The Voyage of Promise (10 page)

J
ohnny seen ’er in her private cabin pertendin’ she could read!” Chester panted in disgust as he toiled alongside the crewmen moving sheets in order to set the sail on the foremast.

Sam, whose job it was to bend the sails to the yardarms, called out in a mocking voice, “Laddies, laddies! Git on yer ’ands and knees and make a cushion fer me wee lassie so’s she kin walk acrosst the deck on yer backs. And if’n yer backs ain’t soft enough fer ’er tender feet, then ye jist bare yer backs an’ ready ’em fer me cat, ’cause a good lashin’ is wot ye’ll git!”

Sam’s imitation of Captain Ross’s Scottish brogue met with peals of laughter that quickly turned into sarcastic catcalls.

Standing on the bow of the ship, out of sight of the working crew, Nathaniel Greenway pulled a dingy handkerchief from his pocket and wiped it across the heavy brow of his salt-crusted face. He frowned and lowered the sextant with which he had been measuring the angle of the sun, and he contemplated his options.

As a young lad in Liverpool, the thought of traveling the world had been the height of excitement for him. But Nate
had passed his thirty-seventh birthday on the coast of Africa, an age most sailing men never lived to see, and he was feeling his age. A year’s voyage aboard a damp, creaking vessel, an endless supply of brittle hardtack biscuits—mostly weevil infested—quarters shared not only with the surgeon but also with rats and more vermin than he cared to consider, bowl after bowl after bowl of pease porridge. And if all that weren’t discouraging enough, a voyage cursed by a woman on board, and a captain more concerned about pirouetting for her than about performing his duties.

“If you will allow me to speak freely, sir,” Nate Greenway said to Captain Ross with a courteous bow, “rumblings of displeasure amongst the crew are causing me concern.”

“Long voyages always produce rumblings of displeasure,” Captain Ross replied with a wave of his hand. “Please be assured that I have everything under control. You are free to focus your concern on the position of the ship, and leave the handling of major day-to-day affairs to me.”

“Sir, the men openly ridicule you,” Nate Greenway persisted. “They feel slighted and cheated by you, and exposed to disaster because of your lack of sensitivity to their fears— which, I might add, are not totally unfounded.”

“If you are quite finished—”

“No, sir, I am not. If I may be so bold, I think you would do well to shower less attention on Miss Winslow and spend more time overseeing your crewmen.”

Captain Ross’s face hardened. “And you have great personal experience as captain of a ship, I assume?” he replied.

The unexpected sharpness of the captain’s words slashed Mister Greenway to the quick.

“No, sir. I only mean to say—”

“You have already said more than enough, Mister Greenway. You will do well to tend to your charts and navigational
instruments and allow me to tend to the men on my ship. Do I make myself clear?”

“Quite clear,” said Mister Greenway. But an impatient darkness passed over his craggy face. He was not yet finished. “I merely wish to share an observation which I trust you will consider, sir.”

“Then I should respond that it is an observation best kept to yourself…
sir
.”

“Because it is a matter that seriously affects every one of us on this ship, including myself, I really must—”

“You have said quite enough!” the captain snapped. “Good day, Mister Greenway.”

The fact of the matter was that Captain Ross, in his kindly concern for Grace, was indeed neglecting his crew. His ordered lashings—sometimes as many as ten for a single offense, when that offense involved Grace—were unduly harsh. And on three separate occasions he had cut rations to the entire crew because of the actions of a few. “You all knew what the others were planning and you could have stopped it. Instead, you chose to do nothing. Therefore, you are equally involved,” he said in defense of this practice.

Each lash, each cut in rations, each time Grace entered the captain’s office for tea—every incident that could possibly be offensive—was duly noted, offense was taken, and the matter was whispered from one seaman to another to another to another. And with each retelling, the captain was depicted as more pandering toward Grace, and more cruel and unfair to the seamen.

Sam and Billy in particular seized upon every possible opportunity to jeer at Grace and blame her for their difficulties. They positioned themselves as close as possible to her cabin door, especially when she left it open a crack for Puss to
come in, and between gulps of rum, they belted out their own original mocking songs, such as this one:

Sweet with sugar cane,

And strong with the sweat of them wot dies,

Black slaves in the fields,

Lame black Cabeto, dead in the fields.

While the men’s behavior did not seem to faze Captain Ross, the tone of the ship grew consistently more rancorous on the seamen’s side. And on the officers’ side, it became more defensive and subdued. Doctor Wills and Jonas Brandt both made an effort to tread softly around anything that might possibly erupt into controversy. Nate Greenway’s manner, on the other hand, hardened into steely brittleness. As for Grace, she no longer joined the officers for afternoon tea, for she felt increasingly awkward and out of place in their presence.

One day drifted into the next. Late one evening, when Grace made her way out to the quarter deck to trace the image of Cabeto in her mind, she saw to her surprise that the moon shone round and full in the sky. Since the
Willow
had sailed with a full moon, that meant the ship had been at sea for two months.

More than four weeks had passed since Grace started reading Captain Ross’s leather-bound Bible. She had finished reading about the beginning of the world, and also about the law and the time of the judges and the record of songs—the book of Psalms. Actually, she had come to a very sad part of the book. Once again, it was a story of slavery. Messengers, called prophets, had tried to warn the people what was coming— Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and others too—but the people refused to listen to them. So many warnings, but so little change.

Grace stood in the moonlight and stared up at the brilliant shimmer of the moon on the still ocean waters. A star flashed bright, then streaked across the sky. What did it mean? Good fortune or foul?

What would she find in London, Grace wondered. Her father? The last time she saw Joseph Winslow, he shook his fist at the heavens and called down a curse on her, his own daughter, who had risked everything to save his life. Charlotte Stevens, perhaps? Hah! In Africa, Charlotte would not so much as acknowledge Grace’s existence. Why would she do more in England? Mister Hathaway—were he still alive? No, no! Oh, dear, no. Not him!

The truth was, Grace had no one.

Well, she did still have Cabeto. But the ship on which he was held captive was sailing to the other side of the world, carrying him off to more horror, and then to certain death. Unless…

Grace hurried back to her room. Puss was on the floor beside her bunk, so Grace left the door open a crack and lay down fully dressed. It didn’t matter. She was in no mood to sleep, anyway.

Deep in the twilight hours of the first dog watch, Puss bolted upright, his ears flattened back and his tail fluffed out.

“What is it?” Grace asked.

The cat bolted from Grace’s cabin. Only then did Grace hear the shouts, then the running feet. She jumped up and hurried to the door.

“Mister Brandt!” she called out to the first mate. “What is happening?”

“Our ship is sailing past another that is aflame,” he answered.

Grace followed the first mate to the railing. It seemed the entire crew had already gathered there. In the inky black of
night, all she could see were flames shooting up into the air. They cast eerie shadows around them and across the sky. A ghostly pall danced over the deck.

“Evil, that’s wot it be,” someone called out. “Pure evil.”

Others muttered their agreement.

“Cursed be the burning ship, cursed like we be too,” wailed someone else—a cry that called for still more muttering.

With the buzz of so many voices at once, it was impossible to tell who said what. But Grace didn’t care. The murmurings of discontent faded into the background as the ominous smell of smoke relit the awful memory of the fire that had swept through Zulina fortress. With the breath of new fire on her face, Grace once again saw her parents’ house swallowed up in flames.

Phantoms leapt dissonantly across the ship’s deck, mocking ghosts of her destroyed village… of her life… of her hope.

Grace covered her face and ran back to her cabin. She slammed the door, then threw herself across her bunk and sobbed out her despair.

As darkness gathered, Jonas Brandt tapped on Grace’s door, just as he did every evening at twilight when he made his round lighting the ship’s lanterns. “A light for your candle, Miss Grace,” he called. A second time he tapped, but when Grace still didn’t answer, he moved on down the deck.

Grace found sleep impossible. And since she had no light, she couldn’t read, either. For what seemed like hours, she lay on her cot, memories and questions crowding sleep from her head. Well into the middle watch, she got up and crept out of her cabin, but this time she didn’t go to the quarter deck. No, this time she went on to the main deck and over to the railing where she had watched the burning ship. But it was far behind them, and all was dark out to sea. Just as she turned to leave, Grace heard muffled voices. They were quite nearby.

“Shush, ye! Cain’t let ’em ’ear ye!”

It was Billy’s voice. Grace was certain of it.

“The curse is upon us, an’ that be a fact,” he said. “We all knows it to be the truth, so we might as well speak it out loud. A burnin’ ship close enough fer us to reach out and touch, and nary a soul on ’er deck. It be a sure sign of a curse if’n ever there be one.”

“Them officers be no better sailors than we be.”

This was Sam’s voice, and the sound of it sent shivers down Grace’s back. She pulled herself further into the shadows.

“Wot’s we to do with the captain then?” asked another who Grace didn’t recognize.

The answer came from Billy. “We kills ’im, is wot, same as all the others of ’em.”

“But not Grace,” said Sam. “Grace be mine, curse or no curse.”

Six bells sounded. Three o’clock in the morning.

“Shush!” It was Billy again. “Less words we says, the better fer us all. We finishes laying the plan. After that, we only needs wait fer the right time to set it in place.”

Grace heard grunts of agreement, followed by feet shuffling past her so close she could have reached her foot out and tripped them.

Long after they passed, Grace stayed crouched in her hiding place, too terrified to move. Only when seven bells sounded— half an hour, with no further sound from the plotters—did she dare slip out and hurry back to her cabin.

Grace paused at the cabin door, then she did what she had never dared do before—she tapped on the captain’s door.

“Who is it, then?” the captain asked in a voice heavy with sleep.

“It is Grace, sir. I apologize for the hour. Please, sir, may I have a word with you?”

By the reflected shadows of the deck’s lantern light, Captain Ross—now fully awake—stood in the doorway and shivered in his nightshirt as Grace urgently whispered everything that had happened on deck. To the best of her ability, she repeated all that Billy and Sam had said.

“The trickster, sir,” Grace ended tearfully. “Surely he has come to this ship. And just look at the trouble he has brought with him!”

“Perhaps it is not about the trickster,” Captain Ross replied. “Perhaps this is about you.”

“Me, sir?” Grace asked in confusion. “Are you saying that even you believe I brought bad luck to the ship?”

“Not at all,” said the captain. “What I am saying is that you may have saved us all.”

“For such a time as this…” Grace whispered once again.

“Go to sleep now, and I shall do the same,” said Captain Ross. “Tomorrow I will set this matter to right.”

W
ith a thump and a lurch, the
Golden Hawk
’s never-ending pitch and roll settled into a gentle rocking motion. Cabeto pushed himself as far up onto his elbows as he could and waited. It was true, the ship was no longer moving.

“Sunba,” he called in a hoarse voice.

“I am here, Brother.”

“Kome,” Cabeto called.

“I am here.”

“Tawnia.”

“Yes, Cabeto, I am here.”

“Tetteh.”

“I am here.”

“Hola.”

“Over here, Cabeto.”

“Safya.”

“Yes, Cabeto. I am still here.”

“Odera,” Cabeto called.

No answer came from the still form behind him.

“Up! Up!” Henry Bates called as he kicked Cabeto in the side. He jerked Cabeto’s arm forward, then, skipping two dead
people, forced Cabeto over and locked him to the nearest living man. Henry clutched a heavy cloth over his mouth and nose, but even so he gagged and choked in the stifling stench of the ship’s hold.

“Move it along!” Henry ordered as he forced Cabeto and the man shackled to him along on their hands and knees, then over to the stairs. Awkwardly, they clambered up to the deck where Lukas Fisher awaited them. Two other sailors, with serious looks on their faces, stood beside Lukas with muskets at the ready, just in case.

“The apartments of the Africans on the slave ships are fitted up with as much for their advantage as circumstances will admit,” Mister Robert Norris, representative for the Liverpool slave traders, announced. “They have several meals a day—some of their own country’s food, served with the best African sauces. For variety, they have another meal cooked according to European taste. After breakfast they are able to wash themselves, whilst their apartments are perfumed with frankincense and lime juice.”

The members of the Select Committee of Parliament, smiles upon their faces, nodded approvingly to one another. Yes. Most satisfactory. Exactly as they had expected.

“Pee-ewwww, but you stink!” Lukas said as Cabeto limped up onto the deck. “Wot is it with you people? You all be just alike!” He shoved Cabeto over to the far side of the deck, where two men waited with a bucket of cold water and a bar of lye soap. In spite of his resolve, Cabeto flinched as they scrubbed at his raw ankles.

“Looky ’ere, some fool left this one’s chains on whilst ’e danced,” the scrubber said. “Don’t matter, though. ’E’s all scarred up anyways. Somethin’ wrong with ’is leg an’ ’e got the cat whupped acrosst ’is back, ’e did.”

Dance. Yes, Cabeto knew that word. It meant jump about on the deck, and keep it up however much the rub of the leg iron cut and hurt, however much the wounds bled. He knew the word “cat” too. That was the white man’s horrible whip, made from knotted leather strips that ripped open a man’s flesh. They used it on anyone who didn’t dance fast enough or dared to fall down from exhaustion.

“Before dinner, the Africans amuse themselves after the manner of their country,” Mister Norris reported. “The ship’s crew encourage them to sing and dance, and to make the time even more pleasurable, the crewmen add games of chance for their enjoyment. As the men play and sing, the women and girls make frilly ornaments with beads.”

Scrubbed clean and rubbed down with palm oil to make his skin gleam, given more water to drink than he’d had for days and an extra portion of meal and beans to eat in an attempt to puff him out, Cabeto stumbled in front of Henry, who led him out to join other captives, who were enduring makeovers of their own.

“Cabeto!” Tawnia screamed when she saw him. She reached out to him, but immediately Lukas struck the girl to the ground. Not so as to leave a conspicuous mark that might lower her sales value, mind you. Just a blow to her mid-section,
hard enough to knock the wind out of her and terrify her. Just hard enough to be a lesson to anyone else who might dare to scream.

“You!” Lukas called, pointing to Hola. “And you and you and you.” That was Tetteh and Kome, and another man not from their village. “All o’ you, up to be considered!”

Henry and another crewman pulled the young Africans forward and pushed each one up against a wooden wall. White men, one after another, came and ran their hands all over the young Africans’ bodies. The white men forced the captives’ mouths open and peered at their teeth. They checked the Africans’ backs, then stretched out their arms and their legs. The white men seemed satisfied with what they saw, because after all the examining, they stood in a line with eager looks on their faces.

Then all at once they started to point and yell. One man was evidently the winner, because he looked very happy and he stayed as the others walked away. He handed a leather sack to the ship’s Captain Hudson, then he tied the four Africans together with a rope around their necks. As he led them off, Hola tried to look back, but the winner lashed him back into line and yanked him forward.

Four at a time, the captives stood against the wall. Four at a time, they were taken away. Then two at a time. Then all alone. Cabeto and Sunba stood at the wall together, but the men kicked Cabeto in his lame leg and when he winced, they frowned. Then they grabbed Sunba’s crooked arm and yanked it up and down, and they shook their heads and walked away. So Lukas tied Cabeto and Sunba to a tree and concentrated on trying to get someone to buy the women.

A member of the House of Commons sighed heavily and stated to the man next to him—but in a voice loud enough for many others to hear, “We have heard evidence, presented to us over and over again, that demonstrates that truth of the slave trade. There can be no question but that it actually helps the Africans by providing them safer places to live, and most certainly with better lives than they could ever hope for in their native land.”

“Come, now,” Captain Hudson argued. The man before him had already bought several of his lesser slaves, and Hudson was doing his best to interest him in Cabeto and Sunba, who were still tied together to the tree. “These two are not perfect, I allow you as much. Even so, they are young and strong, and I am offering them to you cheap. It’s a good deal for a planter such as yourself. Work them day and night and you shall easily get your money’s worth before they drop dead.”

But the planter wasn’t convinced. Like the men before him, he kicked at Cabeto’s scarred leg and shook his head at the awkward angle of Sunba’s shoulder. “I have done the calculations, Richard,” he said. “The most profitable approach is to buy them young and at the top of their strength, then work them hard and give them little rest. When they are no longer useful, let them die and buy new ones to fill their places.” He must have seen the disappointment on Captain Hudson’s face, because he quickly added, “It is business, my good man. One must be profitable if he is to stay in business.”

“I wish the cause of humanity as well as any other man,” said Alderman Newnham, Lord Mayor of the City of London. “No
doubt some abuses do prevail with the slave trade, but if we simply apply wise regulations, it can be an even greater source of revenue and commercial advantage to us than it is right now. If, on the other hand, we were to abolish it completely, we would render the City of London a scene of bankruptcy and ruin!”