The Guineaman

  Pausing, Makepeace regarded the object of Kite’s solicitude. ‘There, you see, that is exactly what I mean: our treatment of these wretches is humane and decent.’

  Wilson quickly dabbed the woman’s shoulder and she passed on. Her rump moved seductively under the cotton skirt and the curve of her back and the sharp, outward jut of her hips, made Kite swallow.

  ‘Now she’ll fetch a good price,’ Makepeace remarked parenthetically before resuming his exposition. ‘The canting Quakers don’t comprehend the realities of existence. They seek a perfect world, where food falls like manna from heaven and each man is reasonable unto his neighbour, where love reigns in some peaceable kingdom. Pah. ’tis all flummery imagination. Can you conceive of a world where no-one loses their temper or covets another’s property; where passions are roused only to worship God and never to lie with a woman except it be ordained and sanctified by the Almighty? Huh! Would that it were true! But what does the Bible give us in its opening chapters, eh? A story of disobedience followed by a story of murder, a swift descent from petty to capital crime! Remarkably soon afterwards every form of vice runs riot with mankind unchastened even by flood, earthquake, fire and plague! By Heaven, Mr Kite,’ Makepeace almost roared, ‘does that not fill you with a certain pride in mankind: that he can defy Omnipotence?’ Makepeace lowered his voice. ‘Why sir, it is magnificent!’

  Concluding his oration with this flourish, Makepeace turned to see the impact his manifesto had made on the young man beside him, but Kite was watching the young woman as she made her second circuit of the deck.

  ‘So that is the way the land lies,’ Makepeace muttered to himself, a sly smile playing the corners of his mouth.

  Nervous of the forthcoming encounter, Kite left attending the young woman to last. Despite the quickening effect she had upon him and his growing desire for here, he was loathe to commit himself and dreaded the contact he knew he would find irresistible; that much he knew about himself from his encounters with Susie. But now she was daubed and he was bound by his duty to approach her with his pot of rancid tallow, leaving Wilson to attend to the remaining male slave picked out that morning.

  The young woman had seen enough of the routine to know what was required of her. Sitting quietly amid her fellow captives, she allowed Kite to ease her heavy leg irons up her calves and to apply the sticky mess. It was odd, he thought as he knelt, that she had first touched him on the same spot. Her ankles were slim and the calves shapely. Her young skin felt smooth and cool, except where the cruel edges of the iron rings had scored and abraded her flesh. As he massaged the tallow he looked up and half-fearfully met her eyes, but there was no hatred, only the beginnings of a shy smile as she looked away. Beside her, her neighbour gave a grunt, distracting Kite so that he looked at an older woman he knew to be pregnant.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, knowing the women could not understand him, but unable to think of anything else to say.

  ‘Aw rye, aw rye, aw rye…!’ The pregnant woman exclaimed nodding her head as tears fell from her eyes and she held her swollen belly.

  Kite returned his gaze to his patient. She was staring at him again, her head slightly turned away so that the light fell upon her left ear. The gold ring had been torn out. Kite put up his hand and, though she drew back, she allowed his finger tips to touch the torn lobe. The scab was only half formed, and still oozed blood.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said again in a low, soothing voice. Then, his hand still extended he turned and called, ‘Mr Kerr?’

  One of Kerr’s mates, Jonas Ritchie, approached. ‘Mr Kerr’s on deck, Mr Kite, what d’ye want?’

  ‘I want to know who did this?’

  ‘What? Took the nigger’s ear-ring?’

  Kite looked up at the smirking face. Many of the women wore rings in their ears, thin gold rings of little real value. Kite thought it might have been of some tribal significance, for even their black captors had left such paltry finery alone, though it was clear they had removed most valuable effects from their victims.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How should I know?’

  Kite stared at Ritchie. The man was not insolent, merely indifferent. Kite turned to the woman, trying to see in her just a commercial object of flesh and blood, like a beast sent to market. Instead he saw a beautiful young woman who had begun to tremble at the presence of Ritchie and whose breathing set up a perceptible flutter about her wide, flared nostrils as if the smell of the boatswain’s mate offended her.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Kite repeated, touching her scabbed ear. He caught her eyes again and he wanted to read thanks and gratitude for his intervention, the social obligation laid upon her by European culture. But of course she had no notion of this sensibility, merely twitching her mouth nervously, then looking up at Ritchie as he leaned over them. In that moment, Kite sensed the enormity of what he stood upon the brink of. The nearest he could do to rescue her from her future servitude was to do what Makepeace had done with his pair of trulls, to turn them into whoring dolls and claim some sexual rights over her. Could she be one of his allowed slaves? Could he buy her and give her her freedom? The notion was immediately appealing, but the difficulties made him angry. He felt the constriction in his throat, turned away and rose to his feet to confront Ritchie.

  ‘Be so good as to tell your mates that these women,’ Kite said, his voice cold as he gestured round at the figures lying on the deck, ‘are not to be molested in this way.’

  It was now that Ritchie became truly insolent, objecting to the younger man’s appropriation of the tasks that were properly his and his mates’.

  ‘Very good, Mr Kite,’ Ritchie said with a heavy sarcasm, ‘I’ll ensure that these women are only molested in the usual way.’

  For a moment the two confronted each other, then Kite said, ‘stand aside, if you please’, and made for the companionway.

  He did not see the parting kick Ritchie gave to the young woman, for his attention was diverted by a cry on deck and he began to run up the ladder.

  ‘Sail ho! Broad on the windward beam, sir!’

  For some time they had debated the likelihood of a French frigate lying off the Guinea coast, but there had been no sign of an enemy cruiser and they had escaped to begin the middle passage, hoping to get lost in the vastness of the ocean. They would run the greatest risk, Makepeace had given his opinion, as they approached the Lesser Antilles and the French possessions of Martinique and Guadeloupe. From these islands, the French naval cruisers and irregular privateers would lie in wait for the incoming slavers converging on the British possessions in the Leeward Islands. But a risk remained on the open ocean. An enemy man-of-war, either cruising opportunistically along the likely track of slavers from Guinea to the West Indies, or on her way south and bound for the Indian Ocean to prey on British Indiamen, might be encountered in these waters.

  Such thoughts were uppermost in Makepeace’s mind as he gave orders to clear for action and raised his glass to study the distant stranger. Hearing the order to prepare for battle, Kite turned about, his heart beating. His post was below, first seeing the slaves secured, so that no attacking enemy received a reinforcement from rebelling blacks. Ritchie was bawling out orders for the slaves to lie down, emphasising this by forcing backwards onto the deck, a large negro who had sat up. Fore and aft, additional chains were run through the wretches’ leg irons by Ritchie’s men, while a pair of seamen, scrambled over the recumbent forms and closed the ventilating ports in the vessel’s sides, shutting out a little light and seeming to seal the slaves in what might become their common, mass coffin.

  It was Kite’s duty to proceed below to the orlop deck once he was content with the security of the slave deck, and prepare his instruments for any surgery required on the wounded. Makepeace had presented him with an old treatise on the subject, but he had given it little attention. As he descended to the orlop, he heard the shouts of orders on deck and the rumble of the carriage guns as they were trundled out through th
e gun ports to confront the enemy. In the semi-darkness of the lamp-lit orlop, just above the hold, he found Wilson.

  The surgeon’s mate was a middle-aged man whom Makepeace had appointed to the post shortly before the Enterprize arrived off the Sherbro. Wilson had served in the capacity on previous voyages and was familiar with the tending of the slaves, considerably easing Kite’s burden as well as his conscience. Now the two of them sat in tense silence, waiting for the noise of the guns and the arrival of the first wounded to be delivered into their tender care by the fortunes of war.

  The alarm proved a false one. The ‘enemy frigate’, converging upon them, turned out to be the ship-rigged Marquis of Lothian, their former companion from York Island. Relieved, the Enterprize’s company resumed their duties, watching the other ship as she bore down towards them, British colours at her peak. But the encounter was not entirely devoid of danger, for the Marquis of Lothian ran close to them an hour before sunset and her commander, Captain Ross, Hoisted himself up on his rail, holding onto a mizen backstay with one hand and raising a speaking trumpet with the other.

  ‘Enterprize, ahoy,’ he hailed. ‘Cap’n Makepeace, d’you hear me?’

  Waving aside Gerard’s offer of a speaking trumpet, Makepeace took up a similar position. ‘Aye, I hear you, Cap’n Ross.’

  ‘Have you any sick aboard?’

  ‘No sir, my slaves are all fit and well.’

  ‘I do not mean among your slaves, sir, I mean among your crew.’

  ‘My men are all in hearty trim, sir. What is it that concerns you?’

  ‘Be vigilant, Cap’n Makepeace, we have the yellow jack aboard…’

  ‘Poor devils,’ said Molloy, standing close to Kite as all hands then on deck listened to the exchange and stared at the accompanying ship as if the sick would appear like a row of skulls along her rail.

  ‘I am sorry to hear it,’ shouted Makepeace, turning to Gerard who had the watch and saying, ‘keep us away, Mr Gerard, ‘don’t fall under his lee.’ And Gerard ordered a slight alteration of course, keeping the Enterprize from running too close to the infected ship.

  ‘Well, perhaps you will be lucky, but there were four more dead aboard the Lutwidge before she sailed from the Sherbro,’ Ross continued.

  ‘How many have you lost, sir?’ asked Makepeace as the two vessels surged along on parallel courses, their diverging wakes slapping together in a white marbled confusion of water.

  ‘Two yesterday, one this morning. I have seven men down with the damned fever and one on the cold threshold of eternity as we speak. Captain Makepeace…’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I should be obliged if you would keep me company… You will understand my reasoning.’

  Makepeace swore, then raised his hand and cupped it about his mouth, with evident reluctance. ‘I cannot well decline your request, Captain Ross, and will agree to it if you will undertake to keep as mile to loo’ard of me at all times.’

  ‘Very well, Cap’n Makepeace. I shall keep that station unless we are brought to action. Will you burn a lantern?’

  ‘Aye, sir, we shall both do so.’

  Ross waved his arm in agreement and jumped down from his conspicuous stance on his ship’s quarterdeck rail as Makepeace regained his own deck. ‘Hell and damnation,’ he swore, catching Kite’s eye. ‘We don’t want that damnable contagion aboard here. Is there any sign of the fever, Kite?’

  ‘Not that I’ve seen, sir, but I’ll keep my eyes open.’

  ‘Aye,’ Makepeace said and, embracing Gerard and Molloy in his remarks, added, ‘and pass the word that anyone with a touch of vomiting or nausea is to report the matter at once. Old Ross is scared he’ll lose half his ship’s company, if not worse…’

  ‘You mean his slaves, sir?’ Kite asked, his voice edged with irony.

  ‘No, I do not mean his slaves, Kite,’ Makepeace responded sharply. Then in a reasonable tone, he went on, ‘for some reason the blackamoor don’t take this particular ague with the same alacrity as the white man. ’Tis said the fever comes from monkeys and, I suppose, since the negro is relative to the monkey, has become used to it; anyway, it seems not to kill them as it does us.’

  The simian comparison seemed oddly illogical to Kite, but he was thinking about how he could contain an outbreak of the Guinea marsh-ague they called yellow-jack. There was insufficient space to give a man quarantine in so crowded a ship as the laden Enterprize. God help them all if they suffered an outbreak; the white from the disease, and the blacks from the loss of the whites. Shackled in the ship with no-one on deck, the miserable slaves would drift around until they all died of starvation.

  Such a fate seemed too horrible to even imagine.

  The first case occurred two days later, just before dark, with two seamen almost simultaneously struck down in violent shivering fits. Kite had their hammocks slung forward and by midnight both were vomiting and moaning deleriously. Makepeace immediately distanced himself, refusing Kite entrance to his cabin and ordering him to make it his business to see everything possible was done. The following morning, having the weather gauge, Makepeace ran the Enterprize down towards the Marquis of Lothian and informed Ross of the outbreak.

  I am at a Loss, Kite wrote that night in his journal. The Recurrence of the Disease may Kill us all and I, being in Close Proximity to the Infected Men, seem little likely to Avoid it. He paused and stared into the gloomy corners of his tiny cabin. Then, in one of those rare moments a person may occasionally be vouchsafed, when a glimpse of some great purpose seems within the grasp of comprehension, and when reconciliation to fate is something to be embraced not feared, Kite suddenly began to write with rapid strokes of his scratching quill. I cannot Pretend to see Divine Purpose in this Event. Perhaps there is Retribution in a Fever that Strikes the White Man in Preference to the Black, but it seems more likely that this Ague, with all Other Plagues and Distempers, joins with those Evils Man himself Creates, to make of this World nothing more than a Vast Game of Hazard in which the many Lose but the Few, upon occasion, most Assuredly Win. Thus was I Singled out at Random for the Cruel and Fateful Circumstance of my being Forced Hither and being Placed in this Singular Position.

  He paused a moment, then dipped his quill and went on.

  And if I should Doubt that I am Nothing but a Pawn to be Played at the Whim of Fate, then There is that Private Matter which beckons me on to Further Folly. But Captn Makepeace, Whom I Consider not to be a Gentleman may, in a World where a Gentleman counts for Nought, have Struck upon something Significant in saying that Man’s Greatness lies in his Defiance of Fate. If therefore Death is soon to be my Lot as it must Assuredly be Someday, may I not Seek a little Joy now?

  Providence…

  But providence lay unamenable, beyond his grasp. He floundered uncertainly, irresolute, for the moment of insight had gone and he knew only that he was dog-tired. His head fell forward and his mind clouded over. He felt unable to make the effort to rise and slip out of his clothes before clambering into his gently swaying cot; instead his head dropped down upon the drying page. Suddenly the air was rent with a shriek, then another, quickly followed by a roar of rage. Kite was on his feet in an instant, and out of the cabin, fearing he knew not what. The underlying, ever-present thought of the horrors of a slave uprising quickened his heart beat, but he moved instinctively, his perception still dopey with exhaustion.

  Emerging into the gunroom he almost fell over the sprawling forms of the commander’s two women whom the crew had nicknamed Makepeace’s Bedpans. They were a kicking, screaming welter of grubby petticoats, flailing limbs and flashing teeth. Makepeace had vanished, hidden behind the door of his cabin through which the two trulls had been ejected.

  From a door opposite Kite’s, Molloy stood yawning, staring indifferently at the two women as they fought together, crashing into the chairs set about the officers’ dining table.

  ‘Tooth and nail, Billy,’ he called out wearily, ‘Tooth and nail. ’Tis surgeon’s business,
not mine. You sort it out.’ Then Molloy retreated behind his own door. Kite stared at the spread of thrashing bare legs and buttocks as one wench got the other across her waist and laid into the black flesh with a series of smacks that sounded harsh and flat in the creaking air. As he stood there stupefied, Makepeace’s door opened and, obviously half-drunk and wearing only his hastily drawn-on breeches, Makepeace roared for silence. Seeing Kite Makepeace grinned. ‘You see the wisdom of keeping leg-irons on ’em now, Mr Kite, eh? Would you be a good fellow and call the after marine in.’

  The two women parted and fell into an instant truce, staring up at Makepeace. It was clear they were mutually considering pleading with their master who, for his part, ignored them. Stepping over their disarray, Kite went forward, opened the door and called the guard. The marine came aft into the gunroom and stopped, the women at his feet.

  Makepeace called, ‘take these two forward, Mason, get some leg-irons on ’em and get them out of my sight. Give him a hand, Kite…’ The captain stood leaning on the door frame, bracing himself against the ship’s easy roll and the unbalancing effects of the wine he had consumed.

  As Mason grabbed one of the women, Kite wearily stooped to take the arm of the other. Suddenly, Kite felt himself struck across the face as the woman tore free and went for Makepeace with a reel of abuse.

  Makepeace straightened. In a second his right arm shot out and he took the woman’s throat with such a vicious grip that her eyes started from her head. Makepeace lifted her so that her feet danced upon the deck. ‘Take that bitch forward,’ Makepeace said quietly to Mason, ‘and then come back for this one.’ He looked at Kite. ‘Are you all right, Mr Kite, ’Tis not always amusing to be struck by a strong black woman.’

  Kite rubbed the side of his face. ‘No matter, sir. May I suggest you let her throat go, sir…’

  ‘You may suggest what you like, Kite, but once let these devils think they can strike a white man and you’ll have no end of problems…’ Makepeace was now regarding his victim in a matter-of-fact way. She had ceased to struggle and merely tried to take her weight on her toes. Afterwards Kite recalled that despite the gloom of the gunroom and despite the woman’s dusky skin, he could see her face empurpling.