Charles Johnson - Middle Passage

“Wait.” I was on my feet. “Listen to me. . please!”

Irritably, Babo hung fire.

“You need him,” I said, gathering my wits, sailing close to the wind. “Kill Falcon if you want, but if you kill his helmsman, you’ll never reach land. Never! None of you can read English maps. Nor keep this ship full and by once she’s fixed, provided she can be fixed, and only Peter can help you do that. He’s the only officer left.”

Cringle spat blood and broken teeth onto the floor. “They’ll see hell quicker’n they’ll see help from me.”

“Will you please” —I ground my teeth— “shut up!”

“No, you shall hear this! As God is my judge, I’ll see every murderer here brought before a firing squad. Turn your back a second on me,” he said to Ngonyama, “and you shall have a foot of steel in it.”

Ngonyama frowned. “He should not have said that.”

“He will help you,” I said. “If he doesn’t, I’ll drag him to the rail myself.”

Diamelo took a step toward me. He rubbed his finger, very dark, along my face, which was a shade or two lighter than his own. “Do it now.” His voice had a clean monotone like metal. “Prove what you say.” Then to Ngonyama: “On whose side is he? I wouldn’t trust this one.” He took the hatchet from Babo and forced it into my hand. “Not until he has broken away from them.”

Four others agreed, chiming in that I was a crewman like the rest, an American, a risk unless I joined them by spilling blood, as criminals like Papa Zeringue demand a crime before you enjoy their protection. After this stiff exchange, the Allmuseri were eager now for me to execute Cringle. They waited, their eyes following me minutely as I gripped the hatchet, which felt heavier in my fist than a handspike. Now I had endangered my own neck. Why in heaven’s name had I not kept my mouth shut, or choked my luff, as sailors say. If I refused, both Cringle and I would be pitched overboard. A long moment passed. I felt my head going tighter. I drew a deep breath, stepping toward Cringle, the hatchet lifted over my head. How long their silence lasted is impossible to say; I heard only the rasping of wheel ropes. Waters lapping. A ruffling of sails and the stormlike sound of wind. The kerosene lamp burned low in its bracket. Cringle sat motionless, waiting to hear his own head hit the floor. My fingers opened. The hatchet fell.

Diamelo ordered me to pick it up.

“Nay,” said I. “You can kill him, and me too. But without his help, and mine, you’ll wander the mid-Atlantic until the ocean swallows you, or some man-of-war heaves to and puts you in irons again.”

Ngonyama considered this. Diamelo did not buy it. There was an eye battle between them for a moment, and the boy won, quietly pleased, I think, that I’d given him a way to end the slaying. “You speak well, Rutherford.” His face sharpened: lean and pointed like a cat’s. “I’ve no doubt you were a good confidence man in New Orleans.”

I had to sit again and squeeze the seat of my chair to hide the shaking of my hands. Ngonyama spoke to his former yokefellows in a voice too fast for me to follow. Reluctantly, they saw the wisdom in releasing Cringle. Still, I was not done. I made bold to say, “Spare the captain until you sight land.”

Ngonyama made a 180-degree turn. “No!”

“He can’t escape, you know that! Use him to take us to safety. After that, do with him as you will.”

“You ask us to let him live?”

“Nay,” says I. “I ask you to make him your slave.”

That thought stopped Diamelo. I could tell the taste of it intrigued him. “All right, then. As you say, he will serve us, and then we can slay him.” Begrudgingly, Babo followed Diamelo’s order to untie Cringle. His other bravos the boy sent outside to see to the wounds of their women and children, and to prepare a sacrifice to ensure their safe passage. In spite of himself, Cringle said, “They’d better steady the booms and yards by guys and braces, and lash everything well down.”

Ngonyama said, “Thank you.”

Then he took me to one side and told me to bring up any mates who had fled to the storeroom, his face older-looking now, grave, his shoulders giving way to gravity or the crunch of some secret grief he could not share. “Rutherford”—his brow tightened—“I have done as you advised. But, as you see, Diamelo is very strong with the others. You know, in our village I was a poor man, like you, but his father was well-to-do. Diamelo is used to getting his way. I worry less about your captain now than how Diamelo can sway my people.”

Once outside, as we made our way down the ladder to the storeroom, the mate, who was above me, looked down and sneered, “Savages! And silver-tongued ones at that! Was it you who taught him English? You made a mistake there, Calhoun. He’ll have you servin’ his dinner, and wipin’ his arse next, that one, if you listen to him.”

“Maybe. . but suppose he meant what he said.”

Cringle kicked at me in rage. “Will you wake up, boy! Can you take his side after what they did? They were about to kill you too, Rutherford, or are you so wet you’ve forgotten that?”

“I’m not on anybody’s side! I’m just trying to keep us alive! I don’t know who’s right or wrong on this ship anymore, and I don’t much care! All I want is to go home !”

“Well”—he backed off a bit—“I’m not snapping at you. I owe you my life. I doubt if anyone would thank you for saving me, certainly not my family, seeing how I’ve failed them, but I’m grateful none of my sides were knocked off tonight, and I’ll do whatever you say, God help me.” He clapped me on the back. “That much I owe you.”

The Allmuseri prepared their ceremony to sanctify the ship, to make it a kind of church, and enlist their gods as guides in our seafaring. Cringle and I canvassed the ship’s storerooms and underbasements, looking for survivors, and to no avail until we descended into a tiny shotlocker full of saltpeter barrels in the lowest cell of the prow. I heard moaning — it was distinctly moaning — from the tiny cubicle, and called Cringle, who squeezed inside with an old Swedish poop lantern, then crawled back out, his free hand leading two figures I had given up as food for the sharks: Baleka, Squibb. Immediately, the girl squeezed me around my waist, both her hands bunching my shirt in the back.

“You’re all right, Josiah?”

“Passable, Mr. Cringle. We come down heah soon as the fracas broke out.” He folded his arms across his chest. “The others, I was wonderin’. . Are they. .”

“Dead? All but four of us. The Negroes have the ship now. It’s their move. The only protection we have from them, I’m sorry to say, is Calhoun.”

I mustered a smile. “Y’all better be nice to me.”

The mate frowned, clambering back up the ladder. We sent Baleka up next, followed by Squibb, but I tarried below for a time, feeling a wave of dizziness wash over me, and I noticed spots on my forearm, which I dismissed. Once the wooziness passed, I pulled my sleeve down to my wrist and wearily climbed back into open air.

Thus things stood on the Republic for the rest of the day. Come nightfall, the fifteen Allmuseri who had survived the ship’s takeover gathered on the starboard side. Their women had fashioned loose, baggy gowns for themselves from old sail. Although they had given better than they got in the fight, many of the men were injured. Six were carried to the ceremony, another five hobbled on crutches cut from top-mast timber. Baleka pulled the skipper’s goat to a hastily built altar inside a red circle they had splashed by the foremast. The sky was full of sea gulls, the sea calm now, shimmering as brightly as a mirror the way it reflected the moon. Cold, light breezes fluttered in the lower sails, so light you needed to wet your finger to feel them. Rags of gray vapor played round the topmost spars. Sitting on a crate beside Squibb and me, the mate shivered and pulled his peacoat close around him. He was jumpy from lack of sleep, his face ashen. “Mark my words, all of you. We’re going to need that animal in a few days.” Out of tobacco now, he sucked his pipe, which made a gurgling sound from spittle backed into the steam. “The storerooms are flooded. There’s nothing left to eat” . He grinned sourly, then coughed. “Unless we’re ready to start eating each other.”