The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation (Volume 2): Part VIII

For months, I have not writ, having no paper upon which to write and no matter to record; our days passing in the tedium of routine, the languor of inactivity, and the terrors of disease.

Empty show it might have been, and yet not without anxiety for others in our van, for our fleet is possessed of no firm discipline—ships falling well behind, detained in eddies—and the eye of the passenger, deluded by the convolutions of the coast, can never be sure of distance—and still the crack! crack! of rifle fire echoed without cease—the air was alive with it—and pilots could be certain of nothing.

We hear that Lord Dunmore has purposed to inoculate such of our Regiment as have not yet suffered the smallpox—a welcome measure, though come late—and that he sought this isle as a place of refuge where this delicate operation may be carried out without disturbance or annoy.

How many ditches, in this one year, have I dug? How many revetments and scarps have I raised? And none seem to hold off these devils who wish to belabor us with their tethers and paddles and speeches on the rights of man.

The quarantine camp being sufficiently in readiness, we assisted this morning in the transportation of the victims of pestilence from the Adonis to their huts.

There was much argument, and those sensations of fraternity and comity which at first brought our Regiment together at our dances gave way, I fear, to anger...

Men muttered in small cabals or threatened one another by the fireside, cutting each other with their eyes and hissing, vaunting superiority in their familiarity with the Unseen.

This agreement struck me at first with astonishment; but when ’twas explained to us by Isaac the Joiner, glowing with compromise, I saw its rectitude, and the confluence was so appropriate in its measures that I was deeply moved...

And so, tomorrow night, we shall hold the first of these grim fêtes to inter the dead and trick the gods.

Looking upon that scene—full moon above, the flames below, the dancing bodies of the mourners, and behind them, the vast expanse of Chesapeake Bay—there could not be a scene conducing to greater sublimity.

I spake comfortably to him and fetched water both for him and for those around him, who had not received succor all day.

Some of the sick lie without motion, suffering an entire stagnation of the fluids.

The homily and marriage sentences were said, at Bono’s request, by Dr. Trefusis.

I first knew Private Williams when he was but a child, a reprobate little nursling of eight summers, a charming wag we called, out of our deep affection, 24-06.

I tell ye, my friends, there was a look in 24-06’s eye that spake instanter of his wits and acumen.

At this, those of Ibo blood were greatly affronted, and rose to protest; the Coromantees jesting further; one of them recalling when he was new off the ship, unseasoned, and all the boys was took for to be branded, that the first Ibo boy having the scalding brand pressed into his shoulder screamed in pain; and all the other Ibo boys, in the transports of sympathy, began to wail, to moan, as if had they themselves been seared—like some parcel of girls, so affrightened—oh!

The scene was pitiable—the violence earnest, but with all the lassitude of the starving, peered down upon by triumphant rebels, Olympian in the dusk.

Your Lordship shall forgive his correspondent for troubling him, but I am in a most anxious taking and I do exist in hope that Your Lordship might in some wise ameliorate my concerns.

If however Dr. Trefusis wishes a topman’s view of the surrounding country to espy his dear black friends, I shall happily suspend him from the yardarm by his neck if he send another missive like his last to
Your Royal Governor,
John, Earl of Dunmore, Baron Murray of Blair, &c., &c.

Though coasters depart from our camp here daily, they do so with an eye not to stretching north, but for brigandage about the Bay; and in any event, did they arrive at some northern port, no letter they deposited should be received by you, ensconced as you are in the heart of lawless usurpation and rebellion.

I inquired of him what should be its salient points, and he replied: “It is a fact easily discernible that governments are instituted to commit the crimes that their citizens require for gain, but cannot countenance committing privately.”

This is the boy I know—soft-hearted and solemn—not he who speaks of natural rights being nonsense; not he who declaims there is no law but power and profit; not he who declares the inheritance of the meek to be void and entangled in probate.

It hath always struck me oddly, that the man categorized all of the animals and birds upon the globe, and yet provided no entry upon the creature which produced this plenitude; for which reason, it hath been my steady purpose in these last days to write an addendum to Dr. Linnæus’s monumental work, upon that first Mover and Progenitor of all the rest, which species I have given the Latin name Deus omnipotens.

Pythagoras taught that God is a number; Xenophanes that it is a sphere, passionless and consubstantial with all things; Parmenides that it is but the confluence of earth and fire.

We came to a tributary of the river—we knew not its name—surrounded by a great area of marshy ground, and with difficulty made our way along it, often sunk to our knees in mud and brackish water.

The dogs tumbled across the hummocks and cried out for our blood.

I suggested that we had, in our flight, run west; and had then stumbled to the north as we fled through the swamp and its tributaries.

We left precipitously, and he, glaring, turned back to his work.

It seemed an innocuous excuse; and yet, it spoken, the man took a greater interest in us, stepping close and glaring into our faces.

When we stopped to rest in a copse, we did not all sleep, but one at a time stayed awake to watch the Serjeant and make sure he attempted no act against us.

We could not continue our march; but stopped in the midst of the road, and all swayed, as were we confronted with some great gulf or precipice before us.

We could not judge of distance, nor of speed; nor note even the undulations of the shore, since to the eye upon the water, the shore looks one gathered rank, drawing to it all islands and coves so that they cannot be seen distinctly.

As I bailed and Bono rowed, I vainly sought to gauge our passage through the waters, to measure the subtle articulations of current and tide and how they contributed to the flexing of the river’s vast musculature across which we slid, rising and falling with that flexion, passing through gentle vales and over knolls which every moment dispersed and regathered, until there seemed no solidity anywhere, but simply the blind will of motion.

The boat began to founder. The water lapped the thwarts. Olakunde no longer bailed, for fear of the element roiling all around him; he gripped the gunwales and sat inclined as if the dinghy barreled down a slope.

Our gruesome repast was completed in two or three minutes; at which point, Bono asked, in a voice abruptly blanched, “Where’s Clippinger?”

He had not our dire incentive for the success of that Regiment—a noncommissioned officer in a hated regiment in a precarious fastness only a few hundred feet from a growing and volatile enemy.

We mate for seven years, in which time our young grow to full mobility; and that accomplished, we turn to fornication as a means of further propagating our seed.

Men scurried past us without so much as their muskets, leaping into the ditch we had dug across the promontory, and confusion everywhere reigned supreme.

I wished still to cry, and attempted it again; and once again, my effort failed, all tears occluded.

I still could shed no tears, though calculating for that purpose, I marshaled thoughts of him—memories of that excellent being, gentle and caustic, rocking in the nursery at the College of Lucidity, his knees pulled up against him, regaling me with tales of warriors such as I wished to be, a warrior such as now I was.

We were interrupted by a subaltern, who scolded us and told us to leave the body lie.

The babe screaming, beating air, I looked upon it, a horror rising in me that there should be still another generation of this verminous race, this piebald mammal, this predator howling for something to batten upon.

I recall this lesson now, O best of tutors, kindest of wards, philosopher most delighted and most despairing; I recall it as I think upon our travels, upon our fleet’s ignominious flight, upon the betrayals offered to my people; as I think of the forests through which Negroes still flee, and the rivers down which they pass in terror and hope of liberty, ignorant of Dunmore’s motion and removal.

On our arrival upon the island, we found the enemy had evacuated the place with the greatest precipitation, and were struck with horrour at the number of dead bodies, in a state of putrefaction, strewed all the way from their battery to Cherry-Point, about two miles in length, without a shovelful of earth upon them; others gasping for life; and some had crawled to the water’s edge, who could only make known their distress by beckoning to us.

In short, such a scene of misery, distress, and cruelty, my eyes never beheld; for which the authors, one may reasonably conclude, never can make atonement in this world.