The Immaculate Conception

by Matt Hults

filled the cabin, exposing the shame Eric felt for even considering inaction after the events he’d experienced earlier.

  “After we subdue Hollis and his men, we’ll change course for Africa,” Forester rushed on. “My only concern is how the crew will react. The six new deckhands are a motley lot; it’s hard to say if they can be trusted. There are the eight indentured servants bound for Massachusetts to consider, as well. They might have reservations about gambling their sponsorship. We’ll need to be prepared for—”

  The door to the cabin crashed inward, striking the wall with the sound of a gunshot.

  Eric spun to see Rupert Hollis’s titanic silhouette fill the entry.

  “Who gave you the authority to carve up my cargo?” the man roared.

  He emerged into the light, the hate in his eyes compounded by the amber sheen of the candle flame. Contrary to the ornate design of his Royal Navy uniform, he hid his face behind a stark-white fogbank of a beard.

  The man strode forward, each step a long and purposeful advance. He closed in on Forester in three paces.

  The Captain met the man’s gaze. “You did,” he replied, “when you brought a pregnant girl onboard my ship.”

  Hollis’s eyes narrowed. “I had my men take steps to see that she wouldn’t deliver until we reached port. Her loss will cost me twenty pounds of tobacco—which will be coming out of your imbursement, that I assure you!”

  The Captain scoffed in disgust. “Tying her legs together didn’t seem to help her condition, Mister Hollis.”

  “I decide what’s good for my shipment,” the man growled. “Not you.”

  “Your decision forced her into labor.”

  “And your impetuousness has threatened everyone on this ship. A baby is twice as susceptible to disease. It would’ve been better had you let it die inside its mother.”

  The Captain’s expression crumbled into disbelief. “You’re talking about a child!”

  “Of a people who are barely human,” Hollis growled.

  “Human enough to take to your bed every other night,” Eric interrupted.

  Hollis turned on him.

  The words had come out without thought, and Eric plunged on before his courage fled. “The whole crew knows about your behavior,” he said. “Where were you when the Captain was trying to save that girl’s life? Writing a correspondence to your spouse?”

  Hollis took in a long breath, flexed his hands. Eric strained against the urge to back away.

  “Don’t concern yourself with the infant,” Forester cut in, redrawing Hollis’s glare. “I’ll see to her myself if necessary.”

  The large man laughed. “And chance losing a third of my cargo to fever? No, sir. I already had my men retrieve it from the hold and personally threw the little blighter overboard.”

  Horror grabbed Eric by the throat and stole his breath. He imagined the small body tumbling through the air, plummeting twenty feet to the water—

  With a flash of steel, Forester had a blade in his hand. He lunged at Hollis. Eric jumped, one hand going for his sword, but then a blast of gunpowder lit the cabin, and a dark hole opened in the center of the Captain’s forehead. The man’s scalp rippled, bone displacing beneath the skin.

  Captain Forester crashed face-first to the floor.

  “No!” Eric cried.

  He turned on Hollis to find himself eye to eye with a double barrel pistol. Smoke drizzled from the right-hand muzzle; the other appeared blacker than the eye socket of a skull.

  Hollis leveled the weapon. “And what say you, lad? Are you prepared to die to avenge the death of one infant negro?”

  “Murdering bastard!” Eric shouted.

  Hollis’s two servants stormed into the cabin, flintlocks at the ready. Eric knew them only as Sisk and O’Neil, and after seeing how they’d whipped the slaves during the loading of the ship he’d made it a policy to leave it that way. Hollis directed them with a wave of his hand, and they rushed over to seize Eric by the arms.

  “Confiscate his sword, and take him outside.”

  Sisk had claimed Eric’s cutlass before the order was finished, almost as though he’d been anticipating the task. He tossed it aside and clamped Eric’s bicep in a fist the size of a beer stein. A strange smile lingered on his rocky face.

  O’Neil kept them covered with his pistol while Sisk jerked Eric upright. One dead, gray eyeball seemed to focus on a spirit world while the other watched them with a lively gleam.

  Drawn by the gunfire, the crew and passengers had gathered on deck. They approached with wary eyes, hands hovering over knife handles and pistol grips. A full moon had risen from the horizon, and in its pale light they could’ve been the crew of a ghost ship.

  “He murdered the Captain,” Eric shouted as the two men hauled him forward. “Shot him in the head!”

  The crewmen exchanged glances, uttering hushed comments among themselves. Despite their obvious unease, no one made a move.

  “Arrest him!” Eric yelled.

  He strove to keep his tone from slipping toward desperation, all the while searching for Phillip Jergen, the boatswain, or Marcus Greenfield, one of the original members of the Immaculate’s crew. The new deckhands hadn’t served under Forester long enough to forge any loyalty to him, and Eric realized with growing dread that they might not take action at all. The indentured servants who’d bartered passage to the New World appeared equally unconcerned. They loitered at the back of the group like a gathering of spectators.

  “That true?” one of the men asked. “You kill the Captain?”

  Hollis locked eyes with the inquirer. “Indeed I did,” he answered. “When I discovered he planned to reverse course for the purpose of claiming this vessel for himself.”

  Eavesdropping son of a whore, Eric thought.

  “I confronted him, and he attacked me. I had no choice but to defend myself.”

  “Liar,” Eric cried. “You killed the chi—”

  A pistol butt came down on the back of his skull, sending him to his knees. For a moment the world turned black with pain. Sisk’s laugher rolled over him with the force of an avalanche.

  “Easy,” someone shouted.

  It sounded like the scratchy voice of Marcus, the cook.

  “I’ve sailed with Cap’n Forester for near a decade,” the old man declared. “He always ran a fair ship and cut his men an honest share. Mister Townsend done the same since he come onboard. Let the man speak.”

  “Silence!” Hollis bellowed. He swept the group with his glare. “As an emissary of the Royal African Company, this ship and everyone on it are in my charge, including the Captain. He and Mister Townsend have conspired against the Crown, and I’ll not tolerate such insurrection! Which leaves the rest of you with this choice: fall in with your former officer and share his fate, or follow me and earn your wage.”

  “You can’t allow this,” Eric said. “It’s not about money; it’s about human decency.”

  To Eric’s horror, the men remained silent. He gaped in disbelief, searching the faces of the crew and passengers for any sign of ambiguity. Their eyes evaded him. Instead, they stood in nervous silence, no doubt waiting for the conflict to run its course, hoping to avoid becoming part of it. Marcus was the only one who met Eric’s eyes, matching his stare with a look of helpless sorrow.

  “It’s settled then,” Hollis declared. “All that’s left is to carry out this traitor’s punishment. Come sunrise, we’ll clean the ship’s keel with his hide.”

  Someone screamed.

  At first Eric thought the blow to his head had affected his hearing, for the drawn-out cry sounded distant, muffled. The men on deck exchanged glances of bewilderment, looking left and right, searching for the source of the noise. Another scream joined the first, followed by three more, and it became clear the sounds hadn’t issued from anyone topside but somewhere below them, inside the ship.

  “The slaves,” Stooky said.

  In the time it took him to speak, the shouts from the hold multiplied
. Now dozens of voices mixed together to create a haunting cacophony of agonized shrieking. The sound carried out over the black air of the water, emphasizing the immensity of the ocean around them.

  “Lord,” one of the deckhands muttered.

  “I ain’t never heard anything like it,” another said.

  Eric pushed to his feet.

  The group began a slow advance toward the mid-hatch. There, the constant howling emanated from the darkness of the open stairwell like a banshee wail calling from the beyond. Sabers sang against scabbards, and percussion hammers clicked when the crewmen drew their weapons. Eric heard the word ‘revolt’ whispered among the crowd.

  Amid the screaming, a pistol shot rang out.

  “Someone’s down there!”

  “Who’s on watch?” Hollis demanded.

  “Boatswain Jergen, sir,” Lorris answered.

  Then, without warning, the screaming tapered off.

  A stifling fog of silence settled over the ship.

  They closed within ten feet of the shadow-filled stairwell when Phillip Jergen ascended out of the dark. He took three awkward steps once above deck then swayed, looking ready to collapse. Even at a distance Eric spotted the small splashes of red on his face and clothing.

  “Phillip!” he called.

  Neither Hollis nor his men protested when Eric broke away and ran to the man, catching his arm when he stumbled to one knee.

  “Phillip! What happened; are you hurt?”

  The sailor swallowed and looked Eric in the face. His skin had gone paler than the sails.

  “They … they’re dead,” the man answered. “All of them … dead.”

  Eric glanced to the