Chapter 2: The harem

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” I say when it doesn’t look as though Dorothy and Abigail are going to offer. I suppose such dirty work is beneath them ... or perhaps they are too deep in shock.

Annie comes over to help me. Cleaning Catherine means using some of our precious drinking water, but I don’t think anyone is going to complain. Too bad if they do. Catherine at least helps, and despite her ordeal she’s still holding up remarkably well.

“We need to find a way to escape,” says Catherine to me. At least her degradation has made her wake up to the sinister purpose of this voyage.

“We’re too far from land,” I reply. “We would need to overpower the crew if we intend to escape before we reach our destination. Even if we can manage that, how many of us are able to sail this ship?”

“India is weeks away,” says Abigail, who has been sitting nearby supervising Annie’s and my efforts at cleaning Catherine. “The ship will need to stop to take on more supplies before we reach India. We could escape then.”

“We’re not going to India,” I reply. “After this morning’s events up on deck, I doubt any of this crew will dare to go near an English territory while we are on board.”

“What?” exclaims Abigail. “Then where are we going?”

“My guess is North Africa,” I reply. “Algiers. Tunis. Salé. Any one of the Barbary slave trading ports.”

“But the Americans defeated the Barbary States,” protests Dorothy. “The Barbary pirates are no longer a threat to Europeans.”

I don’t contradict Dorothy’s wildly optimistic assertion. The Americans may have achieved a victory and freed many European slaves, but I doubt their actions will have entirely eliminated the centuries old trade in European slaves. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that the slave markets in Salé, Morocco will be our destination. Reaching Algiers or Tunis will require sailing past the English ships patrolling the Straits of Gibraltar. An American merchant ship might pass an English patrol unmolested, but any English captain worth his rank would recognise a slave ship when he sees one and become suspicious. A routine inspection would prove disastrous for the Dickey-Wickey venture.

“We must keep everyone occupied and active, or we’ll not be in a fit state to take any chance of escape which may come our way,” I suggest to Catherine’s committee the next day.

It doesn’t seem the time to add that a fit and healthy girl on the auction block is likely to attract a better quality of bidder. Dorothy and Catherine both agree to my suggestion and they decide to start a daily routine of exercise and activity. Although there is a notable lack of enthusiasm, most of the women at least agree to keep to the proposed routine. We mustn’t let the crew think we are beaten, even if we have little hope of escaping the Humphrey before our destination.

Connie, the bishop’s daughter, has decided prayer is her, and our, best hope of salvation. Caroline and Martha join her in what becomes extended periods of religious devotion. While none of the other young women join them, we all leave the trio in peace to do what they think is right. I certainly can’t offer a better solution at the moment.

Our routine gradually restores some spirit into our group. We make a pledge that if any of us escape, or are set free, then they will never cease to help secure the release of those remaining captive, no matter how long it takes. Our journey seems to take forever. Two weeks after departing Ireland the ship comes to a halt and the anchor is dropped. It’s the middle of the night but my keen senses wake me to the change. A short while later, I hear the longboat being lowered over the side.

As soon as the first light of day brightens the sky, we are assembled on deck and our waists locked to a long chain known in the slave trade as a marching chain. I notice the ship’s longboat has gone, and the normally ever-present Nathaniel Wickliffe is nowhere to be seen. Some of the crew must have left in the longboat with Wickliffe.

The handful of crew who remain onboard keep a very close watch on us even though they have us firmly locked in the marching chain. There is a moment of panic when someone speculates that the crew have chained us like this as they intend to dump us over the side of the ship to drown. But clearer heads prevail. If they were going to do that, then why bring us all this way and do it in full view of a city full of people. The crew are simply taking precautions in case one of us decides to jump overboard, or we all try to capture the ship in desperation.

I look around at the harbour and city. I recognise it at once. Salé, Morocco; the westernmost port of the Barbary Coast. Salé is definitely not a place for a young woman to go wandering around alone. It’s not that safe for a ship’s boy either, as I discovered to my cost when the Zafiro once called here during my seafaring days. Even if we weren’t in the marching chain, a leap over the side and a swim for shore would be a case of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Conversations soon break out along the whole length of our coffle. Captain Dickey walks over to us and commands silence.

“In an hour you will be off my ship and good riddance”, he snarls.

But it’s not an hour, or two, or even three. The sun is rising higher in the sky and the already warm morning is turning hot. We are at least moved under a hastily rigged canvas shade and allowed to sit down. Later, we are given water and food. Wickliffe’s continued absence is making Captain Dickey and the crew very nervous indeed.

It’s early afternoon before the Humphrey‘s longboat draws up alongside the ship. Wickliffe and a podgy middle aged man dressed in a djellaba, the traditional full length robe worn by both men and women in these parts, come aboard and go onto the quarterdeck where a very annoyed Captain Dickey is waiting. While we can’t hear all of the conversation, we gather the Dickey-Wickey venture has run into problems and the middle aged man is offering a solution.

After much haggling a deal is struck although precisely what it is remains a mystery to us. We are returned to the hold and released from the marching chain. Speculation is rife, but even the crew don’t seem to have any idea about what is going on. We can hear a lot of activity around the ship during the rest of the afternoon and evening, but we see nothing. In the middle of the night I hear the longboat being hauled back on board, followed a short while later by the unmistakeable sounds of the ship under sail. I initially assume that the ship is moving to a nearby dock so that we can be unloaded in the morning, but after a while I realise we are taking a longer journey.

“What’s going to happen to us now?” whispers Julia from the adjacent hammock to mine.

I have been putting off thinking about that. I’ve been dreading anyone asking. I take a deep breath and am about to nervously answer Julia’s question when Lisette speaks out.

“Unless some miracle happens it seems likely we will be marched though the main street to one of the slave markets. The market owner will write our names and details in a book. After letting prospective buyers examine us for a few days they will put us on the auction block and sell us.”

I don’t know how many of the others are awake to hear Lisette’s words, but the collective gasps from around the hold suggest that there are more than a few. It isn’t only what Lisette said, but the matter-of-fact way she said it. Anyone listening would have thought she was describing a Sunday walk in the park.

“We had better pray for a miracle then,” says Connie.

If what actually happens counts as a miracle, then it’s a tiny one. We are once again marched onto the ship’s deck the next day, where I realise that we are no longer in Salé. The Humphrey has anchored in the mouth of a river, out of sight of any habitation. The river could be part of a delta of the Bou Regreg, the large river which flows from the distant Atlas mountains to the sea at Salé. Or it could be another river entirely. My knowledge of this region’s geography is sketchy at best.

We are chained into groups of five or six women and ferried in the longboat, one group at a time, to a rickety wooden wharf on the south bank of the river. There we wait for several hours under the shade of some trees. Finally three covered wagons come trundling along a nearby dirt road. We are told to board the wagons and make ourselves as comfortable as possible. None of us have any idea what is going on, but at least we’ve been spared the indignity of being marched in a coffle through the streets of Salé. Perhaps the peace treaty between America and Morocco has resulted in the sale of white slaves being less public.

Captain Dickey and his crew are clearly happy to get us off their ship as quickly as possible. Once we are all onboard the wagons, Wickliffe hands Captain Dickey what appears to be several bags of gold. Presumably his share of their ill-gotten earnings. The captain and the longboat crew return to their ship. The wagons promptly set off to wherever we are going, so I can only assume that the Humphrey departs shortly afterwards.

The convoy of wagons stops a short while later and a large basket of fresh bread is put on the floor between us along with several pitchers of water. We quickly share this unexpected bounty between us. No telling when the next meal might arrive.

After two hours on the dirt road we spot a small hill ahead, on top of which stands an old fort. The driver doesn’t complain when we move closer to the front to get a better look over his shoulder. He points to the fort and says something to us in Arabic, which none of us can understand. While I’m relieved we are not being taken straight to the slave market, this fort has all the appearances of a gloomy prison.