Killigrew of the Royal Navy

by Jonathan Lunn

  Killigrew turned to the chief carpenter’s mate from the Tisiphone, who was waiting to report. ‘Well, Mr Fentiman?’

  ‘It ain’t good, sir. They must’ve chucked most of their stores overboard when we was chasing ’em. And most of the timbers and rigging that’s still home is as rotten as a politician’s conscience. There ain’t enough rope and timbers on board the Tisiphone to replace ’em all. Christ – pardon me language, sir – but we’d need to build a whole new ship to replace this floating coffin. We’ll be lucky to get halfway back to Africa.’

  ‘Well, there isn’t enough room on board the Tisiphone for all the slaves, so we’ll just have to make do. Galton, I want you and Evans to row Fentiman and Sails back to the Tisiphone to arrange the transfer of stores.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Parsons returned carrying a bunch of keys. ‘Good lad,’ said Killigrew, taking them from him.

  ‘Sir, there’s something I think you should see in the captain’s cabin.’

  ‘All right.’ Killigrew turned to Boulton and handed him the keys. ‘I want you and the others to start bringing up the slaves from below. And bring up some irons for these fellows,’ he added, indicating the slavers. ‘Once we’ve got all the slaves on deck we can put these swines in their place, let them see how they like it down there. It’s a pity there aren’t more of them, so they can get a flavour of how cramped it is.’

  Killigrew followed Parsons aft to the master’s day room. ‘What is it, Mr Parsons?’

  ‘It’s… um… it’s difficult to explain, sir. I think you’d better see for yourself.’ Parsons echoed the phrase Strachan had used not five minutes earlier before showing him the slave deck. Killigrew wondered what new atrocity awaited him.

  Parsons opened the door to the cabin. A handsome black woman in her early twenties stood at the window, gazing out across the sea. Like the slaves in the hold she was completely naked, but better kempt, and Killigrew would have been less than human not to admire her long, lithe limbs and supple curves.

  ‘Ah-ha!’ said Killigrew. ‘No need for alarm, Parsons. That is what is known as a “woman”. A remarkably fine specimen, at that.’

  Parsons flushed. ‘I know that, sir…’

  Hearing voices, the woman turned and crossed quickly to where Killigrew stood on the threshold. She dropped to her knees at his feet and entwined her fingers in the material of his coat, her eyes pleading. ‘Doan’ hurt me, mas’er. Please doan’ hurt me…’

  Killigrew grimaced and gestured helplessly, unsure of what to do with his hands. In the end he settled for patting her on the head and motioning for her to rise. ‘It’s all right, it’s over. No one’s going to hurt you. We’re officers of the Royal Navy. We’re going to take you back to Africa.’

  ‘Oh, t’ank you! T’ank you!’ Sobbing with relief, she buried her face in his crotch.

  He gently took her under the arms, prised her away, and helped her to the bunk. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Missy, mas’er.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not the name the slavers gave you. Your real name.’

  ‘Onyema.’

  ‘Well, you sit there, Onyema, and I’ll send someone to make sure you’re not hurt as soon as I’ve got a moment.’ He headed for the door and gestured for Parsons to follow him.

  ‘Do you suppose they… you know…?’ asked Parsons as soon as the door was closed.

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Killigrew said tightly. ‘You’ll often find the master of a slaver picks out the handsomest of the women for his own personal pleasure during the voyage to the Americas. Sometimes he’ll let the whole crew do likewise.’

  ‘My God!’ stammered Parsons. ‘Savages! So this is how the white man brings civilisation to the dark continent.’

  ‘At least she didn’t seem too badly knocked about. It doesn’t make up for the violation, of course, but in some ways she’ll have been better off in the master’s cabin than she would have been down in that slave deck with the others.’

  The others were being brought up on deck now. Some of the little ones were so sick after only a few hours on board they could no longer walk and had to be carried up. Even before they had been brought on board the Maria Magdalena, they might have spent weeks in equally vile imprisonment in a barracoon on the African coast. As each one emerged, Strachan directed one of the seamen from the Tisiphone to play water from the ship’s pump over their besmirched bodies. Some of the children howled when the salt water entered their sores, but brine was better than excrement.

  At length all the slaves were brought up – including half a dozen dead – until the decks were crowded with their bodies: not only the barque’s waist, but the forecastle, quarter-deck and poop deck, so that it was hardly possible to move without stepping on one. They lay about listlessly, a few of the children still crying, some of the older ones addressing the navy seamen in their strange tongue – Koumba told Killigrew they were offering their thanks – but most still too drained by the suffocating heat of the hold to do more than lie there. Strachan moved amongst them, checking for any signs of infectious disease and doing what he could for them, while Killigrew directed two of the seamen to rig up a sail as an awning over the waist to provide some shade from the glaring heat of the sun for the sickest of the freed slaves. The slavers, meanwhile, were put in irons and carried down to the filth of the slave deck, enabling the marines to stand down at last.

  ‘There’s no sign of any disease,’ Strachan reported at last. ‘I think it’s safe to put some of the stronger ones aboard the Tisiphone. ’

  ‘Good. I’ll see to it. There’s a woman in the captain’s cabin. I don’t think she’s hurt as such, but I’d be grateful if you could… you know… make sure she’s all right.’

  Strachan nodded. ‘Very well, as soon as I’ve collected some things from the sick berth.’

  By now the Tisiphone had manoeuvred alongside the Maria Magdalena, and as timber, ropes and sails were transferred across one way, about eighty of the slaves were carried across the other. Killigrew and Strachan went back aboard the Tisiphone, the latter collecting medical supplies from the sick berth while the former presented himself to Commander Standish.

  Standish was in his forties, long overlooked for promotion to post-captain, and Killigrew knew that it rankled. There were men younger than Standish who were commodores by now. It was not because Standish was the kind of pompous, unimaginative officer who did everything by the book to conceal his own incompetence – although he was – but because he lacked the ‘interest’ of a senior officer: that magical quality which meant all the difference between the advancement and stagnation of a naval career. Without it, it did not matter how bold or efficient an officer was.

  Standish stood by the window in his day room, staring out, and he did not turn to face Killigrew as the younger man entered his office. There was no love lost between the two of them. Another reason for Standish’s slow career progression was the fact that he was a graduate of the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth. Most senior officers sneered at college graduates, deriding them as ‘X-chasers’, and preferring the majority of officers who had learned their trade at sea, the way they themselves had done, the way the navy had trained all its officers since time immemorial. That had been how Killigrew had learned, and Killigrew had the ‘interest’ which Standish lacked. If Killigrew played his cards right he would be a post-captain long before he was Standish’s age.

  ‘Fentiman tells me she’s in an appalling state, Mr Killigrew.’

  ‘By navy standards, sir, yes.’ By any standards, for that matter, but there was not enough room on the Tisiphone for all the slaves; the only way to get them back to Africa was to try to sail the Maria Magdalena to Sierra Leone, so Killigrew knew there was no point in complaining.

  ‘Think you can make it?’ Standish did not sound as if he cared either way, but was obliged to ask out of good manners.

  Killigrew did not imagine it would be easy, but he was confident in his own abilit
y and that of the men who had been appointed to the prize crew. ‘It shouldn’t be too much trouble, sir.’ It went without saying that Killigrew’s definition of ‘too much trouble’ meant much more trouble than most other people’s definition.

  Standish grunted. ‘It’s now’ – he checked his fob watch – ‘just coming up to four o’clock. We should reach Freetown some time after noon the day after tomorrow. We’ll wait for you there until the morning tide on Monday; in any event, if we have to leave before you get back, I’ll leave orders at the prize court.’

  Finally some supplies, especially water and fresh fruit, were transhipped aboard the Maria Magdalena in an effort to improve the stock of rice and yams which the slavers had taken on board for the slaves. Then Killigrew and Strachan went back aboard the barque and the two ships parted company, the Tisiphone tacking eastwards back towards the African coast.

  Killigrew felt a pang of loneliness as the paddle-sloop sailed away, but it was only momentary. It was always a thrill for a young man to find himself in command of his own vessel, even if it was only the temporary command of a captured prize. He was never happier than when there was a seaman’s work to be done – except when he was in amenable female company with a plentiful supply of good whisky and cheroots, of course – and there was no shortage of work to be done aboard the Maria Magdalena.

  The first task was to repair the spars and rigging damaged by the Tisiphone’s chain shot during the chase, so they could get the barque under way at the earliest opportunity. The simple fact that the slaver was now in the hands of the Royal Navy would not prevent more deaths from occurring amongst the recaptives – as the technically freed slaves were known – and the longer it took them to reach Sierra Leone, the more recaptives would die. The transfer of eighty Africans to the Tisiphone had left more space on deck, and the seamen chivvied the ones left behind to leave gaps between them through which they could cross the deck while they worked.

  It did not take long to hoist those sails that had not been damaged, and Killigrew at once directed Ågård to take the helm and put her about. The wind had freshened a little now – no more than five knots, force two on Admiral Beaufort’s scale – but it was off-shore, against the Tisiphone. No sailing ship could head directly into wind, but by bracing up the yards they could travel on a starboard tack, at an angle to the direction they wanted to go, before changing to a port tack. In this way they could follow a zigzag course which would eventually take them to Freetown, but it would be a slow and laborious process – for every ten miles of ocean covered they would actually have to cross thirty – especially with the winds so light. At least they would pick up speed as soon as they had replaced the upper sails.

  Killigrew heard a woman’s scream from below decks. He vaulted over the poop-deck rail and landed nimbly on the quarter-deck, narrowly missing one of the Africans who lay there. He kicked open the door, passed through the master’s day room into the cabin and quickly surveyed the scene. Onyema sat on the bunk, her thighs pressed against her chest with her arms wrapped around her knees. To Killigrew’s right, Strachan pressed himself into the corner of the cabin furthest from the bunk. He was dabbing at a split lip with his handkerchief.

  ‘What the devil’s going on in here?’ demanded Killigrew. Both Onyema and Strachan began to speak at once. Killigrew waved for silence. ‘One at a time. Ladies first.’

  ‘She’s no lady,’ muttered Strachan.

  Onyema indicated Strachan. ‘Him me touch—’

  ‘I was examining her, damn it!’ snapped Strachan.

  ‘Him touch Onyema paps. Him try touch Onyema cunny.’

  ‘That’s a damn lie!’ spluttered Strachan. His native Scots burr, usually hardly discernible, became more pronounced when he was upset. ‘I had nae even got as far as taking her pulse when the black bitch went crazy on me. She hit me, damn it!’

  Killigrew studied Strachan’s red face, trying to judge whether he was telling the truth or if it was just bluster. It was unthinkable that a naval officer could act in such an ungentlemanly fashion, but Strachan had not been in the navy for very long and Killigrew did not know him well enough to be sure either way. He could not blame a man for being tempted – Onyema was a fine-looking woman – but a gentleman resisted temptation if his advances were unwelcome. To take advantage of a woman who had just been through the kind of ordeal Onyema had been subjected to was the behaviour of the vilest scum.

  ‘Get out,’ he told Strachan.

  ‘You’re going to take her word for it over mine?’

  ‘Why should she lie?’

  ‘How should I know? She’s crazy. She just went for me all of a sudden.’

  ‘A man’s innocent until proven guilty,’ Killigrew said tightly. ‘I’ll allow you that much. Now get out of my sight.’

  ‘For God’s sake! You don’t seriously think I’d try to take advantage of her? After what she’s been through?’

  ‘Get out!’

  Strachan stared at Killigrew and apparently decided it would be safest to do as he was told. As soon as he was gone, Killigrew turned to Onyema. ‘I must apologise for allowing this to happen. It won’t happen again, I assure you.’

  ‘Thank you, mas’er.’

  He grimaced. ‘It’s Mr Killigrew, not “mas’er”,’ he told her, and then softened. ‘Or “Kit” to my friends.’

  ‘Mas’er Killigrew Onyema friend?’

  He smiled. ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Onyema like Mas’er Killigrew. Mas’er Killigrew, him have kind face. Face woman trust, can.’

  Killigrew laughed. ‘Well, that’s the first time anyone’s ever accused me of that.’ He opened the closet, hoping to find a shirt he could give her to put on – the sight of her smooth ebony skin was starting to distract him to the point where he could almost sympathise with Strachan – but instead found a woman’s muslin shift. He handed it to her. ‘Here, put this on.’

  She pulled the shift on over her head. It fitted perfectly. ‘Ship go Africa long time?’

  ‘Three, maybe four days.’

  ‘What happen, ship go Africa?’

  ‘We’ll take you to Sierra Leone. That’s a British colony. There’s no slavery there.’ Which was not entirely true: ironically, since Sierra Leone had been set up as a colony for freed slaves, it was one of the few places in the British Empire where slavery was still allowed, but only for domestic slaves. But he saw no need to confuse her. ‘The British government will maintain you – pay for food and shelter, I mean – for a year. After that, it’s up to you. You can stay in Sierra Leone and try to get work, although I don’t recommend it. You may decide you’re better off going to the British West Indies under a scheme of apprenticed labour. But all this will be explained to you when we reach Freetown.’

  ‘Onyema work Mas’er Killigrew? Onyema servant Mas’er Killigrew?’

  He chuckled, but without much humour. ‘I’m afraid I can’t afford to keep any servants.’ His closest living relative, Admiral Killigrew, was wealthy, but he refused to go cap in hand to his grandfather, and lived as best he could on his navy pay and any prize money he earned.

  ‘Now you must excuse me,’ he told Onyema. ‘I’ve got important work to do.’

  He made his way into the day cabin, took out the charts and navigational instruments he had brought on board with him and plotted a course to Freetown. When he had finished he stood up, crossed to the window and opened it to let in some fresh air. He wedged himself in the frame, with one foot on the sill, his knee against his chest, and lit a cheroot while watching the sun set the sky aflame as it sank towards the horizon. Beneath the ship’s stern the sharks’ fins still swam in the wake. When he had finished his cheroot he flicked the butt out and watched the glowing tip arc down through the gloom to the waves.

  ‘That’s all you’re getting out of me, you bastards,’ he murmured softly to himself.

  ‘Mas’er Killigrew?’

  He turned his head. Onyema stood framed in the door to the cabin, the light fr
om a hurricane lantern shining through the diaphanous material of her shift to silhouette her nubile figure. She toyed with the stays at the neck of the shift, pulling them down between her breasts – whether by artifice or not Killigrew did not know – to emphasise her cleavage.

  ‘Nothing. I was just thinking out loud.’

  ‘Onyema make Mas’er Killigrew happy?’

  ‘Mas’er Killigrew already happy.’

  ‘Mas’er Killigrew, him have wife?’

  ‘No.’

  When a knock sounded on the door before he could say anything more, his reaction was one of relief. He waved her back into the cabin and she closed the door behind her. ‘Come in.’

  Fentiman thrust his head around the door. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but there’s five foot o’water in the well.’

  ‘Five feet!’ With that much water in the bilges the orlop deck must have been completely awash. ‘My God, it’s a miracle we’ve not foundered already. Set two of the hands to work the bilge pump immediately.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I’ve already done that. It’s just that I checked the water in the well when we first come aboard, and there was less than six inches then.’

  Killigrew stared at him in incomprehension for a moment, and then took out his fob watch and flicked open the cover. It was nearly five o’clock. ‘You mean to tell me we’ve shipped four and a half feet of water in less than two hours? We must have a bad leak.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ve set Ivey and Lidstone to look for it and I’ll be going to help them in a moment, but with that much water coming in we’re going to need to man the pump all the way from here to Freetown, and even then I wouldn’t care to lay odds on our staying afloat till we arrive.’