“It is time for me to go back to my place,” said Ama and tried to climb over him.
“Eh, eh. What is your hurry? We have the whole night.”
He forced her back alongside him.
“It is hot here,” she said, “and your bed is not wide enough for two.”
Her mind was on her letter to Quaque and how she might take it away without being detected.
“But more comfortable than the boards in the hold, surely?”
Ama said nothing.
“What would you say if I asked you to move in here with me?”
“So that you could use me during the voyage and then, when you get to your country, sell me at a good profit?”
“I have already promised you that I will sell you only to a good master. Probably my friend Jones, in Barbados.”
“Sir, I don't want to go to Barbados. I want to stay in my country.”
“I have told you before. That is completely out of the question.”
Ama was silent.
“I ask you again. Will you move in here with me and keep me company during the voyage? I will treat you well. You will be better off than my seamen, even than Mr. Butcher, who, like them, sleeps on deck. You will eat from my table. And have regular baths. What do you say?”
“Is it up to me to say yes or no?”
“Of course. Why do you think I asked you?”
“Then my answer is no.”
“Why not, for goodness’ sake? Are you crazy? “
“I would prefer to be with the women, that’s all.”
“Will you at least come to me when I send for you? Please don’t refuse me, Pamela. I need you.”
“Sir, as you told me, I am your slave. I must do as you command.”
“In that case, I command you.”
* * *
When Ama came out of the female hold the next morning, she had her letter concealed in her blue cloth.
There was an unusual bustle of activity on board that morning. Ama rubbed her eyes as she came into the light. She heard shouts and looked up. There were several sailors high up in the rigging, working on the ropes and the sails.
The cook summoned them to take their morning meal. This was irregular: as a rule they were fed in mid-morning, not at dawn. As soon as she had eaten, Ama went to her place at the gunwale nearest the shore, to keep watch for the canoe captain to whom she would entrust the delivery of her letter.
A ship which must have been lying a safe distance offshore during the night approached, carrying just enough sail to bring it to a convenient anchorage.
Williams hailed the captain.
“What news?” he shouted into his speaking trumpet when they had exchanged names and greetings, “Where are you from?”
Captain Eagles, the master of the brig Bluebird, property of the old trading firm Vernons of Newport, Rhode Island, cried back, “>From Anomabu. The Governor there, Miles, is visiting in Cape Coast. I have come to call him back.”
“That sounds like trouble.”
“Richard Brew is seriously ill. You don’t have a doctor on board by any chance, do you?”
The Bluebird’s crew were dropping their bow anchor and preparing to swing out their longboat.
“I certainly do. Doctor Butcher, a surgeon as good as his name!”
Williams laughed at his own stale joke.
“If you are heading that way, you might like to stop and see if Doctor Butcher can be of any service.”
“I certainly shall. As you can see, we are about to sail. I have a young nephew working for Brew. Also called Williams. I brought him out on my last voyage. Did you come across him?”
“Of course. Excellent lad. A pillar of strength in Brew’s establishment.”
Eagles was now in the boat and his crew had their oars raised and ready.
“Are there stocks at Anomabu?” Williams asked.
“Not many slaves but plenty of promises. There were eight ships in the road when I left late yesterday. But I must go now. We shall meet again soon no doubt. Perhaps even later today.”
As Ama listened to this conversation her hopes fell. It was clear that, unless Williams decided to backtrack along the coast after calling at Anomabu, she would not be able to send her letter to Philip Quaque. But Anomabu presented a new opportunity.
Williams was standing alongside Arbuthnot, quietly issuing instructions, which the mate transmitted to the Bosun, who in turn called them out to the men in the sheets.
“Knox, Hatcher. Get the females back into their hold,” the Bosun barked out.
Ama stepped out of the line and stopped behind Williams.
“Captain Williams,” she said quietly.
“Not now,” he snapped. “Can’t you see that I am busy?”
“Sir,” she said quietly, ignoring his reprimand, “I couldn’t help hearing your conversation. I know Mr. Brew. Would you let Mr. Butcher take me ashore with him to help?”
Williams said nothing. He just pointed to the line of women proceeding down the stairs and cocked his head in that direction.
* * *
In the early afternoon the funeral procession wound out of Castle Brew, which lay hard up against the high white walls of its official neighbour. Then the Castle cannon blasted out a salute and each ship added its noisy respects. Ama was already half deaf by the time it was Arbuthnot’s turn to give the order to fire. She closed her eyes and squeezed her hands over her ears, trying to block out the sound, but it was no good. Then, at last, it was all over. For a moment only the gulls and the lapping of the swell on the boards of the ship disturbed the silence. And the ringing in her ears. She hated the noise of the guns so much. Why do they do it? she wondered. Perhaps they have to give notice to their god, sitting up there in his heaven, that another dead white man is on his way?
It was now late afternoon. The conversation of even the most talkative of the women had run dry. Soon it would be time for them to be sent back into the hold for the night. Ama was bored. Not for the first time, she thought of asking Williams to let her have a book to read. But she was afraid of the reaction of the other women. They would think she was a witch. She stood up and stretched. Above her, in the shrouds, she saw George Hatcher, climbing. He paused to rest on the main top platform. Then she heard him call.
“Mis-ter Ar-buth-not.”
The Mate appeared. Hatcher pointed along the coast but his shout was lost in the onshore breeze. Ama walked around to the opposite side of the deck to see what had attracted his attention. A great blackness had risen out of the sea. To the west the sun was dropping to the horizon in a cloudless sky. But there, approaching rapidly from the east was this monstrous tower of darkness. It announced its advent with an extraordinary flash of forked lightning and a clap of thunder louder than a cannon shot.
Arbuthnot's voice rang out. With the old man and half the crew out of reach ashore, his first real test of command had come at last.
“Get the women back into their kennel. Run up the try-sails on the fore and main masts. Secure the guns. Batten down the hatches,” he ordered. “Look lively there now!”
The women tripped over one another as they were herded through the narrow doorway. Inside the hold their apprehension was almost palpable.
“Curse the white man that he should bring us onto this miserable ship to drown,” called one.
Another began to scream wildly.
Then the door slammed shut behind them. Moments later a piece of black sailcloth was nailed over the barred grating on the door. The narrow beams of red light from the four small vents seemed only to accentuate the darkness.
The first squall swept up on them swiftly and fiercely. One instant the ship was rocking gently in the swell. The next it was if they had been seized by a giant hand, viciously twisted, lifted and then tossed down again into the depths. Ama’s head struck the boards above her. A moment later she felt herself thrown off the platform, airborne. Alongside her other bodies were hurtling through the darkness. Her cloth went its own way. Instinc
tively she threw out her arms to cushion the inevitable impact. The floor leaned away. Women who only seconds before had been lying at the end of her trajectory, had rolled away into a heap under the far platform. She landed on the bare boards. The impact took her breath away. Her momentum and the slope of the floor took her onwards, sliding and rolling until her progress was halted by the tangle of screaming limbs and naked torsos. Now the ship righted itself and began to keel back to port. Ama clawed the darkness, desperately searching for some anchor in this maelstrom of terror. But all she found was the limbs of her companions in hell, and these were as free in space as her own. Last to arrive on the heap, now she was the first to be propelled back against the port wall. Trying to scramble to her knees she struck her head on the unseen edge of the platform. Then she was lying against the hull, buried beneath a pile of bodies. She struggled to free her arms. Her face was pressed down into another’s belly. There was no air. She panicked and felt herself losing consciousness, her life slipping away. Then the ship began to roll back to starboard and she was free. So it went on, a terrible shaking of human bodies on and on, back and forth, port to starboard, starboard to port, forward and aft, aft and forward again, on and on, without end.
Up on deck the seamen hung on to the shrouds, drenched by the waves which threatened to sweep them overboard and scourged by the fierce cold wind. Night had fallen. From time to time lightning exposed a brief picture of their world to them; then they were lost in darkness again until the next flash. Hatcher called out to Bruce who was nearest to him but his words were carried away by the angry screaming and roaring of sea and wind. Arbuthnot had lashed himself to the wheel. He strove to keep the fragile ship’s head into the sea as she laboured through the violence of the freak storm. There was little else he could do: such men as he had were beyond his command. He was not a religious man but now he prayed, shouting the Lord’s Prayer into the teeth of the wind, again and again.
Inside the battened holds, insulated from the sounds outside, screams of pain and terror rent the air as the slaves were thrown back and forth. Bowels and bladders were involuntarily evacuated. Limbs broke, skulls cracked.
The Love of Liberty had been driven by the north-eastern gale. Now at last the anchor dug into the sea-bed and the ship was brought to a sudden halt, propelling the women back towards the door.
And then, almost as suddenly as it had arrived, the squall had passed. The sea still heaved but there was no longer any wind. Now the black cloud deposited its burden. The rain came down in a sheet, washing the seamen’s matted hair into their eyes and setting up a deafening drumming on the decks.
Inside the holds, the flicker of a flash of lightning penetrated the vent holes, briefly illuminating in its narrow beams a scene of utter devastation. The women were, without exception, in a state of shock. But now, at least, as the storm abated, the survivors could hold their places against the pitch and roll of the ship. Slowly, amid anguished groans, the living began to disentangle their limbs.
In the ornate reception room of Castle Brew, with its glass chandelier, its twenty three Windsor chairs, two settees, four mahogany tables and two bureaux; its bookcases with volumes by Pope and Swift, Addison and Cervantes; with its four looking glasses and sixty six pictures of various sizes; in this ornate reception room the ten visiting captains, dressed in their best, their laced waistcoats and shirts with velvet collars, their patterned silk breeches and silk stockings, sat and drank through the night, drank the late Richard Brew’s liquor, drank toasts to the late Brew’s memory, drank until there was nothing left to drink. To a man they were deeply concerned at the fate of their vessels but in view of the weather, there was nothing to be done until the dawn; and so they drank.
And in Anomabu town, the fishermen and traders huddled together under their thatched roofs, flinching at each lightning flash and moving the brass basins to catch the leaks.
Ama crept along the floor, over prone bodies, scared to stand, stretching out an arm to locate the platform. When she found it, she dragged herself up. There at least there was some space. She propped herself against the hull and set about examining her naked body. There was a huge swelling on her forehead where it had struck the edge of the platform. Every muscle ached and her skin felt as if had been scraped all over with a sharp cutlass. But at least no bones seemed broken. She stretched out on the hard board and tried to sleep. Gradually the groans subsided and the exhausted women drifted off.
CHAPTER 28
Ama was awoken by the noise of a splash. Struggling to her knees and looking over the gunwale, she was just in time to see the last body hit the water. Five female corpses floated naked on the surface of the sea, sightless eyes staring at the sun. The gentle swell washed over them, jostling them against each other and bumping them against the ship. One of them was Nana Esi. Ama closed her eyes and retched.
The fin of a great white shark sliced the water. She caught a glimpse of a mouthful of teeth fastening onto a leg. Then the first body was dragged down into the depths, leaving just a little crimson whirlpool in its wake. Ama screamed. All at once the water was alive with sharks, tearing the remaining corpses apart in a frenzied orgy of competition. The sea was threshed red; severed heads, limbs and human guts were everywhere as they tore the flesh apart. Ama sank back onto the deck and beat her head against the boards, unable to contain the violence of her sobbing.
* * *
The first pair of naked men was carried up on to the deck. One was already dead and his companion was too weak to walk. Jack Tar uncoupled their irons and dragged the corpse away.
Silently, Williams cursed himself for having left the ship in charge of his inexperienced Mate. Then he cursed Brew for timing his death to coincide with such a damaging freak storm.
“Look sharp, now,” he called, seeing his favourable balance sheet reversed by the cruel blow inflicted on him by perfidious nature.
Many of the seamen had, like Williams, spent the night of the storm drinking Richard Brew on his way. Those who had been left on board had also had a sleepless night. They were all weak, hungry and exhausted. Williams, refreshed by his few hours’ sleep in the morning, urged them on regardless.
Ama dragged herself to the barricade to watch. Butcher stood back now and shouted orders. All hands except the cook and his assistants were applied to the task of extracting the men from the hold, unlocking and removing their irons, sluicing the blood and shit off their bodies, sorting the living from the dead and the living from the living.
Butcher conferred with the captain. What they were doing was contrary to all conventional wisdom. The situation was fraught with danger. The whites were heavily outnumbered. But Williams was anxious to ascertain the extent of the loss he had sustained. He decided to gamble. The slaves were in poor condition, weak and exhausted from the trauma of the previous night. He took the precaution of strengthening the guard. A bombardier stood by the quarter-deck guns with a lighted brand held high to let the slaves see his readiness to inflict an awful vengeance upon them should they venture to riot.
Ama became aware of someone beside her. It was the young girl whom she had saved from the clutches of Knaggs.
“So, Mara, you also survived the storm?” Ama said to her.
The girl replied with such a sweet smile, that Ama could not help but laugh at her innocence. She put an arm around her and held her close.
A sudden cacophony of voices drew her attention back to the scene on deck. The fit and curious women joined her at the barricade. As they watched, one male slave and then another sprang onto the port gunwale and dived overboard. The guards lashed out with their whips and swung their pikes and cutlasses, forcing a way through; but the other slaves did their utmost to obstruct their passage, all the time shouting encouragement to those who had escaped. Before the crew could take up their stations and enforce order, six men had leapt into the sea.
The women rushed to the gunwales, urging the swimmers on.
Williams’ face was crimson.
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“Lower the boat,” he screamed.
The slaves, free of their shackles, their spirits roused by the intrepid behaviour of their comrades, barred the way and jostled the crew.
Williams drew a pistol and used the butt to force his way through. Reaching the gunwales he fired into the water ahead of the first of the swimmers, intending to impede his progress until the long boat could be launched. The women jeered and hooted at him. Williams turned. Arm outstretched and eyes narrowed, he took aim at them. They drew back, screaming in alarm. He turned again to the swimmers. The women resumed their imprecations. Williams re-loaded and fired. The swimmers dived. Then, as Williams was re-charging his gun, one of them, surfacing, seemed the spring out of the water. He threw up his arms and screamed abuse at the captain.
The crew of the long boat recaptured two of the escapees. Two more they pulled in, dead. Ama saw one sucked beneath the swell, after which there appeared a red track in the sea, which widened, faded and then was seen no more. The last one might have reached the shore. Ama fancied that she saw a naked man standing on the distant sandy beach, shaking a fist at Williams.
Williams now had the Chief Mate arm all the crew. He would normally have considered this foolhardy, an invitation to mutiny, but he sensed that the incipient revolt of the slaves had evoked strong sentiments of solidarity amongst the whites.
The two recaptured escapees were brought back on board, and the corpses.
On Williams’ orders the crew shackled the watching slaves in pairs and chained them.
“Where is the girl Pamela?” he asked.
Bruce took her by the arm and dragged her forward.
“Come along now, Madam Desdimony,” he told her.
“Ask them,” Williams told Ama, indicating the two bound escapees “how they came to mutiny.”
“Ask them yourself,” she replied sullenly.
He turned to her, his eyes dark. Then, slowly and deliberately, he raised his right hand and slapped her viciously, first, with his palm, on her left cheek and then, with the back of the same hand, on the other.
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