Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [183]
‘I remember it well. They done the exact self-same thing with me, only I was turned out smarter than McGann by far, I had a good coat on me with a set of brass buttons. Thim buttons have niver, to this day, been give back.’
‘I didn’t know that. But I wanted to say that if McGann came aboard with nothing …’
‘It is not for the sake of the money,’ Sullivan said. ‘If it was the money, he could give me a note of hand. I know somethin’ of the law, bein’ a travelled man, an’ I know a note of hand is legal tender. But then again, what is the use of wavin’ a note of hand about when there is niver a drop left in the bottle? No, he has got to admit that I won the bet, that is all I am askin’. McGann has the scurvy very bad, he could drop off tomorrow, I have seen men go sudden with that, jokin’ one minute an’ dead the next, an’ McGann is beginnin’ to have the look of it about him. The matter must be set straight before he goes, that is what we mean by justice, Mr Paris. An’ I thought, since you were present and heard what passed, you might find it in you to tell McGann how I put me request to the captain with a firm voice an’ meanwhile lookin’ him straight in the eye.’
‘Very well,’ Paris said. ‘It can do no harm to try. I will confine myself to your actual words, I think, and leave McGann to imagine how you bore yourself.’
But before he found an opportunity for this McGann had been put in irons for begging rice from the bowls of the negroes. These last would sometimes give food to the men who had so ill-used them, a charity mysterious and moving to Paris, but rousing the captain to particular rage as tending to weaken the slaves further and reduce their chances of survival.
The surgeon had to make his way forward in order to see McGann, past the slaves grouped together on the main deck, guarded at present by Wilson, Lees and Hughes armed with whips and weighted sticks – Thurso had ceased to issue small arms to the crew. The men slaves were still fettered in pairs, the women and boys and girls allowed free. Paris noted in passing that the woman from the fort was there among them, that she seemed well enough, though emaciated. He had learned from Jimmy that she was not from the Gold Coast at all but much further west. She was from a people of nomads called Foulani, who lived by herding cattle. She did not look at him now as he went by.
McGann sat in his heavy leg irons on the forecastle deck. He listened to Paris’s testimony with head lowered, the ragged cap drawn down over his brows. The pale, yellowish hue that had marked his face at first had darkened now and he had visible difficulty in breathing. Paris took the opportunity to look again at the blotches on his legs and found that they had degenerated into ulcerous wounds.
‘That is what passed,’ the surgeon said. ‘I was present at the time and I heard Sullivan say the words. He asked me to come and tell you, so that you would be satisfied he had won the wager fairly.’
McGann glanced up at this. There was a blankness now in his gaze but the lines of his face were set in their old expression of dogged and fruitless calculation. ‘Ye’re on Sullivan’s side then,’ he said. His breath wheezed. ‘I am not done out of a shillin’ sae easy. Put in a word with Thurso for me, get me out these irons, an’ ye can hae the money.’
‘I have already asked Captain Thurso to free you,’ Paris said gently. ‘I will ask him again in any case. It does not depend on what you decide to do about your bet with Sullivan.’
Whether McGann believed this or not Paris never knew. He made no reply at the time, merely lowered his head with a sort of bitter obstinacy. He remained in irons all night, despite the surgeon’s pleas. He was still alive and able to talk when Haines went to strike off his fetters,