Sugar Money

by Jane Harris

  Slumber did not come easy to me that night. I was wary of sharks and ill accustom to sleeping under sail. At first, I tried my sack as a pillow but its coarse fibres did itch my skin, ergo I tossed it aside. The constant motion of the yawl – along with a certain lingering mistrust of our hombre – kept me alert as a four-eye fish. Bianco sat in silence at the stern, just a shadow against the starlit sky. Up in the prow, my brother had stretched out longside the skiff. For all I know, he slept; leastwise, he hardly stirred whiles I laid there awake for what seem like forever.

  Only yesternight, our venture had promise to be an escapade, a chance to rejoin our old confreres at the Fort Royal hospital, to spend time with my brother and escape the friars, if only for a week. But here we were now, bidden to steal forty-odd slave from what amounted to enemy territory and smuggle them away across the sea. If that were not an act of piracy equal to any by Blackbeard or Bart Roberts then I was the Duchesse de Bouillon. Now that I knew the true nature of our allotted task, trembling had seize my body. My skin grew clammy; my hands clench so tight in two fist that my fingers began to ache.

  In an effort to overcome my fears, the mirror of my mind conjured scenes in which we two brothers – somehow armed with cutlass and musket – fought skirmishes with redcoat soldiers along the carenage at Fort Royal. Having vanquish our foes, we freed all the slaves in town then led them aboard a galleon, firing cannon at the fort as we sail to safety. In the grand finale of my imagination, Céleste threw herself at my feet, weeping tears of gratitude and hailing me a hero.

  My waking dreams full of such nonsense, I gazed up at the heavens until a flare of light caught my eye and I beheld a shooting star fall across the Milky Way. Magical sight. Perhaps it were a good omen. For a brief instant, I allowed myself to feel encouraged. But as the star died, trailing silver embers, old Bianco let flee a fart, startling as a blast of musketry, and the precious moment was ruined. All at once, my childish fancies of courage and audacity vanished and my mind became uneasy once again. Emile and I had no weapons and – in the immediate – not even a boat sizeable enough to carry off our bounty. What had old man Damascene called our mission: a reckless venture? Well, it was certainly noways as simple as I had first thought. It seem to me, now, that there might be good reason for his anxiety.

  My inners filled with dread and my visions became too dark and terrible to dwell upon. Some comfort then it was to see the recumbent shape of my brother stretched out within a few feet of where I myself lay. Though we had never lived life in clover – and he would insist, at times, on treating me like an infant – I felt sure that no real harm could come to us whiles we were together.

  Chapter Ten

  The weather held fair enough overnight, with a fine breeze to carry us, the only sound the slap of waves against the prow. In the small hours, came a drenching downpour as though God in Heaven had emptied all his buckets, but it passed almost as soon as it had commence. At some point, I must have fallen asleep and – since there is no whistling-frog at sea whose silence would rouse me, nor no morning bell – I slumbered on beyond break of day. When I finally came to my senses the sun had ascended on another clear morning. Bianco stood at the stern, one hand on the tiller as he attended to a call of nature over the transom. Emile sat against the starboard side, already awake.

  ‘Bonjou, ché,’ says he.

  ‘Bonjou.’

  I rouse myself and saw, close at hand, a low-lying land of forested hills. A few vessel had moored up just offshore near a tiny settlement, the wide bay so turquoise-blue it hurt your heart to look at the water. My brother nodded at the island.

  ‘Carriacou,’ he said. ‘Little sister of Grenada.’

  I gave a yawn.

  ‘Everybody knows that,’ I said – though, for true, I had fail to recognise the place.

  Bianco resumed his position at the tiller. Like as not, he had scarce slept overnight yet he did not stagger or sway. The sole hint of his condition was a smouldering behind his eyes, something red and fiery. In dead of night, he must have steered us windward of St Vincent and then south-west through an archipelago of islets and cays taking us to the leeward side of the Antilles. By my recollection, our destination lay at least a half-day sail further south but we were heading for the mid-point of the blue-green bay.

  ‘We’re making stop here,’ said Emile.

  ‘Pou ki sa?’

  ‘For food. Though I expect there might be some other reason.’

  His gaze strayed to the deck and a coil of rope, inside which lay the Kill-Devil jugs – both of them uncorked and empty.

  Just then, our hombre leapt up to drop sail and throw his mud-hook over the stern. A boy in an old candle-box raft sculled over to us, wight as a water beetle. The Spaniard gave him a dumb show and paid him to fetch what vittles could be found in haste. Once the boy had paddle for shore, Bianco sat down by the tiller and soon began to nod off.

  My brother was staring across the bay. I interrupted his thoughts with a question that bothered me.

  ‘Those slave in Grenada – who do you reckon they belong to?’

  Emile blew air through his lips.

  ‘Impossible to say. It’s complicated.’

  ‘But les Frères bought all our elders, did they not? Our mother – may God rest her soul in peace – and Chevallier, and Angélique, all of them, yes?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘And when those slave had their babies – like you and me, through the years – those infant belong to the same friars, did they not?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Emile. ‘But it’s more complicated – because of the loans.’

  I looked at him.

  ‘What loans?’

  ‘All those slave, the friars bought with borrowed money.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Father Prudence, years agone. They took a loan from the French government and another from some merchant in London. Being the case, the French authority might say those Fort Royal slaves and their descendant belong to them. The London merchant might say the same. Of course, the friars would argue otherwise but some would say they lost the right to the slave because of the debt and their misdoings.’

  ‘They might have repaid those loan since.’

  ‘No,’ Emile replied. ‘I asked around St Pierre the other night. They never repaid one sou, to this day. Everybody knows they are in debt from Salines to St Domingue. That’s why they want those slave back, to grow more cane. Cane is sugar, sugar is money. That’s all we are to them. But loan or no loan, the English will care not one farthing. Now they rule the land of Grenada, they must surely lay claim to the slaves at the hospital. And if we take Céleste and the rest without permission, those Goddams will say we stole them.’

  ‘But what about that Power of Attorney? That gives us permission to take them. Sign by the English Governor in Grenada himself.’

  ‘You believe so?’

  ‘That’s what the friar said.’

  ‘Well, a person might think that – if he weren’t listening. Your old Cléophas has a way of making words sound like he want them to. I did listen and – from what he told us, that parchment might well be sign by the two French, Ennery and Père Lefébure, but never once did the old man say that the English Governor made his mark on the page. If you ask me, I would be surprised if he’s even seen it.’

  I glance toward the prow. There lay the satchel with the Power of Attorney inside. Father Damascene had taught me all the letters of the alphabet so that I could recite him his Scripture, but before I learn to spell many words he got too giddy in his mind and our lessons ended. Nevertheless, it seem to me, any confirmed idiot could count signatures.

  ‘Let’s take a look,’ I said.

  Yet, when I made a move to fetch the bag, Emile grab my wrist.

  ‘Atjelman, non.’ He jerked his head toward the dozing skipper. ‘Capitaine Couilles there is deaf but he’s no numps. We should wait until we’re ashore, alone.’

  ‘But if it’s not sign by th
e Governor in Grenada then what earthly use is it?’

  Emile scratched his head.

  ‘Perhaps he has signed it or approved it in some way. Perhaps he told them what to write in it. At any rate, Cléophas says it may help us – depending on the circumstance.’

  ‘Circumstance … what does that mean?’

  For true, I knew that the Fort Royal hospital and all its slave had once upon a time been under the care of les Frères de la Charité. The Fathers had establish their Martinique hospital in the days of old langsyne. Then, some nine years before I was born, the French Government handed them control of the Grenada hospital. Two of the friar – Fathers Damien Pillon and Yves Prudence – did sail from St Pierre to Fort Royal. They took with them a nurse-man and some half-dozen slave, including our mother and Emile who was but five years old at the time. Pillon and Prudence bought additional slaves in Grenada and started up a plantation to fund their good works. However, as the years went by, the Fathers began to lose their reputation due to certain scandals and malpractices. The main culprit in all of this was Damien Pillon, though we seldom spoke his name – and even now I find it hard to write down on paper.

  Nobody liked Father Damien; not even the other Frères. He was the most notorious of all the friar, known for his tendency to lash out. In secret, the plantation hands called him ‘le Pilon’ or ‘the Pestle’, a name to reflect his crushing cruelty. The Pestle liked sugar money better than treating the sick and he was known to dole out more beatings than charity. Despite this, he acted as superior of the hospital in Grenada for years. Every otherwhile, a new Father would be sent from Paris to take control but somehow the Pestle always manage to oust them: they would conveniently die of fever, or he would send them packing to St Domingue or Martinique, or they would lose heart and return to France and then it might be months or even years before a replacement could make the journey from Paris.

  In this manner, the Pestle continue to reign supreme. When, at last, he decease this world – about a year after I had gone to Martinique – another friar took his place but within a month he also died, leaving just young Father Boniface and he had no experience to run a hospital and plantation. The French authority were only too delighted to resume control of the estate, having long since lost patience with the friars. They sent Boniface packing to Martinique, and the French Governor of Grenada appointed M. Maillard, a local physician, as head surgeon. There was an understanding that our Fathers could return to the hospital at Fort Royal as and when more experience friars arrive from Paris, proviso les Frères de la Charité submit in future to closer supervision by the authority. However, before that could happen, the English invaded the islands and what had once belong to the French passed into the hands of the Goddams.

  My brother took a sip from the water flask.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘Way I see it, if we fail to do what Cléophas wants, we have a few option.’

  ‘Di mwen.’

  ‘First option, when we reach Grenada, we take foot and hide out.’

  I looked at him.

  ‘Take foot where?’

  ‘We could try the mountains. Live off our wits in the forest. But we risk being hunted down forevermore by every Béké white colonial on La Grenade. And we might get caught. In which case … well …’

  ‘Second option gets my vote,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t know what it is yet,’ Emile replied.

  ‘I still prefer it.’

  He gave me a doleful smile.

  ‘I bon,’ he said. ‘Vwala. We hand ourselves over to the English when we reach Fort Royal; tell them Cléophas sent us to steal all the hospital slave.’

  I could only laugh.

  ‘You had a stroke of the sun? They will kill us dead on the spot.’

  ‘They might. Or they might put us to labour on one of their estates; murder us just the same, but slow-slow, with slaving.’ He rubbed his finger across his lips. ‘Or they might send us back to Martinique under escort …’

  His expression betrayed how little he relish that prospect. The friars would be unhappy if we failed in our task but Lord only knew how they might punish us if they heard we had thrown ourselves on the mercy of the Goddams.

  I grab the brim of my hat and began turning it around on my head. Emile threw me an enquiring look.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Trying to think of a third option.’

  ‘Well, there is one.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We do exactly what Cléophas ordered. We steal the slaves. I’ve been thinking until my brain-pan hurts but seems to me that’s our only alternative – provided we are not caught, in which case … that would be … well … tiresome …’

  ‘One way to describe it.’

  I couldn’t help but remember the previous night: my racing pulse, and the sudden enchantment of a shooting star spoil by the crack of a white man squib. For a moment, I did consider telling my brother what had happen, then thought better of it. No doubt, he would deem talk of bad omens infantile.

  ‘Well, what’s your suggestion?’ Emile asked. ‘You don’t like any of my ideas.’

  Just then, Bianco woke up and began to scratch himself all over, twitchy as a mud crab, due – most likely – to rum, or lack of it.

  ‘We could wait until we’re out at sea again,’ I said. ‘Sling this one overboard and sail to Africa, live like two king.’

  My brother threw back his head and laughed, guffawing from the back of his heels to the tip of his nose. I had not heard him roar so much in a long time but it seemed a ferocious kind of merriment.

  ‘Sail to Africa,’ he said. ‘In this tub. Now that I would like to see.’

  And he laughed again.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Damned if I know. I might be crazy from lack of sleep. But just one thing – neither you nor I can sail a boat. We would have this calabash capsize in less than five heartbeat and drown ourselves in six.’

  ‘Speak for yourself. I’ve been watching this old mackerel here with his ropes. It’s not difficile. I could manage.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ says he. ‘Silly! Besides, you tell me you disapprove of stealing slaves but you would murder a man – because that’s what it would amount to – murder; no matter he’s an old rum-hound or a dummie, he’s still a man and if you threw him overboard out there in the ocean you be killing him. You prepared to do that, on your own? Because I wouldn’t help you – hell-fire, I’d have to stop you, even if it meant hold you down and sit on your head, that’s what I’d do.’

  We both looked at Bianco. He had hunched over now and was scraping out the dirt from neath his toenails with the tip of his knife. Never did I see a more worthless-looking creature. And yet, once I gave the matter consideration, I knew I had no real desire to end his miserable life.

  ‘He fed you,’ Emile was saying. ‘There’s many would let you starve on this trip.’

  I kicked at the side of the hull.

  ‘You can bet what he gave us came from his self pocket,’ said Emile.

  ‘I heard you first time.’

  ‘And you would repay him by slinging him overboard?’

  ‘I am not going to sling him overboard. Tambou!’

  We glared at each other for a stretch. I was first to look away, somewhat ashame by my own suggestion – which was only a passing fancy, after all, though I would never admit as much to Emile.

  Meanwhile, the skipper had finish grooming his feet and progress to matters of a dental nature, prodding his back teeth with his finger then smelling it. In any other mood, such antics might have amuse me but my head ached and I was thrumming like a fiddle. Indeed, so embroil had we been in discussion that I had fail to notice the boy in the candle-box raft paddling back toward the yawl. Bianco quit prodding his ivories and leapt up to receive the delivery which turned out to be more Kill-Devil and some over-ripe paw-paw.

  Our hombre cheered up no end with a full jug in his hands. As we watch the
raft scud back to the shallows Bianco gave us a wink and made a start upon his new taffey. Though my belly was growling, I let Emile take his pick of the fruit for I had no desire to share repast with him. Even after he finish his paw-paw, I left a decent interval before even considering mine, but once started on them I fairly slonk them down. We had reach no decision about what to do and the dilemma hung over us. However, it seem to me that we had to eat, no matter what.

  Having despatch a good slug of tawny liquor, Bianco cork the jug and began to rummage in his lower garments, presently pulling out a long knob, both fleshy and scaly, deformed by protuberances. The sight of this thing emerging from his britches pocket unsettle me greatly until I realise with relief that it was not attach to his person. Thus wise was solve the mystery of what had cause the bulge in his inexpressibles: only a large hand of root ginger.

  He put one knuckle of it in his yam-trap, snapped off a good inch, then – chewing mightily – offered me a bite. Bearing in mind how long this rhizome had spent in the clammy depth of his most intimate pocket, I declined. My refusal sent him into a frenzy of gesture; he pointed at the ocean then smashed his hands together and waggle them: some tale about two current of water meeting and rough waves – from which I gather that ginger was a cure against sea distempers. Since the weather looked set absolutely fair and I had felt fine since we quitted St Pierre, I shook my head. Forthwith, the skipper played out the same mime for my brother and to my surprise Emile took the root and availed himself of a big old bite. Like as not, he did it to spite me and be different. Well, he could choke on ginger, for all I cared.