Flash For Freedom!

minds are not as ours … they are weak and foolish and an easy prey to scoundrels like Spring … but they have souls … and this slavery is an abomination in God's sight!' He struggled to get farther up. 'Say you will help … for pity's sake!'

'What do you want me to do?'

'Take those letters.' His voice was weakening, and I could see blood seeping through his blanket; he must have opened his wound in his exertion. 'Then … my chest … there under the canvas shirt … packet. Copy of Spring's accounts … last voyage. I took some of them … completed them this trip. Letters, too … evidence against him … and others. For God's sake get them to the Admiralty … or the American Navy people … oh, dear God!'

He fell back, moaning, but by then I was ferreting through his chest, snatching out a slender packet sewn in an oilskin cover. I slipped it and the letters quickly out of sight in my pocket, and bent over his cot.

'Go on, man! What more? Are there any others like yourself — agents, officers, or what?'

But he just lay there, coughing weakly and breathing in little moaning gasps. I closed the chest and sat down to see if he would revive again, and after a moment he began to mumble; I leaned close, but it was a moment before I could make out what he was saying — in fact, he was singing, in a little whisper at the back of his throat; it was that sad little song, 'The Lass so good and true', that they call 'Danny Boy' nowadays. I knew at once, without telling, that it was the song his mother had used to sing him to sleep, for he began to smile a little, with his eyes closed. I could have kicked the brute; if he'd spent less time making his soul and belly-aching to me about hell fire, and minded his duty, he would have had time to tell me more about his mission. Not that I cared a button for that, but all knowledge is useful when you're in the grip of folk like Spring. But he was going to slip his cable with all the good scandal untold, by the looks of it.

Sure enough, when his whispered song died away, he began muttering, 'Mother … Sally … yes, Mother … cold . . ,' but nothing to make sense. It was maddening. Of course, my generation were preoccupied with their mothers, which sets me apart; mine died when I was little, you see, and I never really knew her, which may account for a deal. It crossed my mind, in that moment, what will I have to say in the last few seconds before I slip over the edge of life? Whose name will be on my repentant lips? My father's ? — now there would be a cheery vision to carry over to the other side, all boozy face and rasping voice. Elspeth's? I doubt it. Some of the other ladies? — Lola, or Natasha or Takes-AwayClouds-Woman or Leonie or Lady White Willow or … no, there wouldn't be time. I'll have to wait and see. Which reminds me, young Harry East, when they pulled what was left of him into the dooli at Cawnpore, muttered, 'Tell the doctor', and everyone thought he meant the surgeon — but I knew different. He meant Arnold, which as a dying thought has one advantage, that the Devil, if you meet him later, will be an improvement.

So I speculated, as Comber's breathing slackened, and then I saw the shadow of death cross his wasted face (there is such a shadow, down from the temple and across to the chin, seen it scores of times) and he was gone. I pulled the blanket over his head, went through his jacket pockets and chest, but found nothing worth while except a pencil case and a good clasp knife, which I appropriated, and then went topsides to tell Spring.

'He's gone at last, is he?' was his charitable comment. 'Aye, omne capax movet urna nomen.*[* Every name is shaken in death's great urn.] We need not pretend he is a great loss. Blackwall fashion was about his style²⁵ — a sound enough seaman, but better fitted for an Indiaman than our trade. Very good, you can tell the sailmaker to bundle him up; we'll bury him tomorrow.' And he continued to survey the horizon through his glass, while I slipped away to think over the momentous news I'd learned from the dying Comber. Obviously the fact that he had been an Admiralty man working against the slavers was of the first importance, but for the life of me I couldn't see what use it might be to me. For all that I'd soothed his passing moments out of an uncommon civility, I didn't mind a snap whether his precious evidence ever reached government hands or not. In fact, it seemed to me that if an information was laid against the Balliol College and her master, those who had sailed with him would land in the dock as well, and they included H. Flashman, albeit he wasn't aboard willingly. Yet my knowledge, and Comber's, might be valuable somehow, provided I kept them safe from prying eyes.

So it seemed to me at the time anyway, so I took a leaf out of Comber's book, and in the privacy of my berth sewed his two letters into my belt. I hesitated a long while over the packet, for I knew the secrets it contained would be fatally dangerous to whoever shared them; if Spring ever found out it would be a slit throat and a watery grave for me. But curiosity got the better of me in the end; I opened it carefully so that it could be re-sealed, and was presently goggling my way through the contents.

It was prime stuff, no question: all Spring's accounts for 1847 copied out in minute writing — how many niggers shipped, how many sold at Roatan and how many at the Bay of Pigs, the names of buyers and traders; a full description of deals and prices and orders on British and American banks. There was enough to hang old John Charity ten times over, but that wasn't the best of it; Comber had been at his letters, too, and while some of them were in cypher, quite a few were in English. They included one from the London firm which had supplied the trade goods for our present voyage; another from New York lawyers who seemed to represent American investors (for Comber had annotated it with a list of names marked 'U.S. interests, owners') and — oh, b––y rapture! — a document describing the transfer of the Balliol College from its American builders, Brown & Bell, to a concern in London among the names of whose directors was one J. Morrison. I almost whooped at the sight of it — what Spring was thinking of to keep such damaging evidence aboard his vessel I couldn't fathom, but there it was. I found Morrison mentioned in one other letter, and a score of names besides; it might not be enough to hang him, or them, but I was certain sure he would sell his rotten little soul to keep these papers from the public gaze.

I had him! The knowledge was like a warm bath — with these papers at my command I could, when I got home again, turn the screw on the little shark until he hollered uncle. No longer would I be the poor relation; I would have evidence that could ruin him, commercially and socially, and perhaps put him in the dock as well, and the price of my silence would be a free run through his moneybags. By gad, I'd be set for life. A seat in the House? It would be a seat on the board, at least, and grovelling civility from him to me for a change. He'd rue the day he shanghaied me aboard his lousy slave ship.

Chuckling happily, I sewed it all up again in its oilskin, and stitched this carefully into the lining of my coat. There it would stay until I got home and it could be employed in safety to my enrichment and Morrison's confusion, I reflected, as I went back on deck later, that it all came from my act of Christian kindness in listening by Comber's deathbed and comforting his last moments. There's no doubt about it; virtue isn't always just its own reward.

Comber wasn't buried the next day, because one of the slaves died during the night, and when the watch found him at dawn they naturally heaved the body overside to the sharks. For some reason this sent Spring into a passion; he wasn't having a white man buried at sea on the same day as a black had been slung over, which seemed to be stretching it a bit, but a lot of the older hands agreed with him. It beats me; when I go they can plant me in with the whole population of Timbuctoo, but others see things differently. Spring, now, was mad about little things like that, and when eventually we did come to bury Comber on the morning after, and his body had been laid out on a plank by the rail, all neatly stitched up in sail-cloth, our fastidious commander played merry h—l because no one had thought to cover it with a flag. This on a Dahomey slaver, mark you. So we all had to wait with our hats off while Looney was despatched to get a colour from the flag locker, and Spring stamped up and down with his Prayer Book under his arm, cursing the delay, and Mrs Spring sat by with her accordion, She was wearing a floral bonnet in honour of the occasion, secured with a black scarf for mourning, and her face wore its usual expression of vacant amiability.

Looney came back presently, and you wouldn't believe it, he was carrying the Brazilian colours. We were wearing them at the moment, this being the Middle Passage,²⁶ so I suppose he thought he'd done right, but Spring flew into a towering passion.

'D—n your lousy eyes!' cries he, 'Take that infernal Dago duster out of my sight — would you bury an Englishman under that?' And he knocked Looney sprawling and then kicked him into the scuppers. He cursed him something fearful, the scar on his head bright crimson, until one of the hands brought a Union Jack, and then we got on with the service. Spring rattled through it, the shotted corpse went over with a splash, Mrs Spring struck up, we all sang 'Rock af Ages', and the 'amen' hadn't died away before Spring had strode to the unfortunate Looney and kicked his backside again so hard that he went clean down the booby hatch to the main deck. I've often thought how instructive it would have been for our divinity students to see how the offices for the dead were conducted aboard the Balliol College.

However, this was just another incident which I relate to show you what kind of a lunatic Spring was; I