Page 40 of A Fire in Their Hearts

Talitha, the cook from the big house, chooses a selection of fish plus several crabs, which have had their claws tied together with short strips of withes. A couple of slaves carry them in baskets to the big house and I assume these will feed Drummond over the coming days.

People disperse around the compound, a few of the adults help the children tend to the larger animals, while the smaller children feed the hens and other fowl.

Over to one side two older men run whetstones along the edges of the billhooks used to cut the sugar canes.

Others are preparing fires. Some of the women are mending clothes or doing something with withes and at first I can’t understand what until I realise they’re making ropes.

Everyone seems to have a purpose except us.

‘What do we do now?’ asks Calum, the two of us somehow ending up standing alone.

‘I don’t know. Perhaps we can just look around?’

For a while we watch the various tasks being carried out but then we wander away with no particular aim.

There’s no sign of Hunter or Findlay. At the stables the horses are being fed and groomed and it’s obvious that they’re well cared for.

Our astonishment at the complexity of the place increases every few minutes and we soon come upon men, women and children tending to areas that have been set aside for people to grow their own food. Calum and I watch for a while.

‘What can you identify?’ I say.

‘How did I know you were going to ask me that? Mmm .?.?. cucumber .?.?. peas .?.?. pumpkins. That’s it. I don’t know what the other things are.’

‘There’s a pile of yams over there,’ I say, ‘and those dirty roots are casava, which is what the bread is made of. I overheard one of the woman explaining to a girl how poisonous casava is if it isn’t used properly.’

‘No wonder it tastes odd. I bet that’s not what Drummond eats. Did you notice that men and women talk to each other without any hesitation?’

It’s only as he says these words that I realise this is what’s been going around in my head as the thing that shouldn’t be happening. ‘It seems there’s no problem fraternising on a Sunday,’ I reply.

We’re curious about the sugar-making process but wary of walking somewhere that’s forbidden, so we look upon the group of stone-built structures from a short distance away.

The door of the nearest building is open and we finally gain enough courage to go up the stairs.

The man we know as Thaddeus is inspecting the insides of five huge copper vessels.

When he realises we’re present there’s a moment of indecision with none of us knowing how to respond.

‘What’s this place?’ asks Calum.

‘The boiling-house,’ says Thaddeus, beckoning us inside.

‘Can you explain what happens?’

‘Juice from the nearby millhouse flows into this cistern,’ he says, pointing to a large iron container set against a wall, ‘and from here it goes into the first clarifying copper then on to the next copper and the next. We keep the liquid boiling with fires in the room below. Each copper has its own man skimming the debris that floats to the top so that when the juice reaches the fifth copper it’s clear. ’

We study the structure in front of us and I see that the bottom of the vessels sits lower than the floor we stand on.

Off to one side steps leading downstairs are visible and when the furnaces are lit it must be like walking into Hades.

Several shallow wooden ladles lean against a nearby wall, which I guess are used for stirring and scooping out bits of leaf and plant that have reached this far.

Father would have been fascinated by this, although not in these dire circumstances.

‘But the juice is still a liquid?’ asks Calum.

Thaddeus nods, appearing to appreciate that Calum has grasped this point. The man is clearly proud of his knowledge.

‘It would never turn into sugar if I didn’t add temper, made from wood ash. If the moment isn’t chosen correctly then that entire batch will be ruined. Every stage in the boiling-house requires skill, even running the furnaces because the coppers are heated to different temperatures.’

‘So what’s happening now?’

‘I’m checking that the coppers have been cleaned properly. At midnight we’ll light the furnaces and begin processing the sugar canes. This work won’t stop until next Saturday evening when we’ll let the fires go out.’

‘Day and night?’ asks Calum in shock. ‘That means there have to be men working here around the clock!’

‘The canes cut yesterday have to be processed during Sunday night as they can’t be left any longer. As long as canes are brought in from the fields, we have to be running everything here, and we can’t have fires with no liquid in the coppers or they’ll be damaged. There’s no halt to any of it.’

‘What’s going on here!’

We turn to find Findlay standing in the doorway. He’s clearly been drinking heavily and intent on inflicting violence on someone if he can find the right person.

‘I’m explaining how the process works to the new servants, master.’

‘They don’t need to know!’

‘They asked me to explain, master.’

There’s a tense standoff. Findlay has a hand on his cudgel and is struggling to control his anger.

I suspect that faced with any other slave on the plantation he would be brutally bludgeoning them by now, but he can’t touch Thaddeus, whose judgement can mean the difference between profit or loss.

Findlay stares at Calum for a long while then glances at me. It’s enough to make my flesh crawl.

‘I’ll be dealing with you two another time,’ he says, before turning around, almost falling down the stairs and staggering off.

*?*?*

In the evening we sit around the compound in large groups, eating boiled crab and fish baked over open fires with potatoes and sweetcorn.

Every moment on Barbados is so extreme it’s impossible to know what the next few minutes hold for any of us.

Danger and fear are interspersed with kindness and friendship like two sides of a coin that’s spinning in the air – and you don’t know what side will land facing you.

Thaddeus has been explaining to Calum and Alan how he ended up in charge of processing the sugar canes and that he’s training other slaves because men working in the boiling-house often die young.

‘Why?’

I shouldn’t have blurted out the question, but for once my curiosity has overcome my caution.

Thaddeus shrugs. ‘I don’t know. They just normally do, despite our better conditions.’

‘Better conditions?’ says Alan.

‘We all have hammocks in our hut.’

It doesn’t seem much of a benefit if the work means people don’t live long, although the prospect of keeping off the floor at night is very appealing. I’ve heard that scorpions are one of many constant dangers.

We watch how others bake plantains on the edge of the fires, wrapping them first in large leaves. Calum removes several plantains from one of our bunches and follows the example. He sits down as Rory joins us, carrying a jug and wooden beakers.

‘Here,’ he says, handing out the beakers to Calum, Alan, Thaddeus and me. ‘It’s slightly better than water.’ He pours out a dirty-grey liquid.

‘What is it?’ asks Calum, sniffing suspiciously.

‘Mobbie. It’s made from potatoes. Don’t let your plantains get overdone.’

Alan retrieves them and hands a couple to each of us. We sit in silence for a while then Thaddeus gets up, thanks us for the food and drink, and walks away.

‘Where’s he going in such a hurry?’ says Alan.

‘You’ll soon find out,’ says Rory. ‘What’s wrong with your foot, Calum?’

‘An insect bite, I think.’

I’ve been aware of him scratching an area of his heel but we’re all so covered in bites I hadn’t thought to query it.

‘In the morning ask Naomi to check it. The old woman over there. Most of the things in Barbados that want to hurt you are visible, from rodent rats to human rats, but some of the insects are so small that you don’t know they’re on your body until much later.

You have to be careful of small bastards called chegoes, because they love to burrow under your skin and need to be removed.

One in a foot can make someone go lame.’

At these words every inch of my skin is crawling with invisible chegoes; Scottish midges don’t seem so unpleasant any more. But images of burying insects are suddenly swept away by a sound so loud and unexpected that I almost cry out in alarm.

Thaddeus appears around a hut, leading several male slaves beating upon drums with hands and sticks and altering the atmosphere around the compound so dramatically that the change is difficult to comprehend.

Many women jump up and begin dancing, hands and feet moving to the furious rhythms so fast that their limbs are almost a blur.

Voices sing loudly to the night sky. Then the young men not playing also jump up and begin to dance, though they remain separate to the women.

We sit wide-eyed and open-mouthed at something that could not be more different to the unaccompanied psalms permitted by the Kirk. The power and force created in the small area in which we are gathered is unbelievable.

I’ve never seen, heard or felt anything like it.

And I can feel it, in my chest and in my head.

As the evening goes on everything is driven out of me .

.?. thoughts, memories, fears .?.?. until I don’t know where I am or who I am, except that while those drums continue to vibrate throughout my body, I know I’m not a prisoner.

We are all of us set free.