Jump Ship to Freedom (7 page)

We pushed the loose planks overboard, untethered the oxen, and drove them through the place where the fallen mast had tore up the railing, and then we heaved the chickens overboard in their crates. Most of them was already drowned, anyway. Riding higher in the water, we lasted out the night, although we had only the one sail on the foremast to work with. By the time the dawn began to turn the sky from black to gray, the storm had begun to ease off. The seas were still running high, great heaving swells rising and falling as far as you could see, but the wind had gone down a good deal and the rain had let up. The hold was two feet deep in water, and a lot more was coming in.

The pumps were being manned full-time. We'd ridden her out.

But Birdsey was gone, and so was one of the sailors, washed over the side. The queer thing was that the mate and one of the other sailors who'd been struggling with the mast had got washed over, too; but somehow the water had swirled them back on board again before the ship had risen up, and they managed to grab on to something and save themselves.

We never really knew how it happened. Some said that lightning had hit the mast, busted it off, and that was what jarred the lumber loose. Others said that the lightning didn't have anything to do with it, the lumber had got loose on its own and had cracked the mast when it flew across the deck, so it didn't need but a touch of wind to split it. They said that if the captain had cut loose the lumber, it would never have happened. But there was no way to know for sure.

Captain Ivers never said anything about Birdsey. A day later, when the sky had cleared off and we was dried out a little, he held a funeral service for Birdsey and the other man on the quarterdeck. He just read a little piece out of the Bible and said a prayer. When he got to the part where it said, “Oh Lord, take Birdsey Ivers into Thy care,” I busted out crying. I was ashamed to cry in front of the other men, but I felt so bad about Birdsey I couldn't help myself. I just had to cry.

Afterward I wondered what Captain Ivers thought about Birdsey dying. Did he feel sick inside? I reckoned he didn't. I reckoned he figured that it was the lightning that done it, and it wouldn't have mattered whether he'd cut loose the deck cargo or not. But he never said anything about it.

The storm had been bad luck for Birdsey, but good luck for me. The
Junius Brutus
was in no shape to go anywheres but straight into the nearest port. We'd got blown a couple of hundred miles back northeast of where the storm hit. The nearest ports were Philadelphia and New York, and the crew figured Captain Ivers would aim for New York, because he traded in New York so much he had friends there, people he could sell the cargo to, and shipyards where he could get the
Junius Brutus
repaired. And maybe I'd get a chance to visit Black Sam Fraunces and find out about Aunt Willy after all.

“He isn't going to like it, though,” one of the sailors said. “He hates to pay that New York impost.”

“He'll get around it some way,” another sailor said. “He'll anchor out in the harbor and go in himself in the longboat to see if he can talk them into letting him come in for repairs without paying no tax. Then he'll unload on the sly.”

I didn't care how he did it. I had finally had some luck. Once we got into New York I'd have a chance to hunt up Mr. Johnson at the Congress and find out about selling our notes. Maybe I'd get a chance to meet Black Sam Fraunces, too. I didn't know exactly how I'd get off ship, but I reckoned I'd find a way. Captain Ivers couldn't keep a watch over me every minute. He'd be busy doing business part of the time, anyway.

The trouble was, I couldn't take pleasure in my good luck, because of Birdsey. Sometimes I'd catch myself thinking about what we would do when we got to New York; how we'd go around together and see the sights. And then I'd remember that he was drowned and I'd get this terrible cold feeling. I'd try to understand what it must have been like for him out there in the water, all alone; but I couldn't. I missed him, that was the truth, even if he wasn't on my side anymore. It helped a lot to realize that when he knew he was drowning he tried to tell me about Captain Ivers selling me off to the West Indies. Of course I couldn't actually hear what he said. But I wanted to believe that he was trying to warn me and I decided I would. There wasn't any good reason not to.

Mainly I tried not to think about Birdsey. I had things of my own to worry about. One big question was what Captain Ivers would do once he had the
Junius Brutus
fitted out again. Would he try to head off for the West Indies again, or would he just give up, sell his cargo for whatever he could get in New York, and head home for Newfield? There wasn't any way of knowing; probably Captain Ivers didn't know himself what he was going to do.

Anyway, refitting the ship was going to take some time. She'd need a new mainmast and rigging, some new sails, the railing repaired, the hull caulked where it was leaking, and other things, too. Of course we did some of that work along the way. The way it always was on shipboard, one of the sailors was a carpenter, and he set to work making such repairs as he could with whatever spare planking he could find. But most of the repairs would have to be done in port, and that was bound to take a couple of weeks at least.

But what if Captain Ivers decided to go off to the West Indies, and me with our freedom money hid in the linen chest? That was a problem, all right, for if I found out he was going to do that, I'd have to run away. And then how would I get back to Connecticut to buy Mum her freedom? Besides, running away was risky. You went wandering around on your own all the time, and having to explain to people who you was, and what you were doing. I wasn't much good at making up lies like that. Mum always said things told on my face too much.

So we limped along, going mighty slow with one mast. It took us near a week to reach the New Jersey coast. But finally we sighted the Neversink, a great long cliff on the horizon. Oh, I tell you, it cheered us all up a good deal to see dry land. The sun was shining, there was a nice brisk breeze, and as we got closer we could see trees and even seagulls swirling up and down over the coast.

We pushed along up the coast aways until we came around Sandy Hook into what they call the Lower Bay. Up ahead about ten miles was New York Harbor. To either side, a good distance aways, we could see the green line of land—Staten Island to the west, Coney Island to the east.

According to what one of the sailors said when we was trimming the sails, there was a long sandbar underneath the bay here. “We ought to take on a pilot,” he said, “but the old man's too cheap.”

What we did instead was to tack back and forth for a while, and then by and by along came a big three-masted schooner, near the biggest ship I'd ever seen, and we waited it until it picked up a pilot and then we followed it in across the sandbar. The schooner wasn't the only ship around, not by a long shot. I counted twenty-two of them, coming and going in—big schooners, brigs like the
Junius Brutus,
little sailing craft headed for nearby ports on the New Jersey coast. Once I saw some porpoises, too, leaping around in the water.

A couple of hours later we went through the Narrows, where the land was only a few hundred yards to either side of us. Then it widened out into the Upper Bay, and we eased forward, still limping along pretty slow. About five miles ahead was Manhattan Island, with the North River going off around it to port, and the East River going around it the other way. There was a couple of islands in the bay—Governor's Island to starboard and Bedloe's Island to port. We eased along, and about noon the captain gave the order to drop anchor, and we stopped. We'd made it safe into New York Port.

We was only about a mile off Manhattan Island, and I could see it plain as day, with the windows sparkling in the sunshine. My, it looked big. First there was the Battery, a great stone wall that rose up out of the water to make a sort of end to the island. There was an old fort, too, sitting up on a mound of dirt twice as high as a house. Just beyond the Battery there was a street lined with warehouses, and beyond that I don't know how many houses—thousands, I guess, and a lot of them brick, too. Sticking up through the houses everywhere was church spires, and here and there tall buildings, some of them maybe five or six stories high, near as I could figure. Oh, it got me all excited, knowing that I was looking at one of the biggest cities in America and maybe the whole world, too. I was just as eager as I could be to get off the brig and see it all.

Soon as the anchor was down, Captain Ivers ordered the longboat to be readied so's he could row into the city. “He's going in to argue about the New York impost,” one of the sailors said. “He won't bring the brig into a slip until he talks them out of it. I don't blame him none, either. I don't see why Connecticut folk ought to pay duties to New York, anyway. None of the rest of us figure on getting onto land for a spell.”

I stood on the deck, looking at the city across the sparkling water, trying to decide what I ought to do. When the captain went, I figured I could slip off the brig just before dawn, swim to shore, see Mr. Johnson, and swim back just before nightfall. It wouldn't be an easy stunt, though. As close as I could reckon, it was a mile, more or less, to Manhattan. I'd never swum a mile, nor anything like it. Swimming around those rivers in Newfield, I'd never done more than a couple of hundred feet at a time. There wasn't any occasion for it.

I looked around to the islands on either side of us. Bedloe's Island, to port, was closest, about a half-mile away, I judged. There wasn't much on it—trees, and on the side facing Manhattan a stone building and a little dock with a small boat tied up to it. I was pretty sure I could swim that far, anyway, and then beg somebody to give me a ride from there into the city.

Still, it was a risk. On the whole, it was probably a better idea to wait until we pulled into dock and watch for my opportunity to skip off for a few hours then.

I was thinking that when the idea came to me that I'd better get the soldiers' notes out of the box of linen I'd hid them in. They'd ridden out the storm fine—I'd checked to be sure—but they was still in that box. I didn't want to risk that box getting unloaded before I could get them out. It was best to do it quick as possible.

So I slipped away from the rail, went forward to the hatchway like I was on some business, climbed down the ladder, and slipped over toward the stack of boxes where the cherrywood linen chest was. There was a nice patch of sunlight shining on the barrels and boxes down there, so I could see my way around pretty well, even out of the sunshine patch. The oxen was on their feet, chewing away, looking like they was enjoying themselves for the first time in a week. I worked my way over to the stack of boxes and started to untie the rope that was around it. Just at that minute a voice shouted, “Arabus,” and I knew Captain Ivers had spotted me.

He was halfway down the ladder, looking at me, and I had a hunch he'd seen me come down and had followed me. “What are you messing around with these boxes for?”

“I ain't doing nothing, Captain,” I said. “I just came down to see to the oxen.”

“You're lying,” he said. “I know what you're doing. You're looking for something to set aside to sell for yourself when we dock.”

“No, sir,” I said. I knew right away that Big Tom had been talking about me. “I wouldn't do nothing like that.”

“Don't lie to me, Arabus. You're out to steal what isn't yours.”

“No, sir, honest, I wasn't thinking of nothing like that. I just came down to check the oxen.”

Suddenly he jumped off the ladder and made a run at me. I ducked, but he caught me on the side of my head, and I fell down between the barrels. Then he grabbed hold of my shirt front, jerked me up again, and the next thing I knew, he had hauled me off into his cabin, stomped out, and slammed the door shut. I heard the key turn in the lock. I was trapped.

It was an awful feeling. Through the little windows in the stern I could see Manhattan Island aglittering away in the sunlight. How was I going to get there now?

I looked around. I'd never been in the captain's quarters before. It was a good-size room for a ship—about fifteen feet square. Underneath the windows was a bunk, covered with a blanket, where the captain and the mate slept—they stood different watches and wouldn't ever be sleeping at the same time. Across from the bunk was a table covered with charts and papers. It had a compass screwed into it. A telescope hung in a rack, and there was a little safe and some casks of rum the captain kept locked up so the sailors wouldn't get into them.

I saw right away that the windows was too small for me to crawl through. I was in a peck of trouble, and I knew it. Oh, I hated Big Tom; it was his doing I was in this mess.

I lay down on the bunk with my hands under my head, staring out the little windows up at the sky. Chunks of white clouds drifted northeastward. In a little while some of them was going to be over Newfield, casting shadows over the harbor, the town, the house, maybe even Mum out in the backyard hoeing the garden patch or hanging up Mrs. Ivers's clothes to dry. I wished I was back there, helping Mum with the washing in the warm sunshine. I wished I was anyplace but where I was.

As I lay there I heard the noise of ropes squeaking in pulleys and I knew they were lowering the longboat into the water. There was some shouting, and splashing. I raised myself up and looked out the window. The longboat was pulling away toward Manhattan. The captain was sitting in the stern. Big Tom was rowing.

Suddenly a suspicion crossed my mind that Captain Ivers was going to sell me as quick as he could. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. He didn't like me, and he didn't trust me not to run off. On top of it, he was pretty sure I'd stolen our soldiers' notes back. He was bound to figure that I'd got them hidden somewheres back in Newfield and would sell them the first chance I got. Oh, he had a dozen good reasons for getting rid of me, and if those weren't enough, Big Tom would give him some more. Big Tom, he just didn't like any other blacks around. He'd made himself special to Captain Ivers, and he didn't want anybody getting in his way.