Screams and cries arose from the hold as the ship lurched violently to starboard, but the sailors on deck couldn’t hear the wails over the roar of waves and wind, as they struggled against the storm for control of the ship.
Down below, the suffering convicts whose pitiful cries went unheard were packed together in two cages, one for men, the other for women. The shock of the sudden movement of the vessel had been too much for Hannah. Crouching in a corner of the cage, she was throwing up into an earthenware pot.
When she had first boarded and her shackles had been removed, she had been afraid of her fellow convicts, and she had clung closely to Jane. But there was camaraderie in the women’s misery, and she grew to trust the other convicts as they tended to each other. When the ship started to pitch and roll a few days into the voyage, as it plowed through the English Channel, Jane was especially kindly to the seasick Hannah, even though she was almost as sick herself.
Now, in the second week of the voyage, Hannah’s nausea had been improving, or at least it had until the storm hit. But she had been deeply depressed. She had nothing to think about on board ship except her own misery, and the misery of her fellow convicts. As the days passed at sea, she withdrew into herself. The more she pretended that her soul was separate from her body, and the more she daydreamed, the more the horror around her went out of focus.
Now that she had stopped heaving wretchedly, she spat, slumped back against the bars of the cage, and returned to her fantasies to distract herself from the terror around her. She dreamed she was in San Francisco with her mother . . . no, not there . . . . She was in Balesworth with Mrs. Jenkins . . . no, that was too painful . . . . She was in Balesworth in 1940, with Verity and Mrs. D., and it was a beautiful day, and they were going on a picnic . . . .
Brandon owned no spare clothes to take with him to America, and so Mrs. Osborn escorted him down Balesworth High Street, and bought him a set of used garments from a street trader. “We must be prepared that even if cloth may be had in Georgia, it will be very expensive,” she told him briskly. Even on this nippy September morning, Brandon thought, it would still feel good to take a shivery wash from a wooden tub of cold water, and to put on clean clothes.
Mr. and Mrs. Osborn’s furniture had all been sold, except for the massive kitchen table that was too large to move. The Osborns and Brandon took lodgings at the Balesworth Arms for their last few days in town, before they were due to travel south to the county of Kent to meet their ship. Brandon was impatient to begin the voyage.
He felt relieved, though, that he would be going as a white person to Georgia. That would mean he was not in any danger of being mistaken for a slave. People treated him differently when they saw him as white. They treated him better. No more tiresome stares from passersby. No more racist remarks. No white people acting weird around him. It made him feel strange, even a little guilty for thinking this way, but, he reflected, it hadn’t been his choice to become white, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Would he feel the same way about his transformation once he reached Georgia, he wondered? He imagined how black people would react to him if they thought he was white. Sadly, he wasn’t optimistic about making friends with them. That thought made him feel very lonely.
By the time the Osborns were ready to board ship at Gravesend, the port in Kent, Brandon was fed up to the back teeth. He had listened for hours now to Mr. Osborn boasting about his abilities, and complaining about the lack of respect he got in England.
Now, however, Mr. Osborn was in a more cheery mood. He was talking about his prediction that his stay in Georgia would change his fortunes. Even as he waited with Mrs. Osborn and Brandon to board ship, he was off on a self-congratulatory ramble: “Just think . . . A parish full of lost souls, thirsty for the comfort that only the true Church can provide. Once I have regained hundreds of people for the Church, who knows what reward will await me in England? Certainly my own living, to be sure, but perhaps, too, dare I say it, preferment to a higher sphere?”
Brandon looked sideways at him. “Okay, I’ll bite . . . .” he muttered, and then more loudly, he asked, “What do you mean, sir, by higher sphere? Like heaven?”
Mr. Osborn puffed out his chest and looked annoyed. “Of course not. I speak of this world, not the next. I have always thought that the Lord intended great things for me, perhaps even elevation to the office of bishop.”
Bishop Osborn, Brandon thought, and suppressed a smirk. But now, Mr. Osborn and his family were already halfway to the ship’s deck, and Brandon hurried to follow them up the narrow gangplank.
As he stepped down onto the deck, Brandon turned to help Mrs. Osborn. He took her bag and offered a hand to steady her. As she thanked him, he saw she was crying.
“You all right, Mrs. Osborn?” he asked.
“Yes, Brandon,” she said with a watery smile. “It is hard to bid farewell to England, is it not? Do you think that we shall ever see her again?”
“Of course we will,” Brandon said kindly. But he knew that it was very likely to be a one-way trip for the Osborns. And perhaps for him, too. Would he ever see England again? Or twenty-first century America?
When Hannah awoke, she instantly remembered where she was. But she felt numb, as though the whole horrible experience were happening to somebody else. She was wretchedly filthy, and she didn’t care. Her stomach was empty, and she didn’t care. In fact, she didn’t really care if she fell asleep and never woke up again. For once, Hannah felt at peace.
“It’s melancholy she has,” an old woman said softly to Jane, nodding at Hannah, who was staring into space with glassy eyes. “She won’t live long.”
Hannah wondered vaguely what the woman meant by “melancholy.” Didn’t it mean sadness? How could sadness kill you? And then Hannah thought, She means I’m depressed. Is this what being really depressed feels like? It feels like nothing.
Jane meanwhile was looking worriedly at Hannah. “She ain’t been drinking nuffing today,” she said.
“More water for the rest of us, then,” said a hard-faced young woman sitting in the opposite corner of the cage.
“Shut up, you,” spat Jane, turning threateningly on her. The young woman shrank away from her. Taking Hannah’s hand, Jane whispered, “Bo’sun says we’ll be there sooner than we thought. Ship’s got a bit of damage, so we’re putting in at port early. Come on, ’annah, whatever it’s like in America, it won’t be as bad as this.”
“You said you wanted to be hanged instead,” Hannah said sleepily.
Jane gave her a brave smile. “Oh, that was just me talking foolishness, wasn’t it? I dunno what it’s like in America, I ain’t never been there, and I don’t know no one that has, neither. That was a bit of a fib. Maybe it’s better there than I think. Now, ’ere’s some water. Try to drink a bit.”
But Hannah turned her head away, clamping her lips shut.
“’annah, you got to drink,” said Jane firmly. “You won’t be around much longer if you don’t.”
Hannah’s eyes welled up, but she took a tiny sip as Jane watched over her. Once the ship dropped anchor, the bo’sun came down to the hold to tell the transported convicts that they were not to be allowed on shore just yet. “We’re not in Virginia,” he told them. “The ship needs repairs, so we put in at Savannah, and the master needs permission for you to land here. If he gets permission, he’ll send word through the country that you’re here and for sale, so planters in South Carolina and Georgia can come and bid on you. Wherever we land, you’re all to be quarantined, to make certain that you won’t bring your nasty diseases to America.”
“So this is where they will sell us,” said the old woman whom Jane had befriended. “I don’t know that Georgia is any better than Virginia.”
Only Hannah felt gladdened by the news.
Life on board did improve a little with the ship’s arrival in port, for the prisoners were provided fresh water and fresh food. Jane continued to make sure that Hannah drank water, and fed
her small pieces of bread by hand, until Hannah one day took a chunk of bread from her, and began to gnaw on it herself.
“It’s okay,” Hannah said weakly, when Jane looked at her with concern. “I’m okay, I think. I guess I was seriously dehydrated, but I just couldn’t stand drinking that nasty slimy water they gave us. I’m okay now. I’m gonna make it.”
Jane playfully slapped her arm. “Well done, ’annah.”
Hannah, struggling not to cry, looked into Jane’s eyes, and grabbed her hand. “Thank you,” she croaked, her voice quavering. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“Weren’t nuffing,” Jane said modestly. “You’da done the same if you was me.”
Hannah doubted it. And that bothered her. She looked at Jane, this urchin from the London streets, and saw a better person than she was. Jane took satisfaction from giving to others, something Hannah found hard to understand, but admired all the same.
She tried to get to her feet, and Jane jumped up to help her. As Hannah’s legs gave way, Jane caught her in her arms. Hannah apologized, but Jane would have none of it. “You’re sick, you are,” she said. “You ought to relax yourself while you can. Now sit down, and rest.”
More than four long and harrowing weeks on the open seas had passed when the sailor in the crow’s nest of Brandon’s ship spotted the mouth of the Savannah River. Brandon, the Osborns, and all the other passengers rushed up to the deck to see land. Of course, it wasn’t Brandon’s first sight of America, although he had never approached Savannah by sea, or, for that matter, in 1752.
He had never guessed that he would be so glad to see Georgia, but his heart warmed as the ship approached Tybee Island. He knew it had to be Tybee, because it was next to the river, but otherwise he would never have recognized it. No houses or pier adorned the beach, and the lighthouse ahead of them was a simple wooden structure.
It had been a tough voyage, no question. One night, a brutal storm had hit, tossing around the little ship and everyone in it. To Brandon, even worse than the seasickness was the realization that he might die.
As the crew had struggled against the storm for control of the ship, he gathered the terrified passengers together, and led prayers as he struggled to remain upright. Despite the doomed atmosphere, Brandon could see that the clergyman was in his element: Until that moment, few of the passengers and even fewer of the crew had attended Mr. Osborn’s services. Indeed, the crew had generally treated him as a nuisance, because he constantly complained to the ship’s master about their swearing and card-playing.
But thanks to Mr. Osborn’s bravery during the storm, the passengers now treated Mr. Osborn with greater respect for the remainder of the voyage. The crew was still rude, but the passengers’ new attitude had put him in a very good mood for their arrival in the colony.
When the ship finally weighed anchor in Savannah, Brandon didn’t recognize the dock at all, although he supposed they had landed at what would eventually be River Street. The tall and elegant Victorian warehouses and cobbled street that would one day grace the waterside were yet to be built. In their place was only a narrow strip of beach, short cliffs rising up to the town, and two stairways leading up the cliffs.
Rowboats carried the passengers to the beach, and from there, they climbed the steep steps. As Brandon and the Osborns reached the summit of the bluffs, they saw Savannah for the first time. Brandon was astonished to see that it was a little village of small houses, which he supposed, from his knowledge of Georgia history, were already laid out in the famous city squares, although it was hard to tell from where he was standing.
While Mr. Osborn negotiated the cost of the next stage of their journey with a man who owned a wagon, Brandon idly messed up the sand with his foot, and watched a small gathering of men who stood expectantly at the top of the cliff.
At first Brandon wondered if they were friends and relatives waiting for passengers from his ship, just like at an airport. He immediately realized that this was very unlikely: Nobody would have had any idea of when the ship was due to arrive. The Atlantic, not the ship’s master, set the timetable.
Mr. Osborn’s return snapped him back to reality. “Come, Brandon. While we wait for the baggage, let us escort Mrs. Osborn to a place of shade. It is devilishly hot here.”
By English standards, it was indeed very hot for September. But Brandon was used to early fall in Georgia, and as soon as he joined Mrs. Osborn under the branches of a small tree, he stripped to the least clothing he could get away with without offending the English people around him. He was still wearing too much: shirt, breeches, stockings, and a neck stock, a sort of tie. He felt sorry for Mrs. Osborn in her heavy skirts and petticoats, and Mr. Osborn in his long black overcoat and itchy wig.
Mrs. Osborn was looking around her fearfully, and Brandon didn’t blame her. It was all unfamiliar to him, too. He couldn’t help noticing that there were only a few black people about. Savannah in 1752 was very much whiter than the Savannah he knew. Then, suddenly, he remembered: Slavery was banned in colonial Georgia. That explained it.
He gave a sigh of relief—he had no desire to see slavery in action. But, in that case, he wondered, why did Mr. Osborn think that he could preach to slaves in Georgia? And if there were no slaves, who were the black folks working on the riverfront? Brandon did not remember Mr. Osborn’s lecture on the recent introduction of slavery to Georgia, for the simple reason that he hadn’t listened to a word of it.
Suddenly, the white men who were waiting at the dockside perked up. Moving forward to the edge of the bluffs and craning their necks, they jostled for a better view of the river below. Soon, Brandon saw what they were looking at, when a line of white women in chains stumbled up to street level from the steps on the cliff.
The waiting men gathered around the exhausted and wary-looking prisoners. As though shopping for cattle or horses, the men inspected the convicts. A sandy-haired man in his fifties, with a weather-beaten face and a sour expression, halted in front of a bedraggled girl with matted hair, and spoke to her. When he gestured toward her face, she opened her mouth and he began examining her teeth.
Brandon almost looked away in distaste from the peculiar scene. It looked too much like a slave sale, except with white people as the slaves. But as he kept on looking, he realized with a shock that the girl being examined was Hannah. What was she doing here?
He was excited, but worried. He had never seen Hannah look so frail. Finding his voice, Brandon called her name. Hannah looked up. But as she stared in his direction, she looked so dazed and shaky, he wasn’t even sure she recognized him.
The man who had inspected her was now arguing over Hannah’s price with the ship’s master.
“I stand to lose the cost of bringing her if I accept so little money from you,” the master protested. “Better I take my chances at auction.”
“Nonsense,” said the sandy-haired man in a Scottish accent, holding out a handful of gold coins. “In case you haven’t heard, negro slavery in Georgia is now legal, and the price of servants has fallen as a consequence. And these servants you have transported are only a sorry group of convict ruffians who will be of little use to any of us. Here, don’t be a fool. Take this ready money.” He jangled the coins in his hand.
The ship’s master reluctantly took his payment, shoving the coins into his pocket. He jerked his head at a sailor to tell him to remove Hannah’s chains. Then he pulled a piece of paper from his vest, and gave it to Hannah’s new owner.
Hannah, meanwhile, was weakly pointing toward Brandon. In a hoarse voice she said to nobody in particular, “There . . . that boy . . . He’s my friend . . . .”
Brandon made to rush toward her. But suddenly he was seized by the shoulders.
A furious Mr. Osborn swung him around and yelled at him, “I distinctly remember telling you to escort Mrs. Osborn. Why were you associating with that wench?”
Brandon shook him off, and said urgently, “I’m sorry, Mr. Osborn, really I am, but she’s my cous
in. You know, the one who was arrested in Balesworth?”
“Good Lord,” Mr. Osborn said, astonished. “She’s here? Let me see what I can do.”
Even before they had time to turn back, they heard Hannah cry out, “Brandon!” They watched helplessly as the heavily-laden wagon in which she sat turned a corner of the street, and was gone.
As Brandon stood open-mouthed in dismay, Mr. Osborn had the presence of mind to dash over to the ship’s master. “That girl, who did you send her with?” he demanded.
The master squinted at the minister. “Begging your pardon, reverend,” he asked carefully, “But is it any business of yours who bought her time? I’m not meaning no disrespect.”
“Yes, it is my business,” Mr. Osborn said firmly, raising his chin. “The girl hails from the same town in England as me. She has been wrongfully convicted, and on appeal she was found not guilty of the crime she was alleged to have committed. There is a warrant being drawn up in London to have her returned home.”
The sailor shrugged. “That’s as maybe, reverend, but Mr. Robert Gordon paid me for her passage. She is no longer my charge. You’ll need to take up the matter wi’ him.”
Brandon had followed Mr. Osborn, and he was now standing behind him, his mouth agape. “Mr. Robert Gordon, did you say?” Robert Gordon was the name of the Scottish dentist who had employed Brandon during his first timetraveling adventure. It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence, he thought excitedly. Not that they were the same man, but the Gordon family kept popping up through history.
“Be quiet, Brandon,” Mr. Osborn hissed, gently pushing him aside. He returned his attention to the ship’s master. “Know you this Mr. Gordon’s whereabouts?”
The master scratched at his beard. “Sir, I know not, but there’s people in Savannah who’ll be acquainted with him, of that I don’t doubt.”
Mr. Osborn thanked him, and then led Brandon to rejoin an increasingly irritated Mrs. Osborn, who was trying to shade herself from the blazing heat under the skinny branches of the tree.
Look Ahead, Look Back (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 3) Page 11