Jump Ship to Freedom

by James Lincoln Collier

  “Yes,” I said.

  He went on staring at me. “I hear you’re a troublemaker.”

  “Who told you that?” I said.

  “Never mind where I heard it. I heard it.”

  I reckoned it was Captain Ivers who had said that. “Well, it ain’t true,” I said.

  “What happened to them soldiers’ notes?”

  Then I knew Captain Ivers had been telling him things. Right away I didn’t trust him, black or not. “I don’t know nothing about them,” I said.

  He laughed. “Maybe you can get the white folks to believe your stories, but don’t try them on Big Tom.”

  “Honest, I don’t know nothing about them.”

  “Come on, Arabus, I know you got them, and you know I know. Where’d you hide them?”

  I shook my head. “I never touched them. Probably Mrs. Ivers just plain lost them. They wasn’t hers anyway.”

  He stared at me. “Are you saying that Mrs. Ivers stole them notes?”

  I sort of blushed. “They ain’t hers. They belonged to my daddy.”

  He stared at me some more. “Now looky here, Arabus,” he said in a quiet voice, just in case anyone was listening. “I been shipping out of Stratford for seven, eight years now. I’ve got me a little money saved, and soon’s I get a little more, I’m going to buy me a fishing dory and some nets and set up in business for myself. The one thing I don’t want is an uppity nigger causing trouble with the white folks. Things is nice and peaceful between white and black around here right now, and that’s the way I want them to stay. If you start a ruckus you ain’t going to have trouble just with the Captain, you’re going to have trouble with me, too. Understand?”

  I looked at him and then I looked down at the floor. But I kept quiet, and in a minute he climbed up the ladder onto the deck, and by and by I went up, too. I reckoned I was lucky that he’d come out that way about the notes, because otherwise I might have trusted him and let something slip.

  We sailed the next morning just before dawn when the tide was up, and I began to learn what it was like to be a sailor. It turned out not to be so much fun as I thought it’d be. The idea I had was that you stood around on deck singing work songs, like the ones my daddy used to sing at home, and every once in a while you’d climb up one of the masts to spy out the land or see if there was any whales in the way.

  It wasn’t like that at all. I tell you, for plain hard work it beat anything I’d ever done. Compared to being a sailor, cutting kindling in the dead of winter when your fingers was like to freeze to the hatchet was a piece of cake. Leastwise, splitting kindling, when you got enough for a few days, you could stop. On a ship, nothing ever stopped.

  The main idea of it was to keep the sails trimmed just right so as to take the best advantage of the wind. If there was only a little breeze, you had to keep angling them this way and that to catch the wind the best way. And if you had a good strong wind, you had to take in some sail, which was called furling them, so the ship wouldn’t blow over too far and capsize.

  Trimming the sails wasn’t so bad. There was three big square sails hanging from yards on the mainmast. Lines ran down from the ends of the yards to places where they could be tied at the railings. To trim the sails all you had to do was ease off on the lines on one side and tighten up the ones on the other.

  Furling was the worst job. You had to go right up to the top to do it. They always sent the smallest men up first, because they could slip through the rigging the quickest. Naturally that meant me and Birdsey was always on the jump. The mate would give a shout, and up we’d go, scrambling through the rigging until we got right up to the top.

  There wasn’t any ladder to stand on up there, nor even a spar—just a big loop of rope that ran along under each sail. So we’d stand on that, me and Birdsey, one of us on each side of the mast, with that line under our feet rocking back and forth, and clinging on for dear life. Only we couldn’t cling on with both hands, because we was supposed to be furling the sail, not just enjoying the view. “One hand for yourself, and one for the ship,” was the rule, but let me tell you, a lot of times we needed both hands to get that sail furled proper, so we’d cling on with our elbows or legs or whatever part of our bodies we could get ahold of something with, and pray that the ship wouldn’t take it in mind to give a sudden lurch.

  You didn’t want to look down, either. Looking straight out over the sea wasn’t so bad. But if you looked down through that mess of rigging, sails, and spars, it seemed like the deck was half a mile away and the men working down there nothing but tiny dolls. I learned quick enough just to race up there, get the job done, and race down again. I mean race, too: If Captain Ivers or the mate didn’t think you was moving quick enough, why, they’d blister your skin with their tongues. I never heard such cursing before; it stung like bees.

  The other thing was that we didn’t wear gloves when we was handling those lines. Gloves was too awkward for tying knots. You just had to let your hands toughen up. Some of those old sailors had calluses thick as boot soles, and about as hard, too. So I let my hands blister up; and then the blisters broke until there wasn’t nothing to my palms but raw skin. Oh my, how that stung when I grabbed on to a rope. But there wasn’t nothing to do but let it sting and go on with the work. We didn’t wear shoes much, either. It was a lot safer walking around on those lines barefooted, so you could get a feel of your footing. And of course my feet began to blister up, too.

  Working the sails wasn’t all of it, neither. There was the oxen on deck and down below to care for, and the general repairs and polishing to do. On top of it, we had to man the bilge pumps from time to time. When a wooden hull like that creaked and twisted in the wind and waves, the caulking between the planks was bound to work loose. You’d ram the caulk back in and tar it up, but some water was bound to leak in, anyway.

  So a couple of days went by. What with the work, and people always being around, Birdsey and I never had much chance to be alone together. Finally, the second afternoon the brig was out, the mate sent us down to the hold to feed the oxen, and the first thing that Birdsey said was, “Dan, did you steal the soldiers’ notes?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Everybody knows about it,” he said. “Did you steal them? Honest, I won’t tell.”

  “Well,” I said, “I ain’t admitting nothing, but they was ours by rights, anyway.”

  “What rights?”

  “They was my daddy’s,” I said. “It was his army pay. He was six years fighting for that money.”

  “Niggers can’t own money,” Birdsey said.

  “Sure they can,” I said.

  He thought about that for a minute. “Well, free niggers, sure, they can own money. But not slave niggers. How could a nigger own money if he can’t even own himself?”

  “You’ve heard of niggers buying their freedom, haven’t you?” I said. “Well, if they couldn’t own money, how could they buy their freedom?”

  I had him there. “Well, maybe they can own freedom money,” he said. “But if somebody owns you, it stands to reason that they own whatever you got, too.”

  That was a pretty good argument. I didn’t have any quick way around it. So I said, “Well anyway, those notes are our freedom money. I’m going to use it to buy me and Mum free. When we get down to New York, I’m going to ask Mr. Johnson about it.”

  He stared at me. “New York? What makes you think we’re going to New York?”

  “Ain’t we going to New York?”

  “No we ain’t. We’re going to Stacia.”

  “Stacia?”

  “St. Eustacia. It’s an island in the West Indies.”

  My mouth dropped open, and I stood there just plain dumbfounded. “You mean we ain’t going to New York at all?”

  “We ain’t going nowheres near it, not on this trip. We’re going to the West Indies.”

  Well, I was thunderstruck. I didn’t know what to think. I could have sworn I heard Captain Ivers say that the brig
was headed for New York, but I couldn’t remember clearly. Maybe he never said it and I just reckoned we were going to New York because that was where he most usually went. So my plans were all messed up again, that was for sure. Here I’d got all the risk of carrying those soldiers’ notes along with me, and in the end I’d just have to cart them home again, and no closer to getting our freedom than before. Oh, it was a bad turn.

  I tell you, it left me pretty down for a while. It just seemed like nothing would go right. First my daddy drowned, and then Mrs. Ivers took the notes away from us, and then me getting hit all over the place for stealing them back; and then when we figure out a plan that might get things to working a little better for us, that goes up in smoke, too. It’s bad enough to be born a slave, worse to have hard luck on top of it.

  But there wasn’t anything I could do about it, so I told myself to cheer up, at least I was learning how to be a sailor. If I learned right, Captain Ivers was sure to take me on other trips, and one way or another I was bound to get to New York sometime. If he didn’t sell me off South, first. Besides, it would be kind of interesting to see the West Indies, anyway. So when we was about finished cleaning up the hold, I told Birdsey, “Down there the girls won’t look at you twice, Birdsey. They’re all black down there. There ain’t no white people at all.”

  “Who told you that?” Birdsey said.

  “My daddy. He was down there lots of times. He said it was just like home to him, to see a world full of darkies.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet you there’s some white folks there,” Birdsey said.

  “No, there ain’t,” I said. “Down there the white folks is niggers.”

  “White folks can’t be niggers, you idiot. Even if there ain’t no white folks around. It’s God’s law.”

  I gave him a grin. “No sir, Birdsey. It’s white folks that makes niggers slaves. It stands to reason, if there ain’t no white folks, there can’t be no slaves.” ‘Course I knew that wasn’t true. Daddy told me often enough that the slaves in the West Indies were treated awful bad. Some places they hardly lived to get old—just died in the cane fields. But I didn’t tell Birdsey none of that.

  I still had one big problem, which was to figure out where to hide my daddy’s soldiers’ notes. That night, when I was on watch on deck, I thought about it. If we’d have been going to New York the way I thought, I might have taken a chance on keeping the notes wrapped up in my spare clothes. But now we was going to be at sea at least three weeks going, and three weeks coming back, and who knows how long to sell the cargo and buy one for the return voyage. I couldn’t leave them notes lying around for that long, for sure. It was too risky.

  It would be easy enough to hide them amongst the lumber lashed to the deck, but if we got a little bad weather, they was certain to get wet and ruined there. The best place, then, was to tuck them into something in the cargo hold. But what?

  When my watch was over I came down into the crew’s quarters and ate some biscuit. It was quiet down there. Three of the men was lying on their bunks, snoozing. The rest was above deck standing watch. After I finished up the biscuit, I sat quiet for a while, listening to the sleeping men breathe. When I was pretty sure they was sound asleep, I got up. The wall between the crew’s quarters and the storage hold was just rough planks, with a door cut into it. I grabbed the lantern off the table and tiptoed through the door.

  It was pitch dark in the hold. I waited by the door, listening to make sure that nobody was around. All I could hear was the creaking of the ship and the sound of the oxen chewing and shuffling around. It smelled of dung and hay and tar and saltwater.

  When I was satisfied that nobody was in the hold, I held up the lantern. The flame flickered from the wind slipping in through the hatchway, and the shadows of the oxen and bales of hay rocked up and down the walls. Waving that lantern around scared me a good deal. Somebody might spot it, and besides, there was always the chance of setting something on fire. A fire at sea is about the worst thing that can happen. But I had to chance it; I couldn’t find a hiding place for the notes in the dark.

  I looked around. Toward the stern, near the captain’s quarters, there was some boxes and barrels stacked up along the sides. There was grain in the barrels and homespun wool in the boxes. On top of the stack was a fancy cherrywood chest, with a rope tied around it. There was Irish linen in the chest. Captain Ivers figured to sell the chest along with the linen for a good price. It struck me that the linen chest would make a good hiding place for the notes, because they would take extra care of it, being as valuable as it was. It would be easy to untie the rope, slip the notes down among the linen, and tie the rope up again.

  I began to creep across the hold, keeping the lantern low down as I could. I was about halfway there when I heard voices up top of the ladder that led down to Captain Ivers’s quarters. Quickly I blew out the lantern and crouched down behind a bale of hay. A light shone on the ladder, and then some legs appeared, and I knew it was the captain, carrying his own lantern. He climbed on down, and then down behind him came Birdsey. They didn’t look in my direction; anyway, I was pretty well hid behind the bale of hay. The captain went into his quarters, and Birdsey behind him.

  They shut the door, but they didn’t shut it real tight. A rim of light surrounded the door. I could hear their voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I waited, and then I heard the word “Arabus,” and I knew they was talking about me. I figured it was about the soldiers’ notes. It worried me, all right. Birdsey was my friend, but it worried me just the same.

  I lit the lantern again. They wouldn’t be able to see it, and anyway, I figured that if they came out and saw me, I’d say I heard a noise and had come in to see if one of the oxen had fallen down. I slipped forward as quick as I dared, through the oxen and hay bales, afraid I’d miss something. In a minute I was crouched outside the door, next to the stack of boxes.

  “You understand, Birdsey,” the captain said in a muffled voice.

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  “On board ship I’m not Uncle, I’m Captain.”

  “Yes, sir,” Birdsey said.

  “You understand, then. You’re to stay away from Arabus.”

  “We’ve been friends since we was little, sir,” Birdsey said.

  “You’re a man now. It was all right to play with the niggers when you were a boy, but not anymore.” Then there was a scrape and a thump, like he was moving his chair around, and I missed the rest of what he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Birdsey said. I could hear him better than the captain. I figured he was standing right by the door, and the captain was sitting in the chair across the room.

  “Arabus is a slave. You’re the master.”

  “He might not always be a slave, sir.”

  “What do you mean by that?” the captain asked.

  I held my breath to hear if Birdsey would mention the notes. “I mean, he might buy his freedom or something sometime.”

  I breathed out. He’d covered up pretty well. “It isn’t very likely,” the captain said. “He doesn’t have any way to raise the money.”

  I held my breath again. “Lots of niggers buy themselves free, sir,” Birdsey said.

  “Not so many as you’d think. I wouldn’t get my hopes up about Arabus.”

  They stopped talking for a moment, and there was only the sounds of the ship creaking and the water rushing up the hull. Finally Birdsey said, “There’s always a chance.”

  “No,” Captain Ivers said. “There isn’t any chance.” He’d raised his voice a good bit, and I knew he was losing his temper from Birdsey arguing with him. “No chance whatever. We’re not going to discuss this anymore. You’re to stay away from Arabus.” There came a thump, like he was slamming his hand down on something.

  “Sir—”

  “Birdsey,” the captain shouted. “I have my reasons.”

  “Sir—”

  “Birdsey.” Suddenly the captain’s voice dropped low, so low that I could only make i
t out; but I made it out enough. “Birdsey, I’m going to sell Arabus.”

  “Sell him?” Birdsey sounded pretty shocked.

  “When we get to St. Eustacia, I’m going to sell him.”

  “But why, sir?”

  “He’s uppity. His father was uppity. It’s in the blood.”

  “Sir, he ain’t done nothing wrong that I could see.”

  “Done nothing wrong? Do you suppose those soldiers’ notes flew away on their own? You can’t keep a nigger who steals. Arabus is a thief. I can’t have him around.”

  Right then I wished I’d never told Birdsey about those notes. But he didn’t tell; he didn’t answer anything at all. “Now, Birdsey,” the captain said, “you’re not to mention any of this to Arabus. If he finds out that he’s to be sold, he’ll try to escape, and if he does I’ll know it was you who warned him. You have to understand whose side you’re on. It was all right playing with Arabus as a boy. But now you’re one of us.”

  I’d heard all I wanted to hear. I crept back down the hold, feeling my way in the dark. I felt cold and sick and wrung out. Being sold off to the West Indies would be terrible. I knew, because my daddy told me. I’d spend the rest of my life bent over and sweating under the sun in the cane fields twelve hours a day, and never see my Mum again, nor be home where I was raised, but live in a strange land with strangers. And as much as I’d miss Mum, she needed me. What would she do? It made me feel so sunk and low to think about it, I wanted to just sit right down there in the hold and give up on everything. What was the point of anything if that was the way I was going to end up? And the question that came into my mind was, would Birdsey tell me about it? Of course I already knew, but would he be a friend and warn me?

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