The Ghost Tree. Barbara Erskine

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      Tom could not believe he had been so careless. His sea chest was unlocked, the lid open when he came down off his watch and went automatically to collect his sketchbook. He scanned his belongings. Had anything been stolen? He did not believe it of his shipmates, but occasionally things went missing from someone’s gear, probably lost, or put down in the darkness of the gunroom and kicked by mistake into a corner, but there was always the possibility that one of the seamen could have slipped into the midshipmen’s mess on the rare occasion when there was no one there.

      He knelt before the chest. His writing case was there, the box that contained his pens and inks, his clothes, his precious ring-dial, all his carefully packed and sorted belongings. He wrinkled his nose. An unusually foul smell rose from his body linen as he fumbled beneath it for the packet of letters he had received from home, carried on a sloop from Portsmouth. He recoiled then he reached for the glim, the small candle on the mess table, and held it down over the sea chest to see more closely. A bundle of filthy rags had been tucked in amongst his clothes. In the flickering light of the flame he could see the moist stinking brown stains and was in no doubt what this was. He grabbed the corner of the bundle and ran with it up the companionway to the deck where he threw the offending rags over the side. He saw the querying look on the faces of the men on watch up there but none that he could see looked especially concerned or interested. It didn’t matter. He could guess who had done it. He did not immediately guess how truly malicious the act had been.

      He found the first sores on his body three weeks later. They looked like raspberries as they swelled and crusted over. Frantic scrubbing did not remove them and at last he confided in Jamie. His friend stared at him, his eyes wide. ‘Tom! How could you be so stupid? Who was it? One of the slaves?’

      Tom felt himself blush to his ears. ‘No! No, I haven’t!’ he blustered. ‘I haven’t ever!’ He knew where he had got the infection but he could see his friend did not believe him.

      He hid the lesions as best he could. He could go to the gunner’s wife but he was too ashamed, or he could go to the purser who was acting surgeon in the absence of anyone more qualified and was in charge of the medicine chest with its phials of mercury ointment. He knew that if Jamie didn’t believe how he had got the disease then no one else would. Mortified, he scrubbed his body raw with sea water.

      It was Andrew who, as Tom walked past, crowingly asked him why he was so obsessed with cleanliness and what he was hiding, and it was Andrew who spread the word that young Tom Erskine had contracted the great pox by sleeping with a slave on a trip ashore. It wasn’t long before he found himself being given an evil-smelling ointment by the gunner’s wife; he was accused of lewd behaviour and informed a fine would be taken from his pay and then he was summoned by Lieutenant Murray.

      To his surprise, however, the officer appeared to believe the story poured out by the humiliated and frightened boy and at once guessed the source of Tom’s misery. ‘Seaman Farquhar, I suppose,’ he said heavily. ‘I’ve seen him watching you; he’s had it in for you ever since that affair with the hammock.’

      That affair with the hammock! Tom bit his tongue. Did the lieutenant not even remember Robbie’s name?

      ‘Yes, sir,’ he acquiesced miserably.

      Murray arranged for him to go with the next shore party and to Tom’s astonishment escorted him personally to the slave quarters behind the governor’s house. ‘Don’t look so worried, Tom,’ he said. ‘All is not lost. I am taking you to see the best doctor in the Islands.’ He removed his hat as they ducked into one of the small houses behind the governor’s mansion and Tom followed suit.

      The huge black woman who greeted them smiled at Tom as the lieutenant explained the circumstances. ‘So, boy, let me see what’s wrong with you,’ she said, her voice soft and lilting as she held out her hand. ‘You go wait outside,’ she added to the lieutenant. ‘This thing is bad enough for the child without having an officer leering down his trousers.’

      Tom was almost in tears as he undressed, reluctantly removing his shirt and then his breeches, thankful for the dim light of the small house with its palm-leaf roof. He could hear the wind rustling the leaves as the woman pulled him closer to the daylight in the doorway, holding him in front of her with two firm hands.

      She gave a crow of laughter. ‘You’ve got the yaya disease, boy. You don’t have to panic now I seen you. You not got the great pox. I can fix this, no problem.’ She leaned closer, inspecting his wounds. ‘You been scrubbing these sores?’

      Tom nodded miserably.

      ‘That’s good.’ She let him go and studied his face. ‘Back where I come from, that is how we cure this disease. We scratch our children’s skin and rub in the illness, then they get it, but not very badly, and they never get it again. But older people, who haven’t had that chance, we scrub the berries!’ she chuckled. ‘Just like you did. All the dirt and the disease comes away and your own good blood washes it out of you. I will give you medicine and I will give you ointment – I make it myself from herbs and from ground seashells – and you will be as good as new, boy. And you won’t get it again. You’re a strong child, yes?’ She had a wonderful warm smile, he realised, her heavy black face lit with kindness.

      ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

      But her face had sharpened. Once again she drew him into the thin ray of sunshine that was finding its way through the doorway so that it shone on his face. ‘You one of us, boy?’

      He hesitated, confused. ‘I don’t understand.’

      ‘Yes, you one of us,’ she murmured, half to herself. ‘You see the dead folk; you feel their loneliness and their pain. That’s a hard path for you. I not surprised you go make enemies; people sense you a bit special.’ Her mouth widened into a broad smile. ‘You can help people – I don’t think you go be a doctor like me, but you not made for your king’s navy. Why you want to be an officer?’

      Tom glanced out of the doorway towards the figure of George Murray, who was leaning against a palm tree, smoking his pipe, seemingly lost in thought. ‘My father arranged it,’ he replied reluctantly. ‘I didn’t want to be in the navy, but I quite like it now?’ He looked at her anxiously, his answer framed as a question as if he did not know if he was speaking the truth. It seemed important that this woman understood.

      She smiled at him. ‘It will do for now. When you grow into a man you make decisions for yourself. Now you too open, too much trusting. You must learn to be safe from people, people who are alive and people who no longer here.’ She dropped his hand and moved back into the shadows of her house. ‘Go tuck your shirt in, boy, make yourself respectable for your officer. I’ll give you medicine to make you better and I’m going to give you something special that will protect you from evil which works in shadows. You know prayers, boy? You good Christian?’

      ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

      ‘Then I put Christian God and Blessed Virgin in my magic with my own special gods from my homeland who protect me and mine. That’ll give you much good and safety.’ She smiled again as she fumbled with the baskets on the shelf above her table. ‘What I give you, you put in the bottom of your belongings and you keep it safe and you leave it there with you all of your life, and then you give it to your children. You understand me, boy?’

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