Flash For Freedom!

But it's all by the way; the main thing is that Spring had a good black king to work with, a horrible old creature named Gezo, who lorded it over the back country of Dahomey. Now that the Windward Coast wasn't the place any more, and the slavers were concentrating round the corner in the White Man's Grave, stretches like Dahomey and Benin and the Oil rivers were where the real high jinks were to be found. The Navy lay in all the time at places like Whydah and Lagos, and your sharp captains like Spring were as likely as not to use the lonelier rivers and lagoons, where they could load up at their leisure, provided no one spotted 'em coming in.¹⁴

After our first landfall we bore away south, and came eastabout to Cape Palmas, where you could see the palm trees that gave it its name down by the water's edge, and so along the Ivory Coast and Gold Coast past Three Points to Whydah, where we put into the open roads. Spring had the Stars and Stripes at the masthead, and was safe enough, for there wasn't a Yankee in port. There were two British naval slops, but they wouldn't come near us — this was where the slavers scored, Kirk told me; the Yanks wouldn't let any but their own navy search an American ship, so our blue-jackets would interfere only with Portuguese and Spaniards and so on.

We lay off, looking at the long yellow beach with the factories and barracoons behind it, and the huge rollers crashing on the sand, and it was as hot as hell's kitchen. I watched the kites diving and snatching among the hundreds of small craft plying about between ships and shore, and the great Kroo canoes riding the surf, and tried to fan away the stench that rose from all the filth rotting on the oily water. I remembered what Kinnie had said:

'Oh, sailor, beware of the Bight o' Benin.

There's one as comes out for a hundred goes in.'

You could smell the sickness on the wind, and I wondered why Spring, who was talking at the rail with Sullivan and scanning the shore with his glass, had put in here. But presently out comes a big Kroo canoe, with half a dozen niggers on board, who hailed us, and for the first time I heard that queer Coast lingo which passes for a language from Gambia to the Cape.

'Hollo, Tommy Rot,' cries Spring, 'where Pedro Blanco?'¹⁵ 'Hollo, sah,' sings out one of the Kroos. 'He lib for Bonny no catch two, three week.'

'Why he no lib for come? Him sabby me make palaver, plenty plenty nigras. Come me plenty good stuff, what can do, him lib Bonny?'

'Him say Spagnole fella, Sanchez, lib for Dahomey ribber. Him make strong palaver, no goddam bobbery. You take Tommy Rot, sah, catch Rum Punch, Tiny Tim, plenty good fella, all way ribber. Make good nigra palaver wid Spagnole fella, no Inglish Yankee gunboat.'

Spring cursed a bit at all this; it seemed he had been hoping to meet one Pedro Blanco at Whydah, but the Krooboy Tommy Rot was telling him instead he should make for a river where a Spaniard named Sanchez would supply him with slaves. Spring didn't like it too much.

'Blanco bobbery b––-d,' says he. 'Me want him make palaver King Gezo one time.'

'Palaver sawa sawa,' bawls the Kroo. 'Sanchez lib for Gezo, lib for you, all for true.'

'He'd better,' growls Spring. 'All right, Tommy Rot, come aboard, catch Tiny Tim, ten fella, lib for ship, sabby?'

We took on a dozen of the Kroos, grinning, lively blacks who were great favourites among the Coast skippers. They were prime seamen, but full of tricks, and went by ridiculous names like Rum Punch, Blunderbuss, Jumping Jack, Pot Belly and Mainsail. Each one had his forehead tattooed blue, and his front teeth filed to points; I thought they were cannibals, but it seems they carried these marks so that they would be recognised as Kroos and there. fore wouldn't be taken as slaves.

With them aboard, the Balliol College stood out from Whydah, and after two days sniffing about out of sight of land we put in again farther east, on to a long low rotting coast-line of mangrove crawling out into the sea among the sunken sandbars. It looked d––d unpleasant to me, but Spring at the wheel brought her through into a lagoon, beyond which lay a great delta of junglecovered islands, and through these we came to what looked like a river mouth. We inched through the shoals, with everyone hauling and sweating at the sweeps, and the Kroos out ahead in canoes, while three men either side swung the lead incessantly, chanting 'Three fathom, two and a half, two and Jesus saves, two and a half, two and Jesus saves, three fathom!'

And then, round the first bend, was a clearing, and huge stockades between river and jungle, and huts, and presently a fat Dago in a striped shirt with a hankie round his head and rings in his ears comes out in a small boat, all smiles, to meet a great storm of abuse from Spring.

'You're Sanchez, are you? And where the h—l's my cargo? Your barracoons are empty, you infernal scoundrel! Five hundred blacks I signed for with that thieving blackguard, Pedro Blanco, and look yonder!' He flung out an arm towards the empty stockades, in which the only sign of life was a few figures idiling round a cooking-fire. 'D—-l a black hide in sight apart from your own! Well, sir?'

The dago was full of squealing apologies, waving his arms and sweating. 'My dear Captain Spring! Your fears are groundless. Within two days there will be a thousand head in the barracoons. Pedro Blanco has taken order. King Gezo himself has come down country — especially on your behalf, my good sir. He is at Dogba, with his people; there has been much fighting, I understand, but all quiet now. And many, many nigras in his slave train — strong young men, hardy young women — all the best, for you, captain!' He beamed around greasily.

'You're sure?' says Spring. 'Two days? I want to be out of here in three — and I want to see King Gezo, d'you hear?'

Sanchez spread his sticky hands. 'There is no difficulty. He will be coming west from Dogba to Apokoto tomorrow.'

'Well …' growls Spring, quieting down. 'We'll see. What's he got for us. Sombas?'

'Sombas, Fulani, Adja, Aiza, Yoruba, Egbo — whatever the captain requires.'

'Is that so? Well, I'll have six hundred, then, 'stead of five. And no sickly niggers, see? They're not going to be auctioned off with their arses stuffed with tar, mind that! I want sound stock.'¹⁶

Sanchez took his leave, full of good wishes, and the Balliol College was made fast, as close to the bank as she could be warped. Men were sent aloft to hang her topmasts with leaves and creepers, so that no patrol vessel out at sea might spot us, and Sanchez sent men aboard to unload the cargo. This meant work for me, making sure they pinched nothing, and by the time the last bale was out and under the guard of Sanchez's native soldiers, I was running with sweat. It was a hellish place; green jungle all around, and steam coming off the brown oily surface of the water as though it were a bath; clouds of midges descended as soon as the sun dropped, and the heat pressed in on you like a blanket, so that all you could do was lie stifling, with your chest heaving and the perspiration pouring off you. Three days, Spring had said; it was a wonder to me that we had survived three hours.

That night Spring called a council in his cabin, of all his officers; I was there, as supercargo, but you can be sure I was well out of the rnnning. I don't suppose I've listened to a more interesting discussion in my life, though, unless it was Grant and Lee meeting in the farmhouse, or Lucan and my old pal Cardigan clawing at each other like female cousins at Balaclava. Certainly, for technical knowledge, Spring's little circle was an eye-opener.

'Six hundred,' says Spring. 'More than I'd bargained for; it'll mean fifteen inches for the bucks, and I want two bucks for every female, and no d––d calves.'

'That's an inch under the old measure, cap'n,' says Kinnie. 'Might do for your Guineas, but it's tight for Dahomeys. Why, they're near as big as Mandingos, some of 'em, an' Mandingos take your sixteen inches, easy.'

'I've seen the Portugoosers carry Mande's in less than that,' says Sullivan.

'An' had twenty in the hundred die on 'em, likely.'

'No fear. They put bucks in with wenches — reckon they spend all their time on top of each other, an' save space that way.'

Spring didn't join in their laughter. 'I'll have no mixing of male and female,' he growled. 'That's the surest way to trouble I know. I'm surprised at you, Mr Sullivan.'

'Just a joke, sir. But I reckon sixteen inches, if we dance 'em regular.'

'I'm obliged to you for your opinion. Dance or not, they get fifteen inches, and the women twelve.'¹⁷

Kinnie shook his head. 'That won't do, sir. These Dahomey b––-s takes as much as the men, any day.