Flash For Freedom!

3

By now you will have some idea of what life at sea was like when Uncle Harry was a boy. I don't claim that it was typical — I've sailed on many ships since the Balliol College, and never struck one like it, thank G-d — but although it was often like cruising in an asylum, I'll say one thing: that ship and crew were d—-d good at their work, which was kidnapping niggers and selling them in the Americas.

I can say this now, looking back; I was hardly in a position to appreciate their qualities after that first day of flogging and tea parties. All I could think of then was that I was at the mercy of a dangerous maniac who was h—l bent on a dangerous criminal expedition, and I didn't know which to be more scared of — him and his Latin lectures or the business ahead. But as usual, after a day or two I settled down, and if I didn't enjoy the first weeks of that voyage, well, I've known worse.

At least I had an idea of what I was in for — or thought I had — and could hope to see the end of it. For the moment I must take care, and so I studied to do my duties well — which was easy enough — and to avoid awakening the wrath of Captain J. C. Spring. This last wasn't too difficult, as it proved: all I had to do in his presence was listen to his interminable prosing about Thucydides and Lucan, and Seneca, whom he particularly admired, for he dearly loved to display his learning. (In fact, I heard later that he had been a considerable scholar in his youth, and would have gone far had he not assaulted some dignitary at Oxford and been kicked out. Who knows? he might have become something like Head at Rugby — which prompts the thought that Arnold would have made a handy skipper for an Ivory Coast pirate.)

At any rate, he lost no opportunity of airing his Latinity to Comber and me, usually at tea in his cabin, with the placid Mrs Spring sitting by, nodding. Sullivan was right, of course; they were both mad. You had only to see them at the divine service which Spring insisted on holding on Sundays, with the whole ship's company drawn up, and Mrs Spring pumping away at her German accordion while we sang "Hark! the wild billow", and afterwards Spring would blast up prayers to the Almighty, demanding his blessing on our voyage, and guidance in the tasks which our hands should find to do, world without end, amen. I don't know what Wilberforce would have made of that, or my old friend John Brown, but the ship's company took it straight-faced — mind you, they knew better than to do anything else.

They were as steady a crowd as I've ever seen afloat — hard men, and sober, who didn't say much but did their work with a speed and efficiency that would have shamed an Indiaman. They were professionals, of course, and a good cut above your ordinary sheilback. They respected Spring, and he them — although when one of them, a huge Dago, talked back to him, Spring smashed him senseless with his bare fists inside a minute-a man twice his size and weight. And another, who stole spirits, he flogged nearly to death, blaspheming at every stroke-yet a couple of hours later he was reading aloud to us from the Aeneid.

Mind you, if it was a tolerable life, it was damned dull, and I found my thoughts turning increasingly to Elspeth — and other women — as the days grew longer. But it was Elspeth, mostly; I found myself dreaming about her soft nakedness, and that silky golden hair spffling down over my face, and the perfume of her breath — it was rough work, I tell you, knowing there wasn't a wench in a hundred miles, nor likely to be. And from that my thoughts would turn to Morrison, and how I might get my own back when the time came: that at least was a more profitable field of speculation.

So we ran south, and then south by east, day after day, and the weather got warmer, and I shed my coat for a red striped jersey and white duck trousers, with a big belt and a sheath knife, as like Ralph Rover as ever was, and the galley stopped serving duff and the cask-water got staler by the day, and then one morning the wind had a new smell — a heavy, rotten air that comes from centuries of mangrove growing and decaying — and that afternoon we sighted the low green bank far away to port that is the coast of Africa.

We sighted sails, too, every now and then, but never for long. The Balliol College, as Kirk told me, drew wind like no other ship on the ocean — the best fun was stand up in her forechains as she lay over, one gunwale just above the crests, thrashing along like billy-be-damned, with mountains of canvas billowing above you — Dick Dauntless would have loved it, I'll be bound, and I enjoyed it myself — or at night, when you could lean over and watch the green fire round her bows, and look up at that African sky that is purple and soft like no other in the world, with the stars twinkling. G-d knows I'm no romantic adventurer, but sometimes I remember — and I'd like to run south again down Africa with a fair wind. In a private yacht, with my youth, half a dozen assorted Parisian whores, the finest of food and drink, and perhaps a German band. Aye, it's a man's life.

That land we had sighted was the Guinea Coast, which was of no interest to us, because as Kirk assured me it was played out for slaving. The growing senthnent for abolition at home, the increasing number of nations who joined with England in fighting the trade, the close blockade of the coast by British and Yankee patrol ships, who burned the slave stations and pounced on the ships — all these things were making life more difficult in the blackbird trade in the '40s. In the old days, the slavers had been able to put in openly, and pick up their cargoes, which had been collected by the native chiefs and herded into the great pens, or barracoons, at the river mouths. Now it wasn't so easy, and speed and secrecy were the thing, which was why fast ships like the Balliol College were at an advantage.

And of course clever slavers like Spring knew exactly where to go for the best blacks and which chiefs to deal with — this was the great thing. Your slaver might easily dodge the patrols on the way in and out — for it was a huge coast, and the Navy couldn't hope to watch it all — but unless he had a good agent ashore, and a native king who could keep up a supply of prime figs, he was sunk. It's always amused me to listen to the psalm-smiting hypocrisy of nigger-lovers at home and in the States who talk about white savages raping the Coast and carrying poor black innocents into bondage — why, without the help of the blacks themselves we'd not have been able to lift a single slave out of Africa. But I saw the Coast with my own eyes, you see, which the Holy Henriettas didn't, and I know that this old wives' tale of a handful of white pirates mastering the country and kidnapping as they chose, is all my eye. We couldn't have stayed there five minutes if the nigger kings and warrior tribes hadn't been all for it, and traded their captured enemies — aye, and their own folk, too — for guns and booze and Brummagem rubbish.

Why my pious acquaintances won't believe this, I can't fathom. They enslaved their own kind, in mills and factories and mines, and made 'em live in kennels that an Alabama planter wouldn't have dreamed of putting a black into. Aye, and our dear dead St William Wilberforce cheered 'em on, too — weeping his pious old eyes out over niggers he had never seen, and d—ning the soul of anyone who suggested it was a bit hard to make white infants pull coal sledges for twelve hours a day. Of course, he knew where his living came from, I don't doubt. My point is: if he and his kind did it to their people, why should they suppose the black rulers were any different where their kinsfolk were concerned? They make me sick, with their pious humbug.

But it's all by the way; the main thing is that Spring had a good black king to work with, a horrible old creature named Gezo, who lorded it over the back country of Dahomey. Now that the Windward Coast wasn't the place any more, and the slavers were concentrating round the corner in the White Man's Grave, stretches like Dahomey and Benin and the Oil rivers were where the real high jinks were to be found. The Navy lay in all the time at places like Whydah and Lagos, and your sharp captains like Spring were as likely as not to use the lonelier rivers and lagoons, where they could load up at their leisure, provided no one spotted 'em coming in.¹⁴

After our first landfall we bore away south, and came eastabout to Cape Palmas, where you could see the palm trees that gave it its name down by the water's edge, and so along the Ivory Coast and Gold Coast past Three Points to Whydah, where we put into the open roads. Spring had the Stars and Stripes at the masthead, and was safe enough, for there wasn't a Yankee in port. There were two British naval slops, but they wouldn't come near us — this was where the slavers scored, Kirk told me; the Yanks wouldn't let any but their own navy search an American ship, so our blue-jackets would interfere only with Portuguese and Spaniards and so on.

We lay off, looking at the long yellow beach with the factories and barracoons behind it, and the huge rollers crashing on the sand, and it was as hot as hell's kitchen. I watched the kites diving and snatching among the hundreds of small craft plying about between ships and shore, and the great Kroo canoes riding the surf, and tried to fan away the stench that rose from all the filth rotting on the oily water. I remembered what Kinnie had said:

"Oh, sailor, beware of the Bight o' Benin.

There's one as comes out for a hundred goes in."

You could smell the sickness on the wind, and I wondered why Spring, who was talking at the rail with Sullivan and scanning the shore with his glass, had put in here. But presently out comes a big Kroo canoe, with half a dozen niggers on board, who hailed us, and for the first time I heard that queer Coast lingo which passes for a language from Gambia to the Cape.

"Hollo, Tommy Rot," cries Spring, "where Pedro Blanco?"¹⁵ "Hollo, sah," sings out one of the Kroos. "He lib for Bonny no catch two, three week."

"Why he no lib for come? Him sabby me make palaver, plenty plenty nigras. Come me plenty good stuff, what can do, him lib Bonny?"

"Him say Spagnole fella, Sanchez, lib for Dahomey ribber. Him make strong palaver, no goddam bobbery. You take Tommy Rot, sah, catch Rum Punch, Tiny Tim, plenty good fella, all way ribber. Make good nigra palaver wid Spagnole fella, no Inglish Yankee gunboat."

Spring cursed a bit at all this; it seemed he had been hoping to meet one Pedro Blanco at Whydah, but the Krooboy Tommy Rot was telling him instead he should make for a river where a Spaniard named Sanchez would supply him with slaves. Spring didn't like it too much.

"Blanco bobbery b––-d," says he. "Me want him make palaver King Gezo one time."

"Palaver sawa sawa," bawls the Kroo. "Sanchez lib for Gezo, lib for you, all for true."

"He'd better," growls Spring. "All right, Tommy Rot, come aboard, catch Tiny Tim, ten fella, lib for ship, sabby?"

We took on a dozen of the Kroos, grinning, lively blacks who were great favourites among the Coast skippers. They were prime seamen, but full of tricks, and went by ridiculous names like Rum Punch, Blunderbuss, Jumping Jack, Pot Belly and Mainsail. Each one had his forehead tattooed blue, and his front teeth filed to points; I thought they were cannibals, but it seems they carried these marks so that they would be recognised as Kroos and there. fore wouldn't be taken as slaves.

With them aboard, the Balliol College stood out from Whydah, and after two days sniffing about out of sight of land we put in again farther east, on to a long low rotting coast-line of mangrove crawling out into the sea among the sunken sandbars. It looked d––d unpleasant to me, but Spring at the wheel brought her through into a lagoon, beyond which lay a great delta of junglecovered islands, and through these we came to what looked like a river mouth. We inched through the shoals, with everyone hauling and sweating at the sweeps, and the Kroos out ahead in canoes, while three men either side swung the lead incessantly, chanting "Three fathom, two and a half, two and Jesus saves, two and a half, two and Jesus saves, three fathom!"

And then, round the first bend, was a clearing, and huge stockades between river and jungle, and huts, and presently a fat Dago in a striped shirt with a hankie round his head and rings in his ears comes out in a small boat, all smiles, to meet a great storm of abuse from Spring.

"You're Sanchez, are you? And where the h—l's my cargo? Your barracoons are empty, you infernal scoundrel! Five hundred blacks I signed for with that thieving blackguard, Pedro Blanco, and look yonder!" He flung out an arm towards the empty stockades, in which the only sign of life was a few figures idiling round a cooking-fire. "D—-l a black hide in sight apart from your own! Well, sir?"

The dago was full of squealing apologies, waving his arms and sweating. "My dear Captain Spring! Your fears are groundless. Within two days there will be a thousand head in the barracoons. Pedro Blanco has taken order. King Gezo himself has come down country — especially on your behalf, my good sir. He is at Dogba, with his people; there has been much fighting, I understand, but all quiet now. And many, many nigras in his slave train — strong young men, hardy young women — all the best, for you, captain!" He beamed around greasily.

"You're sure?" says Spring. "Two days? I want to be out of here in three — and I want to see King Gezo, d'you hear?"

Sanchez spread his sticky hands. "There is no difficulty. He will be coming west from Dogba to Apokoto tomorrow."

"Well …" growls Spring, quieting down. "We'll see. What's he got for us. Sombas?"

"Sombas, Fulani, Adja, Aiza, Yoruba, Egbo — whatever the captain requires."

"Is that so? Well, I'll have six hundred, then, 'stead of five. And no sickly niggers, see? They're not going to be auctioned off with their arses stuffed with tar, mind that! I want sound stock."¹⁶

Sanchez took his leave, full of good wishes, and the Balliol College was made fast, as close to the bank as she could be warped. Men were sent aloft to hang her topmasts with leaves and creepers, so that no patrol vessel out at sea might spot us, and Sanchez sent men aboard to unload the cargo. This meant work for me, making sure they pinched nothing, and by the time the last bale was out and under the guard of Sanchez's native soldiers, I was running with sweat. It was a hellish place; green jungle all around, and steam coming off the brown oily surface of the water as though it were a bath; clouds of midges descended as soon as the sun dropped, and the heat pressed in on you like a blanket, so that all you could do was lie stifling, with your chest heaving and the perspiration pouring off you. Three days, Spring had said; it was a wonder to me that we had survived three hours.

That night Spring called a council in his cabin, of all his officers; I was there, as supercargo, but you can be sure I was well out of the rnnning. I don't suppose I've listened to a more interesting discussion in my life, though, unless it was Grant and Lee meeting in the farmhouse, or Lucan and my old pal Cardigan clawing at each other like female cousins at Balaclava. Certainly, for technical knowledge, Spring's little circle was an eye-opener.

"Six hundred," says Spring. "More than I'd bargained for; it'll mean fifteen inches for the bucks, and I want two bucks for every female, and no d––d calves."

"That's an inch under the old measure, cap'n," says Kinnie. "Might do for your Guineas, but it's tight for Dahomeys. Why, they're near as big as Mandingos, some of 'em, an' Mandingos take your sixteen inches, easy."

"I've seen the Portugoosers carry Mande's in less than that," says Sullivan.

"An' had twenty in the hundred die on 'em, likely."

"No fear. They put bucks in with wenches — reckon they spend all their time on top of each other, an' save space that way."

Spring didn't join in their laughter. "I'll have no mixing of male and female," he growled. "That's the surest way to trouble I know. I'm surprised at you, Mr Sullivan."

"Just a joke, sir. But I reckon sixteen inches, if we dance 'em regular."

"I'm obliged to you for your opinion. Dance or not, they get fifteen inches, and the women twelve."¹⁷

Kinnie shook his head. "That won't do, sir. These Dahomey b––-s takes as much as the men, any day. Sideways packin's no use either, the way they're shaped."

"Put 'em head to toe, they'll fit," says Sullivan.

"You'll lose ten, mebbe more, in the hundred," says Kinnie. "That's a ten thousand dollar loss, easy, these days."

"I'll have no loss!" cries Spring. "I'll not, by G-d! We'll ship nothing that's not A1, and the b––-s will have fresh fruit with their pulse each day, and be danced night and morning, d'ye hear?"

"Even so, sir," insisted Kinnie. "Twelve inches won't… ." Comber spoke up for the first time. He was pale, and sweating heavily — mind you, we all were-but he looked seedier than the others. "Perhaps Mr Kinnie is right, sir. Another inch for the women… ."

"When I want your advice, Mr Comber, I'll seek it," snaps Spring. "Given your way, you'd give 'em two feet, or fill the b––y ship with pygmies."

"I was thinking of the possible cost, sir …"

"Mr Comber, you lie." Spring's scar was going pink. "I know you, sir — you're tender of black sheep."

"I don't like unnecessary suffering, and death, sir, it's true …" "Then, by G-d, you shouldn't have shipped on a slaver!" roars Spring. "D—nation, d'you want to give 'em a berth apiece? You think I'm cruising 'em round the b––y lighthouse for a lark? Forty pieces a pound, Mr Comber — that's what an ordinary buck will fetch in Havana these days — perhaps more. A thousand dollars a head! Now, take note, Mr Comber, of what your extra inch can mean — a forty thousand dollar loss for your owner! Have you thought of that, sir?"

"I know, sir," says Comber, sticking to his guns nervously. "But forty dead gives you the same loss, and… ."

"D—nation take you, will you dispute with me?" Spring's eyes were blazing. "I was shipping black pigs while you were hanging at your mother's teat — where you ought to be this minute! D'ye think I don't take as much thought to have 'em hale and happy as you, you impudent pup! And for a better reason — I don't get paid for flinging corpses overboard. It's dollars I'm saving, not souls, Mr Comber! Heaven help me, I don't know why you're in this business — you ought to be in the b––y Board of Trade!" He sat glaring at Comber, who was silent, and then turned to the others. "Fifteen and twelve, gentlemen, is that clear?"

Kinnie sighed. "Very good, cap'n. You know my views, and… ."

"I do, Mr Kinnie, and I respect them. They are grounded in experience and commercial sense, not in humanitarian claptrap picked up from scoundrels like Tappan and Garrison. The Genius of Universal Emancipation, eh, Mr Comber?¹⁸ You'll be quoting to me in a moment. Genius of Ill-digested Crap! Don't contradict me, sir; I know your views — which is why I'm at a loss to understand your following this calling, you d––d hypocrite, you!"

Comber sat silent, and Spring went on: "You will take personal responsibility for the welfare of the females, Mr Comber. And they won't die, sir! We shall see to that. No, they won't die, because like you — and Mr Flashman yonder — they haven't read Seneca, so they don't know that qui mori didicit servire dedidicit.*[* Who has learned to die, has learned how not to be a slave.] If they did, we'd be out of business in a week."

I must say it sounded good sense to me, and Comber sat mumchance. He was obviously thankful when the discussion turned to more immediate matters, like the arrival of King Gezo the next day at Apokoto, which lay some miles up river; Spring wanted to meet him for a palaver, and said that Kinnie and Comber and I should come along, with a dozen of the hands, while Sullivan began packing the first slaves who would be arriving at the barracoons.

I was all in favour of getting off the Balliol College for a few hours, but when we boarded the Kroos' big canoe at the bank next day, I wasn't so sure. Kinnie was distributing arms to the hands, a carbine and cutlass for each man, and Spring himself took me aside and presented me with a very long-barrelled pistol.

"You know these?" says he, and I told him I did — it was one of the early Colt revolvers, the type you loaded with powder and ball down the muzzle. Very crude they'd look today, but they were the wonder of the world then.

"I picked up a dozen of these last winter in Baltimore," says he. "American army guns — Gezo would give his very throne for 'em, and I intend to use them in driving a very special bargain with him. Are you a good shot? Well, then, you can demonstrate them for him. Get Kinnie to give you a needle gun and cutlass as well."¹⁹

"D'you think … we'll need them?" says!.

He turned the pale eyes on me. "Would you rather go unarmed — into the presence of the most bloodthirsty savage in West Africa?" says he. "No, Mr Flashman — I don't expect we shall need to use our weapon3; not for a moment. But I fear the Greeks even when I'm bearing gifts to 'em, sir, d'you see?"

Well, that was sense, no doubt of it, so I took my needle carbine and bandolier, buckled on the cutlass and stuck the Colt in my belt, and stood forth like Pirate Bill; as we took our places in the canoe, it looked like something from a pantomime, every man with his hankie knotted round his head, armed to the teeth, some of 'em with rings in their ears, and one even with a patch over his eye. It struck me-what would Arnold say if he could look down now from his place at the right hand of God? Why, there, he would say, is that worthy lad, Tom Brown, with his milk-and-water wife in the West Country, giving bread and blankets to needy villagers who knuckle their heads and call him "squire": good for you, Brown. And there, too, that noble boy Scud East, lording it over the sepoys for the glory of God and the profit of John Company — how eminently satisfactory! And young Brooke, too, a fearless lieutenant aboard his uncle's frigate Unspeakable — what a credit to his old school! Aye, as the twigs are bent so doth the trees grow. But who is this, consorting with pirates and preparing to ship hapless niggers into slavery, with oaths on his lips? I might have known — it is the degraded Flashman! Unhappy youth! But just what I might have expected!

Aye, he would have rejoiced at the sight — if there's one thing he and his hypocritical kind loved better than seeing virtue rewarded, it was watching a black sheep going to the bad. The worst of it is, I wasn't there of my own free will — not that you ever get credit for that.

These philosophical musings were disturbed by the tender scene between Mr and Mrs Spring as he prepared to board the canoe. Unlike the rest of us, he was dressed as usual — dark jacket, round hat, neck-cloth all trim — how the devil he stood it, in that steaming heat, I can't figure. Well, at the last minute, Mrs Spring leans over the ship's side crying to him to take his comforter "against the chill of the night". This in a country where the nights are boiling hot, mark you.

"D—nation!" mutters Spring, but out he climbed, and took the muffler, crying good-bye, my dear, good-bye, while the men in the canoe grinned and looked the other way. He was in a fine temper as we shoved off, kicking the backside of the cabin boy — who had been ordered to come along — and d—ning the eyes of the man at the tiller.

Just as we pushed out into mid-stream came another diversion — from the jungle on the laudward side of the stockade came a distant murmuring and confused sound. As it grew nearer you could hear that it was a great shuffling and moaning, with the occasional shout and crack of a whip, and a dull chanting in cadence behind it.

"It's the slave train!" bawls Spring, and sure enough, presently out of the jungle came the head of a long line of niggers, yoked two by two with long poles, shuffling along between their guards. They were a startling sight, for there were hundreds of 'em, all naked, their black bodies gleaming in the sunshine and their legs covered with splashes of mud up to the thigh. They moaned and chanted as they walked, big stalwart bucks with woolly heads, jerking and stumbling, for the yokes were at their necks, and if a man checked or broke his stride he brought his yoke-fellow up short. The sound they made was like a huge swarm of bees, except when one of the guards, big niggers in kilts and blouses carrying muskets, brought his whip into play, and the crack would be followed by a yelp of pain.

"Easy with those kurbashes, d—n you!" yelled Spring. "That's money you're cutting at!" He leaned eagerly over the thwart, surveying the caravan. "Prime stuff, 'pon my soul, Mr Kinnie; no refuse there. Somba and Egbo, unless I'm mistaken."

"Aye, sir, good cattle, all of 'em," says Kinnie.

Spring rubbed his hands, and with many a last glance, gave the order to give way. The men at the sweeps hauled, and the big canoe pushed forward up river, Mrs Spring fluttering her handkerchief after us from the Balliol College's rail.

Once round the first bend, we were in another world. On either side and overhead the jungle penned us in like a huge green tent, muffling the cries and shrieks of the beasts and birds beyond it. The heat was stifling, and the oily brown water itself was so still that the plash of the sweeps and the dripping of moisture from the foliage sounded unnaturally loud. The men pulling were drenched in sweat; it was a labour to breathe the heavy damp air, and Kirk was panting under his breath as he accompanied the rowers with "Rock an' roll, rock an' roll, Shenandoah sail-or! hoist her high, hoist her dry, rock an' roll me ov-er!"

It must have been three or four hours, with only a few brief rests, before Spring ordered a halt at a small clearing on the water's edge. He consulted his watch, and then his compass, and announced:

"Very good, Mr Kinnie, we'll march from here. No sense in risking our craft any nearer these gentlemen than we have to. Cover her up and fall in ashore."

We all piled out, and the huge canoe was manhandled in under the mangroves which hung far out from the water's edge. "When she was hidden to Spring's satisfaction, with a guard posted, and be bad ensured that every man was properly armed and equipped, be led the way along a track that seemed to me to run parallel with the river — although the jungle was so thick you couldn't see a yard either side. The air was alive with mosquitoes, and in the shadows of that little green tunnel we stumbled along, slapping and cursing; it was a poor trail, and when Spring asked me what I thought of it, I answered, h—lish. He barked a laugh and says:

"Truer than you know. It's made of corpses — some of the thousands that result from the Dahomeyans' yearly festival of human sacrifice.²⁰ They build up the path with 'em, bound together with vines and cemented with mud." He pointed to the dense thickets either side. "You wouldn't make a mile a day in there — nothing but ooze and roots and rotting rubbish. Sodden wet, but never a drop of water to be had — you can die of thirst in that stuff."

You may guess how this cheered up the journey, but there was worse ahead. We smelled Apokoto long before we saw it; a rank wave of corruption that had us cursing and gagging. It was a stink of death — animal and vegetable — that hit you like a hot fog and clung in your throat. "Filthy black animals," says Spring.

The town itself was bigger than I had imagined, a huge stockaded place crammed with those round grass lodges which are beehive shaped with an onion topknot. All of it was filthy and ooze-ridden, except for the central square which had been stamped flat and hard; the whole population, thousands of 'em, were gathered round it, stinking fit to knock you flat. The worst of the reek came from a great building like a cottage at the far side, which puzzled me at first because it seemed to be built of shiny brown stones which seemed impossible in this swampy jungle country. Kirk put me wise about that: "Skulls," says he, and that is what they were, thousands upon thousands of human skulls cemented together to make the death-house, the ghastly place where the human sacrifices — prisoners, slaves, criminals, and the like — were herded before execution. Even the ground directly before it was paved with skulls, and the evil of the place hung over that great square like an invisible mist.

"I seen as many as a hundred chopped up at one time before that death-house," says Kirk. "Men, women, an' kids, all cut up together. It's like a Mayday fair to these black heathen."

"They seem amiable enough just now," says I, wishing to God I were back at the ship, and he agreed that as a rule the Apokoto folk were friendly to white traders — provided they had trade goods, and looked as though they could defend themselves. It was plain to see now why Spring had us heavily armed; I'd have been happier with a park of artillery as well.

"Aye, they're savage swine if you don't mind your eye," says Kirk, rolling his quid, "an' Gezo's the most fearsome b––-d of the lot. He's the man to set upon your landlord, by G-d! An' wait till you see his warriors — you're a military man, ain't you? — well, you never seen nothin' like his bodyguard, not nowheres. You just watch out for 'em. Best fighters in Africa, they reckon, an' probably the on'y nigger troops anywhere that march in step — an' they can move in dead silence when they wants to, which most niggers can't. Oh, they're the beauties, they are!"

We had to wait near an hour before Gezo put in an appearance, in which time the sun got hotter, the reek fouler, and my mind uneasier. I've stood before the face of savage kings often enough, and hated every minute of it, but Gezo's little home-from-home, with its stench of death and corruption, and its death house, and its thousands of big, ugly niggers to our little party, was as nasty a hole as I've struck; I found myself shivering in spite of the heat haze, but took heart from the fact that all our fellows seemed quite composed, leaning on their muskets, chewing and spitting and winking at the niggers. Only Spring seemed agitated, but not with fear; he fidgeted eagerly from time to time, snorting with impatience at the delay, and took a turn up and down. Then he would stop, standing four square with his hands in his pockets, head tilted back, and you could feel he was working to contain himself as he waited.

Suddenly everything went dead quiet; the chatter of the crowd stopped, everyone held their breaths, and our fellows stiffened and shifted together. Utter silence lay over that vast place, broken only by the distant jungle noises. Spring shrugged and muttered:

"High time, too. Come on, you black b––-d."

The silence lasted perhaps a minute, and then out of the street beside the death house scampered a score of little figures, either dwarves or boys, but you couldn't tell, because they were grotesquely masked. They swung rattles as they ran, filling the air with their clatter, and crying out a confused jumble of words in which I managed to pick out "Gezo! Gezo!" They scattered about the square, prancing and rattling and questing, and Spring says to me:

"Chasing away bad spirits, and finding the most propitious place for his majesty to plant his fat posterior. Aye, as usual, on the platform. Look yonder."

Two warriors were carrying forward a great carved stool, its feet shaped like massive human legs, which they planked down on the dais of skulls before the death house. The masked dancers closed in, whisking away round the stool, and then scattered back to the edge of the square. As they fell silent a drum began to beat from beyond the death house, a steady, marching thump that grew louder and louder, and the crowd began to take it up, stamping and clapping in unison, and emitting a wordless grunt of "Ay-uh! ay-uh!" while they swayed to the rhythm.

"Now you'll open your eyes," says Kirk in my ear, and as he said it I saw emerging from the street by the death house a double file of warriors, swinging along in time to the steady cadence of the drum, while the chanting grew louder. "Ha!" cries Spring, eagerly. "At last!"

They marched out either side of the square in two long lines, lithe, splendid figures, swaying as they marched, and it was something in the manner of that swaying that struck me as odd; I stared harder, and got the surprise of my life. The warriors were all women.

And such women. They must have been close on a man's height, fine strapping creatures, black as night and smart as guardsmen. I gaped at the leading one on the right as she approached; she came sashaying along, looking straight before her, a great ebony Juno naked to the little blue kilt at her waist, with a long stabbing spear in one hand and a huge cleaver in her belt. The only other things she wore were a broad collar of beadwork tight round her throat, and a white turban over her hair, and as she passed in front of us I noticed that at her girdle there hung two skulls and a collection of what looked like lion's claws. The others who followed her were the same, save that instead of turbans they wore their hair coiled together and tied with ropes of beads, but each one carried a spear, some had bows and quivers of arrows, and one or two even had muskets. Not all were as tall as the leader, but I never saw anything on Horse Guards that looked as well-drilled and handsome — or as frighteningly dangerous.

"None o' your sogers could throw chests like them," says Kirk, licking his lips, and then I felt Spring's hand grip my wrist. To my surprise his pale eyes were shining with excitement, and I thought, well, you old lecher, no wonder you left Mrs Spring at home this trip. He pointed at the black, glistening line as they marched past.

"D'you realise what you're seeing, Flashman?" says he. "Do you? Women warriors — Amazons! The kind of whom Herodotus wrote, but he knew nothing of the reality. Look at them, man — did you ever see such a sight?"

Well, they were likely big wenches, certainly, and they bounced along very jolly, but when I watch a wobbling buttock I prefer it to be unobscured by a dangling skull. And I'm no hand with women who look as though they'd rather kill and eat me than grapple in the grass. But Spring was all for 'em; his voice was husky as he watched.

"D'you know what they call themselves? Mazangu — the fair ones. You see how every company leader wears a spotless turban — they call 'em Amodozo. Doesn't that name bring back an echo from your school-days — think, man! Who was the leader of the Amazons in Africa — Medusa! Amodozo, Medusa. Mazangu, Amazons." His face was alive with a delight I'd never seen before. "These are the cream of the Dahomeyan army — the picked bodyguard of the king. Every voyage I've made, I vowed I'd bring back half a dozen of them, but I've never been able to make this black Satan part with even one. He'll part this time, though." He rounded on me. "You've a gift of languages, have you not? On this voyage we'll learn it — we'll find out everything there is to know about 'em, study them, their history, their customs. The real Amazons! By the holy, I'll make those smug half-educated Balliol sons-of-b––-s sit up, won't I though? They'll find out what real scholarship is!"

I suppose I've been in some queer places, with some d––d odd fellows, but nothing queerer than watching those big black fighting sluts march by while a classically-educated slaver skipper babbled to me about anthropological research. I thought it had been lust that excited him, at the sight of all those black boobies quivering, and it was lust, at that — but it was scholarly, not carnal. Well, if he thought I was going to huddle up with those female baboons, studying present infinitives, he was dead wrong.

"They've got both tits," I said. "Thought Amazons only had one."

He snarled his contempt. "Even Walter Raleigh knew better than that. But he was wrong about what mattered — so was Lopez Vaz, so was Herodotus. Not South America, not Scythia — here! Africa! I shall make a name — a great name, with my work on these women. Despise John Charity Spring, will they?" He was shouting again, not that anyone could hear much, above that drumming. "I'll show them, by G-d, I will! We'll keep one, perhaps two. The others will fetch a handy price in Havana — what? Think of the money they'll pay for black fighting women in New Orleans! I could get two — no, three thousand dollars a head for creatures like those!"

I never interrupt an enthusiast, especially one with a temper like a wild dog's. Presently he fell silent, but he never took his eyes off those women, who were halted now in a great circle round the square. Two other companies of them had filed in and taken station close to the death house, and now in their wake came a gross black figure, under a striped umbrella, at the sight of whom they raised their spears in salute and stamped, while the mob round the square roared a welcome.²¹

King Gezo of Dahomey was bitter ugly, even by nigger standards. He must have weighed twenty stone, with a massive belly hanging over his kilt of animal tails, and huge shoulders inside his scarlet cape. He had a kind of wicker hat on his head, and under it was a face that would have shamed a gorilla — huge flat nose, pocked cheeks, little yellow eyes and big yellow teeth. He waddled to his stool, plumped down, and opened the palaver in a croaking voice that carried harshly all over the square.

At first we were ignored, although he could be seen squinting our way every now and then. He palavered with elders of the town, and then with several folk who were summoned forward from the crowd; one of them evidently displeased him, because he suddenly screamed an order, and two of the Amazons beside his throne stepped forward, drawing their cleavers, and without ceremony laid into the victim right and left, and literally slashed him to pieces. The crowd hollo'ed like mad, Gezo surged about on his stool, and those two harpies hacked away at the dismembered corpse, spattering the skull platform with blood. When they were done, slaves came forward to clear up — -they had to sweep what was left of the body off the stage.

No doubt this was for our benefit, for we were now beckoned forward. Gezo was even more horrifying at close range, with those yellow eyeballs rolling at you, but he was civil enough to Spring, laughing hoarsely and chattering at him through one of his officials, who spoke fair Coast English.

They palavered for a while about the slaves who had been sent down to our ship, and then Gezo in high good humour ordered stools to be set for all our party, and we squatted down at the edge of the dais, while servants brought dishes of food — I expected it would turn my stomach, but it was not bad: stew, and fruit, and native bread, and a beer that was powerful and not unlike a German lager. Gezo gorged and talked, spluttering out food as he squealed and barked at Spring, and occasionally drinking beer from a gaudy china mug on which was inscribed, of all things, "A Present for a Good Boy from Scarborough". I remember thinking how odd it was that this shoddy article should obviously be a prized possession, while the local cups from which we drank were really fine pieces, of metal beautifully carved.

All told it was as pleasant a meal as one could have in the presence of a terrifying ogre, with the blood still sticky before his feet, and the foul stench of the death house all around. Another distraction was the Amazons, who ringed the dais; one of the white-turbanned leaders stood close by me and I took close stock of her. She had the flat face, broad nose, and thick lips usual on this part of the Coast, but with that splendid shape, and a fine black satin thigh thrust out and almost touching me as I sat, I thought, by gum, one could do worse. They had men only once a year, Spring had said, and I decided that being the man would be interesting work, if you survived it. I gave her a wink, and the sullen face never altered, but a moment later she raised the fly whisk that dangled from her wrist and brushed away an insect buzzing round my head. I could see she fancied me; black or white, savage or duchess, they're all alike.

Meanwhile the meal finished, and presently Gezo beckoned Spring to draw his stool closer; they grunted away at each other through the interpreter, and I heard Spring suggest the purchase of six of the Amazon women. This threw Gezo into a great passion, but Spring let it rage, and then whispered to the interpreter again. There was much conferring, and Gezo barked and screamed, but less loud each time, I thought, and at last Spring turned to me.

"Show him your pistol," says he, and I handed it over. Gezo pawed over it excitedly, rasping questions at Spring, and finally it was given back to me, and Spring says:

"Fire it for him — all five shots as fast as you can. Into the side of the death house will do."

I stood up, all eyes on me, Gezo chattering and bouncing up and down on his stool. I drew a bead on one of the skull bricks and fired; it kicked like blazes, but I thumbed back the hammer smartly and loosed off the next four shots in quick time. Five gaping holes were smashed in the wall, with splinters flying all over the place, the mob roared, Gezo beat his fists on his knees with excitement, and even the Amazons put up their knuckles to their mouths; my own pipsey-popsey with the white turban stared at me roundeyed.

Then Spring called up one of our seamen, who carried a case, and when he opened it there were the five other Colt pistols; Gezo slobbered and squealed at the sight of them, but Spring wouldn't hand them over — he had more guts than I'd have had with that blood-stained maniac mowing and yelling at me. They whispered away again, and then Gezo rolled his eyes shifty-like at the Amazons, summoned my girl, and mumbled orders to her. She didn't bat an eyelid, but snapped a command to six of her wenches. They grounded their spears like guardsmen, put by their cleavers, and then stood forward. Gezo yammered at them, one of them said something back, Gezo yelled at them, and from the ranks of all the other Amazons there was something like a gasp and a murmur, which rose to a growl; they didn't like what was happening, and Gezo had to stand up and bawl at them until they were quiet.

I didn't like the look of this; you could feel the anger and hatred welling up all round us. But Spring just snapped shut the case, handed it to Gezo, and then turned to us.

"Mr Kinnie," says he, "the palaver is finished. Form up round these six women; we're getting out of here." Then he tipped his hat to Gezo, who was sitting back on his stool, looking d––d peevish, and clutching his case. Our fellows had turned to face the crowd, who were milling closer beyond the ranks of the Amazons; it was beginning to look ugly, but Spring just marched ahead, bulldog fashion, the Amazons stepped back smartly to let him go, and with our six black beauties in our midst we followed after. Two of the girls hesitated, looking round over their shoulders, but my Amazon lady, standing beside Gezo's throne, shouted to them, and they dropped their heads meekly and marched on with us.

By jove, it was a long minute's walk to the gate of the stockade, through the double file of those black Amazon furies, their faces sullen with anger and grief at the sale of their fellows, while the great crowd of townsfolk roared in protest behind them. But the discipline of those women warriors was like iron; the king had said, and that was that — mind you, if Gezo had run for president at that moment, he wouldn't have had my money on him, but even so, no one in that whole town was bold enough to gainsay him.

We were moving d–– d smartly by the time we reached the stockade, a tight knot of men with our needle guns at the ready, and the women being jostled along in the middle. Spring was first at the gate, where he stopped and hurried us through, I stood close by him; his jaw was tight and he was as near scared as I ever saw him.

"Hurry, b—-t you!" he shouted. "D—n that Gezo, to haggle so longs and d—n those women — I didn't think they'd raise such a bother about the business. Straight ahead, Mr Kinnie, and keep those six sluts close, d'you hear?" Then to me: "Come on!"

"Wait!" say I — it was instinctive, believe me; I'd no wish to linger, not with that growling mob behind me. But I'd noticed the little ferrety cabin boy was missing. "Where the h—l is he?"

"Back there!" snaps Spring. "He's senseless with nigger beer — Gezo wanted him — wanted a white slave! Come on, d—n you, will you stand there all day?"

I'm not shocked easy, but that took me flat aback — for about the tenth part of an instant. If Spring wanted to trade his cabin boy to a nigger king, it was all one to me; I was into the fringe of the jungle a yard ahead of him, and then we were running, with the others in front of us, the Amazons being driven along, one of 'em wailing already. Behind us the hubbub of the town was cut off by the dense foliage; we hustled down the path, but you don't run far in that climate, and soon we had to slow down to a trot.

"Well enough, I think," says Spring. He stopped for a moment to listen, but there was nothing except the jungle noises and the sobbing of our own breathing. "I didn't like that," says he, addressing no one in particular. "By G-d, I didn't! If I'd known they were so d––d jealous of their fighting wenches … Phew! It's the last time I deal with Gezo, though. Quid violentius aure tyranni?*[* What is more dangerous than having the ear of a tyrant? — Juvenal.] For a moment I'd a notion he would change his mind — and keep the pistols, which would have been short shrift for us." He laughed, and the mad pale eyes blinked. "On, there, Mr Kinnie! Mr Comber, keep a sharp eye on the prisoners! Back to that boat in double time, my lads, before his majesty thinks better of his bargain!"

We pushed on down the narrow trail, and we must have been half-way to the river when Spring stopped again, listening. I strained my ears; nothing. Just the chickering of the forest beasts and birds. Spring called to the fellows to be quiet, and we all listened. Spring turned his head from side to side, and then I heard Kirk say: "Wot the h—l we standing here for? If there's anything to hear, then the sooner we're in that boat the better."

"There's nuthin' behind us," says another, uneasily.

"Silence!" snaps Spring. He was peering through the foliage at the side of the path. I found my heart racing, and not just with exertion — if we were pursued, they couldn't have outflanked us, through that swamp and jungle, surely. We would have heard them — and then I remembered Kirk saying: "They can move in dead silence when they wants to."

"For G-d's sake!" I whispered to Spring. "Let's get on!"

He ignored me. "Mr Kinnie," he called softly. "D'you hear anything to port?"

"No, cap'n," sings back Kinnie, "there's noth —"

The end of that word was a horrid scream; in terror I stared down the path, and saw Kinnie stagger, clawing at the shaft in his throat before tumbling headlong into the mangrove. Someone yelled, a musket banged, and then Spring was thrusting forward, bawling:

"Run for it! Keep on the path for your lives. Run like h—l!"

His order was wasted on me-I was running before he had started thinking, even; someone screamed in front of me, and a black shadow leaped on to the path — it was an Amazon, swinging a machete; one of the seamen caught it on his musket, and dashed the butt into her face. She went down, shrieking, and as I leaped over her my foot landed on her bare flesh; I stumbled, but went careering on. The vision of those two naked black fiends slashing a man to death was before my eyes, and the crash of shots and yelling behind me urged me on. I fairly flew along that trail.

And by gum, I wasn't alone. They say sailors are poor runners, but that landing party from the Balliol College could move when they wanted to; we stampeded along that twisting path, elbowing each other aside in our panic to get away from the horror in the jungle on either side. They were screaming their war cries now, those terrible black sows; once a spear flashed past in front of my face, and I believe a couple of arrows buzzed above our heads, and then I tripped and fell headlong, with the others trampling over me.

I thought I was done for, but when I scrambled to my feet I saw we were on the edge of the clearing by the river. The fleetest of our party was tearing aside the branches where our canoe was hidden, the man who had been left on guard was on one knee, aiming his musket; it banged, and I turned to see an Amazon fall shrieking not ten yards from me, her cleaver bouncing along to land at my feet. Instinctively I grabbed it, and then a flying body knocked me sideways. Some of our fellows were firing from the water's edge; as I scrambled up I saw an Amazon on her knees, clutching her side with one hand as she tried vainly to hurl her spear with the other. Close by me was Spring, bawling like a madman; he had his pepper-pot revolver in one hand, firing back towards the path, and by G-d, with the other he was trying to drag along one of the Amazons he'd bought. The man's dedication to scholarly research was incredible.

They were leaping through the edge of the jungle now, howling black devils, and if you believe that even the worst of young women has charms, you are in error. As I fled for the boat, I saw the man who had been on guard spin round with an arrow in his shoulder; before he could regain his feet three of them were on him, and while two held him down, throat and ankle, the third carefully pulled up his shirt, and with the utmost delicacy disembowelled him with her machete. Then I was at the boat, a needle gun was in my hands, and I was firing at another who was leaping across the clearing; she went cartwheeling into the river, and then Spring was beside me, dashing down his empty gun and drawing his cutlass.

"Shove off!" he bawled, and I made a leap for the thwart, missed, and came down in the shallows. Spring jumped over me, and I felt someone drag me upright; it was Comber. For a moment we were shoulder to shoulder, and then an Amazon was on us. Her spear was back to thrust into my breast, and in that split second I saw it was my white-turbanned wench of the fly whisk, her teeth bared in a ghastly grin. And you may think me fanciful, but I'll swear she recognised me, for she hesitated an instant, swung her point away from me, and drove it to the haft into Comber's side. And as I threw myself headlong over the gunwale the ridiculous thought flashed through my mind: bonny black cavalry whiskers, they can't resist 'em.

"D—nation!" Spring was roaring. "I lost that confounded slut!" And as the boat shot away from the bank he seized a needle gun, almost crying with rage, and blazed away. I pulled myself up by the thwart, and the first thing I saw was a bloody hand gripping the edge of the boat. It was Comber, clinging on for dear life as we wallowed out into the stream, with the dark red blood staining the water around him. For a second I wondered whether I should try to haul him in or bash his fingers loose, for he was encumbering our way, but then Spring had leaned over and with one titanic heave had dragged him over the thwart.

We were ten yards from the bank, and it was lined with shrieking black women, hurling their spears, bending their bows, leaping up and down in a frenzy of rage. Why none of them took to the water after us I don't know, unless it was fear of crocodiles; we cowered down to escape their missiles, and then a voice was screaming from the bank:

"Help, cap'n! Cap'n, don't leave me — for Jesus' sake, cap'n! Save me!"

It was Kirk; he was in the shallows, being dragged back by half a dozen of those black witches. They hauled him on to the bank, screaming and laughing, while we drifted out into midstream. Some bold idiot had seized a sweep, and Comber, bleeding like a butchered calf, was crying:

"Help him, sir! We must turn back! We must save him!"

Spring thrust him away, threw himself on to the sweep with the sailor, and in spite of the arrows that whistled over the boat, the two of them managed to drive us still farther away towards the opposite mangrove shore. We were beyond the spears now, and presently the arrows began to fall short, although one of the last to reach the boat struck clean through the hand of the seaman at the oar, pinning him to the timber. Spring wrenched it clear and the fellow writhed away, clutching his wound. And then Holy Joe Comber was at it again:

"Turn back, sir! We can't leave Kirk behind!"

"Can't we, by G-d?" growls Spring. "You just watch me, mister. If the b––-d can't run, that's his look-out!"

Spoken like a man, captain, thinks I; give me a leader you can trust, any day. And even Comber, his face contorted with pain, could see it was no go; they were swarming on the bank, and had Kirk spreadeagled; we could see them wrenching his clothes off, squealing with laughter, while close by a couple of them had even started kindling a fire. They were smart housewifely lasses those, all right.

Kirk was yelling blue murder, and as we watched, my girl in the white turban knelt down beside him, and suddenly his voice rose into a horrible, blood-chilling shriek. Several of the Amazons prancing on the bank indicated to us, by obscene gestures, what she was doing to him; Comber groaned, and began to spew, and Spring, swearing like a lunatic, was fumbling to load one of the needle guns. He bawled to the rest of us to follow suit, and we banged away at them for a moment, but it was too dangerous to linger, and with Kirk's screams, and the gloating shrieks of those she-d—-ls, drifting downstream after us, we manned the sweeps and rowed for all we were worth. With the current to help us we drove along hard, and I was finally able to choke down my panic and thank my stars for another delivery. Of the half dozen of us in the boat, I was the only one without even a scratch; Spring had a machete cut on his left arm, but not a deep one, and the others' wounds were mild enough, except for Comber's. But if Spring was only slightly injured in the flesh, his ambition had taken a nasty jar. He d––d Gezo's eyes for a treacherous hound, and called the Amazons things that would have made a marine blush, but his chief fury, voiced over and over again as we rowed downstream was:

"I lost that black slut. All these years, and I lost the sow! Even that single one — she would have done! My G-d, I could have used that woman!"

I was pondering that I could have used my white-turbanned Hebe, for a different and less academic purpose-but then I thought of Kirk, and discovered that any tendre I might have cherished for the lady had died. And as I think back now, strapping lass though she was, I can't say that the old flame rekindles. She was a shrew if ever I saw one.