Voyage of Midnight (2 page)

I’d always believed the thin-lipped scowl upon Master Crump’s face to be a permanent fixture, but when Uncle placed two quid into his hand, the scowl vanished. “I’ll be sending money for his upkeep. Mind his hand and his health or it’ll go poorly for you.” Turning to me, he said, “Take care, Nephew, for I shall return someday.”

And with a wave, Uncle was gone.

The next few months were the happiest of my life, at least since before the day my mother had died. My hand healed—though I’d carry the mark of the accident to my grave—and my health improved. But more than that, I knew somebody loved me and that I was no longer alone.

Scarce a moment went by when I didn’t recall Uncle’s kindness, his glinting teeth of gold, his jaunty air of adventure, his dropping the coins into my hand, and, best of all, his warning Master Crump to look after me or it’d go poorly for him. I knew that someday Uncle would return as he’d promised and we’d live together as a family, and I’d never have to smell the moldy stench of the workhouse nor eat pauper gruel again. I imagined a home, warm and smelling of meat pies, with a roaring hearth and real beds with posts and pillows. I imagined attending a regular school, for though I’d received some basic reading and writing, and of course my catechism, from the parish fathers, they
seemed more interested in how fast and long I could work before I fell ill once again.

Six months passed, and my memory of Uncle’s face began to dim.

I was certain too that Master Crump was pocketing Uncle’s money without any benefit to me. The one time I dared to ask Master Crump about it—and couldn’t he afford to feed me more than gruel?—I felt the sting of his cane and was told that impertinence was a sin. I was then locked in a dark cupboard until the next evening, a frequent punishment in which Master Crump took pleasure and which I feared more than death.

On nights when the wind rattled the roof and rainwater sluiced down the windows, nights when I shivered under my blanket, staring at the single burning candle that the night warden secretly allowed me, I worried for Uncle. Perhaps, like my father, he’d been lost at sea, swallowed by an Atlantic gale.

After a year, to my bitter disappointment, I was let out to work once again. Upon my leaving, Master Crump presented me with a catechism in blue paper covers. It smelled of camphor. “Mind your catechism, lad,” Master Crump pronounced. “You’re not long for this world anyhow, but while you are spared, you must work sharp and mind your catechism.”

As usual, I cowered under his presence, wishing that I’d my uncle’s strength and force of character. “Th-thank you,” I muttered, wondering if it was a sin to thank someone for making your life a misery.

Finally, standing on the stoop with my hand on the latch, I summoned the courage to speak. “Master Crump, please, m-must I truly go out to work? Is—isn’t my uncle providing for my welfare?”

I hardly took another breath before he grabbed my arm. I heard the whoosh of the cane. Felt it crack against my back.

“Why, you ungrateful wretch!” Master Crump was yelling, loud enough for everyone in the workhouse to hear.

Whack!

“There are necessary evils—”

Whack!

“—in this life—”

Whack!

Whack!

“—and we must all do—”

Whack!

“—our part—”

Whack!

“—by enduring what—”

Whack!

“—must be—”

Whack!

“—endured!”

Whack!

Whack!

This time I worked in the cotton mill. I was forced to stand on a crate for sixteen to eighteen hours every day, and if I sagged from exhaustion, I was quickly roused by a sharp box on the ears or a savage kick on my backside. It was difficult to tie up the threads while my eyes were blinded by tears, while I breathed in lint dust, and while my head swirled with dizziness. Finally my legs gave way and I collapsed into such a state that no amount of kicking could rouse me. Back I went to the workhouse, where I nearly died of fever.

By the time I recovered, I’d reached my twelfth year and it was time that the parish authorities were relieved of my charge. Unfortunately, no one wanted me. I was known among the
townsfolk as a “luckless lad,” not very useful and so chronically ill that I’d soon be at heaven’s gate. I was summoned before the parish board, where three stout, red-faced, bewigged gentlemen peered at me over their spectacles.

“Do you wish to go live with your uncle?” one of them asked me.

I gasped. “He’s alive?”

“Of course he’s alive, lad.”

“Oh yes! Please, I want to live with my uncle!”

And so, to my profound relief and joy, it was arranged. I, Philip Arthur Higgins, would board a ship in Liverpool and sail to a city called New Orleans, in America, where my uncle lived.

O
n a crisp September day in 1818, I gladly left my native soil.

I stepped aboard the ship
Hope
, firmly believing that her name represented my new status—that of a lucky lad, on his way to a relative who joyously awaited his arrival. I clutched my blue catechism to my chest (the book now worn and dog-eared), my spare clothing and a letter from the parish authorities stuffed inside a large knotted handkerchief. (Though I’d not read the contents of the wax-sealed letter, I imagined it stated Uncle’s desire that I reside with him, granting him custody.)

With a shilling in hand, dressed in my new corduroy breeches, a new shirt, a new red leather hat, and new leather brogans that
squeaked when I walked, I stood on the deck and peered through the crowd, wondering who’d been appointed as my guardian during the long voyage over. After the
Hope
cast off, I wandered a bit, knocked about by sailors and shoved aside by rough passengers. But after both dinner and supper had come and gone and no one had yet to appear as guardian, I made my way down to steerage and squeezed into a corner of the bulkhead where a dim light fell. There I collapsed into a fitful sleep, my head on my bundle, my stomach squalling louder than a baby.

For the entire night, I lay, scarce able to breathe as the ship rocked and lurched. The air was stifling and smelled like a privy. I believed I might die as my stomach turned inside out again and again. By morning I could hardly raise a finger from weakness. About me I saw throngs of people, some ill like me, some laughing, quarreling, talking. Children played. Men smoked pipes. Women cooked meals and greasy smells fattened the suffocating air. Throughout the day I heard cursing and moaning. Feet tramped constantly past my little nook, and no one gave me a second glance. In this position I passed a second night, and a third, until fever raged once again and my mouth hung open, parched with thirst.

I’d have died, I suppose, had not a family noticed my condition. By their brogue I knew them to be Irish. Their clothing was patched and thin, their faces pinched with hunger. Though they’d nothing to spare, they fed and nursed me throughout that long voyage.

“Thank you,” I’d whisper.

“Think nothing of it, child,” they’d reply.

The
Hope
was beaten by storms and tossed about like a cork while hundreds of souls moaned and cried. Halfway through our voyage many of us became ill with typhus, and bodies were
being cast overboard daily. Sharks followed so closely that sometimes families saw their dead relations torn to shreds before the bodies could sink. Upon our arrival in Baltimore seventy-seven days later, over forty of the four hundred fifty passengers had died. That I wasn’t among their number was a miracle.

My Irish family bade me farewell after a period of quarantine. They gave me a few shriveled potatoes to keep me until I reached New Orleans but refused the shilling I offered, saying I’d have need of it. By this time I was well enough to stand by the rail. My heart beat fiercely as I waved goodbye. I wished I could go with them, even though my uncle waited for me in New Orleans.

I’d thought New Orleans was just a few days’ sail away. But I was to spend eleven more weeks aboard the
Hope
. My potatoes and shilling long gone, I’d no choice but to beg for food and drink. Ashamed, I roamed the decks, a mere skeleton, my new clothes turned to rags long ago.

“Please, mister, can you spare a crumb?”

“Please, ma’am, can you help a poor orphan?”

“Please, mister, I’m quite hungry.”

I hated my words. I hated my condition.

Then and there, I vowed to never be hungry again.
Never
. Once I arrived in New Orleans, that is.

I wondered what Master Crump was eating for dinner, and whether it was hot, and whether he had to pick the mouse droppings out of it first. I hoped it was cold, moldy, weevily gruel. And whatever the nourishment, God forgive me, I prayed he’d choke to death.

When the
Hope
finally arrived in New Orleans, I clambered over many ships to reach the wharf. There were so many that they moored five, six deep, with wooden planks placed from gangway to gangway for crossing.

The wharf was a frightening place. It was a quarter of a mile broad and stretched in both directions forever. Bales of cotton lay stacked about, walls of white. Shouts and cries came from every angle—merchants hawking oranges, oysters, and fish. A never-ending stream of half-naked Indians, coarse riverboat-men, immigrant families, and gangs of slaves flowed by. Though I’d heard of slaves, I’d never seen one before. I gawked at the color of their skin, some so dark it shone like blacklead polish. They shuffled past and I shrank back, looking up and down the wharf. How would I ever find Uncle? How would he ever find me?

Panting, I scrambled atop a cotton bale, dragging my grimy clothes-filled handkerchief, in which I still carried the sealed letter. “Uncle?” I called, searching the crowd. “Uncle?”

I tried different cotton bales along the wharf, each time calling for him and straining my eyes for that jaunty walk, those gold earrings.… Many times I ran after someone as he strode away, calling “Uncle! Uncle!” only to find a stranger’s face staring back at me once he turned about.

Where was Uncle? Had he forgotten I was coming?

Toward evening I found myself back in front of the
Hope
(or very near to her, considering she was moored six deep). I pulled the letter from the parish authorities out of my handkerchief. It was crumpled, water-stained, the wax seal still intact. On the front was written “Isaac Smythe, New Orleans, United States.”

I studied the passersby and waited until a kindly-looking gentleman came my way. I approached him, holding out my letter. “Please, sir, I’m an orphan child. Do you know where I can find my uncle?”

But he shoved past me, his boot treading on the toe of my brogan as he mumbled something about wharf-rat urchins and filthy smells.

The next chap frowned, and his nose crinkled as if he were disgusted by my stink, but he took my letter and gave it a glance. The hair beneath his hat shone silver in the waning light. “He is your uncle?” He spoke with a slight brogue.

“Yes. Isaac Smythe’s his name, and he was to meet me here. He’s a sailor.”

“May I?” the man asked, his gloved hand poised over the green wax seal.

I nodded, wondering if I was violating the law by letting someone not in authority break the seal.

“Hmm,” he said. “All it says here is that Isaac Smythe’s last known address was in New Orleans, and that he is hereby given custody of his nephew, one Philip Arthur Higgins.”

I blinked. “That’s all it says?”

“I’m afraid so.” He handed the letter back to me. “Tell me, you didn’t by any chance arrive on the
Hope
this afternoon out of Baltimore, I suppose?”

“Yes.” Tears burned my eyes. For all these weeks I’d assumed that the important letter with the green wax seal acknowledged Uncle’s desire for the custody of his nephew. But it contained nothing of the sort.
Doesn’t Uncle know I’m here? Did the parish authorities just send me away to be rid of me, not knowing where Uncle was? Am I to try to find him in this great, frightening city?

The man was saying, “Perhaps you can help me. I’m looking for my nephew who was aboard, about your age. Paddy O’Brien. Did you know him?”

“I—I don’t know. A good many lads died aboard the ship—more’n ten, I should think.”

The man frowned and, without another word, stepped aboard one of the ships and disappeared in the direction of the
Hope
. By this time it was dark enough that whale-oil lanterns were being lighted all along the waterfront. The bustle of the
wharf had slowed. I swallowed my hunger and settled beside one of the cotton bales. My lip quivered. I was adrift in this foreign city, with no one who cared whether I lived or died.

A while later I watched as the kind man with the brogue meandered his way back across the ships and deposited himself once again on the wharf. His face now shadowed with dusk, he looked about, saw me curled in my nook, nodded, then turned and strode away. I watched as he disappeared into the crowd.

I was dreaming of roast beef with gravy when someone shook me awake.

It was the man again.