In The Belly Of The Bloodhound (18 page)

“Here it is,” I say. There was a split in one of the bulkhead boards and the rats, with their teeth, had widened it out at the bottom, where it met the Pit decking, to a hole about four inches across. I get down on my knees and look in, and on my face I feel a draft coming through—it smells of cooking fires and food.[_ Good._]

“What do you see?” asks Clarissa, crouched beside me.

“Nothing yet, but maybe…I think I see a dim glow up ahead and I do smell food.” I sit back up and put my hand carefully into the hole—I don’t want to get bit—and I judge the thickness of the board. It is about two inches thick and the wood seems pretty soft. “We’ll have to widen this out.”

“But how?”

“Maybe with our teeth, like the rats,” I say. “I recall you being pretty good with yours.”

Actually, though, I’m thinking of my shiv tucked safely away in my seabag. I consider telling Clarissa, but, no, not yet. “Listen, you—”

“Good night, ladies!” shouts someone from high above, and the shutters come slamming down over the bars to be battened down tight for the night.[_ Damn!_] In an instant we are in pitch darkness.

“Well, this certainly complicates things,” I growl. “If they’re going to do that every evening, then our operating time down here just got cut by half. We’ll have to—”

“God help me!” gasps Clarissa, and I hear her frantically groping in the dark for me. She does find me and I feel her arms tight around my waist. Well, well, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard Clarissa call on anyone for help, let alone God himself.

“Could it be that Lady Miss Clarissa Worthington Howe is afraid of the dark?” purr I, enjoying the moment in spite of everything.

Just then, the rat horde, having been denied access to the rat hole by us being there in the light, chooses that moment to swarm over our feet and into the hole.

“Oh,[_ pleeeeease,”_] whimpers Clarissa, and I relent and find her hand and hold it. I had lived in close quarters with rats before, when I lived with Charlie and Hughie and the gang under Blackfriars Bridge, so they don’t scare me like they scare Clarissa, but still, I can’t say as I like ‘em.

“It’s all right, Clarissa. Come, take my hand. We’ll just go this away till we find the stairs. We’ll feel our way along the bulkhead. Ah, here they are. Up we go.”

When we gain the Stage, enough dim rays of light come in around the edges of the shutters, so that we can make out the stairs up to the Balcony. Then, and only then, does Clarissa release my hand from the death grip in which she had held it, flinging my hand down and stalking off to return to her place on the Balcony.

There being nothing else to do, I follow her and lie down between Elspeth and Rebecca and try not to again give in to dark despair, but it is hard. To be so close to being reunited with Jaimy and then to have this happen…[_ Well, at least I’m not being taken back to England to be hanged.
] There’s that, but it is small comfort.[
All right, that’s enough of that—we’ll see what tomorrow brings._] I pull out my ring, which hangs from a ribbon and rests on my breast, and I clutch it in my fist and close my eyes.

Good night, Jaimy. I hope you are safe and well. Know that you are in my heart and in my thoughts always. Know, too, that your girl’s back at sea again, and with a new crew—and all girls, this time.
p.
Yo, ho, ho…

A new day is announced to the girls in the belly of the[_ Bloodhound_] by the flaps being lifted off the bars at eight bells in the Morning Watch, letting light flood into the Hold. Blinking girls rise up to sitting positions and groan—some of the moaning comes from aching bodies unaccustomed to sleeping on hard wood, some from seasickness, but most, I know, from waking up and realizing that it wasn’t all just a bad dream, that we are still here. Many awaken moaning and crying.

There are not so many sounds of retching now, the seasick ones having already lost the contents of their bellies—the vomit draining down through the open wooden slatting of the Balcony to the Pit below. There would ordinarily be a sour smell from it, but it goes unnoticed in the overall stench of the Hold.

I, myself, feel pretty achy, too.[_ You’ve gotten soft, girl, from all that easy living._] I get myself in a sitting position and rub the sleep out of my eyes. Then I stumble to my feet and step over girl after girl, all dressed as I am dressed, in white chemise and drawers, and bare of calf, ankle, and foot, till I reach the stairs and go down onto the Stage. In a moment Clarissa comes down, followed by some of the others.

“Dolley’s too sick to move. A lot of them are. I don’t think we’ll muster Divisions this morning,” I say to her. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I am,” Clarissa snaps. “And I’m hungry, too. When am I gonna get something to eat?”

“I expect we’ll get a visit from somebody real soon. Then we’ll find out about a lot of things.”

Clarissa just grunts in reply to that, crossing her arms over her chest and looking grumpy. We wait. The tubs are visited. The girls who can, put on their dresses. I do the same.

Then something above catches my eye. It is the face of the scurvy-looking boy I had seen scampering about the deck yesterday when we were taken. His face is pressed against the bars, looking down at us.

“Hey, you! Boy!” I shout up at him. “Didn’t you hear what your captain said? He said we weren’t to be bothered! So sod off, you!”

“Captain’s my friend,” says the boy, in a thin whispery voice, but nevertheless one that carries throughout the Hold. “Captain’s my good friend, he’s—”

“Nettles! Get away from there!” This is from somebody out on the deck. The boy Nettles takes one last gawk at the bare lower legs stretched out below him and reluctantly disappears from sight. I am quite sure he’ll be back.

“That one seems to be quite the specimen,” says Dorothea, ever the scientist. It seems she’s another one who is neither seasick nor completely cowed by this situation. She’s probably already thought of the wondrous birds and other beasts she might see in North Africa, however ravished by sheiks she might be. And the crew of this ship might yet regret taking her new long glass from her. She did not give it up easily.

“Right,” I agree. “Clarissa, we’re going to have to set up a watch rotation—four girls, one in each corner of the Balcony—to report on what’s happening on the deck. We have to know what they are doing and how they go about things. The more we know about them and the less they know about us, the better. Do you agree?”

I don’t give a tinker’s damn whether she agrees or not—it’s going to be done. It’s good that the girls around us see us, well, as[_ officers,_] discussing these things, but it’s also good that they come to know who’s really the boss among us three.

Clarissa knows what’s going on, but she doesn’t protest. She nods and we both notice that Dolley has somehow found the strength to dress and join us. The motion of the ship has calmed somewhat—more of a gentle up-and-down now, rather than the rolling and yawing of last night—but Dolley is still pale and it must have taken an enormous strength of will for her to get up.[_ Good Dolley, you always were the best of us._]

There is a clatter from the hatchway behind us. We turn to see that the upper door has been opened and someone is coming down. Through the bars of the inner door we see that it is

“Jerome!” says Constance Howell, who is standing closest to the doorway. “Oh, thanks be to God, you’ve come to help us!”

Jerome takes a key and opens the lock and swings the door in and enters the Hold. “Yes, my dear, I’ve come to help you. I’ve come to help you adjust to your new life. But…”

Jerome no longer wears the ill-fitting wig, nor the clownish general’s red coat and breeches, and he is no longer smiling. He wears a finely cut suit of the deepest purple and he looks us over with a benign, almost fatherly expression. He has a notebook under one arm.

“But I must tell you my name is not Jerome. It is Sin-Kay.[_ Mister_] Sin-Kay to you. I am not Mr. Simon’s slave; I am his business partner, and I am here to inspect my cargo. You will all line up here now.” He opens his notebook and takes out a pencil.

The girls are shocked beyond words, but I’m not. “You’re a goddamned dirty slaver!” I blurt out, unable to stop myself.

“Tsk, tsk.
Such language from such a sweet little schoolgirl,” he says, bringing his gaze upon me. “Damned by your god, maybe. Dirty, no. But a slaver? Yes, it is true that I am a slaver, and, I might add, a very valuable member of Mr. Simon’s company, as well. You see, the white men do not go ashore in Africa, as they are afraid of diseases, like the malaria, the dengue fever, the sleeping sickness, and well they should be afraid, for they are susceptible while I am not. I go to the barracoons and gather the cargo while this ship lies safely offshore, and then I bring the cargo aboard in small boats and then we are off, for yet another profitable voyage.” His eyes no longer roll about but have become hooded, secretive, sly.

“How could you sell your own people?” I ask with deep and evident disgust. I know I should hang back, be quiet, and watch, but I can’t help it.

“My own people? My dear, I am not Bantu. I am not Mali. Nor am I Watusi.” He lifts the pink palms of his hands upward as if asking for understanding. “Do I look Dahomey? Do I look—”

“You look like nothin’ but a jumped-up nigra to me, for all your fine and fancy clothes!” snarls Clarissa. “And Ah won’t have it, yuh heah? Now you get the hell out of heah! There are ladies present!”

It seems that Clarissa lapses back into a more countrified way of speaking when she gets angry or excited, just as I go back to my Cheapside way of talking sometimes in similar circumstances. It is also becoming plain to me that our Clarissa did not learn a large part of her vocabulary at the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls, but rather in a barnyard.

Sin-Kay’s eyes narrow to slits as he goes over to Clarissa, draws up to his full height so that he towers over her, and snarls back, “It will be a great pleasure seeing you up on the block, Miss Howe. A great pleasure.”

Clarissa’s face is white with fury. “Get away from me, nigra!”

Sin-Kay turns slowly from her and faces the rest of us. “I told you to line up! Do it!” Some of the girls on the Stage begin to form a line.

“Many are too seasick to stand,” I say to him. “You can’t…”

He turns on me. “You again. Let me tell you what I can do and what I can’t. I can as easily sell you to a brothel as to a rich Arab, Missy, so you had best watch your mouth. The whorehouses pay well, too, and I know of several especially low and nasty ones. I may yet do that with your scrawny self in particular, as the sultans prefer their harems stocked with items a bit more fleshy than you.” He pauses to let that sink in and then continues, “What I can’t do is put up with any more of this back talk. Dummy! Come here!”

There is a noise up the hatchway and someone, or some[_ thing,_] lumbers down the stairs and lurches into the room. It is a huge man, hunched over, with great arms that swing by his side. He has a large scar that runs from his forehead and down one cheek, and he looks around at us, confused and fearful. He is obviously simple. The girls near him recoil in horror.

Sin-Kay smiles. “This is my Dummy. Aside from me, and sometimes the boy Nettles, he will be your sole contact with the outside world until we reach our destination.” He notes with satisfaction that we are suitably impressed. “Dummy, go up on the shelf and bring down any girls up there.”

The Dummy shuffles off to do it, saying, with a deep rumbling in his barrel chest, “Bring…down…girls.”

“No, wait,” I say. “No, we’ll do it. Rose, Constance, help me.”

Sin-Kay smiles and recalls his Dummy, who stands weaving behind his master.

We go up on the Balcony and rouse the others. Rebecca has to be carried down, she is so weak and sick. I pull Elspeth to her feet and she manages to make it down by herself. Constance and Rose get the rest down and we assemble everyone in some sort of line.

“Very well,” says Sin-Kay, with satisfaction. “I will now call the roll. You will answer when your name is pronounced.” He opens his book. “Rebecca Adams.”

“She’s here. At my feet. Too sick to stand,” I say. “She’s just a little girl.”

“Well, she won’t be one for very long,” says Sin-Kay, and he writes something in his book.

You dirty bastard…

“Ruth Alden.”

“H-here,” stammers Ruth, a slight girl, in Clarissa’s Division One. Sin-Kay looks her up and down and makes another note.

“Sally Anderson.”

Sally answers, and it’s the same routine—name, glance up and down, note, and so on down the line—Applegate, Bailey, Baxter, Cabot…and on and on till…

“Jacky Faber.”

“Here,” I say, and come to Parade Rest for the scrutiny I know is to come.

“Ah, it’s you. Does the Jacky stand for Jacqueline?”

“Whatever you wish.”

“I so wish. It will sound better at auction,” he says, and then gives me the once-over. “Best gain some weight, girl, or…”

He lets that trail off, then goes on.

“Dolley Frazier.”

“Here,” says Dolley, as best she can.

“Elspeth Goodwin.”

“Here, Se she gulps, “and I know you’re going to let me go back, ‘cause I got to go back, you know, ‘cause…” A note is pencilled and he moves on.

Then he summons Martha Hawthorne, writes a quick note, then moves on to call out, “Clarissa Howe.”

Clarissa spits out an obscenity I wouldn’t have thought she’d known…and she delivers it with such force and familiarity that it speaks of some prior extensive use on her part. It is the usual curse, the[_ F_] variation of[_ Sod off!,
] which trips so easily off[
my_] tongue, wherein she invites Sin-Kay to go do something both unnatural and, I think, actually impossible to himself.

Sin-Kay does not reply but writes many, many notes next to her name.[_ Cheer up, Clarissa,
] I’m thinking,[
if he sends you to a whorehouse, you’ll end up owning it within the year, I’ll wager._]

Then on and on…Howell…Johnson…King…Leavitt…then…

“Lissette de Lise.”

“Present.”

“Ah, our French maiden,” says our overseer, looming over her slight form. Come[_ on, Lissette, remember how your Queen Marie conducted herself when she stood next to the guillotine, hearing the mob howling for her head._]