The Quality of Mercy - By Barry Unsworth Page 0,34
and strongly made and vacant in looks, a second ill-conditioned in expression, with jaundiced eyes, another hulking of form with a shambling walk and only one eye that was of use to him—the white blob of the dead one had a steadiness both sinister and droll, strangely at odds, in its fixity, with the blinking of the other.
“I had believed there were eight,” he said to one of the guards.
“One got clear away,” the man said. “The luck of the devil, he got hisself mistook for someone else. The fiddler, that was.”
Once through the gate and into the yard, the men wavered forlornly together for some moments. Then, as if by a common instinct, they moved to the near wall and took up positions there, with their backs to it.
“Will you go outside the gate?” Ashton said to the guard who had spoken. They would be out of earshot there; the men would be more at ease. “You can keep us under observation just as well from there, and intervene quickly enough if there is any sign of trouble.”
“Our orders was to keep close,” the man said. “Anythin’ untoward, an’ it is on our heads.”
“There is such a thing as dooty, sir,” the other guard said. “Me an’ Jemmy is very partic’lar in doin’ our dooty.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Ashton said. “There is sixpence for each of you if you will do as I ask.”
The hesitation was of the briefest; it seemed to Ashton that he had barely finished speaking before the men’s hands were reaching out to him. Only when they were outside the gate did he turn to the men against the wall. “I have come here to help you,” he said, and the partial lie steadied him, gave force to the words that came next. “I do not represent the prosecution. I will not take advantage of anything you say to me, unless I can do you good by it. I want you to trust me.”
He saw one of the men, gray-bearded and seeming somewhat older than the rest, glance up, saw a twist come to his face that might have been a smile. “Trust don’t come into it,” this man said. “Yer might as well talk of trust to a rat in a hole. We are lost men.”
“Your cause is not lost,” Ashton said. He had noticed the total lack of deference in addressing him. “You are?”
“Hughes, my name.”
“We calls him the Climber.”
This had come from one of the men against the wall, Ashton was not sure which. “Why do you call him that?”
“He was allus climbin’ to get away on his own, up on the top trestles,” the one-eyed man said. “He don’t like anyone close.”
“I see.” A sense came to him of the torment such a man must have suffered, chained and penned up with the others. Even in prison the quality of suffering would vary. Had it come home to Hughes that he had helped to inflict suffering even worse on the slaves below decks? Probably not. “Is there one who will speak for all?” he said.
There were some moments of hesitation, then one of the men raised his head to look squarely at Ashton. “I can speak for the others, sir,” he said, “seein’ as I was the carpenter, an’ therefore rankin’ above, as it is so considered aboard ship.”
“What is your name?”
“My name is Barber, sir, William Barber.”
“Can you tell me how it came about that the negroes were thrown over the side?”
“It was the capt’n’s orders,” the one-eyed man said before the carpenter could speak. “We was only obeyin’ orders. We was all in it together. On a ship you does what you’re told to do by them that is set above you.”
“That is true, I suppose,” Ashton said. “But surely there is still a choice to be made? After all, there is a higher law than that of a ship’s captain. No man can be obliged to act against his conscience.”
Hardly had he uttered the words before he knew them for untimely and out of keeping. But it was his habit to utter general statements of a moral kind, and though these were felt sincerely, he did not always pause to consider whether it was the right moment for them.
“Them that has not been at the orders of a slavin’ skipper can have no opinion. Show me a conscience that will stand up to the cat-o’-nine-tails, I would like to see one.”