Voyage of Midnight (21 page)

In the infirmary I settled the mother and baby as best I could considering that we were being tossed about like rag dolls. The boy refused to lie down, instead clutching the waist of my trousers with his good hand. The girl whimpered as I probed her broken leg. I spoke to her in the only African language I knew, telling her it’d be all right, that I’d take care of her. That I was a surgeon. That it’d hurt only for a moment and then all would be well. Oji interpreted for me when I faltered.

I pulled hard on her leg, feeling the bones move back into alignment, feeling her squirm. Hearing her pant as she stifled her cries.

Dear Lord, how it must hurt!

Next to me, the boy began to cry softly, his arm now about my waist, his hand clutching my shirt. And in the midst of the storm, like a dam trembling under the pressure of the water until it finally rips asunder, my heart tore open and I was flooded with compassion, not just for the girl, but for all of them. For the mother, the newborn, the boy with the broken wrist. For Oji, and for every African aboard—all of whom had names, families, villages, where loved ones watched the horizon, awaiting their return.

During the three days the storm lasted, Oji and I brought all the injured to the infirmary—men, women, and children. It was easy to do, in a manner of speaking, for there were no guards at the holds and, as surgeon, I’d a skeleton key that unlocked any shackle. Together Oji and I set and splinted broken limbs, clumsily stitched gashes, and bound wounds.

Although I
was
the surgeon and it was rightfully in my capacity to act as such, I’d decided not to tell anyone that I was filling
the infirmary with injured Africans. I’d a dread of what would happen to slaves who broke their limbs—rather like horses, I supposed, they’d be quickly dispatched. For the slaves’ part, like the little girl, they stifled their screams, Oji having warned them to be silent.

Oji and I raided the food stores and the spirit-casks as well, all unguarded during the storm. Once, while I was loaded with an armful of yams, a wave dashed me off my feet. Horrified, I smashed into the bulwarks in a cascade of seawater and yams. Surely another wave would’ve washed me overboard, but Oji’s strong hand grasped my ankle. I clung to him, choking, fighting the waves, until we made it safely back into the storage locker. There, both of us sopping wet, Oji filled my arms with more yams.

“Oji, listen.” I spoke above the storm’s clamor. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Why, during the rebellion, did you spare my life? Why did you protect me from harm instead of killing me? I know you broke my nose, and that hurt like the dickens, but you could’ve killed me and you didn’t.”

Oji continued to pile yams into my arms. Finally he said, “My father ordered me not to kill you.”

“Ikoro ordered you not to kill me?” I remembered Ikoro turning his back on his opportunity to kill me, instead killing Mackerel. “But why—”

“He believed you had a powerful god, a powerful
chi
, and that you would do great things in your life because of your
chi.”

“Then—then you only spared my life because your father said so?”

“On that day, I wanted you to die. I thirsted for your blood. And in my homeland we keep the heads of our enemies as trophies. I wanted your blood
and
your head.”

I was shocked into silence.

He continued. “But my father insisted. We were to kill all the white men except you.”

A lump grew in my throat, and my eyes burned. “Then why are you standing here talking to me if you hate me so much, Oji?” My voice sounded as hurt as I felt. “Why do you share my quarters, and why did you give me water when I was thirsty? And why did you just now save me from being washed overboard? You should’ve just let me go.”

Water swirled about my ankles, cold and biting. My teeth began to chatter. The door to the storage locker slammed shut, then opened, then slammed shut again with the rocking of the ship.

“Are you really so blind?” said Oji, his voice as calm as if he were talking of yam soup. “Does a man beg for the life of another if he has hatred in his heart? When you begged for my father’s life, I knew then that you were not like the others.”

“That’s not saying much. They’re murderers, the lot of them. And if they’re not murderers, it’s only because they’ve not had the chance yet.” The door flew open again, and the wind roared through the shelter. I braced my legs against one of the shelves, still hurt that Oji had admitted to hating me for so long.

“It was only after they killed my father that I understood. My
chi
, my personal god, must have sent you to me as an exchange for my father. The more I have noticed your actions toward others, the more I have understood that my father was right. You have a powerful
chi
.”

I staggered under the weight of so many yams. “Well, my
chi
is getting tired and hungry, and I can’t carry another yam. Please, let’s go.” But as I turned, Oji caught my arm.

“Do not be angry. I no longer hate you.”

“Well, that’s some comfort,” I said, and though I’d meant it sarcastically, I realized that this was indeed a comfort. That what Oji thought of me was actually quite important.

The six executed slaves gathered round my berth and watched me, looking inside my dream. And in my dream, as in all my dreams, I could see.

The
Formidable
, her sails as tattered as a battle flag, her hull thickened with barnacles, had arrived on the coast and dropped anchor. The air smelled of jungle—rich, damp, alive. Thousands stood along the shore, waiting. Boatloads of slaves from the
Formidable
were rowing ashore. As each boat scraped the sand, the occupants sprang out and into the crowd, leaving their chains behind.

They flung themselves into the arms of those who’d been waiting. There were exclamations of joy, tears, laughter. Fathers were reunited with sons. Daughters with mothers. Brothers with sisters.

Oji cradling the baby.

And me, standing at the helm alongside the Gallaghers, smiling.

Then, like a strike of lightning on a sunny day, cruel and unexpected, my uncle cried, “Fire!” and the cannon blasted. The crowd disintegrated like matchsticks.

I screamed—a real scream, shrill and loud. I sat up in my berth, my blood roaring with the pounding of my heart.

“Philip?” It was Oji.

He killed them! He killed them all!

Then Oji was beside me. “Philip? Are you ill?”

I was trembling, panting, my mind’s eye still seeing the bodies—of men, women, children. Everyone dead.

Oji pressed his hand against my forehead. “Philip, if you die, we all die.”

My corn-husk mattress crunched as I sank back. Water slapped gently against the hull. Timbers creaked. And in the women’s hold, someone was singing:

I said, “The storm has stopped.”

“Yes. We have life.”

And as I lay there listening to the woman sing, my breathing still ragged, I remembered what Oji had said. “What did you mean when you said that if I die, everyone dies?”

For the longest time, he didn’t answer. He didn’t move, nor could I hear him breathe. If I’d not known he was there, I’d have thought I was alone. Finally he whispered, “When you asked me why my father and I spared your life, I did not tell you everything.”

I said nothing, waiting for Oji to continue.

“He had a vision that you would be the one to lead us back to Africa. He said that because of your knowledge of how the great hut sails on the water, you would use this knowledge to help us.”

I was stunned.

Lead them back to Africa? Me?

If he’d told me this even a short time ago, I’d have laughed. But now I thought of the six slaves who always visited my sleep; of my increasing shame; of my dream of families reuniting
while the scent of jungle lingered in the night.… “Oji, this vision of your father’s … I’m just a boy, and a blind boy at that.”

“The gods do not lie.”

“But—but I don’t
believe
in your gods.”

“But you believe in yours.”

I said nothing.

“And your
chi
, your god, is powerful.”

The song from the women’s hold faded into a silence filled only with the sounds of the ship. “She was singing a song of my childhood,” whispered Oji. “Philip, I
will
return to Africa again. I
will
be free. We will all be free. It is our right.”

In the dark I groped for his hand and clasped it. It was warm and dry. “Yes, it
is
your right. Your right as human beings.” My voice tightened. “And I pray that someday you will all return to your homeland.”

I was surprised by the ferocity with which Oji now clutched my hand. “Take us there, Philip.”

“But—but I don’t know how.”

“The gods will show the way. Your
chi
will lead you. Take us there.
Please
, I beg you.
Bik
. In the name of every African aboard.”

I swallowed, my throat dry as parched earth, my heart hammering as if I stood at a great precipice and had been asked to leap off. But something larger than me was at work. As if my whole life had led me to this moment, to hold the hand of Oji, to prompt me to say, with all sincerity, “If I weren’t blind, and if it were in my power, I’d take you there. All of you.”

Then an odd thing happened. As soon as I had uttered them, my words went beyond me, no longer belonging to me alone. They echoed through my cabin, piercing timbers, whispering through the deepest shadows and holds of the
Formidable
, penetrating my being, written upon my heart with the finger of every black man, woman, and child aboard.

And in that moment it was as if Oji and I were no longer alone—as if six male slaves stood in the cabin with us, filling the space with their presence.

Goose bumps danced up my arms like wind rippling across the water’s surface. I bowed my head, thinking,
Is it really possible? Can such a thing be done?

I don’t know how much time elapsed before I awoke again—two hours? three?—but I sat up straight, the ship still gripped in the silence that followed the storm.

Something was different.

I crawled out of my bunk and felt for Oji’s to determine if he was still there.

He wasn’t.

That’s when I noticed something that caused my heart to skip like a rock tossed across the surface of a pond.

In the direction of the porthole, I saw a hazy light. I blinked. Thinking it’d disappear. That it was another dream. A cruel dream. But no, it was there. A light. Grayish, like the pre-light of dawn.

My heart began to thump wildly, a bird trapped in my chest. As if Uncle had just screamed “Fire!”

I hauled on my trousers and hastened into the passageway, up the dim outline of the companionway, and out onto the deck. I gasped. About me I saw rigging hanging like vines in a jungle, sails torn and shredded, yards askew, everything damp and puddled.

And there, in the east, hues of purple light brushed the predawn sky.

I
basked in the sights all morning and afternoon.

The sun. The freckles on the backs of my hands. The infant suckling at the breast of his young mother. The towering masts. Oji. A beetle crawling across the deck. All of it amazed me, as if I were seeing everything for the first time.

Yet when in the late afternoon I joined the crew as we gathered about Uncle on the quarterdeck, I was equally appalled by the desperation and ugliness that now surrounded me.

Uncle’s left eyeball was rotting out of his head.

His clothes hung slack on his frame. His cheeks were sunken, his whiskers unkempt; his usual healthy complexion had been
replaced by a gray pallor. “We collected several casks of rainwater before the storm became too violent,” he was saying. “If we ration them carefully, our supply will last another few weeks. After that, well …” His voice trailed away.