Becoming Billy Dare

by Kirsty Murray

  10

  The Lapwing

  Paddy followed the barge as it headed down river towards the docks, past the Custom House with its high dome and columns, down to Dublin Bay. The rain had stopped and the quay was alive with activity. As Paddy drew closer to where the great ocean-going ships were moored, the noise of the docks intensified. Iron steamships with anchors twice the size of a man were being loaded with cargo while crowds of small barefoot children played along the quay. Boys of all ages were working alongside the men. A sandy-headed boy stood crying out warnings in a shrill voice as the great loads of cargo swung on board. Men with their faces black from shovelling coal wiped their streaming eyes on their shirtsleeves, while smartly dressed gentlemen carrying fine leather bags alighted from carriages and strolled up the gangplanks of ships bound for ports all over the world. Paddy wandered up a side alleyway, dazed by all the noise and motion.

  An old woman sitting in a doorway called out to Paddy. ‘Here, boy, I'll give you a penny if you'll fetch me a pint.’

  ‘Of milk?’ asked Paddy.

  ‘No, boy, porter. Here's a jug for you to put it in and there'll be a penny for you to keep when you get back.’

  She gave him directions and Paddy pushed his way through the crowd and handed the woman's jug across the counter of the pub.

  ‘Getting ale for your mam?’ asked a man who was standing at the counter, drinking.

  Paddy felt a lump in his throat at the thought of his mother. He shook his head.

  The man turned back to his friends and laughed.

  ‘See, I was no more than a sprat, smaller than this lad here when I left Cardiff for the sea. And mind you, no one forced me to it. I stowed away on my first ship when I couldn't find a skipper who'd take me. I'd rather be sailing around the coast of Africa than stuck in the coal mines back home in Wales.’

  Paddy wondered if the man had happily left his family behind or if perhaps grief and loss had driven him to sea. He took the jug back to the woman and watched as she held a hot poker in the porter to warm it. Then she reached into the folds of her skirt and drew out a penny from her purse. Paddy walked away, staring at the penny in his hand. Fetching porter for old ladies was not going to earn him a living, and if he wasn't returning to St Columcille's, he'd have to do something to earn his keep.

  He stopped at a canteen next to one of the coal merchants and bought a cup of sweet tea and a rasher of hot, greasy bacon. As he sipped the tea, he watched ships setting out across the bay. The clippers were towed out of the harbour by steamers to where the sea breezes would send them across the world. In the distance, some were unfurling their sails, white against the dark grey sky. Paddy thought of the poem that had won him the Easter prize:

  Run swiftly, O ship,

  through the hollow sea,

  breaking the waves

  of the sea's pale swell.

  If he had stayed at St Columcille's and become a missionary, one day he would have sailed across the world. Paddy watched the last clipper become a tiny speck and then disappear over the horizon, his heart full of longing. If only he could be away from the grey skies and the graves of Ireland, in a place where no one would know of his disgrace and his grief. Suddenly, like an arrow of bright hope in the darkness, Paddy realised he didn't have to be a missionary to sail to Africa.

  The first ship he tried was the largest ocean liner he could find. He asked an officer in a white uniform with gold braid who he should speak to, but the officer simply looked at him as if he was an annoying insect.

  ‘Where's your ticket?’

  ‘I don't have a ticket. I want to be a sailor,' he said.

  ‘I mean your seaman's ticket,' said the officer.

  At the next ship he was asked even more questions.

  ‘Where's your discharge book? Who were you with last?’

  Paddy was bewildered and it showed.

  ‘What? You never been to sea? We don't want first-trippers here.’

  Other sailors laughed at him. ‘You're just a babby, go home to your mammy, little schoolboy.’ Paddy felt furious. Most of them weren't much older than him anyway. Before he boarded the next ship, he tore off the jacket pocket that bore the St Columcille's emblem.

  By the time he'd got to the tenth ship, he felt heavy with despair. A whistle blew for the ten o'clock break and the dockworkers headed towards the pubs and canteens. Paddy trudged up the gangplank of an iron barque called the Lapwing. It looked sleek and fast, just the sort of clipper to take him away from Ireland, away from the cold and the damp and the misery of the place.

  ‘We're sailing this morning and we don't take first-timers,’ said the first mate.

  Paddy sighed with frustration. ‘Everyone has said they won't have me because I've never been to sea, but they'd never been to sea before they'd been to sea either!’

  The man laughed. ‘There'll be a place for you, if you keep trying, but we've only got a crew of twenty-eight here and we won't be needing a cabin boy. You try one of the big fellas. They could use an extra sprat like yourself.’

  Paddy looked at him again and realised he was the Welshman from the pub, the one who'd run away to sea and been a stowaway on his first boat. The man turned away and went below. Paddy noticed a door set at an odd angle into a wall on the deck. He glanced around. There were two sailors working nearby with their backs to him. Quickly he edged the hatch open and looked in. It was just a cupboard with a few ropes coiled inside. Heart in mouth, he slipped in and pulled the door shut tight above him. At least, if the first mate found him, reasoned Paddy, he might have some sympathy, as an ex-stowaway himself.

  Paddy pushed the ropes to one side, tucked his satchel down beside him and curled himself into a comfortable position. It was warm and dark in the hatch with the sun shining down on the metal door and only a thin strip of light around the edge.

  Before too long, Paddy heard the shouts of the sailors casting off and the grating sound of the gangway being pulled aboard. The ship lurched away from the dock and Paddy gripped the pile of ropes to stop being pitched against the door. He mouthed some lines from Bishop Patrick's invocation: An angel be with you, through the wide sea …

  Paddy woke to the sound of the wind. Instinctively, he braced his feet against the edges of the hatch to hold himself from being thrown sideways. There was no light shining through the cracks any more, and no sound from on deck. Paddy pushed up the lid of the hatch and peered out. It was night-time and the sky was black and starless. Stiffly, his numb legs tingling, he stepped out.

  Inside ten minutes, Paddy had a fair idea of the lie of the upper deck. He even discovered where the galley was and snatched the end of a loaf of bread from the bread bin before tiptoeing back to his hiding place.

  The second day seemed insufferably long. At one stage he had to climb out in broad daylight and pee over the side of the boat, all the while terrified that someone would see him before he could run back to his hiding place. The hatch grew hot and stuffy and Paddy felt sick with hunger, but he was too scared to go on deck during daylight hours, though he longed to be out in the fresh air. He thought of all the stories he'd heard of jungles and diamonds and gold and adventure and the cities and wide deserts. Perhaps soon they'd be somewhere in Africa. He fell into an uneasy sleep where dreams came and went, flitting across his mind like seabirds winging above the ocean.

  As the days wore on, Paddy took to telling himself stories about what his life in Africa would be like. When he couldn't think up anything new, he recited poetry to himself under his breath. He didn't want to pray. It was as if his faith lay at the bottom of the Liffey along with his silver medal, and the thought of prayer was like inviting in the darkness.

  At night, when it wasn't too rough, he would slip out for a quick visit to the galley and then scurry back into his hiding place. On one of his nocturnal explorations, he found a loose piece of canvas, which he took back to use as a blanket. He never managed to steal enough food to assuage his hunger and by the fifth day he was
starting to feel ill.

  He dreamt strange dreams. He imagined he could hear Honor and Aunt Lil whispering about him outside the hatch, and Aunt Lil telling Honor what a bad and wicked boy he'd been. He dreamt Uncle Kevin came on board, dragged him from his hiding place and thrashed him senseless on the deck. Sometimes, when a sailor shouted, it sounded exactly like Uncle Kevin, and Paddy would shudder. Even the wind had a voice, sometimes like MacCrae in prayer, or the monotonous tone of Father O'Keefe as he read to the boys in Latin.

  And then, during a cold, dark night, Paddy dreamt of his mother and John Doherty, lying pale and listless on narrow beds - but the beds were at sea, just over the prow of the Lapwing. In his dream he leapt over the side of the ship to rescue them, but he was sinking, sinking deep below the pitching waves, calling out for help, crying out to his mother and John.

  A rush of light filled his eyes. He raised one hand to protect himself from the dazzling brilliance. The shadow of a man loomed above him, and two powerful hands reached down and pulled him out onto the deck. Paddy tried to pull away but the man held him firmly by one shoulder and took Paddy's chin in his hand. A pair of brown eyes stared down at Paddy from a wide and ruddy face.

  ‘Would you believe it?’ said the man. ‘Would you credit it! He must have been in here since Dublin, and he's shaking like a leaf. C'mon, boy. Poor little drowned rat, c'mon now, we'll not hurt you.’

  Paddy was shivering uncontrollably. The big man scooped him up as if he was a tiny child, and carried him down to the galley.

  ‘So this is our little thief?’ said the cook, looking Paddy up and down. ‘The captain won't be happy.’

  ‘You never mind about the captain for now. I'm first mate here and I say the boy needs something warm to eat, don't you, lad?’

  The big man wrapped a rough ship's blanket around Paddy and sat him down by the stove.

  ‘I know you, don't I?’ asked the first mate. ‘You're the lad who came looking for work.’

  Paddy nodded mutely and took the steaming cup that the man offered him. It was as if all the life flowed back into him when he felt the warmth of the tea slip down his throat. And then, to his humiliation, he started to cry, and the tears coursed down his cheeks and dripped into his mug.

  ‘Here now,’ said the first mate. ‘You're all right now.’ His voice was so full of warmth and comfort that Paddy only cried harder. He hadn't cried when they told him his mother had died. He hadn't cried when Uncle Kevin had thrown him into the street, nor when he'd sat beside the dying John Doherty. He couldn't remember the last time he had cried. And yet here he was, weeping like a baby, and the tears wouldn't stop. His shoulders shook with the force of his grief, and he put his head in his hands and tried to stem the tears. Then the first mate put one arm around him, so his warmth and strength flowed into Paddy.

  ‘There, there, everything will be all right. You'll come to no harm while you're on board the Lapwing. Dai Llewellyn will see to that.’

  Paddy swallowed and choked back his sobs. ‘Who's th-th-at?’ he asked.

  ‘Why, that's me,’ laughed the first mate. ‘And who might you be that I'm making all these promises to?’

  It took a moment for Paddy to steady his voice. ‘Patrick Brendan Delaney of County Clare.’

  ‘And what were you doing in Dublin, then, if you're a Clare boy?’

  Suddenly, the whole story spilt out - his mother's hopes for him, his uncle's ambitions, the long months of study at St Columcille's, not knowing where to turn, John Doherty's death, throwing his medal in the river, and then stowing away on the Lapwing.

  ‘I suppose you think I'm a bad sort. You were right not to give me a job.’

  ‘If that's the worst you can come up with, lad, you're all right - a saint compared with most of the boys on board this ship,’ said Dai.

  Cook laughed and put a bowl of steaming hot broth before Paddy while Dai cut him a piece of bread.

  ‘You stay here in the galley with Cook until I've had a word with the captain,’ said Dai.

  Once word had spread of Dai's discovery, the crew crowded into the galley and stared at Paddy with disbelief. When Cook told them how he'd been stowed away for nearly a week in a cupboard, they laughed in amazement.

  The captain wasn't as good-humoured as the crew. He slammed his hand down on the table and shouted so loudly that Paddy jumped back in alarm.

  ‘Damn you! I should have you thrown overboard!’

  The first mate coughed loudly and the Captain lowered his voice a little but his furious expression didn't alter. ‘If we were stopping anywhere I'd put you off, but there's no port of rest until we reach Australia so you've a long voyage ahead of you yet.’

  ‘Australia!’ said Paddy, his eyes wide. ‘But I thought - aren't we going to Africa?’

  ‘You'll go where we can be bothered taking you, and you'll get off when we deem you've earned your fare,’ said the captain angrily. ‘Stowaways! They're nothing but trouble!’

  Dai Llewellyn put his hand on Paddy's shoulder and the weight of it felt like a steadying force. He looked up at the big Welshman and Dai looked back at him with a sombre face, but for a moment, Paddy could swear he had winked.

  11

  The gift of a knife

  Paddy quickly found his place among the Lapwing's crew. He was up on deck in first light, helping scrub and swab the decks. He would fill the scuttlebutt with fresh water and help coil the rigging. Some days he worked with the ship's carpenter on repairs, sometimes he was in the galley helping Cook with the meals. He soon discovered that the Lapwing had a full load of cargo, mostly fine paper and crates of the best Irish whiskey, but there were no passengers on board.

  Paddy's favourite time of day was the dogwatch, in the twilight hours between six and eight when all the men were on deck. Even Cook came up and smoked his pipe with the rest of the sailors. When the sea was still, Paddy would sit on the forecastle and watch Dai carving his collection of wooden spoons. They reminded Paddy of his mother's Claddagh ring which she'd always kept in a little box beside her bed. In the handle of Dai's spoons were carved intricate patterns, and caught in the middle of the ornate knotwork was a heart held fast by a pair of hands, just as in his mother's ring.

  While Dai pared and whittled with his knife, Paddy talked. He liked to dream aloud, about all the adventures that lay ahead of him in ports all over the world.

  ‘Sure, I reckon I'll be a sailor, Dai Lwellyn. I'll have my own ship one day, a ship with sails like beaten gold, and she'll be the swiftest barque on the seas. You can be one of my crew, if you like. And we'll sail all the length and breadth of the world. We'll sail to China and India and Africa, and we'll be famous in every seaport in the world.’

  Dai looked up from his work and grinned.

  ‘A sailor, is it? Strikes me you'd make a better bard. A right little Taliesin, you are.’

  ‘Little who?’ asked Paddy, thinking it made him sound like some sort of tadpole.

  ‘You not heard of him? The great Celtic bard? What were they teaching you in that school of yours?’

  ‘Latin and algebra mostly.’

  ‘Well, I'm sure there's plenty of books about Taliesin of the White Brow. See, he had the gift of the gab too. Taliesin brought good luck to his master, same as you've brought us all this fair sailing weather. Look at that hair of yours, if that isn't a symbol of good luck, what else could it be?’

  ‘I don't feel very lucky,’ said Paddy, touching his curls. They were just about at his collar now. Paddy reeled off all the unlucky things that had happened to him from losing his dad and mam to being caned at school, flogged by Uncle Kevin and then not being able to find a place on a ship.

  ‘Well, you are lucky. Lucky we didn't throw you overboard for a start. If I'd known you were never going to stop jawing, maybe I would have.’

  Paddy folded his arms, determined to be silent, but after a few minutes of watching Dai whittle, he said, ‘Aren't you going to tell me the story? About Taliesin?’

&nbs
p; Dai laughed. ‘I knew you couldn't be quiet for long. All right then, there was this fine young Welsh prince, his name was Elphin, and on May-eve, his dad sent him down the weir to find what he would find. The prince was thinking he'd find gold, but all he found was a white-browed baby in a sack, hanging on the weir. “Behold a radiant brow!” cried Elphin when he set eyes upon the boy. And I was thinking just that myself when I opened the hatch and saw you curled up inside.’

  ‘I bet you wish I had been a sack of gold!'

  ‘Sure, if Elphin didn't think the same, but he took the child home and all the ride back, the babe sang tales in his master's ear, and Elphin knew he'd found a great bard of his own. And ever since I hauled you out of the hatch, why, you've never stopped talking. For sure, you'll be someone's bard.’

  ‘What if I decide I'm a sailor instead?’

  Dai laughed. ‘Well, you'd best be finding yourself a hobby other than talking the hind leg off a donkey.’

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small knife which he threw towards Paddy. Paddy caught it mid-flight and cradled it in his hands. It had a strong steel blade and a wooden handle that the blade folded into. When the blade was extended, he could turn a little ring on the handle to lock it into place.

  ‘Now here's a treat for you, boy.’ Dai pulled a piece of pale timber from the small black bag in which he carried his carving tools. It was about as thick as Paddy's wrist at one end and tapered to a point at the other.

  ‘That's limewood. Beautiful white timber. Not the usual sort for a love spoon, but when you're finished with it, it could be the finest spoon that ever a girl possessed.’

  ‘But I don't know any girls.’

  ‘You don't be wanting to wait until you do. It may take you years to make a perfect spoon. One day there'll be a girl you'll be wanting for your own, and a love spoon is a sure way of wooing her. A flower, that's a sign of affection, and a cross is for faith and a diamond for riches, but the chains, they're important because they show how you and your girl will be bound together forever, no matter how long you're at sea.’