Sacred Hunger

by Barry Unsworth

  This hoarse questioning caught her unprepared. She met the gaze of raw-looking blue eyes. They were small in the dark red 9dg square of the face and they held no kindness for her.

  ” ‘Bout twenty-five,” she said. “I dunno. He’s been on an” off ships most of his life. I want three pound.”

  ‘If we can secure him, and if he has got all his arms and legs attached to him, I will give you two pounds. That is the going rate and that is what we are paying.”

  “Haw, that’s a good ‘un, arms an” legs,” the other man said.

  ‘I want three pound.”

  The man in the wig sighed harshly. “Explain to the woman, Mr Barton,” he said.

  “My pretty, I am afraid you do not unnerstand the finances of it. To take in hand a able-bodied man what has his full copplement of arms and legs and what doesn’t see eye to eye with you as to the tack he should foller and is inclined to be disputacious, that needs three stout men. Them men has to be found and them men has to be paid and that pay has to come out of the price. That leaves two pound for you, or there’s the door.”

  She had not wanted to think about Deakin, but now something resigned about his face came into her mind and she remembered the scars she had felt upon his back.

  Her resolve did not change but the composure that had sustained her so far began to break at last. She felt tears gathering. She wanted gin so badly now that she could hardly keep her limbs still. “Blast yer livers an” yer eyes,” she said with a sob.

  ‘allyou neither of you worth him pissin” on. Make it guineas, for God’s sake, give me two guineas for him.”

  Having assembled his few possessions and made a bundle of them, Deakin lay down on the pallet in the narrow space against the wall at the far end of the cellar. The damp from the wall came against his face.

  He heard a catch of breath from the exhausted baby.

  The children on the bed were silent, perhaps sleeping. He began to think about the next day. He had no money and no plans, no sense even of a likely sequence of events. All his programme was imagined sensation, the silent street he would step out into, dawn coming slowly over the tips and brick kilns and dirty pools on the outskirts, then the open fields, and himself moving through luminous spaces, with the sun rising and the fields filling with light and himself always moving, unimpeded, totally free and yet awaited—he knew the impossible ambition of the escaper to find welcome horizons.

  He had not been back for fourteen years. He did not know if his mother was still alive. He wanted now to know—she had pleaded for him as far as her fear allowed. Whether his father was alive or dead he did not care. He had a memory of the place he had started from, as simple and brightly coloured as a child’s picture book, soft green folds of hills, lush grass, red earth, brindled cows grazing knee-deep in buttercups. Embedded in this like a splinter was the stone farmhouse on the coomb-side, the dark little shed where his father locked him up after beatings for tasks neglected or badly performed, though this was a dark mystery as the beatings came regularly in spite of all effort, and pardon did not depend on anything he could do or say but had to be wrought by the darkness of the shed comsometimes an hour or two, sometimes whole nights he had spent in the dark, the pain of his stripes receding to make way for fear.

  The shed itself had no place in the picture, no shape or form, only the darkness within it and the plenitude of light he had stepped out into the morning of his escape, that dawn he had found a short bar inside and used it to wrench the door off its hinges.

  He had never forgotten this violent conquest of the dark, the feel of the metal, the joy and fear of the splintering wood, the revelation of light that cold morning with sheep coughing in the field above and the distant sound of a dog barking. Within half an hour he had been on the upland road and begging lifts to Bristol.

  He had run away often since then, but all flight had been attended by the radiance of that dawn.

  He was thinking of it now, when he heard steps on the stairs coming down.

  13.

  Billy Blair woke from stupor to find himself lying in fetid darkness in the hold of some old flat-bottomed hulk like a barge. She was moored in deep water—he could feel how she moved in her chains. His face was stiff with dried blood and his right eye gave him pain. Someone not far away was whimpering tearfully. ‘Wha’s that snufflin”?”’ he said. Faint light came through the ill-fitting planks of the deck above and he heard sounds of movement there. ‘Got any grog up there, shipmate?”’ he called up. “I am parched.”

  Someone brought a face down close to the deckboards and spoke through: “You can have water.”

  “Water’s no bleddy use, man. My throat is on fire.” He paused, casting round for further arguments. “The bastids have cooped us up down here,” he said, with pathos.

  After a moment or two longer the hatch was raised and he saw the tousled head of a man looking down at him. “You keep yer napper stowed below there and don’t try no tricks. I have been set over you till we gets aboard an” I will do it. I ain’t riskin’ the bilboes for you, so you better not think of tryin’ to cut loose.”

  ‘now there’s a friendly soul,” Billy said.

  “All I am askin”, from yen Christian to another, is have you got any grog?”’

  There was a short silence and then to his delight Billy saw a bottle swinging down to him, tied with a cord round the neck. ‘God bless you,” he said, grasping at it. “I will overlook them former threats.

  What’s yor name?”’

  ‘Cavana,” the man said. “The other one here with me is Hughes.”

  “I am Billy Blair.” He took a drink from the bottle, felt the spirit take its fiery course down his throat. “Ah, by God,” he sighed, “that’s better.”

  The hatch was lowered, leaving him once again in darkness. A melancholy voice spoke from somewhere near him. “Give us a drop, Billy, for the love of God.”

  “Wha’s that?”’

  “It’s me. Michael Sullivan.”

  “Sullivan! How the pox did you get here?”’

  “Same way as you. They knocked me senses out of me an” brung me over an’ threw me down in this fioatin’ stink-hole.” The voice paused a moment, then said with deepened sadness, ‘An” me givin’ them no cause for offence at all.”

  ‘Were you whimperin” an’ crying just now?”’

  ‘no, I was not. I was lyin” quiet here, thinkin’ of me troubles.”

  ‘Well,” Billy said, “it serves you right.

  I am passin” the bottle to you, because it is a charity, but I don’t know that I would choose to drink wi’ you in other circumstances, now that I see what you have come down to, playin’ the fiddle in a whorehouse an’ helpin’ to sell poor sailor lads.” He saw a dark form raise itself in the dimness of the hold, made out the pallor of the face.

  He extended the bottle, felt it taken from him, heard Sullivan take a long swallow. ‘That is not work to be proud of, Michael,” he said.

  “An” just gan easy wi’ that bottle, will you?

  Here, let’s have it back.”

  ‘I was doin” fine till you come on the scene,”

  Sullivan said, in a stronger voice.

  ‘now it’s my bleddy fault, is it?”’

  “You had to come into that place, didn’t you? An” just the time when I was in it. Sure, the divil directed your steps. That wasn’t the only place I played in an’ they wasn’t all whorehouses an’ snuffle-dens. If a man finds himself in bad company he keeps mum. That is a first rule an’

  I broke it like a idjit. I could get a bite to eat an’ a dram an’ a place to lay me head an I could play me fiddle. Then you come in, full of piss an’ wind, an’ I remember you straight off because you always was full of piss an’ wind, you haven’t changed one iota, an’ I does my best to warn you but you are too drunk to understand anythin’ at all. Like a idjit I get in the way of the fightin’ and get knocked off me feet an’ end up here.”

  ‘Well,”
Billy said, after a pause for reflection, “I see how it was. You played the part of a friend to me an” Billy Blair does not forget his friends. Here, I forgive you, have another pull at the bottle.”

  ‘allyou forgive me? Holy Mary, that’s rich.”

  “There is someone else here has a thirst,” a quiet voice said from the darkness forward of them.

  Raising himself on one elbow, Billy peered through the dark, made out a man sitting upright where the boat narrowed at the bows.

  “Wha’s that?”’

  “The name is Deakin. I been pressed here, same as you.”

  “Pass him the bottle,” Billy said, in a tone of resignation. “Was that you snufflin” just now?”’

  ‘no, there’s another feller here alongside of me.”

  As if this were a signal, the whimpering began again.

  Deakin hesitated a moment, then reached out and touched the shoulder of the man lying near him pressed against the boat’s side. “Hold your noise,” he said.

  “What’s your name?”’

  “Dan’l Calley.” The voice came choked with mucus and tears. “I don’t want to stay here.”

  ‘Be jabers,” Sullivan said in a tone of affected surprise. “You up there!” he called out. “There’s a man here says he doesn’t want to stay. I think he should see the capting.”

  A different voice answered this time, harsher, more violent than the first. “Damn you, stow your gab.

  There’s no more rum. You get a bucket of bilge-water if you don’t keep quiet.”

  Deakin kept his hand on the man’s shoulder a few moments longer. The choked voice had touched something in him. He had heard men cry for pain before; and he had stood at the guns, on decks strewn with bodies and running with blood, and wept with exhaustion; but he had never heard a grown man whimper with misery like this. Now, in his despair, it was as if he heard his own tears of the past, heard his own voice in the dark nights of long ago and found a comforter. “Keep your spirits up, Dan’l,” he said. “Be a man.

  There’s nothing to do but wait for the morning.”

  “Aye,” Billy said, “a man has to look on the bright side. I got a few drams an” a plate o’ meat pies before that screw took off wi’ my purse. I wish I could of fucked her an’ all,” he added wistfully.

  ‘allyou will lose more than that again,” Sullivan said. “Whativer they have give the landlord for us comes out of our wages, mebbe two guineas apiece.”

  “God will find out that fat buggeranto of a landlord.

  An” in case not I will find him out when I get back an’ I will slit him up the nose. Here, lads, let’s have the bottle back this end.”

  ‘Don’t you be mentioning God to me. I stopped believin” in him years ago, but now I am goin’ to give him up for good. He has shipped me on a slaver only for tryin’ to stand up for a shipmate.”

  ‘Aye, that’s right.” Gloom descended on Billy. “Took for the Africa trade,” he said bitterly. “An” looka that, there’s nowt left in the bottle. Them fellers down there have supped it all up.”

  After a long silence, during which Billy thought Sullivan had fallen asleep, the mournful voice came out of the darkness. “I hope me fiddle is all right. If they have broke it, I will have the law of them, sure as me name’s Michael Sullivan.”

  “Law of them, you daft bumbo? They have threw you down here, they are goin” to send you chasin’ quashees up an’ down all the pox-ridden rivers on the Guinea Coast, an’ you talk about gettin’ the law of them for the sake of your bleddy fiddle.”

  ‘I see well that you know nothin” at all about the law,” Sullivan said. ‘Me fiddle is property. It comes under a different headin”dis”

  Sitting above in the ramshackle shelter they had built aft of the hatchway, with Cavana asleep beside him, Hughes heard the voices below and the silence that surrounded the voices and both sound and silence were of the same quality to him and had the same degree of meaning. The sky was clearing now, after the rain, and the wind was veering southwest and freshening comhe could hear the strengthening slap of the wash against the buoy to which the hulk was moored. While the wind stayed in that quarter they would not clear the river.

  He sat hunched against the chill, his cloak over his shoulders. He did not like the proximity of Cavana, breathing heavily beside him. But there was no other shelter on the hulk. Human beings too close constricted him to the point of violence sometimes —on board ship he never slept below except in the worst of weathers. Neither did he like the job of guarding pressed men, it made for bad blood at sea, but he had been detailed for it and had no intention of getting a flogging for their sake, so he kept awake; men determined enough might start the hatch or the rotten planking of her sides, and try to swim for it.

  He was impatient for the sea again. At forty-three, Hughes was a stranger on land.

  Brief, violent debauches at her dirty edges was all in twenty-five years he had known of her.

  When there was nothing left to spend there was no reason for being ashore. Penniless, lightheaded with drink and venery, Hughes signed for the first ship he could get, so long as she was an ocean-going vessel. That this one was a slaveship made little difference—he had been on slaveships before.

  He looked towards her now, where she lay out in the road. He could make out her deck lamps, their lights softened and diffused by the vaporous air surrounding her; she was enveloped in the mist of her own breath. She was a new-built ship and her timbers were breathing—Hughes knew this well enough. New timber would always steam on a cool night. But there are different sorts of knowledge and he had no doubt either that the Liverpool Merchant was panting for the open sea.

  14.

  Late on the following day the wind changed direction slightly, veering between west and south.

  Thurso, checking stores with his gunner, a lanky man named Johnson, between decks in the after part of the ship, felt the change at once, in the way she settled between wind and tide. He felt it in the balance of his body, as one might feel a change in the rhythm of music, though nothing showed in his face or changed in his voice.

  ‘Wind coming round ahead of us, Capting,” the gunner ventured, and received the full glare of the small eyes.

  “When I want your opinion of the weather, or anything else, I’ll ask for it.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.”

  Later, in the forecastle, Johnson was to relate, with suitable embellishments, this brief exchange, laying the first strand in the tissue of gossip, bravado, calumny and indirect abuse which is spun hour by hour and breath by breath among the crew of a ship and is that ship’s unwritten journal, voluminous, untrustworthy, dissolving like a dream when the ship reaches port and the crew is disbanded. “Turned on me like a tiger, he did, only because I spoke first. I tell you, he is goin” to be a tartar, this one. It wasn’t just lettin’ me know who is skipper. He was savage like, as if he would have had me seized up straight away for a good dozen.”

  Shortly after midnight they cast off from the Pier Head. Running under her topsails against the flood, obedient to the cables that towed her, the Liverpool Merchant headed slowly towards the estuary. On the ebb she moored at Black Rock and waited for a change in the wind in company with two small brigs and a Danish schooner bound for Dublin.

  They were obliged to stay here for the two days following. The pilot-boat came in from Liverpool with supplies of powder and bread and two sides of beef. Simmonds saw to the hoisting in of these, with Thurso’s eye upon him; the ship was fully loaded now and there was need for care in the stowage if she was to handle properly in the seas she would meet.

  There was work enough apart from this to keep the crew busy.

  Barton, his ear always alert for the hoarse voice from the quarterdeck, saw to the rigging of the jib boom and had the sails fixed on the longboat. Men were set plaiting rope yarns for cordage and making deck swabs out of old rope. Calley could not master this so soon and had to begin with something simpler; as a first step to
wards the delights he had been promised he found himself, in company with a ragged, shivering runaway of fourteen named Charlie, untwisting old ropes to make oakum for caulking seams and stopping leaks.

  Libby, the big, one-eyed Londoner, veteran of several slaving trips, was given a special task —one which he was well qualified for, having once been bosun’s mate on a seventy-four-gun frigate. He was set down on the main deck, in full view of all, to fashion a cat o” nine tails. This was a longstanding practice of Thurso’s, it being the captain’s fixed belief that it did the men good to see, as they went about their tasks, the plaiting of the stem, the drawing-out one by one of the nine logline branches of the whip, the ritual tying of the four knots in each. It convinced them from the start of the seriousness of his intentions.

  Paris, pleased to find himself so far clear in mind and untroubled in stomach, passed the time in reading, writing the first pages of the journal he had resolved to keep and walking about on deck, where he was able to follow Libby’s progress with the fearsome whip more closely than he liked. He had discovered that the small, malodorous room below the water-line which had been allotted as sick bay was taken up with rope and tackle and spare sail-cloth. Twice he had attempted to speak to Thurso about this but the captain had bitten him off short. Nonetheless, he was determined to take the matter up again at the first favourable opportunity.

  On the third day, at a few minutes after four o’clock in the morning, Simmonds, whose watch it was, felt the wind turn fair against his face. As instructed, he roused Thurso immediately. The captain waited for the top of the high water then gave orders to weigh anchor.

  Paris woke to the wailing cries of Haines, the bosun. He dressed quickly and came up in the first light to a scene of uproar and apparent confusion, shouted orders he could not make out, bewildering movements about the deck. Thurso stood above, on the quarterdeck, the only motionless element in this violent pandemonium. Then Paris began to see the division of tasks among the crew as they worked to spread and loose the great square mainsails. He heard the strange, drawn-out lamentation of men heaving at the windlass and in a few minutes knew that the ship was under way, knew it from the noise of the water thrown from her bows, from the way she leaned over in the damp dawn breeze and rolled with the heavy ground swell.