattering, candle wax spattering. I lasted five minutes before fainting again the next time. After that, Jonas went into the hold without me.
When Jonas found any indisposed, they were carried to the bow of the vessel, to a room under the fo’c’sle that was reserved as the slaves’ infirmary, where I waited, damp with sweat, and where proper remedies could be applied. We administered calomel for digestive upsets, sulfur for skin disorders and chronic catarrhs, salves for festered sores acquired from lying upon a hard surface without relief, and more, until the infirmary became a blur of vials, spoons, and powders. During it all, Jonas kept a bottle of brandy near him, gulping it down whenever his hands shook, or if I talked too much, or if someone screeched in his ear.
Now the breeze ruffled my hair, hot as a fever. More slaves crawled from the hold, until over three hundred fifty milled about. With a signal from the first mate, Billy Dorsett climbed atop a spare boat, tuned a fiddle, then scraped the bow back and forth a few times before plunging into a merry jingle. I’d thought him too dull for such fine music-making.
“Dance!” cried Jack Numbly, the first mate, mimicking what he wanted the slaves to do. “Dance!”
Billy played louder. Surrounded by crew and with a few cracks of the whip, the slaves began to move. Chains clanked. Black skins glistened with sweat. Hot tar oozed from the deck seams, blackening their callused feet. Many slaves grimaced with pain. Others appeared sullen, as if they didn’t want to dance. Most watched us warily, as if fearful of what we intended.
I watched until Uncle spied me and approached, looking pleased as a butter-fed fox, rubbing his hands together. “Fine-looking lot, eh?”
“Yes, Uncle,” I agreed, knowing that, miserable though they appeared at present, a few days of exercise and air would do them wonders.
The second mate, McGuire, joined us by the bulwarks, whip coiled on his hip, pistol in his holster. Though a chap of handsome proportions, McGuire wasn’t much for words. As usual, he said nothing, just leaned against the bulwarks and, like us, watched the slaves dance.
“Doctor’s orders, isn’t that right, Philip, my lad?” said Uncle. “Keeps them limber by exercising those stiffened joints and muscles. And if that isn’t jolly well good enough, the fine fiddle music helps to civilize them, which eventually contributes to their overall happiness in life. What’s the condition of the hold, McGuire?”
“It don’t smell like Paradise Street in Liverpool, I’ll tell you that much, Captain,” McGuire replied.
Uncle lighted a cigar, blew out the match, and then said, “It’s a comfort to me, McGuire, to know that our influence has a civilizing effect upon their savage natures. That without our influence, these brutes would live and die as mere animals, knowing not their Creator nor their purpose or proper station in life.”
“Aye, sir. I’m sure you’re right, sir.”
“It’s a mercy that we’ve fetched them aboard.”
“Aye, sir.”
“See to it that the men—black or white—do not mingle with the women. I’ll not be responsible for a passel of spotted pups running round. It’s indecent.”
“Aye, sir.”
McGuire left, and Uncle clapped me on the back. “Well, it’s been a pleasure, but it’s back to business, eh?”
As Uncle went aft, I glimpsed Pea Soup, his ankle shackled to that of another male slave. Within minutes of my near-death escape, Pea Soup had been confined in the hold along with the other slaves. Even after just a few days in such conditions, I was shocked by the change in him. His head was bowed to his chest; he scuffled his feet; filth matted his hair; he seemed thinner.
Seeing him, I broke out in a fresh sweat. Ever since he’d tried to kill me, Pea Soup’s face had snarled in my dreams. Every time I closed my eyes, he spat at me. Sank his dreadful, pointed teeth into my neck. Said those horrid words, “Tonight you will die!” over and over, until I gasped awake every few minutes. Why did Pea Soup hate me so? What had I ever done to deserve death at his hands? But now … seeing him in such a deplorable state … Perhaps he’s learned his lesson, I thought, feeling the familiar stir of pity. But even so, I couldn’t bring myself to release him. Not yet.
Instead, I returned to the infirmary, only to find Jonas lying senseless on a pallet, empty bottle smashed on the floor, rats poking about the shards.
Over the next couple of days, while Jonas and I labored feverishly, the holds were scoured. Hot vinegar fumes wisped through every crack and cranny of the vessel, chasing away rotten odors and filling the infirmary with a suffocating heat.
“Never mind washing the crockery,” Jonas ordered. “Leave it for later. Have we any clean spoons? No? And where the devil is my brandy? And stop making so much racket! A man can hardly think.”
After piling the crockery and utensils for washing later and scooping the laundry into a pile high as the Tower of Babel, I set about sewing a gash on a slave’s hip. According to Jonas, the man had gotten it in a scuffle. He was now unconscious, lying on his stomach. A crisscross of whip marks bloodied his back, which, Jonas said, was the price of scuffling. (I did wonder why the price of scuffling had to be so bloody.)
Jonas stood on the other side of the pallet, his brandy breath strong, his face like wax in the yellow candlelight. Taking a moment to steady myself, I poked the needle in, glan
cing at Jonas to see if I was doing it right. The patient twitched. Sweat trickled down the sides of my face, under the bandanna covering my nose and mouth. I caught the other side of the flesh with the needle and pulled the thread tight. After several more stitches, the wound began to close.
“That’s it,” breathed Jonas. “You’ve got it. One or two more stitches should do the trick.”
I pulled the last stitch and knotted it. Jonas snipped the thread with scissors.
“Right, then.” I pulled my bandanna down, yawning and stretching, for it was very late. I hoped Jonas would dismiss me. “Another patient finished.”
Straightening up, Jonas steadied himself on his feet, casting a glance about at the dozen or so patients lying on their pallets. He closed his eyes. Opened them. Focused them unsteadily on me. He spoke, his voice oddly different. “It never changes, this—this madness. One after another after another, till all the faces swim together and you can’t see nothing but flesh.”
For a second I stared at him, not sure I’d understood such a speech coming from bug-eyed, donkey-bray Jonas. “But doesn’t—doesn’t it get better? Soon? Now that they’re exercising and taking the air?”
He gestured toward the man’s bloody back. “Does it look like it’s getting better?”
“But Uncle says—”
“Your uncle says a lot of things.”
A vague doubt niggled through my breast, wormlike, as if it’d always been there, waiting, gnawing. Jonas is right—it’s not getting better. It’s getting worse. But as quickly as the doubt surfaced, I pushed it away. No, Jonas is just an old drunk. Uncle is right. Uncle is always right.… Isn’t he?
Jonas reached for his bottle, knocking it over. The golden liquid dripped from the table onto the floor. Cursing, he kicked the bottle across the room, where it shattered against a bulkhead. He winced and put a hand to his forehead. “I used to be a respected surgeon,” he wheezed. “Now what am I? Huh? Tell me what I am.”
But I’d no answer for him, finding his comments unsettling, and after I cleaned up the broken glass and washed a few spoons, he finally dismissed me for the night.
Voyage of Midnight Page 7