“Can you kindly call the surgeon?” she requested of the old man.
He rolled his eyes and began to protest, but her withering look forestalled him and he indicated with a minute finger wave to one of the footmen to do the lady’s bidding.
“Slave or no slave, George,” she admonished in a matronly voice, “there is no need to suspend our humanity.”
“There is also no need to expend his Majesty’s finite resources unnecessarily,” he grumbled, without lending it too much conviction.
“I would hardly call the inspection of an injury and perhaps its manipulation a vast expenditure of that pompous fool’s bloated wealth,” she chided.
“You speak of sedition easily, my dear. May you keep your head in spite of your highborn status.”
“I am the wife of the Governor.” The woman indicated the old man to Chikunda. “And we are, as you may have guessed, now the unfortunate overseers of this godforsaken piece of windswept land at the end of your continent. As I understand it, you are a survivor of the wreck? Of the slaver that went aground two months ago?”
“Ma’am, yes,” Chikunda nodded. “My wife, Faith, and me… we are.”
“Your wife? The woman taken into custody two days ago? Then you are her husband?”
“Her owner suggests otherwise,” the old man pointed out, raising an eyebrow.
“That Portuguese pile of misery?” the woman responded. “You believe anything he says?”
“Over this… thing?” The old man waved the back of his hand toward Chikunda. “Well, yes. What other option? If the Bosun says that the woman was his woman, then I prefer his word.”
The words slapped Chikunda like a hammer blow and he wondered if he had heard wrong.
“The squalid little man who hates everyone and most particularly blacks with such venom… the Bosun… you believe that that thing would also call the woman his wife and impregnate her, when she says quite the opposite? That the child in her belly is this man’s child, and that now this man corroborates it himself?”
“This is not my squabble,” the old man huffed in frustration. “In a few months, the wretched thing will be birthed and the truth will be known without doubt.” He rose. “I have more pressing matters to deal with than the petty squabbles and claims and counterclaims of mercenaries and their property. I merely wanted to take a look at this impressive beast before we hand him over to his rightful owner. I am satisfied that he is in good health, and the Bosun or whatever he is can do with his own property as he pleases. Now if you would kindly excuse us. Jane, I think it is time for your attentions to be loaned to the master of the gardens, and my precious time to be applied to the running of this miserable little dump.”
With that, he stood from his desk and disappeared through the same door that his wife had recently entered from.
“I’m sorry about my husband’s attitude.” The white woman, quite some years younger than the old man, spoke slowly and warmly to Chikunda. “Alas, he suffers an ulcer and constipation of the gut and it makes him far less, shall we say, agreeable, than he ought to be.”
As she was speaking, a living nightmare came into view, rising like a volcano up the stairs outside.
Chikunda could not restrain his eyes from fixating on the demon now coming in through the door.
The lady followed Chikunda’s shocked stare and turned to face the man.
Alfonso Oliveira, the boatswain—Bosun—had unmistakable proportions approximately similar to a stunted pig with no neck.
An exceedingly ugly man, he was built like a fortress with a bald head and a vein-infested nose that had an angry beetroot bulb at its end.
He took his duties far past boundaries of ferocity that even the British Navy’s legendary brutally would allow.
Since last Chikunda had seen him, the man had developed a skin rash of sorts, open sores at his neckline and pocks on his skin.
Chikunda recognized the thing that hung from the man’s hand; it was a scourge. It was a well-worn truss of black plaited leather cables, each periodically knobbed with knots along their length.
As long as Chikunda had known this man aboard the ship, this instrument of persuasion or a heavy club had perpetually swung from his grip. They were the tools of his trade.
“M’Lady,” the Bosun growled to the woman in a thickly laced Portuguese accent, miming an exuberant bow and tip of a hat that he did not wear.
The woman looked him up and down with disgust, as if the man were a column of faeces brought to life.
“I have come to fetch my wretched property,” he announced to the woman. “I am sorry if he has been cause for any distress to yourself.”
“The surgeon will be here now,” the woman spoke without looking at him, “to ensure that the man is fit enough to be released.”
“Oh, he is fit,” the Bosun guffawed, “fit enough for what I have in mind for him.” He smiled with a bizarre air of camaraderie toward Chikunda as if they had been firm friends for a long time. “Besides, these animals are tough beyond imagining, m’lady. They are not human. Come on,” he said to Chikunda, with a jerk of that boulder on his shoulders that was his head towards the door.
“He is very much human, I can assure you,” she responded with haughty disdain, “and a surgeon for humans will first inspect him. I would be pleased if you would wait out of my sight.”
The look the Bosun wore as he retreated down the stairs told Chikunda that a heavy debt would be levied for her words.
“I'm sorry,” was all that the woman said.
In the minutes it took for the surgeon to arrive, Chikunda tried to explain that he was a baptized Christian and the woman nodded sagely.
“I will make these representations,” she assured.
The surgeon was a thin, frail man with an Irish lilt to his high-pitched voice. He went about his duties with a light touch and an unusual sensibility.
“I believe that is a sprain. It needs strapping.”
“Is there any way we can forestall the return of this poor man to that monster, James?” The lady inquired.
“He is rather emaciated, but I cannot say that it is sufficient grounds, I’m afraid.”
There was something there, Chikunda recognized. Between the woman and this man. An affection and an essence of kindred spirit.
But more pressing than these idle speculations and the terror of presently being turned over as the personal property of a man with whom Chikunda had a history and a debt that the master of the ship had amplified by interceding and forbidding the Bosun to visit his cruelties on the man—was the harrowing implication that the Bosun was claiming Faith as his own wife.
Chikunda spoke up.
“Ma’am,” he addressed the woman in his halting English. “Much as my fear is makes me tremble to surrender to that man, I must go with haste to protect my wife.”
The sincerity and menace in Chikunda’s voice left the doctor and the woman speechless and silent.
“I understand,” the woman said. “I can only wish you well in this, and assure you that I will work on my husband for a speedy resolution. I ask you to take care and not to make rash decisions.” To the footman she instructed, “Kindly send that wretched man back up here before he leaves.”
“There’s no more I could do, I’m sorry Jane,” Chikunda heard the doctor say as he was led clinking and clanking toward the African sun once more. “The small consolation is that the pox of syphilis is corroding that beastly man and we will soon enough be shod of him.”
“My friend,” the Bosun said in Portuguese, his hand on his prize possession’s shoulder in a show of fondness for watching eyes. “I have been missing you, and it seems you make powerful friends very easily. But fear not, I have given the good lady my assurance that you will be treated with the most delicate of touch. She need not have bothered; I would do nothing to devalue such a prime hunk of meat that I own. Your body will remain unmarked, your mind however—what mind you might have—I cannot warrant will fare so well.
Follow,” he instructed, turning to walk slowly out through the fort’s gates into the town. Chikunda did as best he could to keep pace on the strapped ankle.
When Jack approached with his tail thrashing and his emaciation from poor care starting to show, the Bosun hoofed the dog in its ribs as it passed him going to Chikunda. It yelped and ran like a hyena with its tail between its legs.
“Cursed thing,” the Bosun spat into the dirt.
Chapter 6
“I’m very disappointed,” the Bosun told Chikunda with menace in his voice and a smile on his face. “To hear such terrible lies spread so openly... Now, I have promised you and your protector that I will not harm even a hair on your very curly head. Alas, my friend, somebody must pay when you tell lies to the mistress. The Bible says that there must be retribution. Alas, this charitable feeling I have towards you I cannot say extends to the woman you call Faith.” He paused dramatically. “That said, be a good man and bring for me the hippopotamus tail, it hangs on the hook third from left. Don’t you know, it makes a most satisfying sound against naked flesh.”
The Bosun had not mentioned Faith since he’d chained Chikunda by his throat collar to the ring set into the basement wall.
Chikunda had heard Faith’s frightened voice cry out only once from one of the rooms upstairs. The sound of it had outrage and fear knitted into its pattern, and the Bosun’s laugh that had followed—guttural and pitiless—had driven Chikunda to madness, slamming against his restraints, the steel collar bruising and tearing against his flesh.
“Off you go, be a good man. There is ample scope on that chain to do my bidding,” he instructed Chikunda sweetly.
Chikunda remained sitting on the floor, his back against the wall and arms about his knees, his eyes fierce as a wildcat in the night.
“The whelp still has spirit, I see? Would you make me speak twice to you? My request was a simple one, the task well within your capacity.”
Chikunda could not move, the hallucination of wrapping that restraining chain about the man’s bull neck and strangling the life out of him dominating his mind.
The Bosun read it perfectly.
“You think yourself equal to me in strength, boy? Imagine that in your desperate condition you could take me on? I would welcome it, but I have work to do, work made harder by your dereliction of duty and refusing a command. What is there to do but add a little more to the tally for retribution?”
He stepped into the makeshift dungeon, keeping a wary eye on the black man coiled with fury like a spring. In his hand, instead of the perpetual whip, he carried his heavy club and he kept up the talking.
“…Suggesting to that good lady that you are a baptized Christian?” He laughed to emphasize his contempt. “It worked once with my foolish Captain. It kept you out of the holds alright. But the man was unlettered and did not understand the nuance of English law, he only guessed at it from chatter with other captains. He misinterpreted it. I'm sorry to tell you that the British will not misinterpret their own laws. I am in my full right to retain you as my personal property.”
He lifted the rhino tail off its hook.
“They call it a sjambok,” he told Chikunda. “Very effective in explaining matters.” He wiggled the stiff hide and its tip cut the air with a whirr.
Chikunda sat paralyzed. His instinct to leap forward and rip the thing from the man’s hands was overruled by his commitment to keep a cool clear head. It was trading a catastrophic situation over a wicked one.
“Oh, and your friend, the shoemaker? The deserter. I’m afraid his luck ran out in trying to save you. I delivered him to our Portuguese authorities and a merchant ship yesterday. He will be on his way to the mother country even as I speak, where his debt can be paid. That’s a good boy,” the Bosun commended, antagonizing his catatonic victim welded to the floor. “You’re learning.”
The door closed and Chikunda sat in the agony of waiting.
Before long, what sounded like gunshots rang out. The sound was forbidding.
Not long after the Bosun appeared with the lethal lash.
“I merely had your good woman oil it,” he smirked. “I needed to test it, you see. There is work to do tomorrow. The landros—that is, the magistrate—he has promised us much exercise for your arm. Some bushman thieves they caught and he is considering the penalty now. You looked so concerned!” He smiled his awful amusement.
Chikunda did not answer. He could not answer, his mouth parched and his head cartwheeling as if it had been smashed with the club.
“You seem not to have the stomach for punishment being administered, my friend. This we must remedy. Did you think it was your woman receiving a thrashing?” He laughed an evil phlegm-lubricated chortle. “I cannot blame you. She deserved it for your lies, but let us mark it rather for a future occasion. Shall we tally…” he looked toward the heavens as if he was receiving the judgment from on high, “…three, no, five extra strokes when the inevitable day comes, eh?”
When he left, Chikunda collapsed from his seated position into a foetal pose. There he lay and dry heaved with vomit that refused to come. There was nothing in him. The stale bread crusts for his consumption thrown on the ground within his reach lay untouched.
Day dawned and the basement door creaked open.
“I have much exercise for you,” the Bosun announced cheerfully. “Up you get. There is time only for a morning shit and then let’s warm up that striking arm of yours. I don’t want you injured. We have eight customers and a brisk walk ahead of us out to the Salt River where we deal with runaways and petty thieves. The good people of the town don’t appreciate their ceaseless howls upsetting the gentry.”
He came in and unhooked the sjambok.
“You’ll be needing this,” he said, and tossed it alongside Chikunda, his voice joyous.
He unlocked Chikunda’s chain from its ring in the wall.
“Off with you to the ablutions, and don’t loiter. I am giving you much freedom and I don’t want to add to your woman’s tally unnecessarily. She still has looks enough to fetch a decent price when the time comes.”
He went out the door humming a sea shanty.
The cart with the eight small men chained to one another in it clattered and crashed over the poorly maintained road that ran toward the east of the fort.
Chikunda limped behind, forced to carry the sjambok for them to see.
The Bosun walked a few paces behind, chatting gaily with the jailer.
Tailing them was Jack.
They passed by a district of fishermen cottages set back from the dunes and beach.
“This is Woodstock,” he called to Chikunda. “Mark it well, it is where I will require you to fetch me my meals from the fishmonger, over there, in that yonder house.”
At the place of punishment, a single wooden pole was set into the ground and metal rings were pierced through it at different heights.
“Let us begin in the order that they are seated,” the Bosun instructed. “It is as it was on the ship, either you do this properly and make your strikes in a manner that satisfies me, or for each weakness you show, we add it to your wife’s tally. Understood? Begin then.”
When the work was done and the wretches taken away near death’s door, the Bosun sent Chikunda to wash the sjambok in the Salt River.
“The woman can oil it when we get home.”
And then, seeing Chikunda broken in his spirits, the Bosun made a show of a special concession.
“You have done very well and I am proud of you. You may ride back on the cart. Shove those things aside to make way for my boy,” he instructed the driver.
Jack found them on the return path and followed them at a distance, his eyes on Chikunda but always glancing at the Bosun.
And so it went, day in and day out. The smell of cooking, strange smells of piquant spices or delectable seafoods or fatty meats, all wafting down from the house or in from the street that the dungeon faced onto.
Eventually, Chikunda learne
d to eat the scraps thrown to him, sharing them with Jack who kept vigil in the street near the barred window.
Sitting in the dark sometimes for days on end with nothing to do, he would listen for his wife’s angelic voice.
His mind often retreated to the certainty of his childhood on the coast where he would take a canoe out to sea each day to collect food for the family.
He remembered when he saw his wife for the first time; a more beautiful woman he had never known.
He followed her and discovered that she was an orphan living in a Catholic mission. In time, she was moved to another mission far away, and that was when he left home to follow her for days of travel southward.
After he had given himself to the Lord and they were married, it was on their return to his village to celebrate their union that they had been set upon by a rival tribe and sold to Arab slave traders.
The memories were bitter sweet and his idle mind in the dungeon basement became a workshop for the devil.
His only escape from these painful reflections was a drunk and outcast who had discovered him and would often sit on the street outside, sharing the gossip of the town in slurred speech to Chikunda.
From his stories, Chikunda learned that the smoke and fires he’d seen on the mountain above the town that last night of freedom were indeed runaways, perched in places up on the high cliffs that were not worth the effort of a punitive raid by the authorities. That the cobbler had indeed been captured and returned to Portugal. That a murder trial was about to commence for three mutinous sailors who murdered an officer. That the new English masters were disinterested in the plight of the mostly Dutch and French Huguenot populace, and that the mistrust in the opposite direction was mutual. That the winter storms were the worst in two decades and many a ship had been lost on the treacherous coast. That grand uncertainty reigned as to Britain and her war stance with France and Holland, or whether the troubles had quelled and the colony could be returned to its masters, Dutch East India Company.
Chikunda learned that his wife was now very pregnant, that she was being finely dressed and paraded about as the Bosun’s concubine. And, in spite of this bragging, the commissions earned by Chikunda as the Bosun’s assistant were keeping the local Dock Road whores in lucrative trade.
The Reckoning Page 7
