(1/3) Go Saddle the Sea

by Joan Aiken

  "What kind of a ship is this, old grandfather?" I asked the cook, to conceal from him, and perhaps from myself, my growing uneasiness.

  "It is an urea, my young master—a Biscayan felucca," he replied.

  This also went to confirm my guess about the men's calling; Sam had told me that the felucca, or Biscay hooker, was the craft most commonly used by smugglers, for it is equally at home in the open ocean or in creeks and hidden, enclosed waters—a lateen-rigged ship that maneuvers very easily on account of its long helm, and can be rowed as readily as it can be sailed.

  "And what course shall we take to England?"

  "We cross the Gulf of Gascony, lord, steer west of the Isle of Ushant, and then, bearing northward, steering for the pole, we cross the English Channel and - come to Falmouth."

  "How long will that take us?"

  "That is as God wills and the winds blow. Perhaps four days, perhaps eight—we shall see."

  At least, I thought, the old man seemed friendly enough, and did not display any threatening attitude. Perhaps—having me secure on board—my smuggler hosts were biding their time to ask me for more money, confident that I must give them all I had. Perhaps, I began to think, it would have been wiser to wait for two days, lying concealed in the monastery, and then embark on Sam's Beauty of Bristol. Had I been a fool? Was it plain obstinacy that led me to entrust myself to this questionable little ship?

  To distract my mind from these uncomfortable thoughts, and the possibility that I might arrive in my father's land without a penny to my name and be obliged to beg my way—I opened my bundle and pulled out the second volume of Susan. During my rereading of this work I had now reached the highly dramatic moment when poor young Miss Susan, paying a visit to her grand friends, is suddenly turned out of doors by their angry father, who has hitherto shown her nothing but favor and civility. She is utterly at a loss to know how she can have earned his displeasure and, penniless and wretched, has to make the best of her way home across England. I read all this with deep interest. Still, I could not help contrasting her lot with mine. She, at least, had a friend to lend her the coach fare home; she also had a loving family waiting to welcome her at the end of her journey; whereas, what did I have? Privately I considered that Miss Susan was none too badly off; though I did think it unkind of the old General to turn her out so abruptly.

  Musing in this way I glanced up from the page to find the old cook's eyes fixed on me with as wild a look in them as if I had flames coming out of my ears.

  "Ay, Ave Maria!" he muttered, crossing himself three times. "Is the young lord a sorcerer? Do not cast a spell on poor old Luc or his broth, your lordship, I beg!"

  It seemed that he had never seen any person reading a book before, and therefore took it to be some manual of witchcraft. As he stirred his broth he kept taking terrified peeps at me, then fortifying himself with gulps from a flask he wore attached to his belt. And all the time he muttered to himself about the spirits of drowned sailors, who may be seen flying through the mist, carrying lighted candles in their hands, and who bewitch living sailors with their evil arts, so that they too jump into the waves and perish. He seemed to think that I might be in league with these spirits, or even be one of them in disguise.

  It struck me that his superstitious fear might be turned to good account, so I said calmly, "Do not distress yourself, old Luc. I have a little power over the Estadea" (this was a Gallegan name for these spirits which I had learned from Pedro) "and I will do my best to see that they do not hurt you while I am aboard the Guipuzcoa."

  Later I was to remember these idle words.

  The old mans terrors were somewhat pacified by this, though he still eyed my little book as if it had been a viper that might shoot a long neck across the room and bite him.

  Now the tall captain reappeared in the doorway and said, "Luc! Give the young lord a bit of bread and. a mouthful of spirit." He indicated with a jerk of his head a wicker-covered flask that hung from a nail of the wall, and said to me, "It will be rough when we are out at sea. An east wind is blowing up. The young señor is not used to a sea passage? I have sailed the Cantabrian Gulf for thirty years, but even I still became queasy if I do not settle my stomach with a drop of aguardiente beforehand.".

  Then somebody called to him from the forward end of the ship, and he left again, shutting the door.

  "Thirty years?" the old man muttered. "Chacurra! I have been at sea seventy years, and the Mar Cantábrico still makes my heart lodge between my shoulder blades! But that liquor in the flask is not good for the young lordship. Here—have a dram of my ardoa—it is better—it is better—" and he detached the flask from his belt and passed it to me. I took a small gulp of the fiery liquor it contained, and ate the piece of maize bread he handed me.

  Now a voice outside cried, "Andamos!" The ship gave one violent heave, and then began a regular dipping motion—I guessed that our mooring ropes had been cast off, and that we were being towed out to the creek mouth by a smaller boat.

  Soon the Guipuzcoa started to pitch and roll with an increasingly lively motion. Old Luc bustled about securing his utensils and stuffing loose odds and ends inside baskets. From the wind blowing against the caboose I concluded that we must be nearly beyond the mouth of the bay.

  Then, all of a sudden, we heard loud shouts, several men's voices together, some hailing from a distance, some from the deck of the ship.

  "Hein?" muttered old Luc. "What is to do now?"

  There was a jarring bump—I guessed that it was a boat, hitting the side of the ship. My heart began to bang against my ribs, for I thought: Suppose the authorities from Oviedo, having had word of my arrival in Santander, have sent alguacils to arrest me for the death of the man on the mountain? Now that poor Señor Smith is dead, there is nobody to give evidence that I am innocent! Or perhaps this is some agent of Great-aunt Isadora, sent after me to secure me?

  All these wild thoughts tumbled through my head as I felt the Guipuzcoa check her progress, and then there was a thud and a lurch as somebody jumped on board, and a fresh outburst of angry discussion just outside the door of the caboose.

  I could hardly contain my curiosity, and old Luc stood with his head cocked sideways and his spoon in mid-air. Prudence withheld me from opening the door and looking out. Suppose an alguacil had come on board?

  Then, to my astonishment, I heard a thoroughly familiar voice exclaim, "Well, you have got me now—having cast off my friends so rudely—so you will just have to make the best of my presence—unless you wish to put back to Santander and lose the tide? Where is my friend? I wish to join him."

  "Sammy!" I gasped out, dropping Susan in my amazement. I ran to the door, just as it opened, and Sammy limped in, his hair and face all wet with spray. When he saw me, a smile of relief spread over his ugly face.

  "Eh, there you are then, lad! I'll be bound you thought I'd missed the boat—an' so I should 'a done, had not a good-hearted pair o' shipmates rowed me out as fast as if Old Scratch were swimming arter us!"

  "But—" I began, utterly bewildered, "But you were not—"

  Then I saw Sam's finger on his lips, and his eyes glance past me in warning, as he saw old Luc. The tall captain followed him in, and began haranguing us both in loud angry Basque. It was very inconvenient of Sam to have come on board—he had not the space for more than three passengers, he had not expected a fourth, nothing had been said to him of Sam's coming, and so on.

  To all of which Sammy calmly replied, "Very good, Capitano! If you do not want me and my friend, put us ashore! We shall be sorry to miss a passage on such a beautiful ship as yours, but there are other ships, after all."

  Grumbling, the captain withdrew, beckoning Luc to follow him, and a long, muttered confabulation broke out, farther along the deck.

  "They are wondering whether to put back," Sammy whispered, "I dunna think they will dare, though—the Revenue chaps are after 'em, see. I reckon they'd be glad enough to make eastwards an' drop you and me on the French
coast, but the wind ain't favorable for that."

  "But, Sammy—" I whispered. "Why did you come? You don't want to go to England!"

  I would have liked to believe it was because he found he did not care to part from me—but I knew Sam too well to think he would act in such a feckless manner. His face was very pale, despite the smile, and the look in his eyes told me that his reason was a graver one than that.

  "Ye've run yourself into a real nest of adders, here, lad," he whispered.

  "I know they are smugglers," I began, protesting. "That was why the fee was low. But I could take care of my—"

  "They are worse than smugglers, lad—they are Comprachicos," he breathed into my ear.

  "Compra—c-comprachicos?"

  At first I thought I could not have heard him aright. Then I could not believe him. Then I did believe him—Sam would not make up such a tale—and, despite myself, my teeth began to chatter.

  From Bernie, and others in the kitchen at Villaverde, I had heard tales of the Comprachicos—tales whispered in horror, under the breath, to frighten Pedro and me into good behavior.

  The Comprachicos were a secret people, wandering in groups over the face of Europe, sometimes seeming to vanish for fifty or sixty years together, then, apparently, coming to life once more. In the wake of wars and civil disturbances, plagues or bad seasons, when food was scarce and times were hard, then they would appear, plying their evil trade. What did they do? They supplied the raw material for fairs and peep shows. And to do this they bought children from hungry parents—or they took orphans whom nobody claimed—they never stole, they drove hard but honest bargains—and they remade these children, by terrible arts of their own, turning straight bodies into hunchbacks, dislocating joints, manufacturing dwarfs by stopping their growth—sometimes by constructing jars around them, it was said—grafting tails onto human bodies, making normal children into monstrosities. By their skillful surgery they could alter a child's face so that its own mother would not recognize it. At the end of Napoleon's wars, when Europe was full of starving families and homeless children, there were the Comprachicos again, like refuse collectors, picking up human rags and turning them into profitable goods.

  I had only half believed Bernie's awful tales about them. Compra-pequeños, some people called them: child buyers. They were part Spanish, part Basque, part Arab, part who-knows-what? They had, it was whispered in Villaverde, taken away the unwanted five-year-old stepson of Esteban López when he married the widow Arriguerra, turned the child into a monster with the body of a boy and the head of a dog, and sold him to a traveling circus. Could this really have happened? Certainly little Pepe Arriguerra had disappeared. Once I asked Father Agustín about the Comprachicos—were there really such people? He said it was all a great deal of exaggerated nonsense—but he crossed himself and muttered a prayer. While practicing their dreadful surgery, Bernie said, they used a stupefying drug, invented by the Chinese many hundreds of years ago, which sent the victim into a deep sleep. When he awoke he remembered nothing of what had happened, or who he had been before.

  "Dear Father in heaven," I whispered, "don't let this happen to me..."

  Then I looked at Sammy, pale and grim.

  "Oh, Sam! And you came on board to warn me—but what will they do to you?

  "Eh, lad! I'm a man grown! There's little they can do to me. And now I'm aboard—and my friends will witness that I came—I doubt they'll not dare touch ye."

  "How did you hear about them?" I whispered shamefacedly.

  "One o' my mates that we met this morning had seen ye colloguing wi' the little fellow who brought ye aboard. My mate knew him for the assistant of a man they call the Doctor—my mate's a bit in the smuggling line, that was how he come to hear about them—"

  "Oh, they smuggle then as well?"

  "Ay, they practice many trades and carry many cargoes."

  "But why—" Why, I wanted to ask, had Sam come on board, why had he not simply bidden me come back to Santander with him? But I did not know how to frame the question, and besides, I feared I knew the answer. He had been afraid that I would refuse, out of obstinacy and ignorance, and then he would have had to force me. He wanted to spare my pride. He thought I could not endure to be dragged back to safety like a child. And it was all through my childish stubbornness and refusal to accept his help that I had landed us both in this trouble.

  Sam guessed what was going through my mind. He said in explanation, "'Tis mighty choppy in the bay now, ye see, an' the ship was under a fair bit of the way a'ready. We only just caught her, an' while I was scrambling aboard, the crew was fending off my mates' boat—they reckoned we was Customs men, likely—so by the time I was over the rail, my mates was a fair way astern—they'd never catch up. They'll go back to harbor."

  "Is this ship really bound for England, then, Sammy? "What will you do? You must not land there."

  I felt so full of shame and rage with myself that I would gladly have thrust my hands into old Luc's turf fire, if that would have made any difference. Here was Sam, who had had a secure future and a comfortable home waiting for him in Llanes, by my stupid fault aboard this horrible little ship, threatened with perils both at sea and on land.

  "Ah, they'll run to Falmouth a'right," he whispered. "My mate told me he'd heard as they've a cargo of brandy they are carrying for a lord in those parts."

  "But what will they do—"

  "Hush!"

  The door flew open, and the tall captain strode into the caboose again, followed by old Luc, who returned to stirring his pot, muttering anxiously to himself. The captain approached us, and in the most peremptory manner now demanded our passage money.

  "How much, señor?" demanded Sammy politely.

  I pulled out my bit of rag. But the captain said, "Thirty dollars apiece!"

  "Why, the man who brought me on board said it was but fifteen," I objected.

  "That was for one. For two, we demand a higher price. It is not convenient to carry so many!"

  He was evidently very angry. I was about to try and haggle the price down, but Sam said, "At that rate, we pay the money on arrival, not before! And I do not wish to go to Falmouth. You can take me on to Achill Head in Ireland, where the lighthouse keeper is my uncle."

  I wondered if this were true, but could not tell from Sam's countenance. He was looking calmly at the captain, who seemed taken aback by this announcement and glared at us both.—I have not described the captain. His long, tanned face had something Eastern about it—the one eye visible tilted up at the corner. The other eye was covered by a black patch. Under his boat cloak he wore a belted canvas blouse over sailor's breeches, and a long knife tucked into his belt. He looked a stern and formidable man. Strangely enough, he reminded me of my grandfather—I could not have said why.

  Sam remarked to me softly, in English, "I do not have enough money on me to pay the fee. But my uncle will pay it. His name is Fergus O'Faolain, and he is the richest miser in Achill."

  Now I was sure the tale was invented, but I saw the captain give him a careful look; it seemed he understood English, or enough to make out the meaning of what Sam had said. He growled at us, "The fare to Ireland is thirty-five dollars. And if you wish to eat, you must pay for your own victuals."

  Then he quitted the caboose abruptly, slamming the door.

  Sam watched the old cook blowing on the broth and tasting it, then said to me in a low voice, still in English, "Don't touch any food that you have not seen somebody else taste first."

  I shuddered, thinking of the Chinese drug. And I wondered if Aunt Isadora had paid these men to dispose of me in their own dreadful way. "What would have happened to me had Sam not come on board? In what state would I have arrived at Falmouth?

  By now the ship was pitching more and more wildly, and old Luc, going to the door and putting his head out, called, "Anyone who wants a bowl of potaje had best come and get it now, before it is all over the floor!"

  Three men then took it in turns to c
ome and drink a bowl of soup, eat a crust of bread, and leave again. Sam greeted them all politely, and they gave him a brief word in return. One was an Arab, one a Gael from the isle of Inishturk, who spoke partly in a strange language of his own, which the cook seemed to understand. The third was a Basque, like the cook and the captain. He, before eating, took bowls of broth outside: Apparently the other two passengers preferred to remain on deck.

  Sam and I paid the cook some pennies and received bowls of broth, which, since they were ladled from the common pot, must be harmless enough. Indeed, the soup was very good.

  Now that we were at sea, we were allowed to step outside the caboose. Darkness lay all around; there were very few stars to be seen in the cloudy night; the lights of Santander gleamed very faint in the distance behind us.

  I saw the other two passengers, shrouded in boat cloaks, seated at the foot of the mast. Passing near them, I saw that one was a small, pale, grave man, with soft white hair and round colorless eyes like those of an owl. He gave me a strange, measuring look as I passed, and I trembled, imagining his knife carving my flesh and bones into new shapes, but he said nothing, only sat thinking his own thoughts. The crew all addressed him as "Doctor" and he was treated with great respect, I noticed. During the voyage I heard the captain once or twice ask his advice on points of navigation. Beside him, cross-legged and silent, sat the small man who had guided me on board. He had now lost all his vivacity and sat mute; when I passed he looked at me as if he had never laid eyes on me in his life.

  I heard the Doctor say quietly to one of the sailors, "I can see the Three Magi—that is a bad sign."

  Sam told me that by this he referred to the three stars in the constellation of Orion which are known as Orion's belt.

  It was very cold on deck. A bitter wind came scouring from the right hand, or starboard side; it sang in the hemp rigging and caused the little Guipuzcoa to bounce over thè waves, which were already as large as whales. A light at the end of the bowsprit faintly illuminated the sea, and showed the ship's boat, suspended below.