Саймон Бествик - The Devil and the Deep - Horror Stories of the Sea

“He hung the man up on deck, and tortured him with thirst. He would give the Negro no water, he said—though that number was strong and would have fetched a good price in Antigua—he’d give him no water but urine, and no food but shit to eat. The captain’s own shit.”

Decurrs gave a strangled laugh. “The captain sent his cabin boy to fetch it, but when he made the boy go—a boy younger than you, mind,” he said to their mess-boy, “eleven years old he was, and new to the Trade. He didn’t know how it is,” he added to Swift.

Swift nodded, hoping Decurrs would fall silent, knowing he wouldn’t. There was a kind of madness that came upon slave-ship sailors sometimes, a fever in their blood. Some blamed the disease on the African air, but it was more than that, and Decurrs, blasted raw by sun and wind, had it now. It was this fever and not courage that sent tars into the courts to testify, knowing they’d be killed in the alley afterwards, knowing their wife and mother would be brutalized on the streets. It was this rage, Swift knew, that sent a tar to point his hand in court, which made him into a monstrous revenant that was not a man at all, but some dead-alive thing returned from the sea. A witness.

“He didn’t know,” Decurrs repeated. “And he refused the order.” He wiped his face with his skinny hand, considering. “The captain had him flogged and brined, of course. Sixty lashes, but it wasn’t enough. He dragged the boy up the deck and put a plank over him. He ordered us to walk on it,” he said dispassionately. “He stamped on his breast so we could hear his bones splinter. The boy’s shit came out of him, and the captain forced it down his throat. Then he hung the boy up on the mainmast. He gave him and the Negro the urine to drink, and forbade us all to bring water or food to them.

“For three days they hung there, while we worked. I don’t think anyone dared try to give them water. I know I didn’t. The captain gave the boy eighteen lashes each day, even as he died. When I sewed him into his sail, his flesh felt like jelly to the touch. His body was purple and swollen huge. You could not tell it was a child anymore. The sharks took them both.”

Decurrs glared at them. “I did not pass the whisper, but my shipmate did. Fourteen years old, he was. They found his body floating by the docks. I said nothing. I said nothing for all my days sailing the Triangle. I said nothing after. Only the cabin boy spoke up. And my shipmate. Children. Only them.” Decurrs rubbed his chin again. “I think you know what must be done,” he said to Glosse.

Glosse shifted uncomfortably. Decurrs’s story seemed to have taken the wind out of his sails. “Is there anyone else?”

There was a ship , Swift thought. He could feel the words in his mouth. She was called the Zong.

“There’s no one else,” Ducurrs said, cutting off anything Swift might say. He stood up abruptly, wobbling on his weakened legs. Swift reached out to steady him.

“No,” Decurrs said, and patted Swift’s hand. Swift released his grip.

“Shipmates,” Decurrs said sternly. “I leave you in a sorry state. But if I’ve accursed you I do remove it now. If any of you live, carry word to my sister. Do not tell her about the ship.”

Then, before anyone could intervene, Decurrs tipped himself backwards. Sky bloomed through the space where he had been. Swift leaned forward, searching the ocean with his eyes, but Decurrs had already vanished under the waves. He did not come up again.

After a while, Glosse shifted his weight. He did not look at them.

“We must get off this wreck,” he said. “We must get off today.”

The sea was hot and smooth, like a silver plate left in the sun.

“This is our chance,” Glosse said. He’d been signaling the men on the foremast with a handkerchief. They, in turn, had employed themselves in making a raft from the fore yard and sprit sail yard, lashed together with ropes and spars rescued from the flotsam.

In the afternoon they launched her, paddling with pieces of plank they had whittled with their belt knives. The survivors from the mizzen mast waited to greet them.

“Avast,” said a sailor on the raft, baring the blade on his belt knife. “The raft cannot support you all.”

“Only the strongest can come,” said another. “All hands must paddle if we’re to make the shore.”

“None of the women,” the knife man said in a kindly tone. He gestured with the point of his blade to the Malay maid. She guessed the meaning of his words and stepped back a few paces, dropping to her knees on the few planks that remained of the quarterdeck.

Cobb stepped forward. “I’ve got life in me yet,” he said. “I’ll sail with you.”

“And I,” said one of Lascars.

Glosse stepped forward. “You’ll need my help to find the land,” he said. “I can reckon the stars.” They motioned him forward. As Glosse stepped forward, the mess-boy caught at his shirt sleeve. “This is wrong,” he said. “You cannot leave the passengers here to die.”

Glosse snatched his shirt away. “Where and when they die is up to God, not me.” He stepped forward onto the bobbing raft, sinking his weight low to keep his footing.

“What about you, Swift?” Holdfast Muhammad looked up from his corner of the raft. “You’ve got a good hand with the carpentry. We could use you.”

“Aye,” Swift said reluctantly. He looked at their raft, a shaky net of spars and canvas, lashed together with rope. “But I’ll stay here.” He did not know what decision he’d make until the words were out of his mouth, but there they were.

“You know how it’ll go if you stay,” Holdfast Muhammad said in a low voice. Swift appreciated that he did not speak of dying in front of the passengers.

“I know,” Swift said. “I’ll stay.”

Glosse looked at the boy. “You should come with us,” he said.

“No,” the boy said, trembling with self-righteousness. Had Swift ever been that young? “I’ll stay here.”

Glosse shrugged and took the paddle handed to him.

The raft took on three more sailors and two of the merchants. Then they set off, paddling determinedly away from the Minerva .

Swift sank to his haunches and watched them go. They were trying, he knew, to be well clear of the Minerva before the haunt returned.

“Do you think they’ll make it?” the boy asked. His voice had lost its ring of certainty now that the raft grew smaller in the distance, now that the moaning from the rigging was rising around them again.

“I do not know,” Swift said. He put his hands to the shrouds and climbed back up the rigging.

Mrs. Newman had resumed her place in the crow’s nest. “Those men on the raft,” she said through cracked lips. “Have they gone to seek help?”

“They have,” Swift said.

The Gunner was slumped in the ropes. Ugly red ulcers dotted his skin, and it was only by his breathing that Swift knew he was alive. Swift took up his old position by the man’s side. Staring straight ahead, he could almost believe that Decurrs was still beside him, perhaps a step or two down on the ratlines.

He waited for the haunt to return.

On the third night they heard screaming over the water. Not a lot of screaming—two, maybe three voices. One went on for some time.

“That was the raft,” the Gunner said. “I cannot abide a raft anymore. Not after what I’ve seen.”

Swift opened his eyes. The Gunner had died two days ago, and his corpse slowly rotted in the flotsam below. On a slave ship, the sharks would have found his body already, but this was the Minerva , and the dead man studied Swift with desiccated eyes.