Drum (9 page)

"Take this boy back to the barracoon," he said. "Let him be with his friends."

chapter vii

Tamboura walked across the compound to seek the security and comfort of the barren shelf that was now his only home, and the welcome voices of his companions. They hstened while he told them of all the strange things that had happened to him—of the ivory tusks and the black dirt sprinkled with gold nuggets, the plumes and the hides, and of the hours of standing while the Mongo worked. He told them of the second Tamboura which had been taking shape on the cloth and explained to them how it was a second spirit to be left behind in Africa while he himself went across the water. He mentioned the Mongo's offer to return him to his village if he so desired.

"You did right not to go back," Sabumbo agreed. "It is better to take yom* chances with us." And the others added their words of confirmation while they all marveled at the reproduction of Tamboura's spirit and looked at him in reverence, for they had never seen a man who possessed two spirits before.

But most important of all was the strange story of the Mongo's death. Perhaps Tamboura's second spirit had already started to avenge him by slaying the Mongo. If so, they argued, it must be a strong spirit, far stronger than even Tamboiu"a himself. Tamboura became frightened and the others showed their fear, too, but the practical M'dong calmed them. It was good, he told them, that Tamboura's other spirit had such remarkable power that it could strike a man dead so quickly. Since it was to remain in Africa, it could not harm them once they were on the big canoe, headed for another land.

And Khandago, after thinking the matter over, fully agreed with M'dong. He said he was glad he was not Man-douma, for certainly, after having killed the Mongo, Tamboura's spirit would head up the river after Mandouma. They

were all glad they were not in Mandouma's place and they regarded Tamboura with open envy.

During the night they did not sleep much, for the community outside the stockade was not sleeping. There was a continuous keening and wailing both from the village and from the factory. The drums of the village beat all night and the con jo in the village, spurred on by the rum, did not die down untU sunrise. Then there was silence and the day that followed was quiet as the villagers slept off their drunken stupor. Nobody appeared with breakfast and the men did not eat until late in the afternoon when an indifferently stewed mess was brought in and slopped into their bowls. Nor were they let out of the barracoon again to wash themselves.

For three days and three nights, nothing happened to break the day-and-night monotony of their existence. Then, on the fourth day, they were rewarded with something different This time there was no fanfare, no decorated chairs, no coffee table and no umbrellas. The yellow-haired white man was accompanied by another white man, even more unusual in appearance, for this one had a bushy beard as red as flame. He was a huge man, towering above the other, and he spoke in a language which they did not understand, but they knew from the tone of his voice that he was not soft-talking, because his words rasped and burred with a deep throaty resonance.

No sooner had he entered than things began to move in the barracoon. Red Coat hastily lined them up and once again they passed through the humiliating process of inspection, although on this occasion they were not required to mount any steps or stand with their heads back against the lines. The big red-bearded man merely passed his hands over them brusquely, quickly and impersonally, looked in their mouths and eyes, cursorily handled their genitals and then slapped them on the rump to start them along. Three or four of them, after the big red-bearded man had looked at them, were told to step out of the line, and after the examination was ended and the white men had departed, they were led out of the barracoon by Red Coat. Tamboura never saw them again nor knew why they had been dismissed, but M'dong remembered that one man coughed every night and Khandago said that one of the others had developed a limp.

Later that day, along towards sunset, Red Coat returned and separated all the men into two groups. Those on the top shelves were told to stand on one side of the compound and

those on the lower shelves to remain in their bunks. M'dong and Tamboura passed across to the opposite side, leaving Khandago and Sabumbo behind. They did not know that they were not to see each other again and so there were no leave-takings, except for a wave of the hand and the usual grins. After pushing the slaves into a semblance of a line. Red Coat separated them into groups—as many in each group as the fingers of both hands. Once again the iron collars, connected by thechain, were placed around their necks.

Tambovura resented the restriction as much as he did the humiliation of being handled. For days now, since the jomney in the canoe, he had been free. Even on the day he had been taken to the Mongo's hut, he had had no shackles or fetters. With the iron collar arovmd his neck he began to fear, but M'dong quieted him by reminding him that the last time they had been so treated it had been merely to take them to ihe river to bathe.

Indeed, that is where Tamboura thought they were going, for they were led, one cafHe of ten at a time, down to the river. But instead of being led to the shore, they were taken out on the bamboo pier again, where a canoe was waiting for them. This was not as big a canoe as the one in which they had made the trip down the river and there were only fovir Krus to a canoe. Once they were in and seated, instead of heading up the river from the direction in which they had come, the canoe started down river, roimdlng a bend and out into more water than Tamboura had ever seen before, for here there was nothing but water as far as he could see. Nothing but water—except for a canoe that seemed so enormous it was scarcely believable. Even at a distance, it towered out of the water. Tamboura nudged M'dong, who was behind him. It had white wings on it!

This then was the big canoe that was to take them away from Africa to that other land and with this knowledge they became happy and anticipatory. They speculated on what delights this marvel might hold in store for them and they tried to elicit information from the Krus. The only answer they got was a disparaging laugh from these men who, because of their ability to handle canoes, were not slaves but paid servants of the factory. Secure in their immunity, they were not above torturing the hapless occupants of their canoes with dire threats of what was in store for them.

The canoe started pitching in the eddy of currents caused by the outflowing river and the incoming tide. It was hard to

keep their position in the boat and as they lunged forward the length of chain stopped their headlong plunge, making the collar bite deep into their throats, choking them and cutting off their breath. They tried to steady themselves as best they could in a misery of gasping and choking.

"That there's the 'Gustus Tait." The Kru, who wielded his paddle between Tamboura and the slave ahead of him, was grinning at their discomfort and determined to make them even more uncomfortable. "Hit's de bes' slaver in de Cubee-Africee trade. She load up at B'wambo Cas'le with five hun-nerd slaves jes like yo' po' boys. Thaz why she no take all de barracoon. On'y room for fifty mo'."

"She good boat," the Kru behind them volunteered. "She al'ays clean but dat ol' Cap'n MacPherson, he a debbil. He a debbil with a red beard, that one. Man say he have de long tail under him's pants. Man say he like to skin black boy ev'y mornin' an' eat him's balls fur b'eakfas'. Thaz why he so stron', that debbil cap'n. He al'ays looking for black boy with big balls so's he kin eat 'em." The fellow smacked his lips together with gusto.

Tamboura released his hold on the side of the canoe to cover his groin with his hands. Again he was afraid; he was sure he would be first choice for the Captain's morning meal.

"An' that debbil cap'n,"—another grinning Kru took up the story—"he love to string a boy up by his toes and whup him—whup him til' de meat fall off'n him's back in chunks. Den he fro him ober de side of de ship for de sharks to eat. Yo' boys know what sharks is?"

They shook their heads in denial. They were too frightened to speak.

"They big fishes, long as this canoe." The Krus were enjoying the discomfiture of their passtngers. "And teefl One dem dere sharks, he jus open his mouf and . . . snapl" The Kru brought his teeth together the better to demonstrate. "Man's leg gone down in shark's belly."

Once having started they were anxious to embroider their tale with more vivid details, "Yeah! Cap'n MacPherson sure do like to feed black boys to sharks. Likes to see them big fish snap black boy's head right off. Yo'uns better be careful 'cause if Cap'n MacPherson don' skin yo' and eat yo' balls, he a'goin' to whup yo' down and make yo' dinner for them sharks." He cackled with high-pitched glee.

"An' Cap'n MacPherson clean." The Kru missed a stroke as he turned to Tamboura. "He so clean he make yo' boys

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work all'a time. Ev'y day, you down on yo' ban's and knees, stonin' that deck and maldn' it shine white and ifn it not white, Cap'n MacPherson"—^he paused and turned again to the paddler behind him. "What 'at debbil cap'n do to black boy what don' work hard? You tells 'em."

The Kru aft rolled his eyes back into his head so that only the whites showed. "That," he declared emphatically, "am de wors' of all! Better be skunned alive and have yo' balls et. Better be whupped and fed to de sharks. You know what dat debbil cap'n do to black boys who don' work? Firs' he put one thumb in yo' eye and, plop, out comes de eye and he eats it. Then he put thmnb in odder eye and, plop, out it come and he eats dat. Then he take big trade knife and he slice oflfn yo' tongue and he eat dat; den yo' ears but he don' eat them 'cause they tough and he fro dem to de fish. Den, li'l piece by li'l piece, he cut all de meat from yo' bones and he sit dere and chaw on meat til yo's all gone. Co'se you kaint see him 'cause you ain' got no eyes. Ay! Thaz turriblel But that Cap'n MacPherson, he sure have damn clean ship so don' none of yo boys go a-shittin' on de deck."

By this time, both Tamboura and M'dong were paralyzed with fear. All of their anticipatory joy had departed and they cowered on the floor of the canoe, choking from the collars, nauseated by the pitching, and quaking with terror. Suddenly Tamboura felt a resvirgence of his spirit. His hand touched the woven bag of earth at his neck. He invoked not only his own spirit but the spirit which he had left behind him on the canvas in the big hut of the Mongo. He felt better, safer, more secure. His spirit was great. It had already killed the Mongo white man and it would protect him now against this other—^the one with the red beard who had so impersonally examined him back in the stockade.

As they came close to the ship, it reared a high black wall above them, and from it they could hear a contiguous wailing—hundreds of voices coming from the inside like the hum of bees from a tree, lifted in a dirge of sorrow and hopelessness. They not only heard the ship but they smelled it, a rank, putrid effluvium that far outstank the latrines in the barracoon. It was a stench of old sweat and male excrement, of human fear and nameless horror, an odor so overpowering in its festering pollution that it struck their already weak stomachs like an iron spear entering their vitals, causing them to retch and swallow their sour vomit.

The canoe drew alongside the ship—a sheer wooden wall

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of black wood with blacker holes along its sides, each one emitting the wailing and the stench. From the high deck above, a rope net dangled to the water, and as the Krus caugiht it to steady the canoe they told the slaves to grab hold of it and hoist themselves up. They clambered aboard, over the rail, onto the shining white deck just as the last rays of the African sun were sinking into the sea in a whirlpool of violent colors. Taking their places alongside the rail, they lined up, joined by the chain from collar to collar.

The sight of the red-bearded man standing there, now a most awful reality, brought back the frightening stories. Again Tamboura covered himself with his hands, cursing for the first time the generosity of nature and hoping that he would not be the captain's first choice as he felt so sure he would be. But the captain scarcely looked at them, except to count them and make a mark with a littie stick on a piece of paper. Another white man, dressed in a blue suit with gleaming brass buttons, barked at them in garbled Hausa and told them to follow him. They walked over the white deck to where a yawning black hole appeared. Here the stench was more sickening and the howling from below more audible. Tamboura could understand some of the words which a slave, deeper- and stronger-voiced than all the rest, was shrieking.

"Oh, take me back! Take me back to my wife and sons. Take me back to my village by the river. Let me gol Let me go."

Another voice joined his^—a high wavering tenor—and took up the lament.

"Loose me and let me go, Mongo man. Loose me and give me a spear and let me show you how good my aim is. Loose me and let me plunge my spear in your evil heart, Mongo man, for I too am a man and not an animal to lie here and rot in my own filth."

They descended the steps into the steaming heat, into the horror of the dim light below, into the putrid smell, into the concentration of fear and bitterness and sorrow. The white man imhooked a lighted lantern whose flickering flame did little to dispel the gloom but sufficed to bring to light row after row of shining black legs and pink-soled feet on one side of a narrow strip of deck and matte-black skulls on the other. When the rays of the lantern struck the eyes of the men stretched out on the floor, they glowed back like the eyes of animals at night and the moaning rose to a higher key with impassioned pleas for release, pleadings for water,

protests of sickness, discomfort and heartache. But the man with the lantern disregarded all the supplications and led the ten-man caffle down the narrow aisle between feet and woolly heads to where there was a small vacant space on the floor.

He unlocked the collar of the first man and told him to get down on the deck. The poor wretch, his wits completely addled, did not understand the quick command. It was repeated and this time accompanied by a quick lash from the quirt which dangled from a leather loop around the white marfs wrist. The slave yelped with the sudden pain and slid to the floor writhing, but the white man's boots kicked him into submission and up against the body of the man already chained there. He moved the slave as close up to the other man as possible, then reached down and flopped him over on his side so that the slave's body fitted snugly to that of the man already there—spoon-fashion—belly to back and groin to rump. A chain with iron shackles, spaced at equal distances, ran along the floor and once the man had adjusted the slave's body suflBciently close to that of his neighbor so that he could not get his hand between them, the shackles were slipped over the wretch's ankles and snapped shut. Another chain at his head, far heavier than that which now linked them together, had similar but heavier collars and one of these was closed around the fellow's neck.