The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,106

all did. The woman was black too—all the women were black, d’you see, they were brought aboard as slaves.” This diversion about the sharing had distracted the people from his narrative, even as he was nearing the moment of Billy’s death. “We were there,” he said. “There were no churches an’ no priests. We niver chose to go there, we had to live as best we could.”

Bordon helped him forward again now. “What were they gannin’ to do, kill one another, fightin’ over it?” he said to Michael. “You an’ me is black a lot of the time, for the matter of that. So Billy was comin’ back with the catch, then?” he said to Sullivan.

“As they drew near, they came upon some of the redcoats, hidin’ there among the trees. Billy was in front an’ so he saw them first, an’ he shouted to warn Inchebe, an’ one of the sojers lost his head an’ he fired an’ the ball took Billy in the back as he was tryin’ to get away. Inchebe was caught with the rest of us, an’ he told us what befell, he told us on board the ship that was bringin’ us away. He said Billy took some steps before he fell, but he was a dead man before he come to the ground.”

He sought for some fitting way to close. The final words were the only ones that he had rehearsed in his mind while on the road, feeling that he owed it to Billy to give the death full detail and sum up the life at the same time. “It was a misty mornin’,” he said. “There was always strange sounds in among the trees at that time of the day—strange till you got used to them, I mean. The feller that shot him was full of fears, I dare say, an’ would niver had done it if he had been of sound mind. Billy wasn’t took with the rest of us an’ brought back in chains, he died there, where he had been happy and free for all them years. It would be misguided to feel sorry for him. We had a good life there till the sojers came. Everyone respected Billy an’ listened to what he had to say. He was plannin’ to come back here one day an’ see his folks again, but he died before he could do it, so I have come in his stead.”

No one made any answer to this, and after some moments people began to get to their feet preparatory to leaving. Nan took Sullivan by the hand. “Tha’s been a true friend to our Billy,” she said. “A’ll never forget the service tha’s done us. It always pained me, not knowing what became of him. A was only twelve when he ran off, an’ we never heered more of him from that day on. It comforts me to know that he didna forget us, that he was meanin’ to come back.”

John Blair and his wife left without words, though whether it was disapproval that kept them silent or some sort of displeasure with each other, Sullivan could not tell. He was feeling spent—it had been a tiring day and he had eaten little—but he was not dissatisfied with the way he had told Billy’s story. He was thinking of trying to get a bite to eat in the kitchen and a word or two with Sally, who was rinsing out the tankards there, both of these things falling, as he felt, within the terms of his new employment, when he saw that Bordon, having accompanied the others out into the yard, had now returned to the taproom.

“There was sommat a meant to ask,” he said. “What did they live on there, what did the people do to keep alive?”

“There was fish in the creeks,” Sullivan said. “There was turtles, which can be partly consumed if you know the trick of it. There was game most of the year, quail, wild turkey, pigeons. There was deer you could get a shot at when they came to drink.”

“No, what a mean, did they grow veg’tables an’ such-like, did they work the ground?”

“Not to begin with. We had nothin’ in the world to plant. There was sea cabbage an’ acorns an’ berries an’ a kind of wild oats you could contrive to make porridge with. Then with time and lucky chance we came to be friendly with the Indians that lived along the coast. We made