Harriet Read online

  “You can finish your work like that, you wretch!” Mrs Podlock thrust Harriet from her lap at last, panting. “See if you like wagging that bottom now!”

  So the voyage continued with Harriet nervously performing her cabin boy duties by day under her mistress’s eagle eye and her wifely duties by night for the seemingly insatiable Benjamin. At first Harriet had listened, blushing and dismayed, to her female messmates discussing how a whore could most quickly satisfy a man and now, intertwined with her randy young possessor in the narrow confines of their bunk, she was forced hastily to remember such tricks to get enough sleep.

  Before the ‘Cormorant’s bowsprit a high rounded mountain rose steeply from the sea, green at its base and brown above. As to what island it might be, Benjamin seemed quite indifferent, knowing only that they were to take on water here. From what Harriet overheard in the cabin, its name seemed to be Papilla and Mrs Podlock’s father apparently had once been a merchant here. Searching her memory of the schoolroom globes Harriet thought perhaps they were amongst the Canary Islands, but of Papilla she had never heard. A Spanish ship, fresh from the Indies lay in the roadstead as they anchored.

  “Carrying a treasure of gold and silver, no doubt!” the Captain remarked wistfully. “If we were at war now, that would be a tempting target! It would be a desperate attempt though for she’ll be full of men!”

  “There are other ways of getting gold out of men than with a cutlass!” Mrs Podlock said thoughtfully, with a gleam in her eye, ordering a boat.

  The next day a procession wended its way through the sun-baked streets of the town led by a grim looking matron. A dozen young women, all the temporary wives sent ashore as surplus to Mrs Podlock’s more profitable plan, walked barefoot, their long hair in maidenly fashion nearly down to their waists, demurely clad in prison-grey gowns with iron chains visible on their wrists as they held up little wooden crosses. Their sweet voices rose in a sad and reverent chant, though they smiled gratefully when sympathetic bystanders pressed money upon them and even more upon housewives who emerged from their doors to press parcels of food into their hands.

  ‘Poor Catholic girls,’ people explained to one another. ‘No doubt sent into exile by the heretics’ cruelly judged for their religion’s sake.’ At the end of the line Harriet’s expression of shame attracted particular remark. Mrs Podlock, who was paying what she said was a courtesy visit aboard the Spanish ship, had included her ‘cabin boy’ in the begging gang as much to avoid leaving her on the ship with the Captain. Harriet’s chains were particularly elaborate and she had been instructed to jangle them regularly and noisily as cover to enable others to slip free a light-fingered hand from their own. Up and down the steep streets they progressed, demurely visiting churches and chapels, shepherded in more unruly fashion past the water-side drinking dens by the harassed matron.

  That evening on the ‘‘Cormorant’’ a line of them stood naked on deck before their shed clothing, bent right over grasping their ankles and emitting frequent squeals of protest as their most private recesses were explored by the matrons under Mrs Podlock’s supervision, various smelly finds of coins and trinkets being added to the satisfactory pile of takings on the deck.

  “Where is the Smith slut?” that lady suddenly demanded.

  Harriet had deserted.

  It had been hot in the streets and her throat was as dry as dust. There were no locals in sight for it was the siesta hour and the sight of a cool green interior lured her to a heavily grilled iron gate standing open. She slipped through into an orchard of fruit trees, their branches heavily laden with golden globes, then hearing footsteps behind her, sped deeper into the trees, only to hear the door clang shut. She was committed now. Pushing on, she arrived in a clear space where against the garden wall stood a little thatched hut with a wheelbarrow against its wall and on a bench by the door a few tools. An ornate fountain set into the wall spouted water into a marble bowl through a grotesque mask. Hastening to the fountain, she scooped a palmful of the clear water and drank gratefully. A green glass bottle lay within the bowl of the fountain and Harriet lifted it out curiously. Just as the cork popped in her fingers a man suddenly materialised alongside, towering over her. He was a remarkably handsome young black man in white shirt and tight white breeches, moving silently for such a big man on bare feet. He laid his hand upon her handcuffs and said something to her. Harriet flinched then blushed, caught stealing his bottle of wine! His tone had been rather one of enquiry, though. She made a hopeful gesture of drinking and his black face split into a big white grin. Beckoning her with him he set her wrists against the surface of the bench and picking a sharp spike and a hammer from the tools, struck out the pin so that her cuffs fell open.

  He cleared the rest of the bench, patting it in invitation and passing her the bottle. Wine was something unknown to the schoolroom and seldom allowed to a lowly governess. The bottle was cool and be-dewed. Harriet took a good swig, finding it sweet and fresh on her dry throat, far better than the ship’s small beer. She passed it back to her host and he took a perfunctory swig, returning it with a gesture of encouragement. The second drink made her head swim but it seemed to pass into a pleasant feeling of boldness and so the bottle went to and fro companionably.

  They exchanged names; his was Salaman. The wine was finished quickly and Salaman produced a round black bottle that proved to contain something stronger. Harriet tried to explain by gestures that she was a fugitive from cruelty, pointing at her handcuffs and to where she thought the sea lay. He made sympathetic noises, stripped off his shirt and, turning his back briefly displayed pale stripes, the signs of old whippings as if to say that he had fellow feelings. Without his shirt he also revealed that his smoothly muscular black chest carried long incisions that had been drawn like decorations. Fascinated, Harriet put her hand out and ran her fingers along the ridged scars on his chest, so suggestive of a warrior past and manly courage, now cruelly subjected just as she was.

  They had no language in common but there was no doubt as to the nature of his feelings for her. His white breeches were straining to contain a thick column rising towards his belt buckle. Recklessness fired Harriet as her white hand caressed the black-ridged warmth of his chest. A sympathetic friend who could hide her in his garden! He had shown a restraint that did him credit, it was only right to reward his kindly action and she had only the one means available! Her breasts heaved with the excitement of her thoughts.

  The man read her expression and, taking her in his arms, laid her on the bench and with a decisive action, drawing down her shift from off her shoulders, bent down and sucked one exposed nipple into his mouth. Harriet moaned as the warm and curling tongue stiffened the swollen bud. She wriggled against him, pressing more of the soft mass of her breast against this source of delight. They kissed and their tongues intertwined, conveying feelings of dual urgency they could not otherwise say. Harriet arched herself against him and a large hand slid up under her skirts lifting them up her thighs. She lifted her naked legs, knees and calves caressing his hard hips. Something else nearly as hard pressed against her belly like a cloth-covered cudgel. Her hands, searching, found his belt. He spoke urgently, no words she understood but urging what she could guess and suppressing a twinge of guilt, she unbuckled him and tugged the thin white pants downward until he could wriggle them free, smoothing her hands over his tightly-muscled naked buttocks.

  In return his hands fumbled with her dress, drawing it up over her head. She assisted him until they were both naked. His dusky male organ sagged stiffly below his belly with the swollen head almost level with his navel. Harriet cupped her breasts, but his attention had shifted and he slid his large hands behind her bottom cheeks, pulling her hips up to him.

  In response Harriet reached beneath his belly to touch the bobbing head of his penis with tentative fingers, relying upon touch where language didn’t serve. She moaned at the first brush of its knob betw
een the delicate lips of her vaginal furrow. So much was her flesh pulsing that she felt sure the passage must be well lubricated already. She flung her thighs apart in wild abandon as the cock pushed further, caressing the already stiffened bud of her clitoris and then slid deeper. Harriet, almost swooning, drew him down.

  By the time they finished it was almost dark. Harriet lay sprawled sleepily upon the bench, Salaman having just rolled off her, was washing at the fountain when he made an exclamation and darted to Harriet’s side. She was slow to react though he shook her urgently, sitting up in yawning confusion as he started away, beckoning her urgently to follow. She heard what had evidently alarmed him, the shrill sound of excited female voices, which suddenly became solid figures under the trees; a mass of dark garments and white faces rushing forward as Salaman dodged rapidly away into the trees. Harriet snatched up her gown, which had fallen to the grass, but it was too late to follow, she surrounded by a covey of agitated females in billowing black garments headed by two nervous old men brandishing pistols. The woman who seemed to in charge was tall and, in her black robes, apparently almost as wide. In indignant tones she directed the two males of the party to pursue the fugitive and commanded the rest, to seize Harriet.

  A few hours later, in a bare, stone vaulted chapel, Harriet advanced down an avenue between the black-habited congregation, held in the grip of two nuns and towards the dominating figure of its president. The robes of the assembly would have given it an enigmatic solemnity had they not rustled and whispered with an entirely feminine curiosity. The Abbess stepped to one side as the trio reached her, to reveal a small, ornately carved piece of wooden furniture standing isolated in the centre of the chapel floor. It had a sloping top as if to hold a heavy book and a footstool incorporated so that Harriet hoped it might be a sort of prayer desk. Her eyes flew uneasily, though, to the thin cane that the lady carried in her hand. With that in mind, she made a halfhearted attempt to resist as she was made to mount the stool and to bend forward over the desk-top. However, one of the nuns had her by an ear and the other had Harriet’s arm bent painfully behind her back.

  The Abbess, meanwhile, was addressing her flustered flock in a strong unhurried voice. Harriet had been questioned at some length, but no one had understood anything she said. Evidently judgement had been given on the visible evidence. Humped face down over the desk with her gown around her shoulders, she understood nothing except that the lady’s tone conveyed severity and outrage. She could feel her bare bottom exposed to the cool air of the chapel and equally well to the wicked looking cane. She longed for the suspense to end and at the same time dreaded it in equal measure.

  Then came a tap of the cane on her bottom cheeks, followed by an excruciating pause; then a quick swish and the sharp slice of the cane right across their rounds. Harriet tried to hold back her instinctive response before these foreigners; after all she had been flogged by professionals. It stung terribly, sharper and deeper than the smack of the birch and leaving a single distinct line of fire across her backside. The second cut broke her resolution, for the Abbess possessed an arm equally as strong and skilled as Master Pounder’s. Harriet’s howl echoed in the vault as she wriggled and struggled against the restraining hands in terrified anticipation of the next one.

  It didn’t come immediately. The Abbess addressed her incomprehensibly, though the measured tones carried evident satisfaction and an implacable readiness to wait. Harriet remained in ignorance, except to find out that they were waiting for her to fall silent and each time her cries subsided, the caning recommenced. She had no idea how many she was to get and would never have been able to count in any case, though the cane left more precise traces than the spreading twigs of the birch. It went with excruciating slowness, since she was lectured long and incomprehensibly between the strokes, the female congregation giving out dutiful exclamations of shock and horror. The confused offender howled at each stroke, her bottom bouncing with the red-stripes of welts rising like throbbing bars across its white curves, babbling for mercy with whatever words she vainly thought might be understood.

  She had to lie face down upon the narrow bed they gave her. At length her painful punishment had been brought to an end by incarceration in a stone walled cell. But she was still uncertain whether it was considered that she had been punished enough or what else might ensue. Presently two of the nuns came to attend her, one carrying a little pot of some kind of soothing cream, an encouraging sign she thought, receiving them with gratitude. They were both young girls with large dark expressive eyes; the cloth of their gowns, though properly black, was of expensive quality, such as would indicate the daughters of affluent families. Their hoods dropped onto their shoulders revealed a short fuzz of black hair on their skulls exactly like Harriet herself. They giggled a little at first when they viewed Harriet’s exposed bottom, but the fingers were delicate of the one who spread the cool stuff gently over her throbbing welts, while her companion cooed in sympathy and seating herself by Harriet, bent her head and kissed her in sisterly fashion. A bell began to toll solemnly in the distance; one said something dismissive and her companion giggled. Harriet and they spoke no common language but the one identified herself as Lucina and the other as Emilia. Lucina it was who coming to an end of her ministrations, kissed Harriet’s wounded bottom cheeks. As Lucina’s kisses progressed down onto the inside of her thighs, the other, Emilia, kissed Harriet’s lips ever more ardently, both young women murmuring reassuringly even as they held the patient firmly in place. Harriet knew very well what they wanted to do, exactly what she had been made to do, less gently by Big Aggie’s gang. If they did not get their way it probably meant another thrashing. But if she made herself a pet of these obviously spoiled rich girls they might be persuaded to hide her until the ship had sailed.

  Emilia mounted the bed, bundling up her capacious black skirts and incidentally revealing a delicate lace undergarment beneath. Spreading her ivory thighs and straddling before Harriet’s face she thrust down two spread fingers between them, opening her glistening pink sex lips to expose the deep interior. Recalling what she had been painfully taught by the girl-gang, Harriet set to work. Almost at once Lucina behind her gently lifted Harriet’s behind and, spreading her thighs, kissed deep between, thrusting with her tongue. Sighs and murmurs filled the little cell for some minutes and they were building up to a crescendo when suddenly everything came to a halt. Springing like frightened gazelles, the two girls fled through the door in a settling flurry of black skirts to meet a reception of angry startled voices outside. Immediately the Abbess appeared wrathfully in their place to find the prisoner gaping foolishly, bare bottom in the air and thighs wide, mouth and chin glistening and her sex wetter still. The Abbess sprang upon her and, before Harriet could adjust her posture, thrust a finger with unerring aim into her vagina. The result made the lady howl again, this time in horror; Harriet was due more drastic measures.

  Outside the ornate door of the convent a crowd of nuns fluttered about the steps like a flock of disturbed crows, ejecting Harriet from their violated nest. A ramshackle looking two-wheeled cart stood outside the door with a restive mule between the shafts, held by a young black boy. There was a crowd of locals in the street or hanging out of windows, with some black faces hovering at the back. The populace all seemed very angry, shouting what was evidently abuse. Perhaps they had found out about the begging scam, Harriet thought in apprehension. The women servants pulled down her shift, stripping her to the waist, and tied her to the tail of the cart by her wrists. If she was in any doubt as to what would come next, it was dispelled by the supervision of this process by a sour-faced man in a black coat and three-cornered hat, armed with a long cart whip. She was to suffer the same punishment that had been intended for her in England.

  Pieces of dirt and dung began to fly through the air as the cart creaked slowly into motion; fortunately for Harriet who was helpless to dodge, this town was so sun baked that little of its rub
bish stuck. The man with the whip allowed her to follow the cart tail a few paces until he judged the distance was suitable and then stepped after her, raising his whip. At that moment a more solid missile whizzing through the air from the back of the crowd, hit the mule on the flank and simultaneously the boy let go the animal’s bridle. Mule and cart surged forward, Harriet having to spring after to keep on her feet. The whip-lash missed her white back and its curling tip just caught the loose cloth around her hips.

  The crowd howled angrily, but more stones flew, mostly hitting the mule, which roared and picked up speed, the ungreased wooden wheels squealing loudly. Harriet felt the folds of her garment slip and, unable to save them since her wrists were fastened to the cart, skipped madly to avoid being tripped, trampling the cloth underfoot and leaving the whole item in her wake. The man with the whip, running yelling furiously behind unable to use his whip, tripped over the shift instead and was left behind as beast and cart careered onwards with Harriet running desperately along at the back, now stark naked.

  Along the street a small group of black people blocked the direct route, waving their arms as if to halt the mule, which then swerved in the only direction available, downhill towards the harbour with the naked Harriet panting behind. They arrived on the harbour quay well in advance of any pursuit where the mule, trying to pass between two wagons, came to a sudden stop in blessed silence with the cart jammed between them. A black hand, wielding a machete, cut Harriet’s pinioned wrists free of the timbers with a single clunk. She was bundled over the edge of the quay and dropped into a four-oared boat, which hastily rowed away with her, while on the quayside the mule was left busily demolishing the cart.