The Stranger from the Sea: A Novel of Cornwall, 1810-1811

by Winston Graham

  So one moment led to another, and presently the scraping and the muffled footsteps died and there was silence. He looked at his watch but could not see the face. Once he fancied there was an extra lurch from the boat as if maybe someone had jumped off it onto the jetty, but perhaps that was imagining, perhaps that was thinking what he wanted to think.

  Stephen arrived back an hour before dawn. He whistled, soft but distinct, and Jeremy came up the companionway to meet him. The sky had quite cleared and was a net of stars.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘My damned accursed feet! These shoes was not meant for walking! It seemed like ten miles, not five. Those old skeletons who directed me did not know the way! But still … All is arranged.’

  ‘Arranged?’

  ‘You were right, Jeremy, these fisherfolk are like clams: you have to force their jaws open with a knife. Mevagissey was a nightmare; I could find neither Stoat nor Pengelly. But in the end … by judicious use of silver coin. They’re coming tomorrow night.’

  ‘Tomorrow!’

  ‘They said twas too late to organize a run for tonight, and I must say I saw their problem. You cannot pick up a score of mules without due preparation. Also they said it cannot be done obvious, public like. There’s a Custom House in the port, and a look-out on Nare Head. They’ll come tomorrow at eleven in the evening. Roach is the man I dealt with, Septimus Roach. He’s fat and hard and mean and niggard as a louse but I reckon he’ll play fair. He knows I’d get him if he didn’t … He wouldn’t promise me more’n 6s. 6d. a gallon, and that only after he’s seen and tasted. Ah well, that will be a handsome return on an outlay of nothing at all!’

  Jeremy rubbed tired eyes. ‘And the daylight hours of today?’

  ‘We’d best get them off. You were right about that. Find a cache. It shouldn’t be hard, God knows; all these trees growing down to the water. It’ll be work, but if we get them hid then we’re in a better position – can let ’em see one tub when they come, taste it, pay up before we show ’em where the rest is.’

  ‘This cove may not be so empty as it looks,’ Jeremy said. ‘Two people came aboard after you had gone, early on in the night, while I was down here. I didn’t challenge them.’ Stephen stopped rubbing his heel and stared. ‘What were they – men, children?’

  ‘Didn’t see ‘em, just heard them moving about on deck for about ten minutes. So far as I could tell they carried no light.’

  Nare Head was just becoming visible against the creeping dawn.

  Stephen said: ‘You didn’t dream it? Or was it seagulls?’

  ‘I heard them speak. And they didn’t sound like children.’

  ‘Holy Mary, I don’t like the trim of that … But then … what’s our choice? Wind has taken off a bit – we might get out, spend the day just over the horizon. But the old tub has sprung a leak, hasn’t she?’

  ‘It’s just for’ard of the rudder somewhere. I don’t think it’s serious. But the pump doesn’t work. We could try baling.’

  Stephen pulled his boot on again. ‘Don’t know why these Frenchies let their vessels get captured in such poor condition … Still, she’s sound over all. And would be a lot easier to handle if lightened of a ton and a half of brandy! I think we’ll get it off.’

  ‘Let’s start, then,’ said Jeremy. ‘I’d like to see it all stowed away somewhere before we break our fast!’

  II

  They got it off. It was specially hard on the hands, for the tubs were rough and there were splinters. Their choice of a hiding-place was necessarily limited by the distance they could carry the tubs. Also by the growing daylight. The dense vegetation all round the tiny inlet had at first given a sense of security, of isolation. But Jeremy’s experience changed that. Who knew who was watching?

  They considered first the part-ruined hut. It was handy, the door would force easily. If the people using the lobsterpots were sick they would not be likely to want their boat. Just for one day. But after assembling a mountain of tubs by the door they went foraging and found a declivity, as if someone at some time had quarried there – or even mined. By carrying the tubs to the slope they could be rolled gently in, and it was a position quite hidden from the rocky track leading up from the cove.

  By the time it was all done the sun was well up, slanting brilliantly into the cove, and Philippe rode more buoyantly, as if she had lost both a physical and a moral weight. The wind was from the south, having backed a point or two, but was still firm and strong. They spent half an hour baling and trying to find where the lugger was letting in water; when they came on deck two children of about seven and eight years old were standing on the jetty, fingers in mouths, watching them.

  ‘These your visitors?’ said Stephen.

  ‘I doubt it. Their voices haven’t broken yet.’

  Jeremy spoke to the children, smiling at them, asking what their names were, where they came from. They stared. One took his finger out of his mouth, but it was only to spit. They were in rags, barefoot, skin showing at shoulder and knee. They were filthy. The girl, who was the younger, had a skin disease, scabs about the mouth and chin. When Jeremy went up to them they both backed away.

  ‘I reckon we leave them here while we look for food,’ Stephen said. ‘They can do no harm.’

  ‘You didn’t think to bring food back with you?’ Jeremy asked.

  ‘There was little chance. Else I poached a chicken somewhere.’

  ‘I could eat a horse,’ said Jeremy. ‘I’m fearful those two old people will have nothing for us. Even money can’t conjure up meat where there is none.’

  They left the children sucking at their fingers and staring after them. The old woman, who no doubt knew everything they were about, had baked black barley bread and had turned out some apple conserve. She also offered two mackerel the old man had picked up somewhere, but after sniffing at them, they said no. They drank weak tea. The old man sat in a corner of the tiny room by the clothcovered window and watched them. Jeremy thought they had hardly altered their own situation from the cottage at Tresco. He paid them ten times what the meal was worth, and the old woman became friendly. Would they be staying long? If so, she’d send Alf into Mevagissey to buy fish and potatoes. (‘Holy Mary,’ said Stephen under his breath, ‘can he walk that far?’) They replied that they would be leaving in the morning but if she could contrive to provide them with something, perhaps a few eggs and butter from one of the nearby farms, they would prefer not to trouble her husband to take such a long trip. She nodded and blinked out of eyes crusty with eczema and cupidity, and said: proper job, proper job, she’d send him only to Treveor.

  When they had eaten, they walked back to the lugger and Stephen lit a pipe. The children had gone. The wind was dropping all the time, and in the sharp sunshine it was quite warm. Stephen presently put his pipe aside and stretched out on the deck and went to sleep.

  Jeremy sat against the hatchway, picking splinters out of the palm of his hand. By now Nampara Girl should be home, unless they had been forced to seek shelter in St Ives or St Ann’s. He wondered if his father were on his way back from London yet, if he had met Clowance, if the Enyses would return soon. He knew that it was on account of this young man sleeping in the sun beside him that Clowance had gone away. He wondered if he would like Stephen as a brother-in-law, supposing it should all turn out to be as serious as that. He found him engaging company, as so many people did. Particularly as so many women did. For the last week Stephen had been living with the Nanfans, and already there was gossip about him and Beth Nanfan, who was grey-eyed like her mother, and blonde, and twenty-two. (Not, as Jeremy too well knew, that it was possible to smile at any one anointed girl in Sawle or Grambler without creating gossip, even scandal.) Stephen was one of those men whose outgoing natures somehow impede a closer acquaintance. He talked freely of his life at sea, answered readily any casual questions about his childhood and youth near Bristol – which he seemed to call Bristow – admitted that he had lived wild and rough; he was generous with
his money and with his time; already he had become well known in Sawle and not disliked – which was an achievement for a newcomer in a district nearly as close-knit as Mevagissey.

  Time passed and Jeremy, himself short of sleep, dozed, then woke to see someone moving on the track above the creek. He touched Stephen, who woke instantly from a deep sleep, hand on belt where his knife was sheathed. Jeremy pointed.

  ‘Looks like the old woman.’

  ‘She’s making some sign. Go see what she wants, Jeremy. Nay, I’ll come with you.’

  They jumped ashore and strode up the hill. It was indeed the old woman, around her head a dirty silk scarf She was standing behind a gnarled hawthorn tree, her jaws champing. She said something as they came up that neither could follow. But they understood the finger raised to her lips.

  ‘What is it?’ said Jeremy in a lowered voice, bending towards her.

  ‘… gers,’ she said through her gums.

  ‘Strangers?’

  She shook her head impatiently, eyes aglance.

  ‘Gaugers?’ said Jeremy.

  ‘Ais…’

  They both straightened up, looked around, taut and apprehensive.

  ‘Where?’

  She jerked her head over her shoulder.

  ‘At your cottage?’

  ‘Ais…’

  ‘God Almighty! We’d best…’

  Jeremy patted the old woman’s hand by way of thanks as they turned to go down again. But it was too late. A boot clinked on a stone. Stephen sank into the bushes with Jeremy beside him. The old woman started up the hill again as two men came round the corner. They wore shabby blue fustian jackets with darker blue barragan breeches and black hats. Each carried a musket and a bandolier.

  The taller said: ‘What’re ee doin’, missus, walkin’ out takin’ the air, eh? Who telled you you could slip away, eh? What you got to hide?’

  The old woman cowered and tried to slink past, but the man caught at her headscarf.

  ‘Where d’ye get this, you? Tedn what you’d belong to find in these parts. Been doin’ a bit of running on yer own, ave ee?’

  The old woman cringed and clawed and whined.

  ‘What? Twas give ee? Gis along! Who’d give a fine bit o’ silk like this to a speary old witch like you? Eh? Eh? I’ve the good mind to impound it on his Majesty’s be’alf.’

  ‘Come along, Tom,’ said the shorter, older man. ‘We got more important business than she.’

  They let her go and went on down towards the boat. She watched them, and when they were out of hearing spat on the ground where they’d stood and bent to make a curious sign in the spittle. She gave no other indication to the two men in hiding but scuttled up the hill towards her cottage, clutching the suspect scarf.

  Jeremy stretched a cramped leg that had been folded under him. Stephen caught his arm.

  ‘Hell and damnation, if they find the brandy we’re sunk! But if we don’t go down they may well impound the lugger.’

  ‘Come over here. There’s better cover the other side.’

  They dodged across the track and made slowly in the wake of the two Preventive men. From among the bushes they saw the men go out onto the jetty and approach the Philippe. One of them shouted, to bring up from below anyone who was on board. When there was no answer the tall one made to jump onto the lugger but the shorter man restrained him. They stood there arguing a few moments. The older man from his gestures could have been pointing out that Customs officers should not board a vessel except in the presence of the owner.

  Then the tall one looked down at the jetty and pointed back along it to the stone shed. It is not possible to unload forty-eight tubs of spirit without leaving some traces, and where the two young men had tramped backwards and forwards with their burdens the damp grass was flattened and muddy. It was plain too that some sort of boxes or barrels had recently been stacked before the door of the shed. The men now walked back and up to the shed, tried the door but could not get in. Then together they must both have seen that the beaten muddy tracks did not end at the door but crossed the grassy square, which still had puddles in it from the rain, to where the brambles and dead bracken were broken to make a way off to the left.

  Stephen began to curse under his breath. ‘What luck! What misbegotten vile filthy devil-invented luck! God damn them to all eternity! Someone must have brought them here. That old woman…’

  ‘It was not the old woman,’ said Jeremy, ‘for she warned us just in time.’

  ‘Well, one of her breed! There was someone came nosing on us last night – you said so. Maybe they watched this morning. Those kids…’

  ‘Careful,’ said Jeremy. ‘Don’t stand up or they’ll see you.’

  ‘Nay, they’re too busy following that trail we left! Look at ‘em: heads down like a couple of damned lurchers…’

  There was a click behind them; they swung round. A man carrying a musket; a shabby, down-at-heel man in a jacket too big for him, a round peakless cap, heavy moustaches. On the sleeve of the jacket was an armband.

  ‘Stay where you’re to, my dears,’ he said, in a highpitched voice. ‘Just to be safe now, stay where you’re to. Leave us see what you’re about, shall us?’

  After a moment Stephen swallowed and said: ‘What we’re about? Nothing, that’s what we’re about, save watching those two friends of yours down there on their beat. Strolling, we were, though the woods and we saw a couple of yon scavengers and wondered what they were about. See. That’s all.’

  ‘Ais? There, there, my dears, thou shusn’t tell such lies. Nay, nay, let us be honest men, shall us?’ He put fingers into his broken teeth and whistled shrilly. ‘Nick! Tom! Up here, my dears! I’ve flushed a little nest o’ meaders!’

  Jeremy saw the other two Preventive men stop and look up. They turned and began to come back up the path towards them. From where he was standing the third man could not see whether his companions had heard for he put his fingers to his mouth to whistle again. As he did this Stephen kicked the musket out of his hand.

  While the musket clattered Stephen jumped; the man aimed a wild blow but Stephen’s fist crashed into his face and he fell backwards into the bushes. He half rose and Stephen, grabbing the musket, jabbed at him with the butt. He fell back.

  ‘Come on!’

  They began to run, for by now the other two were a bare forty yards away. There was a crack and a ball whistled between them.

  ‘This way!’

  They thrust into the thicker-growing trees that surrounded the cove. After a few yards Stephen stopped and discharged the musket back in the direction of the pursuing men.

  ‘That’ll make ’em more cautious.’ He flung the musket over some bushes, for they had neither powder nor shot.

  They were making their way almost due west through the bare sunshot trees with bramble and every sort of undergrowth plucking at their breeches, clutching at hand and hair. They were making too much noise not to be followed, and they could similarly hear their pursuers, occasionally catch a glimpse of blue among the trees. But no more shots were tried.

  It was rough going, and Stephen gave a sudden loud grunt, dropped on one knee, got up again.

  ‘What is it?’ Jeremy demanded.

  ‘My ankle – some blamed rabbit hole – twisted a bit! Twill be all right.’ After a few moments’ more running: ‘You go on.’

  ‘Damned if I do,’ said Jeremy, slowing.

  ‘Damned if you don’t! Look you.’ Stephen plucked hair out of his eyes. ‘Best if we separate – they can’t follow both … or won’t. They’ll be too scared – tis toss of a coin which they’ll choose – but it’s likely they’ll follow me. I can look after meself – I’m used to rough dealing – you’re not…’ The trees were thinning and they would have to cross a trickling stream to the next wood. ‘Listen, Jeremy – if they catch you give false name – say twas all my doing! If they don’t – make for home as best you can … Adios!’

  A minute longer they were together, then Jeremy le
apt the stream while Stephen swung sharply right, hobblerunning through the thinning trees. Jeremy felt his back was two yards wide waiting for the musket ball. It did not come. One of the gaugers had fallen and the other one was helping him up. More trees, thank God.

  He was coming too near the sea for safe cover. He had twisted his own leg in the last jump and was getting winded. No doubt, he thought, so were the gaugers.

  Two or three minutes later he came out on a beach. It was one of those they had seen when coming in yesterday. Sand and low sharp-running rocks. If he went on that he was a target; even at a distance they could get him in the legs. Above the beach were more trees part-hiding a house. A great turreted place, surrounded by a ruined wall. Panting, he looked back. Couldn’t see the Customs officers but he could hear the occasional crackle of undergrowth. They, like him, were slowing but were not far away. It looked as if their choice had fallen on him. Perhaps this was to be expected as he had run straight; they might not even know they had split up until the trees thinned again.

  By the time they came out of the trees perhaps he could follow Stephen’s good example and disappear also. The wall surrounding the grounds of the house was a quartermile from the house itself. To reach it he would have to sprint a hundred yards without cover – and preferably not be seen at all while he was about it. A high risk, but the alternatives were to run exposed the half-mile of the beach or try to cut up into the fields to the north where cattle were grazing.

  He took the risk, forgetting the jarring in his leg, the panting lungs. Fear doubled his stride. The wall was higher than he’d thought; he scrabbled along it, could get no purchase, ran towards the gate, found a broken part of the wall no more than five feet and was over, fell flat into a shallow ditch on the other side, lay there gasping, trying to get in a supply of air before the necessity of having scarcely to breathe at all.