HOSANNA
Published by Severin Rossetti at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Severin Rossetti
Smashword Edition, Licence Notes
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June 1857
He could hear voices nearby but his fatigue was such that he lacked the will to turn his head their way, not even when it seemed that there might be some kindness spoken, some sympathy offered.
Sympathy he would have welcomed, had he but the energy, for sympathy was the best that could be hoped for; he knew he was beyond help.
'I pity the poor beggar lying there, taking the sun all this time.'
'Aye? Well he's a splendid enough shade of mahogany to begin with. His kind can bear it.'
'And the cold at night…'
'They're a sturdy breed.'
'Still…'
The barque 'Hosanna' was four weeks out of Jamaica, three days yet from Liverpool, and for all but the first morning he had been shackled on deck, his hands and feet in irons. In the heat of afternoon he scorched, in the chill of night he shivered, in the fiercest of squalls which marked their course east he was tossed about as helpless as an infant. But only as far as his chains would permit. Then the harsh metal cuffs would snap at bone and bite at flesh, jar at his joints until he feared that he would be torn limb from limb.
'…poor wretch.'
'Poor? Ha!' There was a hawking rattle, a vicious snort, and a gob of phlegm splattered on his shackled leg, the colour and consistency of the pus which was seeping from his open sores and weeping wounds. 'Serve the cocksure negro right for laying claim to be as able a seafarer as the rest of us.'
'He was only after passage. How else was he to get it?'
'You pays in coin,' came the uncaring reply. 'If you can't do that then you pays in kind, trading your skill and craft. If you boast no skill then you warrant no passage. But him? Boast was all he could do!'
And the boast was so quickly seen to be idle, even while yet in sight of land the second mate, Seymour, had taken the lash to him for his lack of competence, flailing out like a man possessed. First mate Rodgers had lent a hand to the punishment while Captain Miles looked on in silent approval.
He had heard from the old folk of what it had been like on the slaving ships, in the evenings in Worthy Park his history had been related to him by those who remembered, by Gullah Will and Shovel Jack, and by his mother's mother, Grandma Raveface.
For more than forty years she had toiled as a field hand on the Worthy Park estate, had survived through to emancipation and then for another score years or more. Even in her dotage her memories had been bitterly clear. Five hundred and more slaves to a vessel, they were stacked on shelves like any other goods, shoulder to shoulder or head to toe, evacuating their bowels where they lay, on who they lay, and eating by hand from common troughs; their mouths were washed with vinegar to ward off scurvy, that same vinegar which was used to swab the decks; their anuses were stopped with wadding and oakum to hide the signs of dysentery; the dead and the living lay chained together.
Yet this suffering of his forebears had not been without its purpose, as cruel as it was he could see the necessity for it; of those taken into slavery in the Guineas as many died as were successfully transported and there were profits to be made, quotas to be maintained. His present suffering had no such suspect motive, could be excused by nothing other than a simple sadistic pleasure; he was there for the ghoulish entertainment of the Captain and his mates, to break up the monotonous routine of their voyage home.
If he had been a woman they might have used him a little more kindly, fed him well enough to keep the flesh on his hips; being male, he was there to be buggered and beaten.
A voice called out that land was sighted and there was a hubbub of excitement, the clatter of feet across decks, the chatter of voices rising above the straining of timber and the cracking of sail.
'I can sniff out the perfumed pussies of those whores on Castle Street already!' said one.
'All the way from Anglesey?' marvelled another with a laugh.
'With a nose like mine? Aye! I can smell them alright!'
The son of the daughter of Grandma Raveface could smell nothing other than the stink of his own excrement, it plugged his nostrils and caked his cheeks, baked dry by the sun.
The day before a bowl of pea broth had been slipped to him, but not slyly enough to avoid being seen by Seymour, who had dashed the bowl away and then thrust his face into the excrement in which he had lain for weeks.
'Sit in your own filth and that's what you'll get to eat!' he was told. 'And you-!' To the Samaritan, the one Christian soul aboard that ship of Satan. '-any more pity on the negro and you join him!'
The stench at least served the purpose of keeping the Captain's dog at bay, deterring it from the daily mauling which its master gleefully encouraged. It would sniff curiously, lick cautiously as if with distaste, but no longer was it inclined to feast on him, chewing chunks from his limbs. It was as if he had fallen into so decrepit a state that even the most miserable cur shied from him.
In his despair he prayed for deliverance.
In his pain he begged for death.In his misery he sang:
'Jerusalem, my happy home,
When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sorrows have an end?
They joys when shall I see?'
There was a surge of laughter when his song was heard, mocking taunts from the crew, derision that one of his colour could take up a hymn of theirs. They turned from the sighted land and gathered around him, smiling down, nudging each other and cheering him on.
He thought to amuse them, then, to make them smile, knowing anger to be no use he raised his voice to the heaven they all shared, louder, ringing as clear as his weakened state would permit.
'Jerusalem, my happy home,
Would God I were in thee!
Would God my woes were at an end,
Thy joys that I might see!'
The mocking crew were suddenly swept aside as he saw a figure cut a path through them, arms wheeling about its head, fists catching any who were too slow to move out of reach.
'Woes? Sorrows?' Captain Miles raged, glaring down at him, eyes blood-red with anger. 'You know nothing of them! Not yet! Rodgers,' he snapped to the first mate. 'Gag the creature! Stop his heathen tongue!'
Rodgers looked around, for scraps of sailcloth or linen, but the Captain had no patience with the dithering about and snatched up a heavy iron bolt.
'Here! This'll do well enough!'
His head was pushed back, his jaw forced open and the hard metal jammed against his teeth so hard that it chipped them, so cold against them that it made them ache.
He tried to swallow, his mouth stretched as wide as it would go, but could only make a choking sound.
'Eh? What's that?' Captain Miles demanded, pacing the deck before him, coming close and then pausing as if the living creature at his feet was no more than animal dung. 'Tell me, negro, do you hate me? Do you? As much as I hate you?' He gave a smile of sufferance, of distaste, said, 'What I wish, negro, is that you would either drown or hang yourself.'
And what he wished…
His answer was no more than an incoherent gurgle, saliva and blood spilling from his lips, bruised tongue freezing against the raw metal gag which filled his mouth.
'What does he say? Does anyone understand?' the captain asked, turning to his crew and wanting his smile returned, though there were many who were already becoming uncomfortable with the entertainment. 'Unplug him! Let's hear!' he laughed.
The bolt was torn from his mouth and his head sank to his chest as he filled his lungs with the fresh brine air.
'Well speak!' he was invited, a hand beneath his chin forcing his head back and working his aching jaw. 'What you wish…?'
'What I wish,' he answered weakly, wearily, 'is that you would do it for me.'
'Hang you? Drown you? Then willingly!' Captain Miles ranted, and as the chains which fastened him to the mast were loosed he was dragged across the deck, lifted as easily as an empty sack and hung over the side.
There were prayers he remembered but they were no longer the Christian ones of mercy and forgiveness, the God he turned to was not their lord of love and light but a blacker creature, as black as the darkness of his dying.
'Now do you hate me, negro?' the captain hissed in his ear, and gave a tug on the chain which held him suspended, jarring his limbs. 'Give me your hatred, damn you! Let me feel your anger!'
No….not now… but someday.