The Contraband Shore

by David Donachie

  Smuggling with Spafford had allowed them a life of some ease for the occasional risk of being had up by the Revenue and even, given they were sometimes armed, being maimed or killed. If they had been well rewarded, it would have been spent as soon as it was paid; that was the nature of the beast and Spafford knew it. There would likely be not a saved guinea between them.

  ‘So where’s the money to buy a boat, an’ you need that to eat? Where’s the coin to pay the Clerk of the Council for a spot on the beach? And even if you could run to it, what kind of living could you make with everyone out to cut each other’s throat for portage or a passenger? I daresay there are ways to eke a crust, as a crossing sweeper or a night soil man, happen.’

  A pause heavy with meaning was followed by, ‘You’re with me, Daisy?’

  ‘As ever Dan.’

  That got the assembly a gimlet-eyed examination of those same faces, which left in more than one mind the thought that disloyalty could make it unsafe to show Daisy your back.

  ‘Right, let’s get dressed as we need to be.’

  The men who made their way to the shore, carrying the oars that would propel their boats, were uniformly attired in long dark coats and tricorn hats, while half of them were armed.

  John Hawker, having set his toughs on Brazier, had picked up his horse and a pair of pistols at the slaughterhouse, to then make his way to St Margaret’s Bay, riding along a path running along the high point of the chalk down, a task that became increasingly difficult as twilight turned slowly to night. So it was by lantern light he made his destination: a dilapidated cottage halfway down a cliff-side track, already occupied by one of his gang members.

  His primary job had been to assess the sea state in daylight and, if it looked suitable, to hoist an ensign on a flagstaff only visible out at sea, which would tell the vessel cruising out in the Channel it was, weather-wise, safe to come in. Tulkington was adamant no chances be taken, so only if the flag remained flying would the operation proceed, which meant it was necessary to ascertain that was still true and that there were no sightings of Preventatives trying to assemble in the village half a mile inland.

  They should have been strung out halfway between Deal and Walmer Castle, waiting for a cargo that was never going to arrive, but it was best to be sure. Nothing had been reported so, certain it was safe and that the men he needed were in position, he lit and handed over one lantern, then took another himself.

  A lifted trapdoor exposed a set of steps, which took him and his companion down to a narrow tunnel, in which the light he carried bounced off the smooth white of the chalk, this providing good illumination. As the crouched pair made their way, other lanterns were lit at intervals until the point came where they must split.

  ‘Remember, wait till you see the light flash out to sea.’

  The instruction got a look, which said the listener was no fool and knew what he was about. In the face of a glare from Hawker, who was no more a man to leave matters to chance than his employer, it quickly disappeared and so did he. Going on alone Hawker eventually felt a breeze on his face as well as the smell of the sea in his nostrils, which told him he was close to the high opening, one covered by a gorse bush growing out of the chalk cliff.

  He shaded his lantern prior to moving the edge of the bush to one side, just enough to let him see out, using a tie left on a ringbolt to keep it from swinging back. It was near to blackness now, broken clouds in the sky hiding the stars and too little moon to silver the edges. Held up, his lantern was unshaded three times, with no response, which did not cause worry.

  The time a ship could make its landfall could never be fixed, regardless of tides – indeed it was not unknown for there to be no arrival at all and with no way of telling why. All he could do was wait.

  Spafford was in no rush to execute a plan he had worked out a long time past, as well as one he had dreamt many times of carrying through. It was a long slow row, in a pair of oared cutters, from the boathouse at Sandwich Flats to where he needed first to be. He had no intention of having his men bend their backs to throw up spray, which might pick up what little light existed and be visible to watchers on the Kingsdown cliffs.

  Being in the smuggling game required that he know every bit of the coast and Spafford hove to a cable’s length short of the headland called Leathercote Point, the south side of which formed the northern extremity of the destination bay. He needed to wait out of sight to even the keenest eye, rocking on the swell, the oars only used to steady the boats, keeping them from drifting, while he sang softly to himself, which he hoped would reassure his bound-to-be-nervous companions.

  The winking light out at sea came after a long wait. Spafford knew that would be responded to, even if he could not see the pair of lanterns spaced wide apart on either arc of the bay, of which he had been told. This gave the ship’s master a way to make his landfall close to, if not exactly in, the middle of the bay, thus avoiding the huge rocks at the edges. Even with an onshore breeze there would be no sail; the ship would be edged in on its sweeps, dropping an anchor in deep water and paid out on the capstan until she grounded. Once unloaded and lightened, the same cable and capstan would be employed to silently haul the vessel out to deep water again.

  ‘We’re on, Dan,’ Daisy whispered. ‘You was right. Hear that lads, he were right.’

  ‘We’ll stay awhile, yet.’

  If the approaching vessel was hard to see, it was not, in increasingly close proximity, impossible to hear; creaking cordage and straining timbers, plus the odd command, floated across the water, until eventually an outline of triced-up canvas on the yards could be faintly detected. Then came the splashing sound of the long sweeps dipping into the water to provide steerage way. The noises grew, grunts and possibly curses, with bodies moving about to tell Spafford the holds were being opened and emptied, the cargo being brought on deck so that transferring it would be as swift as possible.

  There would be men on the strand now and they would cast a line to draw ashore a thicker cable, this so the ship could be hauled in and held fast to a dolphin. That would be followed by the dropping of a long gangplank, down which the contraband could be speedily taken to a pair of long ladders. These led up to the entrances, twin tunnels through which it would be carried at the run. Speed was essential; the ship needed to be a goodly distance offshore by dawn, an innocent-looking trading vessel on a course for a French home port.

  Hawker was well aware this was the time of maximum danger, so his nerves were taut. You could take all the precautions you like, but you could never be sure it would not all go ahoo. If the Revenue were waiting where they should be, in anticipation of what he had told them was coming ashore, all would be mustered in the wrong place. Thus there would be none to man the other possible concern: the Revenue’s armed cutter, berthed in Dover Harbour.

  A vessel that carried four small cannon, it was to be feared. Out at sea it was invisible and, being a swift sailer if well handled, it could quickly spring a trap, at which point the ship and what it carried would be abandoned. The tunnels, quickly sealed to keep their entrances hidden, would be full, not of cargo, but men seeking to escape capture.

  The silence, which had mostly held, was broken by the rasp of the keel on the pebbles. Then came gasps and the occasional cry, added to the scrunch of a multitude of feet, both the ship’s crew and Hawker’s locals, slithering as they tried to run on a rising bank of shingle bearing a load, with Dan Spafford listening hard and seeking to time what would come next.

  The chambers in which the cargo was stored were nowhere near sea level; they were halfway up the cliff side and access to them was wide enough for only one man at a time, so once the first loads were on their way, the numbers on the beach would be few and that was when he could strike.

  ‘Haul away,’ was a quiet instruction.

  The oars were dipped to take the Spafford boats in to the shore. Once they heard the hiss of water on the shingle it was pull hard, with his men being led out before
the lead cutter even beached, to splash along the shoreline yelling ‘Surrender in the name of the King’, with their leader firing off one of his pistols, the crack of which echoed around the bay, this while the second cutter was heading for the side of the cargo ship to board.

  That pistol shot had John Hawker, who was on his way to pay the vessel’s master his fee, returning to his opening to peer out into the gloom. He was now trying to grasp what was happening, as well as seeking to make sense of it. He had got to his present position of trust for several reasons, not least his willingness to do whatever was necessary in the chastisement line. But he also possessed a good brain as well as reliable judgement and his instincts, as well as the lack of loud, shouted and repeated orders to yield, indicated to him this was no Revenue raid.

  The lantern was abandoned as he hurried back down his tunnel and, knowing the various routes well, he was soon scurrying through the one that led to the main storage chambers, for it was off these that all the others ran. Inside the feeder routes there were men by the several dozen carrying the cargo uphill in a long line and, given the varied objects some were having to manoeuvre, seeking to avoid getting stuck.

  Most were so far inside the dense chalk that the sound of Dan Spafford’s pistol going off was muted; only those at the very rear heard it and that did not produce any willingness to turn and find the source, quite the reverse. All knew what to do if they were threatened, which was to haul in the ladders and close off the entrances.

  There would be no rushing out into darkness and possible arrest. Above their heads were locals set to keep watch and they would know how lay the land. Having been told what they might face, they would then get to the surface and disperse over time, using a multitude of concealed exits, some of which ran to the next headland.

  Part of Spafford’s plan was to have the pair who once worked for Tulkington get to those entrances quickly – they knew well where they lay – and discharge a fowling piece full of buckshot towards each. Aim was not important: it was designed to induce fear, and if some of the shot struck home so much the better. The real object was to ensure those entrances were quickly sealed, this while the main body ran to intimidate those still on the ship.

  They could then get their cutters alongside and unload as much cargo as they could carry, a task made easier given that the few sailors remaining, being unarmed and taken utterly by surprise, had rushed below at the sound of the first shot to man the capstan and seek to get the ship off the shingle. Only the master stood his ground, slashing at the holding cable with an axe until he was felled by Dan Spafford’s pistol butt.

  For all his screaming imprecations, John Hawker, having made one of the main chambers and seeking to get down to ensure all was secure, could not get past the lumbering and ignorant men portaging the cargo, even when the news of what was happening to the rear rippled forwards. The narrow tunnels had been hewn out of the self-stabilising chalk for one-way traffic, with only the occasional cut-out niche where a man could sit and rest, a seat provided. If Hawker managed to turn the man before him, it did little to persuade those following, which ended with everything coming to a complete halt.

  The Spafford thieving was not leisurely: it was ferocious and far from organised. What could be grabbed was flung and only occasionally lowered to the cutters, until there was barely enough room for those who were required to row. Eventually a halt was called and a retreat ordered. The escape was messy and quite a few were served a ducking as they tried to get aboard with too much haste.

  That accepted, they were not disheartened as they rowed out the now low-in-the-water boats – quite the reverse. For blood-up and coursing ruffians, who hated common toil and sought profit in adventure, elation came from having just tweaked a very powerful nose.

  Hawker got to the strand level eventually by allowing all the cargo in the tunnels up into the main chambers. He had his twin pistols out, ready and cocked as he made the sealed-off exit, to listen hard for evidence of activity. None being apparent he had it opened and the ladder lowered to come gingerly out, lantern held aloft, into the blackness of the night, several of his men following.

  There was an eerie silence at first, yet on the soft breeze there carried the faint sound of cheerful singing and, had he been able to see in the dark, Hawker would have been given sight of two cutters full of merry men and purloined contraband. Up the gangplank he came across the laid-out captain being tended to by a couple of his sailors, one of his gang opining, as he saw the mess of cargo that had been abandoned, bolts of silk and a keg of brandy rolling back and forth on the slight canting of the deck.

  ‘That weren’t no Preventatives, John,’ said the man with him. ‘This was thievery.’

  ‘Throats will be slit for this,’ was his spoken response, as a couple more of his men joined him.

  ‘Who was it?’ That got a slow shake of the head but the verbal response was vehement. ‘But I will find who it is and butcher them.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The night was uncomfortable once the draught of laudanum by which Brazier had been sent to sleep wore off. Every time he moved, the pain caused him to wake. In a room with heavy drapes, which cut out any daylight, he more than once wondered where he was. The apothecary had been asked to supply more than bandages; various ointments and pain-dulling preparations had been ordered and applied to his afflictions and if they had eased matters when first used, it did not last all the hours he was comatose.

  Fully awake he had to reprise what had occurred, not least the supposition his twin assailants might have been intent on robbery, yet that was dismissed not only because of the words they had uttered but the fact that he still had his purse and his watch. Those words played out in his mind, so often they became blurred by repetition, but the one on which he never lost focus was the repeated name of Daisy.

  Who was she and why had he so offended her? Could it be a case of mistaken identity, for he knew no one of that name and certainly not in Deal, or anywhere else for that matter? It took some time before the other words he recalled moved to a point of any clarity, which finally put him back in the tavern at which he had stopped on the way. Park your arse? Leave Deal? Nothing made sense.

  He dropped off again, tired of reflection, this till the drapes were dragged open, the rasping on the pole enough to have him open his one good eye. Saoirse was by the window, to then turn and gesture over him. He spun his head to see a female servant she had brought with her, in her hands a steaming bowl.

  ‘Beef soup, Captain, to restore you. It would be best you down that before I treat your wounds again with the apothecary’s creations. If you can sit up, you may spoon yourself; if not, Harriet here will feed you.’

  ‘Try me,’ Brazier replied, his voice both rasping and made thick by his swollen lip.

  Saoirse came round to take his outstretched hands and pull, her face showing concern at the obvious discomfort caused. But Brazier was firm in his resolve and was soon sitting with his back to the upright part of the settle, looking at his hands and his bruised knuckles. A small table was set down next to him on which the bowl could be placed, followed by a spoon, before Harriet disappeared. As soon as he leant forward cushions were slipped behind his back.

  ‘Do we have a mirror glass?’

  ‘I’m not sure you’d be wanting to see yourself. Anyway, take the soup first.’

  ‘I have other needs to attend to beforehand,’ he croaked, with a meaningful look.

  And he did, these being the call of nature, which obliged his hostess to fetch for him the chamber pot. Vacating the room, she was not there to observe the difficulties incumbent of him relieving himself but must have guessed, and so he was given time. She was also careful enough to knock and ensure he had completed his toilet before entering once more, happy to see the soup bowl empty and the chamber pot full. Harriet was with her to take the latter to be emptied. Saoirse had fetched with her a small mirror, which he took and lifted gingerly to look.

  ‘Not a pretty
sight.’

  ‘Was it ever that?’

  ‘Sure, there’s a time when a body can be too modest.’

  Brazier examined the swollen eye, now surrounded by a black bruise, the lump on his forehead and the upper lip already beginning to form a scar. His nose too seemed a mite wider than normal.

  ‘This would not be one of them and that applies as much to my body, I suspect.’ His tongue employed in inspection, he added, ‘at least I still have my teeth.’

  ‘There’s more than soup if you wish to employ them.’

  He shook his head slowly, then looked down at his bloodstained shirt. ‘My uniform?’

  ‘Taken down the street to be attended to by a washerwoman. The breeches we declined to remove and they are, as you can see, filthy and, like your stockings, torn, so I have sent to the Three Kings to fetch replacements.’

  ‘How very discreet,’ was his mordant response; he could easily imagine Garlick arriving at certain conclusions when hearing the request and where it was from – this as, with some difficulty, he got to his feet, swaying slightly. ‘I can assume that will be all over the town too?’

  She laughed out loud as an amusing thought struck her. ‘Happen when you’re seen, they’ll think it was I who did this to you. But seriously, sit down once more and I’ll ointment your bruises. There is no rush for you to leave.’

  ‘I seem to recall mentioning discretion.’

  ‘The point of that is long past. Your uniform will be a while, so settle yourself down, let me do as I said, then I’ll have you sent up a proper breakfast, as well as someone to shave you.’

  He lifted the mirror again to look. ‘Which will not be easy.’

  ‘God knows you look rough enough without you have a day’s growth as well. Since you’re bent on seeking discretion, it might be an idea to take you to look over Quebec Court. The Three Kings is no place to be staying with a black eye and a split lip.’