The Guineaman Read online

  ‘Well then, let me tell you. They are the teeth of elephants. You will learn that elephant teeth, which some call tusks like a boar’s, are a commodity much beloved in London. You’ll not be permitted to ship large tusks, since they hold the greatest value, but the smaller teeth, which we call scrivelloes, may be traded by you an’ me and Mr Gerard, God bless him.’

  ‘I see.’ Kite had no idea what profit might be made on these scrivelloes, nor how he might raise any credit to purchase them, let alone whether he would be permitted the liberty to sell them if he ever reached British shores again. As he put these disquieting riders aside, trading in elephant’s teeth seemed to his conscience far less reprehensible than trading in human beings, notwithstanding the fact that they were black.

  ‘But that isn’t all, Billy-boy,’ Molloy went on, ‘the best is yet to come.’

  ‘The best…’

  ‘Oh, indeed it is. You are also allowed on your own account, two slaves. If you’re smart you’ll pick strong ones, but the balance of all the private slaves chosen by Makepeace, Gerard, yourself, myself and the gunner, must be equally men as women. I don’t, for the life of me, know why that regulation is insisted upon unless it is to keep the breeding stock provided for, for if I had my way we’d trade only in hefty big fellas, but the Captain’ll insist upon it.’

  ‘I see.’ Kite’s heart sank. While he could reconcile receiving twelve pence per head on delivery, which he was content to see as an incentive to keep as many of the unfortunate blacks in good health, the thought of directly profiting from the seizure and sale of individual persons seemed a great and terrible sin. Whatever the world thought of his culpability in the matter of Susan Hebblewhite’s death, he knew he was innocent. Fate, it seemed, would have him a mortal sinner by alternative means. For a moment a dark and terrible horror overhung him, then he threw it off with a question to Molloy.

  ‘I, er, I was ashore with the Captain, but I could not understand where the slaves come from and where they are now.’

  Molloy gestured at the jungle, a gun-shot away. ‘Out there somewhere, in a stockadoe or a baracoon guarded by the warriors of the local chiefs…’

  ‘Then blacks sell us blacks?’

  ‘Oh yes. Did you think we went into the countryside and stole them?’ Molloy laughed. ‘No, no, ’tis a very well-regulated trade, Billy, very well regulated. You’ll see, you’ll see.’ Molloy straightened up and yawned. ‘Enough of this! You can take over the watch, if you wish. It wants only a while until we turn the glass. Let the infernal mosquitoes dine off you for a few hours. I’m for my cot.’

  Despite Makepeace’s insistence that he had ‘no intention of hanging about awaiting the convenience of a dying slave-dealer’ and the delivery of several ultimata to the wasting Lorimoor by a deputation of all the masters of the Guineamen lying off York Island, a month passed and, to Gerard’s frustration, species of grass grew on the white stuff payed upon the brig’s bottom. The weed would slow them on their passage to the Antilles and, Kite learned, with the grass came the ship-worm, an infestation of which could ruin a ship’s hull in weeks.

  The enforced idleness prompted the commanders of the vessels to adopt a practice of dining nightly in each others’ cabins, indulging in games of chance and once or twice quarrelling among themselves. Rumours circulated among the ships that, if matters were much delayed, they would sail upstream and bombard the baracoons until the recalcitrant chiefs released a sufficiency of their prisoners to complete the Guineamen’s lading. No-one apparently believed Lorimmor’s claim that the Mandingo war had choked the supply of slaves and the experienced men freely voiced the opinion that it was all a device to raise the price of them.

  This has been done on Former Occasions, Kite confided to his journal, but the Masters are Reluctant to carry this matter to a Precipitate Conclusion owing to the Revenge taken upon those who come afterwards. Much Mischief has been Caused on sundry Occasions by Dishonest dealing by Various Commanders, their Abduction of slaves without Proper Payment and their Cheating of the Blackamore Chiefs. The Science of Justice in this Countrie is based upon Revenge, so while the Blacks and Lanchadoes will not Trouble the Ships of a Another State, they will Wreak Vengeance upon a British Vessel if they Conceive their Previous Wrongs to have been Inflicted by a British Vessel, and Upon a Dutch, or a Portuguese Guineaman, & Co, & Co.

  Moreover, it would not be Politick to Aggravate the Chiefs if War between England and France is Truly Imminent…

  Kite was permanently relieved of his watch-keeping after a few days. His duties as surgeon now fully claimed him for the first cases of fever began to appear aboard the Enterprize. Diagnosed by Makepeace and the other officers under the generic term ‘marsh-ague’, two seamen named Noakes and Hughes were the first to die. They suffered an initial shivering fit and were sent to their hammocks which, by Makepeace’s orders, were swung forward above the manger, in a kind of quarantine. The two men were soon running high fevers, with terrible pains in their backs and heads. Their arms and legs were also afflicted and they became, as Kite noted, taken by a Great Lassitude accompanied by a Deep Depression of Spirits and sense of Mortality. Retching, vomiting and an insatiable thirst provoked mixed feelings of disgust and compassion in Kite, who found himself isolated and left alone to care for the two wretches. After a few days he was pleased to notice an improvement and an abatement of the fever. He expected the men to mend, at least in the manner of Lorimoor, who though profoundly affected, seemed able to continue living. In the gloom of the forward ’tween deck, the inexperienced Kite failed to notice the yellowing of the eyes and the skin, nor did he see the first sign of final decline that followed. Soon however the men submitted to the terminal stage of their disease by sudden copious eructations of blood which brought on a sinister cooling of the body.

  This morning, Kite scribbled hurriedly, aware that circumstances compelled him to observe and learn from the two invalids, but drowning a greater and personal horror by this bloody climax, Hughes was as Cold as Death Itself and I noticed a Yellow Hue Suffusing his Skin. On Examination Noakes was the same, though to a lesser Extent. Both Men are Reconciled to their Fates…

  This evening, though Life was still discernible in Both Men, I could Determine no Heartbeat and Their Bodies are already Cold to the Touch…

  By next morning both men were dead and were conveyed ashore for burial beneath the ruined ramparts of the fort. The following day three men from the Marquis of Lothian were laid to rest, followed in the subsequent ten days by eight more from among the crews of the waiting Guineaman. These sad events, though failing to surprise the experienced seamen in the combined company, nevertheless had a demoralising effect, prompting a restlessness and a desire among the assembled ships’ companies to get away. In fear of their lives, they increasingly spoke among themselves of sailing upstream to bombard the Bulum townships and coerce the chiefs to trade. They resolved to urge their commanders to do this before more of them died, but before any deputation approached Makepeace and his colleagues, the Cleveland arrived. She was from Bristol and her master, Captain Burn, soon spread the news that the rumours of a European war were confirmed.

  This further depressed the crews spread among the waiting ships but in fact acted as the spring for their release. For weeks Makepeace and his colleagues had advertised the wares they had brought to trade. The Manchester checks and osnaburg cottons so beloved by the natives, the gin and so-called brandy, the musketoons, flints and gun-powder, the knives, soft iron bars and metal trinkets had all been shown to the lançados and the gromettos. But the inhabitants of the coast viewed these products with some disdain; they had satisfied their immediate wants and now craved novelties, aware that the musketoons they were sold were inferior to those the white men kept for themselves. Moreover, the lançados, affecting the dress of white men, had created a desire among the envious chiefs for cocked hats and even boots of soft leather, such as the Arabs of the far distant desert interior sometimes, and these white interloper
s of the coast often wore. Lorimoor had shaken his head and the palaver had descended into a complex and apparently irreconcilable variation between what Makepeace and his fellow commanders, and Lorimoor on behalf of the chiefs, regarded as a negotiable barr.

  Captain Burn’s news, however, spiced up this game of supply and demand. By good fortune Burn had a few tricornes, trimmed with silver braid that he had brought out to sell to a hatter in Antigua. Under pressure from his fellows, he agreed to trade these at once, enabling the deadlock to be broken. Makepeace also counselled his colleagues to threaten to withdraw without further delay, arguing that the presence of French cruisers in the Chops of the Channel would deter other Guineamen from sailing and the slaves would be left in the stockadoes, an ever and increasing hungering liability to the chiefs.

  Humbert of the Marquis of Midlothian thought that, on the contrary, a delay would bring down the price, but Makepeace poured scorn on ‘so meanly Scottish a proceeding’, arguing that a debilitated and ill-fed black would not survive the middle-passage to the West Indies or the Brazils and what was saved in initial purchase price would be lost to mortality on the voyage. Besides, Makepeace reasoned, their ships had already been affected with the dreaded yellow-jack; as every master knew if they cleared out promptly, the infection would likely subside and those not yet affected would escape with their lives.

  ‘Once let the sickness take a hold and it will be crews we will all be wanting, not cargoes! Aye, and more, what crews are left may want commanders…’

  Makepeace delivered this logic and stared about him. Humbert finally turned his palms upwards and shrugged. The difference of opinion being thus resolved, the masters agreed to send word of their resolve to Lorimoor and to make ostentatious preparations for departure; meanwhile the lançados were shown the silver-laced hats. The ruse worked. The following day Lorimoor passed word that the chiefs would send down the first canoes on the morrow and so Enterprize, with her sister Guineamen, prepared to receive her lading.

  Chapter Five

  The Cargo

  The hands were turned up next morning as soon as the first canoes were sighted coming down-stream. They gathered at the rails of all the assembled Guineamen like excited children as fortune and opportunity approached them in the form of abject misery and degradation. As he came on deck, Kite was immediately aware that changes had taken place about the ship. One of the Enterprize’s six-pounder carriage guns had been run inboard, moved amidships and swung round. Now the breech was quoined up, so that the black muzzle pointed down into the waist through the gratings, a deterrent to insurrection. The seamen designated ‘marines’ were paraded with their muskets under Mr Molloy who, with a piratical air, bore two pistols in his belt and wore a hanger on his hip. Further aft, lounging on the taffrail, Makepeace and Gerard were similarly armed, while several of the crew bore whips or canes.

  To the watching and waiting Kite, it was the smell that first turned his stomach, for although only a few dozen slaves arrived aboard the Enterprize from the initial consignment of twenty or so canoes which dispersed about the anchorage, it was clear that the distant baracoons were little better than over-crowded sties. Perceiving that the slaves’ own ordure clung to their legs and their breech-clouts, Kite was moved to approach Gerard and request that they were all soused down as they came aboard, and allowed to rinse out their flimsy clothing.

  ‘You’re not a prating Quaker, are you, Kite?’ a high-spirited Gerard asked, with a leer.

  ‘No, I am not, Mr Gerard, but you would not put a horse in a stable in so filthy a condition.’ Kite, remembering his father’s odd conviction that in dirt lay disease, a theory based largely on some observations that purulent infection and uncleanness were not uncommon neighbours, added, ‘and we have so recently buried our shipmates. We’d be damned stupid to admit another fever to the vessel.’

  ‘Tut, tut, Kite, the heat hath made thee damned touchy.’ Apeing the speech of the quakers, Gerard turned with a grin to Makepeace who, surprisingly, nodded his approval. ‘I concur. Let the men give them a wash down. It may ease their minds before we send them below.’ Makepeace straightened up and called along the deck to where the boatswain, a man called Kerr, stood upon the rail.

  ‘Mr Kerr, where the devil is my linguistier? Ask one of those damned gromettos if he has come down as arranged…’

  A tall mulatto lançado who bore a striking resemblance, Kite noted later in his journal, to pictures he had seen of Sir Francis Drake, came over the rail in response to Kerr’s enquiry and walked insouciantly aft. The man wore an ancient red-velvet jacket, frayed knee breeches and silk stockings from which the bottoms had been cut, leaving his feet bare. Stuck into his belt, like an old-fashioned rapier, was a long-handled whip, the tail of which was coiled neatly round the staff. As he approached Captain Makepeace he doffed a new, silver-laced tricorne and, sweeping the deck with it, footed an elegant bow.

  ‘Captain, my name is Golden-Opportunity Plantagenet and I am at your service. I bring you forty-two fine blackmen according to Sir Lorimoor instruction.’

  Makepeace graciously inclined his head and responded in an ironic tone. ‘Honoured, Mr Plantagenet, deeply honoured. I wish you to tell the forty-two fine blackmen that my surgeon will not examine them unless they wash their arses and their breeches. My surgeon is, you see Mr Plantagenet, like yourself, a gentleman of refinement,’ and turning to Kite, Makepeace added, ‘you may concert with him, Mr Kite, he will act the interpreter for you.’

  Plantagenet bowed to Kite who, embarrassed and awkward, scare able to make out to what extent Makepeace was guying him, the interpreter or both of them equally, followed the mulatto forward. As the first of the slaves clambered aboard, the whites of their eyes wide with terror, there began a pantomime of shouting and misunderstanding, of flung buckets of water, of moans and cries of humiliation and shock until, after about fifteen minutes, the seamen had grown fed up with inflicting this mild cruelty on their victims and the terrified slaves realised what was expected of them.

  I am Surprised how Willingly They Acquiesce to being thus Treated, Kite wrote later that evening, after a second shipment of male slaves had arrived. Indeed, left to Sit about on Deck until their Clouts dried under the Hot Sun, there Seemed nothing very Terrible about their Circumstances, tho’ Molloy and his armed Mariners were in Continual Attendance. But then, at about Noon, more Canows Arrived and the First Party were taken below and Secured Between Decks. Here they were each Allocated a Space and Compelled to Lie Down. Then the leg-irons were Placed about their Ankles, at which Terrible and Piteous Cries, which Rent the Breast, went up. This Stirred no Compassion among my Companions and I thus take it to be the Sad Manner of carrying on this Trade.

  The Lanchadoe who brings the Unfortunate Blacks down the Sherbro from the Baracoons Rejoices under a Most Extravagant Name. Mr Gerard Informs me that it derives in part from the Ship on which his Father probably served, Thus is he Called Golden-Opportunity by way of a Christian Name. His Surname is Plantagenet, but his Mother cannot have known of the Plantagenets and Gerard says the lanchadoes often take a Name they Conceive to be of Noble Blood. Such Names are supplied by the Factors or the Commanders of the Vessels, who think it a Great Joke to thus saddle the Half-Castes with Pretentious Names. In this Manner we have a Mr Duke Attending the ‘Lutwidge’, and even a Mr Emperor aboard the ‘Nancy’. Such Conceits, Vastly Amusing the Masters & Officers of the Various Ships, are carefully Observed in All Propriety. I took notice that the Factor, Mr Lorimoor, is Dignified hereabouts, with the Title of a Knight.

  Kite paused, thinking of his own part in the day’s proceedings. I hope my Examination did not much Distress the Slaves. I am Obliged to Establish they are All Sound in Wind and Limb, and Free from Infectious Disease. He stopped writing again, unsure of whether or not to commit all his private sentiments to paper and then, with a shrug, bent again to the lamp-lit page. At first, I supposed them all to be the same, finding in their Features a Similarity of Flattened Noses,
Thickened Lips and Black Hair covering their heads in a close matting of Curls. The Deep Brown of their Skin admits no Differentiation, unlike our own Pallid Countenances with our Individual Colouring, and only the Whites of the Eyes seems to indicate a Lack of Spirits, while their Teeth betray Evidence of Age, as do other clear Differences. However, the Similarity soon Disappears and one can mark Distinctions in their Individual Appearance, Indications of Character that mark them as they would Ourselves. Some I hold to be Possessed of a Rebellious and Contrary Spirit, which is Unsurprising, while Others gave every Appearance of Submission to their Captivity. For the Mainpart, they were in Good Condition, if Tired and Hungry, and even the Boldest, not a little Affrighted.

  It is very Hot Tonight, Kite concluded, and it seems our Peace is Over, for the Moans of the Slaves in the Slave Rooms between decks are Terrible, accompanied as they are by the clink of their Fetters.

  In five terribly similar days, as the hot sun beat down from a cloudless sky upon the ships anchored off York Island, the slaves arrived in canoes under the convoy of Mr Plantagenet and his fellow lançados. It was a grim business, but Kite became inured to it, even in that short period of time. Only once did he hear the treatment of the natives spoken of in any critical sense when Mr Kerr remarked that it was ‘a brutal necessity’. Kerr’s comment, propped up by assertions that Kite had already heard, assertions claiming ‘the blackamores would be far better treated by white masters in the Indies or the Brazils than ever they were under their native chiefs,’ was provoked chiefly by the arrival of the first women, which occurred on the third day of loading. In retrospect it sounded like an excuse for what was about to happen and which was anticipated by everyone except the inexperienced Kite. Perhaps Kite’s acceptance of the fate of the blacks began at that same moment, when the women were sighted and the word passed through the waiting men like a gust of wind through dry grass, for he was not insensible to the prickle of expectant lust that the news provoked.