CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Hoy, the boats!" Lieutenant Langlie hissed into the darkness, as HMS Proteus fretfully rocked and rolled on the scend, three miles off Portland Point.
"Blackbirds," Cox'n Andrews hooted back, and everyone gathered on the gangway let out a huge sigh of relief. Moments later the boats were thudding against the hull, and people were scampering up the man-ropes and boarding-battens, eyes and teeth gleaming in wonder and delight, reflecting the single lanthorn they'd dared display.
There were only eleven of them, ten youngsters and one thicker, older man with grizzled grey hair. They came with small packs of possessions bound up in cast-off pillowcases or shirts; barefoot, wearing ragged nankeen or sailcloth trousers worn gauzy-thin by work, loose and ending above the knees; topped with shapeless, stained pullover shirts without collars, just neck-holes, and equally frayed.
For a long moment, they just stood in stupefied wonder, taking in the height of the masts, the guns, the mazes of rigging, and most of all, the sea of white faces confronting them; shying into a tight group, elbow to elbow, as if this suddenly seemed like a bad idea and the price of freedom too high.
"Sure, and I hope one o' ye knows how t'cook!" Landsman Furfy cried, breaking their stricken tableau.
"Ah does," the older man said. "Gideon's me name."
"Welcome aboard then, mate!" Furfy gushed, stepping forward to take him by the hand and pump it energetically. "Shoulda seen what we been doin' with good rations, it'd sicken a goat!"
"You boys come on, now," Morley, one of the Black seamen, urged, stepping forward and waving to the other half-dozen fellow Blacks among the crew to join him, making the newcomers nervously grin. "Don't be standin' round. Cap'um wants ya t'see th' Surgeon's Mates, get bathed, an' into new clothes. Make yer marks an' sign ship's books?"
"Cold rations a'waitin'," another promised, "then a bit o' kip in yer new hammocks. Last 'all-night-in' ye'll have."
"Who de cap'um?" one of the newcomers asked, peering about.
"Him, dere… Cap'um Lewrie," Morley pointed out.
Lewrie had thought it best to turn out in his newest uniform to welcome them aboard, to impress them from the first. He stood apart on the quarterdeck, hands behind his back.
The youngster came toward him, eyes alight as if he'd seen Jesus, and fell to his knees at his feet. "T'ankee, massa, t'ankee!"
"Oh, for God's sake," Lewrie muttered, wondering again if this was a bad idea, himself. "Don't do that. Get up, man. I'm not your ' massa,'
I don't own you."
No, the Navy does, and if that ain't a sort o ' slavery, I'll eat me hat, Lewrie had to think as he helped the youngster up.
"What's your name, young'un?"
"Calls me Cambridge, sah. Cambridge is all."
"Your mother's choice?" Lewrie asked. "Or your master's?"
"Nossah," the teenager shyly grinned. "Mama call me Noble."
"Noble you'll be, then."
"Noble Lah… Lewrie?" he carefully pronounced.
"God, no!" Lewrie had to bark in amusement. "I'm in enough of a stink with my wife already. Uhm… Noble… Hood. Hood's a great admiral in the Navy, a knacky fighting man. Noble Hood."
"Yassuh, Noble Hood," the boy happily agreed.
"We'll let you choose new names, all of you," Lewrie told them in a louder voice. "Names that'll never fetch your old master's suspicion. Once on ship's books, with papers showing you as free men, you won't have to fear being taken. So think it over whilst you see the Surgeon's
Mates, Mister Hodson and Mister Durant. Then we'll fit up the wash-deck pump…"
That idea seemed to make them shy back together.
"All sailors do it when they sign aboard a new ship," Lewrie explained patiently. "Wash off the shore stinks and… get baptised in salt water, like a church baptism, when babies get named," he extemporised quickly.
"Don't nobody baptise us, sah," the older man, Gideon, said in a jocular tone. "Dot fo' white folks."
"Then it's about time, ain't it, sir?" Lewrie quipped.
"Did they not church you?" Mr. Winwood asked of a sudden, coming forward and sounding indignant. "Did they not tell you of being washed in the blood of the Lamb, of being good Christians?"
"Preach at us, now an' then, sah," one told him. "Dey say dot we arter be good Christians, but…"
"Baptism and a washing, then," Winwood enthused, clapping his hands at the prospect, "to cleanse your souls as you take your free names… to wash slavery from you forever, and baptise you as sailors, the finest calling in the world. Recall…'twas sailors that Jesus first made his disciples, simple fishermen and sailors. Let me, sir?" he almost pled, turning to Lewrie. "I'll attend to it."
"It appears I've gained sailors, and you, converts, sir," Lewrie chuckled.
"Pray God, sir, that I have… souls delivered up to the Lord."
"I'll leave you to it, Mister Winwood. Soon as you may. We're almost on a lee shore, and need to get out to sea before dawn, before they clap us all in prison."
"My word on't, Captain Lewrie," Winwood fervently assured him.
"Mister Langlie? Run the ship's boats round astern. We'll tow them 'til after Dawn Quarters," Lewrie ordered. "Let's get way on her and make an offing… Sou'east-by-East, for now."
"Aye aye, sir," Langlie replied, still looking worried. Lewrie clapped his hands behind his back once more and paced to the railing overlooking the waist, feeling like breaking out into jig-dancing; it had worked, they had pulled it off, and (hopefully!) no one was the wiser! He saw Andrews and the last of the boat crews climbing up to the deck, and went forward to speak to him.
"How did it go, Andrews?"
"Lawd o' Mercy, sah," Andrews answered, shaking his head sadly, "I'd forgot how evil dey treat people. Warn't one o' dot Mista Ledyard Beauman's big plantin's, just a drunk overseer t'watch 'em, so I think we got away clean, but you never see such mis'ry. Mamas an' papas come down to de boats t'see 'em away, sah… weepin' and whimp'rin' like dey never see dey children again. But soft, so'z nobody'd hear. Blessin' us fo' gettin' 'em free, no matter what de cost, 'coz de sea can't be no worse'n bein' field hands dey whole lives. Tellin' 'em, 'Don't worry 'bout us, we'll lie good,' an' swearin' nobody'll talk true. Dey pick names outen a hat fo' de ones t'come away with us, sah. I tell 'em… dey be earnin' money good as a white sailor, maybe dey come back some day an' buy dey brother's or sister's freedom, too, buy dey mamas and papas out. You an' me know dey most-like can't, but… slaves live on hopes, like waitin' fo' de Second Comin'."
" 'Next year in Jerusalem,' " Lewrie muttered. To Andrews's puzzled look, he explained, "What the Jews say, for better times coming."
"Yessah," Andrews replied with a shrug. "Good."
Langlie had gotten Proteus moving, at last, the steady Nor'east Trades now coming up her stern as he directed the crew to wear her off the wind, before rounding up on larboard tack to the Sou'east.
"Somethin' odd ashore, though, sah," Andrews continued.
"Someone see you?" Lewrie almost blanched in alarm.
"Nossah, some thing," Andrews said, sending a premonitory shiver up Lewrie's back. "Ya know dey's seals in dese waters, sah. Dey's been hunted almos' out, but dey's some still about?"
"Seals?" Lewrie exclaimed, feeling fit to burst with fey dread of the old pagan cess that seemed to follow him, from HMS Jester to a new frigate, a benign and benevolent sea god's "protection."
"Dey started barkin' and splashin', an' I thought ever'body was gonna die o' fright 'til we saw what dey was, sah." Andrews chuckled. "Swam out with us, dey did, rollin' an' snortin' so close, dey made it hard t'keep de stroke fo' de oarsmen. Leadin' us, sah, out to de deep water. Stayed with us almos' right to de side, sah, den disappeared."