Jump Ship to Freedom (8 page)

I felt about as low as I ever had. I didn't see any way out of it. Captain Ivers would keep me locked up until he'd found somebody to sell me to, and then I'd be carried away in manacles. I'd seen a black man sold like that once. White folks didn't take any chances when they sold you off; they tethered your feet with a short piece of chain so's you could only take little steps. Oh, I felt terrible.

Then all at once in my head I saw my daddy standing up staring down at me. I looked at him, and he looked at me. I knew what he was thinking, too. He was thinking that if he'd been in my fix, he wouldn't have laid there on his back feeling sorry for himself. He'd have got up and done something about it.

I sat up and had a look around. Then I kneeled up on the bunk and studied the little stern windows. They was screwed shut.

I got off the bunk and crossed over to the door.

It was solid planking, with two big iron hinges strapped across it. I looked at the hinges. They wasn't screwed down but bolted clear through the door. There wasn't any way I could get them off, even if I had the tools to do it with.

Then I checked the lock. It was set in the door, and knowing Captain Ivers, I figured it was a pretty good one and wouldn't be very easy to bust open. I leaned my weight on the door and pressed with my shoulder. The door didn't give at all. I pulled back and gave it a little hit. It still didn't budge. So I backed off and sat down on the bunk and looked around some more—the walls, the windows, and finally the ceiling, which was under the quarterdeck.

There was an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling. I stared at it for a minute, and all of a sudden an idea came to me.

I jerked the woolen blanket off the bed and dumped it onto the floor near the door. Then I unhooked the oil lamp from its holder and poured the oil onto the blanket, spreading it around as much as I could. I looked around for something to light it with. There wasn't anything in sight. I went around behind the captain's desk and pulled open the drawer. There was a flint and steel in a little leather case. I took them out, knelt over the blanket, and began to shower sparks down on the oily places. In a minute a red spot began to glow in the oil. I puffed on it a bit. It began to spread out, a glowing red circle in the wool with wisps of smoke coming up from it. I blew some more. Low, yellow flames began to flicker on the wool.

I stood back and waited. The smoke was rising up and drifting around the room. I backed off farther and climbed up onto the bunk, where I could bust open one of the windows if the smoke got too bad. It drifted up toward me. I coughed and pulled my shirt up over my head to filter out the smoke. It didn't help much. I coughed again and lowered my shirt down.

The smoke was clouding up the room pretty good. I knew that in a couple of minutes I wasn't going to be able to breathe very much. I put my arm over my mouth and nose, jumped off the bunk, snatched the telescope out of its rack, and took a swing at one of the little windows. The glass tinkled and fell out into the water, and the smoke began to ease out of the broken hole. “Help,” I shouted. “Fire, fire.”

I didn't hear anything for a minute. Then there was a shout and a gabble of voices, and running footsteps, and in about ten seconds the cabin door flew open and the mate and two sailors was standing there. I dashed toward the door, choking and gasping. The three men came charging in. I bounced off them and nearly fell down, but I managed to stagger past them and race toward the ladder. Behind me I could hear the men cursing and shouting as they stamped on the blanket to put the fire out.

I hit the deck, jumped across it to the railing, and swung over it. Just then I felt a hand grab hold of the back of my shirt. I jerked and let the weight of my body hang out over the water. My shirt pulled free of the hand and then I was falling. I'd got away. But our soldiers' notes were in the linen chest in the hold of the
Junius Brutus.

The water was colder than I figured it'd be, but not so cold as to worry me. I began to swim, striking off toward Bedloe's Island about five hundred yards away. Behind me, from the ship, I could hear shouting. I knew they couldn't catch me. Captain Ivers had the longboat, and none of them on board could swim. I swum along for two or three minutes until I figured I was maybe fifty yards away, and then I stopped swimming, turned around in the water, and looked back. They was all standing at the rail, looking out at me. “Hey, Arabus,” the mate shouted. “The old man's going to whip you good when he catches you. You better come back here.”

I smiled a smile to myself, which they couldn't see. Then I gave them a big wave. “He's got to catch me, first,” I shouted. I turned around again and began to swim at a nice steady pace toward Bedloe's Island.

It took me about ten minutes. I was pretty well blowed when my feet hit bottom, and my arms was tired, but I could have swum farther if I'd had to. It encouraged me that maybe I could make it from Bedloe's Island to Manhattan if I couldn't catch a ride first.

I climbed up out of the water and onto dry land. I turned around again and had a look at the ship. It sat there in the water, pretty still, with only one mast upright. I could see the little shapes of the men still leaning over the rail, trying to spot where I was going. It gave me a funny feeling to think that probably I would never see any of them again.

At the back of the shore there were woods. I walked into them, where they couldn't see me amongst the shadows from the ship, sat down, stripped off my clothes, squeezed them as dry as I could, and put them back on. Then I got up and walked through the woods toward the side of the island facing Manhattan. In a moment I came out of the woods again. There was a small stone house—for storage of some kind, I figured—and a wooden jetty sticking out into the water. Only one boat was tied up there. A man lounged against a post, smoking a pipe.

I was pretty nervous. Coming out of the woods with my clothes wet like that was bound to make anybody suspicious that I was a runaway. For a minute I thought maybe I shouldn't risk it—maybe I ought to jump back into the water and try to swim to Manhattan Island.

But that was risky, too, so I stepped out of the woods into the sunshine and trotted down to the jetty, trying to look as easy as I could.

The lounger watched me. When I came up to him I said, “Say, you ain't going into Manhattan, are you?”

The lounger took the pipe out of his mouth and puffed out smoke. “Maybe,” he said. “Where you headed for?”

His words were sort of slow, and I could smell whiskey, so I knew he was a little drunk. That was all to the good. But I didn't know how to answer his question. I didn't know the names of the streets or anything. There was only one place I knew of, so I said it. “Fraunces' Tavern,” I said.

“You work there?”

“I work in the kitchen,” I said.

He put the pipe back in his mouth again. “How'd you happen to be out here?” he said.

I should have been ready for that. “Oh, I came out with a boat this morning, and they went off and left me.”

The lounger puffed on the pipe. “They just up and left you?”

I wished I'd thought up a better lie. “I was back in the woods there and I got lost and couldn't find my way back,” I said. I was beginning to feel prickly and hot.

“You got lost? On an island that ain't more'n half a mile from the water in any direction?”

I blushed. “I ain't very smart,” I said.

“No, I can see that,” the lounger said. “A smarter liar would remember that his clothes was all wet.”

“Oh.” I couldn't think of anything more to say.

“Come on, now,” he said. “Out with it. You fell off your ship. Which one was it?”

I looked down at my feet and blushed some more, which came pretty easy. “I'll admit it. I was standing watch and I saw a whale or something—leastwise I took it for a whale—and I slung myself out over the railing to get a look at it and I went over.”

“I expect you was drunk,” the lounger said, taking his pipe out again.

“How'd you guess that?”

“Most times a nigger falls over the side that's the reason. I expect you got into the ship's rum.”

“Well, I'll be honest, I ain't much of a hand for drinking. I knew it was going to be chilly standing that early watch, so I had a tot of rum, and that one warmed me up so I figured two would do even better.”

He nodded and put the pipe back in again. “I reckon it'll teach you a lesson. What did you say the name of the ship was?”

“The
Housatonic,”
I said, which was the name of a ship from back home. “From Stratford.”

“The
Housatonic?
Where's she berthed?”

“Well, that's just it,” I said. “Nobody saw me go overboard, so they went on into port. I ain't never been in New York before, so I don't know. Once I found myself in the water, I hit out for the nearest land I could see, which was this here island. I been hiding out in the woods. I was ashamed to show myself. But I'd sure like to get back to my ship.”

“You're in for a good hiding, I expect.”

“I reckon so, but it wouldn't be the first time. Just so's I get back to my people.”

He was convinced. Being a little drunk, he didn't think it out too clearly, anyway. He was heading back across the harbor to Manhattan soon, he said, and if I'd take a turn with the rowing, he'd take me. Provided I didn't get to leaning over the side looking for whales, which was no doubt just porpoises, anyway. And so he did. As I sat pulling on my oar, I thought about how much smarter white folks are than black. Here he'd gone and made up a much better lie than I'd been able to think up myself, without even knowing the circumstances.

So we went on across the harbor and into the East River. I tell you, I'd never seen anything like it in my life. There was ships and boats everywhere you looked, tied up on docks or wharves along the waterfront, and coming and going up and down the river. There was every kind you could think of, from little fishing dories to great three-masted schooners that had been to England and Africa and India and places that you couldn't even imagine.

The lounger pulled the rowboat up to the wharf. “I'll drop you off here,” he said. “You go on up and walk along the waterfront. You're bound to come across your ship somewhere along here.”

Of course the last thing I wanted was to run into Captain Ivers and Big Tom. I was pretty nervous that they might be somewhere up there on the dockside. But I couldn't do anything about that, so I thanked the lounger, climbed out onto the wharf, and went up onto the street that ran away from the river. It was called Whitehall. I decided I'd better look close at the signposts, in case I had to get back in a hurry.

Oh my, was it busy. It was the middle of the afternoon. There were sheds and stalls and warehouses and shops and inns. And of course thousands of people everywhere—men and women and boys and lots of sailors, some dressed up fine, some drunk and dirty, some racing here and there carrying boxes or sacks over their shoulders, or pushing barrows filled with fish or meat or vegetables through the crowd. And everywhere barrels, boxes, casks, stacks of lumber, crates of chickens, cattle, bales of hay, bundles of cotton. It was all so rich, and busy, and full. Whitehall Street ended and I had to turn. I decided to go right on Dock Street.

Suddenly it came to me that for the first time in my life I was free. I stood there, letting the feeling of it rise up in me. There wasn't anybody around to tell me what to do. I could do whatever I wanted. I could stroll along the waterfront and take in the sights, I could set off for the wilderness, I could walk into one of the warehouses or shops along the dockside, take a job, and spend the money I earned any way that I wanted. Thinking about it, I felt light and sparkling inside. It was just about the sweetest feeling I'd ever had.

But then my worries came over me, and the sparkling feeling went away. The first thing was, I didn't have the soldiers' notes anymore—they was still tucked down inside that cherrywood linen chest on the
Junius Brutus.
The second was that Captain Ivers and Big Tom was certain to be around the waterfront somewhere. If they spotted me, I wouldn't be free anymore, I'd be on my way South to the cane fields. Captain Ivers was bound to reckon that if I ran off once, I'd run off again, and he'd sell me South sure as the moon.

What I had to do was to go to the Congress and find Mr. Johnson. But it was a mighty big city and I didn't have an idea where Congress was.

I was at the corner where Dock Street ran into a great, wide road just full of people and wagons and horses and cows, and even pigs. The signpost said Broad Street. So I slipped back out of the way and stood in the shadows of a long warehouse building, waiting for somebody to come along I could ask directions of who wouldn't ask too many questions back. And in about a minute there came along a little black girl, about ten years old, pushing a barrow filled with oysters. I reckoned she wasn't going to pry too much and wasn't likely to give me away if she got suspicious of me, anyway. As she went by, I grabbed her arm. “Say,” I said.

She stopped pushing the barrow and looked at me. “What?” she said.

“I'm looking for the Congress. My master sent me down there with a letter. He told me how to get there, but I forgot. I'm bound for a licking if I don't get there soon.”

“I don't see no letter,” she said.

“It's in my shirt,” I said.

“Who's it for?”

“That ain't none of your business,” I said.

“How'd you get your clothes all wet?” she asked.

“You're pretty nosy, ain't you?” She was younger than me. I wasn't going to take anything from her.

“Tell me,” she said, “or I won't tell you where the Congress is at.”

I'd never met anyone like her for nosiness. “Don't you know it ain't polite to ask all those questions?”