Flash For Freedom!

the figures on her deck, all far too close for comfort. I saw, in the intervals of scampering about after Peabody, and hauling on the ropes, that she would be able to fire in earnest soon, and I was just commending my soul to God and wondering if I could turn Queen's Evidence, when Spring let loose another volley of orders, there was a tremendous cracking and bellying of sails overhead, and the Balliol College seemed to spin round on her heel, plunge over with a lurch that brought my breakfast up, and then go bowling away across the track of the sloop.

I don't understand it, of course, but in the next hour Spring executed a similar manoeuvre half a dozen times, while the wind freshened, and although the sloop copied our movements, so far as I could see, she always somehow finished up farther away — no doubt any yachtsman could explain it. The hands cheered and laughed, although you could hardly hear them for the fearful howling that was coming from below decks, where the slaves were spewing and yelling in terror at the bucketing of the ship. And then we were standing out to sea again, and the sloop was away off our quarter, still flying along, but making no headway at all.

Only then did Spring hand over the wheel and come to the stern rail, where he delivered a catechism to the distant Navy vessel, calling them lubberly sons of dogs and shaking his fist at them.

'There's where the tax-payer's money goes!' he roared. 'That's what's supposed to defend us against the French! Look at them! I could sail rings round 'em in a Blackwall coal lighter! Quo, quo, scelesti ruitis,*[* Where are you hastening, fools?] eh? I tell you, Mr Sullivan, a crew of All Souls dons could do better on a raft! What the blazes are they letting into the Navy these days? He'll be some rum-soaked short-haul pensioner, no doubt — either that or a beardless brat with a father in the Lords and some ladylike Mama whoring round the Admiralty. My stars, wouldn't I like to put them all to sea under Bully Waterman,²⁴ or let 'em learn their trade in an opium clipper with a Down East Yankee skipper and a Scotch owner — you hear that, you Port Mahon bumboatman, you? You ought to bean the beach!'

It was fine stuff, but wasted since the sloop was miles away; by afternoon she was just a speck on the horizon, and the coast of Africa had vanished behind us. The ease of our escape, I was told, all came of Spring knowing his weather, for standing away from the Slave coast was evidently a most unchancy business, and many slavers had been caught in the calms that so often beset them there. But some of the deltas and river mouths could be relied on to give you wind, and Spring knew all about this; it was also true that he was a first-rate seaman with a prime crew, and together they were probably a match for anything. We did sight another patrol vessel on the following day, but we were tearing along at such a rate that she never came near us, and Spring didn't even interrupt his dinner.

It was blowing fairly stiffish now, and the slaves had an abominable time. For the first few days they just lay howling and weeping in their sea-sickness, but Spring insisted that the huge coppers and tubs in which their pulse porridge was made should be kept at work, and by flogging one of the bucks down on the slave deck in the sight of his fellows he terrified them into eating, ill as they were. Murphy was constantly at work, especially among the women, to make sure that none died, and twice a day the hoses were turned on to scour out the filth which would otherwise have bred an epidemic in no time.

About the fourth day, the wind dropped, the slaves stopped spewing, and the cooks who tended the mess tubs became the hardest-worked men on the ship. One thing the Balliol College didn't stint to its human cargo, and that was food — which was good business, of course. Spring also insisted that lime juice be issued, and the slaves forced to drink it — they hated it, but when they saw it was that or the cat they swilled it down fast enough. They were still in a fearful funk, of course, since they had no idea of what the ocean was like, and couldn't seem to get used to the rolling of the ship; when they weren't eating or sleeping they just lay there in their long black rows, wailing and rolling their eyes like frightened sheep. There was no spirit in them at all, and I began to see why the slavers thought of them not as humans, but as animals.

Every day they went through a curious exercise which was called dancing. They were brought up on deck in batches, and forced to caper about for half an hour, leaping up and down and trotting round the deck. This of course was just to keep them in trim; they didn't like that, either, at first, and we had to smarten them with rope's ends to get them moving. But after the first few times they began to enjoy it, and it was the most ludicrous sight to see them skipping and shuffling round the deck, clapping their hand's and even crooning to themselves, the bolder spirits grinning and rolling their eyes — they were just like children, forgetting the misery of their condition, and sky-larking about, quite delighted if the hands cried encouragement to them. One of the fellows had a fiddle, on which he would play jigs and reels, and the niggers would try to out-do each other in capering to the music.

The men got over their fears faster than the women, who danced with much less jollity, although everyone on the ship was always on hand to watch them. You couldn't have called any of 'em pretty, with their pug faces and great woolly mops of hair, but they had fine shapely bodies, and none of us had seen a proper woman for near on six weeks. The sight of those naked black bodies shuffling and swaying got me into a fever the first time I saw it, and the others were the same, licking their lips and muttering when was Murphy the surgeon going to set about his business?

I understood what this meant when we were all ordered to report and strip down for Murphy in his berth, where he examined us carefully to see that none of us had pox or crabs or yaws or any of the interesting diseases that wicked saiormen are prone to. When we were pronounced clean Spring had us each pick out a black wench — I thought this was by way of seaman's comforts, but it turned out that the more black wenches who could be got pregnant by white men, the better the traders liked it, for they would produce mulatto children, who being half- white were smarter and more valuable than pure blacks. The Cuban dealers trusted Spring, and if he could guarantee that all his female slaves had been bulled by his crew, it would add to their price.

'I want all these wenches pupped,' says he, 'but you'll do it decently, d'you hear, salvo pudore,*[* Without offending modesty.] in your quarters. I'll not have Mrs Spring offended.'

It may sound like just the kind of holiday for a fellow like me, but it was no great fun as it turned out. I picked out a likely enough big wench, jet black and the liveliest dancer of the lot, but she knew nothing, and she reeked of jungle even when she was scrubbed down. I tried to coax some spirit into her, first by kindness and then by rope's end, but she was no more use than a bishop's maiden aunt. However, one has to make do, and in the intervals of our laborious grappling I tried to indulge my interest in foreign languages, which apart from horses is the only talent I can boast. I can usually make good use of a native pillow partner in this way, provided she speaks English, but of course this one didn't, and was as stupid as a Berkshire hog into the bargain. So it was no go as far as learning anything was concerned, but I did succeed in teaching her a few useful English words and phrases like:

'Me Lady Caroline Lamb. Me best rattle in Balliol College.' The hands thought this a great joke, and just for devilment I also taught her a tag from Horace, and with immense work got her perfect in it, so that when you pinched her backside she would squeak out:

'Civis Romanus sum. Odi pro fanum vulgus.'*[* I am a Roman citizen. I hate vulgar profane persons.]

Spring almost leaped out of his skin when he heard it, and was not at all amused. He took the opportunity to upbraid me for not having sent her back to the slave-deck and taken another wench, for he wanted them all covered; I said I didn't want to break in any more of 'em, and suggested that if this one learned a little English it might add to her value; he raised his voice and d—-d my impudence, not realising that Mrs Spring had come up the companion and could hear us. She startled him by suddenly remarking:

'Mr Flashman is a constant heart. I knew it the moment I first saw him.'

She was mad, of course, but Spring was much put out, because she wasn't meant to know what was going on with the black women. But he let me keep Lady Caroline Lamb.

So it was a pleasant enough cruise to begin with, for the weather blew just enough to give us a good passage without being too rough for the niggers; their health remained good, with no deaths in the first week, which greatly pleased Spring; the work was light above deck, as it always is in a fast ship with a favourable wind, and there was time to sit about watching the flying fish and listening to the hands swapping yarns — my respect for them had increased mightily over our encounter with the British sloop, which had confirmed my earlier impression that these were no ordinary packet rats with the points knocked off their knives, but prime hands. And I've learned that no time is wasted which is spent listening to men who really know their work.

However, as always when I feel I can loaf for a spell, something happened which drove all other thoughts out of my head — even my daydreams about Elspeth, and how I might contrive to come home respectably before too long, and scupper old Morrison, too, if possible. What happened was little enough, and not unexpected, but in the long run it certainly saved my liberty, and probably my life.