The cool water had already calmed Freddy's annoying mosquito bites. This night, to keep the bloody mosquitoes away, the women had blown out the candle lantern. Freddy watched Birdie scoop water and carefully pour it over the babe she held in one arm. He gurgled happily. Una dunked her head under the water and blew bubbles. She and Freddy had each draped themselves with sheets of wet muslin. The native woman was nude. Freddy could see a dark tattoo on one of Birdie's shoulders, but could not make out what it was. She finished the cane and slid down, arching her neck to dip the top of her head into the water. She sighed from its delightful chill. The only sounds were the babe's gurgle and Una's occasional cough, from deep in her chest. In the moonlight, the woman's sharp features were paler than ever.
A loud scream pierced the night. It came from the direction of the slave compound. Freddy jerked upright, looking around in alarm. Birdie shook her head, covered her ears, and hugged the babe to her breast.
"Wha—?" Freddy began.
A series of jagged shrieks again ripped through the night.
"The whipping post," Una said in a resigned tone, resting her head on a poolside rock.
Freddy rubbed the goose bumps on her own arms. Now came deep moaning. Freddy shuddered, her hair prickling on her scalp.
"Probably the African, Tuma," Una murmured, staring up into the trees. "He returned this afternoon. Master broke up his family and he keeps running away to see his wife and son across the island."
A nighttime bird burst into a warbled solo. Its song combined with Tuma's haunting moans to create an eerie duet.
Birdie was perfectly still, staring wide-eyed in the direction of the compound.
Freddy lay back, letting the water fill her ears and muffle the horrible moans. It was darker now. She gazed at the moon, now barely visible behind heavy clouds. After a while she sat up. All was quiet again.
"Even Tuma isn't flogged as hard as the Irish slaves are," Una whispered. "The planters pay more for Africans. We are sold cheap, like flotsam. They hate us. They torture and flog Irish slaves to death."
Freddy hugged her knees. Birdie scooped water to wash her face.
"There is a carpenter named Sean Gwynne here," Una continued, hesitating slightly. "He speaks of maroons, the wild ones on the run who come out at night to steal food and wage war on the colonists. Sometimes they hide there." She jerked her head toward the cave. "Mostly they hide in the woods. They steal boats or make rafts, and row to St. Vincent, the closest island from here, and live among the Carib natives there. Others go to Martinique and St. Lucia. Some escape onto ships in Bridgetown…"
Freddy shivered on the pallet, her mind racing. How could she be cold on such a sultry night? Rolling onto her side, she curled up and folded her arms tightly. She felt like her head was wrapped in a thick, steamy fog. Wondering how it could be that the only time she felt warm on this pallet was when Master climbed on top of her, she shook her head and listened. A night heron cawed above the drone of tree frogs and mosquitoes. A low, scratching sound reminded her that earlier Birdie had killed a rat as it scurried across the floor. Mrs. Pratt said the island was full of rodents, wild cats, snakes, and wild boars. She shivered again.
In the blackness a puff of fresh, rain-perfumed air drifted into the alcove. Inhaling the scent, she heard the first big raindrops fall on the palm-thatched roof.
CHAPTER 11
September 1653
"Rassawek," Birdie said, pointing to her babe in his sling and taking a bite of pineapple. While the Pratts were busy serving Master and Millicent their midday dinner, she and Freddy had stolen outside for a brief rest. In the shade of the lofty mahogany tree that presided over the cookhouse yard, they perched on a gigantic log so old its bark was long gone and its wood was worn to a smooth, silky finish.
"Rassawek…" Freddy repeated, raising her head to savor the fresh breeze. This was the first time she'd heard the wee one's name. She took a chunk of juicy guava from the plate on her lap and popped it into her mouth. It was leftover from Millicent's breakfast. One of the best things about being kitchen slaves was that they could share uneaten victuals left on the shiny gold plates from the Big House. Freddy wiped the back of her neck with a cool, wet rag.
"Monacan name, my father…'between two rivers.'"
"Beautiful."
Being a kitchen slave was hard work. They both had blisters and calluses on their palms from constantly grinding corn. Their hands were dry and cracked from scrubbing pots. But Freddy knew there was much to be thankful for. Besides food tidbits from the Big House, they always had clean water to drink. Thank the Good Lord Mam had taught her to read and write English. That knowledge was the only thing keeping her from slaving in the fields under the whip, starving and abused like Dika and Colin.
The plantation paddle, however, was always present. Last week Birdie had been paddled because a roast chicken wasn't ready in time for Master's supper. Even though the native woman was huge with child, Mrs. Pratt saw to her severe punishment. That night Freddy had soothed her new friend, carefully rubbing mint ointment on her blistered backside.
Freddy was blessed to work with someone as kind as Birdie. Every day she taught the native woman more English words. Gradually they were talking more easily. Birdie was teaching her Monacan words, too. "How ko-lah" meant "hello friend." The word for good was "wash-teh," and "she-cha" meant bad. When Birdie showed her a traditional basket she'd woven with her own unique flower design, Freddy surprised her by exclaiming, "Wash-teh!"
Birdie was tugging on her sleeve. "You help," she said, smiling as she tried to scoot herself off the log.
Freddy stood, offered her hand, and pulled her swollen-bellied friend up.
"Ah," Birdie murmured, stretching her back. "Corn, corn, corn."
"She-cha!" Freddy answered.
Millicent sat across from Freddy sniffing, her tongue sticking out between her lips as she struggled to complete the spelling lesson. Under the big dining table the child impatiently kicked her legs, almost catching Freddy's knee with the sharp toe of her high-topped white shoe. Freddy bit her lip and eased her chair out of the girl's kicking range. Carefully keeping her head down, she watched Millicent's face, which was half hidden by blond curls. As she waited for her to finish, Freddy pretended to review tomorrow's English lesson. She let her mind wander.
During the August gale that damaged some of the sugar crop, French buccaneers had plundered two nearby plantations. In the dead of night the men had crept from the beach, tied the planters and overseers to their beds, and pilfered weapons, jewelry, artwork, and more. They'd raped the planters' wives, Una said, set fire to the Big Houses, and made off with four Irish slaves. Freddy shuddered, thinking about it. But she had to confess that she was intrigued by these French buccaneers who so hated the English colonists.
Why couldn't the French pirates have stolen this conniving brat? The devious child repeatedly lied to her father, complaining that Freddy was late for their lessons. That had resulted in three rigorous beatings with the paddle. Freddy's backside still smarted from the last one. She was counting the days until next summer, when Millicent would be shipped off to England for school. Meanwhile she enjoyed daydreaming of brigands swooping in and whisking the nasty girl away to a brutal fate…
Once the rains finally arrived, they would not stop. Slopping through slippery mud and getting soaked by warm rain were now just daily life. So were dysentery and yellow fever, especially among the field slaves. The downpours washed away some of the slave huts and created miserable puddles in others.
The wet season brought out the worst in many. Master's dark mood led him to regular poker games and drinking more than usual. The more it rained, the harder Ben drove the field slaves. The mulatto appeared to have it in for Colin, who stared defiantly into Ben's eyes when the driver addressed him. Last week, as she served Colin his mash, Freddy pleaded with him, whispering that he must lower his eyes in a submissive manner. She feared what the driver would do to him. Yesterday Ben had s
hredded Colin's back with his devil whip in the most severe flogging she'd seen. The blood flowed all the way down his legs. Freddy had stood next to the cart, yearning to run across the cane rows to Colin, to comfort him and tend his wounds. When he fainted, Ben finally stopped. Today Colin was back in the field toiling with his hoe.
Una swore Freddy to secrecy and revealed that Sean Gwynne, the estate carpenter, was actually a priest in disguise, here to aid the slaves – especially the Irish Catholic ones. "We can help him," Una said, warning that they would be tortured and hung if discovered. "A knife stolen, a gold plate stashed…I had best say no more…" Then she had succumbed to another horrid coughing fit.
Sometimes Mrs. Pratt sent Una with Freddy to serve the rations.
"Enough of your flirtin' with that lad," she teased Freddy one afternoon as they bounced back to the Big House in the cart. "Sneak down to his hut tonight and show him how you feel." Una elbowed the younger girl. "If you won't I will," she added.
"We're friends, is all." Freddy had blushed. Sure, sometimes Colin smiled and winked at her, cuffing her lightly on the chin with his thumb. But it was all in good fun. She had to admit, though, when he turned his penetrating blue eyes on her, it made her feel tingly and strange. It was as if he could see straight inside her.
Freddy feared for Dika, too. One day she and Birdie were driving the cart through a downpour and saw Ben grab the Gypsy woman, strip off her rain-soaked shift, and violently ravish her in the muck, in full view of the rest of the Gang. Ben had lifted his brown face into the hammering rain, appearing to relish Dika's degradation.
"No look," Birdie had whispered.
Freddy nodded and fixed her eyes straight ahead. Cursing her own helplessness, she'd hid her face and placed her hand on Birdie's steadying arm.
As for the Millicent, she was her father's daughter. The more it rained the worse her temper. When she wasn’t bullying Freddy, she was whining about her pinafore ruffles going soggy and flat.
Freddy looked over at the girl, whose face was buried in her spelling book. Today Mrs. Pratt had done her up in lavender and white. How was it possible that this disagreeable creature was only two years younger than Aileen? Where was her sweet sister now? Freddy had filched paper and pen during Millicent's lessons, and had written long letters to Aileen and to Mam. But she had no way to send them. She scribbled late at night in the kitchen alcove, by the meager light of a single candle lantern, pouring her heart out in her native tongue. She stashed the letters, paper, and pen behind the corn sacks.
Today Freddy felt peculiar, as if the constricting bodice was tighter than usual. Her breasts hurt and she was tired. Tonight she would try to get some extra sleep. She rose and moved behind Millicent to check the girl’s work. Her hip brushed the sideboard, knocking a delicate china plate from its display mount and to the floor. It shattered into tiny pieces.
"That was Mother's!" Millicent shrieked. She yanked off one of her shoes, sprang from her chair, whirled around, and began pounding Freddy's legs with it. "You stupid, stupid Irish cow! I hate you!"
After supper that evening, Freddy stood at the kitchen work table scrubbing a crusty pot. She stopped, wiped her hands dry, and felt her tender breasts. "Why do they hurt?" she wondered aloud, again picking up the pot.
Behind her, Una and Birdie exchanged a quick glance.
"Have you had your monthly flow?" Una asked.
Freddy turned to them and hesitated. She couldn't remember the last time. "I don't believe so." Why were they staring so?
"My dear," Una murmured, "you are with child!"
Birdie rushed across the room and gave her a quick hug. "You, me," she said softly, placing a strong brown hand on each of their bellies and shining her hopeful, radiant smile.
Sean Gwynne's white hair glowed in the moonlight as the three of them knelt and whispered prayers together by the window of his hut. For the moment the rains had ceased and there was a break in the cloud cover. They couldn't risk lighting a candle, he said, in case he was being watched. The thick stand of guava trees behind the hut was alive with cicada song. The short, stocky priest finished the prayer, made the Sign of the Cross, and rose. Una had said he was a Jesuit who had managed to survive Cromwell's bloody attack on his native Drogheda.
"Let us sit," he murmured, lowering himself onto a stool next to his straw bed.
"Thank you, Father," Una whispered in her native tongue. "Freddy is in need of counsel."
"What is it, my child?" the priest asked gently, turning his deep-set brown eyes to her.
"I try to keep my faith," Freddy whispered. "But I am with child from the rapes of Master…my heart fills with hatred…"
"God has sent us on a stony path, young Freddy," he answered softly in his lilting voice. "But He also gives us strong shoes, that we may find our way. You are stronger than you know. May you never fear the will of God."
Freddy nodded, mute, her eyes filling with tears.
"Come to me any time," he continued. "Some Sundays I ride into Bridgetown to say secret Mass…"
"Can you dispatch letters?" Freddy asked, holding her breath.
"I have done so," he replied, smiling.
CHAPTER 12
October 1653
Freddy, Birdie, and Una crept down to Colin's hut through the drenched, black night. He had come down with a violent case of the bloody flux, which Mrs. Pratt called dysentery. In the field Ben had withheld water from him. Desperately thirsty, Colin had resorted to slurping contaminated water. Birdie was sure she could help him.
The women knocked lightly, and tiptoed into the shack. Colin looked pale and thin as he lay on a rag-and-straw pallet. Birdie lit a candle and set it on the rough plank table. The deluge pounded on the primitively thatched roof. Rain was dripping into two plate-sized pools on the dirt floor, next to the table. Colin was quiet, the bloody diarrhea attacks having subsided for now. But he had vomited blood on the dirt floor next to his pallet. Una set to work cleaning it up.
Freddy gently lifted Colin's head so Birdie could spoon her traditional herbal medicine into his mouth. The thick syrup the native woman had boiled up contained wormwood, rhubarb, garlic, aloe vera, rosehips, dandelion, slippery elm, and more.
"Wha—?" he mumbled incoherently, rocking his head side to side.
"It's only us, Colin," Freddy crooned. "Birdie has medicine."
He sighed deeply as Freddy moved onto the pallet to prop his feverish head on her lap. She noticed how his cheekbones protruded sharply now, making him look older than his seventeen years. Stroking Colin's hot, dry forehead, she watched Birdie spoon the medicine. Deep in her stomach Freddy felt a twinge of fear. Would this young man die here on this hellish plantation, like this? Why did her stomach contract at the thought of him passing from this life? She studied his strong face in the candlelight. His black hair streamed back from his forehead, revealing a marked widow's peak. He had a prominent brow, with heavy black eyebrows. She liked them. It was that brow that made his eyes so piercing. As he weakly swallowed the herbal syrup, his nostrils flared and his Adam's apple jumped up and down.
Una was unusually quiet. Freddy glanced over at her. She stood by the plank table, leaning on it, her pale face shiny with sweat. Suddenly Una left the hut without a word.
Birdie and Freddy carefully rolled Colin onto his side and inspected his back, holding the candle closer. Birdie gently ran her long brown fingers over the angry-looking whip wounds. Freddy held Colin's shoulder up as the Indian woman spread a thick layer of ointment on his shredded back and covered the injured skin with cheesecloth. They eased him onto his back.
"Heal good," Birdie said.
A rush of cooler night air blew in as Una burst through the door with Father Sean. The priest knelt alongside the pallet, his eyes closed, praying in Latin. The women bowed their heads. When Father Sean finished they all moved over to the table, where they stood in a sort of huddle.
"He must get away from this place, or die," the priest whispered in his native
language.
"But how, Father?" Una asked, wiping sweat from her brow.
"A dinghy is stashed in the jungle near the beach," he answered. "But there is much to do…"
"We'll do anything, Father," Freddy murmured anxiously. She knew that he was absolutely right. If this illness didn't kill Colin, Ben would soon find a way to finish the job.
"Whittingham plans to travel overnight to Christ Church parish," the priest whispered. "We must find out exactly when and get Colin well quickly. Someone must slip a sleeping potion to the driver on the appointed night. We need knives and valuables…"
Una could not rise from her pallet in the kitchen. In the glow of pre-dawn, as Freddy and Birdie began grinding the day's corn, they checked on her and gave her water as best they could. Sweating and shaking with fever, she tossed from side to side.
"Mam, I'm cold! I need my woolly jumper!" Una suddenly cried out in a little girl voice, shivering more violently. Freddy ran and gathered the three light blankets they had in the cookhouse. "Ooh, my head hurts…I hurt all over, Mam."
"It's only me," Freddy murmured as she covered her with the blankets. She pulled the covers up to Una's chin and tucked the edges in around her. Looking closely at her friend's face, she realized that her skin was yellow. "Birdie, come look. Perhaps we should get Mrs. Pratt…"
Birdie believed that mobby, the popular island drink, would help Colin and Una more than anything else. She and Freddy set to work making a colossal batch of it. They boiled sweet potatoes in massive iron pots, then mashed and soaked them. Then they strained the liquid off through a woolen bag into stone crocks, added sugar and lemon juice, and set it aside on a shelf to ferment. That night they would sneak some of it to Colin and Una.
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