Sacred Hunger

by Barry Unsworth

  ‘Curse me,” Billy said, stopping short again to glare at his companion. “What de fuck you uncle got to do with it?”’ This unexpected intrusion of a relative had fogged his mind further.

  “Middle of de day uncle sit under roof of de grain store—sit in de shade, you sabee, people do same ting every day.

  Dat day roof fall down, uncle kill. Why dat happen?”’

  “What kind question dat? Mebbe pole rot in de groun”, mebbe tarmeet “stroy dem. Mebbe timber worm ‘stroy de beam.”

  “You tink I fool man? Tarmeet an” timber worm, dat not de question. Question is, why it happen when my uncle sittin’ under de roof?”’

  ‘Well, I go tell you dis,” Billy said, after a long pause. “I sorry to hear bout you uncle, but dis story prove nottin’.”

  Nevertheless, he was agitated at his failure to find a convincing reply, at finding himself once more in these thickets of doubt and contradiction. He glanced up at the sky, which shone now with a faint light. Mist lay over the low ground in shifting swathes. The fan-shaped fronds of the palmettos rose here and there clear of it, hanging heavy and gleaming with wet, quite motionless—there was no breath of wind. The swamp willow alongside the path was coming into flower: he noticed the tight green pimples of the buds on their dangling stalks. It was a particularity of vision unusual with Billy, due perhaps to the indistinctness of everything farther off, in this ubiquituous shrouding of mist.

  The kudala notion had its points, he suddenly saw: it saved a man from chance, for one thing. And it took the blame from the Almighty, thus solving a problem that had often bothered Billy. ‘Dey fin” de one make kudala agin you uncle?”’ he said, but the other did not hear him. The track had narrowed, obliging them to walk in file, and Inchebe had paused to crush some cress leaves over his injured knuckles and so fallen behind.

  They were nearing the settlement now. The track skirted the lagoon, went some way along the edge of the hardwood hummock, then turned away from the water to pass through a tangle of sea-grape and cabbage palm and wild coffee before emerging on to the open ground where the first huts of the settlement began.

  Among the trees it was dark still; emerging from them was at first confusing to the eyes. As they came out into the scrub, Billy saw a form move suddenly in the mist, no more than a dark shape at first, but then as he advanced he saw that it was surmounted with a face and a tall hat. While he still gaped at this, he saw the figure raise its elbows as if to work a pair of bellows. He caught a gleam of metal, then the dark red of the tunic. He turned and took some running steps back towards Inchebe, who was still in the cover of the trees. ‘Redcoats!” he shouted loudly.

  “Get round through the -” The crack of the shot came from behind him, drowning out whatever more he said, or tried to say. With this sharp report all arguments were finally resolved for Billy, the frenzy of logic left him for ever. The ball took him in the back, on the left side, and pierced his heart. He ran some further steps but he was dead before he fell.

  Inchebe saw Billy turn and run towards him, heard the shot, saw the issue of blood from Billy’s mouth and the heavy pitch of his fall. He hesitated no more than a moment. Billy was beyond help. The people had to be warned. He threw down the string of fish he had been carrying and plunged aside from the track in the nearest direction to the settlement, finding what way he could through the close-growing vegetation. He sobbed lightly as he ran, with fear and shock. The broad-leaved trees of the hummock discharged their moisture on him, the saw palmetto slashed at his legs and arms. He stumbled through stretches of swampland, knee-deep in the sloughs, his feet catching in the stilted roots of the mangroves. Behind him, not very far way, he could hear sounds of pursuit. From moment to moment he expected a shot, but none came and he could not understand this, having forgotten that alive he was worth money. The cane harpoon impeded him, catching in thickets, but he did not abandon it.

  Nipke it was who gave pursuit. He had been standing near the panicky fool who disobeyed orders by firing and had seen the sergeant strike the man down with his fist. He knew that the people of the settlement, whether black or white, had to be taken alive if at all possible, this being the English lord’s express command. He knew too that time was needed for the troops to complete their encirclement of the huts.

  Above all he was eager to earn praise, because with praise came a bonus of dollars and Nipke looked forward to returning a rich man—rich enough to be drunk for a week and buy another cow and possibly a blanket. So he began running almost before the echoes of the shot had died away, cleared Billy’s body as it lay across the path and was in time to crouch and listen and hear the faint crashing sounds of the black man’s flight.

  Though past his first youth he was a fine runner, as the Creek people commonly were, and he knew the ground, having ranged here for Tequesta scalps to sell to the English during the wars with Spain. Thoughts of reward sharpened senses already acute; he was alert to every change of direction ahead of him. Following was not difficult—his quarry had no time to rest or hide or lie in wait. He knew by the sounds that he was gaining. There were sounds behind him too: other of the Creeks, similarly inspired, had joined in the chase. But he would be first…

  He ran through a stand of sea-grape trees, ducking and weaving to avoid the low branches. This was the edge of the hummock. Beyond was an area of marsh grass and willow scrub. He could catch glimpses now of the man before him, hear at times the splash of his steps in the watery ground. He was gaining ground with every stride, the negro was flagging. No more than twenty paces separated them. As he came closer he drew the hand-axe from his belt, intending to stun the man with the flat side. But he was gaining too fast, it came to him now, with a sudden, belated sense of danger. He saw that the man was carrying a pointed cane and checked momentarily, then came on with a rush: the negro had left it too late, there was no time now for him to turn and set himself for a throw. This was a serious misjudgement on Nipke’s part and it cost him his life. He had seen many deeds of blood in his time and he had fought with various weapons at long range and close; but he did not know what a man from the headwaters of the Niger could do with a spear.

  As they came into the open Inchebe had slackened speed. He knew that with such a light missile, designed for fish not men, the throat was the only target. And he knew that he only had one chance.

  When the panting and the steps were close enough behind, he whirled, and without pausing to set himself or even shift his grip on the shaft flung the spear upward from waist height, aiming instinctively, the turn and the throw one single movement. The distance was no more than a dozen feet. The barbed head of the spear with its needle-sharp fish-bone point caught the advancing Indian in the base of the throat and penetrated deeply, half severing an artery. Nipke dropped the axe and sank to his knees, raising his hands as if in some attempt to arrest the copious flow of blood.

  Inchebe waited only long enough to be sure that this enemy was disabled. When the others came up they found Nipke bleeding out his life in the marsh, no sign of the negro. They resumed the pursuit, but more cautiously.

  This killing of Nipke, and the greater circumspection it imposed on the other Creek scouts, gave Inchebe a period of respite long enough for a circuitous approach to the settlement from the shoreward side. He made his way under cover of the stockade to the low gate in the rear and crawled under, into the compound. The shot had been heard, people were moving here and there, the main gate was barred. Inchebe began to shout the news of Billy’s death and his last mysterious words and the presence of flat-head Indians not painted or tattooed. His eyes started wildly and he gulped for breath. Distress and exhaustion combined to render his pidgin barely intelligible.

  “What Billy shout?”’ Nadri asked, taking a firm grip of Inchebe by the shoulders. He had been with Tabakali and they had come out together at the sound of the shot, she naked to the waist with a piece of cotton cloth wrapped round her middle.

  “Say bout red cot,” Inchebe pan
ted. He had no idea what these words meant. “Say bout red cot den dey shoot.”

  “Holy Mary!” Sullivan said. “Dat sojers he talkin” bout. Redcoats. They have sent sojers after us.” His eyes were wet still with the quick tears that had come with the news of Billy’s death.

  ‘It is redcoats have killed Billy,” he said.

  To Paris, standing among the others in his breechclout and a shirt strangely patched and shortened, these words of Sullivan’s carried immediate conviction. He was shocked, but not surprised. Ever since learning that the fighting was over and the British established in the north, he had been expecting some sort of expedition against them sooner or later. News followed trade; there would have been rumours of merchandise down here more valuable than salt or flint or anything the traders carried… “We can still get out,” he said. “We can’t fight men armed with guns, not from inside here. We can break out before they have time to form round us.”

  “Dat right.” Kireku’s eyes flashed fiercely. He had his bow slung over one shoulder and heavy arrows in a bark quiver at his belt.

  “Nobody see Inchebe come,” he said.

  “Nobody try stop him. Dey not in place yet. We ken git out same way he come in. In de bush nobody fin” us. Redcot try fin’ me, stick him like pig, make him cot red pas’ now.”

  It was to be long remembered of Kireku that even at this desperate moment he had made a joke.

  He was already moving away when a booming voice reached them from somewhere beyond the stockade: ‘allyou are surrounded on every side. You cannot escape. Lay down your arms and open the gates. We are armed with cannon and can destroy you all at will…”

  The voice was frightening, unearthly, distorted by an amplifying instrument of some kind which made it impossible to determine the direction. But the flat accents of northern England were clearly recognizable in it.

  “There may be time yet,” Paris said. “They may not know of the gate in the rear.” He hesitated, looking at Tabakali and the children standing close beside her, Kenka between the two smaller ones.

  “We wait here, catch in a trap,” he said.

  “Dey go make you slave again.” He had spoken rapidly and was not sure if she had understood, but she looked at him steadily and after a moment nodded.

  “It wort” tryin’,” Nadri said.’We git clear, adder come behin”dis”

  They went at a run through the lines of the huts.

  Beyond the narrow gate the space of open ground was deserted. The mist had lifted now and a pallid radiance showed in the sky above the listless fronds of the palms. Looking upward, Paris saw gulls in lazy flight, the hidden sun eliciting flashes of brilliance from them as they turned. The first trees were less than half a minute away to a running man but the distance seemed vast to Paris. He saw Kenka regarding him with an intent and painful seriousness and he reached out and briefly touched the boy’s cheek. ‘We go two-three fust time, see what happen,” he said.

  “Nottin” happen, rest all go tagedder. You wait we in de bush, den you start runnin’.”

  Nadri opened the gate and crouched a moment longer in the shelter of the stockade. His eyes met those of Paris and he smiled. Then he was up and running, with Paris and Kireku close behind.

  Younger than the others by a good ten years and a natural runner, Kireku at once drew ahead. He moved with long strides, head up, the quiver swinging against his thigh. A shout came from somewhere slightly ahead of them, to the right. Kireku was almost in the shadow of the trees now. Then shots rang out in ragged unison and Paris saw Kireku pitch forward on his face. A moment later he felt a violent blow to his left leg. He staggered aside and fell heavily and lay on his back looking up to the sky, feeling nothing at first but the shock of the blow and the fall. Then pain gathered in his leg and with it a sense of the damage done to him: he knew now that the bone was broken. Raising his head a little he saw that Kireku was still lying where he had fallen, quite motionless. The trees were no more than twenty yards away. He heard shouts and scattered shots from somewhere on the other side of the compound. Edging round on to his right shoulder he made an effort to drag himself forward, but it was too soon, neither his body nor his will was braced enough for the pain and almost immediately he lost consciousness.

  When he opened his eyes again, he found himself gazing up at the face of Erasmus Kemp, close above him. He was not conscious of any interval of doubt or any struggle for recognition. He regarded the face silently, noting with a strange sort of dispassion that it was clean-shaven and very pale and that the dark eyes held a singular brightness and intensity.

  He felt a certain wonder at the sight, but not really surprise: in a way it seemed natural, and even inevitable, that his cousin should be here to preside over the last hours of the settlement. The older Kemp had given, though inadvertently; now the younger had come to take away. ‘Of course,” he said, “you have come to claim your father’s cargo.”

  To Erasmus this reference to his father seemed the height of unrepentant insolence. Looking down, he saw the lop-sided smile he detested appear on his cousin’s face. “I have come to hang you,” he said, striving to keep all passion out of his voice. He took in the details of Paris’s appearance, the beard, the sunburn, the long hair tied behind. “I would not have known you but for that rascally Barton pointing you out,” he said with disgust. His cousin’s shirt—and this seemed to Erasmus almost more heinous than anything— reached scarcely to his navel, having been cut off all round, apparently to make patches. The garment he wore below it was little more than a loincloth. His naked, long-shanked legs were outstretched on the ground, the left one a mess of blood below the knee. Erasmus had felt a leap of alarm at first sight of this damage; but the wound after all was not serious—the leg could be dressed in Still Augustine. ‘Have no fear, you will walk to the gallows,” he said.

  Paris looked beyond his cousin to the sky, which in this short while seemed to have become much brighter. The gulls still wheeled there, breasts flashing with light as they turned.

  “All in one swoop, pretty nearly,”

  Erasmus said, in a tone of satisfaction. He felt the need to drive his triumph home. “None of the troops got a scratch.”

  Paris wanted to ask about Kireku and whether any others of the settlement had been hurt. But he saw Erasmus turn at this moment and speak to someone approaching. “Ah, so you have it ready,” Erasmus said. “It has taken you time enough.”

  Two men came into Paris’s field of vision, carrying a blanket slung on poles to make a stretcher. Erasmus looked down again and his eyes had a light of fever. “Your turn now to be lifted, cousin Matthew,” he said, words not immediately comprehensible to Paris, though for a moment he felt that he was trembling on the verge of understanding. Then the soldiers began to lift him on to the stretcher, his senses swam and the bright gulls dissolved in the sky above him.

  53.

  Privileged by his wound, Paris was conveyed as directly as possible to the shore and rowed out to the ship in the late afternoon. Before midnight both troops and captives had been embarked and the ship set a course northward for Still Augustine.

  It was Erasmus’s hope that he might avoid the delays of a long sea journey home to England, and the risk of his cousin cheating justice even now by some obscure and private death, by having the people of the crew tried and condemned either at Still Augustine by Campbell or, if the latter felt this exceeded his competence, by the Governor of South Carolina, where the negroes were to be taken and sold. To this end it was important that at least one of the wrong-doers should be persuaded to inform upon his comrades in exchange for a pardon. Erasmus felt that he knew human nature passably well and did not anticipate any problem here. It would come better from a common seaman, one who had taken an active part; an officer of the ship might be able to claim that he had acted under duress. However, Barton had already proved willing to cooperate and Erasmus decided to interview him first so as to establish the facts.

  The intention
once formed, he could not wait for the morning. He had slept little for two nights now and the emotions of that day had exhausted him but he could not rest. The ship was barely under way when he had Barton shaken awake where he lay on the open deck and brought below.

  There was rum and salt beef and ship’s biscuit laid out on the table. Also, close to Erasmus’s right hand, a loaded pistol. A soldier with bayonet fixed stood outside the door. Barton sat opposite at the table and a candle-lamp lay between them. The former mate wore nothing but a round cap made of rope yarn, the tattered remains of a red silk scarf and a pair of deerskin drawers, and he shivered like a dog in the warmer air of the cabin.

  Erasmus poured him a glass of rum and he swallowed half of it, hissing on an indrawn breath as the warmth spread through him. He took off his cap and laid it on the table beside him. His lank, gingerish hair fell forward round his face.

  “I know who you are,” Erasmus said. “You were mate on my father’s ship. You have already answered to your name today and so it would serve no purpose to deny it now. I intend to ask you some questions. If you know what is good for you, you will answer me frankly and fully.”

  Barton raised his head to drink again, draining his glass. The sharp edge of his Adam’s apple pricked like a thorn against the loose skin of his throat.

  “If you are honest with me now,” Erasmus said, “I will speak on your behalf when the time comes.”

  Whatever calculations Barton engaged in were of short duration. ‘I knowed this would happen sooner or later,” he said. “I am a child o’ misfortun’ an’ no mistake. A man o’ sorrows, I am, and on no. in’ terms with grief. That is in the good book, sir. I was brought up for better things than what you see now. I can read an’ write, if you will believe me, my sainted mother taught me at her knee, but misfortun’ has been my lot in this life.”