Voyage of Midnight

by Michele Torrey

  For a long time, we said nothing. Uncle was calling for me from the deck. “We will leave the food and water here,” Oji said.

  “Leave it? But—”

  “We will take half the Africans and come back for the rest. Come back for the food as well.”

  “Oh, right, right, of course. We’ll be close enough to shore where we can do that. We needn’t overload the boats unnecessarily. Oji …”

  “Yes?”

  “Help me off the pot.” And as Oji helped me, and as Uncle kept calling my name, demanding my presence on deck, I thought, This will never work. We’re doomed to failure.

  I’ve brought them this far only to fail.

  A pathetic boy and a pathetic plan.

  I emerged on deck, shaking with weakness, blinking away the brightness of the morning sun, anxious to satisfy Uncle’s demands so that I could begin emptying the arms locker.

  Scree, scree, scree.

  Hands clasped behind his back, Uncle stood aft beside Harold, who stood at the helm. One look at Uncle’s blood-suffused face, his narrowed eye and his clamped jaw, and I knew, once again, that he was angry. I was, by this time, quite used to his temper tantrums. Still, I didn’t fancy the idea of facing him when he was in one of his moods. To make matters worse, Billy the Vermin sat on the deck not far from Uncle. He’d a hand under his shirt and was vigorously scratching his armpit.

  I took a deep breath, straightened my aching backbone, and approached. “Here I am. Just had a bit of a spell on the chamber pot.”

  Upon hearing me, a strange light entered Uncle’s eye. His voice, not as I expected. Quite civil, to be sure, yet the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood on end. “Philip, my nephew, my single surviving flesh and blood, dear and only son of my sister, do be so kind as to tell us our heading.”

  A sudden panicky urge to flee came over me, but I suppressed it with a will. I looked at Billy, but his face was bland as pudding and I was uncertain as to whether he could see me or not. I cleared my throat. “Excuse me? What, then? Our—our heading?”

  Uncle gestured toward the binnacle that encased the ship’s compass. “Yes, our heading. If I can trouble you to be so kind.”

  Scree, scree, scree.

  I looked at the compass, already knowing what it indicated.

  North-northeast.

  My lips stuck together, as if my mouth were glued shut. I forced them open, dreading to utter a word.

  “West-nor’west.”

  “Ah. West-nor’west. How very intriguing. Come now, don’t you think that’s intriguing?”

  “I—I don’t know,” I stammered.

  “And why wouldn’t you know?”

  I shook my head, a dreadful fear filling my chest. The fear of my nightmares, every one of them, crammed into this single moment.

  He knows.

  Again I wanted to flee. But I forced myself to sound perplexed, as if I’d no idea what the problem was. “I—I don’t understand. Please, tell me. What’s this about?”

  Uncle propped a hand under his chin and furrowed his brow, as if contemplating something highly intellectual. “Hmm. ‘What’s this about?’ he asks. Did you hear that, Billy, my cabin boy? He asks, ‘What’s this about?’ ”

  “Yeah,” said Billy, looking right at me. “I heard it.”

  “Did you hear that, Harold?”

  “Aye, I heard it.”

  Uncle turned back to me. “Then I’ll tell you, Philip, my nephew. I’ll tell you what this is about.” He closed his eye and breathed deeply.

  A silence followed in which my every nerve was afire. Should I run? Should I sound the alarm? Should I call for Oji?

  Scree, scree, scree.

  “I can feel it on my skin,” Uncle said finally. “The morning sun. Rising from the north. How very intriguing. The earth has changed its rotational axis in relation to the sun. Either that or you’re lying. Which is it?”

  I began to back away, but suddenly, like a snake that strikes, Uncle snarled and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, lifting me entirely off the ground. “The compass must’ve broken!” I screamed, kicking and flailing at the empty air.

  Billy laughed as if this were the funniest thing.

  By the deuce! He can see me!

  Uncle shoved his face into mine. His breath smelled of decay. His voice was calm as the dead. “Where are we, Philip, my lad?”

  “Barbuda!” I said. “I can see it from here!” I pointed at the thin ribbon of land in the distance. “There it is! It’s a miracle! We’ve arrived! See? See?”

  “Of course I can’t see!” screamed Uncle. Now the veins stood out on his neck and temples. “And you’re a bloody liar!”

  And so saying, he shook me like a rat. The sky bobbed. The ship bobbed. Blackness pulsed at the edges of my vision. Africa, Billy, my uncle, the Formidable—all disappeared into a whipping back-and-forth blindness.

  I heard Billy laughing, laughing. I heard others of the crew shouting, telling Uncle just to kill me, that I’d been a pest and a liar from the beginning.

  And then I was on the deck again. Lying on the deck, chest heaving, vision returning, world swirling, neck aching, my uncle still screaming. He grabbed me by my shirt front and squeezed. “Tell me,” he snarled, flecks of spit landing on my face, “where we are. Tell me what you’ve done with my ship. Tell me what you’ve done with my cargo.”

  “Barbuda,” I gasped. “We’re in Barbuda. Uncle, please, please, I—I c-a-n-’t b-r-e-a-t-h-e.”

  Uncle let go of me then; I didn’t know why. I only knew that one moment I was choking for breath and the next there was nothing. Just me, lying on the filthy planks, the minutes passing while I gasped and vomited, thinking, After all this, I’ve failed.

  That’s when I heard the baby cry.

  “Give it to me,” demanded Uncle.

  Spitting out the last of my vomit, head pounding, I watched Billy place the infant in Uncle’s arms, Billy saying, “See? Told you so. They was hiding it.”

  Without a word, Uncle stumbled to the bulwarks, and after a moment of fumbling, grasped the infant by the ankle and dangled him over the water. Onwuha wiggled, then squalled, while I stumbled to my feet, screeching, “Stop! Stop!”

  “If you want him to live, you’ll tell me our precise location,” my uncle commanded, his voice calm once again.

  “Africa!” I screamed. “Africa! Africa! Africa! We’re off the coast of Cape Palmas! I can see it from here! It’s the truth!”

  Uncle paled and staggered, falling against one of the long guns. Onwuha squalled and kicked. “Then—then it’s true. You mean to say, all—all this time, you’ve deceived me? Your own flesh and blood?”

  “Please, give the baby to me. I’ve told you what you wanted. Please. I beg of you.”

  “You’ve deceived me? After all I’ve done for you? After all I’ve wanted for you?” And to my surprise, tears sprang to my uncle’s eye, as if I’d truly wounded him.

  “Just hand the baby to me. Then we can talk. I’ll tell you everything.”

  But Uncle continued to look bewildered, holding Onwuha over the water. By now Onwuha was crying lustily, his face scrunched. I became aware of the rest of the crew closing about us, like the dead risen from their graves. “But why, Philip? Why?”

  “Because they’re people with homes and families, people who deserve to live their lives in freedom, just as you do. Please, hand me the baby now.” While I spoke, I crept toward Onwuha, to wrest him to safety before Uncle could stop me. But someone grabbed me from behind. It was Billy. I struggled in his grasp. “Let go!”

  “He’s been lying to us the whole time!” cried Billy. “About everything! Only eight slaves can see. The rest of them’s blind as the rest of you!”

  “That’s a lie!” I screamed. It was then, as I kicked Billy in the shins and yanked his hair—hating him, oh God, hating him so much—that I saw Oji streak through the blind crowd and past me. Directed no doubt by Onwuha’s wailing and with a savage cry, he dove
into Uncle and sank his pointed teeth into Uncle’s neck. And as Uncle instinctively released Onwuha to grasp at his throat, Oji snatched the baby and fled, crying, “Run, Ikeotuonye!”

  Shocked, I stared as Uncle slid down the bulwarks, grabbing at the long gun, and collapsed upon the deck. Blood seeped from his gaping wound. His one milky eye was wide and dazed. “Good heavens,” he said. “That black devil of yours has killed me, I should think.”

  Roach said, “Uh—Captain Towne? Are—are you all right?”

  Uncle gasped, “Find—find that black devil and string him up. And toss my nephew overboard. I—I’ll be bloody well damned if he’s commander of this vessel.”

  I sank my teeth into Billy’s hand. He shrieked, did a dance of pain. I heard one of his bones crack, and then I was off and running.

  “He’s over there!” cried Billy. “Beside you, McGuire!”

  McGuire lunged for me, but I dodged his blind grasp. “Oji!” I screamed. “Help me!” Past the mainmast and down the hatch I went, like a rabbit down a hole. I don’t remember using the steps, only knowing that suddenly I was in the hold, in the darkness, the only light coming from the open hatchway. I ran down the aisle, between the tiers filled with men, into the utter darkness, my eyes still blinded from the morning sun. Slime squished under my bare feet. Bones crunched. The stench was like a musket ball to my brain. “Nyèl aka!” I cried—“Help me!”

  Hands reached out and pulled me down. I fell heavily on one of the men, our heads bumping. Chains rattled. Everyone was shouting in various languages. And then I was under the bodies, under the filth, under the stench. “Ikeotuonye,” someone said to me. “Stay still. Do not move.”

  I lay beneath the bodies in the darkness, shivering with fever, bowels cramping, lungs screaming for air.

  Oh God, oh God, help me! Help us all!

  They came down the aisle. If I opened one eye a crack, I could see them from between the bodies. Billy the Vermin, cradling his wounded hand, blood seeping down his arm. McGuire with a lantern held high. Three sailors with muskets. Billy looked from the right to the left, from the upper tier to the lower tier, poking, prodding. “Keep going,” he said. “He’s here somewhere.”

  Sweat dripped down every crease in my body. I could feel the pounding heart of the African who lay atop me.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” one of the sailors said.

  “Son of a gun,” said Billy, wiping his forehead and leaving a dirty smear. “That one’s deader’n a turd. Rats chewed off his toes.”

  On they came. Closer.

  When they neared me, I bolted. The Africans all screamed at once, throwing the hold into an uproar. I tumbled over bodies. A musket exploded. Another. More screams. “Get him! He’s heading toward the hatch!” Panic tore at my chest, and I thought I might faint out of sheer fright.

  I flew up the companionway. A blast from a musket splintered the wood beneath my feet. A shard pierced my foot. Out I sprang, onto the main deck. Oji was there, blind eyes wide, a knife in his hands, swiping at the empty air, calling my name: “Ikeotuonye!”

  From somewhere came a distant boom. But I didn’t have time to ponder what it was, for I sped for the shrouds, ducking out of the grasps of the men who grabbed for me. I kicked one of them who’d gotten hold of my shirt; he fell back, tearing part of my shirt away. Then I ran. “Oji!” Scrambling atop a long gun, grabbing the shrouds, I shouted in his language, “Fetch the key and unlock all the men below! They’ll be tossed overboard anyhow. They can at least die fighting! Unlock them all! Quickly!”

  And up the shrouds I scrambled, never in my life having climbed anything so high. The mast swayed, rocking in giant arcs through the sky. My stomach lurched. I forced my legs to climb. A swirl of dizziness took my breath away. My vision dimmed. I clung to the rigging, panting.

  They were after me. Ten men at least, their skill as sailors evident despite their blindness, climbing up the shrouds beneath me—and across from me, on the starboard side as well.

  “Get the turncoat!”

  “We’ll toss him overboard, all right! After we smash his arms and legs!”

  “Don’t worry, Captain Towne, he’s mine!”

  “Come here, little Mr. Surgeon, we won’t hurt you!”

  Up I climbed, hearing my own panting, my ears roaring with the thunder of my heart, suddenly thinking once again of Mr. and Mrs. Gallagher, thinking how disappointed they’d be to learn that their little English boy would never return, that he’d fallen to his death off the coast of Africa.

  Someone grabbed my ankle. I screeched, kicking. My toes hit teeth. Pain shot up my foot, as if I’d stubbed it on a door.

  Someone let go. Cursed.

  I reached the main yard and paused, having only a second to make up my mind. Above me was the maintop with its lubber’s hole. I could crawl through that and continue up. But even as I contemplated this, the men climbing the starboard shrouds caught up with me as our shrouds converged on the mainmast. Milky eyes stared. Hands clawed the empty air.

  A cry escaped me and I climbed away from them, out onto the main yard, the only course left to me.

  Below me, Oji dodged the crew and disappeared down the main hatch.

  My legs trembling, my feet on the footropes, as quickly as I could I slid across the main yard, as I’d seen the sailors do countless times. Below, Billy shrieked, “He’s on the main yard! Get him!”

  Again I heard a boom. Closer this time. Then a shout, sounding as if it came from across the water.

  Then, to my embarrassment, my bowels released themselves. High as I was in the air, the contents splattered directly onto Billy below, who screeched like a hog at the slaughter. I must admit to no small satisfaction, despite the fact that I was soon to die.

  In moments I reached the end of the yard. Beneath me was no longer the deck, but the rolling swells of the Atlantic, dark shapes swarming just beneath the surface. A wave of dizziness shot through me, as if I’d twirled round and round. I clutched the end of the yard.

  Below, Billy was still screeching. Black men were flooding out of the hold. Uncle was still lying slumped against the bulwarks.

  Scores of blind crew members had followed me onto the main yard. Gaunt, whiskered, shriveled, yellowed. Clouded eyes stared at nothing. All of the men were clawing the empty air, trying to find me. One of them reached out, grasped a handful of my shirt, and yanked.

  I screamed.

  My feet slipped off the footrope.

  For one precarious second, I clung to the yardarm.

  Then my weakened fingers gave way and I plummeted.

  My heart in my throat.

  Thinking, Farewell.

  Screaming, screaming.

  Arms and legs windmilling through the air.

  Down, down, down, into the ocean.

  I hit the water.

  Its coolness closed over me. Except for the gurgling of bubbles and the sound of my heart throbbing in my head, all noise ceased. Salt water entered my nose, my ears, my mouth.

  Immediately I began to drown. To thrash and drown, wondering if it hurt more to drown or to be eaten by sharks. My lungs screamed for air.

  I bobbed to the surface, choked, and then sank again.

  Something brushed up against me.

  Hurry. Make it quick.

  And then it had me by the scruff of the neck and was pulling me up, up, out of the water and onto something hard and dry.

  A wave of shock pulsed through my body, as if I’d just had a tooth yanked out.

  I spluttered and choked, my eyes stinging, blinking back salt water.

  There, still holding me by the scruff of the neck while I dripped like a sewer rat, was a familiar figure. Blond, mustached, hat upon his head, it was the young officer from the American vessel from what seemed so long ago. His mouth was hard, lips drawn tight, eyes ablaze.

  And without saying a word, he shoved me away; he stood at the bow of his longboat, where I lay in a heap, and drew his cutlass, pointing it a
t the Formidable. “Attack!”

  Men in the longboat, and there were many—forty, maybe—scrambled over me and swarmed up the ship’s sides, grasping anything they could find to help them aboard. I heard shouts and cries from above. Several men remained behind. One of them deposited himself next to me, cocked a pistol, and aimed it at my head. “You so much as twitch,” he growled, “and it’ll go worse for you than it has already.”

  I closed my eyes and lay back, only too happy not to twitch. You’ve done it, Philip Arthur Higgins. A blind and weakened crew will be no match for trained marines.

  I think I slept for a while—I’m not sure—but I was startled, dreams floating away like feathers, when the American sailor pulled me to my feet. “Up you go,” he said. “Let’s get you aboard with the rest of them.”

  After all this, I couldn’t climb. My muscles failed me, and I groaned. Again I tried, and again, until finally the sailor heaved me over his back, complaining about my wretched smell, and climbed up and over the side of the Formidable. He deposited me like a sack of potatoes on the sun-soaked deck, then shackled me to Harold, who, like the rest of the Formidable’s crew, sat chained about the mainmast.

  It took a long time.

  The liberation.

  The crew of the American naval vessel tied handkerchiefs about their noses and mouths. Occasionally someone vomited. Some cried openly as more and more slaves crawled out of the holds. Some slaves had to be carried. Some were shackled to dead bodies. Those that were shackled were released. Blinking in the bright sunshine, most of the men, women, and children couldn’t stand. Skeletons with skin. Covered with sores, bruises, vomit, and feces.

  Finally the holds and the infirmary were empty.

  I’d looked and looked for Oji, but couldn’t see him anywhere. I called his name, but my voice was no more than a whisper.

  Oji, where have you gone? Fevered tears slid from between my eyelids. Are you dead?

  Meanwhile, American sailors moved among the blacks, giving them food and water. The naval surgeon administered what relief he could—ointments, balm, pills. I longed to join him, but I’d released my bowels again, my fever was raging, and I believed I was about to die.