Free Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth Page A

per cent.”
    “Or a wench either,” Kemp said. “All the same, between you and me, Captain Thurso, I have sometimes repented that I did not have her made bigger.
    There are Bristol ships that will hold you six hundred negroes, so I am told.”
    “Aye, but how long must they stay on the Guinea coast before they are full-slaved? Why, sir, flux or fever will do for half of ‘em before you are ready to sail. We will be home and dry while they are still rotting there. No, take my word for it, a ship the size of this one is what you need, around a hundred and twenty tons” burden. You’ll get two hundred blacks between decks on the Liverpool Merchant, clean as a whistle, and off again in three months.
    You’ll see that I am right, sir.”
    ‘A man can see a deal of things by lookin”,”
    Barton said unexpectedly, ‘pervided he knows how to use his lamps.” His voice was quick and fluent, unhesitating.
    “The strakes they are putting in now will need to be laid right,” Thurso said. “It is the planking lengthways that makes the difference to a ship.”
    “Those already laid fit snug enough. Come down nearer, Thurso, and take a look. You will scarce see the joins between them.” Face glowing, Kemp drew the captain towards the ship’s side, to where a ladder led up to the work platform high against the hull.
    A group of workmen waiting at the foot of this for the next piece from the kiln made way for them respectfully.
    Erasmus did not follow immediately but turned instead to look out towards the glimmering, slightly ruffled water of the river. On the wharf before him men were hoisting down barrels into a lighter. Out in midstream a skiff with two timber-rafts in tow was making towards the Pier Head. When he turned round again he saw that Barton had remained beside him and felt constrained to speak. “It will be a delicate business, I suppose,” he said, “fitting those heavy planks on to a curving surface.”
    He saw Barton raise his head in the same alert, dog-like way, as if sniffing for the right line to take with the owner’s son. The movement raised his throat slightly clear of the red silk choker he was wearing and exposed the upper part of a pale, puckered scar, which ran for some four inches along the side of his neck, revealing with an ugly fidelity the curve of the cut that had made it. “The hull curves two ways, sir,” he said, “beggin” your pardon, that is what makes the job ticklish-like, as you rightly say.”
    ‘How do you mean?”’
    “Well now, a ship’s hull.” Barton’s voice had a sudden energy of pleasure in it. He raised a brown hand, palm upwards, fingers slightly curled. “Think of a fourth portion of a orange what you have took the peel off it all in one piece, if you think of that portion of peel, sir, the edges will curve inwards top and bottom and at the same identical time that peel will curve along its length, fore and aft. It is the same thing with a ship’s hull. Every blessed one o” them planks has to fit snug against the next along its length and by its depth.”
    It was clear that Barton had a way with words; there had been a savouring, lingering quality in this; he was smiling still with pleasure at the comparison. ‘That is what makes it ticklish-like,” he said.
    Kemp and Thurso had turned back towards them.
    Four of the men had begun to climb to the platform, a double plank in width, slung against the battens. The men by the kiln were wrapping rags round their hands.
    “They are fetching the next pieces out,”
    Kemp said to his son. “They have been steaming long enough—near eight hours. We shall stay and see them laid in place.”
    Erasmus saw the great oak plank drawn smoking from the kiln. It must have been thirty feet long. Six men, their hands swathed in rags, went at a crouching walk with it across the dozen yards to the ship’s side. Here it was roped and hoisted from above —men had been waiting on the cross-pieces of the unfinished deck,