The Hungry Tide

by Valerie Wood

  Jack Crawford turned so that he was facing the sea and Will recognized by the reflected light the seamed face of his enemy.

  ‘Seek thee out! Course I’m seekin’ thee out. It’s ’cos of thee that I had to leave ’town. Four years I stayed away, and all because tha gave my name to ’Hull mob.’

  Will felt his anger rising. What sort of man was this, that could abduct a child and then feel aggrieved at being found out? ‘Tha’s mad,’ he raged. ‘Tha brought it on thissen. Tha was bound to be found out. Hull has no love for navy agents, or babby snatchers.’

  Crawford reached out and grabbed Will by his coat. ‘Four years,’ he hissed, his spittle flying as the squally gusts buffeted against them. ‘I had to go as far as York before I could find any jobs to do, half starved I was, and all because of thee.’ He pushed his face towards Will, still holding his coat in a tight grasp. ‘And I haven’t forgot that old score. Tha still owes me for that.’

  Will thrust him from him. ‘Tha’s nowt but a fool, Crawford. I explained all that to thee; all that stuff was taken back, back to where it belonged.’

  Crawford’s laugh was devoid of any humour. ‘Tha’s still keepin’ up that old tale, is tha?’ He leaned forward. ‘So how does tha account for ’tidy little house yonder?’ He jerked his thumb back in the direction of Field House.

  ‘It’s not mine, how could I afford owt like that? It belongs to ’man I work for. I pay him rent for it out of my wages.’ It was Will’s turn now to glare at Crawford. ‘Anyroad, how does tha know where I live? How did tha find me out here?’

  Crawford smiled, the tips of his broken teeth protruding against his heavy beard. ‘I’ve been lookin’ for thee ever since I came back, only I couldn’t find thee, and I couldn’t ask for fear of questions. I only knew tha’d left town. And then as luck would have it, I saw thee.’

  He sneered. ‘’Didn’t know thee at first, dressed up in tha dandy clothes and driving a fine carriage, not until tha took off thy fancy hat and I saw thy red hair, though I couldn’t work out how tha managed to have two legs.’ He folded his arms in front of him and smiled in satisfaction at his own cleverness. ‘Didn’t tek me long then to find out where tha was hiding.’

  He threw back his head and roared with laughter and the rain, which had started to come down steadily, ran glistening down his face. ‘I’ve been right under thy nose these last few days, sleeping in ’stable with thy friend Walters.’ He looked slyly at Will. ‘He was right glad to tell me about thy special boots and how tha’s old Masterson’s right-hand man. Tell anybody owt, he would, for ’price of a glass or two.’

  Will listened to the man, inwardly seething. He could guess what was coming next.

  ‘Aye.’ Crawford nodded, smiling maliciously. ‘Masterson’ll be right glad to know what sort of man he’s employing.’

  ‘What is it tha wants from me, Crawford?’ Will restrained himself from grabbing the man and hitting him. ‘I’ve no money. I work for less out here than I did at sea.’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘How about a few cabbages or a couple of rabbits? That’s what we call luxury. Or I’ll catch thee some fish. We eat well out here, providing we grow it or catch it, otherwise we starve, just ’same as town folk.’

  Crawford caught hold of him again. ‘Tha knows what I want. I want ’way in to ’big house. Tha knows thy way round in there, and where ’stuff of value is kept. I know they don’t keep a dog inside, Walters told me that already. So I need to know when Masterson is away and for thee to let me in after dark when his lady’s in bed.’

  ‘Tha’s crazy. When will tha get it into that thick skull that I want no part in owt of that sort? I’ll work for what I need, and I don’t need much, so tha’s wasting thy time.’

  ‘Then in that case I’ll be in touch with Masterson first thing in ’morning, and tell him about ’part tha played in ’robbery over near Beverley.’ He dropped his voice to a malicious whisper. ’Even drop a hint or two about Francis Morton. They never did find out who stuck him.’

  Enraged, Will shook him off. ‘Take thy hands off me, scum, and get back to ’kennel tha came from. There’s no place for ’likes of thee around here.’

  He fell heavily to the ground, retching, as Crawford’s fist, hard as iron, made contact low in his stomach, and whilst he was trying to regain his balance, he felt the thud of pain as Crawford’s boot struck his ribs. He was vaguely thankful that he was wearing his padded jacket, but wished that he had put on both of his boots, as he tried to make purchase on the soggy, broken ground.

  ‘Fight fair,’ he gasped. ‘Man to man, if tha knows what that means.’

  In answer Crawford kicked out again, and Will grabbed his boot and brought him down. They grappled violently, first one then the other trying to gain mastery as they rolled over and over.

  Crawford was the heavier of the two men and though Will was muscular, he was disadvantaged and eventually Crawford held him down, the weight of his body taking his breath away as he knelt on his chest, with one hand held in a tight grip against his throat.

  He saw the gleam of the blade as Crawford drew the knife from the top of his boot, and saw too the smile hovering on his lips as he drew back his arm to strike.

  Will’s arms were free and he hit out with all his strength, catching the other a blow against his chin with his fist, jerking it upwards and striking again with his other hand. Crawford was thrown off balance and Will heaved him away. As Crawford struggled to rise, Will rolled over and managed to stand, leaning on the fence for support. The two men eyed each other, their hands taut and fingers clenched, panting in short, rapid breaths.

  ‘Watch out.’ Will suddenly shouted. ‘Tha’s near to ’edge.’

  Crawford laughed wildly. ‘Does tha think tha’s fighting wi’ bairns?’ He threw himself on to Will, who ducked and landed a punch into his ribs. Winded, Crawford had stepped back and was gathering himself for another assault, when without warning the cliff started to slip, the deep cracks opening up wider, and Crawford with a short startled cry disappeared backwards over the brink.

  Will crawled forward slowly on his stomach and, grasping a clump of grass, eased himself out as far as he could to look over the rim. He narrowed his eyes and searched below, but it was too dark to see anything but the foamy tops of the waves lashing below against the darker shadow of the newly built sea wall.

  ‘Crawford!’ His voice was tossed away by the screech of the wind. He swore vehemently under his breath. He would have to go down and look for him, blast his eyes.

  He started to rise, but as he did so he felt the ground give way beneath him; the grass which he clutched so tightly came away in his hands and he was suddenly falling and slithering, tumbling and rolling down the cliff, to land face first in the sand.

  Dazed, he picked himself up after a moment. His hands were scratched and bleeding from trying to stop the momentum of his fall, and there was a cut on his forehead where he had been hit by flying debris, but he was thankful that he had no bones broken.

  He dragged himself over the pile of muddy clay and boulders and made his way back through the shallow water to where he thought Crawford had gone over. It had been a heavy fall, the clay was piled up in immense heaps across the narrow strip of sand and he found it difficult to walk or see in the darkness. He had no crutch, having dropped it during the struggle with Crawford, and he fell constantly over boulders lying half hidden in the sand.

  Crawford was lying spreadeagled across the makeshift sea defence, his legs half buried by the soft clay that had fallen with him. His skull, split wide open by the impact with the boulders on the top of the wall, oozed blood and brains which clung to his hair and beard. His eyes gazed sightlessly towards the night sky and his mouth opened wide in a frozen grin.

  Will turned away, sickened by the sight, and sank down on a pile of stones, his head in his trembling hands. Why did this have to happen? He thought he had safely left the past behind him when he had come out here to Monkston. I should have known, he thought bitterly
, that sooner or later it would catch up with me again.

  But what to do now about Crawford’s body? Should he go for help and try to explain away the man’s presence out here at Monkston? It would mean bringing in the law and the law might well choose not to believe that Crawford fell accidentally, especially if Walters was questioned and told that Crawford had come seeking Will out.

  Uppermost in his mind was the fact that conceivably Crawford’s name was known to the magistrates, and that by being linked to a thief and ruffian, by even a tenuous thread, he might well be dismissed by Isaac Masterson.

  Numb with apprehension, he sat shivering, watching the water as it lapped around him, and it wasn’t until he realized that the tide was on the turn that he thought of Martin Reedbarrow’s boat. Martin had bought another small boat from a Bridlington fisherman, which Will had insisted that Jimmy should help pay for before he left to start his apprenticeship, and he kept it tied up on a timber groyne on the sands just below his land.

  Will started up, an idea hovering at the back of his mind by an association of thought – of death, and of burial at sea.

  ‘Not that he deserves a decent burial,’ he muttered grimly. ‘I’d just as soon see him swinging from ’gibbet ’till he rotted.’

  He scrabbled to move the wet clay away from Crawford’s legs and with a great heave thrust him off the wall and down on to the sands where he lay in a crumpled heap. Breathlessly, for Crawford was a big, wellset man, he dragged him down to the water’s edge and dumped him there, his body leaving a trail in the wet sand.

  Stumbling, he made his way along the sands towards the groyne which was partially submerged in the sea, the boat rocking wildly in the boisterous waves. He half walked, half swam up to his waist in water until he reached it, and hauling himself over the bow he slipped the painter from the groyne. Steadily he pulled on the oars, feeling the drag of the tide as it turned, and rowed back to where he had left Jack Crawford’s body.

  It was difficult getting him into the boat, for he had to drag him through the water, keeping tight hold of the rope to stop it drifting away and knowing that if he beached the boat too high on the sands, he would never be able to push it off again with the weight of the body in it. He finally heaved himself on board, and lay panting and exhausted at the side of Crawford, letting the tide carry them away from the shore.

  The tide was running fast and strong but the wind was against him, great squally gusts which threatened to turn the boat over and drive it back to the shore. His arms and shoulders burned as if on fire as he pulled on the oars, and the skin of his palms rose into blisters as he battled desperately to keep the boat from being submerged as it dipped and dived through peaks and troughs, huge waves lashing over him until he was soon soaked through.

  He rowed on until he judged he was about half a mile out, where the depth dropped beneath the sandbanks and the currents began to eddy and change. He shipped his oars and struggled to lift Crawford’s body over the side. For a moment the dead man hung suspended half in, half out of the boat so that he was dangling face down into the turbulent water. Then, with a final surge of strength, Will lifted him by the legs and pushed him over the side. Panting with exertion, he watched as a gigantic wave like a cavernous mouth hovered momentarily above them before crashing down, consuming Crawford within it.

  He battled now to turn and row against the tide and head for the shore. The wind was with him but the currents were strong and he felt himself being carried along, his own puny efforts having no effect against the aggressive sea.

  So exhausted was he that he was tempted to lay down his oars and let the boat drift with the tide until it turned, but he knew that by then he would be miles out at sea, with no hope at all of getting back, that in the deepest water the small boat would be swamped, unless by some miracle he was picked up by another vessel, as young Jimmy and Paul had been. He hardly felt that Providence would smile twice.

  ‘Dear God, I’m not ready to meet thee yet,’ he cried angrily. ‘Just one more chance. Just this once!’

  With another effort he swung round again, pulling on the oars. The wind had increased and as he felt the combat between tide and wind a strange exhilaration filled him. He filled his lungs with great gulps of air and started to chant, ‘Pull. Pull. Pull!’ He hurled the words into the air and with each shout strove to best the opposing waves.

  The German Ocean had an infamous reputation among those who sailed it. Cunning, tricky and devious, with its powerful tides, hidden sandbanks and changeable currents, it could smash a boat to pieces and carry it to unfathomable depths within minutes, or rock it as gently as a child in a crib on its serene and placid surface. As Will struggled, he felt the boat being driven into a deepwater channel, where the opposing currents whirled above the uneven sea bed. With the flow of water driving him back along the sea furrow and the raging wind at his back, he pulled ever harder towards land. There was a following sea now and he knew that he had a chance.

  Next time I’ll be ready, I promise, he vowed as the boat beached, and silently he said a prayer of thanks for deliverance. He dragged the boat the last few yards across the sand towards the groyne which now stood clear of the water, and slipped the painter back over the wooden stake, hoping that Martin wouldn’t notice the score marks in the sand.

  Wearily he stumbled back along the sands towards the slipway which joined the lane, but stopped abruptly as he found his way barred by another huge fall of cliff. Scattered about the sand were heaps of stone and boulders, and as he peered into the gloom, he saw timber joists and broken furniture and clumps of what looked like straw piled amongst the heap of debris.

  Puzzled, he picked up some of the straw and rubbed it between his fingers. It was thatch. With a growing sense of unease he looked up to the top of the cliff and saw on the skyline the torn and jagged edges of a building teetering on the cliff top.

  He heard the sound of voices as he stood gazing bewildered, his mind confused and his body weary. He let himself fall and half sat, half lay on the wet sand, the piece of crumpled thatch still held fast in his hand.

  As he waited, a line of flares and oil lamps swung unsteadily down the cliff face; like will-o’-the-wisps they dipped and danced in the darkness as the village men who held them climbed precariously down over the broken surface.

  Ralph Graves held his flare high, the shadows it threw making his face grotesque and his eyes hollow. ‘Here – look here. It’s Foster. What’s tha doing out here? Hast tha tummelled ower ’cliff?’

  Will didn’t answer, but just sat, the men gathering in a ring and staring down at him.

  ‘Fayther?’ Tom pushed his way through the crowd. ‘Da! Ist tha hurt?’

  Will shook his head, too spent to speak, but unwilling in any case to give explanations.

  ‘I saw Mr Crabtree’s house go over, Fayther. I came to look for thee at ’Raven, only tha wasn’t there. We can’t find old Crabtree, he must have gone over ’cliff.’

  Will nodded. ‘I tried to wake him,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I knew ’cliff wouldn’t last ’night out.’ He shook his head. ‘I tried, but I couldn’t make him hear.’

  ‘So tha went ower with it?’ Martin Reedbarrow, crouched at the side of Will, peered at him curiously.

  Will put his swollen, bleeding hands to his head. ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’ As he spoke it seemed that he couldn’t recall the sequence of events. His mind was a confusion of thoughts; of locked doors which he couldn’t enter, and fights on raging seas, of the devil grinning at him, and of broken ground which opened into huge crevices and swallowed him up.

  ‘Let’s get on.’ Ralph Graves spoke up. ‘We’ve got to find Crabtree.’

  ‘Aye.’ Martin rose to his feet. ‘He might be lying hurt somewhere. Let’s spread out a bit, only mind where tha’s putting thy feet. Don’t go treading on him.’

  They found him curled up on the sands beneath the cliff, his blanket still wrapped around him and his nightcap askew on his head. Not a cu
t or a bruise was on his body, and he lay with a still, contented countenance. His house had fallen about him and the earth given way beneath him, but he had slept on in the deep sleep which had come at last to claim him.

  Will leaned heavily on Tom as they made their way back home. Without his support he knew he would have had to crawl, his body so ached with fatigue and his spirits were so low.

  ‘Don’t make a fuss, Maria,’ he complained, as she put on the pan to heat water to bathe his swollen hands. ‘I’m not hurt, just a bit shaken up, that’s all.’

  ‘But tha’s drenched through,’ she said anxiously as she helped him off with his sodden coat. ‘I hadn’t realized that it was raining so hard.’

  ‘I fell into ’sea,’ he said abruptly. ‘I lost my crutch and it’s not easy walking on ’sands with only one leg. Alice, pour me a tot of grog, there’s a good lass.’

  She poured him a good measure, handed it to him and waited as he tossed it down and held out the mug for another.

  Sarah came and stood at the side of his chair. She took hold of his other hand with both of her small chubby ones and gently turned it over. The skin was broken on the tips of his fingers and thumb and the flesh of his palm was puffy and swollen. She gazed at it without speaking, a disturbed, troubled look on her face.

  He wrinkled his nose and winked at her to allay her childish fears, but she gazed back at him absently, without seeing. A profound stillness gathered around his small daughter as she looked deep into his eyes, down into the essence of his being.

  Then she smiled gently at him, her face lighting up from within. As he smiled back, he sensed the stillness flow from her towards him, drawing him in and wrapping around him protectingly, and his troubled conscience responded and became calm. With a discernment which mystified him, he realized that this child knew without words of his anxieties and fears, and she was telling him to be still; that the devils which tormented him had gone and that the storm within him was over.