Voyage of Midnight (5 page)

“Emmanuel Fitch! Jolly good to see you again,” said Uncle, slipping his rattan cane under his arm and shaking Mr. Fitch’s hand.

Jonas muttered a pleasantry while I stood by awkwardly.

“Emmanuel, may I introduce my nephew, Philip,” said Uncle.

The man’s hands were hot and sticky. I said, “Good to meet you, sir,” and he ordered cool drinks all about.

Presently we sat upon the rattan chairs on the veranda, surrounded by slaves who served drinks and aired us with fans. My first sight of slaves had been on the day I’d arrived in New Orleans. Since then I’d seen many members of the dusky-hued race, most especially when I’d fill a prescription for their masters. As I relaxed on the veranda, I admitted to myself that these slaves both frightened and fascinated me. They were well formed, silent, padding about on their bare feet and serving all our wishes before we even asked. I wondered what they thought of their fat, sweating master; of my swarthy, earringed uncle; of pop-eyed, yellow-faced Jonas; and of me, pale little Philip.

Truthfully, I’d never given slavery much thought (being much too busy with my own life), believing only that rich people owned slaves, while poor people didn’t.

For the next hour, Mr. Fitch and Uncle discussed business. The loading of the equipment. The goods and trinkets for trade—colored cottons, glazed beads, brass bracelets, tobacco, bells, kegs of gunpowder and rum. The necessary provisions and supplies. Where the best cargoes were to be found. Places to avoid—African rivers where there was bound to be trouble of one kind or another. The top bargaining price allowed per slave. The expected date of return…

Flies droned about my sweet drink. The breeze from the bird-feather fan ruffled my hair, cooling my sweating scalp. The slave boy operating the fan shifted from one foot to the other. My eyelids drooped.

“Do you like him?”

It took me a moment to realize someone was talking to me. It was Mr. Fitch. “I said, do you like him?”

I cleared my throat. “Like whom?”

“The slave boy. His name’s Pea Soup. He’s your age.”

Well formed and muscular, Pea Soup was staring at the floor, his face impassive, still moving the fan. Up. Down. Up. Down. “Well, yes, I suppose I do. I like him very much,” I said, wondering what Mr. Fitch meant by this.

“Would you like to have him?”

The astonishment must’ve shown in my face, because he chuckled, along with Jonas, whose now-familiar laugh sounded like the braying of a donkey. Uncle watched me sharply.

“I’m serious, young fellow,” continued Mr. Fitch, once he’d caught his breath. “If you like him, you can have him. Consider him my gift to you, in gratefulness for your uncle’s friendship and business acumen.”

“Well, I—”

“Go ahead,” urged Uncle. “It’s a valued gift. You should be honored.”

“Then I accept,” I said, breaking into a smile, touched by Mr. Fitch’s generosity. Surely he was a very rich man! “And I
am
honored.”

“Excellent!” cried Mr. Fitch. “Fresh drinks all around!”

And soon we were clinking our glasses together, toasting one another’s health. I glanced at Pea Soup, wondering if he understood what had just occurred—that he belonged to me now. But he still stared at the same place on the floor, his face unchanged, moving the fan.

Up. Down. Up. Down.

T
hroughout that long voyage across the Atlantic from Cuba to Africa, I liked to stand at the bow, with spray dashing over the cutwater, our sails full and tight, and imagine the fortunes I’d gather.

I was no longer the poor orphan boy without a halfpenny to his name and with just a mouthful of food in his belly, wearing only rags. I no longer toiled eighteen hours a day doing someone else’s bidding, coughing up moss dust while someone else became rich and laid a cane across my back.

No, I was
Master
Philip Arthur Higgins now. I had a family and owned a personal servant. I was on my way to ship a cargo of slaves and become rich. And for the first time in my life, I’d receive payment for my own labor, sail the world as I fancied, and
answer to no one but myself. Me, Philip Arthur Higgins, master, speculator, and entrepreneur, just like my uncle.

I imagined the day I’d return to the Gallaghers for a visit, telling tales of my adventures. I’d leave them with so much gold that they’d never have to work again, sorry they’d ever doubted Uncle.

It took me a few days to teach Pea Soup his duties. At first I tried telling him, but he just stared at his feet, his face blank. Without a common language, I had to act out his duties, from laundering my clothes to serving my meals to cleaning my quarters. Jonas laughed, telling me I looked a fool. That it wasn’t difficult to tell who was master and who was slave with Pea Soup just standing there while I scrubbed my dirty pants.

“You could whip him, you know,” suggested Billy Dorsett, the cabin boy.

I’d been showing Pea Soup how to replace the candle in my lantern when Billy appeared at the door of my cabin. I didn’t like Billy. About a year younger than I, he seemed a dull boy—dull wits, dull eyes, dull hair—and he had a vulgar fascination with bodily excretions and emissions.

“Everybody knows a darkie don’t do what he’s supposed to without a whipping to show him how,” he was saying. “Everybody knows that.”

“I’ll do things my own way, thank you very much.” I hoped that the snap to my voice would dismiss Billy, but he lingered in the doorway. I returned to my task. “Anyhow, Pea Soup, you take a candle, like so—I’ve a ready supply in the drawer at all times—then you open the lantern door; there’s a latch here, mind you don’t pinch your fingers—”

Billy said, “He’s probably stupid, that’s why he don’t do what you tell him.”

I frowned at him. “And how would you know?”

He shrugged and started to pick at a place in the wall where the whitewash was peeling. “I could teach him if you want, if you don’t got time.”

“Thank you, but no,” I said with a sigh, thinking,
Bother it all!
Pea Soup was staring at the floor, his arms dangling limply. With Billy here, my hopes of teaching Pea Soup to keep a candle lighted in my lantern at all times were dashed. “Well,” I said to Pea Soup, speaking English to him, though I knew he couldn’t understand, “looks like we’re finished. Let’s go on deck, where the air is fresher.”

Billy moved into my room as I pushed past him, Pea Soup padding softly behind me. I turned. “Clear off, Billy.”

He looked at me blankly, as if he couldn’t fathom why I didn’t want him in my quarters, riffling through my belongings. Pulling him by the sleeve into the passageway, I shut my door. “Stay out of my cabin.”

I let go of him then, but to my irritation Billy followed us to the upper deck and pestered me for the next half hour. I finally dismissed Pea Soup and locked myself in my cabin, away from Billy Dorsett.

Despite Billy’s pestering and despite Jonas’ braying, soon Pea Soup was performing his duties. And though Pea Soup moved like a tortoise, not finding a reason to hurry for anything, I couldn’t complain. Even the little he accomplished left me more time to study my catechism, study medicine with Jonas, and learn navigation from Uncle.

Several times during the voyage, Uncle invited me to dine at his table, where he asked after my studies and my health. Besides eating better food (for the captain’s larder was more generous and varied than that of the crew), we chatted happily, with me doing most of the chatting. I told him how I’d recently charted the course of my life. Never again would I drift according to the
desires of others, for I’d be a slave trader, just like him. Upon my announcement, a smile creased Uncle’s face and his pale blue eyes glittered as if he’d just opened a chest brimming with treasure.

At our next supper, he presented me with a pair of gold hoop earrings, the Book of Common Prayer, two volumes of Shakespeare, and a Spanish learner. He said Spanish was a language I must master if I wanted to one day fill his shoes. I thanked him in Greek, Latin, and French, adding that an aptitude for languages was my gift from God.

The air in Uncle’s cabin smelled of chicken and dumplings and fried potatoes. My stomach was full and tight, and I thought what with the gifts from Uncle, all the food that I wanted, and the course of my life charted, I’d never been happier. Smiling, I let out a contented sigh.

Uncle leaned back in his chair and paused to light one of his new Cuban cigars before saying, “You do know that it’s illegal, don’t you, lad?”

“Really? Learning Spanish is illegal?”

“No, but the slave trade is.”

My smile faded. I was silent as the ship creaked and moaned, not certain what Uncle meant. Hadn’t I seen hundreds of slaves in New Orleans? How, then, could it be illegal?

As if he’d read my mind, Uncle said, “Oh, it’s still all right to
own
slaves.” He waved his cigar about. A cloud of blue smoke hovered above us, smelling strong and sweet. “Probably always will be, as it’s the natural order of things, the way God intended, written plain as day in the Holy Bible.”

“Then what do you mean? How is it against the law?”

He squinted at me through the smoke. “What I mean is, a few years ago our beloved British government decided that it was illegal to
export
slaves, to take them from Africa and sell them
elsewhere. Slaves now have to propagate themselves, for there will no longer be any fresh ones from Africa, not if England has her way.” He paused to cough. “Ridiculous law. Now, because the slave trade is illegal, what used to be a respectable occupation has become one of smuggling.”

Smuggling?
“You—you mean …” My voice trailed off. Some of my excitement over the gifts he’d just given me blew away like cigar smoke. It’d never entered my mind that I’d be disobeying the law. So far as I knew, I’d never disobeyed the law, or any person, in my lifetime. Such a prospect filled me with dreadful fright. “But—but
why
is it illegal?”

Uncle put his cigar to his lips. The end glowed with fire. Over the orange tip, he watched me intently. “Why? Because some halfwit somewhere in some bloody parliamentary hall thinks that somehow he can stop the natural order of the universe. They sit there with their wigs and ink stains and think they know the way of the world. It’s a ridiculous law, this prohibition of the slave trade. Total rubbish. Misty-eyed nonsense is the sum of it. Violates man’s free will and his desire to engage in enterprise.”

I picked at the binding of my Spanish learner. “Then what will happen if we’re caught by the Royal Navy?”

“Nothing.” Leaning back in his chair, he belched, absently patting his stomach.

“Nothing?”

“Because, Philip, my lad, Britain has no authority over the Stars and Stripes.” He smiled, his gold teeth lighting up his swarthy face. “We’re an
American
vessel, owned by Yanks. And while the slave trade is illegal in the United States as well, the American government doesn’t seem to care too much. Oh, they have a few gunboats here and there, but mostly the politicians pat Britain’s hand and tell her what she wants to hear, meanwhile looking the other way as the American slave traders ply their
trade and make the United States rich. Ha! How I love America!” He shook his head, chuckling. “And Britain doesn’t dare illegally board an American or French ship, as to do so might start another war.”

“Then why am I learning Spanish?” I asked, and rushed to add, “Not that I don’t want to, Uncle—”

“Simple. In case we should run across an American cruiser—highly unlikely, by the way—Yanks have no authority over Spanish vessels. And lucky for us, the ship’s name, the
Formidable”—
except Uncle pronounced it
For-mi-DAH-blay
—“is the same, whether in Spanish or English. If worse comes to worst, I become Don Pedro, while you become Don Felipe. It’s simpler that way. Of course the ruse will only be believable if we speak tolerable Spanish. Even my ship’s papers are in Spanish.”

“Your papers?”

“Sí, Don Felipe. The ship’s logs and certificate of ownership.” Again he laughed, motioning to the captain’s desk with his cigar. “You can check my papers if you want. All is in order for a Spanish vessel. They’re fake, of course. The real papers I keep inside here.” He patted his corn-husk mattress. “Trust me, no one will find them.”

“No one?”

Uncle winked. “Not unless you tell them.”

“Then nothing will happen?”

“Trust me, Philip. Nothing will happen.”

I did trust Uncle, more than I’d trusted anyone in my life. If Uncle said nothing would happen, then nothing would happen. If Uncle said that anti-slave-trading laws were ridiculous, then they were ridiculous.
After all
, I told myself,
Master Crump made all sorts of rules—eat your gruel, no pillows, only one blanket per child—but that didn’t make them right. Just because something is a rule or a law doesn’t mean it’s right or good
.

I licked my lips, weighing my words. “I do trust you, Uncle, more’n anyone I’ve ever known.”

He clenched his cigar in his teeth, reached over, and patted my shoulder. “That’s my Philip.”

Later that night, under the light of a lantern hanging from the mainmast, Jonas pierced my ears.