The Devil’S Revenge

Copyright © 2012 by Jack Darmend.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012901500

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4691-5800-6

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4691-5799-3

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-5801-3

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Contents

Chapter One  The Field Of Human Suffering

Chapter Two  Dateline Dec 22nd 1899

Chapter Three  In the Beginning

Chapter Four  When one Door Closes, Another Opens

Chapter Five  Ashington To Ashes

Chapter Six  In the Bleak Mid Winter

Chapter One

The Field Of Human Suffering

‘Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.’

That was a part of a famous speech by Winston Churchill after the Battle of Britain in the war that has become known as the Second World War.

‘Never in the field of human understanding has so much suffering been imposed on so many for so long by so few for so little reason.’

That is a corruption of the same speech, but one that has more point.

The First World War started in 1914 and ended in 1918 and became known as the First World War, and then as the Great War, and at that time many people who should have known better called it ‘the war to end all wars’. Unfortunately, many who thought this were amongst the elite of the country and their thoughts illustrated their bankrupt minds that were hopelessly optimistic and had little understanding of the true nature and capabilities of the human race.

The only thing that was great about that terrible event was the amount of suffering inflicted upon so many because of the stupidity of a small number of greedy, selfish, and dim-witted people who didn’t care about the damage they were doing to the rest of the world, and when it was over could not understand that the way it ended would inevitably lead to a continuation of the destruction, pain, misery, and suffering of so many, that is now called the Second World War. And now, many people are asking, ‘When is the Third World War going to start?’

These people don’t yet understand that the First World War started two thousand years ago and is not yet finished, for the war goes by another name: it is called religion, but religion is only another name for belief, and the fact that a person believes something does not mean his belief is correct, for mankind has so often been led to believe the most impossible things that in time have been proven to be wrong.

A few hundred years ago, it was generally believed that the world was flat, and sailors were afraid to go beyond sight of land as they thought they were going to fall off the world and into the abyss.

Those sailors were wrong, as we all know now, but as mankind could be led into believing things that were not true at that time, it is still so that mankind believes many things that are untrue today.

The most common belief that is conspicuously wrong is that mankind is intelligent, and many people have been easily led to believe that they and their race are a superior race and are the inheritors of the earth.

The real truth is that no race is superior, and in the most basic matters all people on the earth are the same. They are conceived in the same way and at birth know nothing other than what their instincts tell them, but from then on they are indoctrinated (or, in modern computer language, programmed) into believing whatever they are told by those who support them.

These beliefs that are inducted into the infant mind are invariably distorted by the parents’ experience and are not necessarily the truth, and as often as not are the experiences of previous generations and the generations before that.

The Christian Bible tells us that the sins of the fathers will be passed on to the third and the fourth generation. It neglects to say forever, but it is so, and hatreds in progress hundreds of years ago are reborn with every generation. And the greatest of these hatreds are the hatreds between different religions or different sects of the same religion, for mankind has never properly understood his own beginnings and has easily been led to believe in impracticable speculation about his beginnings on planet Earth.

Chapter Two

Dateline Dec 22nd 1899

There are just three days to go to the last Christmas of the nineteenth century, and the SS Orion is due to dock in her home port of Liverpool tomorrow, the twenty-third, in time for the passengers and crew to be home for Christmas, but owing to bad luck, bad weather, bad seamanship, and neglect and poor maintenance, this rusty old vessel is now finding the storm she has run into too much and is starting to break up.

The SS Orion was built at Camel Laird Shipyards in 1865, and when launched was the most up-to-date ocean-going liner in the world, but the purpose for which she has been constructed is not one that her owners want to be well known.

Slavery has been abolished many years ago, but the SS Orion is not really just a steamship; she is better known as a slave ship, for there is still a lucrative trade to be had in going to Africa and capturing slaves to ship to

America to work in the cotton plantations, and Captain David Jones has spent the last fifteen years doing just that.

The American Civil War was an immense bloodbath fought for the right of every man to be free, but while a government may pass laws to control what people do, they cannot alter the way or the reasons that people think the way they so do; and while the southerners have set their slaves free, many still cling to the old ways and cannot believe that the black man is not their rightful property, and so the trade still goes on, and it will be many years yet to the time when every man is free. Many believe that will never happen. For if the time ever comes when the white man cannot make a slave of a black man, then he will find another colour, as he has so soon done in Asia, where there are plenty of slaves of a different colour; and when he runs out of a different colour skin, he will do what he did before he discovered that there were people with a different colour skin.

He will persuade white men to be his slave in return for keeping a little bit of what he earns.

The SS Orion left Durban three weeks ago and should have arrived home by now, but the seas off the coast of South Africa are at times treacherous and dangerous, and many a ship and many a sailor have settled for ever in these unfaithful waters, so it could be said it was by the grace of God that it survived that first week, and it could be said that the Devil had been cheated of his quarry when after seven days of continual torture, the SS Orion, though battered and tested to breaking point, had passed out of the southern seas and into the relative calm of the North Atlantic.

After sailing past the coast of Spain and France, she had passed up the western coast of England and had arrived at a position a little north of the coast of North Wales, and now, with Anglesey on her starboard and home almost in sight, the Devil was once again attempting to destroy the one that got away (or did it?).

When, in 1885, David Jones had become master of the SS Orion, he had a large notice placed above the door leading into the hold that was used to hold the slaves, as they were transported to what some of the sailors called ‘their final resting place’, a place where there was to be no rest until death.

The notice read:

Davey Jones Locker

And the time is fast approaching when the whole complement (and the ship itself) will find themselves in that place so dreaded by all seafaring men.

At this moment, there are forty-five young men aged between eighteen and thirty-two years of age in the hold, and while they are not chained as the slaves would be, they have noted and discussed amongst themselves the trade that has been going on, and several of the men, such as Gerry Thomas, are starting to feel the doom closing in on them.

Two years ago, he was working with his father on the farm in Lincolnshire, but he felt the need to expand his life and he felt he was a burden to his family, as times were very hard, so it seemed a good idea to join the army and be of service to king and country.

Now, as he reflects on the amazing rapidity of the dramatic changes that have overtaken him in his short life, he wants to put the clock back and wishes he could start again.

He remembers the day his regiment arrived in Africa, the shock to his system as he began to understand the differences that exist in the lives of people throughout the world. For here, in South Africa, he has met British soldiers from all parts of the British Empire and has been in a constant state of bewilderment because of the strange habits, beliefs, and customs of these men who have been raised in a culture that to him is completely alien; and he now wishes he was back on the farm where all of a sudden life was peace and tranquillity and the place to be.

Yet, of all the strange fellows that he has met, the strangest is his own commanding officer, Lord Ashington.

General Peter Ashington, Commander of a large part of the British Army in South Africa, is on his way home as he has become afraid for the safety of his wife, who has let it be known that she is of the belief that the end of this century will also be the end of the world, and she has gathered together with a lot of other people of a similar persuasion. They are planning a ‘farewell to the world’ party at Ashington Hall for the last night of the century, or as they call it, ‘the last night of the world,’ or as most people see it,

New Year’s Eve

The first week of the voyage was tempestuous, with the ship rolling and dipping and floundering about in the raging storms, and much damage was done to the ship, the cargo, crew and passengers. But by the time they had arrived in the Bay of Biscay, which is notorious for its sudden outbreaks of tumultuous weather, the weather had calmed down and they had been enabled to reconstruct a lot of the damage and once again the spirits of the men had returned, and this morning with only three days to Christmas, Lord Ashington had decided it was time to start the Christmas celebrations. So drinks were served to those who wanted them and Lord Ashington or Peter, as he was now being called by the young soldiers, who, with the relief of seeing the ship survive when it seemed to be already wrecked, and the thoughts of being back home in a few more hours, and the alcohol circulating in their veins, were starting to lose all comprehension of the facts that normally would have seen them maintain a more sober disposition.

Most of the soldiers were very poor sailors and had suffered a great deal in the storms around the Cape. After their experiences in the veldt and plains of South Africa, where they had seen their comrades dying in circumstances that had shattered their illusions about army life, they were already thinking very hard about whether they were going to return to a war that was not so glamorous as they had thought it was going to be when they first sailed from England’s shores.

There had been much discussion about the ship they were in, being used to transport slaves, and a lot of comparison was drawn between the lives of the slaves and their own.

Several of the men were of the opinion that they should do something to release any slaves that there might be in other holds in the ship; some felt it was none of their business, while others argued that ‘the niggers had it coming to them.’

Tempers had started getting out of hand when Lord Ashington entered the hold. He was called to talk to the men before they started a mutiny.

Second Lieutenant Steven Rogers has become extremely agitated by the opinions being expressed by Gerry and Paul Smith, who are both of the opinion that as slavery has been made illegal, what was going on should not be allowed.

Steven was born in Bristol, in 1870, and his family had become prosperous as merchants dealing in shipping goods around the world. His grandfather, who had established the family fortune, had not been very particular about what he bought and sold.

As a young man, Steven had talked about this subject with his grandfather and had learned a lot about the way the African tribal system works. He had become of the opinion that the slavers were doing the Africans a favour by providing them with guaranteed employment, while if they had been left in Africa, they would as likely die from starvation, tribal war, or one of the many tropical diseases that are prevalent in Africa at the present time.

As a teenager, his father had bought him a commission in the army and he had become accustomed to the lower ranks obeying his orders as the army rule book dictates, so to hear them arguing about a subject that they knew nothing about, and because of the influence of the alcohol that had made them uncharacteristically rebellious, he therefore had sent for Lord Ashington, as he was aware that if they would take no notice of himself, it would be a different story with the general, for General Lord Ashington was held in the highest esteem by all ranks in the army, and for many reasons.

First, there was the sheer physical presence of the man. Standing well over six foot and having an immense bulk of body, a goliath, he gave an appearance of physical strength that commanded respect without having to request it, for only a fool, or a mad dog, would argue with a bull, or with Peter Ashington, for both gave an impression of wild power that would quickly eliminate opposition with amazing ease; but notwithstanding his apparently threatening appearance, he had at all times gone to great lengths to make contact with all those whom he dealt with at all levels of reason. He had discovered that his apparent strength was in fact a weakness, as people would often give way rather than risk a beating, and he then did not know what they really thought, so he needed to coax and charm these timid folk in order to achieve his aim, which was always reason.

So when Lord Ashington entered the hold that had developed into its own war zone, with insults, threats, and challenges flying about in all directions, and the danger of violence breaking out at any moment, his appearance produced an immediate tranquillising effect on the troops, and peace and quiet descended as a blanket over the hustle and bustle.

The general took a place where he could see and be seen by everyone there and waited while the men settled down. Then, when he felt ready, he began by telling them he was going to allow Captain David Jones to explain about the things that were causing them so much worry.

The captain was by this time standing behind him, and he stepped forward to take the strain.

He was feeling in a very bad mood and did not wish to be expected to explain himself to this unruly crowd of drunken soldiers, who had very little experience of life