Captain England (Post 12)

I heard Nan speaking in a low voice to England. “We thought she was done for, Eddie,” she was saying. “Poor Nel had the bloody flux, she did, couldn’t keep a thing down. And now! Just look at ‘er! Sitting up, talking, as right as a fiddle, she is!”

I smiled at Nel, a small woman in her early twenties. She smiled back, her eyes shining. I felt a lump in my throat. This little prostitute had indeed been on the brink of death when I’d arrived at the bawdy house, looking for Kat. My frigid reception had been forgotten when I’d told her I could help Nel and the other women afflicted with the illness. I’d done nothing fancy: I’d boiled water and added a bit of salt and sugar to it. Then I’d made them drink it. And drink some more.

That was it.

In return, Nan, the “madam” of the place, had taken me to Ruth.

Her hut was on the fringe of Nassau, a decrepit place with a thatch roof. She was an escaped slave and the wife of a pirate. She was also, according to the women of the brothel, a witch doctor. Nonetheless, she’d taken care of their unwanted pregnancies, and thus they trusted her quite a bit. The aroma of herbs and burning incense filled the air of her dark, gloomy hut. She sat in a corner, drinking from a mug, not the least bit surprised to see us, a whore and and a strange woman. A large scar seamed her face from hairline to chin, and she was missing an eye. No eye patch, no fake eye, nothing. Just an empty eye socket. A scarf was tied around her head and her threadbare skirts hung in tatters about her dark legs.

“Ruth,” Nan said, and I could tell she was fearful of the woman. “Sabrina ‘ere wanted to see you.” She looked at me and nodded, then whispered, “I’ll wait for you outside.” Nan wanted to spend as little time in that hut as possible, and I couldn’t blame her. The heady odor compared favorably to the other scents of Nassau, but was still quite dizzying. The vertigo only increased as Ruth stood and squinted her one good eye, trying to peer at me through the dimness.

“What you have?” she asked in a gravelly voice. “No want baby, eh?” I stepped into a shaft of light that filtered in from a hole in the roof so that she could see my face. She gasped, swore, and the mug she was holding clattered to the floor. To my astonishment, she put a hand to her scarred cheek and uttered, “Sabrina!”

I nearly fell over backwards trying to inch my way out of the hut. “Shit!” I hissed, steadying myself, breathing hard. What was it with Voodoo sorceresses knowing my name?

Before I recovered from my shock, she said, “I know you come. I know it. I see you.”

The parallels between Ruth and Miryam Dieujuste were uncanny. Her English was bad, but she was going to give me an explanation, dammit. I took two long strides to stand before her, then I grabbed her by the shoulders and said, “How do you know my name?” She shook her head, speaking in her native African tongue under her breath, a look of fear in her good eye. I gave her shoulders a firm shake. “How do I get back? How? Tell me!”

She shook her head, apparently more afraid of me than I was of her. “Not know! Know only to give you this.” She extricated herself from my grip, rushed into the darkness and emerged seconds later carrying a small tin box. I opened it to find several chunks of brown bark. She knew what I had come for before I’d even asked.

“Yes,” I said, and sighed. “This is what I came for.”

In the end, Ruth could tell me nothing, even though I grilled her for a good twenty minutes. Perhaps she knew something that she wouldn’t share, or she truly knew nothing. She said the words “not know” at least three hundred times. Eventually I gave up. Black magic, time warps… It was all so fantastic and beyond anything I could, or would, accept… I simply couldn’t dwell on it. I was going to put one foot in front of the other and focus on getting through the moment.

I had no choice but to go with the flow.

Now, as I sat before Nel, who was greedily slurping down the rehydration solution I’d made for her, I turned to look at England, my expression reserved. “This infection,” I said. “I hear that many of the residents are immune – I mean, invulnerable – to it. That most of the people afflicted are the newcomers. Is that true?”

England nodded, his eyes wary. He seemed to know where I was going with this line of questioning. “Aye, but what ails them is a fever, the sweats, and rigor, not intestine commotions.”

I nodded and stood. “Take me to them.”

Perhaps driven by curiosity, England took me to a sailcloth tent on the beach where two young sailors-turned-pirate lay, shivering and feverish. They were, by all accounts, new to the sweet trade, fresh off merchantmen from Europe. I had already prepared my decoction, pouring boiling water over ground pieces of the bark, and it had been in the process of steeping when England had arrived. I now poured the infusion into a pewter cup and, with shaking hands, ordered the seamen to drink.

I was taking a risk, I realized. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I’d watched my grandfather do this several times but had never paid enough attention. I was fairly certain these men had malaria, and I knew that the bark of the Cinchona tree contained quinine. I also knew that by the late 17th century, it had been used as treatment for various ailments. I thought perhaps a native “medicine man” of the West Indies would have heard of it, if not used it himself.

But my knowledge ended there. I didn’t know how much, how often, for how long. I knew too much quinine could be fatal. But I figured that since these guys were pretty much done for without treatment…

Why did I go to law school? A corporate attorney was entirely worthless in 1718. I should have followed in my grandfather’s footsteps and gone to medical school. Dammit.

England and I walked back to the house afterward, neither one of speaking for a long while. Then I said, “You told me pirates were democratic, right? Equality and all that? And the crews vote on major decisions?”

England stared at the ground as we walked. “Aye.” He glanced quickly at me through the corner of his eye. “Ye’ll want the crew to vote for yer presence on board ship?”

“Yes,” I replied. “If these men get well… Let your crew take a vote. And if you don’t agree, I’ll go to them myself and plead my case.”

We had arrived, and we stood at the door looking at each other. I smiled slightly, mischievously, and saw admiration flicker across his face. He quickly looked away and replied coldly, “It’s settled then.”

In under two days, the young pirates began to recover. I went to them several times a day, to ensure that they drank the quinine. One of them, a blond, baby-faced youth, called me his “sweet angel” and held my hand to his whiskered cheek with adoration.

Word spread quickly. I began treating the other afflicted individuals, and in the meantime approached Jameson with my plea. He was surprisingly receptive, gazing at me with nothing short of awe. Doctors were desperately needed aboard pirate ships, so much so that they were forced to serve in many instances. I may have been a woman, but I was clearly invaluable to a crew on its way to the disease-ridden shores of Africa.

The crew voted.

I was going to Africa.