Belle - Lesley Pearse [148]
By mid-afternoon Belle was close to tears for she was unable to get a passage on a ship. While she understood from the various agents she’d spoken to that most of the ships were merchant vessels which didn’t carry passengers, the ones who did take them wanted to see her papers before selling her a ticket.
The docks were a stinking, sweltering, raucous hive of activity. Burly men sweated as they loaded and unloaded ships, shouting to one another as they lowered or lifted huge wooden cases with pulleys. Others rolled barrels down gangplanks, then trundled them over the cobblestones to waiting drays.
Overloaded carts and barrows drawn by tired old nags rumbled through the throngs of people. There were even cattle, horses, and goats being driven off ships. At one point a few steers had broken away in panic, scattering the sailors, stevedores and other people on the wharf. Belle had been constantly jostled, leered at and pestered by beggars, and a young negress in rags had even tried to snatch her hat from her head.
She was hot, tired and very anxious. She had been told a thousand times that New Orleans was a dangerous place but it wasn’t until today at the docks that she really felt it. There were gangs of filthy, tow-haired, almost naked children no older than five or six darting around looking for things to steal; she had seen the very lowest kinds of prostitute with most of their breasts on show haranguing men in broad daylight. There were countless drunks, and others, she felt sure by their yellowing gaunt faces, were opium addicts. She had heard so many different languages, and seen every nationality from Chinamen to Red Indians. While it was true that she’d been aware from her first day in New Orleans that it housed people of every colour and creed, she hadn’t until now been brought face to face with those who lived at the very lowest and poorest level.
As a precaution she had tucked most of her money into a purse secured inside the waistband of her skirt before she left the house, but she could see from those around her that everything she had – clothes, shoes, and her suitcase – were prime targets for thieves. She didn’t dare relax or allow herself to be distracted for a second. Yet as time passed she became more afraid, for if she hadn’t found a ship by nightfall she would be forced to find somewhere to sleep, and the prospect of the kind of bed she’d find in this area was too horrible to contemplate.
‘Here, miss, the Kentucky Maid is shipping out to France tonight.’
Belle was surprised by the young boy addressing her, and she was reminded poignantly of Jimmy back in London, for he had the same red hair and freckled face.
‘Where? Is she carrying passengers?’ she asked.
The boy pointed further down the wharf. ‘She ain’t really a passenger ship,’ he said. ‘But I knows the skipper and I reckon he’ll take you.’
‘Who are you?’ she asked sternly for she’d never seen the boy before, and it was odd he knew what she was after.
‘I’m Able Gustang, I do a few odd jobs down here on the docks. I heard you talking to the shipping agent, and reckoned you seemed like you was desperate to get away. Are you on the run?’
‘Of course not,’ she said, but she almost laughed, for his similarity to Jimmy was striking and it made her feel she could trust him. He was very skinny, bare-footed, and his ragged pants were cut off at mid-calf length. She thought he was probably only about twelve. ‘But I came into America without any papers and I do so want to go home,’ she explained.
‘Was you a whore? They’re the ones that usually ain’t got papers,’ he said.
‘No, I wasn’t,’ she retorted, but she wasn’t sure she sounded indignant enough.
‘Well, I ’spect it were a man that brought you here anyways,’ he said, squinting at her because the sun was