Wide is the Water by Jane Aiken Hodge Page B

explained. ‘His family have worked for us forever.’ And then: ‘But who attacked him?’
    â€˜Some of your crew. They said he’d robbed your cabin. He had your Bible when one of our boats picked him out of the water. He asks to see you. Urgently. I rather think there’s more to it. I’m afraid I must ask to be present.’
    â€˜Yes. Naturally.’ His Bible. Bill. Bill, who had insisted on looking after his things, who must have known the precious document the Bible contained. When he himself had forgotten it, Bill had risked his life to save it for him and had nearly been killed for his pains.
    Brought into the captain’s cabin under guard, Bill was still in his wet clothes and bleeding freely from a wound on the head and another on his right arm. He was grey with exhaustion, his teeth chattering with cold, and he was clutching Hart’s Bible in his left hand. ‘Thank God you’re safe, sir,’ he said as Captain Purchas dismissed the guard. He held out the Bible. ‘I knew you’d want this. I just wish I could have brought your things too.’
    â€˜You risked your life for it. Thank you, Bill.’ Hart took the Bible and undid the stiff clasp. Bougainville’s precious paper was still there, but the water had got at it. It was an illegible smear, only the heading ‘On Board the
Guerrier
’ still legible.
    â€˜Something important?’ Captain Purchas had recognised the moment of tense disappointment.
    â€˜Our marriage lines,’ Hart told him. ‘What made the others think it was theft, Bill? Surely they know you better than that?’
    Bill looked anxiously from one captain to the other, and Hart began to understand that misleading description of him as a ‘boy’. He had always been slightly built, but he now looked almost frail, a very far cry from the brave ally who had helped save Mercy’s life when Francis had nearly captured her. What in the world was the matterwith him? ‘What is it, man?’ he asked impatiently. ‘Speak up. Why did they turn on you?’
    â€˜You should know, Captain,’ said Bill bitterly. ‘If they called Mrs. Purchis a Jonah, what do you think they call me, the only black on the ship?’
    â€˜A Jonah? Mercy? Impossible!’
    â€˜I wish it had been. You should have left her at Philadelphia, like she asked, Captain. They didn’t like that long haul north and no prizes. A lot of talk there was, bad talk.’
    â€˜You should have told me.’
    â€˜On that little ship, with ears everywhere? It would have sealed our death warrants. I hoped things would get better after Mrs. Purchis was safe onshore. If only we’d taken a prize then …’
    â€˜I know.’ Hart was acutely aware of the English captain, silent, listening …
    â€˜They turned against
me
then.’ It was a relief to Bill to tell it all at last. ‘A black. Sharing their quarters. Treated the same as them. They didn’t like it. Made a great deal of my looking after you like I did, sir. Said it was the right job for a slave. Said a lot of things I don’t reckon to tell you.’
    â€˜It’s a curious thing,’ said the English captain quietly, ‘but I thought that Declaration of Independence of yours said something about equality.’
    â€˜Tell that to one of us blacks,’ said Bill. ‘If your men hadn’t intervened, Captain, and I’m grateful, I’d be a dead equal. So I’m going to tell you both something I think you need to know.’ He turned back to face Hart. ‘It was no accident you weren’t told first thing when we sighted the
Sparrow,
Mr. Hart. Half the crew wanted to be taken, to change their coats, and the other half were as wild a set of death or glory boys as you could wish for. So … between them …’
    â€˜Now I understand,’ interposed the Englishman. ‘That’s why you chose to