Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [101]
He continued to read with obstinate attentiveness, through the cries that came to him as the women were branded, through the prolonged and cacophonous fanfares of Yellow Henry’s departure. Then there was an hour with only the faint washing of the waves for sound. He read of the inhabitants of Guinea, ‘a people of beastly living, without a God, lawe, religion, or common wealth, and so scorched and vexed with the heat of the sunne, that in many places they curse it when it riseth’. He read of the Queen of Saba who went to Jerusalem to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and of Prester John and the peoples of the interior of Africa, the satyrs who resemble men only in shape, the Troglodytes who dwell in caves and live on the flesh of serpents, and the Blemines, a people without heads, who have their eyes and mouth in their breast … At the change of watch Charlie came knocking at his door with a request from the captain for his presence up on deck.
He went up to a spectacular sunset with great rafts of fire smouldering among the dark ash of the cloud. Thurso was on the quarterdeck already, standing at the forward rail, with Barton and Simmonds behind him. The crew were mustering below on the afterdeck. Paris mounted by the companion ladder and took up a position some yards from the first mate. The slaves were sitting in the waist, the men chained, the woman and the girl free.
As soon as the men were assembled, Thurso began speaking directly down to them in his hoarse, barely inflected voice. They had taken their first slaves on board. Any man who had sailed on a slaver would know that now the real business had begun. They had all been on a holiday before. Now they would start to earn their wages. Negroes were valuable merchandise. Every care had to be taken to make sure that each slave purchased was delivered in first-rate condition, so as to fetch best prices at Kingston market. They were to be kept under constant watch while on deck to prevent them from jumping overboard or doing themselves some other mischief. Any man found sleeping on watch could be sure of a dozen lashes for the first offence, doubled for the second.
‘I will not have the negroes damaged,’ he said. Rage at the notion whitened his knuckles as he gripped the rail before him. ‘By God,’ he said, ‘the man will be damaged who tries it, I promise you. He will wish he had never been born. Use of the short whip against ’em is permitted to all members of crew for purposes of making ’em move and keeping ’em in order. But I will not have ’em cut or struck about the eyes or mouth.’
Relaxing his attention somewhat, Paris looked to seaward, where that first fiery splendour of the sunset was softening now to drifts of dusky, luminous gold. The sky to the east, empty of cloud, was a single bright bruise of violet and rose, draining on the horizon, above the darkening line of forest, to the colder blue of night. The plunge and crash of the surf still sounded without abatement. The spray showed a dim radiance of watered blood before it rose and was lost in twilight.
‘One more thing,’ Thurso said. ‘On no account will there be fornication with the women. I will have no foulness of that sort aboard my ship. Any man found lying with a female slave will be first flogged and then stapled down to the deck. And I will know of it, never fear, because I am purposing to bring a linguister aboard tomorrow who will understand the language of these people. We will be trading ashore in the longboat in these next days. What you do ashore is your own business. I will not have my cargo damaged, I tell you, and I will not have my ship turned into a sink of iniquity. A girl still intact is worth a good ten guineas more in Jamaica. Which man of you will step forward now and put ten guineas into my hand?’
There was silence from the men below. Thurso raised his face to the darkening sky. ‘I made my promises long ago,’ he said. ‘Before