Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [71]
‘Well, I hope it proves so this time again,’ Paris said.
There was silence between them for some moments, then Barton said in accents of sympathy, ‘By God, he is a tartar, though, our captain. The way he shot up at you tonight! An’ you give him no cause. He has done the same with me, many’s the time, but you are a man of learnin’ an’ scallership, so you are bound to feel it more.’
‘I did not mind so very much.’ Paris spoke coolly, warned by Barton’s flattering tone. He knew the mate for a cunning fellow and in a way dispassionate – a dangerous combination. He said, ‘He seemed in good enough spirits to begin with. Something in my question annoyed him.’
Barton puffed at his pipe in silence for some moments, looking down at the track of the moon, which was broader and brighter now. ‘It was not in the question,’ he said. ‘It was in the way you looked at him. Captain Thurso does not like to be looked at. He sets himself above it, if you get my meanin’. But ’tis all bound up with the ship. He was put out of temper by our bein’ so far eastward of the reckonin’, which as we have had fair winds and weather, must be owin’ to a demon of a current settin’ to eastward, an’ out of all nature strong, sir, it cannot be supposed less than twenty mile per diem from the time we passed the parallel of Cape St Vincent. That is what put him out, Mr Paris. Men like you and me, we take a broad view. Rain or shine, what’s the difference?’ Barton paused, raising his face and smiling. The moon was clear of the cloud now, less blanched, more radiant. Light from it fell on the mate’s face. ‘What is a current?’ he said. ‘It is just a settin’ of the water. It is like any thin’ else in this world, tempery. Everythin’ is tempery in this world, whether it is the toothache or the love of wimmin. But he takes it all personal. Now we have had a sightin’ of Tenerife to the west of us, so we knows where we are again.’
‘Well, it is strange,’ Paris said. ‘We can observe the movements of the heavenly bodies, we can chart the course of the planets, but not that of our own ship in a little stretch of water.’
‘By God, that is true.’ Barton spat over the rail and laughed with apparent delight. ‘It never come to me in quite that way before,’ he exclaimed. ‘That is wit, that is what it means to be a man of education. But you have been in the school of life too, haven’t you, Mr Paris? You have seen both sides of the cage.’
Paris remained silent for a short while, looking out to sea. The African coast lay somewhere to the east of them, in the direction of the moon – it seemed to him now that the ship was keeping to the broad track of moonlight. The sails were blanched. He made out a dark figure sitting alone in the cross-timbers of the mainmast and wondered if it were Hughes, who often sat there at night. He sensed the attentiveness of the man waiting beside him. The mate’s question had come concealed in praise. Barton had a nose for weakness, for the festerings of spirit; and he was subtle enough to know that dislike is no impediment to confidences, that men of a certain cast of mind will confide even where they distrust, because not to do so shows fear or shame.
‘Them was your words, I think,’ the mate said softly.
‘Yes,’ Paris said, ‘a physician sees a good deal of life, you know.’
He saw Barton relax his shoulders as if in some release of tension. The mate paused a moment, then said in a different tone, ‘All the same, he was right, the captain was right.’
‘In what way?’
‘There is nothin’ like fear for keeping men together. Nothin’ else will do it, not on a slaveship. It is one of the chief snags of the trade that the merchandise has a tendency to rise on you. You wait till we have got upwards of two hundred negroes chained between decks, all of ’em ready to dash your brains out if they gets a chance, an’ twenty men to guard ’em, feed ’em, wash ’em down, exercise ’em up on deck. By God, Mr Paris, then you will see what fear can do to a man of learnin’ an’ scallership.