Читать книгу Flash for Freedom! - George Fraser MacDonald - Страница 11

As it turned out, Bentinck was wrong, thank God; the little louse didn’t die, but it was a near-run thing. Apart from a broken nose, his skull was fractured in the fall, and for a couple of days he hung on the edge, with a Bristol horse-leech working like fury to save him from going over. Once he regained consciousness, and had the impertinence to say, ‘Tell Flashman I forgive him with all my heart,’ which cheered me up, because it indicated he was going to live, and wanted to appear a forgiving Christian; if he’d thought he was dying he’d have d----d me to hell and beyond.

But after that he lost consciousness again, and I went through the tortures of the pit. They had confined me to my room – Locke was a justice of the peace – and kept me there with the muff Duberly sitting outside the door like a blasted water-bailiff. I was in a fearful sweat, for if Bryant kicked the bucket it would be a hanging matter, no error, and at the thought of it I could only lie on my bed and quake. I’d seen men swing, and thought it excellent fun, but the thought of the rope rasping on my neck, and the blind being pulled over my brows, and the fearful plunge and sickening snap and blackness – my God, it had me vomiting in the corner. Well, I’ve had the noose under my chin since then, and waited blubbering for them to launch me off, and even the real thing seems no worse, looking back, than those few days of waiting in that bedroom, with the yellow primroses on the wallpaper, and the blue and red carpet on the floor with little green tigers woven into it, and the print of Harlaxton Manor, near Grantham, Lincolnshire, the seat of one John Longden, Esq., which hung above the bed – I can still recite the whole caption.

With the thought of the gallows driving everything else from my mind, it was small consolation to learn from Duberly – who seemed to be in a mortal funk himself over the whole business – that there was by no means complete agreement that I had been caught cheating. D’Israeli – he was clever, I’ll say that for him – had sensibly pointed out that a detected cheat wouldn’t have hauled the evidence out of his pocket publicly as soon as he was challenged. He maintained I would have protested, and refused to be searched – he was quite right, of course, but most of the other pious hypocrites disagreed with him, and the general feeling was that I was a fraud and a dangerous maniac who would be well served if I finished up in the prison lime-pit. Whatever happened, it was a hideous scandal; the house had emptied as if by magic next day, Mrs Locke was in a decline, and her husband was apparently only waiting to see how Bryant fared before turning me over to the police.

I don’t know, even now, what was determined, or who determined it, in those few days, except that old Morrison was obviously up to the neck in it. Whatever happened to Bryant, my political career was obviously over before it had begun; at best I was probably disgraced as a cheat, and liable to sentence for assault – that was if Bryant lived. In any event, I was a liability to Morrison henceforth, and whether he decided to try to get rid of me permanently, or planned simply to get me out of harm’s way for a time, is something on which I’ve never made up my mind. In fact, I don’t suppose he cared above half whether I lived or died, so long as his own interests weren’t harmed.

He came to see me on the fifth day, and told me that Bryant was out of danger, and I was so relieved that I was almost happy as I listened to him denouncing me for a wastrel, a fornicator, a cheat, a liar, a brute, and all the rest of it – I couldn’t fault a word of it, anyway. When he was done, he plumped down, breathing like a bellows, and says:

‘My certie, but ye’re easier oot o’ this than ye deserve. It’s no’ your fault the mark o’ Cain isnae on yer broo this day – a beast, that’s whit ye are, Flashman, a ragin’, evil beast!’ And he mopped his face. ‘Weel, Locke isnae goin’ tae press charges – ye have me tae thank for that – and this fellow Bryant’ll keep mum. Huh! A few hundred’ll tak’ care of him – he’s anither “officer and gentleman” like yersel’. I could buy the lot o’ ye! Jist trash.’ He snarled away under his breath, and shot me a look. ‘But we’ll no’ hush up the scandal, for a’ that. Ye cannae come home – ye’re aware o’ that, I suppose?’

I didn’t argue; I couldn’t, but I was ill-advised enough to mutter something about Elspeth, and for a moment I thought he would strike me. His face went purple, and his teeth chattered.

‘Mention her name tae me again – jist once again, and as Goad’s my witness I’ll see ye transported for this week’s work! Ye’ll rue the day ye ever set eyes on her – aye, as I have done, most bitterly. Goad alone knows what I and mine have done tae be punished by … you!’

Well, at least he didn’t pray over me, like Arnold; he was a different kind of hypocrite, was Morrison, and as a man of business he didn’t waste overmuch holy vituperation before getting down to cases.

‘Ye’ll be best oot o’ England for a spell, until this d---able business has blown by – if it ever does. Your fine relatives can mak’ your peace wi’ the Horse Guards – this kind o’ scandal’ll be naethin’ new there, I daresay. For the rest, I’ve been at work tae arrange matters – and whether ye like it or not, my buckie, ye’ll jump as I whistle. D’ye see?’

‘I suppose I’ve no choice,’ says I, and then, deciding it would be politic to grovel to the old b-----d, I added: ‘Believe me, sir, I feel nothing but gratitude for what you are doing, and –’

‘Hold your tongue,’ says he. ‘Ye’re a liar. There’s no more tae be said. Now, ye’ll pack yer valise, and go at once tae Poole, and there take a room at the “Admiral” and wait until ye hear from me. Not a word to a soul, and never stir out – or ye’ll find my protection and Locke’s is withdrawn, and that’ll be a felon’s cell for ye, and beggary tae follow. There’s money,’ says he, and dropping a purse on the table he turned on his heel and stamped out.

I made no protest; he had me by the neck, and I didn’t waste time reflecting on the eagerness with which my relatives and friends have always striven to banish me from England whenever opportunity offered – my own father, Lord Cardigan, and now old Morrison. They could never get shot of me fast enough. And, as on previous occasions, there was no room for argument; I would just have to go, and see what the Lord and John Morrison provided.

I slipped away from the house at noon, and was in Poole by nightfall. And there I waited a whole week, fretting at first, but gradually getting my spirits back. At least I was free, when I might have been going to the condemned hold; whatever lay in front of me, I’d come back to England eventually – it might be no more than a year, and by that time the trouble would be half-forgotten. Curiously enough, the assault on Bryant would be far less to live down than the business over the cards, but the more I thought about that, the more it seemed that no sensible men would take Bryant’s word against mine – he was known for a toady and a dirty little hound, whereas I, quite aside from my popular fame, was bluff, honest Harry to everyone who thought they knew me. Indeed, I even toyed with the notion of going back to town and brazening the thing then and there, but I hadn’t the gall for that. It was all too fresh, and Morrison would have thrown me into the gutter for certain. No, I would just have to take my medicine, whatever it was; I’ve learned that there’s no sense in kicking against the prick – a phrase which fits old Morrison like a glove. I would just have to make the best of whatever he had in store for me.

What that was I discovered on the eighth day, when a man called to see me just as I was finishing breakfast. In fact, I had finished, and was just chivvying after the servant lass who had come to clear away the dishes from my room; I had chased her into a corner, and she was bleating that she was a good girl, which I’ll swear she wasn’t, when the knock sounded; she took advantage of it to escape, admitting the visitor while she straightened her cap and snapped her indignation at me.

‘Sauce!’ says she. ‘I never –’

‘Get out,’ says the newcomer, and she took one look at him and fled.

He kicked the door to with his heel and stood looking at me, and there was something in that look that made me bite back the d--n-your-eyes I’d been going to give him for issuing orders in my room. At first glance he was ordinary-looking enough; square built, middle height, plain trousers and tight-buttoned jacket with his hands thrust into the pockets, low-crowned round hat which he didn’t trouble to remove, and stiff-trimmed beard and moustache which gave him a powerful, business-like air. But it wasn’t that that stopped me: it was the man’s eyes. They were as pale as water in a china dish, bright and yet empty, and as cold as an ice floe. They were wide set in his brown, hook-nosed face, and they looked at you with a blind fathomless stare that told you here was a terrible man. Above them, on his brow, there was a puckered scar that ran from side and side and sometimes jerked as he talked; when he was enraged, as he often was, it turned red. Hollo, thinks I, here’s another in my gallery of happy acquaintances.

‘Mr Flashman?’ says he. He had an odd, husky voice with what sounded like a trace of North Country. ‘My name is John Charity Spring.’

It seemed d----d inappropriate to me, but he was evidently well enough pleased with it, for he sat himself down in a chair and nodded me to another. ‘We’ll waste no time, if you please,’ says he. ‘I’m under instructions from my owner to take you aboard my vessel as supercargo. You don’t know what that means, I daresay, and it’s not necessary that you should. I know why you’re shipping with me; you’ll perform such duties as I suppose to be within your power. Am I clear?’

‘Well,’ says I, ‘I don’t know about that. I don’t think I care for your tone, Mr Spring, and –’

‘Captain Spring,’ says he, and sat forward. ‘Now see here, Mr Flashman, I don’t beat about. You’re nothing to me; I gather you’ve half-killed someone and that you’re a short leap ahead of the law. I’m to give you passage out, on the instructions of Mr Morrison.’ Suddenly his voice rose to a shout, and he crashed his hand on the table. ‘Well, I don’t give a d--n! You can stay or run, d’ye see? It’s all one to me! But you don’t waste my time!’ The scar on his head was crimson, and then it faded and his voice dropped. ‘Well?’

I didn’t like the look of this one, I can tell you. But what could I do?

‘Well,’ says I, ‘you say Mr Morrison is your ship’s owner – I didn’t know he had ships.’

‘Part owner,’ says he. ‘One of my directors.’

‘I see. And where is your ship bound, Captain Spring, and where are you to take me?’

The pale eyes flickered. ‘We’re going foreign,’ says he. ‘America, and home again. The voyage may last six months, so by Christmas you’ll be back in England. As supercargo you take a share of profit – a small share – so your voyage won’t be wasted.’

‘What’s the cargo?’ says I, interested, because I remembered hearing that these short-haul traders on the Atlantic run did quite well.

‘General stuffs on the way out – Brummagem, cloths, some machinery. Cotton, sugar, molasses and so forth on the trip home.’ He snapped the words out. ‘You ask too d----d many questions, Mr Flashman, for a runner.’

‘I’m not all that much of a runner,’ says I. It didn’t sound too bad a way of putting by the time till the Bryant business was past. ‘Well, in that case, I suppose –’

‘Good,’ says he. ‘Now then: I know you’re an Army officer, and it’s in deference to that I’m making you supercargo, which means you mess aft. You’ve been in India, for what that’s worth – what d’you know of the sea?’

‘Little enough,’ says I. ‘I’ve voyaged out and home, but I sailed in Borneo waters with Rajah Brooke, and can handle a small boat.’

‘Did you now?’ The pale eyes gleamed. ‘That means you’ve been part-pirate, I daresay. You look like it – hold your tongue, sir, it doesn’t matter to me! I’ll only tell you this: on my ship there is no free-and-easy sky-larking! I saw that slut in here just now – well, henceforth you’ll fornicate when I give you leave! By God, I’ll not have it otherwise!’ He was shouting again; this fellow’s half-mad, thinks I. Then he was quiet. ‘You have languages, I understand?’

‘Why, yes. French and German, Hindoostani, Pushtu – which is a tongue …’

‘… of Northern India,’ says he impatiently. ‘I know. Get on.’

‘Well, a little Malay, a little Danish. I learn languages easily.’

‘Aye. You were educated at Rugby – you have the classics?’

‘Well,’ says I, ‘I’ve forgotten a good deal …’

‘Hah! Hiatus maxime deflendus,’^fn1 says this amazing fellow. ‘Or if you prefer it, Hiatus valde deflendus.’ He glared at me. ‘Well?’

I gaped at the man. ‘You mean? – oh, let’s see. Great – er, letting down? Great –’

‘Christ’s salvation!’ says he. ‘No wonder Arnold died young. The priceless gift of education, thrown away on brute minds! You speak living languages without difficulty, it seems – had you not the grace to pay heed, d--n your skin, to the only languages that matter?’ He jumped up and strode about.

I was getting tired of Mr Charity Spring. ‘They may matter to you,’ says I, ‘but in my experience it’s precious little good quoting Virgil to a head-hunter. And what the d---l has this to do with anything?’

He stood lowering at me, and then sneered: ‘There’s your educated Englishman, right enough. Gentlemen! Bah! Why do I waste breath on you? Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis,^fn2 by God! Well, if you’ll pack your precious traps, Mr Flashman, we’ll be off. There’s a tide to catch.’ And he was away, bawling for my account at the stairhead.

It was obvious to me that I had fallen in with a lunatic, and possibly a dangerous one, but since in my experience a great many seamen are wanting in the head I wasn’t over-concerned. He paid not the slightest heed to anything I said as we made our way down to the jetty with my valise behind on a hand-cart, but occasionally he would bark a question at me, and it was this that eventually prodded me into recollecting one of the few Latin tags which has stuck in my mind – mainly because it was flogged into me at school as a punishment for talking in class. He had been demanding information about my Indian service, mighty offensively, too, so I snapped at him:

‘Percunctatorem fugitus nam garrulus idem est’,^fn3 which I thought was pretty fair, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

‘Horace, by G-d!’ he shouted. ‘We’ll make something of you yet. But it is fugito, d’ye see, not fugitus. Come on, man, make haste.’

He got little opportunity to catechise me after this, for the first stage of our journey was in a cockly little fishing boat that took us out into the Channel, and since it was h--lish rough I was in no condition for conversation. I’m an experienced sailor, which is to say I’ve heaved my guts over the rail into all the Seven Seas, and before we were ten minutes out I was sprawled in the scuppers wishing to God I’d gone back to London and faced the music. This spewing empty misery continued, as it always does, for hours, and I was still green and wobbly-kneed when at evening we came into a bay on the French coast, and sighted Mr Spring’s vessel riding at anchor. Gazing blearily at it as we approached, I was astonished at its size; it was long and lean and black, with three masts, not unlike the clippers of later years. As we came under her counter, I saw the lettering on her side: it read Balliol College.

‘Ah,’ says I to Spring, who was by me just then. ‘You were at Balliol, were you?’

‘No,’ says he, mighty short. ‘I am an Oriel man myself.’

‘Then why is your ship called Balliol College?’

I saw his teeth clench and his scar darkened up. ‘Because I hate the b----y place!’ he cried in passion. He took a turn about and came back to me. ‘My father and brothers were Balliol men, d’you see? Does that answer you, Mr Flashman?’

Well, it didn’t, but at that moment my belly revolted again, and when we came aboard I had to be helped up the ladder, retching and groaning and falling a-sprawl on the deck. I heard a voice say, ‘Christ, it’s Nelson’, and then I was half-carried away, and dropped on a bunk somewhere, alone in my misery while in the distance I heard the hateful voice of John Charity Spring bawling orders. I vowed then, as I’ve vowed fifty times since, that this was the last time I’d ever permit myself to be lured aboard a ship, but my mind must still have been working a little, because as I dropped off to sleep I remember wondering: why does a British ship have to sail from the French coast? But I was too tired and ill to worry just then.

Sometime later someone brought me broth, and having spewed it on to the floor I felt well enough to get up and stagger on deck. It was half-dark, but the stars were out, and to port there were lights twinkling on the French coast. I looked north, towards England, but there was nothing to be seen but grey sea, and suddenly I thought, my G-d, what am I doing here? Where the deuce am I going? Who is this man Spring? Here I was, who only a couple of weeks before had been rolling down to Wiltshire like a lord, with the intention of going into politics, and now I was shivering with sea-sickness on an ocean-going barque commanded by some kind of mad Oxford don – it was too much, and I found I was babbling to myself by the rail.

It’s always the way, of course. You’re coasting along and then the current grips you, and you’re swept into events and places that you couldn’t even have dreamed about. It seemed to have happened so quickly, but as I looked miserably back over the past fortnight there wasn’t, that I could see, anything I could have done that would have prevented what was now happening to me. I couldn’t have resisted Morrison, or refused Spring – I’d had to do what I was told, and here I was. I found myself blubbering as I gazed over the rail at the empty waste of sea – if only I hadn’t got lusty after that little b---h Fanny, and played cards with her, and hit that swine Bryant – ah, but what was the use? It was done, and I was going God knew where, and leaving Elspeth and my life of ease and drinking and guzzling and mounting women behind. But it was too bad, and I was full of self-pity and rage as I watched the water slipping past.

Of course, if I’d been like Jack Merry or Dick Champion, or any of the other plucky little prigs that Tom Brown and his cronies used to read about, setting off to seek my fortune on the bounding wave, I’d have brushed aside a manly tear and faced the future with the stout heart of youth, while old Bosun McHearty clapped me on the shoulder and held me enthralled with tales of the South Seas, and I would have gone to bed at last thinking of my mother and resolving to prove worthy of my resolute and Christian commander, Captain Freeman. (God knows how many young idiots have gone to sea after being fed that kind of lying pap in their nursery books.) Perhaps at twenty-six I was too old and hard-used, for instead of a manly tear I did another manly vomit, and in place of Bosun McHearty there came a rush of seamen tailing on a rope across the deck, hurling me aside with a cry of ‘Stand from under, you --- farmer!’, while from the dark above me my Christian commander bellowed at me to get below and not hinder work. So I went, and fell asleep thinking not of my mother, or of the credit I’d bring my family, but of the chance I’d missed in not rogering Fanny Locke that afternoon at Roundway Down. Aye, the vain regrets of youth.

You will judge from this that I wasn’t cut out for the life on the ocean wave. I can’t deny it; if Captain Marryat had had to write about me he’d have burned his pen, signed on a Cardiff tramp, and been buried at sea. For one thing, in my first few days aboard I did not thrash the ship’s bully, make friends with the nigger cook, or learn how to gammon a bosprit from a leathery old salt who called me a likely lad. No, I spent those days in my bunk feeling d----d ill, and only crawling on deck occasionally to take the air and quickly scurry below again to my berth. I was a sea-green and corruptible Flashy in those days.

Nor did I make friends, for I saw only four people and disliked all of them. The first was the ship’s doctor, a big-bellied lout of an Irishman who looked as though he’d be more at home with a bottle than a lancet, and had cold, clammy hands. He gave me a draught for my sea-sickness which made it worse, and then staggered away to be ill himself. He was followed by a queer, old-young creature with wispy hair who shuffled in carrying a bowl from which he slopped some evil-looking muck; when I asked him who the d---l he was he jerked his head in a nervous tic and stammered:

‘Please, sir, I’m Sammy.’

‘Sammy what?’

‘Nossir, please sir, Sammy Snivels, cap’n calls me. But they calls me Looney, mostly.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Please sir, it’s gruel. The doctor sez for you to eat it, please, sir,’ and he lumbered forward and spilled half of it over my cot.

‘D--n you!’ cries I, and weak and all as I was I caught him a back-handed swipe on the face that sent him half across the cabin. ‘Take your filth and get out!’

He mowed at me, and tried to scrape some of the stuff off the floor back into the bowl. ‘Doctor’ll thump me if you don’t take it, please, sir,’ says he, pushing it at me again. ‘Please, sir, it’s nice tack, an’ all – please, sir,’ and then he squealed as I lunged out at him, dropped the bowl, and fairly ran for it. I was too weak to do more than curse after him, but I promised myself that when I was better I would put myself in a better frame of mind by giving the blundering half-wit a thumping on my own account, to keep the doctor’s company.

Next man in was no half-wit, but a nimble little ferret of a ship’s boy with a loose lip and a cast in one eye. He gave me a shifty grin and sniffed at the spilled gruel.

‘Looney didn’t ’ave no luck, did ’e?’ says he. ‘I told ’em gruel wouldn’t go down, no’ow.’

I told him to go to blazes and leave me alone.

‘Feelin’ groggy, eh?’ says he, moving towards the bunk. ‘Grub’s no good ter you, mate. Tell yer wot; I’ll get in bed wiv yer for a shillin’.’

‘Get out, you dirty little b-----d,’ says I, for I knew his kind; Rugby had been crawling with ’em. ‘I’d sooner have your great-grandmother.’

‘Snooks!’ says he, putting out his tongue. ‘You’ll sing a different tune after three months at sea an’ not a wench in sight. It’ll be two bob then!’

I flung a pot at him, but missed, and he let fly a stream of the richest filth I’ve ever listened to. ‘I’ll get Mister Comber ter you, yer big black swine!’ he finished up. ‘’E’ll give you what for! Ta-ta!’ And with that he slipped out, thumbing his nose.

Mr Comber was the fourth of my new acquaintances. He was third mate, and shared the cabin with me, and I couldn’t make him out. He was civil, although he said little enough, but the odd thing was, he was a gentleman, and had obviously been to a good school. What a playing-field beauty like this was doing on a merchantman I couldn’t see, but I held my tongue and watched him. He was about my age, tall and fair-haired, and too sure of himself for me to get on the wrong side of. I guessed he was as puzzled about me as I was about him, but I was feeling too poorly at first to give much heed to him. He didn’t champion the cabin boy, by the way, so that worthy’s threat had obviously been bluff.

It was four or five days before I got my sea legs, and by then I was heartily sick of the Balliol College. Nowadays you have no notion of what a sailing-ship was like in the ’forties; people who travel P.O.S.H. in a steam packet can’t imagine, for one thing, the h---ish continual din of a wooden vessel – the incessant creaking and groaning of timber and cordage, like a fiend’s orchestra playing the same discordant notes, regular as clockwork, each time she rolled. And, by G-d, they rolled, far worse than iron boats, bucketing up and down, and stinking too, with the musty stale smell of a floating cathedral, and the bilges plashing like a giant’s innards. Oh, it was the life for a roaring boy, all right, and that was only the start of it. I didn’t know it, but I was seeing the Balliol College at her best.

One morning, when I was sufficiently recovered to hold down the gruel that Looney brought me, and strong enough to kick his backside into the bargain, comes Captain Spring to tell me I’d lain long enough, and it was time for me to learn my duties.

‘You’ll stand your watch like everyone else,’ says he, ‘and in the meantime you can start on the work you’re paid for – which is to go through every scrap of that cargo, privatim et seriatim, and see that those longshore thieves haven’t bilked me. So get up, and come along with me.’

I followed him out on deck; we were scudding along like a flying duck with great billows of canvas spread, and a wind on the quarter deck fit to lift your hair off. There was plenty of shipping in sight, but no land, and I knew we must be well out of the Channel by now. Looking forward from the poop rail along the narrow flush deck, it seemed to me the Balliol College didn’t carry much of a crew, for all her size, but I didn’t have time to stop and stare, with Spring barking at me. He led me down the poop ladder, and then dropped through a scuttle by the mizzen mast.

‘There you are,’ says he. ‘Take a good look.’

Although I’ve done a deal more sailing than I care to remember, I’m no canvas-back, and while I know enough not to call the deck the floor, I’m no hand at nautical terms. We were in what seemed to be an enormous room stretching away forward to the foremast, where there was a bulkhead; this room ran obviously the full breadth of the ship, and was well lighted by gratings in the deck about fifteen feet above our heads. But it was unlike the interior of any ship I’d ever seen, it was so big and roomy; on either side, about four feet above the deck on which we stood, there was a kind of half-deck, perhaps seven feet deep, like a gigantic shelf, and above that yet another shelf of the same size. The space down the centre of the deck, between the shelves, was piled high with cargo in a great mound – it must have been a good seventy feet long by twelve high.

‘I’ll send my clerk to you with the manifest,’ says Spring, ‘and a couple of hands to help shift and stow.’ I became aware that the pale eyes were watching me closely. ‘Well?’

‘Is this the hold?’ says I. ‘It’s an odd-looking place for cargo.’

‘Aye,’ says he. ‘Ain’t it, though?’

Something in his voice, and in the dank feel of that great, half-empty deck, set the worms stirring inside me. I moved forward with the great heap of cargo, bales and boxes, on one side of me, and the starboard shelves on the other. It was all clean and holystoned, but there was a strange, heavy smell about it that I couldn’t place. Looking about, I noticed something in the shadows at the back of the lower shelf – I reached in, and drew out a long length of light chain, garnished here and there with large bracelets. I stood staring at them, and then dropped them with a clatter as the truth rushed in on me. Now I saw why the Balliol College had sailed from France, why her deck was this strange shape, why she was only half-full of cargo.

‘My G-d!’ cries I. ‘You’re a slaver!’

‘Good for you, Mr Flashman!’ says Spring. ‘And what then?’

‘What then?’ says I. ‘Well, you can turn your b-----d boat about, this minute, and let me ashore from her! By G-d, if I’d guessed what you were, I’d have seen you d----d, and old Morrison with you, before I set foot on your lousy packet!’

‘Dear me,’ says he softly. ‘You’re not an abolitionist, surely?’

‘D--n abolition, and you too!’ cries I. ‘I know that slaving’s piracy, and for that they stretch your neck below high-water mark! You – you tricked me into this – you and that old swine! But I won’t have it, d’ye hear? You’ll set me ashore, and –’

I was striding past him towards the ladder, as he stood with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, eyeing me under the brim of his hat. Suddenly he shot out a hand, and with surprising strength swung me round in front of him. The pale eyes gazed into mine, and then his fist drove into my belly, doubling me up with pain; I reeled back, and he came after me, smashing me left and right to the head and sending me sprawling against the cargo.

‘D--n you!’ I shouted, and tried to crawl away, but he pinned me with his foot, glaring down at me.

‘Now, see here, Mister Flashman,’ says he. ‘I didn’t want you, but I’ve got you, and you’ll understand, here and now, that while you’re on this ship, you’re mine, d’ye see? You’re not going ashore until this voyage is finished – Middle Passage, Indies, homeward run and all. If you don’t like slaving – well, that’s too bad, isn’t it? You shouldn’t have signed aboard, should you?’

‘I didn’t sign! I never –’

‘Your signature will be on the articles that are in my cabin this minute,’ says he. ‘Oh, it’ll be there, sure enough – you’ll put it there.’

‘You’re kidnapping me!’ I yelled. ‘My G-d, you can’t do it! Captain Spring, I beg you – set me ashore, let me get off – I’ll pay you – I’ll –’

‘What, and lose my new supercargo?’ says the devil, grinning at me. ‘No, no. John Charity Spring obeys his owner’s orders – and mine are crystal clear, Mister Flashman. And he sees to it that those aboard his ship obey his orders, too, ye hear me?’ He stirred me with his foot. ‘Now, get up. You’re wasting my time again. You’re here; you’ll do your duty. I won’t tell you twice.’ And those terrible pale eyes looked into mine again. ‘D’ye understand me?’

‘I understand you,’ I muttered.

‘Sir,’ says he.

‘Sir.’

‘Come,’ says he, ‘that’s better. Now, cheer up, man; I won’t have sulks, by G-d. This is a happy ship, d’ye hear? It should be, the wages we pay. There’s a thought for you Flashman – you’ll be a d----d sight richer by the end of this voyage than you would be on a merchantman. What d’ye say to that?’

My mind was in a maze over all this, and real terror at what the consequences might be. Again I pleaded with him to be set ashore, and he slapped me across the mouth.

‘Shut your trap,’ says he. ‘You’re like an old woman. Scared are you? What of?’

‘It’s a capital crime,’ I whimpered.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ says he. ‘Britain doesn’t hang slavers, nor do the Yankees, for all their laws say. Look about you – this ship’s built for slaving, ain’t she? Slavers who run the risk of getting caught aren’t built so, with chains in view and slave decks and all. No indeed, qui male agit odit lucem^fn4 – they pose as honest merchantmen, so if the patrols nab ’em they won’t be impounded under the equipment regulations. The Balliol College needs no disguises – for the simple reason we’re too fast and handy for any d----d patrol ship, English or American. What I’m telling you, Mister Flashman, is that we don’t get caught, so you won’t either. Does that set your mind at rest?’

It didn’t, of course, but I knew better than to protest again. All I could think of was how the h--l I was going to get out of this. He took my silence for assent.

‘Well enough,’ growls he. ‘You’ll begin on this lot, then’ – and he jerked a thumb at the cargo. ‘And for Christ’s sake, liven up, man! I’ll not have you glooming up this ship with a long face, d’ye see? At eight bells you’ll leave off and come to my cabin – Mrs Spring will be serving tea for the officers, and will wish to meet you.’

I didn’t believe my ears. ‘Mrs Spring?’

‘My wife,’ he snapped, and seeing my bewilderment: ‘Who the d---l else would Mrs Spring be? You don’t think I’d ship my mother aboard a slaver, do you?’

And with that he strode off, leaving me in a fine sweat. Thanks to an instant’s folly, and the evil of that rotten little toad, my father-in-law, I was a member of the crew of a pirate ship, and nothing to be done about it. It took some digesting, but there it was; I suppose that after all the shocks I’d had in my young life this should have been nothing out of the way, but I found myself shuddering at the thought. Not that I’d any qualms about slaving, mark you, from the holy-holy point of view; they could have transported every nigger in Africa to the moon in chains for all I cared, but I knew it was a d----d chancy business – aye, and old Morrison had known that, too. So the old swine had his fingers in the blackbird pie – and I’ll lay my life that was a well concealed ledger in his countinghouse – and had taken advantage of the Bryant affair to shanghai me into this. He had wanted me out of the way, and here was a golden chance of making sure that I would be away for good; no doubt Spring was right, and the Balliol College would come through her voyage safe, as most slavers did, but there was always the chance of being caught, and rotting your life away in jail, even if they didn’t top you. And there was the risk of getting killed by niggers on the Slave Coast, or catching yellow jack or some foul native disease, as so many slaving crews did – oh, it was the perfect ocean cruise for an unwanted son-in-law. And Elspeth would be a widow, I would never see her, or England, again, for even if I survived the trip, word of it might get home, and I’d be an outlaw, a felon …

I sat down on the cargo with my head in my hands, and wept, and raged inwardly against that little Scotch scoundrel. G-d, if ever I had the chance to pay him back – but what was the use of thinking that way in my present plight? In the end, as usual, one thought came uppermost in my mind – survive, Flashy, and let the rest wait. But I resolved to keep my spite warm in the meantime.

In the circumstances it was as well that I had work to do; going through that cargo, as I did when a couple of hands and the ship’s clerk came down presently, at least occupied part of my thoughts, and kept me from working myself into a terror about the future. After all, thinks I, men like these didn’t sign on in the expectation of dying; they seemed handy, sober fellows who knew their business – very different from the usual tarry-john. One of them, an oldish man named Kirk, had been a slaver all his days, and had served on the notorious Black Joke;¹² he wouldn’t have shipped on any other kind of vessel.

‘What,’ says he, ‘at £15 a month? I’d be a fool. D’ye know, I’ve four thousand quid put by, in Liverpool and Charleston banks – how many sailormen have the tenth of that? Risk? I’ve been impounded once, on the Joke, shipwrecked once, and seen two cargoes of black ivory slung overside – which meant a dead loss for the owners, but I drew me pay, didn’t I? Oh, aye, I’ve been chased a score o’ times, and been yard-arm to yard-arm in running fights wi’ Limey an’ Yankee patter-rollers, but no harm done. An’ for sickness, ye’ve more chance of that from some poxed-up yellow tart in Havana than on the coast these days. You’ve been east – well, you know to keep yourself clean an’ boil your water, then.’

He made it sound not half bad, apart from the stuff about fighting the patrols, but I understood that this was a rare event – the Balliol College had never been touched in five trips that he knew of, although she had been sighted and chased times without number.

‘She’s built light, see, like all the Baltimore brigs an’ clippers,’ says Kirk. ‘Save a patch o’ calm, she’ll show her heels to anything, even steam-ships. West o’ Saint Tommy, even wi’ a full load o’ black cattle, she could snap her fingers at the whole Navy, and wi’ the fair winds coming south, like we are now, she’s gone before they see her. Only risky time is on the coast itself, afore we load up. If they was to catch us there, wi’ the Government wind pinning us on the coast, they could impound us, empty an’ all, ’cos o’ the law as lays down that if you’re rigged and fitted for slavin’, like we are, they can pinch you even wi’out a black aboard. Used to be that even then they couldn’t touch ye, if ye had the right papers – Greek, say, or Braziliano.’ He laughed. ‘Why, I’ve sailed on a ship that had Yankee, Gyppo, Portugee, an’ even Rooshian papers all ready for inspection, as might serve. But it’s different now – ye don’t talk, ye run.’¹³

He and the clerk and the other man – I think he was a Norwegian – harked back a good deal to the old days, when the slave ships had waited in turn at the great African barracoons to ship their cargoes, and how the Navy had spoiled the trade by bribing the native chiefs not to deal with slavers, so that all the best stretches of coast nowadays were out of court, and no niggers to be had.

‘Mind you,’ says Kirk, winking, ‘show ’em the kind o’ goods we got here, an’ they’ll spring you a likely cargo o’ Yorubas or Mandingos, treaty or not – an’ if sometimes you have to fight for ’em, as we did two trips back, well, it comes cheaper, don’t it? An’ Cap’n Spring, he’s got a grand nose for a tribal war, or a chief that’s got too many young bucks of his own people on his hands. He’s a caution, he is, an’ worth every penny the owners pay him. Like to guess ’ow much?’

I said I had no idea.

‘Twenty thousand pounds a trip,’ says Kirk. ‘There now! An’ you wonder I ship on a slaver!’

I knew slavers made huge profits, of course, but this staggered me. No wonder old Morrison had an interest in the trade – and no doubt paid a subscription to the Anti-Slavery Society and thought it well worthwhile. And he wasn’t laying out overmuch in trade goods, by the look of this cargo – you never saw so much junk, although just the kind of stuff to make a nigger chief happy, no doubt. There were old Brown Bess muskets that probably hadn’t been fired in fifty years, sackfuls of condemned powder and shot, rusty bayonets and cheap cutlasses and knives, mirrors and looking glasses by the dozen, feathered hats and check trousers, iron pots and plates and cauldrons, and most amazing of all, a gross of Army red coats, 34th Foot; one of ’em had a bullet-hole and a rusty stain on the right breast, and I remember thinking, bad luck for someone. There was a packet of letters in the pocket, which I meant to keep, but didn’t.

And there was case after case of liquor, in brown glass bottles; gin, I suppose you’ld call it, but even to sniff the stuff shrivelled the hairs off your arse. The blacks wouldn’t know the difference, of course.

We were searching through all this trash, I counting and calling out to the clerk, who ticked the manifest, and Kirk and his fellow stowing back, when Looney, the idiot steward, came down to gape at us. He squatted down, dribbling out of the corner of his mouth, making stupid observations, till Kirk, who was bundling the red coats, sings out to him to come over. Kirk had taken two of the brass gorgets off the officers’ coats – they must have been d----d old uniforms – and winking at us he laid the gorgets on the deck, and says:

‘Now, Looney, you’re a sharp ’un. Which is the biggest? If you can tell, I’ll give you my spirits tomorrow. If you can’t you give me yours, see?’

I saw what he was after: the gorgets were shaped like half-moons, and whichever was laid uppermost looked bigger – children amuse themselves with such things, cut out of paper. Looney squinted at them, giggling, and pointing to the top gorget, says:

‘That ’un.’

‘Ye’re sure?’ says Kirk, and taking the gorget which Looney had indicated, placed it beneath the other one – which now looked bigger, of course. Looney stared at it, and then said:

‘That un’s bigger now.’

Kirk changed them again, while his mates laughed, and Looney was bewildered. He gaped round helplessly, and then kicking the gorgets aside, he shouted:

‘You make ’em bigger an’ – an’ littler!’

And he started to cry, calling Kirk a dirty b-----d, which made us laugh all the more, so he shouted obscenities at us and stamped, and then ran over to a pile of bags stowed beyond the cargo and began to urinate on them, still swearing at us over his shoulder.

‘Hold on!’ cries Kirk, when he could contain his mirth. ‘That’s the niggers’ gruel you’re p-----g on!’

I was holding my sides, guffawing, and the clerk cries out:

‘That’ll make the dish all the tastier for ’em! Oh, my stars!’

Looney, seeing us amused, began to laugh himself, as such idiots will and p-----d all the harder, and then suddenly I heard the others’ laughter cut off, and there was a step on the ladder, and there stood John Charity Spring, staring at us with a face like the demon king. Those pale eyes were blazing, and Looney gave a little whimper and fumbled with his britches, while the piddle ran across the tilting deck towards Spring’s feet.

Spring stood there in a silence you could feel, while we scrambled up. His hands clenched and unclenched, and the scar on his head was blazing crimson. His mouth worked, and then he leaped at Looney and knocked the cowering wretch down with one smashing blow. For a moment I thought he would set about the half-wit with his boots, but he mastered himself, and wheeled on us.

‘Bring that – that vermin on deck!’ he bawled, and stamped up the ladder, and I was well ahead of the seamen in rushing to Looney and dragging him to the scuttle. He yelled and struggled, but we forced him up on deck, where Spring was stamping about in a spitting rage, and the hands were doubling aft in response to the roars of the Yankee first mate.

‘Seize him up there,’ orders Spring, and with me holding Looney’s thrashing legs, Kirk very deftly tied his wrists up to the port shrouds and ripped his shirt off. Spring was calling for the cat, but someone says there wasn’t one.

‘Then make one, d--n you!’ he shouted, and paced up and down, casting dreadful glances at the imploring Looney, who was babbling in his bonds.

‘Don’t hit us, cap’n! Please don’t hit us! It was them other b-----ds, changin’ things!’

‘Silence!’ says Spring, and Looney’s cries subsided to a whisper, while the crew crowded about to see the sport. I kept back, but made sure I had a good view.

They gave Spring a hastily made cat, and he buttoned his jacket tight and pulled his hat down.

‘Now, you b----r, I’ll make you dance!’ cries he, and laid in for all he was worth. Looney screamed and struggled; each time the lashes hit him he shrieked, and between each stroke Spring cursed him for all he was worth.

‘Foul my ship, will you?’ Whack! ‘Ruin the food for my cargo, by G-d!’ Whack! ‘Spread pestilence with your filth, will you?’ Whack! ‘Yes, pray, you wharfside son-of-a-b---h, I’m listening!’ Whack! ‘I’ll cut your b----y soul out, if you have one!’ Whack! If it had been a regulation Army cat, I think he’d have killed him; as it was, the hastily spliced yarn cut the idiot’s back to bits and the blood ran over his ragged trousers. His screams became moans, and then silence, and then Spring flung the cat overboard.

‘Souse him and let him hang there to dry!’ says he, and then he addressed the unconscious victim. ‘And let me catch you at your filthy tricks again, you scum, so help me G-d I’ll hang you – d’ye hear!’

He glared at us with his madman’s eyes, and my heart was in my mouth for a moment. Then his scar faded, and he said in his normal bark:

‘Dismiss the hands, Mr Comber. Mr Sullivan, and you, supercargo, come aft. Mrs Spring is serving tea.’

There were a few curious glances at me as I followed Spring and the Yankee mate – I was new to the crew, of course – and as we went down the ladder to his cabin, Spring looked me over. ‘Go and put on a jacket,’ he growled. ‘G-d d--n you, don’t you know anything?’ so I scudded off smartly, and when I came back they were still waiting. He examined me – and in a flash of memory I thought of waiting with Wellington to see the Queen, and being fussed over by flunkeys – and then he threw open the door.

‘I trust we don’t intrude, my dear,’ says he. ‘I have brought Mr Sullivan to tea, and our new supercargo, Mr Flashman.’

I don’t know what I expected – the Queen of Sheba wouldn’t have surprised me, aboard the Balliol College – but it wasn’t the mild-looking, middle-aged woman sitting behind a table, picking at a sampler, who turned to beam at us pleasantly, murmured something in greeting, and then set to pouring tea. Presently Comber came in, smoothing his hair, and the grizzled old second mate, Kinnie, who ducked his head to me when Spring made us known to each other. Mrs Spring handed over cups, and we stood round sipping, and nibbling at her biscuits, while she beamed and Spring talked – she had little to say for herself, but he paid her as much respect as though it had been a London drawing-room. I had to pinch myself to believe it was real: a tea party aboard a slaver, with this comfortable woman adding hot water to the pot while a flogged man was bleeding all over the deck above our heads, and Spring, his cuff specked with the victim’s gore, was laying it off about Thucydides and Horace.

‘Mr Flashman has had the beginning of an education, my dear,’ says he. ‘He was with Dr Arnold at Rugby School.’

She turned a placid face in my direction. ‘Mr Spring is a classical scholar,’ says she. ‘His father was a Senior Fellow.’

‘Senior Tutor, if you please, my dear,’ says Spring. ‘And it’s my belief he achieved that position by stealing the work of better men. Scholarship is merely a means to an end these days, and paucis carior est fides quam pecunia.^fn5 You remember Sallust, Mr Comber? No? There seems to be little to choose between the ignorance of Rugby and that of Winchester College.’ (Oho, thinks I, Winchester, that accounts for a lot.) ‘However, if we have some leisure on this voyage, we may repair these things, may we not, Mr Flashman?’

I mumbled something about being always eager to learn.

‘Aye,’ says he, ‘pars sanitatis velle sanari fuit,^fn6 we may hope. But I imagine Seneca is yet another among the many authors with whom you are not acquainted.’ He munched on a biscuit, the pale blue eyes considering me. ‘Tell me, sir, what do you know?’

I stole a glance at the others; Kinnie had his head down over his cup, and Sullivan, the big, raw-boned Yankee, was gazing bleakly before him. Comber was looking nervous.

‘Well, sir,’ says I, ‘not very much …’ And then, like a fool, I added, toady-like: ‘Not as much as a Fellow of Oriel College, I’m sure.’

Comber’s cup clattered suddenly. Spring says, very soft: ‘I am not a Fellow, Mr Flashman. I was dismissed.’

Well, it didn’t surprise me. ‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ says I.

‘You well may be,’ says he. ‘You well may be. You may come to wish that I was in my rightful place, sir, instead of here!’ His voice was rising, and his scar going crimson. He set his cup down with a force that rattled the table. ‘Herding with the carrion of the sea, sir, instead of … of … d--n your eyes, man, look at me! You think it a matter for contempt, don’t you, that a man of my intellect should be brought to this! You think it a jest that I was flung into the gutter by jealous liars! You do! I see it in your …’

‘No, no indeed, sir!’ cries I, quaking. ‘I was expelled myself … I don’t …’

‘Hold your confounded tongue!’ he bawled. ‘You can’t do right for doing wrong, can you? No, by G-d! Well, I warn you, Mister Flashman – I’ll remind you of another text from Seneca, whom you don’t b----y well read, d--n your ignorance! Gravis ira regum semper.^fn7 Mr Comber will construe it for you – he’s heard it before, and digested it! He’ll tell you that a captain is to be feared as much as a king!’ He thumped the table. ‘Mrs Spring, you’ll excuse me!’ And he burst past me, slamming the door behind him.

He left me shaking, and then we heard his voice on deck, bawling at the man at the wheel, and his feet stamping overhead. I felt the sweat starting on my forehead.

‘May I give you some more tea, Mr Sullivan?’ says Mrs Spring. ‘Mr Comber, a little more?’ She poured for them in silence. ‘Have you been to sea before, Mr Flashman?’

God knows what I said; it was too much for me, and it’s quite likely I answered nothing at all. I know we stood about a little longer, and then Sullivan said we must be about our duties, and we thanked Mrs Spring, and she inclined her head gravely, and we filed out.

Outside, Sullivan turned to me, glanced up the ladder, sighed, and rubbed his jaw. He was a youngish, hard-case sailor, this one, with a New England figurehead and a slantendicular way of looking at you. At last he says:

‘He’s mad. So’s she.’ He thought for a moment. ‘It don’t matter, though. Much. Sane or silly, drunk or dry, he’s the best d----d skipper on this coast, or any other. You follow me?’

I stood there, nodding.

‘Well and good,’ says he. ‘You’ll be in Mr Comber’s watch – just tail on to the rope and keep your eyes open. And when the skipper starts talkin’ Latin, or whatever it is, just shut up, d’ye hear?’

That was one piece of advice which I didn’t need. If I’d learned one thing about the Balliol College, it was that I had no wish to bandy scholarship with John Charity Spring – or anything else, for that matter.