“Why have you been stealing?”39 he asked the slave who was supposed to have been stealing dram.
“I haven’t been stealing, masra. It fell on the ground,”40 came the answer in a whisper.
“And you, you won’t work?”41
The man turned around in silence and showed Rutger his back. From top to bottom it was covered with huge gashes and festering wheals. The result of a previous flogging.
“You aren’t working today,” said Rutger to him. “Go to the medicine man.”42
“Well, enough flogging for today,” continued Rutger, now addressing the overseer. “Have they had their daily rations yet?”
“No, not yet,” came the answer.
“Well, wait with their distribution; I want to be there. Come along, Alex.” And with great strides Rutger returned to the house.
Half an hour later at the ration distribution, he looked at what the slaves received.
“Is that all?” he asked, pointing to the few pieces of sweet potato and the miniscule pieces of fish. “No wonder they’re so thin and cannot work. Quadruple the portions and give more fish.”
“There is no more fish: after all, it was they themselves who set fire to the warehouse.” The overseer made it clear that he wasn’t enamoured with Rutger’s interference.
“Well, give them eggs, then. There are eggs. And give milk for all small children and pregnant mothers.”
“Milk and eggs?” The overseer could not believe his ears.
“Yes, and hurry up.” And then pointing to the young slave, “Go to the kitchen and fetch the cook.”43 When the astonished cook arrived, Rutger said to her, “Are there milk and eggs in the kitchen?”44
“Yes masra,” said the woman with a slight bow.
“Have them brought here.”45
Everything else passed without a fuss.
An iron pan with milk was brought and a basket of eggs, and everything was distributed among the slaves, who could hardly conceal their astonishment. At the breakfast table Mr Jeremiah said to Rutger that he hoped he would not mind going alone with the overseer into the fields, as he himself did not ride a horse any more.
During the journey on horseback through the cane fields, Rutger tried to get overseer Vredelings talking. He enquired how he found working on the plantation.
“It’s all right,” Vredelings mumbled. “Far from the town, but, well, the boss doesn’t bother himself much with things. Of course it would be better if that black rubbish would work harder and not be so untrustworthy.”
“I have heard that there was recently a kind of uprising or something of the sort,” said Rutger now, in the hope that Vredelings would respond. But he said only, “They did try, but we soon dealt with them and got even with the leaders. You have to do it that way, or you’ll be finished.”
Rutger realized that he would not get much further with the overseer. He was curious as to whether Alex would ever get the chance to hear something from the slaves. No, if he really wanted to know what had happened, he would have to think of something else. What if he tried with one of the slave-girls who had so generously been offered to him yesterday evening. That was an idea.
The sun was burning, the journey long. Everywhere they went there was a silent group working hard, and the basya stood on the side with a whip in one hand and a machete in the other. No-one looked up; no-one stopped working.
Returning from the journey round the fields, they stopped off at the sugar mill. There the cane was crushed between three cylindrical rollers, through which each stem passed twice. The sap was collected and channelled off to the boiler house, to be received in a huge wooden vat. From there it was strained off into a large iron pan, known as a kapa. It was boiled, and impurities were removed before it was led into the following kapa, with further boiling and purifying. It was then boiled to double thickness and a kind of acid was added to promote crystallization. Thereafter the mass was boiled more and more to thicken. When it passed finally into the wooden coolers, it was all constantly stirred and shaken. After that, the thick, syrupy liquid would pass into a hogshead. Through small openings it was given a final drying. This liquid was called molasses. After this last processing, the sugar was ready to be shipped to Europe, where it would be refined and moulded in large blocks. In those days around 10 000 tonnes of sugar was transported to Amsterdam each year. Molasses were usually shipped to North America.
Rutger walked around, going from the sugar mill, which was powered by a waterwheel, to the kitchen, to look around there. No-one said anything; no-one stopped working.
When he was back in the sugar mill and happened to be looking through the window, he suddenly heard a coarse scream behind him. He jerked round. Murmuring, shouting, calling from the direction of the slaves. He heard the basya shout something angrily, and as he looked again, he saw a severed black hand between the rollers. The man who had been tending the crushing machine stood wide-eyed, gazing at his wrist, from which blood was pouring and to which there was no longer a hand attached. A few seconds later he fell to the ground in a faint. What had happened? A moment’s inattention on the part of the slave. But working with the crusher was extremely dangerous. If only a finger got caught between the cylinders, the whole hand and then the arm and then the whole body of the unfortunate would be dragged in and crushed before anyone could stop the cogwheel. To prevent this happening, the solution was to cut off the hand or arm. Therefore, there was always a basya standing with a razor-sharp axe next to the crusher.