Signals of Distress (5 page)

‘You mean she’ll have to share a room with sailing men?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with sailing men except they’re rough.’

‘For how long will this be?’

‘Well, here’s the pattern to it, Mr Smith. The Norrises have passages aboard a ship that’s called the
Belle of
… some place I forget, and that’s the one
that’s beached along the coast at Dry Manston. If they can get her off the bar and seaworthy and she’s not broken up for firewood, then the Norrises can leave and be in Canadee within
the two months.’

‘If not?’

‘If not, the Norrises will have to share a room until they find another ship, or turn around and go back home, wherever that might be.’

‘It is not thinkable that they should share, even for one night.’

‘They’ve not the choice. I’ll not have shipwrecked men sleep in the street or in the stables. This isn’t Bethlehem. It’s damp and cold out there. I never heard that
blushes did more harm than damp and cold. Besides, she’ll only have to blush a while and then they’ll all be shipmates, just you see. There’s plenty women in this town’d be
glad to share a room with three or four Americans. Young Mrs Norris can take her pick!’ Her laugh was uninhibited and unoffending. She was a woman in her forties, playful, forthright,
savoury, with some remains of beauty in her face if not her figure. Hers was a case for stays, although she was the sort whose stoutness was a charm. ‘There, that’s your bed dressed for
the night,’ she said. ‘You’ll sleep like royalty. Don’t be surprised if I creep in between the sheets, it looks so clean and welcoming …’ Aymer reddened. He put
his hand across his mouth. ‘Now, that’s me being comical,’ she said, noting Aymer’s discomposure. ‘I’ll not go uninvited anywhere. So there’s your sheets
and there’s your bed, and anything you need from me is there for asking. You’ll not want soap, I see.’ She nodded at the stack of soap in Aymer’s hands. ‘They must be
Smith’s.’

‘Please take some, if you want.’

‘I like a luxury,’ she said, and took three bars, and curtsied, plumply.

Aymer was alarmed. He couldn’t be sure if she’d been flirting. What was the ‘anything’ she’d offered him? Food? Hearthside hospitality? Or sin? Would she try to
slip between his sheets – and legs – at night? And if she did, would Aymer take her in his long, thin arms, or would he flee, in his nightshirt, onto the balcony and down the wooden
staircase to the cold and salty courtyard? Were blushes really so much healthier than cold and damp? He didn’t have the courage to find out.

‘There is no need to move the other beds,’ he said. ‘I’ll share a room with the Americans. I think we must allow the Norrises to keep their privacy.’

‘No, Mr Smith. I cannot let you sleep with sailors of that kind. Same as I said, they’re rough. Their language will offend you, and their nighttime habits …’

‘Well, then, perhaps it would be better if Mr Norris and his wife were to share with me. Shift out two beds for sailors, and let the other two remain. Our beds are curtained, so we can
count on privacy. My language and my nighttime habits can give no offence. Besides, I am already acquainted with Mr Norris and he has introduced his wife. Perhaps, if my business can be completed
rapidly, I will depart on the coastal packet tomorrow, and then this room can offer total privacy again.’

‘That is a rare suggestion and a kindly one.’

‘Surely I can make this sacrifice for just one night.’ Aymer put the remaining two bars of soap on the widest of the beds.

O
TTO WOULD NOT
get a bed. There were no volunteers to share with him, though there were many townspeople in the inn’s courtyard keen to stand
around and stare, to examine his face, to try a smile, to test a word or two, to comprehend this first encounter with an African. What did they know except what they’d learned at fairs or
from sailors or in the farthing pamphlets they’d bought from pedlars? That Africans were ruled by dogs or dined on dogs or smelled like dogs? That Africans didn’t wear clothes and had
no tongues, no names, no navels? That black men didn’t dream? The Wherrytowners did their best to catch sight of a navel or a tongue, to find his oddities. ‘Well, Blackie,’ one
man whispered in Otto’s ear, ‘what news from the Devil?’ But he didn’t wait for a reply.

Otto was conscious and in less pain. His ankle wounds had crusted. The bruises on his forehead were already blue. His eyesight was restored. He sat on the seaweed in the cart, eyes closed, and
did his best to think of other things. But the oddness of the leafless trees he’d seen, the hardness of the sky, the stony torpor of the land, the mud, unsettled him so much that he was close
both to tears and to fury. He had to concentrate, amid the din, to steel himself against the courtyard ghosts. He’d learn to dream himself elsewhere, but first he wanted things for which
there were no words. He wanted warmth and food and sleep, and could not summon them. Shipmaster Comstock and his crew could be excused their neglect of him. They all were bruised. They all were
cold. Their tempers were worn thin by the six-mile walk along the coast and by the prospect of some weeks ashore. They had no energy for anyone except themselves.

They put Otto in the tackle room beneath the wooden balcony. They covered him in horse blankets woven from rough perpetuanna wool, and made him comfortable on straw. They shut the bolts.
‘It’s best to let him rest,’ Shipmaster Comstock said. The captain had more pressing problems than the African. He had his ship wedged on the bar. He had fifteen sailors and a dog
to feed and pacify. There were hard letters to be written: to the owners of the
Belle
; to the various agents further down the coast who had arranged passages from several ports for emigrants
to Montreal; to the Bostonian family of the seaman, Nathaniel Rankin, who had drowned; to the livestock merchants who had shipped the cattle that now were grazing freely at Dry Manston, still a
half-day’s voyage short of the
Belle
’s second destination, and their owners at the port of Fowey. He had to find the means to dislodge his vessel before it broke up on the Monday
tides, and dock it in Wherrytown. He had to find the wrights and riggers to carry out repairs. He had to justify himself. Thank God that there were men like Walter Howells. In their brief
conversation on the beach, the man had introduced himself as someone who could alleviate the captain’s burden, for some decent recompense. Already he had undertaken to herd the cattle at Dry
Manston and find secure grazing for them. And he had promised more.

Comstock and his men were tired. They ate the bread and soup which Mrs Yapp prepared. They longed for sleep. It was midday. Aymer had stood on the bedroom balcony and watched the caravan of men
arrive. The Norrises were there below, their passage tickets in their hands, anxious to discover what their travel prospects were. A small, untidy dog with a bearded throat and white hair on its
chin and eyebrows ran wildly in the yard, barking at the townspeople as if they were the newcomers and the dog belonged. The horse-drawn cart was stabled with its horses. George began to unload the
bed of seaweed and stack it in the inn’s fuel store. Aymer couldn’t see the African. The sailors who carried him into the tackle room obscured the view. At last the sailors followed Mrs
Yapp into the inn. The Norrises walked once more down to the quay, and the townspeople returned to their nets and pots and laundry. Now the courtyard was empty except for the dog which was turning
horse manure with its nose and eating some.

Aymer came down from the balcony by the wooden stairs. He tried to see inside the tackle room, but the single window had been boarded. There was no sound. Aymer knocked on the door and then drew
the bolts. The black man had his back against a saddle and a saddle-cloth. It was too dark to see his face, although the draughty winter light that slanted through the open door displayed the
healing rawness of his ankle where the chain had been.

‘Are you sleeping?’ Aymer said. Evidently not. The man’s reply was a fusillade of words. Aymer couldn’t recognize the language but he knew the tone. Here was a man who,
had he got the strength, would have taken Aymer by the throat. The shouting brought the dog to Aymer’s heels. She spread her legs and growled into the vociferous darkness of the room.

Aymer put the bolts back in place. He went into the warm breath of the stables where he could hear George at work. ‘Is there a good physician in Wherrytown?’ he asked.

‘There’s not,’ said George. ‘Are you unwell? That shoulder’s giving trouble, is it, sir?’

‘It is, indeed. But I was thinking of that poor man who is locked up.’

‘The African?’

‘He has a wounded leg and should be seen.’

‘There’s no one here to see him, except the horse doctor, but I suppose the fellow won’t want shoeing or getting his tail docked. I hear, though, that those Negro men have
tails …’

‘You are a provocation, George. No doubt, in time, I will learn to treat your banter as comedy. But for the moment I would be glad to hear you talking plainly. Tell me, to whom do you
resort if you are ill?’

‘I resort to bed and hope that Mrs Yapp will tend to me.’

‘Is Mrs Yapp a healer, then?’

‘No, she in’t.’

‘What must I do to get an answer out of you?’

‘It seems to me you’re getting answers by the score.’

‘But not the one answer that I seek.’

‘What answer do you seek? You say, and I’ll repeat it for you, word for word, so long as it is short.’

‘I do not know the answer that I seek and that is why … Dear Lord, I need someone to treat a wounded man. Is that not plain enough?’

‘It’s plain you want a healer, then. There’s only one, and that is Mr Phipps, the preacher. He pulls the Christian teeth round here, and sets the bones for those that are
contrite.’

‘Then kindly fetch him.’

‘I’ve my work to do.’

‘I’ll see to it that you are recompensed.’

‘With something shinier than soap, I hope.’

‘A shilling, George. Produce the healer here at once. Be my man while I am lodging at your Inn-that-has-no-name, and the shilling will be yours. Can I count on you?’

‘You can count on a shilling’s worth.’

Aymer went back to his room to find some gift to pacify the African. He took a cake of soap, but wondered if the man might take offence. And so he added his dry rations, the food he’d
brought from home in case the catering in Wherrytown was bad: the great bar of black bread, the Bologna sausage, the chocolate, the anchovy paste. He took, too, the jug of sweetened drinking water
from his bedside. He could have called on Mrs Yapp for provisions, but Aymer felt that in some way the African was placed in his safekeeping. Once more he drew the bolts on the tackle room and
opened the door. The little dog accompanied him and didn’t bark. There was no fusillade.

‘What is your name?’ asked Aymer. No reply except a sigh. ‘I’ve brought you food to eat.’ He mimed the cramming of his mouth, then put his gifts in the shaft of
light on the bricked floor between the man’s good ankle and his bad. There was no hesitation. Otto drank the water from the jug. He ate the sausage and most of the bread. He smelled the soap
and anchovy and put them to one side. He smelled the chocolate and rubbed it on his lips before dispatching it. He didn’t mind the dog sniffing at his ankle and then licking the dried blood.
He stroked her neck and chin. It seemed they were old friends, the least regarded creatures on the
Belle
.

‘I’ve sent for a physician. A Man to Make You Well,’ Aymer explained, thinking that emphatic language would be understood. The African stayed in the shadows. He made no sign of
gratitude. He turned the dog’s ears in his hand, the double-sided velvet skin. He tugged and stroked the long, dung-crusted hair beneath her chin. At last he seemed to speak. But if this was
speech then it was meant for the dog and not for Aymer: ‘Uwip. Uwip. Uwip.’

Aymer didn’t like his philanthropy to be less heeded than a dog. He wanted Otto to himself. So he repeated what he heard, ‘Uwip’. The dog’s ears straightened and her head
turned. ‘Uwip, Uwip,’ said Aymer, with more force. The dog came to him and pushed her nose into the crotch of his trousers – expecting what? Some treat perhaps. Again, Otto called
to the dog. He didn’t like to lose the animal. ‘Uwip, Uwip.’ The dog returned and for her trouble was rewarded with the anchovy paste.

‘Her name is Whip!’ Aymer said, delighted at his deduction. ‘So now we have a word in common. And I will teach you more. My own name …’ He pointed at his chest.
‘Aymer Smith of Hector Smith & Sons. Can you say Smith? Smith. Sm.Ith. Smi.Th.’ He wasn’t listened to. He had no audience. A cold and wounded man abducted from his home has no
appetite for lessons.

It wasn’t long before George returned with Mr Phipps. The preacher first examined Aymer’s shoulder in the courtyard, asking him to hold his arm above his head and then to exercise
his fingers.

‘The bone is bruised,’ he said. ‘I cannot find a fracture, but your shoulder is inflamed. You should rest the arm. It would be wise to strap it to your chest. Sleep on your
side. Are you in pain? Then purchase laudanum, and ask Mrs Yapp to prepare a poultice of witch hazel and cicely. That will thin the bruise, with God’s good offices.’

‘Is there an apothecary where I can purchase laudanum?’

‘No, there is not. You see the kind of town we are. But Walter Howells who is a trader here has some supplies. Our Mr Howells has some of everything, excepting virtue. Now let me see this
other injured man.’

They brought a lantern from the stable and hung it from a rafter in the tackle room. The preacher didn’t speak. Nor did he touch the patient. He peered into his face and examined the
damage to his forehead and eye. He looked for several seconds at the weeping ankle.

‘My knowledge does not stretch to Africans,’ he said. ‘I do not know their constitutions. I would not wish to interfere. More harm will come of that than good. Our remedies are
not for him. A medicine that makes us well might make him feverish.’

‘You cannot tend his wounds?’