Voyage of Midnight

by Michele Torrey

  I smiled, realizing that, indeed, my queasiness was gone. “Much.”

  “That’s my lad,” he said, releasing me.

  Just then a gust of wind blew through the mangroves and rustled the buildings’ palm-leaf roofs. Uncle clamped a hand on his hat to keep it from blowing away as he recommenced moving down the queue. I hastened after, but not before a heavy rain, with droplets fat as shillings, began to fall, putting out Uncle’s cigar with a smoky sizzle.

  For the next few days, as rainwater turned the ground to mud, Uncle carried out his negotiations.

  More trade goods from the Formidable began to arrive—hogsheads, crates, and bales, stacked on cane pallets and covered with tarpaulins. Some of the crates were broken open and the contents examined as carefully by the Africans as we examined our cargo of slaves. Were it not for the rain and the sense of secrecy regarding our illegal task, the entire event would’ve had the air of a marketplace, bustling and commercial.

  Under the shelter of a tarpaulin strung between the two buildings, Jonas and I kept busy attending to the slaves. Pills for pains, plasters and poultices for coughs and congested lungs, bandages and salves for wounds, bitters for disruptive bowels, tonics and elixirs poured down unwilling throats as a cure for every other ailment. (Though the slaves were, on the whole, a healthy lot, and while much of our treatment was preventive, Jonas told me that many of them had been marched hundreds of miles from their homes in the interior, where they then spent weeks in the barracoon awaiting our arrival. Few of them were without some kind of ailment.) Then we shaved their heads and clipped their fingernails and toenails so they’d be less likely to cause damage if they had a fight.

  Assigned the nasty task of inspecting the privy parts of each individual for any signs of the pox, it became quite necessary for me to put on the air of a surgeon’s mate, which I was; else all I could think of was the fact that I was still just a lad, only fourteen, who daily examined the mirror in hopes of finding his first whisker. It was an immodest task, and I breathed a sigh of relief when it was finished. No sign of pox among the lot. I was beginning to realize that education wasn’t only found within the pages of a book.

  The day before we were to load the slaves aboard the Formidable, they were branded. Rain pounded the tarpaulin, spattering off the edges like a waterfall before flowing in cool, muddy rivers about our feet. Under the tarpaulin we built a fire, set atop a sandbox to keep it from getting wet; it was a small fire of green mango wood, billowing a bitter-tasting smoke that stung and swelled my eyes. Jonas was free with his curses. His eyes looked as if they might pop from his head.

  Several iron brands with the name of the ship lay in the hot coals. Once branded, the slaves became the property of the Formidable and her owners. Jonas placed a pot of palm oil in the sand next to the fire. Outside the tarpaulin stretched a queue of Africans, the queue so long the black bodies disappeared into the gray, pounding rain. I swiped my brow with my sleeve, dreading the task of branding over three hundred slaves.

  Jonas motioned for the two burly African guards to bring in the first slave—a lad, fifteen years or so, iron collar about his neck, eyes wide, breath coming in gasps. As the two guards tossed him onto his stomach, pinning him in the mud, Jonas took one of the irons out of the fire. Through the dusting of ash, the iron’s end glowed as orange as Jonas’ eyes.

  My pulse quickened. The air stank of hot iron, mud, and fear.

  “Dip the end in palm oil, like so,” Jonas wheezed, “and press it firmly between the shoulder blades.” Flesh sizzled. The boy squirmed. A moan escaped his lips. “Keep it there for a few seconds, release, and it’s done. Simple.” Jonas waved his hand, indicating he was finished with the slave. The two guards hauled the boy from the mud and back out into the rain.

  “Why the oil?” I asked Jonas, watching as the boy stumbled to find his feet and feeling those familiar gripes in my belly, as if I’d swallowed something rotten.

  “So the flesh won’t stick to the hot iron.” Jonas coughed the woodsmoke from his lungs, then said, “Makes a nice clean brand. Now you try.”

  The two guards brought in another slave—this time an older woman—and forced her to the mud. I reached for the iron, blinking back the smoke, seeing the sudden, unsettling image of the Gallaghers watching me. A wave of nausea rolled through me like an ocean swell and I clenched my jaw, thinking, You’ll just have to harden up to it. Become a man. Like Uncle.

  “Go on,” prompted Jonas. “Dip it in the oil.”

  Pushing all thought away, mouth dry as bones, I dipped the iron into the oil and pressed the brand between the slave’s shoulder blades. She threw her head back and screamed.

  “Harder,” said Jonas. “You’re barely touching her. There, that’s it. That’ll do.”

  As the woman was led away, her cries vanishing into the pounding rain, Jonas cuffed my arm and laughed. “See? You lived through it. And believe me, it gets easier.”

  I managed a smile.

  And so the morning continued as one slave after another was branded, some crying dreadfully, others enduring silently, and all sorts in between.

  It was some relief to discover that Jonas was right. For a while the task did become easier—only one more step in the procedure, like forcing medicine down their throats or measuring their height. But then, come early afternoon, as I sat on my chair and pressed the iron onto the back of a comely female who howled and writhed, I’d a peculiar, unsettling memory. One of Master Crump laying his dreaded cane across my bare back while I begged and pleaded for mercy, my nose clogged with the stench of camphor. Again and again and again he whipped me, deaf to my cries.

  No, Master Crump, please, no, no, nooooo!

  My breath caught. A lump grew in my throat as a gust of wind whistled through the tent and my vision blurred.

  “What’s the matter with you, boy? You’re shaking like a leaf. Gimme that iron.” Jonas grabbed it from me while I wiped my eyes, coughed, and cursed the fire.

  Must be the smoke.

  The next slave was a fine specimen of manhood. Tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, he didn’t look away as did the other slaves. Instead, he stared defiantly at Jonas and me, a roaring fire of hatred in his eyes. I’d my doubts as to whether the two African guards could hold him should the man decide to fight. They yanked the chain attached to the iron collar about the man’s neck and forced him to his knees in the mud. Then they began to push him onto his stomach.

  I retrieved an iron from the coals and prepared to dip it in the pot of palm oil.

  Next thing I knew, there was an animal-like roar, two black bodies went flying through the air, and the iron was yanked from my hand.

  Then, suddenly, the monster of a slave lowered his face to mine. For an instant only, I stared at him—saw that fiery hatred; the visage of murder; his sharpened, pointed teeth—before he thrust the red-hot brand onto the flesh of my chest, just below my throat, holding me by the shoulder to press it all the harder.

  My skin fried. Popped.

  Pain seared through my body.

  I shrieked. The world spun round.

  Oh God, it hurts! It hurts!

  Jonas hit the man’s arm, loosening his grip.

  I must’ve fallen off my chair, for suddenly I was in the mud and mud was in my ears.

  I smelled flesh burning—my own.

  All about me echoed screams. The crack of a whip. The retort of muskets. Jonas cursing. The bellowing of the giant. My uncle shouting orders.

  And then, except for the rain, the moaning and weeping of the slaves, and my own stifled cries, it was silent.

  I lay for a while, my chest throbbing and burning, until my uncle came and stood under the tarpaulin. “Philip, get up.” When I didn’t move, he said it again.

  Slowly, I sat up in the mud. My chair lay overturned beside me, along with the branding iron. Stuck to its end I saw shriveled, blackened flesh. “Is he dead?” I asked, remembering the slave’s look of murder, the gunshots.

&
nbsp; Jonas picked up the iron and returned it to the embers. The fire snapped, sending a plume of sparks upward. Outside the tarpaulin, rain roared. Water streamed off the canvas.

  “Stand up,” said Uncle. His face was hard, his eyes slitted. He held a whip coiled in his hand.

  I did as Uncle told me. I wiped the mud off my face.

  Uncle motioned to someone behind him. “Bring the slave here.”

  Five sailors brought the giant, two on each side, one with a musket jammed into the slave’s spine. Mud caked the slave. Mixed with the mud, I saw blood. Again the slave stared defiantly.

  Uncle looked at me and pointed at the slave. “Brand him.”

  I stood rooted, unable to move, my chest afire.

  “Put him on his face,” said Uncle to the sailors. Then, again to me: “I said, brand him.”

  Still I stood, watching as the slave gave no resistance, staring at me all the way down as the sailors shoved him onto his belly in the mud.

  “Go,” whispered Jonas, pushing me from behind. “It’s got to be done.”

  I reached for a branding iron. My hand shook. The end of the iron glowed red. I started to dip it in the oil.

  “No oil,” ordered Uncle.

  And so I branded the murderous savage. Pressed the iron deep into his flesh, just as he’d done to me. His flesh quivered and smoked, but he made no sound.

  A great well of rage boiled up inside me, and after the branding was over I bellowed and hurled the iron into the fire, scattering embers. I stormed from the tent into the rain, glad my chest hurt, glad it burned, glad I’d be scarred forever.

  I fell to my knees in the mud, hair hanging in soggy strings, and vomited.

  Uncle was there, his hand on my shoulder. “Nothing to be ashamed of. I was sick plenty of times when I was your age. Have Jonas see to your wound.” He walked away, boots sucking in the muck.

  Under a cloudy yet rainless sky, we loaded 368 slaves aboard the Formidable: 244 men and 124 women and children. I’d have doubted the vessel’s capacity had I not seen it with my own eyes.

  While we’d been gone up the creek, the rest of the sailors, under the supervision of the carpenter, had built double decks in the hold. The decks were like shelves, with two feet between each deck. Arriving in canoe loads of fifty or so, the slaves were herded into the hold and onto the narrow-spaced tiers, shackled together two by two, while a pair of mounted carronades swept the hold in the event of an uprising. With the exception of some screaming and fainting, all went smoothly. The females and children were placed together in the aft hold (there was no need to shackle them), separated by a reinforced bulkhead from the men in the main hold. They were packed together tightly—too tightly, in my opinion, for they were like spoons in a drawer. How would they even roll over?

  I mentioned this to Uncle, but he reassured me that all the negroes would take exercise twice daily—stretch their limbs, dance, and enjoy themselves. That they’d have two meals a day of boiled rice, beans, and yams, and that the men would be given a pipe and tobacco once daily to share about. “So don’t let it trouble you,” he said, in as pleasant a mood as I’d ever seen him. “They’ll have many opportunities for comfort.”

  Uncle’s mood was infectious, sweeping all my doubts away. See? The arrangements are excellent, I told myself. While the slave trade is a necessary evil, it’s not such a rotten thing after all. You’ve seen the worst of it, and it’ll get better from here. As Uncle said, they’ll have many opportunities for comfort.

  The night before we were to weigh anchor, I lay curled in my berth. Jonas slept above me, snoring. A candle burned in the lantern hanging on its peg above the desk. Cries and moans issued from the hold, seeming to permeate the air, the very timbers of the deck above me, the whitewashed boards of my cabin. A sudden irritation grabbed hold of me, and I thought, Why don’t they just calm down and have it over with?—whereupon I fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming of the time when Master Crump dragged me by the ear, the arm, the ear, from the cotton mill back to the workhouse; me burning with fever, barely able to stand; him saying, Why must you always be so difficult? Why can’t you just do your job like all the other good lads?

  Reprovisioned with wood, water, yams, and rice, with our fine ship well tallowed, every seam caulked within and without, and her standing rigging tarred black as a crow, we heaved up anchor to the tune of “The Maid of Amsterdam,” set our fore topsail, and headed down the creek toward the river Bonny. I offered to help Uncle navigate the shallow waters, but he chased me off. Said he’d important work to do for the moment, else we might ground on a sandbar and lose our ship and precious cargo altogether.

  So I sat on deck, under the shade of one of the spare boats hanging above, studying languages and sweating like a coal miner. Chains rattled and cries came from below, but I was beginning to understand that the racket was a constant bother I’d have to tolerate. Until we were safe at sea and out of sight of land, none of the slaves would be allowed on deck; otherwise, I was told, they’d try to jump overboard and swim back to shore. It was an unhappy arrangement, but would soon right itself. The faster, the better, in my opinion. I felt rotten for them, remembering my time aboard the Hope, and the horror of steerage.

  While I’d been upriver, Uncle had encouraged me to begin a journal of African words and phrases, seeing as I’d a gift for languages. It was this journal I studied now, determined to be able to talk to the slaves and African slave traders directly on future voyages.

  I was scratching a mosquito bite when the cabin boy, Billy Dorsett, approached me.

  Up until now I’d distanced myself from the crew, not wanting to become too friendly with such a shifty-eyed, foulmouthed bunch—although, I admitted, it was quite lonesome with just Jonas and Uncle to talk to. Frankly, there were many nights I lay awake wishing I’d a friend, begging God for a real friend, someone my own age, someone who liked my company—a companionship I’d never experienced before. But Billy Dorsett wasn’t my friend of choice, nor would he ever be, not if I’d anything to say about it. I hoped God hadn’t sent Billy as the answer to my prayer. He was about as pleasing as a horsefly in the eye.

  “What is it, Billy?” I asked, not looking up from my journal.

  “My head aches.”

  “Go talk to Jonas. He’s the surgeon.”

  “He said he’s feeling out of sorts and to come talk to you.” Billy sat cross-legged beside me, as if we were old chums.

  I stifled the urge to groan and tell him to clear off. Instead, I set aside my journal, hoping my businesslike manner would rid his mind of any ideas of friendship. “Right, then, I’ll fetch you some medicine.”

  Returning, I handed him a pewter tankard filled with water and tartaric acid—good for headaches. “Drink it down.” I picked up my journal, waved away mosquitoes, and within seconds was sounding out African words: “kchì … sala …”

  “How long does it take?” Billy asked.

  I blinked at him, pretending I’d forgotten he was there. “What the devil are you on about? How long does what take?”

  “The medicine. To work. How long do I gotta wait?”

  “Until your headache’s gone.”

  “Oh.”

  I returned to my journal, fanning myself a bit with my palm-leaf hat before setting it back on my head.

  “Does it hurt?” he asked.

  “Does what hurt?”

  “That.” And he poked my chest wound with a grubby finger.

  “Bugger and blast, Billy! Keep your hands off me! Of course it hurts, you dolt!”

  “Sorry. Just wondering, is all.”

  “Don’t you have something to do?”

  Billy shrugged. “Not really. What are you reading?”

  I sighed, pulling my journal away from his prying eyes. “You know, Billy, it’s helpful after drinking medicine to rest awhile. Especially if you’ve a headache. Apply a wet rag to your forehead and shut your eyes. Two to three hours should do it.”

  “My headache
’s gone now.”

  “Oh.” I suspected that there had been no such thing as a headache in the first place.

  “I wish I coulda been there.”

  “Been where? Billy, can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “I wish I coulda seen it when you branded him.”

  I turned away, disgusted, and gazed off into the distant sky, the clouds heavy and promising rain, my wound throbbing. I was trying to forget that dreadful day.… The fire of hatred in his eyes. His teeth, filed to points. The stink of burning flesh. My own shrieks of pain … To forget the shame I felt over the rage that had consumed me and the pain that I’d inflicted upon him. Him—a helpless slave.

  “They say you branded him hard, like you was trying to reach his backbone.”

  “Clear off, Billy.”

  “They say he’s a mighty warrior. Or was a mighty warrior, anyways.”

  A warrior? I admitted a grudging admiration toward the slave who’d defied us. Who stared directly at his captors with unabashed hatred. Who refused to make a sound even as I inflicted horrible pain upon him. Certainly the slave possessed a courage I could never hope to have.

  “They say he’s meek as a lamb now, all ’cause of you,” Billy was saying. “That you could poke him with a sharp stick and he won’t do nothing.”

  “Who says he was a warrior?”

  Billy shrugged again. “Everyone. They say his name’s Ikoro, which means ‘warlike,’ and that he hates us white folk.” And here Billy raised his bum and released some wind with a loud honk, grinning. This display of bodily functions seemed to distract him, however, as for a while afterward he appeared at a loss for words.

  “Well,” I prompted him, after scooting away several feet, “what else do they say? Exactly why does Ikoro despise us?”

  Billy moved closer. “They say it’s ’cause we make his people into slaves.”

  I frowned, thinking. “But Uncle said—I mean Captain Towne said—that if we didn’t take the slaves, then the Africans would just enslave them or kill them as surplus population, as prisoners of war. Captain Towne says slavery’s been happening in Africa for thousands of years. Natural order of their society. We’re saving their lives and doing them a favor.”