Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [297]
Erasmus was silent for some considerable time, holding a hand over his eyes as if to shield them from the light. ‘Shortage of water would constitute sufficient cause,’ he said at last. ‘It could be seen as a question of survival. But wait, did you not say that there had been storms of rain? The casks should have been full.’
‘My,’ Barton exclaimed admiringly, ‘you have got a head on your shoulders, sir, an’ no mistake. The main cask was holed, the water leaked away unbeknown to us.’
‘Yes, I see,’ Erasmus said slowly. ‘The cask had suffered damage in the rough weather.’ A court was likely enough to accept that, he thought, with Barton spruced up to say so and one more to support him. ‘I find that Captain Thurso acted lawfully and within his rights,’ he said.
‘That is how we seen the matter when the captain explained things to us. Haines would tell you the same, but unfortunately he has passed over, he was murdered by savvidges.’
‘And my cousin intervened, you say? He set himself up against the lawful authority of the captain?’
‘Yes, sir. It was early mornin’ an’ Mr Paris was below with a fever. He must have heard some commotion – we had already sent some o’ them over the side. He come up an’ seen what was happenin’ an’ he shouted an’ raised his hand agin it. The captain drew a pistol on him an’ that was what started things off.’
‘Thurso went armed then?’
‘He had taken to it, sir. The men was mutterin’ agin him.’
‘As pretty a piece of arrogant meddling as ever I heard of,’ Erasmus said, as if to himself. ‘The more I think about the business,’ he said more loudly, ‘the more it seems to me that the captain’s decision was a sound one, not only in practical terms, but also more humane, as shortening the sufferings of these wretches.’
‘Them is the sentiments I remember experiencin’ at the time.’ Barton raised his thin face as if sniffing at the air, and for the merest glimmer of a second lamplight was confused with sunlight in Erasmus’s mind and he remembered again the day of the accident at the dockside, Thurso and the mate emerging side by side from the shadow of the ship’s hull. Barton had spoken to him about the building of the hull, he recollected. He wore the same relishing look now and Erasmus had the same sense that the mate was trying to form some alliance, some intimacy of understanding, between them. ‘I am not interested in your sentiments,’ he said. ‘Keep them to yourself. Thurso could hardly have done more for those negroes, short of killing them out of hand.’
‘He couldn’t do that, sir.’ Barton spoke softly, seeming in no way put out by the snub. ‘That would be unlawful. The underwriters would never have consented to pay money on negroes killed aboard ship, not unless it was in the course of a uprisin’, an’ these was in no case to rise on us.’
Erasmus nodded. ‘As I understand it, the mutineers, led by Mr Paris, later appropriated what remained of the negroes and carried them ashore. That is correct, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘First mutiny, then murder, then piracy,’ Erasmus said. ‘Any one of them a capital offence.’ As he spoke the ship’s bell sounded on the deck above them – it was two o’clock in the morning. The night was calm and the vessel sat evenly upon the water with no sound but the slow, irregular creaking of her timbers.
‘They needed the negroes,’ Barton said. ‘They couldn’t have got the ship in behind the shore without the blacks to help with the towin’. She had to be towed from the banks, sir. Every man, woman and child that could stand on their feet had to bear a hand with the ropes.’
‘Yes, yes, I know that part of it. In your opinion, was there any intention to return?’
‘The vessel was grounded, sir. They hacked through her masts.’
‘Did they declare they would not return?