My Name is Resolute Read Online Free PDF

Patey’s hands cross my face, fumbling, feeling, as if she had become blind and was using her fingertips to see me. She slapped my cheek soundly and said, “It’s only by grace that we are not all dead. Do not be daft, Ressie.” She hugged me to her bosom and I clutched at her. I began to cry, my heart joining the bedlam about us. How long we huddled together and moaned, I could not say. Our cries began to wane when a great banging and shouting came from overhead followed by scuffling, then men’s screams.
    I heard the distant clanging of iron bars. Over our cries, over our heads, many men, maybe Pa and August, maybe even Rafe, were put into cells gated with iron. A man grunted, loud and hard, and others cried out. I heard swords clanging and more grunts followed by groaning. A woman on our deck screamed and cried out, “It’s blood! I be covered in blood from above. The devil Saracens are killing ’em all!”
    A wail rose from our deck like a great wave. “Saracens—!” The word sprang from all around, followed by curses and prayers. There was no one my pa feared more than Saracen pirates. Were we now in the hands of minions of Satan, our fates were sure to be monstrous. I cried out in earnest, calling for Ma, reaching for Patey but not sure I had her; I slipped from one form to the next until the voice in front of me confirmed her presence.
    “Pa!” I screamed with all my strength. All the girls and women on this deck began to call for their men and boys above. The noise grew to deafening. Out of the shouts came a steady banging, a drumming that vibrated through the ribs of the ship.
    I heard Lucy’s voice! She called from a far corner, “Don’ you be calling all at a time. Everyone, you be still, now. You be calling out de names one after de other. Starts here. Call out de name if you mens be up above.” I felt the ship begin to move, as one by one, some meekly, some heartily, women’s voices called names of men and boys. Others repeated the names up and down the length of the deck, so the pattern of it became a ribbon of hope strung from one cell to the next. After a while, the men above began to hear us and rapped on the floor in answer. I wondered how were we to know that a knock meant the man was dead or alive, but I heard a woman call “Bertram? Bertram Willow?” Silence followed. She cried out his name again, and “Bertram Willow” echoed from cell to cell but when no knock answered her, she wept softly.
    As I listened to the rhythmic calling, the names became for me a chantey, a sea song, and the ship began to rock with the movement of names round the despicable place. And I realized that at least some of these women knew how to do this. They were no strangers to captivities and bars. The deck rolled and I knew we had left the bay and made for open sea.
    They might take us to Kingston. Houses all along the beach had been beset by thieves, far back as I could remember. Indeed, Pa had fought off others, but these he could not prevail against. A striking pain went through me as if I had been stabbed from my shoulders to my knees in one thrust, with the thought that we might not be headed to Kingston but to some faraway island.
    I heard Patience call out, “Allan Talbot? August Talbot?” The names echoed from lips down the way. Now it seemed I could make out the length of the place, having grown used to the dark, and the ship turned east so that sun came in through small openings and a single porthole. Patience shouted again, more loudly, “Allan Talbot? August Talbot?”
    I held my breath. At last, two raps. “They’re alive!” I said, pushing my hands against my face. “Pa!” I shouted. I turned to Patience. “Call for Ma. Your voice is louder than mine.”
    “She is not here, Resolute.”
    “She escaped, then!”
    Patience sighed but answered not. “Do not make me say it, sister.”
    Crushing our petticoats to the side, we nestled together and managed to make seats for ourselves as