January 14th, 1776
I cannot abide here longer. I have requested to be sent on one of the foraging parties.
The final sundering came in this way: Dr. Trefusis, hearing word that the sickness was general over the fleet, recommended that the bedding of the sick be washed with more regularity, as the folds of blankets might contain miasmatic gasses and the crumbs of animalcula which contribute to contagion. This proposal met with indifference one way or the other from Major Byrd, the commander of our regiment; but indifference is not condemnation, and once Dr. Trefusis continued in this vein so tirelessly that some of the women who found it not impossible that disease should be caused by beings invisible to the eye took up the cause as well, it was decided to attempt his palliative measures; and so the washerwomen undertook to circulate among the ships and douse the sheets.
Need I say that I greeted with a silent jubilation the return to our ship of Miss Nsia, who had not accompanied the return of my uniform; and that I felt particular pleasure in the opportunity to work at her side aiding the sick, flattering myself that there is no sweeter connection between man and woman than that forged in mutual assistance of another — thus, in my gross vanity, making selflessness but a stage for selfish display. (Foolish heart!)
We helped the sick to their feet, and to them donated our own bedrolls, consenting to go without blankets for one night. Nsia smiled upon me as I spake gently to those laid low, and as I took their hands.
Bono, seeing her present, came to our side, however, greeting us both and proffering his help; and I could not mistake the bashful confusion upon her face at his appearance, the admiration in her eyes at his superior gifts of charm and form, his easiness in his limbs, his settled compact with the world.
It was no surprise that she was taken with him; and yet, it burned in my vitals, as it burns now.
He assumed the bulk of work, speaking more companionably with the men, with Charles than I might, as he was Charles’s sworn friend; he clucked at the children and squawked, bringing forth their shy laughter, whereas I could only speak to them gently, but could not make comic sounds, as I am not of a comic disposition. And all of this conduced to convince not simply Miss Nsia of his superiority to me in every way, but me as well. I could not evade it; I was and always would be a lesser man.
The women washed the sheets in the galley and wrung them out, and we hung them to dry upon the rails, so our ship flapped gray in the winter breeze.
Thereafter, the ladies joined our supper by way of payment for their services, and we sat below and held a more somber feast than our last musical festival, before Norfolk had burned.
Our minds were turned, I suppose, to our fates, should our expedition fail, and to the torments that awaited us; and thus our conversation turned upon the dismal subject of punishment. Some told stories of wily crimes which elicited much laughter: slaying a master’s goose to get the meat, or theft of pewter trinkets. But most of the tales were grim. Better Joe spake of how, one day out of the Bight of Biafra, there had been an uprising upon the Guinea-man which carried him to the New World; that three men, having coated themselves with a spell that should have ensured invisibility, escaped their chains and attacked the purser; but still were solid to the eye, and were captured; and were then, in the sight of all, decapitated, their bodies and heads thrown from opposite rails of the ship, it being believed that such a death would mean that their spirits could not find their way back to Africa; and all knew, in that moment, that their home was lost, and that their gods could not find them; and that upon these shifting waves, there could be no safety, no village known, no family to grant a name, no ancestor to provide a comforting word of advice from their burial ground; no village more, no god more, no old father more, no old mother more, no name more; for buckra god give buckra power over all the sea; buckra god have the gun; buckra god, he crush us.
They spake of tortures which rent my heart. A man talked of seeing his wife pinched by children who he could not scold nor wave away with his stick, but must suffer them to torment her as she stood, eyes closed, twitching. Several recounted tales — agreeing, “Aye, that, that, worst, aye, that”— of being tied up and whipped, and then (by order) boys applied to scouring their backs with hay, and salt water poured over the wounds — and I could no longer bear to hear them without tears; which I shed not simply out of my sensibility of the pain, but at the thought that men could inflict such calculated agony upon each other blithely, with sport and fascination, and that it should be done for the continuance of nugatory pleasures, so that they might enjoy luxuries: a finer metal in the instruments of their table, or a room in which to half recline separate from the room where they reclined fully. I am weak-hearted, and I wept.
Nsia saw me, and inquired whether I was well.
I began to reply, “Miss Nsia must forgive my weakness, for when one can —”
“Prince O.,” said Bono, “is a little tender. It’s all new, ain’t it?”
I could not speak, so galled was I.
Ever louder, his voice attracting the gaze of the curious, Bono explained, “Private Nothing was raised up in a thimble of luxury. Worst they done to him, most terrible thing ever, they told him he couldn’t read whole Latin books no more. That sent him into a mope for maybe three years.”
I was aware of the eyes upon me, the eyes of those for whom I wept turned impassively upon me; I averted my own eyes and wiped away the late evidence of my weakness.
Bono said, “He’s a tender one.”
“Bono,” I protested.
“You are, indeed. You are a tender one.”
“I beg you not to animadvert to the —”
“Animad —, see? That’s what they taught him. Poor little Buckra here. He never knowed the whip.”
At that, I began to protest that I had known the whip — an absurd object of pride — but Bono spake over me, explaining to all, “Prince O. never really known what it felt like, til one time when he was ten, and he and his mama acted like no one’d ever been whipped before. They got a sofa to sit on like they was having tea. It was the properest little whipping I ever —”
“Bono, I would ask you not to —”
“Private Nothing, he lived in a sweet, fine dream where he was a princeling of quality, except I would pinch him to wake him up.” He reached out — as he had done years before — and clamped his fingers upon the flesh of my arm, squeezing as I protested — and our companions, startled, laughed at what they believed a show of fraternal rivalry — while Bono squeezed to bruise, and narrated, “I pinched him thusly, and told him, ‘It is the hour you better wake up.’”
“Stop!” I cried out. “Bono!”
“I said to him, ‘Rise up!’”
“Bono!”
“I had to wake him up. ‘For my mercy endureth forever,’” said Bono, and he loosened one hand to slap at my head in play; but there was no play in his eyes, only fury. I saw Nsia watching us, bemused, and could not abide her gaze. I pulled upon my arm, endeavoring to withdraw it from Bono’s grasp, and he drew me close to his face, and I once again protested that he should stop, and he with a look of mirth, wherein there was no mirth, patted my head, smiled into my face, and said, “Your mama ever — hey, don’t pull — for my mercy endureth forever.”
“Hold!”
“‘For my mercy endureth forever.’” He kicked at my shins. “Ha! ‘For my mercy endureth forever.’”
“Hold!”
“‘I have slain great kings —for my mercy endureth forever. For my mercy —’”
“Bono!”
He twisted my arm behind my back.
“Your mama ever tell you that you —”
“Don’t you mock her!”
“Your mama ever tell you —”
I pulled free and shrieked at him — my voice hoarse and high with anger —
“She is dead. She — is — dead.”
(A childish shriek — awful to recall — the petulant — never again —)
He stared at me, astonished. All were silent.
“I saw them cut her up,” I said, “to examine the nature of her skin.”
With that, I took my leave, and stormed up to the quarterdeck, for I could not abide the stares among my company — could not — and so crouched by the bulwark above, trembling, wishing to press myself into wood and so cease.
The storms of passion — the heart — I cannot describe the like — the calamity of all my spirits —
I hated him; I despised myself more, my pettish voice squealing its misery — I hated the ship, the shore, the river — I wished nothing more than an end of thought — I cannot describe it — I cannot.
And he was there beside me on the deck.
I stood.
He said, “Oh, Octavian. Octavian.”
We stood side by side there in the near-dark; I could descry the fear in his eyes, the discomfort in the mouth.
He could barely speak. “This true?” I did not answer, so he said, “How she . . . How she go over?” He asked it gently, but with fear, for he did not wish to hear the answer.
He was not prepared for my blow. My fist caught him full in the face, and he fell backward, and I leaped on top of him and kept pummeling him, and had known no joy like that for some time, the pleasure of blow after blow; and the greater pleasure of observing that he tried to rouse himself, but could not, save a hand on my throat barely clenched.
With sharp exclamation the master-at-arms and two midshipmen began to beat us with truncheons, crying, “Heave to, heave to!” and “Cease, you Negro brutes, or we’ll hurl ye both in the river!”
Cowed by their blows, we ceased and I rose. Bono had, from what could be seen in the dim light, a great deal of blood flowing from his lip; and when he stood, made a final lunge at me, which was arrested by the swift action of the sailors. They warned us against any further fighting; told Bono to go below, and me to remain above for watch; and that if there was another conflict, they would present the case to our commanding officers, and there should be consequences.
I begged an extra watch; I stayed all night upon the deck of the ship. A great wind blew upon us in the early part of night, which forced us to remove the sheets from the ship’s railings before they should blow away. One eluded our grasp and toppled through the dark, a thing flapping, but too ungainly to fly. It was engulfed in the water and slowly crawled into obscurity, a beast either skulking or stalking.
Then came in the rain, and all froze and was black.