“Now, Lucy, come along. You know you could not have stopped him. James is too proud to listen to anyone’s warnings, you know that. Especially a woman’s.” It was true. Nor was James alone in that. James and Thomas, two of a kind.
The people-thirty or more, in all-were circled around the fire, the orange light dancing off dark skin. Someone began to sing, soft, a rhythmic tune, words that Elizabeth could not understand. In her dumb fatigue it took her some moments to realize it was an African song, the words in the language to which the singer was born.
Lucy let off her embrace, sat back down on the blanket spread on the ground, and watched with Elizabeth, sniffling now and then.
The singing went on, high and clear, and at certain places the others would join in, a chorus, all their voices coming soft together, the beat steady and hypnotic.
They all knew it, though to Elizabeth ’s certain knowledge they were not all of the same tribe. Indeed, some of the younger ones had been born in the New World, had never been to Africa at all.
Extraordinary, Elizabeth thought. They had already created some kind of an organized home, there on that grassy patch of wilderness. She imagined they were well versed in this, creating community fast, making a home wherever they landed, after the experience of being torn away from their real homes and villages.
She closed her eyes, let the warm sleep creep over her, felt herself being carried away with the rhythm of the singing. She began to understand, on some level deeper than conscious thought, why Thomas felt it was too dangerous a thing to try to hold such people in bondage, why Bickerstaff felt it was an abomination before God.
King James heard the lookout aloft sing out, and then Madshaka grinned wide, said, “He say he see another ship, away, away.”
Madshaka turned and called down the deck, rapid bursts of language, one after another. Looks of relief, looks of anticipation, gratitude at the approach of salvation, fore and aft.
“I tell them, we see another ship. Get more food now. They very happy.”
James nodded. He resisted looking over the side, knew that they would not be able to see the ship yet.
Instead he looked aloft at the baggy sails, the shrouds and stays where the tar had worn away and the cordage shone white in patches like dried bone. This was a tired old ship. Chase was not possible. She could never run another ship down. The strong and brave men on her crew might overwhelm a victim, might take her easily enough, but the trick would be in getting close enough to board.
James turned without a word, began to pace quickly up and down the quarterdeck in an unconscious imitation of Thomas Marlowe. Think, think, think. Whipping his thoughts into some order, like turning a rabble into a ship’s crew.
Priorities.
First, was this a ship worth attacking, was it a ship they might hope to carry? Was it a man-of-war, a slaver, a merchantman?
He stopped pacing, turned to Madshaka, who was waiting patiently for instruction. “I am going aloft, see what I can of this ship. You get the heads of the tribes together here. Tell them what we talked about, how we take this ship for the food, just the food.”
“I tell them. But they want to vote on it, you know. Like the pirates do. Like we talk about.”
James paused, scowled. Anger sparked like a flash in a pan. Damn it all, damn their hobbling votes.
But, of course, Madshaka was right. He had been happy to have the full responsibility lifted before, when he did not want to make a decision. Now that he knew what course he wished to take he was not so happy to have his authority questioned.
So damn me too, for a false bastard.
“You right. You tell them what we talked about, make them understand we got to just take food. They can vote, but you try and see they vote right.”
“I tell them,” Madshaka assured him.
James stepped toward the shrouds, paused, turned back. Met Madshaka’s eyes. “You tell them.”
“I tell them.” Madshaka was not smiling now.
James held his gaze for a second more. “Good.” He picked up the one remaining telescope and climbed into the main shrouds and then up aloft.
He gained the crosstrees and looked south in the direction that the lookout was pointing. They were in an area where one might expect ships of all kinds. Just the day before, James had thought he had heard gunfire to the west of them, broadsides and single guns going off. But it had been very faint, too faint to be certain. It had lasted about an hour and then there had been nothing more.
He had not bothered to mention it to the others.
Now he had the distant ship in sight and he raised up the telescope and looked through. It was not a very powerful glass, and there was a crack in the object lens, which was no doubt why it was left behind, but it did give James a somewhat improved view.
She was three or four miles away, downwind, but not directly. Ship rigged, about the size of the tobacco ships that sailed from the Chesapeake, perhaps a bit bigger. But a man-of-war? He really did not know. Climbing aloft he had thought that it would be obvious, but now looking at the ship he realized that he could not tell.
He lowered the glass, continued to stare south, his mind working on this new problem. Attack or flee? He pushed his thoughts into order.
Either this ship was a man-of-war or it was not, and he could not tell
one way or another.
If they attacked the ship, there was a chance they might all be killed.
If they did not get food in a day or so, then people would most definitely start to die.
The options were possible death versus certain death. There really was no decision. He stuck the telescope in his shirt and headed down again.
Chapter 11
King James poured a little trail of powder in the cannon’s touchhole, stepped back, and gestured to the men on the train tackles to haul away. They pulled; the gun rumbled up to the gunport.
They were small guns, four-pounders, and of all the men aboard, James alone had any experience in loading and firing such weapons. He had not bothered training the others. It was pointless. They would never win a fight with guns.
He gestured for the ad hoc gun crew to stand clear, and when they were out of the way he brought the match down on the powder train. A hiss, a spark, and then the gun went off, blowing smoke out over the empty sea. It was not an attack. It was a signal. A cry of distress.
James looked aloft. The sails were hanging half in their gear, sloppy, flogging in the wind. The ensign was flying upside down. The ship looked very much as she had the first time he had seen her, coming through the capes. But this time the black men were not chained down in the hold. This time they were armed and crouching out of sight behind the bulwarks.
He looked at Madshaka, wondered if he himself looked as foolish as the grumete did. Madshaka’s face and hands were painted white, with paint they had found in the bosun’s locker, as were James’s. They were wearing bits of the officers’ clothes that they had collected from those men who had been wearing them: coats, waistcoats, breeches. Like the paint, it was enough to give the right impression from a distance.
James felt like an idiot, painted up in that way. But it had been his idea, and he could think of no other.
He looked up at Cato, stationed as lookout high up on the mainmast, could see he had nothing to report.
“Tell them to haul the gun in,” James said to Madshaka, and Madshaka repeated the words. An unshotted gun did not hurl itself inboard like a loaded one. James picked up the wet swab, thrust it down the muzzle, ladled powder into the barrel once more, then rammed wadding home and gestured for the gun to be run out again.
Once the distance between the two ships had closed, there would be no mistaking their ship for anything but what she was. All the scrubbing and brimstone in the world would not wash away the stink from a blackbirder.
If a blackbirder were to run down on a strange vessel, she would immediately arouse suspicion. If an
