Ama (56 page)

Weeks stretched into a month, and then another. Now the slaves' rations, too, were reduced. The muster of corpses increased every day. Amongst them Ama noticed the proud Asante overseer with the bulging eyes. The bloody flux had taken him. She had never learned his name, she thought with regret. Back home, however humble his status, there would have been some ceremony to mark his transition to the world of the ancestors. She began to wonder whether it made any difference.

In the morning, the floor of the female hold, too, was filthy with the foul, liquid excrement of the sufferers. Ama wondered what it was that protected her from the vomiting and fever and dysentery. Only the bleeding of her gums disturbed her, and intermittent pain from the empty socket of her right eye.

* * *

At first light the watch climbed to the maintop platform and scanned the horizon.

Excitedly, he reported a small black cloud. Arbuthnot summoned Williams, who had fallen asleep only an hour before. The Captain was in a foul mood; but when he saw the darkening sky the challenge of imminent danger quickened his pulse and purged his wrath. He sprang to action.

“Mr. Smith,” he instructed Arbuthnot, “get the cook to feed the slaves at once; tell him to double their ration. It might be days before they get another meal.”

“While they are on deck, have the carpenter fasten a web of ropes to the floor of each hold. I don't want a repetition of Anomabu.”

“Once that is done, get the slaves back into their kennels. Batten down all the hatches.”

“Then rig sails to make a catchment and bring up the empty barrels.”

While they waited for their food, Ama watched the sails being reefed. The storm came nearer and nearer, the shifting dark clouds illuminated by the lightning. The women who had weathered the storm at Anomabu muttered amongst themselves, shaking their heads in alarm.

“Today our lives are in the hands of our worst enemy. The ancestors have surely forgotten us,” one said.

A crack of thunder drowned the dreary murmur of agreement. They shuddered and huddled closer, without hope. Ama looked at the restless sea and thought for a moment that she saw Nana Esi's corpse riding the heavy swell.
That woman saw her own future. Did she also see ours?
she wondered.

Then, their hold was ready and they were herded into the darkness.

The first inside tripped and shouted back a warning. In her usual place Ama found that the Chippy had made a rope fast along the junction of the platform and the hull. She tested it. It gave her a sense of security: it would be easier to weather this storm with something to hold on to. Reluctantly she conceded to herself that for all Williams' faults as a human being, he knew his business as a mariner and slave-trader.

Up on deck, the captain turned over his options in his mind as he inspected his sails and rigging. Caution suggested that he heave to and ride out the heavy weather. The trouble with that plan was that once the storm had passed, they might be left becalmed as before.

The gale was blowing from the south. If he let
The Love of Liberty
scud before it, they might be blown right up to the latitude of Barbados. There he could pick up the north east trades and be in Bridgetown in no more than a week or two. It was risky, but tempting.

“Set the course sail on the foremast, Mr. Smith,” he yelled into Arbuthnot's ear. “We'll run before her.”

The first icy sheet of rain soaked the crew, every man jack of them but the captain, who owned a suit of oilskins. Day had turned into night. It was as if a malevolent heaven had descended upon them. An enormous wave towered above the fragile ship, took hold of it and pushed it forward. It swung this way and that, pitching, rolling. One moment they were in the depths of a trough; next they balanced on the crest. The wheel strained against its lashing. Communication became difficult. Arbuthnot, returning to Williams' side, slipped on the wet deck and grazed his knee.

In the hold, Ama hooked her elbows about the rope. The woman on her left had already vomited; now the one on the right did the same. Ama gripped her arm in attempt to comfort her but she was completely distraught with fear. She shat herself where she lay. Ama closed her eyes in despair. Soon the floor of the hold would be a uniform slimy mess of filth. Already the smell was overpowering. She squeezed her eyes, trying to shut out the world. The ship rolled away from her; the remains of her breakfast poured out onto her neighbour.

Williams realised that he had underestimated the force of the gale. In all his years at sea, he had never seen such a storm before. He shook his head. He would have to swallow his pride and turn the bow into the wind.

Before he could act, lightning struck the ship, splintering the foremast and the foreyard and setting fire to the small sail, wet as it was. For a moment there was an overwhelming smell of burning; then the rain put out the fire and the wind swept away the smell of it.

* * *

Three sleepless days and nights later the storm began to blow over.

In the late morning the sun appeared and Williams was able to establish his position. Arbuthnot stood by him as he squinted through the sextant.

“Now,” he said as the chronometer showed noon.

“We're off the coast of Brazil,” he told the mate. “Bahia must be just over that eastern horizon.

“Open the hatches. Mr. Butcher, I want a report on the condition of our cargo. Cook, see if you can get a fire going. We could all do with a hot meal. Mr. Smith, rig what jury sails you can muster and set a course for the Portuguese port. And run up the Union Jack if you will. Give me a call as soon as you sight land. I'm going to take a nap.”

Ama came out on deck, starved, dehydrated, filthy. The light of the sun blinded her and she shut her eye.
The Love of Liberty
was a floating wreck. Only one mast was intact. Another lay across the deck, broken. Pieces of sail, torn to shreds, lay everywhere. The other slaves looked like living corpses. The crew's condition was not much better. She drank deeply. The water was sweet and there was plenty of it.

“We filled every barrel with rain water,” Butcher told her. “You can even use it to take a bath. We are close to land, now.”

“Barbados?” she asked him, forgetting her vow of silence.

“No,” he replied. “The storm blew us far off course. We are heading for Bahia in Brazil. We should be there by tomorrow at the latest.”

* * *

“Land ahoy!” came a shout from the watch high up on their sole remaining mast.

Bill Williams rushed down to summon his uncle. When he returned, he had a chart.

“Can you see it yet?” he asked Ama.

She shook her head. Then there came a cheer from the forecastle and a rush to the forward gunwales.

“There it is. Land ahoy!” shouted the young Williams in great excitement. “Do you see it now? Now, if I am not mistaken that must be Cape St. Anthony. Brazil! Robinson Crusoe country!”

“Have you read Robinson Crusoe?” he asked her.

She nodded. But Brazil? She couldn't remember any mention of it.

“I wonder where he had his plantation?” Bill Williams mused.

Late in the afternoon they rounded the Cape and entered a broad bay.

Williams savoured the sound of the words, “Bahia de Todos os Santos. The Bay of All the Saints.”

Blue waters, a forest of tall masts, green islands; small sailing boats flying for refuge in the last hour before dusk. Some passed close by. Ama noticed again the curiosity of their crewmen. She could understand:
The Love of Liberty
was a floating wreck.

The sun picked out a row of gleaming white buildings on the top of the promontory, painting them a deepening orange as it sank.

“Cidade do Salvador, the city of our saviour,” Williams told her, scanning the city with his uncle's telescope.

“Slaves to the holds,” ordered Arbuthnot. “Let go the anchor.”

AMERICA

America

At the end of the twentieth century, the population of Brazil stands at some 165 million. Of every ten Brazilians, six are descended wholly or in part from African men and women who were transported across the Atlantic against their will during the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

CHAPTER 30

Coming out of the hold at dawn, Ama gasped. The upper city, the
Cidade Alta
, silhouetted against a crimson sunrise, seemed to have taken on a completely new character, ominous, threatening, somehow sinister. Then, rubbing the sleep from her eye, she discovered the straggling lower city, the
Cidade Baixa
, emerging from the early morning shadows at the foot of the cliff.

The bay was already filled with sails. One of the small boats approached
The Love of Liberty
. An impressive figure of a man stood at its bow, his gloved hands resting on a polished brass railing. He was dressed in a spotless white uniform with gold buttons and golden braid at the shoulders, and two rows of medals decorated his chest. Over his wig he wore a black tricorn hat with a red cockade. His uniform reminded Ama of Jensen, Esi's pig-god, the first time she had seen him. She leaned over the gunwale and spat into the water. Then she looked again. Of course it couldn't be Jensen. It was only the uniform.

The chief mate was overawed by this imminent manifestation of foreign officialdom. He sent Knox scuttling for the captain, who was enjoying his first good night's sleep in months.

The four black men who manned the official's boat were stripped to the waist. One of them threw a rope to the waiting Bruce and shouted something up to him with a broad grin.

“An the same to you, mate,” Bruce called back.

The man asked him a question. Bruce shook his head and spread his palms.

“No savvy,” he replied.

The official was struggling up the rope ladder, which seemed to have taken on a life of its own. He looked down and swore at the slave below. Arbuthnot helped him and his sword over the gunwale. He was adjusting his uniform when Williams appeared.

“David Williams, Master of
The Love of Liberty
, Liverpool, England,” he said, holding out his hand. “Whom do I have the honour to address?”

“Christovam da Rocha Barbosa,” Ama heard the man sing out his name. She thought she heard him announce that he was the director of the port of Salvador, but the rest was lost to her.

Williams resorted to sign language and a change of accent.

“Eengleesh sheep,” she heard him say, pointing to the Union Jack, but then her attention was drawn elsewhere.

“My brothers,” she addressed the slaves who were lolling idly in the boat below her, “do any of you hear Asante?”

One of them stood up and cupped his hand to his ear. She repeated what she had said but now that she could see his face and the unfamiliar incisions on his cheeks, she knew he would not understand.

The man identified himself with a flourish and a bow.

“Domingos Cabinda,” he said and then pointed to the others, who laughed at their friend's fine manners.

Each waved an acknowledgement as he was introduced: “Santos Gêge, Bernado das Minas, Policarpo Nagô.”

“Ama,” she replied “Asante, Kumase, Elmina. And you?” to his implied question.

“Costa das Minas,” he said, indicating his companions; and then, pointing to himself, “Cabinda.”

He put a finger to his eye and pointing at her empty socket, inclined his head, opened his palms and raised his eyebrows.

Ama couldn't help laughing: the man was a clown. She flicked her wrist several times, trying to mimic a beating. Domingos Cabinda twisted his lips and nodded gravely.

This conversation was brought to an abrupt conclusion as Christovam da Rocha Barbosa descended into his vessel, followed by Captain Williams. The long boat was lowered, sending the younger Williams in pursuit.

“They are going to look for the English consul,” said Butcher. “We shouldn't be here at all: the Portuguese don't allow foreign ships to trade in their ports.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Well, Pamela,” he said at last, “or Ama, is it? I have heard you called that so I suppose that it is your real name.”

He was searching for words.

“This might be the last chance I have to talk to you alone. Williams hopes to sell you all here in Salvador to pay for the repair of the ship. I have no idea what fate awaits you in Bahia, though I cannot imagine that it could be worse than what you have been through on this vessel.

“There is something that I want to say to you. I shall carry with me for the rest of my life a sorely troubled conscience. There are many evils in my own country: the English poor are little better off than you slaves, many of them. Yet it is the suffering that you have endured, and your disfigurement, that will haunt me. And that is because I have played a part in inflicting it upon you. For that I can only beg your forgiveness. I know that my apologies will do you no good but I want to ask you to hear me out all the same. I am deeply sorry for what we have done to you, to all of you. I know now that the slave trade is an evil business. I shall make my views known when I return to England, though I have few illusions as to what I might achieve by doing so.

“The engine of this trade is greed and as long as the merchants of Liverpool and Bristol, London and Glasgow can profit from it, it will continue. At least if I were to tell my story, and yours, it might be more difficult for those who rule us to plead ignorance. And I might feel a little better. Now, I have said my say. Will you shake my hand at least and say a word to me before we part?”

Ama turned to look at him. There was a tear in her good eye.

She gave him her hand and said, “Goodbye, doctor.”

* * *

The slaves noticed the sudden improvement in the quality of their food: fresh meat and vegetables: even fruit.

Bruce took on the job of chief barber and shaved the men's heads and beards. A bath house was set up on deck. Soap was distributed and there was a water, fresh water, hot water. They were given palm oil to rub into their skin. Butcher paid particular attention to the sick, trying to bring them to saleable condition.