by Wilbur Smith
Mungo pointed to a girl that many of the men liked. Before the liberties had started, she’d been beautiful; now she was a husk of a woman, bruised and gaunt. She was perhaps sixteen.
‘I’ve had her,’ Lanahan complained. He gestured to the knot of women cowering around the hatchway. ‘I’ve had all of these. I want something new.’
‘You’ll get something new when we reach Havana.’
‘But I’ll have to pay for that.’
‘And the more of these girls we keep undamaged, the more money you’ll have in your pocket from the sale. It’s simple good sense,’ Mungo explained.
‘The captain said we should have our choice of all the girls.’
A petulant tone had come into Lanahan’s voice, eager for any opportunity to provoke a quarrel and assert his authority. It was an argument Mungo knew he would not win.
‘Go and find one you like. Try not to hurt her too much.’
The clearance on the decks was so low they had to crawl on all fours like dogs. The slaves were packed so tight together that in the gloom – to the white men – they became almost a single organism, twitching and shuddering and moaning. It was extraordinary for Mungo to think that each groan and motion represented an individual human being.
There were scores for Lanahan to choose from, but Mungo had annoyed him and he wanted to prove a point. He crawled all the way to the back of the hold.
‘These should be fresh. No damaged goods back here.’ He ran his eye over the girls in the light that slanted in through the grating. ‘This one will do.’ He pointed. ‘Get that chain off her so I can have my fill. Sterling will want me back on deck in a minute.’
Mungo hadn’t moved. The girl Lanahan had chosen was the one he had noticed coming aboard at Ambriz, with the rounded cheeks and mahogany skin that reminded him so much of Camilla. Although she had been one of the last to board, Mungo had rearranged the stowage so that she was placed at the bow, in the furthest place away from the hatches. None of the men had bothered to go there until now.
‘She’s not available.’ Mungo pointed to another woman, with wide hips and heavy breasts. ‘How about her?’
Lanahan leaned close in. As well as letting the crew have the women, Sterling had made good the shortage of rations with liberal doses of extra rum. Mungo could smell it on the mate’s breath.
‘She’s too fat. This girl’s the one I want,’ Lanahan insisted, with the whiny voice of a child being denied a sweet.
The girl looked between them, eyes wide and white in the gloom. She could not speak English, but she surely understood what the men were saying. Her gaze fell on Mungo, imploring him to save her. Even after six weeks in the hold, her face still bore bruised traces of the trusting innocence that had once been there.
‘She’s not for you,’ said Mungo.
‘Keeping the best for yourself?’ said Lanahan. ‘Or maybe you’re sweet on this one? Shall I go and tell Sterling you’re disobeying his orders?’
Mungo thought for a moment. He knew how it would go. Sterling would support Lanahan, and the girl would suffer the same fate in the end. If anything, it might provoke Lanahan to be rougher with her if he thought it would hurt Mungo.
Mungo did not meet the girl’s eye as he undid the lock that fastened her shackles to the heavy chain that all the slaves were bound to. There were only two more days to endure this, he told himself. He released her manacles and moved aside, allowing Lanahan to pull her back to the foot of the ladder. The girl’s face trembled with terror; she looked as if she might try to bolt. But she had nowhere to go. There were bodies on all sides of her, the mate behind her, and Mungo blocking the way to the hatch.
Lanahan grabbed her around the waist, laughing, and yanked her by the arm towards the forward part of the hold.
‘Looks like no one’s had her yet,’ he said. ‘I guess I’ll get to break her in. She’ll be tight as a drum.’
He caught Mungo staring at him, his yellow-flecked eyes tinged with something Lanahan had not seen before.
‘What?’
Lanahan never knew what hit him. The point of Mungo’s knife entered the soft hollow of his throat and cut all the way through to the neck, severing his spinal cord. He fell to the deck with a heavy thump, dead with barely a twitch. The girl was almost as shocked. One moment she was waiting for the next chapter of her ordeal. The next, Lanahan was lying beside her with a knife buried in his neck, and Mungo was looming over her like an avenging spirit.
She was too astonished to scream. She simply stared up at Mungo in terror.
Mungo’s mind was already turning with the implications, racing faster than it ever had. He had acted on impulse, surprising even himself with the speed of his strike. Perhaps it had been a mistake – but if he had been minded to regret it, there was no time now. There would be another man waiting his turn after Lanahan, and he would be getting impatient. Mungo had to find a way of hiding the body, and then concoct a story as to why Lanahan had disappeared. If he was caught, Sterling would kill him.
He took the keys from his belt and slotted one into the lock on the chains that shackled the girl’s feet. A look of wonder crossed her face as it sprang open.
Mungo pointed forward, to where the sail lockers and storage compartments were located.
‘Find somewhere to hide until this has passed.’
He had begun to form a plan. He would drag Lanahan’s body deep into the slave hold and leave it there. When the first mate was found, it would be assumed that one of the slaves had done it, and impossible to prove which one. One or two might be whipped as punishment, but Sterling could not afford wholesale retribution. Each life would cost him over a thousand dollars.
A voice came from the deck. ‘What in God’s name is taking so long, Lanahan? Are you having a second run at her?’
Mungo opened the hatch to the lower deck, recoiling at the stench that blew out of it. Below, all he could see was a writhing mass of darkness. He put his arms under Lanahan’s shoulders and lifted him, trying not to let any more blood spill on the deck.
The girl hadn’t moved. She sat on the deck, still staring up at Mungo. Her face had changed. The last traces of innocence had vanished from her eyes for good; instead there was something hard and brutal there. She had Mungo’s keys in her hand, clutched tight as a child holding her mother’s hand. She must have taken them from his belt while he was distracted.
Mungo went still. He let Lanahan’s corpse drop to the deck and held out his hand.
‘Give them to me.’
Shyly, the girl pulled back her arm. Then she lobbed the keys into the air. She had thrown them too hard and Mungo had no time to react. The keys flew past him and dropped through the open hatch to the lower deck where the men were kept.
They never landed. A black hand snatched them out of the air. Mungo lunged down, but he was too late. From down in the darkness, he heard the snap of a lock, the jangle of metal as the keys were passed from hand to hand down the line.
A head popped up through the hatch. It was a fearsome face, a bald skull heavily tattooed with tribal scars. Mungo had noted the man before when the slaves were exercised on deck: tall and broad-chested, with large muscles and a princely bearing that had somehow survived all the humiliations of the voyage. Now that he was free, his face burned with fury. Before Mungo could stop him, he hoisted himself up through the hatch.
Mungo lunged for Lanahan’s corpse. But the Bowie knife that had been stuck in the first mate’s neck was not there any more. It was in the girl’s hands, and she was no longer cowering on the floor but standing upright, brandishing the blade with the confidence of a warrior. Mungo took a step towards her, and nearly had his arm cut off as the knife sliced through the air. The girl hissed something at him that he could not understand, furious words full of rage and vengeance.
Mungo was caught between two enemies. He looked back at the tattooed warrior. A manacle dangled from his hand, but it was not fastened any more. The chain that had bound him
had now become a weapon. He raised it up, and brought the curved metal cuff down on Mungo’s forehead.
Stars exploded in Mungo’s vision, and he reeled backwards into the bulkhead, collapsing onto the deck. Through the haze of pain, he saw more Africans rising out of the hatch, a flood of black bodies bursting out of the hold and into the blaze of sunlight. He heard the screams of the crew as the freed slaves gained the deck. The Africans were unarmed, but their desperation overturned the odds. They wrestled away the crew’s weapons, and turned them on their captors. Sterling’s men fought back, but they were no match for the overwhelming tide of the Africans’ rage.
Mungo struggled to his feet and stumbled towards the forward ladder outside the magazine. He shoved the fore hatch open and climbed the rungs to the fo’c’s’le, his head throbbing as if cleaved with an axe.
He could hardly believe what he had unleashed. In a few short moments, the revolt had turned into a bloodbath. From the capstan to the stern rail, the deck was teeming with Africans – not only the band led by the tattooed warrior, but also the slaves who had been exercising on deck when the uprising began. They hacked with their captured blades until the deck ran slick with gore. The riggers aloft in the yards tried to hide among the sails, but the Africans scaled the ratlines and hunted them down. Bodies plummeted to the deck.
The Blackhawk was lost. There were not enough of the crew left alive to retake her, and those few that survived were being winnowed like wheat. Nor did Mungo think the Africans would show him any gratitude for having given them the keys to their chains. His only chance was to escape overboard. But he would not stand much chance alone.
Crouching behind the foremast, Mungo searched the melee for Tippoo. He saw the giant by the capstan, a sabre in his hand, fending off more than a dozen Africans. They were having the better of it – the gunner was bleeding from many wounds where his opponents had already managed to land blows.
A cutlass lay on the deck where one of the crew had dropped it. Mungo picked it up, took a breath to gather his wits, then dashed into the fray, knocking slaves aside and carving a path to Tippoo.
‘To the boat!’ he shouted, waving for the giant to follow.
Tippoo swung his sabre in a circular arc, driving all his adversaries back. He turned to a pot of boiled maize beside him and, with the strength of three men, wrenched it off its foundation, pouring the cornmeal onto the blood-soaked deck. He raised the pot above his head and hurled it forward. The heavy pot felled two men at once, crushing limbs and sending them sprawling to the deck.
With his attackers in chaos, Tippoo cut down two Africans who stood in his way and ran to Mungo. The tattooed warrior tried to pursue, but the pandemonium was too great, and he found himself trapped by the mob.
Normally, a ship carried her boats inboard. But with all the space on deck given over to exercising the slaves, the cutter had been hoisted on the davits at the stern. Mungo was there. He swung at the falls that held the cutter but the blade was too blunt; the rope simply swung away, somewhat frayed but intact.
The Africans had seen what Mungo intended to do. Massing by the capstan, they raised their swords and rushed aft like a swarm of hornets. Mungo had no time to try hacking at the ropes again. Instead, he pulled out the pin that belayed the ropes.
The falls rattled through the blocks of the davits. The boat splashed down into the water. Mungo followed it, vaulting the rail and casting himself into the sea. He hit the water, clawed his way back to the surface and grabbed for the boat, which was already drifting behind the Blackhawk. His fingers grazed the gunwale, but he dropped into the trough of a wave and the cutter floated out of reach. He kicked with all his strength, knowing he would drown if he missed the boat. Above, he heard the Africans lined up along the rail jeering at him, peppering the water with belaying pins and anything they could throw to try and impede him. Thankfully, they had not found the powder store – or else they did not know how to use the guns.
The cutter was almost in reach. He kicked forward again. A swell buoyed him up, launching him forward; his hand closed around the transom. He hauled himself on board, just in time to hear a great splash ahead of him. Tippoo had followed him overboard.
But they were not free of the Blackhawk. With a jolt, the cutter stopped drifting back and started moving forward again, tipping into the waves side-on. The lines that held her were still attached to the davits, dragging the cutter along behind the ship.
The freedmen had now run out of blunt objects to throw. Instead, they turned their swords into javelins, hurling them towards the cutter twenty feet below. The fall lines were attached to the boat by hooks, but with the boat under tow the ropes were pulled so tight Mungo could not release them. The only way to detach the boat was to cut it free.
He picked up a sword that had landed in the boat and attacked the falls with all his might. The cords were as tough as oak saplings, capable of lifting five tons. He sawed at the heavy fibres, as the swords of the freedmen rained down around him. The wind spoiled their aim, blowing the blades wide, but the Africans discovered the value of pitching the weapons end over end, and their accuracy increased.
Suddenly, Mungo felt the cutter lurch and heard the sharp twang of the aft falls giving way. While he had been busy evading blades, Tippoo had climbed over the transom. One stroke from his blade parted the rear line at once, dropping the stern of the cutter into the sea. As the swells crashed into the boat, shoving it up against the Blackhawk’s hull and threatening to capsize it, Mungo scooped up another sabre. Wielding the two swords like a pair of shears, he took a massive cut at the forward falls, putting all of his strength into the swing.
With a snap, the ropes split and spun away, and the cutter plunged into the waves. Water poured over the bow and the stern. Mungo threw out his arms to balance the boat. A wave smashed into him; the two cutlasses slipped from his hands and fell in the water, but the cutter stayed upright.
The little boat drifted away from the ship. The Africans let out a great cry. Their revolt had succeeded. Their bonds were broken, and the ship was theirs.
A growl like a wolf sounded behind Mungo. He turned – and though he was not a man to show his emotions, he could not hide his shock. He and Tippoo were not alone in the boat. Sterling had abandoned his ship. He must have thrown himself into the sea and grabbed onto the boat, then climbed aboard while Mungo and Tippoo were distracted freeing the fall lines.
The captain should have died at the hands of the men he had chained like beasts. Yet here he was – bruised, lacerated but alive – standing on the stern thwart watching his command disappear into the distance.
Sterling turned his stiletto eyes on Mungo.
‘You did this to me, you son-of-a-bitch. You took my ship from me.’
Mungo said nothing. Tippoo looked between the two of them. He pointed to the gash on Mungo’s arm where the girl had slashed him with the Bowie knife, the bruises and cuts all over his body where he had run the gauntlet on deck.
‘He bleeds like the rest of us.’
Sterling grunted. ‘Anyone lets a pack of wolves loose, he’s going to get bitten. Isn’t that right?’ When Mungo refused to answer, he went on, ‘The only nigger not in chains was the bitch Lanahan was fucking. What do you think happened, Tippoo? Did Sinclair take a nap? Did the girl overpower a man three times her size? And how did she get hold of the keys?’
Tippoo turned towards Mungo. ‘Is the captain telling the truth?’
Mungo shrugged. ‘He’s not a captain without a ship.’
‘There’s only one way this is going to end,’ said Sterling. ‘I’m going to cut out your heart and feed it to the sharks. And then Tippoo and I are going to bury the rest of you in the sands of Cuba.’ He held out his hand to Tippoo, who still held the cutlass he had used to cut the fall lines. ‘Give me that blade.’
Tippoo didn’t move. He was looking at Mungo.
‘Why did you do it?’ he asked.
‘Because Lanahan was right,’ said Sterli
ng. ‘Because he’s nothing but a nigger-loving traitor who doesn’t understand the rights and wrongs of the world. Now give me that goddamn sword.’
Mungo had lost his knife and there was no other blade in the boat. He was defenceless. Tippoo gazed at the sword in his hand, then gave a nod. He lifted the sword.
With a flick of his wrist, he let it go. It arced through the air and fell into the water point first. The blade barely made a ripple.
Sterling’s weathered face contorted in a snarl.
‘What in Hell’s name are you doing?’ he shouted.
‘Fair fight,’ grunted Tippoo.
Sterling stared at him in amazement. Then, with a mocking laugh, he pulled off his sodden coat and shirt and curled his fists.
‘So be it. I will do this with my bare hands if I must.’
Mungo jumped onto the bench and spread his legs to absorb the motion of the swells. He feigned with a jab, then threw a hook towards Sterling’s jaw. The captain avoided the punch and drove his fist into Mungo’s ribs. As Mungo reeled and Sterling laughed, Mungo lashed out with a combination of jabs, followed by an uppercut. The jabs caught only air, but the uppercut struck Sterling’s cheek at an angle as he tried to twist away. It was a glancing blow but it landed as the cutter pitched on a swell and threw off Sterling’s balance. Arms wheeling, the captain fell back against the bench forward of the transom. Mungo closed in, but the captain levered his body against the gunwale and lashed out with his foot, sweeping Mungo’s legs from under him.
Mungo landed hard on the thwart, badly bruising his side. As Sterling scrambled to his feet, Mungo rolled into a crouch and lunged, driving his shoulder into the captain’s stomach. The captain fell with a sharp crack, howling in pain and rage. For a fleeting moment, Mungo was certain Sterling’s tailbone had broken. But Sterling shook it off and threw himself at Mungo with the speed of a much younger man. Mungo tried to dodge to the side but the captain caught hold of his shirt and spun him around, trapping his arms in a bear hug and arching his back as if trying to snap Mungo in half.
Mungo had always respected the captain’s strength but he hadn’t fully appreciated it until now. Sterling was as powerful as an ox. Mungo felt his lungs compressing, his ribs grinding, his spine flexing painfully. He tried to throw Sterling backwards, but his feet couldn’t find purchase. He had only one weapon left – his head. He whipped it backwards and felt a burst of blinding pain as his skull collided with Sterling’s. The captain howled in agony, but instead of releasing Mungo, he strengthened his grip.