Roots_ The Saga of an American Family - Alex Haley [103]
CHAPTER 39
By the time the dawn came, the weather had calmed and cleared, but the ship still rolled in heavy swells. Some of the men who still lay on their backs, or on their sides, showed almost no signs of life, others were having dreadful convulsions. But along with most of the other men, Kunta had managed to get himself into a sitting position that relieved somewhat the horrible pains in his back and buttocks. He looked dully at the backs of those nearby; all were bleeding afresh through blood already dried and clotted, and he saw what seemed to be bones showing at the shoulders and elbows. With a vacant look in another direction, he could see a woman lying with her legs wide apart, her private parts, turned in his direction, were smudged with some strange grayish-yellowish paste, and his nose picked up some indescribable smell that he knew must come from her.
Now and then one of the men who were still lying down would try to raise himself up. Some would only fall back, but among those who succeeded in sitting up, Kunta noticed, was the Foulah leader. He was bleeding heavily, and his expression was of one who wasn’t part of what was going on around him. Kunta didn’t recognize many of the other men he saw. He guessed that they must be from the level below his. These were the men whom the Foulah had said would avenge the dead from the first level after the toubob were attacked. The attack Kunta didn’t have the strength even to think about it any more.
In some of the faces around him, including that of the man he was shackled to, Kunta saw that death was etched. Without knowing why, he was sure they were going to die. The face of the Wolof was grayish in color, and each time he gasped to breathe there was a bubbling sound in his nose. Even the Wolof’s shoulder and elbow bones, which showed through the raw flesh, had a grayish look. Almost as if he knew that Kunta was looking at him, the Wolof’s eyes fluttered open and looked back at Kunta—but without a sign of recognition. He was a pagan, but . . . Kunta extended a finger weakly to touch the Wolof on the arm. But there was no sign of any awareness of Kunta’s gesture, or of how much it had meant.
Although his pains didn’t subside, the warm sun began to make Kunta feel a little better. He glanced down and saw, in a pool around where he sat, the blood that had drained from his back—and a shuddering whine forced itself up his throat. Toubob who were also sick and weak were moving about with brushes and buckets, scrubbing up vomit and feces, and others were bringing tubs of filth up from below and dumping it over the side. In the daylight, Kunta vacantly noted their pale, hairy skins, and the smallness of their fotos.
After a while he smelled the steam of boiling vinegar and tar through the gratings as the chief toubob began to move among the shackled people applying his salve. He would put a plaster of cloth smeared with powder wherever the bones showed through, but seeping blood soon made the plasters slip and fall off. He also opened some of the men’s mouths—including Kunta’s—and forced down their throats something from a black bottle.
At sunset, those who were well enough were fed—maize boiled with red palm oil and served in a small tub they dipped into with their hands. Then each of them had a scoopful of water brought by a toubob from a barrel that was kept at the foot of the biggest of the poles on deck. By the time the stars came out, they were back below in chains. The emptied spaces on Kunta’s level, where men had died, were filled with the sickest of the men from the level below, and their moans of suffering were even louder than before.
For three days Kunta lay among them in a twilight of pain, vomiting, and fever, his cries mingled with theirs. He was also among those