Voyage of Midnight (18 page)

“What’re you waiting for?” said Billy the Vermin. “Go.” And he poked me in the spine with a rigid finger.

“Clear off, Vermin.” I hesitated at the lip of the hatch, smelling the darkness beneath. My knees shook. I blinked the sweat from my eyes.

Billy hissed in my ear, “You’re scared. You ain’t nothing but a cow-hearted
dog.”

That did it. I summoned every ounce of courage and descended the companionway, leaving Billy behind. Uncle waited for me, lantern in hand. His face was cast in shadow. At the bottom, I clung to the ladder.
It’s so dark!
Immediately my chest tightened. A vise about my lungs, squeezing, squeezing. I wanted to shriek and climb out of there.

“Uncle, Uncle, I can’t breathe.”

Again Uncle grabbed my arm. His fingers pressed hard into my flesh, down to my bone, and I knew I’d have bruises to show for it. I gasped.

He growled, “You’ll come with me now or I’ll lock you down here for the remainder of the voyage. Which will it be?”

“No, please, don’t lock me up, please!” I screeched, my voice shrill as a fishwife’s. “I—I’ll follow.”

The smell of so many bodies crammed together—the stench of waste, of every bodily fluid, spilled on the tiers, in the narrow aisles—was overpowering. I choked back vomit.

I can’t breathe!

As we passed through the aisles, my uncle first, then me, arms reached out from every direction—from the tiers high above, from the middle section, from the ground. Chains clanked; hands grabbed my trousers, my shirt, my hair. I tore away from them, stifling my urge to scream, brushing them away as if they were insects.

I can’t breathe!

A chorus of wails attended us, growing louder as we approached each area of the hold, then fading as we left. Throughout, Uncle stopped and held up his lantern, grabbing me by the scruff of my neck and forcing me to look.…

Look …

Blind eyes stared at nothing. Filmy white membranes covered the brown irises like fog. Hundreds of them. Hundreds.

All blind.

T
he
Formidable
plunged on through the Atlantic waters, unaware of the frightful illness she carried in her holds.

Ophthalmia
.

That’s what my uncle told me it was, once he’d returned to his cabin and scrubbed his scalp and face with cold water.

Highly contagious.

“If you’d told me when it’d first occurred,” he said, now looking tired and drained, “I could’ve thrown the affected ones overboard.” He sat and poured each of us a goblet of palm wine. “Then we could’ve avoided this mess.”

I thought of the little girl with the rabbit teeth. I thought of her being tossed overboard, still alive, simply because her eyelids were gummed together. I stood
there, ignoring the goblet of wine Uncle proffered me, hating this vessel, this voyage. Hating this relative of mine, who’d the compassion of a toad and the remorse of an onion.

Uncle drank deeply.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“You’re the bloody surgeon, you tell me.”

I made no response, knowing that he knew the answer, while I knew nothing.

“We ride it out, that’s what we do,” he finally said. “There’re too many affected. It’s all over the ship. Our only hope is that the blindness isn’t always permanent. Given enough time, in fact, it often reverses itself.” He drained his goblet and poured himself another. “Let us pray God will be merciful. I
cannot
lose this cargo.”

“I didn’t know you prayed.”

He mustn’t have heard the sarcasm in my voice, for he said simply, “Aye, I pray. What God-fearing man doesn’t? And though I’m forced to work in a thankless occupation, God has blessed me.” He suddenly looked at me. “I’m thankful for you, Philip. And I’m sorry for losing my temper. I’d never have locked you down there. You know that.”

Again I said nothing, my heart tight, wishing things had been different between us.

Uncle frowned, then sighed. Set down his empty goblet and stood. “Well, then, best get started. We must see to the organization of the slaves into two groups, those who are afflicted and those who aren’t. It’ll take the rest of the day, I judge.” And out he went.

I followed, saying nothing, not telling Uncle that the whites of his eyes had turned to pink.

It was everywhere.

The ophthalmia.

Almost every slave was afflicted with it, to one degree or another. Pea Soup too was now as blind as if he’d been carved from obsidian rather than flesh. I saw him upon occasion, sitting and staring at nothing or pathetically feeling his way along, going goodness knows where.

Uncle flogged several of the crew for not telling him about the ophthalmia.

Roach said he thought Harold had told him. Harold said he thought Calvin had told him. Calvin said it was the surgeon’s responsibility, so why should they get in trouble for something that was my fault?

Uncle flogged them all.

It was a day of flogging, of vinegar vapors, of grumbling, crying, moaning, whining, and vicious looks cast my way. More than once, someone bumped into me, hard, or put an elbow in my face, or stamped on my toe, saying, “Oh, excuse me, Mr. Surgeon, I didn’t see you there. You being so small and all.”

Food and water rations, which had already been stingy, were halved.

As for myself, I felt hideously inadequate, furious that Jonas had left me with this disaster. I’d already done everything I knew to heal the slaves’ eyes, and yet they’d gone blind. What more could I do? Bleed them? Blister them? Cup them? I spent much of my day poring over Jonas’ ancient medical books, as musty and yellowed as their former owner, but could find nothing helpful.

One said to apply the pulp of rotted apples over the inflamed eyes, but we’d no apples. Another said to apply a lukewarm decoction of poppy heads, but we’d no poppy heads. Another said to apply leeches, but our supply of leeches had died a fortnight ago. Another said to “stir the whites of two eggs briskly with a lump of alum till they coagulate,” and then to apply the mixture to closed lids at night. But Uncle had finished eating all of the
chickens and their eggs a few days past. Regardless, all of these remedies were for
inflamed
eyes, not for curing blindness.

The sun hung over the watery horizon on this evening in mid-May, the conclusion of the thirty-first day of our homeward-bound journey. I closed the last of the medical books. Nothing. I stood at the rail, wishing all this were a dream, until Billy fetched me, saying I needed to report to Uncle’s cabin.

“I say, Billy, do you ever wonder why you do this?” I asked on impulse.

An expression came over Billy’s face that I can only describe as daft. “Do what?”

“This
. Trade in human flesh.”

He shrugged. “No. Not really.”

I sighed. “No, I don’t suppose you would.”

Uncle was lying on his bed, a wet rag over his eyes. When I entered his cabin, he lifted it up and peered at me. “I have it, don’t I?”

To my shock, he was weeping.

“I have it, don’t I? The disease.”

“Yes, Uncle. I’m sorry.”

One by one, the crew contracted the disease. They wandered about with pink, pus-filled eyes until they too became blind. First the gunner, then nine of the sailors, then the carpenter, then Uncle…

Soon there were only six of us who could see to set the sails. We plied on every scrap of canvas, reeling toward the Caribbean. According to the charts we were more than halfway to Havana, but owing to our condition we’d resolved to make for the nearest port, cutting a fortnight off our journey. I was solely responsible for navigation of the ship now. Uncle stood beside me each day at
the rail, clutching my arm like a child who can’t let his parent out of his sight for fear of being lost. “Are you quite certain it’s high noon?” “What’s the compass heading?” “Are you sure your figures are correct?” “Have you—”

“Yes, don’t worry. We’re on course.”

“How long till our destination?”

“Hopefully no more’n ten days.”

“Have you forgotten that you’re my Don Felipe, should we be boarded by the Yanks?”

“No, Don Pedro, I’ve not forgotten.”

“I can’t do this without you, Philip.”

“I know, Uncle.”

“You’re my eyes. I’m trusting you.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Why’ve you not gone blind too? You’re the surgeon. You of all people should’ve been affected; the ill are constantly about you.”

“I’ve stopped trying to figure it out. Luck, probably.”

“Certainly not your manly constitution.”

“I suppose not.”

“Have you seen to it that rations have been cut again?”

“Yes, but everyone is thirsty. We can’t cut the water rations again.”

“How many died today?”

“Seven.”

“Pray tell me, what did they die of?”

“Breathing toxic vapors.”

“We can’t keep them down there for the remainder of the voyage. It’s unhealthy. Negroes must have their exercise. They’re like dogs in that regard.”

“Exercise would do them well.”

“But how do we bring up hundreds of blind negroes when we ourselves are blind?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’d be madness.” He slammed the rail with his fist. Tears dripped from his blind eyes. “Oh God, Philip, I pray every moment to see again. I pray God take this blindness from me!”

“Yes, Uncle. I pray that as well.”

I took my first trick at the helm. An enormous burden of work fell upon those of us who still had our sight, allowing us only a couple of hours of sleep per day. Not only that, but we were already shorthanded, as our crew now numbered only thirty-four, twelve of us having been lost to disease, battle, and rebellion. Of course the ship’s wheel was too massive and stubborn for me to control alone, so I was flanked by two sightless sailors who followed my instructions. “Left, left! No, no, too much!” I would cry. “Right, right!” “Hold her steady!” “She’s luffing. Quickly, which way should I go again?”

It was a fine, windy day, the blue skies marred only by distant clouds. The
Formidable
plunged through the waves, tossing spray over her bow. It would’ve been magnificent had our situation been different. Had we carried coal or rice or fabrics instead of slaves. Had we been healthy, well fed, and with all the drinking water we desired. Today three of the six men who still had vision now bore signs of the disease. It was a race to reach port before it claimed us all.

When I wasn’t giving orders, I clung to the wheel, the bracing wind tossing my hair and making my eyes burn and water.

Eight more days at most
.

I prayed for strength and sight to guide the ship safely to harbor. For though I despised my uncle as well as the crew, I wished no one ill, and wouldn’t rest till both crew and slaves had proper
medical attention and plenty of food and clean water. This was the task appointed me and this was the task I’d fulfill, as nephew, surgeon, and one who knows what it is to suffer.

After my trick, it was near noon. Every muscle ached, and I was so stiff and sore I couldn’t move properly. Twenty slaves took their exercise on deck. Blind, tripping over one another, they danced to Billy’s fiddle music. Chains rattled and the deck thumped as they stamped about. While we couldn’t exercise hundreds at a time, we brought them up on deck in small numbers, where they could be handled easily for a couple of hours before being exchanged for the next lot.

I watched for a moment before disappearing down the aft companionway. It was time to sight the noonday sun. After that, I was to help Cookie with the evening mess, for he was as blind as the rest of them and fumbled about his pots and pans and food stores like a lost sheep, all the while mumbling like a madman. I paused outside my cabin door, longing to slip inside and study my languages, read Shakespeare, sleep, perhaps, but instead I took a deep breath and prepared to rap on Uncle’s cabin door to fetch the nautical instruments.

It was then I heard voices from within. Heard my name.

Uncle was speaking. “Philip has proved to be quite useful to me. He says we’re at most eight days’ sail from the nearest port. Barbuda, I believe, if our course remains true.”

“It’ll be a mercy if we make it safely.” I recognized the second voice. It belonged to the new first mate, McGuire. He’d been promoted from his position as second mate upon the death of Numbly during the rebellion. Now, like Uncle, McGuire was afflicted with blindness.

Uncle lowered his voice, and I strained to hear. “When we’re within a day’s sail, I want you to jettison all cargo that hasn’t yet recovered their sight.”

There was a silence.

My heart skipped a beat.

Jettison the cargo?
I’d heard those words before. Somewhere. And what exactly did they mean? I dreaded I was soon to find out.

“Sir?” asked the first mate.

Uncle laughed. “Think about it, McGuire. Who would buy a bunch of blind slaves anyhow? Whereas every slave that’s lost must be made good by the underwriters. Did you think my cargo would be uninsured?”

“But—but, Captain …”

“Besides, my good man, would you have me turn my ship into a hospital for the support of blind negroes?”