“The wind is strong here, but nothing like those storms in the North Sea.” Sibylla shivered as she recalled the first days of their voyage.
Brown laughed. “Well, if you can’t handle a bit of a breeze, you’re in the wrong place. Mogador’s windy year-round. Excuse me, I best speak with my helmsman if we’re to get the Queen to port in one piece.” He gave a brief bow and hurried away.
The next wave came and the ship bucked like a horse. Sibylla retched and clutched Benjamin’s right hand.
“You ought to go and lie down in the cabin.”
She shook her head vehemently. “Absolutely not. I have spent the entire journey there, with the exception of the time ashore in Lisbon when we had to wait for the wind to change.”
“I had thought it would be much hotter here, so close to the Sahara,” said Benjamin. “But spring in England is just as mild, only with more rain.”
Again, the ship lurched in the strong swell. Sibylla closed her eyes in resignation.
In the night, the watchman’s yells had roused her from restless sleep. She had heard orders being shouted, the sound of boots tromping across the deck, and shrill whistles. After two days at anchor, the ship had finally begun to move again, only not forward, as expected. Instead, it seemed to go in circles. Benjamin, worried, had hurried on deck to find out what the matter was and returned to the cabin to tell her that the anchor chain had broken; they had ended up on a shoal and were now spinning in an eddy. Only he had not been able to finish explaining all this to Sibylla, who had begun vomiting again into the bowl that was always next to her bunk. At least by dawn the Queen Charlotte was once more securely anchored by means of a spare chain.
Sibylla heard a loud screech above her head. Two seagulls had alighted on the yardarm of the foremast. The curtain of fog was thinning above their white heads, and she caught a promising glimpse of blue sky.
“Could you ever have imagined actually being here so soon when Mr. Moffat first came to dinner?” she asked Benjamin.
Richard Spencer had expressed no objections to Sibylla’s suggestion that he send Benjamin to Mogador. On the contrary, he had wanted him to depart as soon as possible.
However, Richard had been categorically opposed to the idea of Sibylla accompanying her husband. He had only reluctantly given his consent once Moffat assured him that many European ladies lived with their husbands in the foreigners’ quarter, safely separated from the rest of the city.
Sibylla and Benjamin were the only passengers on the Queen Charlotte, which was laden with tea, cotton cloth, and hardware. Their London servants, upon hearing that they would henceforth be required to live among Moors, had quit their service. The couple had very little luggage. Sibylla’s consisted mainly of boxes of books, among them her copies of One Thousand and One Nights and the Koran. Benjamin, for his part, had stocked up on French wine, Scotch whisky, and smoked ham, aware that these delicacies were prohibited in a Muslim country. Knowing they would be moving into Mr. Fisher’s already-furnished house, they had brought no furniture, and instead packed an abundance of gifts. The sultan, his court, the tribal chief of Mogador, several sheikhs, and various Arab merchants must all be taken into consideration in the interests of good business.
“That old sea dog was right,” Benjamin grumbled. “The fog is lifting. But it remains to be seen if we can make it into the harbor. I wonder if it might not have been wiser to approach from the south.”
“I’m confident the captain knows what he’s doing better than we. This is not his first time here,” Sibylla countered.
The Queen Charlotte slowly fought her way forward against the waves. The closer the entrance grew, the narrower it seemed. The heavy ship had to squeeze between the harbor mole on the left and the small Isle of Mogador on the right. Waves crashed against the rocks. A fortress emerged out of the last wafts of fog. Suddenly, the wreckage of a frigate appeared. Sibylla grabbed Benjamin’s hand and gave Captain Brown a horrified look. He was standing at the bow next to a sailor, measuring the depth of the water with a plummet. The first officer was on his other side awaiting his orders and shouting them to the helmsman at the stern. It seemed like an eternity to Sibylla, but they finally made it through the narrow passage and saw the harbor of Mogador extend before them like a long, thin crescent. As it was filled with sand, they had to drop anchor at quite a distance from the mole.
“We’ll have to change boats.” Benjamin pointed to the vessel heading their way from the shore. There was an Arab standing at the stern, shouting one command after another to the twenty black-skinned men rowing in tandem. As the boat came alongside theirs, the first mate shouted an order to lower the ladder.
Sibylla peered down. “He can’t be serious.”
“I’m afraid he is, dear.”
“No!” She grabbed his arm. “I could lose the baby.”
He looked at her in disbelief. “What baby?”
She bit her lip. This was not how she had planned to tell him. Her doctor in London had warned her not to embark on the strenuous sea voyage, but she had sworn him to secrecy. She wanted to get to Mogador at all costs, and neither Benjamin nor her doctor was going to stop her.
She had been wanting to inform Benjamin of his impending fatherhood ever since they departed, but kept silent for fear he would send her back from one of the ports where they stopped for provisions along the way.
“We are going to have a baby,” she said so softly he could barely hear her above the wind and the waves. “In the fall.”
“And when were you planning to tell me? When the midwife was on her way?”
She blushed. “You and Father would never have permitted me to go on this journey had you known! I planned to tell you as soon as we were safely in Mogador.”
Benjamin shook his head. After thinking for a bit, he told her, “We’re going to do it the way we did it that day at the London docks, only in reverse. I’ll climb down first. You follow right behind and hold on to both ropes.” She nodded bravely but looked pale.
“Don’t be afraid,” he reassured her. “It’ll be all right.”
Half an hour later, they finally reached terra firma. After so many days at sea, Sibylla felt the ground sway under her feet. Still, she was overcome by a feeling of solemnity.
I am in Africa, she thought. How many English can claim to have been here? I am sure I can count the women on my fingers!