Sacred Hunger

by Barry Unsworth

  He dressed slowly and made his way up on deck, where the slaves were still exercising, Libby and Tapley moving among them with whips and curses while McGann and Evans stood to the cannon on the deck above. The whole mid-part of the ship forward of the mainmast moved with this noisy, disorderly seething of the black bodies. They had been hosed down that morning, and the decks washed, and the contents of the ordinary buckets discharged over the sides; but there still came to Paris, as he stood on the side gangway, the sickening fetid smell he had grown to recognize. The timbers were becoming engrained with it. No scrubbing could remove it entirely—they would carry it back with them to Liverpool…

  The women and girls moved like sleepwalkers about the deck, sometimes raising their arms and swaying their bodies as if listening to some music more remote than that transmitted by Sullivan’s quick elbow. The men jumped and lumbered in their shackles. Cries and groans and wavering phrases of song came from both men and women, mingling with the cracking of the whips and the heavy stamping of feet and rattling of chains, so that the notes of the fiddle were only intermittently audible.

  To Paris, with that deceiving clarity that comes after fever— a clarity in which there is still a sort of languid disorder—there came the fancy that Sullivan was sawing at the negroes’ chains. At this moment, with the same sense of heightened but unreliable perception, he saw that some of the younger boys, though moving to the music in apparent dance, were playing a game of ambush and kidnap in among the moving bodies of the adults.

  They were taking captives, he realized suddenly… With a lurch of feeling he recognized among the dancers the woman who had looked at him in the dungeon of the fort. Her face was lowered now, expressionless. She must have been brought aboard while he lay ill. He looked among the men but could not for the moment make out the Corymantee negroes. The woman had been given the same cotton waistcloth as the others, covering the pudenda but leaving the sides of the thighs bare. The muscles of her haunches flexed smoothly as she turned in the motions of the dance.

  He removed his eyes from her to see Cavana come up from the forecastle with the monkey crouched on his shoulder and disappear in the direction of the latrines at the heads. At the same moment Thurso emerged on the starboard side of the quarterdeck with a scowling look of bad temper, Barton immediately behind him. “Glad to see you recovered,” the captain said, though nothing in his face showed pleasure. “What the devil was that?”’ he said to Barton.

  “A monkey, sir.”

  “Tell the fiddler to stow his noise, will you? They have had enough of his infernal scraping and so have I.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.”

  Barton bawled across the intervening space of deck. Libby, who had been waiting for it, nudged the heedless fiddler. The music stopped and the dancing with it. The slaves were herded into their allotted space amidships by the men guarding them, who were eager now to finish and get below—it was close on eight bells.

  “I won’t have that confounded animal running loose on my ship,” Thurso said. “Tell Cavana that.”

  “It sticks pretty close to him from what I have seen,” Paris said, taking some steps towards the captain. “You must have returned while I was ill, sir?”’ he said.

  He encountered the small, beleaguered eyes, saw in them the usual fury at being questioned. It was clear that Thurso was in the grip of some feeling stronger than the irritation caused by the sight of the monkey. “I returned to find that we have got a case of the bloody flux aboard,” he said. “I returned to find that, sir.”

  “I did not know of it.” Paris had sensed some accusation in the captain’s words. “I have been confined to my cabin these last few days.”

  “He is only twelve or so,” Thurso said, “so it is not as bad as it might be, but it is still a loss of forty bars. That is not the worst of it, however. We will be obliged now to leave the coast early. I could have taken a dozen more that now I cannot wait for. We must get out to sea and trust we can be blown clean of it.”

  “He is dead then?”’

  “Dead? He is shitting blood. He may die or he may recover, it makes no difference, he must be got off the ship.”

  “Got off the ship? You mean simply set down ashore?”’ Thurso’s monstrous simplicity, as always, had taken him completely by surprise. “But he could be treated,” he said hastily. For a moment, absurdly, he was under the impression that Thurso had overlooked this possibility. “I can make up a panegoric,” he went on eagerly. ‘Tincture of opium has often been found efficacious in cases of severe diarrhoea, with a preparation of fennel that I know of; fennel is an excellent -“

  “Good God,” Thurso broke in with a sudden violence of fury that made Paris flinch. “Must I waste my breath arguing with a damned landsman who knows nothing but country remedies? I am talking about bloody flux. If it gets a hold on us here, we can lose half our cargo. Do you know what that means in money? Am I to wait on the chance that you will cure him with your damned brews? And if you fail?

  No, sir, not another word.” Thurso paused, visibly struggling with his passion. All his detestation of the surgeon came out in this moment. He advanced his face, darkly congested with rage, and said in his hoarse monotone, “I command on this ship. I will have you muzzled like a dog and sent to kennel below if you argue another syllable with me.”

  Paris was silent, looking down before him at the deck. Brought to this pass, Thurso would do as he threatened. Owing perhaps to the weakness consequent upon his fever he could feel no saving fury now as he had on previous occasions, only an immense weariness and discouragement. It was not the other’s brutality that was too strong for him, but his logic. There was no answering it. It was why they were all there. “I do not argue further,” he said. “May I have your permission to go ashore with the boy and take the linguister?”’

  “You need no linguister with you to leave the boy on the beach,” Thurso said. However, after a moment’s pause, he gave his consent in an indifferent mutter. The punt was lowered, the shivering boy fetched up and soon Paris found himself making for shore with Jimmy beside him in the stern and four men to row them.

  He had no plan of action; he did not believe there was any action to take. His request had been involuntary almost, an impulse to hurt himself, to share in what was being done to the boy. But it occurred to him now that they might find some help ashore for him or some shelter at least. “Ask him where he comes from,” he said to the linguister. “Perhaps he comes from this part of the coast.”

  “He not belong here,” Jimmy said. “Dis boy Vai people, I think so.”

  He spoke a few words to the boy, who turned deep-set eyes on him, straining and imperfectly focused, as if he were staring through a screen of mist or flame. After a moment he replied in a soft mumble, raising a thin hand in a vague pointing motion.

  “He say he comes from over dere.” Jimmy repeated the vague gesture. He smiled with pity and scorn. “Dis boy don’t know where he is,” he said. “So he can’t say where he come from. He points anywhere comes into mind. Point up at sky, all same-same ting.”

  “I don’t believe you understand a word of what he is saying,” Paris said. ‘allyou are only pretending.”

  “Pretendin” part of linguister’s job,”

  Jimmy said with dignity. ‘Dis boy speak one Vai language. Nobody unnerstan” what dis boy says “cept mebbe few hunnert people round the Gallinas River. Dat ten-twelve days” sail from here, sir.”

  The boy looked at their faces with his wide, strained stare, in which, however, there was something of appeal.

  He knew he was being discussed. He was quite naked.

  His teeth were chattering faintly and Paris could see the rise and fall of his thin chest. With an austere avoidance of Jimmy’s gaze, he took off his shirt and placed it round the boy’s shoulders.

  Their departure had been witnessed by several people and it formed a subject of discussion among a group, clustered together forward, below the jib boom.

&nbs
p; ‘Thurso never does owt without a reason,”

  Wilson said. “An” there’s nobbut one reason why he would put a slave ashore an’ lose the price. The boy has got sommat wrong wi’ him.”

  ‘The flux or the smallpox, them is the two worst,” Cavana said. The monkey sat on his shoulder, turning its black muzzle to watch their faces, and repeatedly raising the loose skin on its scalp. Cavana was making a cage for it, constructed out of bamboo canes which he had cut ashore.

  “Why is that animal always makin” faces,”

  Libby demanded, his solitary eye fixing the monkey with a look of dark disapproval. ‘Monkeys spread the pox. I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t him that is spreadin” it now.”

  Cavana split one of the canes down the middle with his knife. He was clever at making things, all the movements of his hands were neat and certain. ‘He don’t do it so much when he is just with me,” he said.

  “Bein” in a crowd unsettles him.”

  Blair winked at Sullivan. ‘What it is,” he said, “he does it when he gets to windward of bleddy great farts like those you’ve been lettin” go of, Libby. If I had a loose scalp, I would do the same.”

  ‘He is clever,” Cavana said with pride.

  “He knows what’s goin” on. He knows me already. He won’t go to no one else.”

  The monkey, aware of being the centre of attention, retracted its head and tucked in its chin shyly.

  After a moment, with a languid and fastidious gesture of one reddish arm, strangely human and hairless on the inside, it reached out, fumbled gently in Cavana’s matted hair, found something there, peered at it closely with wise, amber-coloured eyes and then swallowed it.

  ‘Ha, ha!” Calley said. “He found somethink. He found a nit.” His eyes were round.

  “You are full o” nits, Cavana,” he said with delight. ‘What is his name?”’

  “I’m callin” him Vasco,” Cavana said. There was a certain quality of defensiveness in his tone. ‘That’s a sea-goin” name I’ve heard tell of. He’s a regglar sailor—the feller that sold him told me he will eat salt beef and biscuit.” He had begun binding the cross-pieces with strands of yarn and he lowered his head over the task to conceal his pride in the versatile and omniverous Vasco.

  ‘A monkey can be the savin” of a ship,”

  Sullivan said, glancing round with his usual haunted expression. ‘They have the gift of second sight. I knew of a monkey once, he was kept on a bit of rope like this one; the ship was standin” off the Bahama Bank. She was a two-masted ship with a square rig, like this one. Same type of monkey, same type of ship. That’s a funny thing now..

  . But she wasn’t carryin’ slaves.”

  ‘I wish you’d keep to the bleddy point,”

  Blair said irritably. “What the jig does it matter what type o” ship she was?”’

  ‘Thim channels are dangerous for any vessel,” Sullivan said, “let alone a square-rig merchantman that can’t keep close to the wind. Anyway, they are sailin” into the wind when the monkey slips his rope an’ makes a dart for the riggin’. He climbs up to the crow’s nest before anyone can stop him, looks out to sea, then starts gibberin’ an’ pointin’. No one can see anythin’.

  There is nothin’ to see. The monkey is goin’ frantic an’ frothin’ at the jaws. He runs down an’ gets the captain’s telescope from his cabin an’ brings it to him, but the captain can’t see anythin’ wrong. Then the monkey starts swingin’ from side to side, hangin’ to the rat-lines by his tail, pointin’ down at the water.”

  Carried away by his narrative, Sullivan twisted his head to a grotesque angle and made stabbing gestures with a long forefinger down at the deck.

  “What the divil’s upsettin’ the cray-tur?” everybody’s askin’. Nobody knows. The captain doesn’t believe there is anythin’ amiss but he decides to take a soundin’. He can hardly believe his eyes. They are in seven fathom water an’ movin’ in to the bank. Five minutes more an’ they would have been grounded there, with a rising sea. They put about just in time an’ it was all due to that monkey.”

  ‘What was the point o” fetchin’ the telescope?”’ Wilson said, after an appreciable pause. ‘There were nowt to see.”

  “Aye, I grant you it made a mistake there,” Sullivan said. “There was limits to its sagacity, I’m not the man to deny that.”

  “How did the monkey know?”’ Calley said.

  “Ah, there is the question,” Sullivan said.

  “There is things in nature very difficult to explain.”

  There was a short silence. No one but Calley had completely believed this story. “Weel,”

  McGann said, “coming back to this blacky they hae shipped ashore, I’ll lay even saxpences it is a case o” bloody flux. He didn’t look to hae much fever. Libby, ye can find out from Haines. Wha’ll tak the bet?”’

  ‘Will you listen to that now?”’ Sullivan said.

  “You still owe me that shillin for standin” up to Thurso.

  Billy, you was me witness.”

  ‘He cannot witness to what he never heard. How do we know what ye said to Thurso? Ye might hae gone in there an” said any trumped-up thing.”

  ‘I told you the truth of it,” Sullivan said.

  “Are you makin” to call me a liar, McGann?”’

  McGann looked at him with pity. He shook his head. ‘Truth or lies doesna” come into it,” he said. ‘This is a question o” money.”

  Paris returned bare-chested and barefoot, having left his shirt with the sick boy and his shoes—for the sake of their silver buckles—with an old woman in a thatched hut on the shore above the beach, whom he thought must have mothered children in her time. Squatting on thin hams at the entrance, smoking a clay pipe, she had listened impassively while Jimmy said what Paris had told him to say. This child was sick in the stomach by sovah monou. He was under the special protection of the Great Fort. The Governor himself took a particular interest in this child, as he did in all the weak and helpless. The Governor and his redcoats would be watching from afar to make sure that this child was well treated. The Governor had a mighty telescope up in the sky, right at the top of the fort, and through his telescope he could see everything that happened.

  The woman chewed briefly on bare gums then replied at some length in a high-pitched, querulous voice.

  ‘What does she say? Does she undertake to care for the child?”’

  “She say she don” believe the Governor have any interes’ in dis boy. He too busy sellin’ healthy boy to bother “bout one small boy with sovah monou belly. She say to redcoats kiss my arse, pardon me, sir. She talk big mouth,” Jimmy said in scornful aside. “Nobody take oPeople hag for slave.

  She say also, she don” believe in no telescope. But if you give the shirt an’ also silver buckle off your shoe, she will look after dis boy.”

  Paris, whose distress was mounting, hastily assented. He had taken his clasp-knife to cut off the buckles when the old woman spoke again.

  Having noted his alacrity, she was now asking for the shoes entire. He pulled them off and handed them over, together with a small quantity of powdered quassia in a paper packet that he had brought with him from the ship.

  Jimmy transmitted instructions as to the preparation of this emetic. The woman took the packet into her hand but did not look at it. The boy watched everything with the same strained, hallucinated stare, his thin form lost in the folds of the shirt.

  Shame prevented Paris from meeting his eyes or saying any words to him. But he laid his hand on the boy’s head for a moment before turning away. At the shoreline he looked back: the diminutive figure was still hunched there, but the shirt that had draped him was gone.

  Next day Thurso took advantage of a Liverpool brig recently arrived in the offing, fully loaded with camwood and ivory and on the way home, to leave letters for Kemp announcing his intention to quit the coast immediately with a total of one hundred and ninety-six slaves.

  Most of the fol
lowing week was spent in preparations for departure. More yams and rice were taken on board and the water casks replenished. The crew were employed mending the sails, which had been much damaged by rats during this long stay on the coast. These were very numerous now and ravenous, so emboldened by hunger that they would bite at people they found sleeping and had even taken to gnawing the cables.

  Things were not made easier during all this time by the strong winds from land and the continual high swells which caused the vessel to labour a good deal, especially at the change of the tide. In the worst of this the ship was made to ride so hard that on successive days she broke one of her main shrouds on the larboard side and a main topmast stay. The purchase of two women slaves was frustrated when the canoe bringing them off was smashed in the surf and they were lost by drowning, having their arms bound behind them. Then a woman slave who had wandered from the others was dragged below and raped by two men who hooded her with a square of sail-cloth. She could not say who the men were and if others of the crew knew it they did not come forward to say so.

  These various irritations darkened Thurso’s mood considerably and he scowled through the days. It was a time of grievance generally, compounded by impatience to be gone from the coast and its humid, sapping airs. The boatswain was out of temper at being saddled with the repairs to the rigging, and he drove the men hard. The crew grumbled at the work and at the constant labouring of the ship, which made the footing precarious. Even Vasco, the monkey, seemed affected by the prevailing mood. Cavana had killed a rat with a lucky throw of a mallet and, wishing to show off his pet’s adaptability, gave it to him to eat; but Vasco threw the limp and scaly creature from him in unconcealed bad temper. ‘He would have ate it if it had been cooked,” Cavana said. But he had found that what Vasco liked best was a mixed diet of flies and beetles and boiled plantains mashed with coconut, and he was continually badgering Morgan to make this last dish for him.