Flash for Freedom!. George Fraser MacDonald

No wonder old Morrison had an interest in the trade – and no doubt paid a subscription to the Anti-Slavery Society and thought it well worthwhile. And he wasn’t laying out overmuch in trade goods, by the look of this cargo – you never saw so much junk, although just the kind of stuff to make a nigger chief happy, no doubt. There were old Brown Bess muskets that probably hadn’t been fired in fifty years, sackfuls of condemned powder and shot, rusty bayonets and cheap cutlasses and knives, mirrors and looking glasses by the dozen, feathered hats and check trousers, iron pots and plates and cauldrons, and most amazing of all, a gross of Army red coats, 34th Foot; one of ’em had a bullet-hole and a rusty stain on the right breast, and I remember thinking, bad luck for someone. There was a packet of letters in the pocket, which I meant to keep, but didn’t.

      And there was case after case of liquor, in brown glass bottles; gin, I suppose you’ld call it, but even to sniff the stuff shrivelled the hairs off your arse. The blacks wouldn’t know the difference, of course.

      We were searching through all this trash, I counting and calling out to the clerk, who ticked the manifest, and Kirk and his fellow stowing back, when Looney, the idiot steward, came down to gape at us. He squatted down, dribbling out of the corner of his mouth, making stupid observations, till Kirk, who was bundling the red coats, sings out to him to come over. Kirk had taken two of the brass gorgets off the officers’ coats – they must have been d----d old uniforms – and winking at us he laid the gorgets on the deck, and says:

      ‘Now, Looney, you’re a sharp ’un. Which is the biggest? If you can tell, I’ll give you my spirits tomorrow. If you can’t you give me yours, see?’

      I saw what he was after: the gorgets were shaped like half-moons, and whichever was laid uppermost looked bigger – children amuse themselves with such things, cut out of paper. Looney squinted at them, giggling, and pointing to the top gorget, says:

      ‘That ’un.’

      ‘Ye’re sure?’ says Kirk, and taking the gorget which Looney had indicated, placed it beneath the other one – which now looked bigger, of course. Looney stared at it, and then said:

      ‘That un’s bigger now.’

      Kirk changed them again, while his mates laughed, and Looney was bewildered. He gaped round helplessly, and then kicking the gorgets aside, he shouted:

      ‘You make ’em bigger an’ – an’ littler!’

      And he started to cry, calling Kirk a dirty b-----d, which made us laugh all the more, so he shouted obscenities at us and stamped, and then ran over to a pile of bags stowed beyond the cargo and began to urinate on them, still swearing at us over his shoulder.

      ‘Hold on!’ cries Kirk, when he could contain his mirth. ‘That’s the niggers’ gruel you’re p-----g on!’

      I was holding my sides, guffawing, and the clerk cries out:

      ‘That’ll make the dish all the tastier for ’em! Oh, my stars!’

      Looney, seeing us amused, began to laugh himself, as such idiots will and p-----d all the harder, and then suddenly I heard the others’ laughter cut off, and there was a step on the ladder, and there stood John Charity Spring, staring at us with a face like the demon king. Those pale eyes were blazing, and Looney gave a little whimper and fumbled with his britches, while the piddle ran across the tilting deck towards Spring’s feet.

      Spring stood there in a silence you could feel, while we scrambled up. His hands clenched and unclenched, and the scar on his head was blazing crimson. His mouth worked, and then he leaped at Looney and knocked the cowering wretch down with one smashing blow. For a moment I thought he would set about the half-wit with his boots, but he mastered himself, and wheeled on us.

      ‘Bring that – that vermin on deck!’ he bawled, and stamped up the ladder, and I was well ahead of the seamen in rushing to Looney and dragging him to the scuttle. He yelled and struggled, but we forced him up on deck, where Spring was stamping about in a spitting rage, and the hands were doubling aft in response to the roars of the Yankee first mate.

      ‘Seize him up there,’ orders Spring, and with me holding Looney’s thrashing legs, Kirk very deftly tied his wrists up to the port shrouds and ripped his shirt off. Spring was calling for the cat, but someone says there wasn’t one.

      ‘Then make one, d--n you!’ he shouted, and paced up and down, casting dreadful glances at the imploring Looney, who was babbling in his bonds.

      ‘Don’t hit us, cap’n! Please don’t hit us! It was them other b-----ds, changin’ things!’

      ‘Silence!’ says Spring, and Looney’s cries subsided to a whisper, while the crew crowded about to see the sport. I kept back, but made sure I had a good view.

      They gave Spring a hastily made cat, and he buttoned his jacket tight and pulled his hat down.

      ‘Now, you b----r, I’ll make you dance!’ cries he, and laid in for all he was worth. Looney screamed and struggled; each time the lashes hit him he shrieked, and between each stroke Spring cursed him for all he was worth.

      ‘Foul my ship, will you?’ Whack! ‘Ruin the food for my cargo, by G-d!’ Whack! ‘Spread pestilence with your filth, will you?’ Whack! ‘Yes, pray, you wharfside son-of-a-b---h, I’m listening!’ Whack! ‘I’ll cut your b----y soul out, if you have one!’ Whack! If it had been a regulation Army cat, I think he’d have killed him; as it was, the hastily spliced yarn cut the idiot’s back to bits and the blood ran over his ragged trousers. His screams became moans, and then silence, and then Spring flung the cat overboard.

      ‘Souse him and let him hang there to dry!’ says he, and then he addressed the unconscious victim. ‘And let me catch you at your filthy tricks again, you scum, so help me G-d I’ll hang you – d’ye hear!’

      He glared at us with his madman’s eyes, and my heart was in my mouth for a moment. Then his scar faded, and he said in his normal bark:

      ‘Dismiss the hands, Mr Comber. Mr Sullivan, and you, supercargo, come aft. Mrs Spring is serving tea.’

      There were a few curious glances at me as I followed Spring and the Yankee mate – I was new to the crew, of course – and as we went down the ladder to his cabin, Spring looked me over. ‘Go and put on a jacket,’ he growled. ‘G-d d--n you, don’t you know anything?’ so I scudded off smartly, and when I came back they were still waiting. He examined me – and in a flash of memory I thought of waiting with Wellington to see the Queen, and being fussed over by flunkeys – and then he threw open the door.

      ‘I trust we don’t intrude, my dear,’ says he. ‘I have brought Mr Sullivan to tea, and our new supercargo, Mr Flashman.’

      I don’t know what I expected – the Queen of Sheba wouldn’t have surprised me, aboard the Balliol College – but it wasn’t the mild-looking, middle-aged woman sitting behind a table, picking at a sampler, who turned to beam at us pleasantly, murmured something in greeting, and then set to pouring tea. Presently Comber came in, smoothing his hair, and the grizzled old second mate, Kinnie, who ducked his head to me when Spring made us known to each other. Mrs Spring handed over cups, and we stood round sipping, and nibbling at her biscuits, while she beamed and Spring talked – she had little to say for herself, but he paid her as much respect as though it had been a London drawing-room. I had to pinch myself to believe it was real: a tea party aboard a slaver, with this comfortable woman adding hot water to the pot while a flogged man was bleeding all over the deck above our heads, and Spring, his cuff specked with the victim’s gore, was laying it off about Thucydides and Horace.

      ‘Mr Flashman has had the beginning of an education, my dear,’ says he. ‘He was with Dr Arnold at Rugby School.’

      She turned a placid face in my direction. ‘Mr Spring is a classical scholar,’ says she. ‘His father was a Senior Fellow.’

      ‘Senior Tutor, if you please, my dear,’ says Spring. ‘And it’s my belief he achieved that position by stealing the work of better men. Scholarship is merely a means