A Middy of the Slave Squadron: A West African Story

by Harry Collingwood

Having captured the Frenchmen, the next item on the programme was to so arrange matters that they might be at once transferred to other and more comfortable quarters—thus leaving the barracoon free for the reception, if necessary, of the unfortunate slaves now close at hand without running any risk of their getting the better of my little band of invalids. This was not a very difficult matter, for there were plenty of slave irons about the place; and, having procured the necessary number of sets, I had the Frenchmen out of the barracoon, four at a time, ironed them, and then marched them out of the compound to a large empty shed which would answer the purpose of a prison most admirably. In less than half an hour I had the entire party secured and in charge of an armed guard of two men; and now all that remained to be done was to obtain possession of the brig.

To accomplish this, I chose the soundest eight of the party who had assisted in capturing the Frenchmen, and, leading them to the wharf steps, ordered them down into the French captain’s gig, which was, of course, still lying alongside the wharf. Then, stepping into the stern-sheets myself, we pushed off and headed for the brig, which we boarded a few minutes later without let or hindrance, the small number of hands still remaining on board having apparently gone below and turned in the moment that they saw the chief mate clear of the ship. At all events when we ascended the gangway ladder not a soul was to be seen; our lads therefore quickly clapped on the hatches, beginning with the fore-scuttle, and the brig was ours. Then, having made sure that the half-dozen or so of prisoners down in the forecastle could not get loose again, I went up and hauled down the French flag, hoisting it again to the gaff-end beneath an English ensign which I found in the flag-locker. I thought that the sight of the brig, with the two ensigns thus arranged, would be an agreeable sight and afford a pleasant surprise to our people when they returned from capturing the cauffle.

It had just gone five bells in the afternoon watch when the skipper’s party hove in sight at the spot where the bush path led down to the creek, and where their boats were moored. The brig, of course, at once attracted their attention, and, looking through the ship’s telescope at them, I made out Captain Perry standing alone on a little projecting point, staring hard at her, as though he scarcely knew what to make of her; I therefore ordered four hands into the gig, and, rowing across to where he stood, explained matters. My story took quite a quarter of an hour to tell, for he continually interrupted me to ask questions; but when I had finished he was good enough to express his most unqualified approval of what I had done, winding up by saying—

“I may as well tell you now, Mr Fortescue—what indeed I had quite made up my mind to before the performance of this exceedingly meritorious piece of work—that it is my intention to give you an acting order as third lieutenant, Mr Purchase and Mr Hoskins moving up a step, as well as myself, in consequence of the lamented death of Captain Harrison.”

Of course I thanked him, as in duty bound; and then he informed me that the ambuscade had been completely successful, the entire cauffle having been captured with the exchange of less than a score of shots; and that although three of the slave-traders had been killed and five wounded, not one of our own men had been hurt. But he added that the unhappy blacks were so completely worn out with their long march down to the coast that it would only be rank cruelty to release them at once, and that he had therefore decided to house them in the barracoons and give them a week’s complete rest before starting them back on their long homeward march.

“And now, Mr Fortescue,” he concluded, “since that English ensign aboard the prize has done its work, have the goodness to haul it down, and keep the French flag flying, if you please; I quite expect that we shall have two or three more ships here to help in the conveyance of this huge cauffle of slaves across the Atlantic; and I do not wish them to be alarmed and put on their guard—should they come upon us unexpectedly—by seeing a vessel riding at anchor with the signal flying that she has been captured by the English.”

This was, of course, sound common sense, and I lost not a moment in returning to the brig and making the required alteration in the arrangement of the flags. That being done, it occurred to me that it would be a wise thing to clear the remainder of the French crew out of the vessel; and this I also did; afterwards assisting in transporting the miserable slaves across the channel to the island, and helping to arrange for their comfort and well-being during the night. They were, without exception, what the slave-dealers would doubtless have called “a prime lot”—numbering fifteen hundred and eighty-four, of whom less than two hundred were women; but they were all worn to skin and bone with the fatigue and hardship which they had been called upon to endure on the march from their own country down to the coast, and were so dead-beaten with fatigue that they appeared to have sunk into such a state of apathy that even the prospect of immediate rest, plenty of good food, and a speedy restoration to liberty seemed insufficient to lift them out of it. But after they had been made to bathe and thoroughly cleanse themselves from the dust and other impurities of the march, prior to being housed in the barracoons, they seemed to pluck up a little spirit,—a salt-water bath is a wonderful tonic,—and later on in the evening, when a plentiful meal was served out to them, they so far recovered their spirits as to begin to jabber among themselves. It was close upon sunset before the last batch had been ferried across to the island and lodged in the barracoons; and then, in accordance with an order from the skipper, I took a working-party on board the brig, and, casting her off from the buoy to which she had been moored, warped her in alongside the wharf and made her fast there.

The next two days were entirely devoid of incident; but we were all kept busy in attending to the unfortunate captive blacks, supervising the bathing of them in batches, inducing them to take a moderate amount of exercise in the barracoon compounds, feeding them up, and nursing the sick—of whom, however, there was luckily a singularly small percentage. But on the morning of the third day, before the gig had started upon her daily cruise of surveillance of the river, the look-out whose turn it was for duty in the crow’s-nest had scarcely ascended to his lofty perch in the tree when he hurried down again with the intelligence that three craft—a ship, a barque, and a large brigantine—were in the offing and making for the mouth of the river. Whereupon Mr Purchase volunteered to go aloft, taking me with him as aide-de-camp, to keep an eye upon the strangers, and to transmit intelligence of their movements from time to time. The skipper promptly accepted the offer and, besides, arranged a system by which I was to write Mr Purchase’s messages, carry them from the crow’s-nest to the ground, and deliver them over to one of two midshipmen in waiting, who would at once scamper off with it, while I ascended the Jacob’s ladder again for further information, to be transmitted by the second midshipman—if, meanwhile, the first had not had time to return. This system acted admirably, for it kept the captain fully informed of the course of events, and at the same time left him quite free to attend to such preparations for the reception of the three craft as he might deem necessary.

These preparations were beautifully simple, consisting merely in the arming of every man capable of taking part in what would probably prove to be a fairly stubborn fight, manning the boats with the fighting contingent, and then remaining concealed until the approaching craft had come up to the anchorage and made fast to the buoys,—as we fully expected that they would,—when the boats were to make a simultaneous dash at all three craft and carry them by boarding, while we invalids were left to look after the prisoners and see that they did not break out and create a diversion in favour of their friends.

Meanwhile the land-breeze was fast dying away in the offing, while the sea-breeze had not yet set in, consequently, when the approaching craft arrived within about two miles of the river’s mouth they entered a streak of glassy calm, and lay there, rolling heavily, with their sun-bleached canvas napping itself threadbare against their masts and rigging, thus affording us an excellent opportunity to get breakfast at leisure, and fortify ourselves generally against the stress of the coming struggle.