Part 15 – Shipwrecked: 1818
Twelve hours of blue, cold, wet, blind struggle; the crews' shouts lost in a continual howl of screaming wind, being tossed from one rib-breaking obstacle to another, the tremendous crack as the foremast comes loose and tumbles slowly over the side – all of it ends when something careens across a slick deck into him at just the wrong second of imbalance. He fights to hang on to the rail with one hand and the bawling midshipman with the other but it is no use. There is one last agonizing body-blow and then a moment of freefall, then engulfment in calm glacial peace before the surge from the wallowing ship slams into him and the midshipman is lost. He himself is thrown up from the depths to smash into a tangle of broken spar and tattered sail on the heaving surface. He clutches at it with the strength only desperation gives.
"Mathison!" he bellows as soon as his mouth is free of the water but the clatter of rain on the sea and the roar of the storm swallows up the cry almost before it leaves him. "Man overboard!" he tries again. To no avail. He can't even hear his own voice above the tumult.
All around the elements rage, driving the black hulk of the ship ever further away. No one heard. No one is going to hear. He will not survive in the cold sea for very long, perhaps a quarter hour, he knows. With the last of that terrified strength, the former Archie Featherington pulls himself aboard a huddle of seething wreckage and begins feeling for a rope to lash himself down. He finds a loose line but passes out before he has a proper knot.
Sometime later on calmer waters
A lone seagull lands on the end of a spar, part of a speck of flotsam on the silent open sea. Soon its mates will follow but if it is quick, and not very particular, it can dine well.
Or it could have, except its dinner uncurls from the sodden blue coat it lies on and claws at the salt-stained waistcoat over its head. The gull departs with a disgusted squawk and begins to circle, keeping an eye out for another, more compliant meal.
Blearily, Archie realizes he has woken up into this situation before but how long ago, and how long he has been afloat, he cannot reckon. He checks the scrap of sail he fastened into a hollow last time he woke but any rainwater that may have collected there is long gone. Just as well – he can hardly swallow now for thirst. Thankfully, the hunger pains have faded away.
Next he squints up at the blazing sun and draws the encrusted waistcoat back over his head as a sort of hood to shade his eyes and matted hair, then idly begins running his salt-caked fingers over the wreckage, looking for a loose knob or two of something that will float. He will use it to determine if he is still in the current he detected last time he woke... or perhaps it was the time before that. If he is still in the current, there may be a distant chance of land. If not...
He can't find anything to pull at or even tinker with; the raft is too poorly knit together for him to trust that the removal of the smallest splinter won't sink him, and he is not yet ready to die.
Soon, though. If there is no rain, if there is no land, if a ship does not appear...
He curls up again on the remains of his coat and ignores the grating of the sun against his exposed calves and feet – where his stockings went to, he doesn't remember. The sea rocks him gently as if aware he is fragile and his ebbing life force won't withstand one more heavy swell.
So... God, he thinks, more to fill out the immensity of solitude around him than in any sort of plea, it seems you have me to rights at last... at least I can do no more ill here, not to Portia, or Penny, or the – the others. If – if torment truly does wipe out sin then perhaps... perhaps there will be no more ill done to them on my account. As for me...
He begins to lose consciousness again, blessedly... perhaps, if it's not too much bother, I can dream myself into whatever's ahead for me in the beyond? Mankind is perverse, however, and as he drops into the oblivion that is now his only refuge from the heat and the thirst and the all-pervading salt, his dreams point him backward, not ahead, to five years ago, to London, to a certain chamber, and the dark eyes of his love.
Someone is shouting
In fact, several someones are shouting. He frowns weakly, his dream disturbed. Can't a man even pass on in peace? What is this world coming to? He rouses sluggishly, feeling for his coat, feeling…
He doesn't feel movement. The sea no longer rocks beneath him. He's on his back and his hellish thirst is gone, though he doesn't remember it having rained. He is weak but the insistent prod of hunger is back and there is an absence of salt in his hair and beard and on his hands. It's still hot but his feet and face are not burning in the sun even though the makeshift hood is gone. So is his coat. He lies in what's left of his rags on damp sand.
"Salvamento!" someone keeps saying over and over. Saved? Am I saved?
"Não," someone else says, "destroços." Destroyed? I'm destroyed? Have I died and I'm now about to pay for my crimes? There are a lot of other voices and pandemonium. Is this an assembly of demons? Have I escaped the roasting spit of the sun only to be dropped into the cannibal's cauldron?
Now a woman's voice breaks in, speaking too rapidly for him to guess at a translation, and Archie senses someone loom over him. This voice gives him heart. He nerves himself and cracks an eye to peer up. A pretty, jolly-looking girl, much darker than Catia, is bringing a gourd or some such vessel to his lips until something makes her gasp and scramble back, spilling the contents of the gourd onto him. He doesn't mind; it's water, sweet, cold, and fresh, and in trying to reach for it he forgets his days of torment and sits up.
Immediately his strained muscles and bruised ribs scream. There's nausea, dizziness, and he slumps back down, curling up into a ball by reflex. The woman's voice soars over all the other noise. Wailing and shouts follow. The sounds of feet shifting sand join the babel breaking out when a large, deep voice says, "Order, please! Order!"
English. Archie's eyes open involuntarily. He sees a devil's dance of half-shod feet retreating, though some give only a little, most of them dark in color. "Calma!" one of the men's voices, the Saved one, repeats.
"Calma, por favor," says the Destroyed voice. In a moment a man crouches down into Archie's view, long-faced, grizzled and dark, wearing a low-crowned topper pushed far back on his head and a blue coat too short at the sleeves. There's a hint of fawn-colored trousers further back – so, not demons and not cannibals, Archie thinks in a queerly detached way. The man peers at Archie, blinks, then stands, repeating his old refrain, "Salvamento!"
The Destroyed voice launches into a brief impassioned argument in a tongue Featherington does not know but with touches of French. 'Não no mar,' is repeated more than once. Slowly, Featherington begins to uncurl, then push himself up off the sand, carefully, so as to avoid groans or other noises that might draw undue attention. The speech ends with "... ónus da prova!" before Archie can suggest "Water?" in a hoarse whisper.
That English word at least is understood. The owner of the Destroyed voice crouches down now, gourd in hand, and gently feeds him a swallow or two of what's not been spilled. He is garbed like the Saved Man only he is tall, dark, lithe, younger, with liquid black eyes. "You escaped?" he asks softly.
Featherington shakes his head gingerly, "Shipwrecked," he hacks out and drinks again.
"Ah!" the Saved Man is heard to bark out, "Shipwreck! Salvamento!"
Destroyed Man shakes his head, looking up to the owner of the deep voice, "There is no shipwreck in the bay. It is destroços, sir, flotsam."
Featherington follows Destroyed Man's look up into the dark, impassive face of the deep voice. He is a broad, stolid man standing at Archie's feet as if he is in charge of the beach. He wears a semblance of the others' clothing only better fitting, with a bright red waistcoat glaring out from under an open fawn-colored tailcoat to match the breeches. He looks like a prosperous, if by no means jolly, version of John Bull transplanted to tropical shores. Under one arm he bears a black bicorn and a short beautifully set white wig tops his round pate.
I'm dreaming, Archie thinks. This can't be real.
Behind Stolid Man and all around are other people, mostly black but some of other races, dressed decently if a little garishly, none in rags, and gawking like any curious crowd at a spectacle. "Welcome to our island," the stolid man finally says, unmoved by the squabbling and scuffling of the mob.
Archie hacks a bit more, "What – island?"
Stolid Man returns his stare through narrowed dark eyes. "Officially, this is Ilha da Liberdade but we call it Paraíso." He gestures to the two arguers. "You are now under arrest."
Archie can only gape as Saved Man and Destroyed Man take him by the arms and lift him up, practically carrying him away in a most gentle march into custody.
Going Directly to Jail
They lead him to a half-built structure, one of a pair of public buildings squatting like mausoleums amid a clutter of low houses, some obviously shops, that line the one street which curves around a shallow bay. Archie has the impression of green forest somewhere nearby but he can see no more as his eyes are still adjusting from the constant sun of the sea to the patches of shade from the many trees they pass beneath. They put him into an incommodious cellar which is dim, cool, and mostly dry. Destroyed Man apologizes in halting English; they have no proper cells above ground. Yet.
Saved Man shrugs this off. "Soon we will have," he says, "You will see!" while pointing a finger in Archie's face, though he does not look him directly in the eyes. Both of them make their exit up a short flight of steps through a horizontal door in the ceiling above, leaving Archie to a grass-filled mattress on a built-up mound and a narrow, oblong window at street level. The window isn't barred but it's beyond Archie's reach and now and then faces peek through. A pitcher of water with a dipper rests on the floor beside one end of the mound. These are luxury quarters compared to what he had since going overboard – although it'll be difficult finding a corner out of sight of the window when it comes time to use the large odorous pot they've left him. But Archie isn't going to complain, as long as there is food coming soon.
Not too long after he settles down, the door swings up and Saved Man comes down, escorting another man in full gentleman's kit and with a small valise. "And how are we today, hmm?" are the first words out of the new man's mouth in a strong American States accent, "I am Doctor John Stone." Archie hasn't heard of any accredited black doctors but the fuss the man makes about hydration proves he has training. When Saved Man offers Archie a wooden plate of bread and strange fruits, the Doctor immediately berates him, "Danilo, I told you! No fruits! No bread! His system is too weak!"
Danilo glares at Archie as though this is HIS fault but he trudges back upstairs, returning in a few minutes with minced, dried fish and little round slices of something soft and faintly yellow that Archie has never seen before. With the Doctor's approval, he scoffs the lot, while his bruises and burns are examined and Danilo goes to stand under the window to stare admonishingly up at the faces peering in.
After a cursory examination, the doctor leaves to fetch salves and Archie resumes his place on the mattress, hoping he won't lose his meal in some spectacular way for the amusement of the faces at the window. These persist despite Danilo's increasingly annoyed attempts to shoo them away.
After a few minutes, Destroyed Man escorts another visitor down; a woman, European, deeply tanned, slender and just a shade smaller than Archie, though her casual head wrap makes her appear taller. Her dress is fashionable and of many amazing colours but her smile is kind.
And it's a good thing too, because Archie has just enough buttons left to keep the fall of his tattered breeches closed, while his shirt is a total loss. He wraps these ragged remains self-consciously around himself as he staggers to his feet with a bow to receive her, "Madame."
"Quel dommage!" the woman says, by way of introduction, "we must see about that," and says to Destroyed Man, "Frédéric, please go into the market for proper clothing for our guest." Her voice is lilting and the French accent is strong with an unmistakeable hint of never being disobeyed.
Archie begins to protest immediately, "Madame, really, I – I can hardly accept –"
"Nonsense!" she says airily, "You cannot appear in court in rags. Oh, and Frédi?" she calls after the young man as he swings off to obey her, "Send Manoel, s'il vous plaît." She turns to Archie, "The barber," she explains as Frédéric exits, leaving the cellar door open behind him. "You must look presentable since you will have trouble enough as it is," she adds, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "They are concerned no one will take you, if it comes to that."
Archie blinks, "Take me? Take me where?"
She shrugs, "Just take you. Because of the evil eye, you see," she tells him solemnly. "It's the green. We have not had quite enough time yet to conquer ALL the little superstitions." Archie's eyes jerk to the oblong window and he sees the faces currently peering in suddenly shy back while others approach more cautiously, despite Danilo's renewed efforts.
His visitor brushes the subject aside with a sunny smile, "I would not worry, I am sure the Magistrate will be fair." She pats his hand with all sympathy. "But you are tired, still suffering from your ordeal. You are so thin, you must be fed up properly," she says with great satisfaction.
Archie's just-finished meal is immediately forgotten as he turns big hushed eyes onto her.
She smiles again, the beatific smile of a saint. "I will bring you soup."
END – part 15
*S/P notes: Não no mar = not at sea, ónus da prova = burden of proof, Ilha da Liberdade = Liberty Island, Paraíso = Paradise (as if you didn't already know), Quel dommage! = what a shame!*
**ffh notes: Salvamento is salvage in Portuguese. Destroços, literally wreckage, also means flotsam in Portuguese, ship's debris floating in or floated ashore by the sea. Salvage laws do not apply to flotsam.
Frédéric and Danilo are dressed approximately as the Bow Street Runners would be.
John Bull is the popular personification of the United Kingdom since about 1712, just as Uncle Sam is the personification of the United States.
The little round slices Archie eats are pieces of banana, unheard of in Europe at that time. The Victorians purchased them individually wrapped as novelty food.**
