The Black Rocks of Morwenstow

by John Wilcox

  ‘We go in a minute,’ shouted Jorgen. ‘And we don’t live in this sea, I tink. Bloody fool captain.’

  Instinctively, Josh groped under his oilskins to feel his waterproof bag still firmly tied to his belt. Thank God for that, he thought.

  All he could see about them now was white-crested breakers broken by black, glistening rocks stretching to the foot of the cliffs. But were those men he could see on some sort of beach ahead? He shook the spray from his eyes. Nothing. It must have been an illusion.

  ‘How long before the mast goes, Mr Mitchell?’ he asked of the mate. But the man only shook his head mutely.

  Josh had no idea how long the three of them clung to the yard, but he was aware that he had never been so terrified in all his life as the men swayed sickeningly with each wave that crashed into The Lucy. The driving rain made it difficult to make out much of whatever beach existed beyond the jagged rocks that pinioned the ship. Josh stared at the black wall that faced and rose above them to a seemingly giddy height. Clearly it offered no succour, for no vegetation could be glimpsed on its vertical face, just barren, gleaming, black rock.

  Suddenly, the mainmast went over with a crash taking the remnants of the sails with it. Josh could see no other sign of the crew and could only presume that they had perished. He turned his head and met the gaze of Jorgen. Of the mate there was now no sign.

  ‘I don’t see Copenhagen again, I tink, Josh,’ said the Dane. ‘I tink—’

  He did not finish his sentence for, with a creak and a groan, the foremast split at its base and the two men were hurled into the sea.

  Josh was a good swimmer but this was no sea to tolerate swimming. He felt himself whirled around and then surged forward so that he slammed into a rock. He gulped in air until the undertow pulled him back and down underwater again so that all he could see was blackness broken by bubbles. He thanked his Maker for the fact that he was not wearing his heavy sea boots, for they would surely have now dragged him down. As it was, he surged forward again with the surf and was thrown onto a rock once more. This time he felt a deep pain as his leg crashed against the sharp edge. The pain was excruciating but the edge saved him, giving him something angular to grasp so that he was able somehow to pull himself up onto a flat surface away from the sea that plucked at him.

  He lay there gasping from pain and the lack of breath. A tug at his feet made him realise that he was far from safe so he inched his way forward, further onto the rock and away from the surf. Was the rock jutting out of the bottom of the cliff face? If so, he might be safe. He lifted his head to see ahead but the spray and the blackness defeated him.

  Expecting death and desperately trying to summon up Mary’s face, he lay his cheek down onto the wet surface until, with a sigh, he lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  He came to, slowly, his consciousness trying to come to terms with the pain that jolted up his leg every time the platform on which he was resting lurched. He turned his head. He was lying on a bed of straw on some sort of open donkey cart and he could see that dawn was turning the dark sky into a miserable grey. His injured leg was bound in some sort of way but it hurt damnably every time the cart bumped into a pothole.

  Ahead, he could see the hunched back of the driver: a slim youth or young man by the look of him. He called out: ‘Where am I?’

  ‘I’m taking thee to a doctor. Lie still.’

  ‘How the hell can I lie still when this damned cart is lurching all over the track?’

  ‘That is no reason for thee to use such bad language.’

  ‘Aaargh.’ He bit his lip. ‘You would swear if your leg felt like mine.’

  ‘No I would not. I was taught never to swear.’

  The driver turned his head to utter the rebuke and Josh realised that the he was a she. He was being driven by a young girl, whose long hair was being blown behind her, stretching inland away from the still storm-swept cliffs.

  ‘Oh. I beg your pardon, er … miss.’

  ‘That’s better. I am trying my best to control this donkey but he is bad enough when the sun shines. Now he is slithering all over the place. But I am sorry if it hurts thee. Not long now, though.’

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘To the house of my father, who is a doctor. We live at Hartland Quay.’

  Josh lay silent for a while, gritting his teeth against the pain. Then, ‘Where are the others?’ he asked.

  ‘What others?’

  ‘The rest of the crew of my ship.’

  Now it was her turn to be silent for a moment or two. ‘I think they have all drowned,’ she said eventually. ‘I am sorry. Nobody could live in that sea pounding on those rocks. Thou were lucky.’

  ‘Ah. All … all gone?’

  ‘Aye. I am afeared so.’

  ‘There was no big sailor – a Dane – saved? He was my friend.’

  ‘Nay.’

  ‘Haah! That drunken, stupid captain …’

  ‘Why so stupid? Most ships would founder on this coast, in that storm. It was the worst we’ve had for many a year.’

  ‘He thought he saw a light on the coast and put the ship towards what he thought was a harbour. I warned him against it, but—’ He groaned again, as the cart jolted.

  She remained silent.

  ‘What could that light have been? I thought I saw men on the shingle when we hit the rocks.’

  ‘Ah, they must have been the Preventers.’

  ‘The Preventers?’

  ‘Aye. The Revenue men.’

  ‘Why would they—?’ His head jolted as the cart slipped into what seemed like a cavern in the track and his skull crashed back onto the floor of the vehicle, the straw doing little to soften the blow. The stars above seemed to come down to dance before his eyes as once again he slipped into unconsciousness.

  It was the pain again that brought him back. He was being lifted roughly out of the cart and carried into a house, the door of which was open, shedding welcome light. ‘Aaargh,’ he moaned.

  ‘I should be able to put you out of that pain, once we get you inside.’ The voice was deeply masculine and came from a large man, framed in the doorway, who was supporting himself upon a wooden crutch. ‘Take him into the surgery,’ he ordered.

  Josh was laid onto a couch and a cloth that smelt very strange was pressed against his nostrils and, once again, he knew oblivion.

  He had no idea how long he had been unconscious when he awoke to find himself lying in a darkened room on clean white sheets, his head resting on a deep pillow. That head, however, was throbbing and his tongue felt like a lump of blotting paper wedged into a mouth that seemed to have been scraped out with sand.

  He blinked and, turning his head, looked hopefully towards a bedside table that in a fairy story would have housed a glass of water. It did not.

  Feeling his right leg under the bedclothes, he realised that it was clad with splints bound tightly on either side of the shin bone. Tentatively, he attempted to move it. Immediately, a shaft of pain travelled upwards.

  He bit his lip to stop himself from crying out again.

  He looked around him carefully. The room was low-ceilinged with overhead beams he felt he could reach upwards and touch. He did not try. The two windows were partly curtained but between the fabric he could just see a patch of sky above a row of houses. The sky was blue, so the storm must have receded. The room was papered with a floral pattern and there was a dresser facing him at the bottom of the bed, containing a jug, a washbowl and – yes! – a carafe of water with a glass by its side.

  Josh struggled to sit upright but the jarring pain returned to his leg and he subsided onto the pillow with a sigh. Who the hell would have put a carafe of water so tantalisingly out of reach? Was there a bell he could ring? No. Should he cry for help? Yes!

  ‘Hello.’ His voice sounded little more than a whimper. He tried again, this time louder. And from somewhere below he heard footsteps.

  He lay back, trying not to appear helples
s. ‘Hello,’ he tried again.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m coming.’ He recognised the voice. It was that of the young girl who had driven the donkey cart. She pushed open the door and, with it half open, paused theatrically, poking her head around the edge.

  ‘Thou called, my lord?’ she asked with a mock frown.

  ‘Yes … er … sorry to disturb you, but could I have some of that water, do you think? My mouth is fearful dry.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, I expect it was the ether,’ she said, and bustled into the room. She spoke with the soft burr of the south-west.

  He raised his head a little to see her better. This was the first opportunity he had had to look at the girl and he observed her carefully. She was quite tall – perhaps five foot eight inches or so – and very slim, with a waist he felt he could clasp with one hand. Her brown hair, which had been blown out behind her like a flag pennant on the night of the storm, was now strewn across her shoulders, giving the impression that she never disciplined it into a bun or some other fashionable constriction. She was dressed in a rather drab woollen dress but large golden hoops dangled from each earlobe. As she turned and approached him, he realised that her face was well structured, with large black eyes and high cheekbones that looked as if they might cut any hand that wandered randomly to touch them. Her skin was that of a peasant girl, browned by sun and wind.

  ‘Let me help thee,’ she said. Putting down the glass, she put one hand behind his shoulders and lifted them forward, the easier for him to drink. He gulped the water down, as though trying to extinguish a fire within his throat.

  ‘Be careful now,’ she said. ‘Thou mustn’t wet the bedclothes.’

  Josh wiped his lips with the back of his hand and gave her a smile. ‘Oh thank you. I needed that.’

  She smiled back, revealing an even set of small, white teeth. ‘Lie back,’ she said. ‘I think thou must be still very weak.’

  ‘No. I am feeling much better, although the leg pains me still.’

  ‘I fear it will, for a little while yet. Though we have bound it.’

  He lifted an eyebrow. ‘We?’

  ‘Aye. My father and me. I always help him with the surgery.’

  ‘Hmm. You seem to do everything here. What is your name, child?’

  ‘I am not a child. I am eighteen now, thank thee very much, Mr Weyland.’

  Josh’s jaw dropped. ‘How do you know my name?’

  She turned to the bedside table and drew open the drawer, lifting his small weatherproof bag. ‘I have thy belongings here. They seem to have survived the wreck and your swim, which is right amazin’ I would say.’ She lifted the bag even higher. ‘Your thirty guineas is still safe and sound and so are your letters from fat Mary Jackson.’

  ‘What! She is not fat and how do you know her name?’

  ‘Because I read her letters, that’s why. And of course she’s fat.’ She sniffed and tossed her head. ‘She sounds fat and she writes very borin’ letters, I must say.’

  Josh struggled to sit upright. ‘You have no right to read her letters, nor to say rude things about her. We are betrothed. She is my fiancée.’

  ‘So it seems. But if thou hast been away sailin’ for two years or more I’m amazed she still wants to marry you – if she does, that is.’ She sniffed again. ‘It seems to me, from her last couple of letters, that she was gettin’ a touch tired of all this waitin’.’

  ‘That’s just not true. You have no right to … what did you say your name was?’

  ‘I didn’t. But it is Rowena Acland, although,’ she paused and gave a frown, ‘it isn’t really. The Acland bit is right an’ fair, but I was christened Emma.’

  ‘Emma is a fine name. Why have you changed it?’

  ‘Oh,’ she tossed her head again. ‘It is a very dull, common name. Like Mary. I hate it. If anyone wants to talk to me now, they have to say Rowena. That’s a fine,’ she hesitated for a moment, ‘a fine, romantic name. A proper name.’

  Josh could not resist smiling. ‘Does your father call you that?’

  ‘Er, no. But this is his house, so he can call me what he likes.’

  ‘Very well. Thank you, Rowena, for fetching me back from the rocks and for looking after me, although not for reading my correspondence. Now, tell me. How long have I been here?’

  ‘Oh, it is a full day and a half now.’ Her voice dropped a little. ‘Look, Mr Weyland, I am right sorry that thou lost thy friends on the ship. We have found a couple of bodies but the rocks will have caught the others deep down and they will be gobbets now …’

  ‘Gobbets?’

  ‘Aye. That’s what the folk around here call the human remains that are eventually washed up long after a wreck. They are always torn to pieces, by the rocks. It is not nice, not nice at all.’

  Josh blew out his cheeks. ‘It doesn’t sound it.’ He lay for a moment with his head turned away on the pillow, thinking of Jorgen, the Dane, and the other men from his watch. When he turned his head back, she had quietly drawn a chair to the bedside and was looking at him, a small tear at the corner of each eye.

  ‘Thank you again, Rowena.’ He reached out a hand and took one of hers in it. It was small, very brown and she seized his and gripped it tightly. They sat for a moment, hand in hand, before he gently disengaged himself.

  ‘Tell me, lass. Who pulled me off that rock? It could not have been you, surely?’

  ‘Oh no. I am strong, but not that strong. It was two of Captain Cunningham’s men.’

  ‘Captain Cunningham?’

  ‘Yes, he commands the Preventers on this stretch of the coast.’ She gave a shy smile and looked down. ‘I think he is sweet on me.’

  Josh grinned. ‘And I don’t blame him. And are you sweet on him?’

  ‘Oh no.’ If she had been standing she would have flounced. ‘He is far too old for me. As well as … oh, never mind that.’

  ‘Of course. Of course.’ He adjusted his features so as not to smile. ‘But tell me, Rowena. What were the Preventers doing on that tiny beach at night in the middle of a storm like that?’

  She looked away. ‘Oh, I expect the news that a ship was in trouble came to them – they are based here, in Hartland, thou knowest – and they rode quickly to where the ship was likely to be thrown ashore.’

  ‘Yes, I thought I saw them on the beach when I was in the water. But there was a light. My captain swore it was a ship’s masthead light and headed The Lucy for her, thinking there was a safe anchorage. I know that there was a light, for I saw it from high up on the foremast. What could it have been?’

  Rowena tossed her head. ‘Oh, I know nothing of that.’ She stood. ‘They must have stayed to do the wreckin’, I expect. Now, I must be goin’. Canst thou eat something? Thou must be starvin’.’

  ‘Well, yes. Now you mention it, I realise that I am quite hungry.’

  ‘Very well. It is some time afore luncheon, but I will bring thee somthin’ to fill thy tummy afore we eat properly. Now, thou must excuse me …’

  Josh lifted his hand. ‘One more thing, Rowena – no, three more things.’

  ‘What might they be?’

  ‘Firstly, you must call me Josh. Everyone does.’

  The smile came back. ‘Very well, Josh.’

  ‘And secondly, I must ask you. Why do you address me in that old-fashioned way, using thee and thou instead of you. I should think that it must be fifty years or more since folk spoke like that in England – even down here in remote Cornwall or Devon.’

  For the first time, Rowena looked embarrassed. She studied the floor, then: ‘’Tis a bad habit I have gotten into, I fear. You see,’ she gave him a half-smiling look from beneath her eyelashes, ‘there is not much to do down here. As you say, we are remote. In fact, we are just over the border in Devon, from Cornwall, and there cannot be more than fifty people – if that and barring the Preventers – livin’ around here within twenty square mile or so.’

  ‘So … ?’

  ‘So I … I … I read.’

&
nbsp; ‘That is capital. What do you read?’

  ‘The works of Miss Austen and others but, lately, I have been goin’ through all the books that Sir Walter Scott has written. All those wonderful things about knights in armour and very fine ladies. I seem to have lived in his world now for so long that I have picked up the language, so to speak. But I do concede,’ she smiled broadly now, ‘Sir Joshua, that it is rather silly and fanciful and I shall try and give it up now that thou … you are here. Certainly, it will be a right relief to my father.’

  ‘He has never minded?’

  ‘Oh no. You see, my mother died in childbirth and I am his only child. He has brought me up himself and I have to confess he indulges me.’ She gave a tiny laugh that sounded to Josh like birdsong. ‘You know,’ she continued earnestly, ‘he was a sailor too before he took up medicine.’

  ‘Really? How unusual. I seem to remember that he was leaning on a crutch when I arrived here. How did he sustain that injury?’

  ‘A shipwreck. Like you. Only there was no surgeon near him then to set his leg. Thou … you were luckier than him, I think. He and the captain – Captain Cunningham, that is – were injured in the same wreck. They were shipmates, you see, in those days. Father broke his leg and the captain lost his hand – caught in the rocks. Now he has to wear a horrible hook.’

  ‘Indeed? How awful. Now, I must not keep you.’

  ‘You had three more things. What might be the last?’

  Josh frowned. ‘Yes. You said something about the Customs men staying to do the wrecking. What does that mean?’

  ‘Oh, the wreckin’? That’s what people hereabouts call the pullin’ in of salvage – you know, the cargoes – from ships that have gone aground. Everybody does it. It has always gone on on this coast. Folk here consider it their rights. It’s what the sea gives them. And the Preventers are not above joining in. ’Tis not illegal in any way.’

  Josh nodded his head slowly. ‘I see. So The Lucy’s cargo will all have been salvaged by now and, presumably, spread around the local population?’