by Sienna Brown
‘Apprentice? Just a fancy word for slave!’
‘Listen to me, Will. We going get paid. Get paid to work. Come to fulfil Sam Sharpe plan.’
Eliza was so excited she didn’t notice how I turned away. Grew silent.
‘Is true, Will. Is true. Is in all the newspaper dem. If only Mama still alive to see the brightness of that coming day. To know her children and her grandchildren will no more be slaves,’ and she hugged me up with tears in her eyes.
With that she made me get down on me knees beside her to give thanks to the Lord. During the praising and the praying, me heart started to feel the happiness she was feeling and finally I was able to join in and shouted out with joy.
And I remember the terrible confusion I suffered when another year passed, and I was still locked up sitting in a cell, listening when them bells rang out all over the island, on a date I going never forget. The first of August, eighteen hundred and thirty-four. The date when slavery finally was abolished.
True, there was joy like I never knew before, but bubbling up, right behind that joy, the deepest sadness overcame me and I wept bitter tears for Stella, for James, for Calla, for friends, for Sam Sharpe whose body backra bury like a criminal in the bottom of Montego Bay Harbour. All of them gone before seeing that freedom day. And the joy and sadness sat side by side, moving from one to the other, as I waited to discover if backra finally go set me free.
The only thing that gave me strength to endure, to wait, was because even though backra still keeping me in chains, Sam Sharpe, a slave, won. The fighting and killing and dying was worth it. Piling sacrifice on top of sacrifice till the silence of slavery was broken, the barriers torn down. Escape from bondage. The sweetest taste of them all. A taste I been longing for. A taste, still not mine for the taking.
Two weeks later, the soldiers come for me. Bang on the cell door, order me outside. Leave me to stand waiting in me bare feet, me pants, a shirt, the mash-up clothes I work in. When they ready, them bind me hands and a soldier push me in the back with the butt of him rifle to start marching down the road to the Black River wharf. The early morning sun already hot, shining full, bright, and I start to sweat, the raggedy shirt sticking to me, water dripping down the back of me neck.
Marching to the wharf, we have to stop, step to the side of the road as wagons weighed down with cargo rumble past. In the distance, I can see plenty tall ships out in the harbour, flags limp in the windless heavy heat. Slaves on the dock loading and unloading, lugging, heaving boxes. Hear orders and shouts, the sharp smell of saltwater, the sea gulls screeching, circling overhead.
I stumble past a crowd of passengers dressed in them finest, hugging, kissing, saying goodbye to family, to loved ones, to friends. I look at them, see how joyful they look, some of them must be going home, glad to be rid of the heat, the fever sickness that sometimes carry off them children. A happy crowd rowed out in longboats, get on board first, settle into them cabins, having to wait till us chained, unhappy, unlucky ones get on board.
Not much shade down by the wharf except for a stingy-leafed old tree the soldiers let me sit under, while them catch some shade inside the little guardhouse. Sit in the dirt getting hotter and hotter waiting, waiting for the last longboat that going take me out to the packet ship, lying in wait in the harbour.
In the heat rising from the road, I see a figure walking quick towards me. I look closer, is Eliza, baby on her hip, Betsy clinging to what look like a new handmade dress. The soldiers stop her and Betsy from getting too close, but Eliza beg and plead, get down on her knees. She want to give me the food she bring special. Pay a coin, so them let her. We don’t have long to say goodbye, weep silent tears, before she and Betsy get shooed away. But no matter, seeing her lift me heart, help me to put on a brave face.
Then as the soldiers hustle me down to the water, I turn to catch sight of me sister one last time, when I see Sammy, all dressed up like a gentleman, come riding down the road on a horse, mouth frothing, looking like him been riding long, riding hard.
Sammy! Every time I think bout him, I try hard not to dwell too long. Otherwise the anger going rise up and cause me trouble, make the mosquitoes sting, make me fight. So I push the anger down hard. Unless breaking rocks, then I smash them rocks up good.
How come Sammy and me end up on opposite sides, even though we have the same blood? Is like two family souls come down, but each one always facing the other way. Sammy don’t pick up arms. Sammy don’t fight in the rebellion. Him stay loyal to him massa. Cower inside the house. And when it over, him go back to work, just like nothing happen. And there’s me, kept locked up behind bars, forced to do hard labour. Transported! Injustice is too mild a word.
Sammy dismount, come to the edge of the water, look out at me, not knowing what to do. In that moment I come to understand we probably never going see each other again. It soften me heart because family is family and you can’t break that. I reach cross the wide gaping hole that always been between us. Look him in the eye, in a kindly way, brother to brother, like we should have done many, many years before. Lift up me head and smile. Is a thin little smile, all I can manage, but then Sammy smile back and I hope him know that, even after everything, I love him still. Hope one day him going see what I did was a good thing. That all that fighting, killing, bleeding, on the long road to freedom, must have to add up to something.
Down in the hold, is no port to look out, no way to see the faces of me brother and sister, but I know them stayed, watching, as the ship sailed off into a distance, unknown to any of us.
All those years, locked up in the workhouse, I prayed for some miracle to take place. That somehow me going to be set free. But as I sat slumped, chained in the grimy hold of the packet ship, beside boxes of cargo, the rats scurrying bout, the chickens squawking, the goats bleating, I knew there was going be no miracle, no charity for me.
Not many memories of that long ocean voyage, chained up in the hold, with me head over a bucket vomiting. The guards letting me out only late at night, so the paying passengers couldn’t set eyes pon me.
And after a journey that seem like it never going end, come a big surprise! Before backra send me to this colony place, him keep me a prisoner in the Mother Country. The place Massa always used to boast bout. The place, never in all me dreams, I thought I ever going see.
What kind of place I come to? Full up with things I never seen before. A world that cause me mind to buck and roll, trying to steady itself in the newness, the difference that I see. I close my eyes, open them again, hoping to see something familiar in a world that get so big I can no longer feel the edge of it. Is like Jamaica is lost inside a dream.
And somewhere between when I leave Jamaica and arrive in the Mother Country, backra no longer call me a slave. Now me called convict. But nothing change, except for them that own me. Now the Mother Country is the Massa, and it turn out she no different to the Massa back on the plantation.
The place I find meself in is a town backra call Woolwich, where me forced to sleep on a hulk, a big old boat that sit low in the water. Except that hulk don’t go nowhere, stay tied up to the wharf. Make a man feel queasy with all the rocking and rolling and swaying ways, surrounded by the stench of floating sewage.
The hulk they imprison me on called Justitia and when I climb up the rope ladder to get on board, Lord, what a welcome I get. Have to strip off all me clothes. Get prodded into a big tub of water full up with washing soap and a guard scrub me with a big, heavy brush like me some kind of animal. After that is the hair-cutting business, but by then enough is enough with all the pushing and prodding and poking. I start to struggle but it make no difference, the guards knock me bout, hold me down good, while the ship barber chop all me hair off. Then him pick up a straight razor, use it to shave right to the skull till you can see the skin gleaming through. Later, I come to understand is a good thing. Make it easier to pick off the lice that live and breed all over the ship.
I think this arrival business i
s over, but then me sent to the blacksmith to get ‘ironed’. Put a chain round me ankle, hammer the bolt shut. But the chain attached to a big heavy iron ball that you must drag round with you wherever you go. If is work backra want from us, maybe them should think bout getting rid of that ball and chain.
Every morning, I must wake when the morning watch ring three bells, take up me bed, hurry to the washing troughs. Troop down to the kitchen to get some grub. Not much to speak of, just a cup of cocoa, a piece of dry bread. Then is time for muster. Line up in a gang of ten to get rowed out to shore in a longboat. Only old and lame convicts kept back to clean the decks, the rest of us rowed a short distance to work in the dockyards. Is a sight to behold. Men working on wooden skeletons, huge, like ribs and backbones, on them way to becoming ships for the navy.
In the centre of the dockyard is the clock tower, must be where all the orders coming from. To unload timber, ballast from ships, to saw and chop wood, clean cannonballs. Most times, though, me sent off to shovel mud. Backra building a wharf wall trying to hold back the river, to widen the dockyard. When the day finish, me covered in sludge from head to foot. Mud and sludge that make you slip, make you fall, make you sick with fever. Cause you skin to break out in weeping sores. Day in day out, is the same thing. Unless bad weather come up. Then we stay locked inside the hulk. I don’t know which is worse, working in the mud or suffering the damp, the cold, the stink, the lice, the rats. Sometimes, a beating.
A few times, me sent into the town. Is a shock to see how the streets full up with people that all look like Massa, them skin the colour of cow milk. And when we pass the broke-down houses where the poor live, on the way to where the rich live, I come to see, here in the Mother Country, Massa might not be so special. Have no power, like when he ruled in a world where black had to grovel under white. Here in the Mother Country, you only special if you have plenty money, big name, big title like Lord and Lady. Families with many a servant to do them bidding, and them servants even dressed up better than Massa.
Christmas time come round and the longing and loneliness I feel get much worse. No days of rest to look forward to. No celebrations where we put on our best clothes and dance and sing to keep our spirits up. No family to sit and talk with, the only people that really know you. Just cold and more cold and the white rain that fall down from the heavens keep coming till it cover everything up. White powder, thick cross the buildings, the hulk, the dockyards. But nothing going cover up the copper colour of me skin. Here in the Mother Country backra call me half-caste like it mean something. What they know bout the Ancestors? Who I is? Where I come from? What they know bout the need to feel the sun rise hot and strong, to remember the plantain walk, the quiet, the green leaves rustling in a gentle warm breeze?
The world of white and ice make plantation life seem a whole lot sweeter, even though I know is not. One day, I see how bad the Mother Country treat her children, when we all get mustered up on deck. Word go round a young runaway named Pete get caught trying to escape. Turn out him was a chimney sweep, and the reason him going get transported is because backra catch him stealing silver. We made to watch as little Pete get dragged up on deck, him begging and pleading ignored as one of the guards tie him arms, him legs to the whipping post. And just like back on the plantation where Massa use a slave to whip a slave, the overseer use a scourger to do the whipping for him. Twenty lashes little Pete condemned to get while the overseer stand there counting them out, one by one. The scourger use a cat-o’-nine-tails. Them knots flay him back wide open. Is a terrible thing to watch as pieces of flesh get whipped out and blood run down his legs onto the wooden deck. Even the rib bone start to show through. Make me grip me fists every time little Pete cry out, beg for the whipping to stop.
I look round at all the faces, wonder what they thinking. Remembered how Stella held me hand tight and how hers did tremble when Busha Davis gave little Pell a beating. And I sense all the convicts watching, no matter how hard they look on the outside, they is trembling on the inside. Holding fast to whatever little dignity them have left. When the whipping over, little Pete already passed out slumped against the whipping post, coming back to life when the scourger pour a bucket of brine on his whipped back. Fall into the arms of a mate helping him off to the sick room.
Is then I come to understand me father better. See is the Mother Country teach him to use the lash. Teach him to think kindness is the cruelty of keeping everybody in them place.
Christmas long over. Manage to survive three more month of freezing cold and hard work, all the while waiting for the Moffatt to be fitted out, the big convict ship that going transport us to the other side of the world. One day is all preparation to leave, get on board, the next, we left in our bunks doing nothing but picking off the lice. Keeping away the rats. Some of the convicts marked down for going been on the hulk so long they turn restless, many a fight break out, the guards lock up the troublemakers.
I know the day to leave must be close, when we each called to go stand in front of the surgeon superintendent, a man named McKay. Get checked if we healthy enough to sail. One boy get sent off to hospital. Word go round that him insane. Bang him head against the wall, scream all day and all night, begging to go home. Maybe is not madness. Him just a child saying what we all thinking. Only thing is we know screaming and head banging not going make one scrap of difference.
Finally, one morning, we get woken earlier than usual. Six bells by the middle watch. By the time we make it up on deck for muster, the sky so dull, full up with clouds, we not know the dawn is bout to break. And once the weak-as-piss sun disappear, the drizzle start. A cold, fine drizzle that get under you shirt, dribble down you back. Collect round you feet. Is the beginning of spring, the other convicts tell me, but it don’t feel like it. The sun have no strength, never seem to burst out hot, full, strong, only hidden behind dark skies, grey rain. Must be why them in charge walk round with miserable, ugly faces. And that morning with all the dark clouds and freezing rain, them faces more miserable than ever.
Everybody sourly as we start to get transferred from the Justitia to the Moffatt, anchored in the middle of the harbour. Ten to twenty of us at a time climb down into the longboat, sit there shivering in our shirt and pants, all chained up. And when the wind come up, instead of one hour, it take more like two to row out to that great big convict ship.
When we reach the Moffatt, colder and wearier than when the day start, the sailors stare down at us like we is dirt as we claw our way up the rope ladders to come on board. The deck officer Jonas McDuff stand up on the deck, him feet astride, watching the skies, watching us with an uneasy eye. And when we all standing in line, Thomas Bolton, the captain, come out of him cabin. Walk up and down checking us over. Looking at us like him already decide all of us is trouble, and all the while the drizzle keep coming down, soaking us to the skin, freezing us to the bone.
‘Be warned,’ him shout, as the wind come up again. ‘If you expect to behave badly on my ship, think again. There will be the devil to pay and you’ll find yourself rocking on the ocean floor. Your bones picked over by fish, quicker than you can say “Yes sir, Captain Bolton”.’
After him gone back down to him cabin, McDuff start shouting, him words come in bursts as they get carried away on the wind. ‘Hurry it up!’
Lightning flash behind the clouds.
‘Hurry it up, you lazy buggers.’
Thunder rolling.
‘Haven’t got all blooming day to wait for you lot! Next convict. Step forward. Be lively now.’
Is then I see him pointing at me.
‘Buchanan, William. Prisoner number one seven nine three. Make your mark.’
I do as me told, put a mark on the paper beside the finger pointing at me name. Then him shout, ‘Move along, now. Move along, down below with the others.’
I start to head below deck, decide to take one last look round. Although I am glad to be leaving the lice-ridden, rat-crawling, foul-smelling hulk, at least it tu
rn familiar. Know the ins and outs of it. Know how to get a little bit extra of whatever I can get. Not much time for looking though, the convict behind push me forward and I climb down a short wooden ladder that take me below deck where everybody pushing and shoving to find them spot. I notice how some of the older convicts move quick away from the bunks under the ports. So I follow suit and, after we sail, I am glad I done that. The ports always leaking, the saltwater dripping through.
Even after everybody sign them name, it take a long time for the bunks to get claimed. Four to a section, the bunks lined up round each side of the hold, but seem like not enough of them till one of the overseers come below. Order the youngest convicts to move. Them is meant to sleep mid-ship in hammocks they must roll up every morning, hang out every night.
We spend that first night anchored in the harbour, can’t leave our bunks, all we can do is wait. Watch each other, try to stay warm, listen to the wind and rain beating at the ship. Woken early, fed, but kept below deck, locked in fetters, while the paying passengers, soldiers and them family come on board. Hear the sailors getting the ship ready to sail. Listen as the water start flowing past the hull, feeling the ship moving, making headway. Shouts and orders drifting down to us, broken by the grinding sound of the anchor getting pulled up. Every clunk of the chain, a final goodbye to a life quickly passing.
Slowly at first, I feel the ship start to glide, to pick up speed while the voice of Jonas McDuff come floating down on the wind, the sails trapping the breeze.
‘Send a man aloft. Pull out the main sail. Check the Plimsoll line. Depth five fathom. Ten fathom. Twenty. Thirty.’
Four hundred of us convicts sail away that day. Each of us must be hoping we could turn the ship round. Knowing in our hearts the space we left behind might be no longer empty, be already filled. And I notice how everybody lay still, stay silent. Not even a whisper. The listening spell broken, when one of the crew come down the ladder, stand at the top, look down on us with a twinkle in him eyes.