The Guineaman Read online

  Kite shook off the thought and addressed the business in hand. The woman’s wound was not as serious as it at first appeared by the steady flow of blood. She wore no drawers, but Kite used the knife to cut away a fold of her petticoat that had been driven into her flesh and then carefully withdrew it from the gash. A portion of muscular tissue obtruded in its wake and, calling again for water, Kite pushed it gently back and drew the two edges of the wound together.

  The girl brought him water and he repeated his request for a needle and thread.

  ‘'Ere you are, love,’ another trollop said, tugging the drawstring of a small, cloth bag and withdrawing a small, rolled hussif. Kite swabbed the wound while the woman threaded the needle. A few moments later Kite had closed the gash with a half dozen sutures. Cleaning the drying blood from round the neat stitches, he pulled the woman’s petticoats back over her rear. Looking up at the man called Tommy he said, ‘she needs to sleep quietly on her front. Can you see to that?’

  ‘Aye, I think so, sir.’ Tommy looked crestfallen. Someone in the crowd cheered as Kite rinsed his hands in the bowl and wiped them on a grubby towel the serving girl held out to him.

  ‘You a surgeon, sir?’ the woman with the hussif asked. Kite smiled. He was too tired to laugh at the ridiculous notion, and too tired to deny it. At their feet the wounded whore’s felled assailant stirred, but no-one took any notice of him. Then the landlord was shoving forward through the press.

  ‘Let’s be having your pots, damn you all! Get ye all off to your beds and as for you sir, please to follow me, I’ll see to it you have a quiet night after all this botheration.’

  Kite slept until late and woke to descend to the now stale air of the noxious taproom. A woman was swabbing the tables with a filthy clout and a pot-boy was eating what looked like oatmeal and water beside the fire. The woman looked round at the boy and nodded, whereupon the lad put down his bowl and scampered out, returning a moment later, followed by the landlord.

  ‘You’ll take some breakfast, sir?’ The landlord asked and Kite looked dubiously at the boy’s bowl. A fierce hunger gnawed at him and he nodded.

  ‘I’ll see to it,’ said the woman, bustling off to the kitchen while the landlord addressed the boy.

  ‘You be off and tell the Cap’n, like I told yer, lad.’ And again the boy disappeared on a second errand.

  Kite sat at the table which, last night he had used to stitch up the slashed jade. Hot coffee and fresh bread were soon filling the taproom with a welcome and surprising aroma. In the chimney, the landlord eased himself onto a bench and lit a small clay pipe, eyeing his guest over the flame which leapt and subsided at the end of the spill.

  He shook out the spill and blew a cloud of smoke from his mouth. ‘We don’t often get the gentry staying with us,’ he said. ‘I s’pose you’ll be looking for a ship…’

  Kite looked up with a start. The idea had never occurred to him, but it suddenly offered him a solution to his problem. He could write an affidavit, have it properly sworn and post it to his father. The time which would elapse during a voyage would allow the hue and cry to subside and the real cause of Susie’s death to be determined by the magistrates. When he came home again, the whole affair would have blown over.

  ‘You’ve the right trade for these parts and Captain Makepeace is hard pushed to find what he wants for the Enterprize…’

  ‘Right trade?’ quizzed Kite as it dawned upon him that he knew nothing of ships and therefore had nothing to recommend him as a potential seaman.

  The landlord nodded. ‘You’re not the first barber’s ‘prentice we’ve seen here, familiar enough with lifting a doxy’s skirts. Happen you’ve done it once too often and now there’s a puddin’ in the basin when all you wanted was to dip yer little wick, eh?’ A leering wink and a chuckle that rumbled deep in the landlord’s belly accompanied this comforting reassurance.

  Kite, frowning, was in the process of working out what the landlord meant when the door flew open and a well dressed man swept into the taproom, spun on his heel and, thumping the heels of both palms on the table in front of Kite peered under the forecock of a silver laced tricorne hat into Kite’s eyes.

  ‘I have heard you can suture a trollop’s arse, Mister….’

  ‘Kite, sir…’ said the startled Kite, instantly regretting betraying his name, but rising slowly to his feet under the intimidating gaze of the stranger.

  ‘I am Captain Makepeace of the Enterprize,’ the stranger said, still leaning forward on his hands, but raising his head and following Kite’s elevating figure. ‘A Guineaman sir, perhaps the best in Liverpool, though I shall not claim it so myself.’ Makepeace paused, regarding Kite with a cold eye. ‘I want you to ship out with me as my surgeon.’

  Kite suddenly made sense of the landlord’s reference to his being a barber’s apprentice, thinking Kite to be the indentured assistant to a barber-surgeon.

  ‘Look, I have no…’

  Makepeace drew himself up and stuck out his chin. Under the shadow of the hat, Kite saw him to be a man of some thirty years of age. The captain’s features were handsome in a squared way, the skin swarthy and weatherbeaten. Notwithstanding this, Makepeace’s jaw was already dark with the shadow of his beard, while his hair was his own and was drawn back into a clubbed queue. The captain’s dark grey eyes bored into Kite’s. He felt a sensation of unease so palpable that it silenced his protest, but this vanished as Makepeace clapped him on the shoulder with a charming smile.

  ‘Come, Mr Kite, say you’ll sign articles and I assure you of a profitable voyage which will set you up for life. A bounty of 100 guineas on top of your pay will not displease you, eh? A man would be fool to pass up such an offer and stay an instant longer in a hell-hole like this.’ Makepeace gestured at the tawdry surroundings, rapidly hurrying on. ‘Well then, the matter is settled.’ Makepeace swung away, fished some coins from his waistcoat pocket and, flicking a copper penny to the boy and a gold half-sovereign to the landlord, concluded his business.

  ‘Thank you Young. I trust I am no longer in debt to you.’ The landlord caught the coin and rose to his feet. ‘Not at all, Cap’n. As usual, 'tis a pleasure to do business wid yer.’

  Kite felt Makepeace’s hand under his elbow. ‘We shall find,’ Makepeace dropped his voice to a confidential and intimate tone, ‘a more congenial breakfast aboard the Enterprize.’

  And having just time to seize his own hat, Kite felt himself propelled out into the street.

  Chapter Two

  The Journal

  My Dear Helen, Kite wrote, his borrowed goosequill spluttering as he formed the letters in his quick hand, I cannot Write without the Strongest Emotions almost Suffocating me with their Intensity. You will have heard, no doubt of my now being a Murderer and that I was Responsible for the Death of Susan Hebblewhite. It is Not True, and I should be there to defend my Good Name had not the Two Brothers Hebblewhite Come Upon Me in the Most Difficult of Circumstances. I Write now that you may lay the Facts before Father and make him acquainted with them in the Most Emphatick manner possible, as you Love me.

  I was, upon Friday last, coming through the Village from Mr Watkins place, whither I had gone, you may recall upon an errand of Father’s…

  The normality of that quiet, late afternoon walk imposed itself upon Kite’s imagination. He paused in his scribbling to recall the prelude to disaster. It seemed inconceivable that life should lurch round so abrupt and terrifying a corner, precipitating him into so desperate a situation and threatening his sanity. A sense of utter panic rose in him; he felt he was on the verge of madness as he attempted the task of letting his sister and father known what had happened. A cry almost choked him, but he recalled his present surroundings, that he was safe for the moment and while the confinement of the cabin seemed like a cell, it was not so. After a moment, he grew calm and bent to his task again, once more resolute.

  Watkins was a rich and retired old West India merchant who kept a rambling house just beyond the environ
s of the village and between which lay the Hebbelwhite’s farm. Kite had been in the act of passing the rickety gate of the mired farm yard when the scream that rent the quiet afternoon had so quickened Kite’s heart-beat that he scarcely remembered running from the lane, across the pebbled and muddy yard towards the whitewashed stone house. As the piercing shriek Came again he swung aside, running full tilt into the adjacent barn.

  Hearing a Scream from the Hebblewhite’s barn, yet not seeing any Person about the yard, I gave a Shout that I was coming and Pulled aside the Barn Door. It was Dark inside and I heard a Rustling and Whimpering. Stumbling forward into the Gloom I came upon the most Hideous Sight. Susan, all uncovered, her Womb running Blood and Gore into the Straw and Filth, her Belly Pierced by a pitchfork which I withdrew Whereupon there went up a Great Shout, as of Joy, I thought in my hopeless Confusion, for I was so Shaking and Almost Weeping, when from Behind I felt Hands Laid upon me and turning, so Full of Fury was I Suddenly Infused that I wielded the Bloody Instrument of Death and Phil. Hebblewhite and his brother Colin fell back and sent up the Cry MURDERER! MURDERER! as if I had been caught in the very Act of Committing the Bloody Deed.

  Instantly sensing that the Implication of Guilt was Strongly Laid Upon Me by the holding of the Pitchfork, I Stabbed Twice at the Brothers that they might Let me Pass and began to Run. Oh, Dearest Sister, how I now Regret this Impetuous Action and the Subsequent Flight. They Assumed Guilt lay Upon Me, and Knowing that I had some Affection for Their Sister thought the Worst – That I had got her with Child and was Intent upon Concealing my Crime with One more Heinous by Far. They set their Hounds upon me, but, As if the Devil Himself possessed Me, I outran Them and so, after Many Days Trial, Came to this place and have now Taken Ship for the Coast of Africa.

  My Only Object in Fleeing, was to Avoid the Murderous Intentions of Colin and Philip Hebblewhite who, You Know too well, Bear no Love for me. I durst not write to Father, but Plead with You that You will Lay these Desperate Circumstances before Him to Establish My Innocence. That this Matter May be Laid before the Justices is Something that I Devoutly Hope, but Whatever may befall I Affirm My Innocence…

  Kite laid down the quill and buried his head in his hands. The headlong rush to express himself, left him feeling drained. He wanted to write more, to express his stupefied gratitude to Captain Makepeace for his generosity in advancing sufficient funds for Kite himself to buy a few garments and necessaries, for his ready friendship in taking him up and his own guilt that, in his own eagerness to escape, he had so far obscured from the good captain the fact that he was not a surgeon. It had seemed that luck favoured his innocence as the day of departure arrived but then his anxiety had redoubled. Hardly had they warped out into the stream of the River Mersey, than a blinding fog had descended and they had been trapped for two days.

  The only merit in this delay was the opportunity to write home, an endeavour he had at first considered too risky until he recollected that no defence was tantamount to an admission of guilt. When he had casually, or as casually as his beating heart permitted, asked Makepeace, the Enterprize’s commander had assured him the pilot would take the letter and post it, that being a part of his duty in seeing ships clear of the dangers of the estuary. As for the rest, Kite’s anxiety, his need to acquire a few personal effects and the strangeness of his own confusing surroundings had swallowed the slow plod of time. He vacillated between periods of profound depression that led him to fearful and terrifying moments, but the instinct to survive and the strong restorative certainty of his own innocence, pulled him back from the brink. He turned aside from contemplation of the dark river and its promise of eternal oblivion, thrusting himself into the business of the ship with a fervid activity. Apart from brief encounters, Captain Makepeace became an increasingly aloof, preoccupied or absent figure while unfortunately, the society of his fellow officers had been denied him in the hurried preparations for departure and the apparent mayhem that prevailed. Any notion of matters on shipboard being well regulated seemed wildly inaccurate as stores, cargo and trade goods poured aboard the Enterprize. Kite, personally distracted, confused and neglected, had no hope of understanding the distinction between the artefacts, consumables and goods of singular description that were salted away below, even had he had a mind to. All about him sounded an alien tongue, replete with lavish use of ship-board expressions and a proliferation of oaths. This was much conducted at the shout, so that he derived no information from it, other than a certainty that the crescendo in its general intensity seemed to rise as the moment of departure drew closer. When the decks were suddenly cleared and the teeming mass of seamen and longshoremen drew apart, a strange, almost silent order did in fact descend upon the Enterprize’s decks. These were suddenly less cluttered, festooned instead by carefully coiled ropes, so that the business of their warping into the river, a shred of canvas dangling above their heads until the anchor was let go as the fog settled, seemed almost peaceful.

  There had been some small duties thrust Kite’s way. Makepeace, after his brief and generous solicitude in advancing Kite ten guineas, had hardly spoken to him. Another man, the ship’s first officer, known not as a mate, but as a lieutenant as if he were a King’s officer, had introduced himself as Thomas Gerard. Gerard had shown him a small cubby-hole in the bottom of the ship. Where exactly this was in relation to those parts of the vessel with which Kite was better acquainted, it took him three days to determine. This cubby-hole was his store, in which lay several small wooden chests that contained his pills, tablets and other bottled specifics, a set of ghastly chirurgical tools, a pestle, mortar and an assortment of dirty, glass-stoppered bottles. Having made a short trip ashore, constantly looking over his shoulder for fear of apprehension by constables, to fit himself out with some small clothes and a new pair of shoes, Kite occupied himself in a desultory attempt to make an inventory of his gear. He spent long hours at this task, reliving those dreadful moments on the Hebblewhite barn over and over again, suddenly coming to himself when some noisy oath obtruded and woke him with a start from his obsessive trance. Thus he filled his days and afterwards could remember little beyond the overwhelming confusion prior to departure. He slept but fitfully, disturbed by dreams of Susie and her torn belly, confusing reality and spectre so that he could scarce recall what he had really seen from the grotesque inventions of his fevered imagination. As is the way with nightmares, Susie’s death agonies became confused with the stitching up of the whore’s backside, the agony of pursuit and the slavering hounds of the Hebblewhite brothers.

  The fog caused moisture on every rope and spar so that water dripped so persistently upon the ship’s deck that it seemed like rain. As the Enterprize swung in the tideway, snubbing at her cable in this pervading damp, Kite completed his letter to Helen. Why he wrote to her in preference to her father, he was not certain, except that it seemed less likely that her correspondence would be suspect while he imagined every letter addressed to his father would be subject to scrutiny by the shadowy, yet persistent agents of the law. Despite the ease of his escape, his over-wrought imagination conjured up a constable or a sworn citizen skulking behind every cottage in the village, eager to pounce upon evidence leading to the location of his whereabouts, a tension heightened by their fog-bound delay. This seemed a cruel and fateful prolongation of his agony; a certain indicator that he would be caught, to dance at the end of the hangman’s noose after due process in the Carlisle Assizes.

  But it was not so, for on the ebb coming away that very afternoon, the fog vanished as quickly as it had appeared and the Enterprize, with equal speed, weighed her anchor. The stirring and the capstan shanty woke Kite, and he went on deck, to be first shoved out of the way by a stream of bawling men walking the bars of the capstan round, and then shouldered aside by cursing seamen as they manned the halliards and sent the yards aloft to another rousing and discordant song. He succeeded, however, in passing his letter and a half-sovereign to the pilot, lingering on deck long enough to wond
er at the downright insolence of the words of the shanty. These blackened the name of the commander and his officers in an orgy of insubordination, but neither Makepeace, standing aft by the helmsman and pilot, nor Gerard, staring aloft at the ascending yards, seemed to take any notice and when the mate bawled ‘belay!’ the words and rough tune ended abruptly, the men easing the ropes to the leading hauliers, who smartly turned them up on the pins and fell to coiling them neatly. The moment of near-mutiny had apparently passed. It took Kite some time before Kite understood this had been merely a ritual, a meaningless chanting to co-ordinate effort and only an expression of the crew’s unity for a specific task; that of hoisting the heavy yards, not of overthrowing established order. With a half-comprehending shrug, Kite went below, resigning himself to fortune.

  Here he hesitated a moment then, drawing out of one of the crude deal shelves that lined his nook, a ledger left from a previous voyage, he tore out half a dozen pages of records and began a journal.

  In my Extremity, he began under the date and making the only reference to his private misfortune, I Commence this Journal of my Voyage to Sea in the Enterprize, Brig, of Liverpool, Captain Makepeace commanding. We are bound for the Coast of Guinea and I know not what Future Events shall befall us, but I am Determined that they shall find in these Pages a Faithful Recorder, that these Events, whatsoever they be, shall stand against my Good Intentions in This World. He sat back; against his good intentions, or towards them? He thought of crossing the first word out and substituting the second; then he abandoned the idea. What did it matter? He was writing a journal for his own distraction. No-one would ever read it; he would probably never read the words again himself, but it might prove a vehicle for his despair and help him bear the burden of his new life.