Sara Sheridan - Secret of the Sands

An hour or so before dawn, he smells the day’s cornbread baking in the galley and his appetite is sharpened. He wonders briefly if the last supply of bitter water they managed to obtain further down the strait is responsible for the fact the coffee on board is so substandard. The water is difficult to stomach without mixing it with something, and the men have been taking it with sheep’s milk. Perhaps that is the key. His mouth is watering now and his stomach grumbles – he knows there is some cheese left – hard and mostly rind, but he has a yearning for it nonetheless. He is about to make his way to the galley when Ormsby reports to take over Wellsted’s duties and allow the lieutenant a few hours of sleep before the day’s survey gets properly underway.

‘Morning.’ The lad stretches and reaches inside his jacket for his flask. He offers it, but James declines. Then, shrugging his shoulders, Ormsby takes a draught and smacks his lips as the liquor hits his bloodstream.

‘Will you break your fast with me?’ James offers.

Ormsby nods. ‘Yes, sir,’ he says.

‘Good. We can fetch it from the galley and eat here. We’ll see the sun come up. Then I must sleep, I think.’

‘This weather’s quite the thing for a picnic. It feels almost fresh this morning,’ Ormsby smiles.

‘Give it an hour or two!’

Ormsby’s eyes fall to the small bottle of dark ink and the roughly made quill his superior officer has been using. His pupils shrink and he feels uncomfortable. Wellsted has been writing again. This is what has caused all the trouble and he is hoping that there will be no more. The captain has been moody for weeks on end and has taken it out on everybody.

‘I’m writing home, you idiot,’ the lieutenant says fondly. ‘My grandfather likes to keep up. He’s an invalid these days. I send a letter now and then – to keep the old boy going.’

‘Ah,’ Ormsby nods, though he can hardly really understand. His grandfather, after all, is a committed Christian, a Conservative and the brother of a duke, who scarcely if ever leaves his well-run and comfortable estate in Gloucestershire and would be horrified had he seen even half of what James took as read during his Marylebone childhood. The most the old man hopes from his grandsons is that they will be good eggs .

‘Yes. My family likes the odd letter too,’ Ormsby says. ‘They are awfully fond of news. I should really write to them more.’

He wonders if he might see some interesting fish today – the coral reefs are teeming with brightly coloured, odd-looking marine life and Ormsby has been sketching what he sees. It keeps him amused and he is hoping, if he can learn to swim, that he will be able to make a comprehensive study of the shoals of strange creatures, for as his grandfather says, the Lord’s design is in everything.

‘Come on,’ says Wellsted. ‘There is the last of the cheese left. We can toast it on top of the oven.’

Chapter Twelve

The very same day that Zena is auctioned off, on the kind of brisk but sunny English summer morning of which men in the desert can only dream, at his cousin’s substantial, terraced, stucco mansion on Cadogan Place, William Wilberforce, a man of principle and a social pioneer, receives the news that the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery is set to pass the Commons. He celebrates by catching influenza and three days later he is dead. It is decided to bury the old man’s body in Westminster Abbey, close to his venerable friend, William Pitt. He is, after all, one of Britannia’s own – a national treasure. The funeral is an enormous event. Both Houses of Parliament suspend their business for the duration as a mark of respect, and most members actually attend the obsequies personally. All over the British Isles toasts to the new, enlightened age are drunk by Whigs and Tories alike and Wilberforce is universally mourned from the public house to the pulpit and back again. His obituary is read aloud at a hundred thousand breakfast tables. In Wilberforce’s home town of Hull private subscriptions flood in to erect a monument one hundred feet high to his memory. Ladies across the country pray for the great man’s eternal soul, dab handkerchiefs to fresh tears and furiously cross-stitch samplers of the better-known liberal maxims concerning slavery including the famous Am I Not A Man And Your Brother? Immediately there is earnest talk of Wilberforce’s beatification, despite his personal commitment to the cause of Evangelical Anglicanism and lifelong antagonism to the Papacy. Mild-mannered, staunchly Protestant ladies in the Home Counties are heard to say, ‘Still, dear Mr Wilberforce was a saint. He was, wasn’t he?’

All this, however, affects business at the slave market in Muscat not one jot.

Zena is pushed into the clear space in front of the auctioneer and he calls for offers. ‘Twenty,’ he starts. ‘Anyone at twenty?’

At first there are several low bids, two from the man who treated her harshly in the slave pen. Zena feels her chest tighten. The bidding, however, is spirited and the offers come fast. When the man drops out at fifty, she allows herself a sliver of a smile. The price continues to rise ten silver dollars at a time. Zena can hardly believe this is really happening. That she will be owned and that she is powerless to stop it. Sadness swills around her empty stomach and the world stands still. It is a curious sensation.

As the price rises above a hundred and fifty, it is between two parties. One is an Abyssinian, like herself. The man sits, still-eyed, in a litter at the side of the bazaar, only raising his black finger slightly to register his interest as the price spirals on. Her stomach surges with some kind of hope. At least he looks familiar.

Yes. Him. Someone from home, she thinks silently as she stands stock-still in the sun.

The auctioneer skilfully bats the opportunity back to the other man still in the game – a blue-robed Arab pulling on a hookah pipe beneath an intricately fringed, white parasol.

‘Two hundred dollars,’ the auctioneer shouts triumphantly. ‘Do I have more?’

Zena has to admit, this is a handsome price for an Abyssinian 17-year-old, who may or may not be a virgin. It is certainly more than any of the others have made.

‘Have I any advance?’

There is silence. The bidding is still with the Abyssinian, who nonchalantly refuses to look at his opponent. All other eyes turn to the Arab, who considers a moment, tosses his head and refuses to go any higher.

He has got me! she thinks. One of my own . She wants to tell him, in her own language, where she comes from and what brought her here. Surely he has bought her because they are from a common background. Surely his house will be the same as her grandmother’s, for how else would a wealthy Abyssinian run their home?

Eagerly, she lets them lead her from the podium and tether her to a post beside the clerk. There she overhears the arrangements being made for her payment and realises this man has not bought her for himself. He is a slave, only doing his master’s bidding. He counts out his master’s dollars.

‘My name is Zena,’ she says, with a rush of enthusiasm. ‘I come from the hills. Near Bussaba.’

The man hisses at her like a spitting snake, affronted by her impertinence. One of his attendants roughly ushers her away. She glances back at the man in slight confusion. He is still counting out her price and making his salaams to the auctioneer. She wonders if he was sold here himself. She wonders if he can remember what it felt like. There will be no fellow feeling, she realises sadly as she is tethered again. When the business is concluded, she follows the litter, docile and under guard with two other women, sidis . They come from another shipment, seemingly purchased earlier at a far lesser price. As they progress through the cramped, busy streets, Zena’s appetite is so sharp and her sense of smell so elevated that the aroma drifting from the street stalls selling thick, sticky pastries hits her like an assault of honeyed sesame sweetness in the warming air while the nutty scent of coffee almost stops her dead in her tracks. She can think of nothing else. The truth is that right now she would thank someone more for a plate of food than for her freedom. The business of the marketplace is so frantic that she is diverted by the constant stream of images. Just breathe in, she thinks as the honeyed sweetness wafts towards her. Instinctively, she knows she must not think about what is happening or she will cry.