Chapter 5: Welcome to Maryland

By early afternoon the captain and his purser had worked their way down to the last score of apprehensive men, a scrawny bunch that included several transported criminals, those they had labeled the dregs in discussing the sale beforehand. In the narrow quarterdeck cabin, Elizabeth awakened from her dream-filled nap with a shiver and a foul taste in her mouth, and she now paced the room, impatient to have her humiliation ended. She stopped and pressed her ear to the thin door to hear what was going on above her.

"Come along now," the captain commanded as he and the quarter-master brought the final group out on deck. Knowing what most looked like without their ragged clothes, the captain did not ask them to undress. His skeleton crew immediately began cleaning up the hold and stowing the last of the worn hammocks.

"Now these men," said the captain as hopefully and cheerfully as he could, "some of them were jailed in England but none, none that I know of, is what you'd call a real criminal, though there might be a cut-purse or two among them, maybe even a debtor." He chortled and looked about. "They didn't do nothing that would be noticed in Maryland; that's the God-honest truth." He glanced about for a laugh that did not come and ended up smiling wanly at the purser. "They're just poor and got in trouble for being poor. All's willing to work, so they say. Seven year bonds for them on this side, and t'others, mostly four and five, one or two a bit more, signed, sealed and delivered. Come up and ask 'em what you will. Take your pick, men, six pounds six, that's even for the seven-year men. If you want two, you may have them for ten guineas; five workers for twenty if y'need a crew, rowers perhaps, bargemen. You won't do better in Annapolis this year, and there's likely no more coming afore June." We waved his arms widely to display his tattered goods.

The few buyers that were left, mostly successful tenant farmers and small planters from the look of them, moved among the bondsmen, talking to them, feeling arm muscles, looking at downcast eyes for signs of disease. Obviously, the buyers were seeking bargains. Some scarecrows were asked to walk to the rail and back or to hop on one foot. A few went quickly to the purser's table, but when the sale was over, nine of the transported men stood, heads down, toeing the deck, unclaimed, shunned. With the five men from earlier groups that had clear signs of active venereal diseases or consumption, that made fourteen to send ashore and wholesale. Not bad, thought the captain, who turned to the purser and first mate to make arrangements.

"What about Elizabeth?" quietly asked the mate behind his hand.

"Damn'me, forgot her." The captain turned back but his deck was almost empty, and ashore the first hogsheads of tobacco were being trundled out of the inspection warehouse and rumbled up the dock. The purser whistled tunelessly as he happily toted up his columns while the mate went to fetch the unsold woman. She quickly came up on deck with a worried look and glanced at the sad knot of lean men lolling near the mainmast. Her fingers twisted one of her brass buttons.

"What now, sir?" she asked the captain, half angry and part frightened. "Those Conroy girls, they were supposed t'be here t'day, y'know. They promised." She nodded forcefully, biting her lower lip.

"Nobody's seen 'em. Can't wait longer today, I fear. We've a few here who've yet to find masters. I'm sorry you have to be with them, pitiful bunch. Please go with Mr. Philips. He's rented some space in that warehouse over there, the green one. I've got those casks of tobacco to load, but I'll come see what's been done 'fore it's dark, look at the arrangements. I'm sure the mate'll find a safe place for you, just for tonight. Y'can trust him."

Elizabeth tried to hold the captian's eyes but failed and resigned herself to another ignominy, another disappointment.

Led by the quartermaster and his assistant, both armed and on the look-out for any self-styled redemptioner who might try to run, the small parade, mostly barefoot, went down the gangplank and along the busy dock, dodging workmen, massive hogsheads and piles of lumber. The first mate and Elizabeth, now huddled deep in Benjamin's old coat, followed a few paces behind, her clogs clattering on the dock.

It looks and smell likes Cornwall, Elizabeth decided, surprised by the similarities. At the sliding warehouse door, the quartermaster's assistant, the one called Vernon, knocked with his ever-present belaying pin. The slow-moving group entered the building and filed into a high-ceilinged, empty room where there were a few wood and canvas cots and some straw-filled mattresses on the stone floor. A small, iron stove squatted against one wall and glowed with warmth. Some short sticks of cord wood lay beside it. A hooded lantern hung from a post, but the big room was dark, drafty and cold compared to the "Lune's" narrow, low-ceilinged hold. The warehouse smelled of cured sot-weed and wet hemp.

"Aw'right, you lot, claim a bed," said Philips. With his rope end, the mate drew a line in the debris and dust on the floor. The tarred rope left marks on some of the stones. "Now," he said, "look 'ere, you men stay over on that side of the stove, and this here woman will have the space over in the corner for now. I'm leaving Vernon here in charge, and I don't want any trouble or there will be some cracked heads. You well know my Vernon likes to crack heads." The tall man in the striped shirt smiled and tapped his polished club into his broad palm, proud of his vicious reputation. He had a large pistol tucked in his belt as well as his usual knife.

"I'm going to see about some grub, so just settle in. The head's back in the far corner there. Vernon, pull that bed over here for Elizabeth."

"I think it'll be all right," Philips told the worried young woman, as she stood in the middle of the dank room looking around, heart thumping, two lines deepening above her thin nose. "If the inn over there's got room, we'll move you. But it's Saturday, so I doubt it. I'll find something, never you fear."

Vernon kicked one of the flimsy cots over toward the dark corner. "Here," he said, barely looking at her, "set y'self. Take off y'coat there an' be easy."

In less than a half hour the first mate returned to the warehouse with the cook and two seamen carrying wicker baskets filled with bread, cheese and some cold meat and dried fishes. He sent Vernon back to the ship for his meal and after seeing that all the unsold men had settled down to devour the food, slipped out himself to visit a nearby inn where he hoped to celebrate with the buxom serving girl he had met and fondled the day before. The captain had told Philips that he would not have time to visit the warehouse because of problems with stowing the tobacco cargo, something about missing inspection seals, but the mate saw no reason to inform the remnants of their morning sale of that news. In fact, he saw no need for the captain to check up on him at all. Several times the mate stopped to explain the plans to the indentured men, none of whom seem reassured by his explanations and some of whom clearly had no understanding or interest in their future.

The dark-skinned cook visited briefly with Elizabeth while the two sailors talked for a few minutes with some of the men they had known from the voyage and then the crewmen all said their farewells and took their leave, eager to find a drink and a willing woman, payday coins jingling in their purses.

Elizabeth sat on her flimsy cot eating bread and cheese, feeling sorry for herself, disappointed with the Conroy girls, missing Matthew for the first time, feeling hollow. She did not notice that the mate and the sailors were no longer about and had not heard the last man out throw the bolt on the other side of the wide door. After a few minutes, she walked across the room and took a small gray fish from the woven basket.

"What 'chu doin' over 'ere, lass?" asked a man sitting cross-legged on a straw pallet, scratching under his lank arm and staring at her with his one good eye.

"Fish," Elizabeth answered quietly, holding it up for the man to see.

"I'll gi' you a fish," he said, unbuttoning his grimy fore-flap. "A big scaly 'un." He cackled at her and made a crude gesture, his hand grasping his scrawny bicep.

Elizabeth hurried back to her side of the first mate's line trying to ignore the crude laughter behind her. She broke up her salty fish and ate the pieces with her cheese. The sailors had left a water bucket on the far side of the room as well, but she decided she could make do without a drink. She licked her parched lips, tasting the salt.

When a shadow fell across her lap, she looked up to see two men standing before her. "Come on then, girl, let's us 'ave us a bit of fun now," one said, picking at his sparse teeth with his thumb nail.

"Been as long f'you as it 'as for us," said the other, scratching at his breeches' filthy crotch.

"We'll not 'urt 'cha," said the first, his bad eye cast at the timbered ceiling. "Can do it right 'ere on this fine cot. Turn and turn again. Front or back, as you like, standin' if y'wish, kneelin', or agin the wall there. S'only a dozen a'us and some can't get it up they's so poxed." He laughed and grabbed for the bright buttons on Elizabeth's dress.

She struck his hand away, threw the scraps of fish at him, kicked him in the shins with her clog-shod feet and screamed, "Get away! Get away from me!"

The door banged open. Vernon stomped into the room with a stoneware bottle in one hand and his belaying pin in the other. "Scum," he yelled, shaking the long club at them, "get back where you belong." The two men scrambled to their side of the line and cowered in the darkest corner, one holding his unbuttoned britches to his thin waist. He spat onto the grimy floor.

"Damn," said Vernon. "Man can't get a bite, take a piss, or nof'in 'thout you filthy scum tryin' to fuck this here widder lady. Ought to bloody y'ugly faces, flog yer cods, rotten cowards, all a'you, worthless turds." He stumbled and caught himself and then sucked at his bottle. His Adam's apple rolled up and down his throat several times.

"How 'bout givin' us a taste then, Vernon. Share a bit," one of the ragged bond servants begged.

"Not likely. Only got this one bottle to las' the night, an' it's 'bout half gone. Long nights here in December, y'know. Cold as a..." Vernon veered to his right and sat quickly on the other end of Elizabeth's cot, nearly collapsing it. "Drink?" he asked, offering her the bottle with a swing of his long arm. He was having trouble getting his eyes to focus and words to come out properly. He had already poured more than a pint of corn whisky down his gullet, and a fire had kindled just below his breastbone. Fumes filled his head.

"What is it then?" she said, smelling the stubble-faced man's lank body although he was a yard away. He noticed that he no longer had a pistol.

"Whisky, darlin', good ol' Marylan' rye whisky. Some calls it lightning, some such bloody name."

"No, I thank you," Elizabeth said, still wary, but her breathing returning to normal, all her senses atingle. "There's some cheese over there, an' some fish, if you'd like t'... ?"

"Naw," said Vernon, tipping the bottle up at his mouth. "G'some later p'haps. Was they bothering you, missus, that mangy lot?" He gestured with his belaying pin. "Saved your dear little cunny, din' I now?" He drank again until whisky dripped from his chin, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and then he carefully placed the bottle on the uneven floor and leered at the woman as he tapped his thigh with his club. Then he set the belaying pin aside and rubbed his stubbled jaw. He smacked his lips loudly and sucked his teeth.

Elizabeth looked across the room and saw the thin, eager faces. They were all watching Vernon, their eyes flicking back and forth from her face to his. Look like wild dogs, Elizabeth thought, with the lantern light reflected from their glistening eyes, a pack of dogs, dangerous animals. What do they see?

"Gi' us a kiss," mumbled Vernon, sliding clumsily toward Elizabeth and tipping over his bottle. He ignored it while several of the watching men licked their lips and shuddered as most of the remaining liquor poured onto the stones. "A reward, like." Vernon grinned, looking as vulpine as he felt. He reached for her shoulder, missed as she turned away, almost fell off the back of the cot and grabbed Elizabeth's hair. She cried out as he wound her long hair around his hand and pulled her toward him the way he would coil a rope. The woman, more angry than afraid, yelled again, elbowed him in the ribs and kicked at his legs.

Vernon slapped her across the face with his callused hand. The sharp sound made the scurvy men on the other side of the room jump. Blood trickled from Elizabeth's nose and mouth as her sudden anger turned to throat-clogging fear. Some of the indentured men got up and moved toward the faint line on the stones, poised like spectators at a cudgel match, backs bent, arms spread. Breath whistled through gaping mouths. She could hear Vernon's gasps and snorts, smell his sweat as she writhed to free herself from his encircling arms.

Vernon was much taller, heavier and stronger than Elizabeth, but she was sober and frightened. He was neither. But no one in the meager crowd was betting on her. She kicked him, kneed him and clawed him, trying to pull away, feeling the top of her old dress rip open. He slapped, punched, bit and pushed his weight on her, yanking her head back, trying to kiss her, clawing at her chest, finally getting astride her body and holding a forearm across her lean neck. He tore at her clothes with his free hand, and her pink kerchief disappeared into the dark, fluttering away like a transient spirit. One of the shiny brass buttons on the front of her dress clicked and skittered across the floor.

Vernon bit her breast and then tried to kiss her again, slobbering on her chest and chin as she turned her face away. She butted his head with hers, opening a cut on his eyebrow. He hit her in the ear as hard as he could from his awkward position, and Elizabeth gasped in pain and felt as if she might vomit. The room spun and wobbled. Her mouth filled with bile.

Vernon pried her legs apart and pushed up her wide skirt while he still pressed down on her throat with his forearm. Blood and spittle dripped across her frightened face and heaving chest. The thin woman, panting for breath, kicked her legs and concentrated on pushing the gagging arm away with both her hands, tearing at the sailor's forearm with her ragged fingernails. The oldest parts of her mind now controlled both her body and emotions. She writhed like a trapped animal, ready to bite and claw if she could not flee.

Two of the braver spectators crossed the line hoping to get a better view of the triangle of dark hair between Elizabeth's thighs as she jumped and squirmed under her flailing, cursing attacker who had pulled her dress above her bony hips on one side. She was gasping for breath, and he was snorting like a work horse.

Vernon saw her eyes glance toward the creeping men and turned, easing the pressure on her throat and snarling. "Get back there," he yelled, waving while he held the thrashing woman's breast. "Y'kin 'ave 'er pukin' ass when I'm through."

Elizabeth pulled in all the air she could while she had the chance, then bit his hand and clawed deep gouges in Vernon's face. He yelled, smashed his knee into her thigh, and the front legs of the cot collapsed, bouncing the back of the woman's head off the floor and almost tossing him off as his knee cracked into the flagstones.

Elizabeth ignored her pain and used the distraction to twist sideways, closing her legs after yanking her dress back down between them. She took another deep, sobbing breath and weakly called for help, a shuddering cry.

Vernon grabbed her skirt at the waist and tore it and her thin shift aside. He hit her in the stomach with his elbow, pried her legs apart with his knee and groped at her bared groin, pushing his thumb deep into her. Elizabeth cried out as his broken finger nails tore at her soft tissues. She clawed at him again with both hands, aiming for his eyes but only gashing his already-bloody cheek.

He sat upright, took his arm from her neck, backhanded her again, grappled her hands together in one of his and then tore at the buttons of his waistband to release his aching member. "Bitch, bitch," he sobbed over and over as he stretched her arms out above her flailing head, held them to the cold stones and spread her thighs with his knees.

Elizabeth felt his fingers prying her open and then he was in her, thick gristle pushing and pulling, grunting, thrusting, tearing, then crushing her throat again, dripping blood and spittle on her face as his forehead almost touched hers. Their eyes met briefly. He looked away and grunted, ramming hard.

With her pinioned arms stretched on the stones, she tightened her thigh muscles, gritted her teeth and squirmed under him, wiggling, drawing away as best she could. He pulled out his turgid member, took his forearm away from her neck, and, kneeling between her scratched legs, spit in his free hand while she squirmed in his grasp. He wiped the sputum on his fading erection and with a growl, quickly reentered her, driving his hips forward and lifting his chin, gritting his teeth. She felt something tearing and moaned in agony, thrashing from side to side, yelling, "Don't, damn you, don't!" He cried out in frustration, bent his back and thrust again, ejaculating twice and then collapsing and freeing her hands, one arm heavily across her throat, gaping mouth by her torn breast, eyes rolled back.

She could barely breathe and tried to push him off with both hands on his wide shoulders. His flaccid member slipped out of her as she wriggled her upper body free enough to gasp in some air. His head lolled beside her bruised shoulder and bare breasts as she got her left foot to the floor. She pushed on his shoulders, pulled her torso out from under him and turned sideways with her hips and right leg still beneath his dead weight. Elizabeth cried out as something pulled loose in her rib cage.

The man seemed to be unconscious or asleep, mumbling incoherently, inert as a sack of sand. She lifted one of his boots and yanked her other leg free, scrambling to all fours on the stone floor. She put her hand on his rump, stood and left him sprawled on the broken cot, bleeding face lower than splayed feet, snoring. There was a pounding in her ears. Confused, her mind refused to function. She was chilled. She could not think what to do next. She wanted to vomit. She decided to kill the man who lay before her and looked about for a weapon with which to crush his skull.

Elizabeth grasped her bodice together and yanked at her torn shift. She glanced across the room. The two who had tried to attack her before were moving toward her again, one with his britches still falling down toward his knees. Some of the others crouched behind them, waiting jackal-like to see what would happen.

She picked up Vernon's belaying pin and waved it at them, once again baring her thin chest. "The captain is coming," she yelled, spraying blood from her nose and hearing hysteria in her voice, her bruised throat aching, heart pumping, something oozing down the inside of her thigh. "Be 'ere soon. Do y'want t'hang? D'y'remember 'is whip?"

Goose bumps spread up her spine and over her belly, her legs trembled, her ribs hurt when she sucked in air, and the hair on her arms and the back of her neck rose and trembled. She absentmindedly pulled up her dress to cover the bare breast Vernon had squeezed and bitten, ignoring the torn skirt and stained shift that barely clung to her narrow hips.

She swung at the nearest man as he growled and lunged at her. He grabbed her arm and tore the club away, spitting at her face and trying to trip her. Elizabeth kicked him squarely between the legs as hard as she could. He screamed and fell to the stone floor with both hands grasping his groin, rolling about, mewling and cursing. The second man yanked her arm up behind her back and spun her around, fumbling at her clothes with his other hand and tearing her shift from her shoulder.

Elizabeth, angry and desperate, kicked wildly, thrust a hip and elbow at him and was bent over, facing the warehouse door, hair flailing, when it crashed open. Mr. Philips appeared with a short sword in his hand beside a tall man carrying a cocked pistol and a large lantern. They both looked astonished.

The man holding Elizabeth turned her loose and scurried back to the other side of the room, almost tripping, obviously tumescent, rotting britches at his ankles. The one-eyed convict on the floor continued to groan and squirm, his hands between his legs. Vernon snored and drooled, and the others returned to their cots and mattresses, cowering, wide-eyed.

Philips looked at the battered young woman who stood panting before him, dripping blood from her thin nose and bruised mouth, at the two men near her feet and then at the others. Elizabeth took a shuddering breath, sobbed, tossed back her hair, wiped at her lips with the back of her hand and yanked at her bodice, looking about for the missing button and feeling with her tongue at a loose tooth. The urge to kill had passed. Flee, said her startled mind, run or die.

"Come," Philips said, gesturing with his shining blade, his long facial scar a vivid scarlet. "I've found you a bed at Morrison's. This man sent for me after hearing you cry out. I'm sorry, girl. I was, well, come along."

The first mate sheathed his short sword, walked across to the food baskets and kicked them over. He hefted the water bucket, doused the small stove in a cloud of steam and wood smoke then blew out the flickering lantern. "Now you miserable, filthy sons of bitches can stay here in the dark and cold and fuck each other blue for all I care. We'll settle with all of you in the morning. Him, too," he said, gesturing toward the sleeping Vernon, his face pressed to the broken cot. He kicked the belaying pin out the open door. It tumbled and clattered across the stones, an oddly merry sound.

In the narrow band of yellow light from the doorway, Elizabeth found the glittering button on the stone floor, picked up Benjamin's coat, clutched her torn clothes at her chest, lifted her bruised chin, shook back her long, tangled hair and followed the mate and warehouseman out of the dark room, her clogs the loudest noise.

In her mind the terror of last half-hour was collapsing into jagged fragments, broken-mirror images. She watched the man with the pistol set down his lantern and bolt the door behind them as the mate bent and picked up Vernon's weapon. He jiggled the heavy pin in his hand and then threw it at the distant wall, quietly cursing under his breath. The bleeding woman filed those sounds away with shards of grunts and curses and the smells of fear and anger. She licked her blood from her lip and inhaled deeply, smelling the sea, aware of sticky semen between her legs.

In the ashen morning Elizabeth studied her face in the small, dark-framed mirror above the narrow washstand. It was, she thought, like looking at a stranger. She had already swallowed her morning prayer and examined the bruises and scratches on her thighs and groin, the scrapes on her breast and a tender and discolored rib that she feared might be broken. It hurt to take a full breath, and a sharp pain bent her double when she stood from the narrow bed.

Now she stared at a closed left eye, puffy and discolored, the lid mostly dark red and the rest blue-bronze and purple-green. Her upper lip puffed out fat and split, and dark blood caked her nostrils and crusted her cleft chin. She wiped that memento away with her fingers. A swollen knot high on her forehead reminded her that she had used her skull as a weapon. She managed a small smile, pushed her hair back and touched the rounded swelling carefully. Her left cheekbone was very tender and had a sharp point just under the outside edge of her eye where it was bruised and spongy. It might be broken, too, she thought as she patted it with a forefinger. Her ears seemed to ring and whistle, and she shook her head trying to stop that annoying noise while she pushed at her loose eyetooth with her tongue.