Sacred Hunger (84 page)

“That is how we seen the matter when the captain explained things to us. Haines would tell you the same, but unfortunately he has passed over, he was murdered by savvidges.”

“And my cousin intervened, you say? He set himself up against the lawful authority of the captain?”’

“Yes, sir. It was early mornin” an’ Mr Paris was below with a fever. He must have heard some commotion—we had already sent some o’ them over the side. He come up an’ seen what was happenin’ an’ he shouted an’ raised his hand agin it. The captain drew a pistol on him an’ that was what started things off.”

‘Thurso went armed then?”’

“He had taken to it, sir. The men was mutterin” agin him.”

‘As pretty a piece of arrogant meddling as ever I heard of,” Erasmus said, as if to himself.

“The more I think about the business,” he said more loudly, “the more it seems to me that the captain’s decision was a sound one, not only in practical terms, but also more humane, as shortening the sufferings of these wretches.”

“Them is the sentiments I remember experiencin” at the time.” Barton raised his thin face as if sniffing at the air, and for the merest glimmer of a second lamplight was confused with sunlight in Erasmus’s mind and he remembered again the day of the accident at the dockside, Thurso and the mate emerging side by side from the shadow of the ship’s hull. Barton had spoken to him about the building of the hull, he recollected. He wore the same relishing look now and Erasmus had the same sense that the mate was trying to form some alliance, some intimacy of understanding, between them. ‘I am not interested in your sentiments,” he said. “Keep them to yourself.

Thurso could hardly have done more for those negroes, short of killing them out of hand.”

“He couldn’t do that, sir.” Barton spoke softly, seeming in no way put out by the snub.

“That would be unlawful. The underwriters would never have consented to pay money on negroes killed aboard ship, not unless it was in the course of a uprisin”, an’ these was in no case to rise on us.”

Erasmus nodded. ‘As I understand it, the mutineers, led by Mr Paris, later appropriated what remained of the negroes and carried them ashore.

That is correct, isn’t it?”’

“Yes, sir.”

“First mutiny, then murder, then piracy,”

Erasmus said. “Any one of them a capital offence.” As he spoke the ship’s bell sounded on the deck above them—it was two o’clock in the morning.

The night was calm and the vessel sat evenly upon the water with no sound but the slow, irregular creaking of her timbers.

“They needed the negroes,” Barton said.

“They couldn’t have got the ship in behind the shore without the blacks to help with the towin”. She had to be towed from the banks, sir. Every man, woman and child that could stand on their feet had to bear a hand with the ropes.”

‘allyes, yes, I know that part of it. In your opinion, was there any intention to return?”’

“The vessel was grounded, sir. They hacked through her masts.”

“Did they declare they would not return? Did you hear Mr Paris say that?”’

“Yes, sir, I did. Him an” Mr Delblanc. They talked about settin’ up a kind o’ colony in the wilderness, where men could live in a state o’ nature.”

‘In a state of nature? What the plague does that mean?”’

“Curse me if I know.” With instant responsiveness Barton’s tone had changed to match the amused contempt he saw come to Erasmus’s face. “They talked a lot about freedom an’justidge,” he said. “They was goin” to found a colony where everybody would be equal an’ have no use for money.”

‘That den of thieves.” Erasmus, suddenly, was smiling. There is a broad division between those who laugh at the perception of incongruities in the world and within themselves, and those in whom laughter is released as a celebration of their own successes, a perception, not of incongruity but of total, triumphant correspondence. Erasmus was of this latter sort.

Everything had fallen into his hands. He had Paris alive; the guilt was confirmed, the evidence overwhelming; in Barton he had found an instrument of justice infinitely pliable. And now to hear of these ridiculous aspirations… It was like crystal sugar on the cake. “By God, that’s rich,” he said.

And Barton, seeing his new protector’s smile deepen, felt something of the delight of one who has found the key to a puzzle he had feared might be too intricate. “They thought they could start afresh,” he said, with contemptuous indulgence.

Through the hours of darkness Paris lay on the borderlines of fever, where thought and dream and sleeping and waking are confused together. Towards morning the throbbing of his wound eased for a while and he entered a phase of clearer recollection. He was back again in the public room of Norwich Jail, with its dark, greasy walls and echoing pavement and the usual lords of the place, violent criminals all, occupying the coveted area round the fireplace. One of these he remembered in particular, and even his name, Buxton, a man convicted for robbery on the highway, on appeal for his life, a broken-toothed, staring fellow of unpredictable mood. It was Buxton, wearing a towel on his head tied up in knots in imitation of a judge’s wig, who had presided at the “trial” of the young debtor. The mock-serious expression of this unbalanced ruffian was present to Paris’s mind as vividly now as if there had been no interval, as was the lost and frightened look of the young man. The two faces had remained in his memory side by side, Buxton and Deever, natural complements one to the other. Two hours in the pillory had been the sentence of this court. With his head through the legs of a chair and his hands tied up to the sides, Deever had stood stock-still in full view, head thrust forward tortoise-like below its absurd carapace, too afraid to do more than absorb his shame…

I did not intervene, Paris thought. Perhaps I lacked courage, perhaps I was afraid I might make things worse for him. It was impossible now to be sure. Memory, which still retained clearly enough the impressions of sight—Buxton with his grotesque trappings of justice, the flushed and humiliated face of the young man—did not permit any exact recollection of feeling. Certain it was that he had done nothing; the victim had been released finally on the promise of five shillings.

But what chiefly occupied him now, as the first light strained through the port of his cabin, was not his failure to protest or intervene, but his failure to learn the lesson so conveniently offered. For the men who did this cruel thing had suffered themselves in real courts and had been condemned.

I should have known it then, he thought. Nothing a man suffers will prevent him from inflicting suffering on others. Indeed, it will teach him the way… Was it always wrong then to believe that the experience of suffering would soften the heart? Those who were fond of declaring that they understood human nature would no doubt conclude so. But as the light strengthened slowly, enabling him to make out the bare furnishings of his cabin, it came to Paris that he did not want to be numbered among these knowing ones, that such understanding was worse than error, worse than hope endlessly defeated. If that is what it means to be wise, I choose folly, he told himself, and slept again and woke to daylight and a sweat of pain and the sight of Sullivan’s face above him. “What are you doing here, Michael?”’ he said.

The beautiful, vague eyes of the fiddler sharpened with a sort of triumphant satisfaction. “I told him I was the one looked after you before,” he said. “I went up to him an” I introduced meself an’ enquired if he had seen anythin’ of me fiddle an’ he said he had not seen hide nor hair of it an’ he was very much afraid I would have to consent to be hanged without it. So I looked him in the eye an’ I told him hangin’ was a matter for the judge an’ if I got off I would want to know what had become of me fiddle. While he was thinkin’ over this I told him I looked after you before when you was sick an’ he damned my eyes an’ give me permission to do the same now.”

"That was well done,” Paris said, smiling.

“My cousin wants me looked after so that he can the better hang me, though why he has pursued me so I cannot tell. There is not much you can do for me in any case. I applied a tourniquet as soon as I was able, to stop the bleeding, and the sergeant—who knows the business better than a number of surgeons I have met—helped me to set the leg in splints before I was carried aboard. So long as I keep still, I shall be tolerably comfortable.”

“I thought you might like to have the comfort of washin”.”

Sullivan said. ‘I have brought a bowl of warm water. An” I can fetch you vittles from the galley as required—he has give his permission to that.”

It was Sullivan’s standard medical procedure, which Paris remembered now from the time of his fever.

‘It is very good of you, Michael,” he said. More in order not to disappoint than for any other reason— he felt weak and disinclined to move—he submitted to the bathing of his face and arms and chest.

Sullivan was gentle and deft and kept up a stream of talk. There had been two deaths among the people of the settlement in addition to those of Billy and Kireku. Cavana had been fatally wounded when he tried to break out with Danka and Tiamoko on the other side of the compound; Neema, seeing him fall, had lost her head and rushed out after the men and been killed before she had gone a dozen steps. Her baby, which they had named only the night before, was being suckled by Sallian. Nadri had succeeded in reaching the trees but he had been tracked down and taken by the Creeks.

“And Tabakali?”’

“She is there with the rest of them,” Sullivan said. “Kenka is with her, an” the other two children.

They are all together on deck under guard of the sojers.

The crew people are kept separate.”

‘allyes,” Paris said, “we have a separate future now. They cannot sell us, you see, so they will try to hang us as the next best thing.”

“Koudi is there, among the others,”

Sullivan said. “She looked at me kindly while I was playin”. I should have gone to her straight, but I did not. We are not allowed near them now. After we get to Still Augustine I’ll never see her again in this life.” He paused a moment and his face brightened a little. ‘Mebbe I will, after all,” he said. “I have had a good omen.”

‘What was that?”’

“There is a bit of a story to it. When I was first brought aboard the Liverpool Merchant in company with poor Billy, God rest his soul, I was wearin” a fine coat with brass buttons down the front.

Now this coat was took from me without so much as a by-your-leave, along with ivery stitch I had on, an’ I was given slop clothes from the ship’s store.

That was bad enough for a start, but the worst of it was, they niver give me back the buttons. Thim buttons was niver mentioned again. Now you know the world, Matthew, like meself, an’ so you will know there is always somethin’ that will rouse a man, howsoever patient an’ long-sufferin’ that man may be.”

Thus appealed to, Paris nodded. ‘allyes,” he said, “sooner or later there will always be something that we cannot overlook or pretend indifference to, something that sticks in the throat.”

“You have hit me meanin” exactly. Thim buttons stuck in me throat more than anythin’ else I can call to mind. They were worth money, but it was more than that—a man has his self-respect to think of. I always suspected Haines of stealin’ them an’ I got proof of it one day when we were ashore cuttin’ stakes. I offered to fight Haines for them, but Wilson took the quarrel on himself an’ so me chance was lost.”

Sullivan paused in his task of drying Paris’s shoulders and neck, and gave a smile of considerable sweetness. ‘He would have beat me anyway,” he said. “The long an” short of it is that I niver got me buttons back. Then Haines was killed an’ as time went by they went out of me mind. Then yesterday, as they were drivin’ us through the bush to where the boats were waitin’, I tripped over me own feet an’ fell down the side of a stream, nearly in the water. There I was, lyin’ on me face in the mud with all the wind gone out of me sails and the corporal cursin’ at me from the bank.

An’ it was then I seen it, not six inches from me eyes. It was crusted over with clay, but I knew it.”

He bent down quickly and fumbled a moment at the string of his moccasin. When he straightened up his face wore its usual serious, slightly melancholy expression. On his right palm, held out to view, a smooth round metal button the size of a shilling gleamed yellow in the flat, shadowless light of the cabin. ‘I give it a bit of a polishin”,” he said. “I couldn’t understand how it had come about at first, not for the life of me, then I bethought meself—that must have been the very spot where Haines met his end at the hands of the Indians. It must have dropped from him somehow an” the Blessed Virgin tripped up me feet at the very place.”

He was still standing there, with the miraculous find shining softly on his palm, when they heard sounds beyond the door. Sullivan brought his hands quickly to his sides. A moment later the door opened and Erasmus stepped over the threshold. ‘allyou can suspend your ministrations for a while,” he said curtly to Sullivan. “I want a few words with Mr Paris.”

‘allyes, sir.” Sullivan, however, did not leave quite at once, but turned first to Paris and said, “Will there be anythin” more I can do for you?”’

‘no, thank you, nothing.”

“In that case,” Sullivan said, “I’ll take meself off.”

Erasmus watched him leave. “There is a brazen fellow,” he said. “He had the impudence to ask me the whereabouts of his fiddle. That is a gallows-bird, if ever I saw one.”

“If you think that, you cannot ever have seen one.”

Paris was propped up in his bunk now and able to get a steady view of his cousin’s face, which was white and strained-looking. “To what do I owe this visit?”’ he asked. “I must tell you, cousin, it is not welcome to me.”

‘I do not care if it is welcome or not,”

Erasmus said. “You have forfeited your rights in such matters.” On this, however, he paused. He was conscious his cousin’s question was one that could not be answered altogether frankly. After dismissing Barton in the early hours of the morning he had slept deeply his first good sleep for days. But he had woken once again to desolation. There are forms of triumph or fulfilment, and these not always virtuous, that require no witness, they are sufficient in themselves and can be enjoyed in the quietness of the soul; but the sense of being an instrument of justice was not, it seemed, of this order, not for Erasmus at least; he had felt the need to see it registered on a human face, and there was only one that would do: in all the world there was only Paris that could make the triumph ofjustice real to him. “I have been learning something of this settlement of yours,” he said at last. “I am told that it was founded on the best philosophical principles.”