Voyage of Midnight

by Michele Torrey

  “Aye,” I replied. “You can trust me to do what’s right and good.”

  “That’s my Philip,” said Uncle.

  And then the crew surrounded me, as if they’d never said a disrespectful word or played a mean trick on me—little Philip Arthur Higgins, surgeon aboard the Formidable. They clapped me on the back, congratulated me, and called me a true Son o’ Neptune while tears streamed from their sightless eyes.

  Yes, go ahead and cry, I thought. For Oji and me and every African soul aboard—we’re headed to Africa, and you’re taking us there.

  “So? Where are we?” It was the next day, and Uncle drummed his fingers on the rail, waiting for me to finish my navigational reading. Uncle didn’t know it, but I’d already taken a reading the day before. This day was overcast, making a reading impossible, but Uncle, with his rotting eye, didn’t guess the truth, for it simply didn’t occur to him that I would deliberately deceive him.

  “Halfway between Freetown and Barbuda, I’d say” was my false response.

  Actually, we were dangerously close to the coast of South America, off the eastern tip of Brazil. My spirits plummeted the first time I took a reading, knowing that in another day or so, had we kept upon our same course of directionless meandering, we’d have washed ashore.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  Not now.

  Trying to stay calm, though my palms sweated and my stomach was clenched, I hastened the bending of new sails to the yards with my crew of blind men, ordering the new course as soon as the mainsail was set. “Bearing west-nor’west,” I told them, ordering the wheel turned and the yard adjusted so that the compass actually read east-northeast.

  I planned to head for the nearest portion of the African coast instead of the river Bonny. If all went well, we’d make landfall in a bit over a month’s time. To head for Brazil or the Caribbean was certain death for the slaves aboard, as Uncle would jettison them to collect his insurance money. To head for Africa was life, freedom—God willing.

  Truth was, our chance of returning to Africa was slim as a reed, as was the chance of my ever seeing the Gallaghers again. But I now knew I could never look them in the face, call them Mother and Father, love them as dearly as they deserved, were I not to make every effort to bring the Africans home to their own villages and families first. Oddly enough, upon our decision to return to Africa, I felt closer to the Gallaghers than ever before, as if somehow my words, my vow, had traveled across the waters and entered the chemist’s shop on the Rue du Dauphine in the French Quarter, where they heard it and approved.

  “Are you certain your bearing is correct?” Uncle asked me.

  “Trust me. The nor’east trades will compensate for our northerly heading.”

  He smiled then, gold teeth flashing, and I briefly glimpsed the hale and hearty chap he used to be. “Like I’ve always told you, Philip, my lad, you’re fashioned from the same mold. A chip of the same block.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Uncle believed we were headed west-northwest, and that soon the northeast trades would blow from our starboard. In actuality, we were headed east-northeast, and the southeast trade winds would soon blow from our starboard. A blind man wouldn’t know the difference. Only the rising sun on Uncle’s face would tell him of my deception. I prayed to God hourly, every second, to keep the sky clouded, my uncle deluded, my shipmates blinded, and to speed us on our way. If any of the crew gained their sight before my plans could be carried to fruition, all would be lost.

  Oji and I had discussed the merits of an outright rebellion—how easy it’d be for the now 193 remaining male slaves to overcome and imprison 33 blind sailors. But we needed the sailors, blind as they were. We needed them to operate the sails and rigging, for though I was their eyes and could direct them, I knew little about seamanship and would’ve been helpless without their knowledge and without Uncle beside me, telling me what to do next.

  “But once we arrive home, I will have your uncle’s head,” said Oji, his voice hard and angry. “It is my right.”

  I could only imagine the hatred smoldering in Oji’s heart for my uncle, the killer of his father. “Oji, please …”

  “I will have all their heads.” And he stumbled away, his back straight, looking more like Ikoro every day.

  Because of the return of my sight, it was no longer necessary for me to conduct my duties as surgeon in secret. Everyone knew that I had patients in the infirmary, but as I was the only one with sight, they couldn’t know that over a dozen slaves were recovering from broken limbs, nor could they know that one of my patients was an infant.

  Oji became my assistant. He stirred the medicines, dosed the patients, bathed them—all under my supervision. He spent much time soothing the infant, taking it gently from its mother when she slept and holding it as if he were the proud father. “His name is Onwuha. It means ‘Death, may you let this child live.’ ”

  It was a mercy that baby Onwuha rarely cried, only making quiet, mewling sounds upon occasion. As a precaution, we’d loosened some of the boards beneath the mother’s bunk and lined the empty space with soft cloth. It was here we’d hide him should it become necessary.

  But I’d much more on my mind than the well-being of a single baby. The well-being of every person aboard the Formidable was still my responsibility.

  Of grave concern was the declining state of our food stores.

  Already we’d been at sea for approximately eleven weeks, yet we’d anticipated a homeward voyage of no more than nine weeks (although we’d taken extra provisions, as well-seasoned sailors do). Again I feared, judging from Uncle’s previous conversation with McGuire, that Uncle would jettison the cargo, believing food was wasted upon blind, and therefore useless, slaves. I decided, then, to use Uncle’s greed to our advantage.

  “Uncle!” I said brightly one evening, rushing inside his cabin as if I’d wonderful, exciting news.

  Uncle sat up in bed, rumpled and dazed, as if he couldn’t remember where he was.

  “I was down in the hold just now, and I’ve made the most jolly discovery!”

  “What? What?” cried Uncle.

  “Most of the slaves have recovered their sight!” In actuality, the number was only three.

  Uncle rose from his bed. He stumbled to his desk and laid hold of his Book of Common Prayer. He crossed himself. His shoulders heaved. “Praise be to the Almighty,” he whispered. “This cargo may yet be saved.”

  Uncle’s relief was a mixed blessing. Though he wouldn’t likely jettison any of the slaves now, believing that in just a couple of weeks he’d be a wealthy man, his “godly” mission accomplished, we were still desperately short on food. A half a yam a day and a meager handful of rice and beans were all that was allowed each slave; less was allotted for children. I fired up the galley once a day for Cookie, helping him until the rice and beans were cooked through, the yams roasted.

  The provisions for the crew were equally reduced, and they complained bitterly of hunger. Indeed, it looked impossible that their emaciated forms could climb the shrouds, and I feared that there would come a day when they’d lack the strength or the will to do so.

  I ate no more than anyone else. My stomach shriveled with pain. My limbs wobbled with weakness, and if I moved too smartly my sight dimmed and my knees buckled. Memories of the workhouse and cold, watery gruel flooded back, and I realized I’d forsaken my vow to never be hungry again. I hated hunger.

  God, when will this be over? I prayed constantly. I’m tired and hungry. And what happens when we reach the coast of Africa? What then? Release the captives into the jungles to shift for themselves? I’d no answers, only prayers.

  I was plagued too by the terrible fear that one of the crew would recover his sight, as I had.

  One glance at the compass would reveal the truth of my deception.

  One glance at the slaves in the hold would reveal the truth of their condition.

  It was a fear that seeped into my dreams like poison, startling
me awake, making my heart pound. Sweating, I beseeched God to help me again and again, in prayers that seemed to go no farther than the walls of my cabin.

  One and a half weeks into our voyage toward the African continent, we sprang a leak.

  Cookie had been sent down to the lower hold with Billy to fetch yams. What Cookie told us when he returned shocked us all. “There’s seawater in the hold. Lots of it. Up to my waist. Ruined much of the food, it has.”

  You’d have thought Cookie had just thrown a shovelful of dirt upon each of our caskets. Roach wailed, saying he didn’t want to drown; he’d a fear of drowning. Billy told him how your life flashes before your eyes and how when you sink for the third time, you’re a goner. Uncle said nothing, just stared off with his one clouded eye, as if he could see beyond the horizon. McGuire ordered the men to the pumps.

  In the lower hold I drew a chalk line at the water level. After a day of pumping, I returned to see if the chalk line was above or below the water level. If above, we might live. If below, unless the leak was mended and despite all our pumping, the Formidable would slowly fill with water until she became too heavy, and would sink.

  I crawled out of the companionway onto the deck, my body trembling with fatigue and my chest heaving with even this simple exertion. The crew was waiting to hear what I’d found. Whether or not I was to give them a death sentence.

  “The line is above the water level,” I said.

  They sighed as if with one body and went back to the pumps, day and night. Some of the healthier male slaves were brought out of the upper hold to aid with the pumping.

  Because of the spoilage caused by the leak, food rations were cut yet again.

  Working the pumps on our meager diet sapped a man’s energy, as if he’d run a mile at full tilt. I took my turn but could scarcely work the pumps. I panted like a cart horse on a July day, my muscles no stronger than string. Roach pushed me aside and took my place, saying that little Philip the surgeon shouldn’t man the pumps. That I was too important, and very busy.

  “Thanks,” I said, gasping.

  “Ah, think nothing of it. Just save your strength for getting us home again. Got three kids, you know. And another one on the way. Got to get home.”

  “Oh, uh—well, congratulations are probably in order, then.” And I ambled off, glad Roach was blind to my guilty countenance.

  Owing to the diet and the relentless exercise at the pumps, twelve of the crew collapsed, stricken with fevers and flux. I confined them to their hammocks. Their illness increased the workload for those who remained.

  And although my uncle believed we were each day sailing farther north from the equator, we were, in fact, soon to approach it again from the south. Because the skies were overcast, I didn’t know our precise position; only that if I kept true to our heading, we’d indeed run into Africa, for the continent was impossible to miss. Where exactly we’d land I couldn’t know.

  “To a fine windy day!” my uncle said one evening, raising his wine goblet, his hand shaking like an old man’s.

  “To a fine windy day,” I echoed, touching my goblet to his.

  We both drank, him gulping half the contents, me a sip only. We sat at the captain’s table. Before us lay our wooden platters; upon each were two hard biscuits and a lemon-sized lump of stewed salt pork, tough as shoe leather.

  “Probably made near two hundred nautical miles in the past day or so,” Uncle said cheerily. “At this rate, we should arrive in Barbuda in, oh, say, a few days, I should think.” He devoured his biscuit. Among the crumbs, a weevil dropped from my uncle’s mouth to his beard. Its white body wiggled blindly for a few seconds before disappearing into the hair.

  “Aye. In just a few days, God willing.” The truth of the matter was, we were still two weeks from land, according to my best approximations. I gnawed off a hunk of pork and exercised my jaw. I planned to tell Uncle that I’d made a slight error in my calculations, and that we’d sailed unknowingly past Barbuda and would therefore head for the next-closest island. This would buy me another few days, at most.

  I talked around my pork, not wanting to speak of navigation. “First thing I’m going to do when I arrive in port is take a bath. It’s the simple things in life one misses most when one’s at sea, at least that’s my experience. As if—as if I’ve had much experience! Ha!” I laughed, hoping I sounded natural, afterward panting for breath. “Mrs. Gallagher used to sprinkle rosemary and thyme in my bathwater. Mind you, I smelled like a herb-roasted chicken, but she believed it a remedy for whatever ailed the skin.”

  I jabbered on, sounding more and more like a fool in my own ears. A fool and a liar.

  “I wonder what shall happen to me,” Uncle murmured of a sudden.

  I stopped mid-sentence. “Uncle?”

  “Think on it. I’ve known nothing but the sea. I can hardly remember a time when I didn’t feel the ship rock beneath me, or breathe the salt air. What will happen to me now—now that I’m blind?”

  “But surely your sight will return, as did mine. In your right eye anyhow.”

  Uncle shook his head. “No. It’s permanent. I know it just as I know the feel of wind upon my face.”

  I said nothing, devouring my two biscuits as quickly as Uncle had his, trying not to think of the weevils that now crawled about in my stomach.

  Uncle looked at me then. Or at least his right eyeball turned in my direction. The other one dangled out of its socket, attached by a few shriveled and blackened cords. “You’ll tend an old, useless uncle, won’t you, Philip, lad? By the deuce, you’re all I have. My only relation. I’ve money enough to keep us both quite well.”

  “Of course,” I lied, feeling as guilty as if I’d stabbed him. What would happen to him I didn’t know. If Oji had his way, he’d eat Uncle’s brains and use his skull for a drinking vessel. “Uncle, now that we’re just a few days from land, perhaps we could allow the slaves some exercise—”

  His face hardened. “No.”

  “But—”

  “We’ve discussed this before. You’re the only one with sight. Are you going to single-handedly prevent a rebellion if these devils have a mind to act against us? It’s especially made dangerous when they can see and we can’t.”

  “Then at least allow the women and children to take the air and move round.”

  He groped about the table. “Where’s that bottle?”

  “Here, let me pour you some more.” I handed him his goblet and prompted him: “Well?”

  He drank deeply, belching and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “All right. But they’re to be chained while on deck.” He straightened up in his chair, as if this moment of magnanimity had restored him to his former person. “You’ll remove my left eye. It’s become quite bothersome; I’ve snagged it a couple of times. And I must look decently presentable upon our arrival in port. You’ll do it tonight. And you’ll sew me an eye patch.”

  A few moments later, when I opened the cabin door intending to fetch my medical instruments, I saw Billy the Vermin feeling his way down the corridor, moving away from me. And just as Uncle knew he’d never recover his sight, I knew Billy had been on the other side of the cabin door, listening. What that meant I didn’t know, other than that Billy was a snoop and not to be trusted any more than one trusts a maggot with meat.

  The women and children were a sorry-looking lot. Eyes blind, and with every bone jutting from their skin, they felt their way to the stern of the vessel, where I oversaw the shackling. It seemed ridiculous to require an eight-year-old child or a twig-thin middle-aged woman to wear a shackle, but my uncle would brook no argument.

  Billy struck up a tune on his fiddle. The poor blacks shuffled about, clutching one another for support. Heart aching to see them so afflicted, I shouted in their language that when the moon reached its next fullness, they’d arrive at the shores of their homeland again. That on that day, God willing, they’d be free.

  At this announcement, one of the women began to sing. Others joined her,
their voices weak at first, then growing stronger until the song filled the ship. From below, the enslaved men’s voices began to sing too. It was a melancholy song, rhythmic, yet I sensed within it strains of hope. And as their voices swelled, Billy’s fiddle fell silent.

  “What the devil did you tell them?” Uncle asked me, frowning, his arms crossed.

  “That their circumstances would soon change.”

  He sighed. “God willing. I’m heartily sick of this.”

  “Aye. Me too.”

  Four days later, when I told Uncle that I’d made an error in my calculations and we’d missed the island of Barbuda, he laid his head upon the table in his cabin and wept.

  Everything and everyone demanded my attention. The ship’s heading. The management of the sails and rigging. Firing up the galley. Appeasing my uncle. Continuing the deception. Seeing to the rotting and diminishing supply of food and water. Caring for the ill—the slaves in the infirmary, and the crew wherever else they lay, in their hammocks or strewn about on the upper deck.

  Try as I might, even with Oji’s constant help, the situation decayed. To my dismay, five of the crew and sixteen slaves died overnight of the bloody flux. Seven more of the crew contracted the ailment, including McGuire, bringing the total ill to fourteen, leaving only fifteen of the crew to work the pumps and man the ship. That number diminished yet again when Cookie fell in a faint as he stood over his cauldrons, whacking his head on his way to the deck. He died the next day. The sailor Uncle chose to replace him burned the rice and beans. Uncle cane-whipped him. The odor of scorched food wormed through the ship’s timbers. I smelled it night and day.