The two brothers went slowly out. As they left Simon said whiningly to the other: ‘I doubt if he’s the right, Nick, I doubt if he’s the right.’
II
They left to return just as dawn was splitting open a bonegrey sky. While they slept, and scratched and slept, the tide had sucked itself out of the great channel and had again filled up, so there was little to suggest it had ever changed. Only the observant would have noticed the seaweed a foot higher on the sandy beach than it was yesterday evening. The observant – among them Jeremy – also noticed the swell had grown.
Paul Kellow and Ben Carter in Nampara Girl left first. Then Jeremy and Stephen Carrington in Philippe, watched by the two glowering Hoskin brothers who had come down to the jetty to see them off. ‘Bastards,’ said Stephen, we’re ten tubs of brandy short. I tackled ’em but they would admit nothing.’
Jeremy was not attending. What interested him most was to see how this French-built lugger responded to sail and helm. It was like trying a new horse. He had no fears for Nampara Girl with Ben aboard; he was a better sailor than any of them. For him the appeal was to bring Philippe home, which had made him instantly agreeable to Stephen’s suggestion.
About an hour after dawn clouds assembled and the wind backed south-west and began to pipe up. For the course they were on this could not have been better, and the rain that soon began to fall kept the sea down. They soon lost Nampara Girl, and until they sighted the Manacles there was no other craft to be seen. Then a couple of Newlyn fishing-boats, intermittently visible between the waves, fell behind them as they raced up the Channel.
Somehow Stephen had cajoled a few eggs out of the dour Hoskin brothers, and these, boiled in a pan before they left, they now ate cold, with a tot of white brandy – of which there was still plenty – to wash them down. The lugger was a heavier boat to handle than she should have been, and in the increasing wind she was as much as they could manage. ‘She’ll be all right unladen,’ shouted Stephen. ‘Which’ll be soon, I pray to God.’
Off Falmouth they sighted a British frigate which made some signal to them, which they pretended not to see. Jeremy was aware that they should have brought a flag or some other evidence of their nationality. However, with this wind increasing to a half gale, it was unlikely anyone would have the attention to spare for them. By noon the clouds had come down to sea level, drifting in dense masses across the tips of the waves. Philippe was sluggish and instead of riding the waves began to ship water over her stern. Stephen altered course to try to get a lee from the land.
Both young men were soaked to the skin, and water was swilling around in the bilge among the casks of brandy. Stephen made gestures to Jeremy to shorten sail.
‘I don’t want to make Mevagissey much before dark,’ he shouted.
‘If we don’t make it soon,’ said Jeremy, ‘I’m not sure we shall make it at all.’
‘I’ve been looking at me chart.’ Stephen fumbled a piece of damp parchment from under his coat, which was at once torn at by the wind. He folded it into a small square and, steadying himself against the swaying mast, contrived to put his finger on the coastline. ‘See here. That’s Dodman Point. You can see it ahead. We’ll have to weather that if we want to reach Mevagissey, and this wind, blowing full inshore … There’s these two or three inlets first. Know you if there’s any place safe to anchor in any of ‘em?’
‘I’ve never sailed in this part before. We’d do better to put about and try to slip into Portloe. There’d be shelter of a sort.’
‘Couldn’t do it. She’s too sluggish. I reckon we’ve got to take a chance.’
This was a different coast from the one they had skirted on the outward journey. Here there were no giant cliffs stranded like monuments and dropping their deep precipices into the sea. But these cliffs, though a quarter the size, with green fields running down to the sea’s edge, were almost as dangerous, with submerged reefs of rock jutting out among the waves, sharp enough to tear the keel out of any vessel that ran foul of them. It was the dagger instead of the broadsword.
For some time they ran across the wind, closing the land. Now the inlets were clearly to be seen, but it was a matter of luck whether one chose wisely. If the one selected turned out to offer nothing but submerged rocks there would then be no chance of beating out again.
To port as they came in was a largish, mainly sandy beach, on which the waves were pounding. To starboard a smaller one with little ridges of bursting water where the rocks lay. In between there were three rocky inlets with no evidence of harbour or jetty but the looks of a few yards of navigable water partly protected from the wind. Stephen chose the third, which indented furthest into the land. Jeremy at the tiller steered his way between fins of rock, Stephen let go the main sail, then the lug sail; for moments they were on a switchback of swell and broken waves, control lessening with momentum. Stephen snatched up an oar, shoved at a rock that rose like a sealion on their port bow; just in time they swung past it and were into the inlet.
They were lucky: there was a minimal stretch of quay half broken with storm and age, a stone-built hut from which half the slate roof was gone; a pebbly stretch beyond on which were some lobster-baskets. The lugger bobbed and lurched as the swell came round and swung them broadside. Jeremy took up another oar. There was a nasty jar as the lugger took the ground, then they were free again. Stephen flung a rope, missed, flung it again and it caught on a granite post; he hauled and pulled the stern round. Jeremy jabbed his oar down, found bottom, pushed. The lugger, so sluggish recently in the open sea, was now like a riderless horse that would not come to rein; it plunged and Jeremy, off balance, had to drop his oar and cling to the side to keep aboard. Another harsh collision of keel and rock, and then Jeremy got a second rope ashore and the vessel was brought heaving and grating against the cork mat that Stephen had interposed between gunnel and jetty.
Stephen pulled off his cap and with it wiped the rain and spray from his face. His mane of yellow hair clung dankly to his skull.
‘We’re safe, Jeremy boy. Though it’s a misbegotten hole we’ve come into.’
Jeremy was fishing for the lost oar with a marlin spike. The oar floated tantalizingly near him with every swell, then with each recession it slid out of reach again. Presently an extra wave brought it within range and he hauled it up dripping water and seaweed.
‘She’ll be aground when the tide goes out.’
‘It has to rise yet, from the look of the rocks. I doubt this inlet is ever dry.’
They made the lugger as safe as they could. The broken jetty was not ideal but it did offer protection.
They were suddenly in haven, quiet, after all the tossing and pitching of the last hours. Wind still blew, rain fell, the sea still surged inshore foaming at the mouth. But here they were quiet, safe from its worst reach, almost surrounded by low-growing trees, their black branches massed for protection, creaking and hissing in the wind. Nothing human to be seen.
Stephen jumped ashore. ‘We can wait a couple of hours, maybe more. Dark’d be better. I didn’t like the look of that frigate we passed.’
‘You’ll not get out of here till the wind drops.’ Jeremy followed his friend.
Stephen cast a speculative eye at the hut. ‘There’s no one about. Though they must come down here – those pots. God’s blood, I’m as hungry as the grave! We’ve nothing left to eat?’
‘Not a cursed crumb.’
They moved slowly towards the hut. ‘D’you know,’ said Stephen, ‘if we could get help, this’d be a good enough place to unload the spirit. I wonder how far it is to Mevagissey overland?’
‘Five miles, I’ll bet.’
‘D’you know, it’s far from a bad idea.’
Jeremy had come to know Stephen’s quick change of mood, his tendency to have a thought and instantly to believe in it.
‘What is?’ he asked cautiously.
‘We could stay here – go over – one of us could go over, get in touch with the right people
, deliver the brandy here, on the spot. Mevagissey, I know, has an active band of Brothers; but I’ll lay a curse the Brethren don’t bring all their cargoes into the port; maybe this is one of the coves they use. Twould be easier, safer, better to sell it and unload it here; then bring Philippe into port unladen, an innocent prize, for sale, all above board and legal and who’s to say nay?’
‘Stephen,’ Jeremy said, ‘to hell with the brandy. What is it in all – twenty ankers? The lugger is your prize. The spirit was in the lugger when you captured her. Let’s take it in, tell the Preventive men how it came about, let ’em decide what to do with it. We’re at war. You capture a French prize and whatever is in her. You get a third of the valuation, don’t you? Who’s to say that would be much less than you’d get from the Brethren? The lugger will sell just the same.’
Stephen said: ‘Is that a cottage – up the hill – there, back behind those trees? I reckon so. Let’s see if there’s folk can ease our stomachs first.’
Some of the thatch was missing from the cottage, and the way to it was overgrown with saplings and rank weed; but when they knocked a cloth was pulled from a window and an old woman peered at them. Behind her an arthritic hand held a blunderbuss which wavered in a haphazard way as they bargained for food. But when Jeremy produced silver the old man in the background lowered his gun and they were allowed in. They sat on boxes, their feet on a floor that hadn’t been resanded for a year or more and was slippery with mice droppings. They wolfed cold rabbit, watery cabbage soup, four half-mouldy apples, drank a glass of cider.
While they were eating Stephen said: ‘Look you, those are not ankers in the boat, they’re tubs, which weigh what? – fifty-six pounds. Half the size of ankers and more negotiable, as you might say. There’s not twenty – there’s forty-eight of them. Each one, give or take, holds four gallons of white brandy. Diluted to the right strength and some burnt sugar to add the colouring, that makes, give or take, twelve gallons a tub. I was never one to be good at arithmetic but I’d guess that adds to something like six hundred gallons. The Brethren can sell it to householders at 20s. the gallon. They should pay us 10s., I’d say. We couldn’t make much less than £300. Is that money you want to throw away?’
‘No, you great oaf! My share of that would come in very convenient at the moment. But we take all the risk for how much extra profit? The other way we’re on safe ground.’
Stephen hiccupped. ‘I reckon we’re on safe ground anyway, Jeremy. Safe enough. We’ll never get Philippe out again while this wind holds – you’ve said so yourself. Why don’t I leave you here, in charge, and go overland; these folk’d know the way, could direct me. With luck – if I met willing men early enough and there was a mule train available – I could come back with them; they’d unload through the night, this coming night, and be all clear away before dawn.’
Jeremy rubbed a hand through his drying hair and yawned. The two old people were out at the back somewhere, you could hear them scrabbling around but one could only guess whether they were within hearing distance – even, if they heard, whether they could understand. Jeremy knew the type in the scattered hamlets round Nampara, old and infirm, toothless, scarcely articulate, but somehow scraping enough from land or sea or charity to avoid the ultimate separation of the poorhouse.
He said: ‘I don’t know if you have the measure of the people in the Trade, Stephen. They’re suspicious – have to be. I mentioned this before. If a stranger, like you – and non-Cornish – turns up in a village and starts whispering about the brandy he’s brought in to a nearby cove, they’ll look at him all ways before they’ll move. Might even sharpen their knives. Who’s to say you’re not from the Customs House, leading them into a trap?’
‘I have two names. Stoat and Pengelly. They were given me by a shipmate, who’s now dead, God rest his soul; but he said they was big in the Trade and would know his name. That’s all I can do. D’you know of a better plan?’
‘If you’re set on running the brandy,’ said Jeremy, ‘I’d rather try to unload the stuff first, hide it in some bushes. Then at least you’re not such a sitting target for any Preventive men who happen to be strolling past.’
Stephen thought around it, then shook his head. ‘You’re right, lad, but not yet. If that’s done at all it must be done in the dark. There’s always eyes in Cornwall. The lugger looks innocent as she is; let her lie there, no one knowing what she carries … What’s the time now?’
Jeremy took out his watch, listened to see that it was still going. ‘Just after four.’
‘There’s an hour of daylight, then. If I go now I’ll be in Mevagissey soon after dark. Just right. Is there a moon tonight? No, I remember. That’s right too; they’d never risk a moon. With fair luck I should be back here by midnight with men to do the unloading for us! Will you stop here? These cottagers’ll no doubt let you sleep here for the price of an extra coin.’
‘No. I’ll stay in the lugger. Better to keep an eye on her.’
‘Good man.’ Stephen rose. ‘Then I’ll be off. But first to press these old folk to tell me the shortest route. Can you understand ‘em, Jeremy? I’m poxed if I can.’
Chapter Three
I
Jeremy knew that Stephen was greatly underrating the suspicious nature of the Cornish fishermen, especially those who carried on the Trade. They lived in a close-knit community, intermarrying so much that almost everyone was a cousin to the next man, and everyone knew everyone else’s business from cradle to grave. A man from a village three miles away was looked on as an outsider. What chance, then, did a stranger stand, coming from upcountry, from a port half of them had never heard of, of gaining their confidence? Had so many of them not been Methodists, the most probable result would have been to see Stephen Carrington floating out face down on the next tide.
That being forbidden, and anyhow most of them being pretty good-natured underneath, the likely outcome for Stephen would be blank faces, half-promises that weren’t kept, a passing on from one man to another, an assumption of stupidity that would send him angry away.
Jeremy stayed in the cottage for about an hour after Stephen left. He tried to talk with the two old people, but it was slow work. He learned that they lived in the parish of St Michael Caerhays, that the local landlord and lord of the manor was called Trevanion, that the nearest village was Boswinger but that it was men from the farms at Tregavarras and Treveor who owned the lobster-pots. They kept their boat in the ruined hut by the quay, but just now they was all sick with the jolly rant so they’d not been out this week. Jeremy requested a description and came to the conclusion that the jolly rant was probably plain influenza. He asked how far the nearest town was, the nearest coach route, but they had no idea. The name of Grampound was mentioned but they didn’t know in which direction it lay. Their horizon hardly extended beyond Mevagissey.
About five-thirty he left the cottage and returned to the lugger. The rain had stopped and cloud over the land flushed red as a wound as the sun set. The wind still blew fiercely off the sea, but now that he was part dried out it did not seem so cold.
He jumped on the lugger and went below. It was going to be a dreary wait but he did not fancy sleep. While the remnants of the daylight lasted he explored the vessel, found some documents in a drawer and the ship’s log; regretted he had learned Latin at school and not French. It was in the hold forward of the foremast that most of the brandy was stowed. There was a good deal of water slopping about in here, and he hoped the lugger had not sprung a leak. That would explain her sluggishness. Pity if Stephen succeeded in his mission and returned to find Philippe settled in six feet of water.
Jeremy thought with amusement that his own tendencies towards caution had only developed since he associated with Stephen. The Bristol man had an extraordinary conviction that almost anything he wished to happen would happen. He could talk his way, work his way, fight his way out of anything. And into it too. Jeremy’s reactions were an instinctive counterbalance to Stephen’s bli
nd optimism. Yet – one had to confess it with a sense of admiration – if anyone could achieve the highly unlikely and arrive back at midnight with a posse of docile brandy-runners, it was Stephen.
Jeremy went on deck and looked around. There was nothing more to do here. Darkness had come down. Quilted clouds drifted across the sky, obscuring and revealing a few moist stars. The tide was ebbing, but, as Stephen said, it was unlikely to leave the jetty altogether dry. If the lugger grounded she would do no real harm to herself. He returned to the cabin. There was a storm lantern but he thought it unwise to light it. He settled himself at the porthole to wait and watch.
Hours passed, and he dozed, started fitfully awake, dozed again. His eyelids bore all the cares of the world.
He woke with a start to hear someone moving on the deck above him. He was cold now, chilled, and the darkness was intense. He sat still for a while. Sometimes in the first snap of autumn at Nampara a rat would get up into the roof among the thatch and, deep in the night, would begin to explore the warm haven he had found. This was a noise very similar, cautious, stealthy, inquiring. A footstep, a scrape, a shuffle; all probably inaudible to the person or thing that made it, but magnified below deck. Jeremy had a knife but no firearms; it was indeed no more than a jack-knife – one his father had brought back from America a quarter of a century ago – but he pulled it from his pocket, unclasped the blade.
Then he heard a voice, a whisper, gruff and uncompromising. It was answered. The scraping and the movements went on.
Whoever it was, there was little to steal on deck: the sails, a spar or two, a cork raft. His normal impulse would have led him quickly up the ladder to demand the business of the intruders and to challenge their right here; but Stephen’s insistence on bringing in the brandy left him unsure of himself, afraid to claim authority lest it should be authority of another sort that was investigating the lugger. If the intruders came down, then he would face them. If he heard them moving casks from the forward hold he would quickly be out to stop them. But just for the moment wait. Lie low and wait.
The Stranger from the Sea: A Novel of Cornwall, 1810-1811 Page 16
