HF - 03 - Mistress of Darkness

by Christopher Nicole

  The moan arose from the prisoners. These were destitute of all clothing, and consisted of women, and some children, as well as men. But none of the children was less than twelve, Gislane estimated, squinting in the morning sunshine, just as none of the men or women was much over thirty. And they were yoked together, and chained at wrist and ankle, without distinction of sex or age, and had apparently been thrown into the bottom of the boats without regard for their comfort, for arms and legs emerged from various angles, and the general moan was occasionally punctuated by a shrill cry.

  And now, as the canoes approached the ship, the morning air was obliterated by the most frightful stench she had ever known. It surpassed even the cabin of the Antelope after a gale.

  'Where are they from?' she asked.

  Runner half turned his head. 'The interior,' he said. 'The Prince undertakes to supply all the slaves we can handle. They are prisoners he takes in the wars, but now he undertakes the wars just to gain the prisoners.'

  'And none of them are old,' she said, half to herself.

  'What good would there be in an old slave?' Runner wondered. 'Those creatures have marched more than a hundred miles to take passage in this ship, and Christ knows we lose even the healthy ones if the wind fails. And we import them to the Caribee Isles for labour. No, no, those the Prince reckons won't stand the march are killed on the spot. Now get out of sight, if you value any of our lives.'

  Gislane crouched on the companion ladder, closing the door to all but a crack. For now the lead canoes were under the lee of the ship, and a moment later a huge black man appeared in the gangway. More than six feet tall, with shoulders like an ox, the red and blue and white feathers surmounting his head added another two feet to his stature, and he wore a fringe over his shoulders as well as at his waist. His muscles bulged at bicep and thigh, his penis almost matched the knobkerry beside it, but the ultimate mark of his authority was that, apart from his normal weapons, he wore a European sword, a Spanish rapier which was thinner than one of his fingers, hanging from a broad leather belt.

  He stood in the gangway, and took in the whole ship in a slow stare, and Gislane's heart began to throb as he even seemed able to penetrate the wood of the aftercastle to see her. To belong to Runner and Penny was one thing; to suppose being taken by this animal, into the endless fastnesses of the Congo jungle, was an utterly incomprehensible task for the imagination. Yet she stared at him; she had never in her life seen such a totally splendid male figure. And the strangest of understandings began to seep into her mind, that to contemplate lying nightly beneath Harry Runner would also have been an incomprehensible thought, two months ago.

  'Runner.' The Prince pronounced the word slowly. But he had used it before. And now the captain revealed an unsuspected side to his character, as he approached the potentate, bowing low, and speaking in a foreign language. The Prince replied, and the conversation became general for a few minutes, with both men looking pleased enough, although the Prince's glance kept straying to the crew, assembled forward, every man armed and ready.

  But at last the negotiations seemed complete, and Penny snapped his fingers to bring forward four sailors lugging between them a large chest. This had lain inside the cabin throughout the voyage, and Gislane knew it contained nothing better than old and rusty muskets, strings of worthless beads, a few gilt ornaments, and some bottles of gin. Yet when it was opened before the Prince he seemed delighted. The lid was snapped shut, ropes were fastened to lower it into one of the canoes, and the main hatch was thrown open.

  Insensibly Gislane allowed the companion doorway to swing open a litde further as the slaves came on board. Never had she seen such misery, on their faces, in their naked bodies, emaciated and laden with every conceivable variety of filth, amongst which open sores dribbled blood, and in the spiritless shamble of their footsteps. But Captain Runner was an old hand at the game; if he calculated on losing two out of every ten on the voyage across the Atlantic, he knew the steps he had to take to prevent that deficit growing. Each yoke of six slaves was made to stop as they reached the deck, and half a dozen of the seamen were already working at the pumps, sucking up salt water from the bay and having it gush forth, directing their stream over the shambling people in front of them. These stopped in dismay, no doubt supposing their unhappy existence finally at an end, and that they had been brought here to be drowned, and then slowly resumed their progress, down into the hold.

  On and on they came, while Runner himself made the tally, and Penny walked up and down with a whip, slashing here and there where a yoke would not obey his instructions, bringing glances of resigned terror and the occasional moan of pain. Gislane watched in fascinated horror. If not her mother, then certainly one of her ancestors had once boarded a vessel like this in these circumstances. The thought induced a tingle of anger all the way up her spine. And there were so many of them; it almost seemed as if the Antelope had no bottom, for surely the hold had been filled long ago.

  She was distracted by a shout from the captain. A yoke had reached the gangway, and there checked. It consisted of two men, a boy, and three young women; they appeared to be stronger and more alert than the average, and there was even a certain plumpness about the girls' bodies. Having reached the deck, they had paused to look around them, at the flooding hose, at the shivering group immediately in front of them, at the next dripping yoke slowly finding its way down the ladder. Now they gave a collective yell, and turned for the gunwale. Hence Runner's shout, as he attempted to stop them, to find himself thrown to one side as, acting in unison, they climbed on to the rail and launched themselves into space.

  'God damn you for brainless creatures,' Runner bawled. But he did not seem interested in regaining the runaways, and was already marking the next yoke down as it came up the ladder. These looked over their shoulders at the sea, and then advanced readily into the jet of water.

  Gislane could contain herself no longer. She threw open the companion door and ran outside, clambering the ladder to the poop and running to the rail. She watched the six people swimming, easily discernible by the wooden harness which rose above them, and still quite ignored, as much by their late captors as by the seamen of the Antelope. So why, she wondered, did not others take this opportunity to make their escape?

  Because there was no escape. The six slaves were still chained together, and still burdened by their yoke. Even as she watched, the boy's head dropped, and he stopped swimming. His weight for a few minutes made little difference, but the shore was still half a mile away, and now one of the two men dropped into the water. Soon the other also died, and the three male corpses were supported by the vigorous efforts of the girls alone. But now they were well away from the cluster of canoes, and the sharks, driven from the side of the brig by the disturbed water, were regaining their courage.

  'Can't you help them?' Gislane shouted.

  Runner glanced over his shoulder. 'For Christ's sake, I'll have your arse raw for this,' he bawled. 'Get below.'

  'They're people drowning,' she screamed. 'You can't just let them drown.'

  Runner looked at the distant yoke, still bobbing on the water as the girls urged themselves onwards, but now sinking lower as their own strength began to fade. 'Silly bastards,' he said. 'There's naught we can do for them now, girl. If they will go, they will go.'

  Gislane could not stop looking, as the fins circled closer and closer. It was difficult to see now, but she thought that even one of the girls had died, and the whole was being supported by the remaining two. Then the water around the yoke became broken, and a single wailing scream drifted across the bright sunlight of the morning. She found herself on her knees, with tears coursing down her cheeks, and she had not wept since they had been a week out of Bristol.

  'I said get below.' Runner seized her arm and dragged her to her feet; the Prince had returned to his canoe, but he was staring at the brig's poop in quiet interest. 'Six ain't going to make much difference. I have four hundred below hatches. We'll ta
ke no more.'

  She gaped at him. 'Four hundred? In that hold? That isn't possible.'

  'They fit,' Runner said. 'We make them lie down, and we put a false floor on top of each row. Oh, they fit.'

  'But ... six weeks, lying down in that heat, crowded one against each other?' she cried. 'They'll all die.'

  Runner grinned. 'Not them. Well, maybe a hundred or so. I'm only contracted for three hundred, anyways. But I'll keep them alive, girl. Why, I bring them up every day, for a salt water wash and a walk. Ten minutes a day, girl, for every man, woman and child. I'm no monster.'

  The girl's giggles awoke Gislane. This happened regularly. The Negress giggled constantly, whenever food or drink was offered to her, whenever a hand was laid on her body. And when she giggled, she moved, sinuously, hips and shoulders and breasts and thighs and even toes, keeping some sort of obscene rhythm. 'Get a black one going,' Runner had declared, 'and you've got something. They don't lie around like sacks of coal. The trouble with you, girl, is that there ain't enough nigger in your veins. You'd do best to cultivate it, if you'd keep your skin.'

  No doubt he was right. And there was something fascinating about the Negress's movements, about the abandon with which she threw herself into lovemaking. Of course for her it was heaven, to be taken aft - supposing she believed in a heaven. It meant she received good food, and liquor to drink, and a bunk to sleep on instead of the deck. It meant she had reasonably clean air to breathe most of the day, instead of for a few minutes. It meant she never felt the lash curling around her shoulders; as the sailors spoke none of the African tongues their only means of communicating with their charges was by means of the whip.

  And it meant that, having found a plump and willing girl amongst the cargo, Runner and Penny made less demands upon her. Gislane could hardly believe her fortune. Yet at the same time she was prepared to think about Runners strictures. Survival, to the West Indies, had become imperative. Because in the West Indies would be the Hiltons. Once she was off this hellship, she would find her way to Hilltop or

  Green Grove, and thence she would be free. Thus nothing mattered, save survival. And survival depended upon pleasing Runner. It occurred to her that she had never actually pleased him at all, judging by his reaction to the Negress. Her body pleased him, because it was white, because she had large breasts and a small waist, because her legs were long and slender. He had told her that these things pleased him, as her narrow thighs pleased him, as her luxuriant hair pleased him, as the inescapable fact of her growing filthiness did not displease him. He could obtain an erection just by looking at her, and certainly by running his hand through the thatch on her belly. But afterwards, he would slap her face and throw her from the bunk, and raise his favourite grumble, that she was a damned sack of coal.

  It had never occurred to her before that a woman had an active part to play in pleasing a man. Her observations had always had to do with appearance. A woman was pretty, in which case she pleased, or she was ugly, in which case she displeased. Money and position were important. Pretty clothes and a good bearing and a smattering of education could make an ugly woman attractive, and ignorance and lack of conversation could make a pretty woman dull. All of these facts of life had been hammered into her by Mama Nicholson. But now she was realizing that Mama had been neglecting the really important things, the things that were necessary after the attraction had been completed, after the man had achieved the position he sought.

  How strange, she thought, that she should be considering learning about men, and women, from a giggling black girl?

  But in the mornings she hated the giggle. When she slept, she dreamed, and she did not feel. When she awoke, it was to another endless day, another problem in survival. Not for her, perhaps. But for so many others. She sat up, swung her legs to the deck, pulled greasy hair from her shoulders and face, idly scratched the various corners of her body where lice and fleas had gathered during the night. By now the movement of the ship was part of her nature, and she swayed with it, placed her feet on the deck to counter the roll, hardly heard the creaking of the rigging and the swish of the water being driven away from the hull. They ran before an unceasing trade wind, always aft the beam, which varied only in force, sometimes whining into half a gale, more often dropping into hardly more than a zephyr, leaving the ship rolling and the yards flapping, causing the ocean to assume the characteristic of an enormous blue carpet, with not a speck of white to be seen.

  And allowing the sun to enjoy itself to the utmost. As this morning. It was hardly past dawn, and the heat was intense; she had to stroke a sweat film away from around her eyes. She got up, dropped her shift, now sorely tattered, over her shoulders, peered from the galley doorway into the cabin. The girl saw her, and giggled some more. She lay on top of the naked figure of Penny, the mate, and if he was awake, it was she who did most of the moving.

  Gislane tiptoed to the companion ladder, climbed it, opened the door with great caution, and stepped into the waist. Here she was for the moment invisible from the poop. Once she was discovered Runner would certainly want to give her his morning fumble. But here the enormity of the coming day was too amply displayed. For the first duty of the dawn watch was to remove the dead, and they were already engaged in dragging the stiffening corpses up the ladder to the deck. There was no ceremony, no respect for the blacks. They were expected to die at a certain rate, of heat and starvation, some - most, Gislane suspected — of sheer despair. The seamen held them by the ankles, bumped their naked bodies across the deck to the opened gangway, and pushed them through. The splashes were monotonous as the ship wallowed on its way, and the black fins which had followed them all the way from the Gulf of Guinea never lacked for a morning meal.

  Today there were six. How strange, she thought, that in London, whenever a hearse passed, I would feel tears in my eyes. And now I do not even feel a roll to my belly. Flow adaptable must be the human mind. And how weak. Because she was not even sure she still felt hate, still cared whether or not Runner and Penny reached the gallows in good time or lived into a ripe and respectable old age. She was turned inwards by the unutterable misery about her, and thought only of her own survival. How else could she stand here and watch the morning parade? For after the dead there came the living, men and women, shambling into the brightness of the sun, blinking their eyes, setting up that moan which so often escaped the noisome hatches. Now was the moment the watch were on their best guard, whips and even cutlasses ready. But most of those who would contemplate suicide had done so in the first week out. Those that were left were resigned, or counted themselves already dead and merely existed until the moment their hearts stopped beating.

  Yet there were those who still wanted to live, who dreamed, like her, of survival and perhaps even escape. If Negroes dreamed; she could find no point of identification with these people. Surely. She was white. The amount of black blood in her veins would not fill a pint mug. Thus Papa Nicholson had always insisted. She was white.

  But no doubt black people did dream. One in particular, who perhaps dreamed of other things than escape. He came on deck now, slowly following the file, ducking his head beneath the jet of salt water which sparkled on the ebony of his skin. He was a big man, perhaps as big as the Prince. Starvation and privation and the cramped six feet by eighteen inches which composed his living quarters had not weakened those muscles, and when he stretched he suggested contempt for his surroundings, created a hint that were he so minded he could sweep his mighty arms and thrust the entire crew of the Antelope into the sea and take control of the ship.

  Perhaps that was his dream. That and another. For as he left the water jet, and paraded the deck with his fellows, his head was turning aft. He had looked, on the third day out, and discovered her, and perhaps she had looked back, and discovered him, as she had discovered the Prince. She had looked for intelligence in the black eyes, and found it, and she had looked for strength in the high forehead and thrusting chin, the wide gash of a mouth and the big
nose. As he had looked at a white woman, standing half naked to oversee him, and had taken his genitals in his hand and waved them at her, a gesture which left her unaffected save for a vague wonder if he would feel the same as Runner. He was certainly a considerably larger man.

  But when he was swept below, her interest in the day subsided. There was nothing ahead of her but heat, and sweat, and lice, and Runner. Nothing until tomorrow morning, when he would again walk the deck, and tell her what he thought.

  In time the wind freshened into a full gale, as Gislane had known it must. The month was February 1781, and after four months on board she was a veteran in her knowledge of the sea and the weather. And with the storm there came rolls of thunder, and shafts of forked lightning which seemed to hover immediately above the masts, and then the rain, teeming down with a force which bowed the head, striking the decks and leaping feet back into the air, almost calming the surging whitecaps with the blanketing intensity of its force.

  Sail was shortened to mere scraps of canvas, and the Antelope plunged onwards, ever west, while the pumps now-clacked with a more urgent purpose, to keep the water in the bilges from rising to danger level. Yet the slaves must still be exercised. This was in fact easier than before. None of them had ever been in a storm at sea, and their terror was awful to watch. No risk of dives overboard into those over-toppling waves. Which, she reflected, was but another aspect of human perversity, as there could hardly be a quicker or more certain way to die, and a more painless one; even the sharks had disappeared, seeking the calm of the depths.