“I suppose I deserve that,” he muttered.
Bloody right you do, she thought.
“Kate would be a fool to wed again,” Matthew said, reverting to the original subject, “and her son would not approve.”
“Her son?”
“Anything Kate owns passes to her husband at her marriage, just as you are mine, and all you own or hold is mine to use as I see fit.” He laughed at her glower. “He can gamble it away, squander it on other women, and she can’t do anything to hinder him. I don’t think Henry Jones wants to see his inheritance frittered away by a bounty-hunting wastrel such as Simon.”
“Simon to a T,” Alex laughed.
They stood hand in hand with the water lapping over their feet. The hot day was misting with evaporating water, creating shimmering veils that hovered above the flat expanse of the bay. An osprey struck a few hundred yards out and rose to soar elegantly with writhing silver in its talons, a sandpiper hurried over the wet tidal flats, and here and there, crabs scurried industriously. To the south, very far away, lay the West Indies, and to the east, in a crammed hold, poor Charlie Graham was being carried across the sea towards them.
“Do you think we’ll find him?” Alex asked. At least he’d be distinctive: tall, red-haired and green-eyed like his sire.
“We’ll try – if nothing else to bury him.”
“You think it’s that bad?” Alex looked up at him.
“Aye,” Matthew said, “I think Charlie is living through hell, God help him.”
It was a slow wade back to town, where they sat on a convenient rock to put on stockings and shoes.
“He has your eyes,” Matthew said.
“Who?”
“Duncan. Eyes like the deepest sea on a sunlit day, blue like bluebells in the shade.” He kissed her brow and helped her up to stand. “It made me glad to see.”
Chapter 17
They arrived on Barbados in May, and it was a humid, hot day. The barred hatch was thrown open, and they were commanded to stand and come up, one by one. As they got on deck, they were forced to their knees, shaved over head and face, doused in vinegar, and then shoved over to the side of the ship where they were lowered into boats.
Charlie Graham could barely stand after two months of constant crouching, and it was even worse when he was landed, the ground tilting under his feet. After weeks in a crammed, airless space, it was a relief to be able to breathe freely again, and he relished the scents of fish and salt, of the rotting fruit that lay beneath a tree the likes of which he had never seen before. A beautiful tree, he mused, staring up at the large pinnate leaves. He edged further into the relative coolness of the shade to wait while the ship was unloaded.
It was a busy harbour, several ships lying at anchor, and a flotilla of small boats were plying back and forth with loads, destined no doubt for England. Charlie tried to recall what day it might be, thinking that in some months he would be twenty. Twenty, and his life was over. Bitterly, he regretted the day he had met Monmouth; even more he berated himself for having been fool enough to go along with this venture, doomed from the start.
He heard a female voice and turned instinctively towards it. He hadn’t seen a woman that he could collect in nearly a year, and here came a group of three young girls, all fresh and bright in cotton gowns and straw hats, slaves carrying parasols over their heads. They stopped a distance away and surveyed them, and Charlie was horribly aware of how he must seem to them – emaciated, in chains, recently shorn of hair and beard, he must appear a wild, uncouth man. He hated it when they laughed, one of them using her fan to point at this one or the other. When they walked off, he attempted to catch the eye of the tallest but she just looked straight through him, as if he wasn’t there.
They were led off, well over a hundred men that followed obediently, none of them even considering the idea of escaping. Where to? This was not their land, they were strangers here, and they had heard of venomous snakes and man-eating alligators, and spiders the size of saucers that would bite into your chest and suck you dry, so they hurried on as best they could after their guards, afraid of being left behind to face all these new dangers on their own.
Charlie was rarely hungry anymore, but he was horribly thirsty and swallowed repeatedly in an attempt to lubricate his throat. They arrived in an enclosed yard, were forced to remove whatever remained of their shirts and coats, and one by one they were led up to stand and be sold. At least there was water, and Charlie drank deeply before a sharp jab in the ribs indicated it was his turn to climb the rickety steps and be examined.
Charlie had always been tall, and had for the most part of his life been strong with it as well, but now he was just tall, a reed sapped of strength, of anything but an unquenchable will to survive. He stood swaying on the wooden platform, his eyes focused on the fronds of a palm tree straight ahead, and tried to pretend he was somewhere else, not here, being auctioned off like cattle. The sun was torture on his naked head, on his bared torso and arms. He adjusted his ragged breeches, fingertips grazing cloth that had once been plush, dark blue velvet, and now was sticky and sharp to the touch with encrusted grime.
He was shaken out of his concentration by someone barking his name, and then he was led off, still in chains, towards a waiting group of men. He had hoped their fetters would be struck off them – he had worn his since well before September, could scarcely remember what it was like to not have them, but still he had hoped.
It was a long slow walk in the midday heat, bare feet stumbling over sharp pebbles and burrs. Charlie could feel the sun scorch his white skin into a painful red on shoulders and the back of his neck, heat pounded relentlessly at his shorn head, and he raised his arms in a feeble attempt to shield his poor brain, but it was too exhausting to walk with his arms like that.
He had never walked in chains before, no more than from the cell to the hall in Taunton Castle or the odd yards across the hold on the ship. But now… The chain dragged heavily over the ground, long enough that he could move, short enough that he be forced to shuffle, and the iron cuffs around his ankles chafed at his skin. Skin blistered, it tore, it blistered again, and still they walked, a silent stumbling line of men. Until one of them decided he’d had enough and sat down, refusing to move a single inch further without food and water.
“Is it steak and eggs you’re wanting then?” one of their guards said, using the handle of his whip to poke at the sitting man.
“Bread would do fine,” the man said, “and please, some water.”
“And a feather bed as well? A horse to ride on?”
The sitting man didn’t reply, but the dangerous tone made him get back on his feet. “Water,” he whispered and staggered when the whip came down across his mouth. He shut up and resumed his place in the line, shuffling along as unsteadily as the rest of them.
The night was spent huddled close to each other, sweat cooling to an uncomfortable chill on their bodies where they sat wide awake, ears strained to every unfamiliar sound in the oppressive greenery that surrounded them.
It was late afternoon of the next day by the time it seemed they had finally arrived, and one of the men leading them went off to find the overseer, leaving them in the shade. Charlie sat down. His head ached from the sun and lack of water, his feet were throbbing with pain, and his skin… Tentatively, he touched his shaved pate, wincing at how much it hurt.
“What a sorry lot,” the overseer said.
“But cheap,” his assistant told him.
“Hmm,” the overseer said, and went among them to assess their relative health and strength. “Not one of them will last a year.” His eyes rested for a moment on the man with the whipped mouth, and then he told all of them to stand.
Wearily, Charlie got to his feet. The overseer nodded at his obedience, and barked at the others to do as he said and get back up. They scrambled, warned by his tone, and he strolled over to the man with the split lip.
“Lick my boots,” he said.
Something must have snapped in the man because he just shook his head.
The overseer smiled, almost gently. “I said, lick my boots.”
Charlie looked away, swallowing down on what he recognised to be acute fear.
“No,” the man said, throwing his life to the wind.
He was still twitching half an hour or so later, his back a bloodied mass.
The overseer beckoned Charlie forward. “Lick my boots,” he said, and Charlie knelt and did as he was told.
They all did, and the overseer laughed and told his assistant to make sure they were fed and watered before they were locked away for the night.
“And him?” Charlie asked, pointing at the man hanging from the whipping post.
“He dies there,” the assistant said.
It was pitch-black at first, the whole room full of rustlings when the men settled down as well as they could for the night. Other things rustled through the debris on the floor, and Charlie pressed his back closer to the wall when something he was sure was a rat ran across his legs. He shifted his feet, and the length of chain between them clonked hollowly. He was very aware of his near nudity, of all the half-naked bodies around him. The rank scent of dirty, sweaty men rose high around him, and here and there he heard small sounds that were at times suppressed sobs, at times swallowed down gasps of pain.
He blinked, and now he could make out shapes in the dark: humped mounds where men attempted to sleep. It struck him that this was it, this was to be his final home before he eventually died, and he was surprisingly unperturbed by this insight. To die must be easier than to live like this, he reflected, and kicked at the rat as it came back to sniff his toes. It could not, at any rate, get much worse, and with this comforting thought in his head, Charlie fell asleep.
*
He was wrong. It could get much, much worse, which he realised next morning when they were led out into the sun. He blinked at the sharp light, and shuffled as fast as he could to his place in the line, not about to risk the overseer’s wrath after what he’d witnessed yesterday. The ground around the whipping post was still splotched with blood, and he tried to keep his eyes averted from the dark stains.
They were divided up in groups and led off towards the cane fields presently being harvested. Black men were already at work cutting the cane into four-foot sections, and these were then to be bundled and carried over to the mill, immediately. They scurried like rats to avoid the whips as they pulled and dragged at the lengths of cane, tied them together, loaded them onto the mules, and went back to do it all again, an interminable cycle of bending and carrying, more bending and carrying.
By noon, Charlie was sure he was about to die. He collapsed into a panting heap, unable to do more than lift his head when he saw the overseer’s boots. Someone grabbed at his right hand, his index finger was gripped and bent backwards until there was a dull snapping sound. He didn’t cry out. Pain flew up his arm, constricted his windpipe, and Charlie gulped air like a landed fish, each inhalation accompanied by a high-pitched whistling sound he’d never heard himself make before.
“Get up,” the overseer said, and Charlie wasn’t sure he could, but managed all the same, cradling his hand to his chest.
“Work,” the overseer said, “or I’ll do the same to all your fingers.”
Charlie had no doubt he meant it, and he dragged and pulled and carried, ignoring the pain that was like gnawing teeth in his rapidly swelling finger.
It was dark when they were led back, and several of them fell asleep over their food, too tired to even eat. Charlie ate. He gulped his food and drank the ale set before him, and, when no one saw, he helped himself to food from the plate of his sleeping neighbour. He had never eaten such before, a roasted vegetable he was told was called yams, beans, something called okra, but no meat. He didn’t care. It was food, it was hot, but he was still hungry when they were once again locked in their shed.
Despite his throbbing finger, he fell asleep immediately, woke up to clanging bells and total disorientation, and then it was back on the fields with nothing but thin gruel in their bellies. They worked until they dropped, and then they worked some more, staggering back home through the velvet of the tropical night, and Charlie didn’t care about the chains around his feet anymore. All he wanted was food and sleep.
It was quick, this transformation from human to beast. On the ship out, there had been desultory talk, a sharing of stories and hopes that allowed them to hang on to some scrap of basic humanity. Here, there was no talk on the fields, none of them had the breath for it, and at night, they collapsed to sleep as best they could, exhausted beyond the point of rational thought.
Starved already to begin with, the insufficient rations weakened him further, and the gruelling work under a punishing sun left him – all of them – a walking skeleton in less than a month. Charlie stole where he could. He ate anything set before him, he bullied the weaker of his companions into sharing with him, and while the others died, he remained alive. Alive, but a beast, an obedient slave that mumbled yes, massa, no, massa like the blacks did, that dragged and carried load after load of heavy cane to the voracious sugar mills from sunrise to well after sunset.
His skin no longer flamed under the sun, having tanned into a permanent reddish brown decorated with a scattering of uneven white circles where blisters had formed and healed. He was beaten for not being fast enough, he was whipped for standing for a moment in the shade to rest. He had the last remnant of the old Charlie Graham removed when his breeches were ripped off him and replaced by a linen clout, and still he survived, forcing his battered, starved body to work and eat, work and eat.
One of the men tried to escape, in chains an all, and was brought back dragged behind a mule. Charlie barely blinked when the man was branded nor did he much react when the poor sod screamed in pain as he was whipped with canes. He was too tired, too hungry, and too focused on the effort of staying alive. That man died, other men died, several men died, and of the original twelve, there were only four left.
They were moved in to sleep with the blacks, and in a series of silent fights it was made clear to the white slaves that they were lowest of the low. Where before Charlie had been the bully, now he was one of the bullied, and his life shrank even further into a vicious circle of work and food – always too little food. He was uncomfortably aware of the eyes of one of the slaves, a big, hulking man who seemed to have made Charlie his single point of interest.
“You sleep here,” the big man said to Charlie and indicated the space beside him, and Charlie didn’t dare to say no, because the size of those fists… And so he became Big George’s servant, rushing to fetch when George wanted water, or extra food, or fresh straw. Whatever Charlie might find, now belonged to George, and the night he tried to hide away a piece of yams he’d pilfered from the kitchen, George beat him until he crawled at his feet, begging this new master of his for forgiveness. The yams was pounded into the dirty floor and Charlie was commanded to eat it, standing on all four like a dog. The other black slaves laughed. The three remaining whites looked away.
“You’s my slave” George snarled when Charlie had finished licking the dirt floor clean of yams. He took hold of Charlie’s fetters and pulled, hard, laughing when Charlie fell flat on his face. That night, Charlie slept at George’s feet, like the worthless cur he was. The next night, when he made to lie down in his normal place, George just pointed, and Charlie had to crawl to the big man’s feet, the chain between his legs dragging at the ground.
It amused George to humiliate Charlie – and he did, repeatedly. A dog; he was lower than a dog, a cringing shadow of his former self. But there were benefits as well, because no one was about to harm Big George’s white boy, and at times there was extra food on his plate, a helping hand with his work. Sometimes when he couldn’t sleep, fidgeting because his heart raced with the fear of dying, George would sit up and place a big warm hand on him, confirming that somehow he was still here.
Charlie
Graham ceased to be. The vague recollections of a former life drifted further and further away from him, and he was nameless, a tall, silent man that did as he was told, always did as he was told. The fetters round his ankles no longer bothered him. It was as if they had always been there.
He was casually whipped, he was ordered around, and at times he was fed and at times he was not, and he was simply a slave, a dispensable resource that would be worked until he died. But deep inside of him, it still burnt: a small flickering flame of life, an insistent heat that wouldn’t allow him to give up. Live, his gut screeched, live! The man that used to be Charlie Graham gritted his teeth and did just that, through endless days and never-ending nights.
Chapter 18
Alex sat back on the bench and sighed. The last few weeks had been a flurry of work, the preparations for the upcoming trip coming on top of all the other things that had to be done on a farm their size. She massaged her aching hands, rubbed at a knee, her eyes stuck on the glittering water of the river.
To her far left, she saw Matthew returning from the fields, and by his side walked Mark, gesticulating wildly. Probably trying yet again to convince his father that trips to the unknown were adventures best undertaken by men – like Mark – not women, like her. It wasn’t only Mark, it was Ian as well, and even David had lit up like a torch when he heard where they were going, clinging like an enervating burr to Matthew as he pleaded that he may come along. It had been a relief to leave him behind in Providence – at least for Matthew who complained the lad had talked holes through his ears.
The only one with a valid reason for coming along was Ian. As he’d pointed out on several occasions, Charlie was his half-brother, and so it should be him going with Da. Alex smiled to herself. She doubted Ian considered himself Margaret’s son, not anymore, not after years and years of being loved so wholeheartedly by her, but it was still an irrefutable fact that it was Margaret, not Alex, who had birthed him. Anyway, no matter their reasons, Matthew was adamant, and by now he’d repeated his responding arguments so often an irritated edge crept into his voice whenever he yet again had to tell them that no, they weren’t going, they were staying behind to care for home and family, for their wee bairns and weans.
Whither Thou Goest (The Graham Saga Book 7) Page 15
