Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [18]
‘You will be welcome aboard,’ Thurso said at last. ‘All according.’
‘According to how we agree together?’
At this, Thurso drew his brows forward in what seemed the intention of a smile, and now the eyes did succeed in retreating for a second or two. ‘There is only one way to take aboard ship, Mr Paris, and I think you know whose way that is.’
This was not very jocular but it was as near as the captain seemed likely to get, and Kemp fastened on it with some gratitude. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘we’ll have a dram on it. I’ve got some brandy here that I dare say you’ll find to your taste. And I suppose you would not be averse to a good Havana cigar? Brought in without benefit of the Spanish, naturally, but none the worse for that – some might say all the better. Here you are. Just try that. I give you good health! Captain Thurso is an old hand in the Africa trade, you know. He has made lord knows how many voyages. Your health again, sir!’
Kemp drank and paused, as if waiting for confirmation. Thurso, however, said nothing, merely sat looking before him, the glass of spirits engulfed in his sunburned grip. Nobody knew exactly how many times Thurso had sailed the triangle. Some said more than twenty. He himself gave out no statistics, this being part of his private pact made long ago never to advertise God’s favours to him. He had gone to sea at twelve as a cabin boy on a Bristol slaver in the early years of the century and had been given his first ship at the age of thirty-six. He was fifty-three now. He had survived every hazard of the trade: tempest, fever, slave uprisings, French privateers. Time and again he had returned to his home port with full cargoes, making good profits for his owners, his crews reduced by desertion and disease, himself steadily thicker-set and squarer-faced, his eyes seeking still to withdraw and failing.
Paris, who did not fully appreciate the odds against such survival, nevertheless found him amazing. All his teeth still in place, by the look of him. Limbs a bit stiff perhaps but he had risen on the introduction without the smallest appearance of effort. Stomach doubtless in good order too. Only the windpipe seemed affected; and the eyes, which did not seem to have weathered as well as the rest … ‘Well, Captain,’ he said, raising his glass, ‘here is to our good success.’
With habitual caution Thurso glanced away from the surgeon’s pale, impertinent regard. The man was spying at him already. A landsman if ever there was one and cackhanded into the bargain – he had noted at once Paris’s slightly awkward gait, the way he seemed to step short as at some threat to balance. And a gentleman, too. What was such a man doing, signing for a slaveship? Who had set this in train? Thurso felt forces ranged against him. He heard the voice of his counsellor. Talk to him. Disarm his eyes. Set him down lower. ‘So, Mr Paris,’ he said, ‘you have not been to sea before, I believe?’
‘No.’
‘It is a long voyage. You will have time enough to discover whether you are meant for the life or no. There is a kind of temperament which takes to it.’
‘I do not go for that reason,’ Paris said, and was warned by a sudden leap of interest in the other’s eyes. ‘The crew,’ he continued in a different tone, ‘are they enlisted yet?’
‘Crew? We are still some weeks off sailing. No one in his senses would engage a crew so far in advance, not for a Guinea ship.’
‘I do not doubt your judgement,’ Paris said mildly. ‘But is there not some danger that we shall find ourselves short-handed?’
Something between a smile and a grimace came to Thurso’s face and he glanced aside at the merchant. ‘We generally take care of that the night we leave the Pool,’ he said. ‘We shall gather some likely lads, never fear.’
‘I believe you need more than the usual number of crew on a slaveship, so as to manage the negroes?’
‘Manage them? Aye, you are right, sir. I see you have been going into the matter. Tell me then, how do you suggest we could