Jump Ship to Freedom (4 page)

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 it 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?

I slipped back through the door into the crew's quarters. The big black sailor, Tom, was sitting at the table, eating biscuit. He gave me a heavy look, “Where
you
been?” He sat there staring at me and chewing his biscuit, that red scar sort of flaming at me.

“Nowheres,” I said. “I heard a noise and I thought maybe one of the oxen fell.”

He took another bite of biscuit, but he didn't leave off staring. “You ain't been messing with the cargo?”

“No, I ain't,” I said.

“Let me tell you something, Arabus. There's sailors who sometimes take it into their heads to set a little bit of the cargo aside for themselves. I've known fellers to hide a little cask of rum under the hay. They figure they'll slip it off in port and sell it themselves. Know what happens to them fellers?”

“No.” He wanted to scare me, and he did.

He took another bite of biscuit underneath his stare. “They gets tied to the mainmast and lashed until their backs is red as a slice of beef.”

“I wasn't stealing nothing. I told you, I was checking the oxen.”

Suddenly he was on his feet and had my shirt front in his hand. He took a quick look to see if the other sailors was asleep. Then he glowered down over me and hissed, “I warned you before, Arabus, I don't want no trouble between white folks and black on this ship. If you step out of line one inch, I'll bust you in half myself.”

He was big enough to do it, too. I was mighty scared, and my knees began to tremble.

“I ain't done nothing,” I whispered.

He gave me a light slap on my face, so as to sting but not hurt. “That's just a warning.” Then he let go and sat down at the table again, eating his biscuit calm as you please.