Fiela’s Child: Chapter 23 Summary & Analysis

Benjamin finds a place to take shelter for the night. He wakes up the next day, feeling good about finally leaving the Forest behind. He gets up and goes walking, coming across a man sitting next to a white flag. Benjamin asks the man for work on a boat, but the man accuses him of being a vagrant with no useful skills. Benjamin decides he has to learn some skills on his own.

Benjamin keeps walking and comes across a boatman and asks the man to teach him to row. The boatman asks if Benjamin has a boat. Benjamin doesn’t have one yet. The boatman says it’s unlucky that Benjamin talked to Mr. Benn (the man by the white flag) when Mr. Benn was in such a bad mood because Mr. Benn actually does need a new rower to replace Kaliel September on his pilot-boat.

The boatman tries to persuade Benjamin to give up looking for work on the pilot-boat, but Benjamin remains persistent. At last, the boatman says he can’t pay Benjamin money but can offer him food and shelter if he helps him with catching oysters and fish. The boatman tells Benjamin a little about himself: he is in fact Kaliel September, so Benjamin would be replacing him. Kaliel is waiting for a boat to come in and has no idea when it will arrive—it could be tomorrow, or it could be in a year.

Kaliel September’s mother was “Coloured” and his father was Norwegian. He feels that he has the sea in his blood but that a Forest person like Benjamin should be careful around water. Benjamin introduces himself to Kaliel as “Lukas.” Kaliel explains that he just got back from taking planks from the ghost ship, which was a ship from France called the Phoenix with nothing on it except for a few corpses.

Benjamin is impressed as Kaliel September shows him around the area and points out his house, which is small but durable in the harsh conditions near the water. Kaliel made the house himself from parts of ships. Kaliel takes Benjamin inside the house, and although there’s a fierce storm outside, the house stays strong. Kaliel begins explaining the work Benjamin would do for him, but the one thing Benjamin refuses is to lay traps to catch blue-bucks (a type of antelope).

Kaliel September leads Benjamin around for three days, showing him his new responsibilities. Kaliel complains that he knows as much as Mr. Benn, but Mr. Benn gets to sit up on a hill and take a bigger salary while Kaliel continues to do dangerous work. Kaliel says if anything were to happen to Mr. Benn, Kaliel is the only one who could take his place—although he might never get the opportunity.

Reluctantly, Benjamin helps Kaliel September set some blue-buck traps. Benjamin remains determined to get a job on a ship, but Kaliel September explains that Mr. Benn already has replacements lined up if anything happens to his oarsmen, and even if Mr. Benn were to fall off a cliff, no one would put Kaliel in charge of a ship. Benjamin wonders why, but Kaliel refuses to say, just talking about how sailors are superstitious.

Benjamin wants to go back to check on Nina at Miss Weatherbury’s. Kaliel September accuses him of running back to the Forest. He warns Benjamin that Nina should stay away from the hills near the ship, because seamen are always looking to kidnap white girls. Benjamin heads back, but Miss Weatherbury lets him know that Nina ran away three days ago.