Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [88]
It was at this point that he heard the sudden thunder of the ship’s cannon. He left the sentence unfinished. Almost before the reverberations had died away he had closed his journal and was making his way above. There was no sign of either the captain or the first mate. Among those on deck the discharge appeared to have aroused small interest. Curls of blue smoke lay over the deck and there was a sharp smell of burnt sulphur. Wilson, Sullivan and Cavana were still at work on the quarterdeck awning. He saw Deakin and Calley wringing out swabs at the starboard head – these two had struck up a friendship, he had noticed. They generally worked together now, the big simple one, whose face wore often a shy and vacant smile, following the smaller like an enlarged shadow. Paris made his way forward towards them.
‘That was loud enough to wake them,’ he said, nodding towards the indifferent line of the horizon. Nothing changed in Calley’s face or posture but he saw Deakin straighten himself and come to a position of loose attention. He was wearing only a singlet and wide-bottomed nankeen trousers. His body was narrow and sinewy, straight-shouldered, deeply burned by old suns.
‘That will let them know we are here, I suppose, if anything will,’ Paris said, giving to the words the tone of a question. He had from the beginning, almost, used his ignorance – of the sea, the routines of the ship, the procedures of trade – to incline the men to talk more freely to him, break down their sense of the difference in station that made them distrustful.
‘Yes, sir,’ Deakin said. ‘Well, that is, they already know we are here, but by the cannon they know we are ready to trade.’
The voice was level and flat, rather toneless, conveying a sense, odd to Paris, of dissociation from the mind behind it. With the almost helpless acuteness of perception that descended on him nowadays in any exchange with his fellows, Paris met the blue, rather deep-set eyes. Deakin’s regard was very steady and direct, though without insolence. There was something stark in it, as of a secret to be communicated, some unique idea that had been long suppressed.
‘To trade for slaves, that is?’ Paris spoke carelessly, at random almost, seeking to recover distance, to dispel his too-intimate sense of the other’s being. He glanced at Calley, who was looking down, licking slowly round his mouth with a blunt tongue. ‘Not other trade?’
‘Aye, there is ships come in here for all manner of things. Camwood, pepper, palm oil, elephant’s teeth. The slavers take teeth often enough, and they will take gold dust further down the coast, but mostly this is to spend for negroes, when they get the chance. It is slaves that make the trade nowadays. That is what they say who have done the voyage regular.’
‘And you have not? But you have made the Guinea run before, haven’t you? This is not your first time on a slaver?’
‘Once before, yes.’
‘And how did you find it?’ He at once regretted this question, which he thought must seem frivolous. It had been the result of processes too complex for explanation, even had they been clear enough to him: his own sense of impending ordeal, brought out by the crash of the cannon; curiosity about a man obviously decent, for Deakin seemed that to him …
‘Find it?’ Deakin repeated wonderingly. It struck him as a strange question. His life was a pool not so easy to fish in. Only one of higher station could so carelessly try to do it. He met the gaze of the man talking to him, noted the strongly marked brows, the furrowed lines running to the corners of the mouth. The surgeon’s eyes were a strange colour – they looked silver