Come to Grief

by Wendy M Wilson

Mrs. Bentley did love babies. She ushered Mette in to her private parlour and insisted she have a cup of tea while she waited for the dinner bell. Mette took the time to feed Sarah Jane, hoping no one would come in. It was so difficult finding a secluded place when you travelled, and people often reacted in an unpleasant way when they noticed her feeding Sarah Jane. Even at home, Frank left the room when she fed the baby, like there was something unnatural about it. He had suggested she hire a wet nurse, but she had dug in her heels and refused to consider it. She suspected it was the English way. In Denmark, wet nurses existed mainly to help in cases where a mother had died, or a woman did not have enough milk. But New Zealand observed the ways of the old country.

  The dinner bell rang and she buttoned up her dress and went to get dinner, thinking that all she needed now was to find the American sitting at the table.

  However, Mrs. Bentley was presiding over a table lined with young men all dressed in smart grey suits. Travelling salesmen, she guessed. One young man jumped up and pulled up a chair for her.

  “Put your baby on the chair behind you while you eat your dinner.” Mrs. Bentley moved a newspaper from the chair. “We can prop her up with cushions. She’ll be quite safe.”

  Another young man pushed back his chair and helped her wedge Sarah Jane in the armchair. “What a pretty little girl,” he said. “Better keep her safe if you don’t want her to be stolen away.”

  Mette’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. “Stolen…what do you mean…why…?”

  “Don’t listen to John.” Mrs. Bentley glared at the offending young man. “It isn’t anything for you to worry about.”

  “She should know,” he said. “She might want to be extra careful. The police have no idea why it happened.”

  “Know what?”

  “A baby was kidnapped from the North Ground yesterday, during a cricket match. It was in the paper this morning. The nursemaid was rocking the baby in its perambulator while watching her young man play. She was approached by a man she didn’t know, who asked her the score. She turned away from the perambulator for no more than a minute. When she turned back the baby was gone.”

  “Did anyone see anything? Wouldn’t someone notice a baby being taken from a pram.”

  “Several people did see a woman pick up the baby and walk away quickly, but they assumed it was her mother,” said John. “She was wearing nice clothes and jewelry and didn’t appear to be the type of person who would steal a baby. Everyone thinks the man was an accomplice. They’d never seen either of them before, and the descriptions are so varied that the police are having trouble narrowing down whether they were young or old, short or tall, or wearing dark or light clothing. The woman had a shawl over her head that hid her face. And it happened right as Howlison of the Caledonians hit a four, and the audience was cheering madly and watching him take his run.”

  “Is the North Ground far from here?” asked Mette. Her heart was starting to pound. She wanted to take Sarah Jane and hide in the bedroom with her.

  “Don’t you worry, it’s…” Mrs. Bentley began. But John was determined to spill the whole story.

  “It’s under a mile away,” he said. “But the baby had a nursemaid, so I’m sure she came from a wealthy family. There’s no reason anyone would want to kidnap your baby.”

  “I heard it was the father,” said one of the other men.

  “Nah,” said John. “It was about money. It always is with these rich people.”

  Mette had intended to take Sarah Jane for a walk after dinner to pick up Professor Mann’s manuscript, but what with the kidnapping and her fear of running into the American, she was considering taking Frank’s advice and shutting herself in her room with the door locked. But she had to get the manuscript tonight to give her time to catch the train tomorrow. If she missed it and Frank arrived in Bluff before them, he would worry. She could send a telegram, of course, but she’d never sent one before and had no idea how to go about it or how soon Frank might receive it. No, the only solution was to get it tonight.

  “Does anyone know where Stuart Street is?” she asked. “Is it anywhere near the North Ground?”

  “It’s in the direction of the Ground, but not far from here,” said Mrs. Bentley. “Do you want to go to Stuart Street?”

  Mette nodded. “I need to pick up a manuscript for a professor. But after hearing about the kidnapping, I’m too nervous to go out.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Bentley. “I think it’s only fair that John escorts you. John?”

  John looked shamefaced. “I’m sorry Mrs. Hardy. I didn’t mean to scare you. Of course I’ll take you there. We can leave as soon as we’ve finished our pudding. Jam tart tonight, isn’t it Mrs. Bentley?”

  5

  On the Reef

  Frank stopped on the gangplank to take a last look at the train, wondering if it was too late to stop Mette from leaving. A shaft of sunlight had broken through the clouds and shone through the train window, glinting off her golden hair. She was holding Sarah Jane against her cheek and rubbing her back. The sight both warmed and terrified him. What if she got into trouble? What had he been thinking? He could fetch her now and they could pick up the manuscript on the return voyage. But while he was worrying about it, the train moved slowly away from the platform.

  He turned reluctantly and continued up the gangplank. For now, he would focus on the job. He would find Miss Aitken collecting tickets at her post, and ask her if she’d seen William McNab. His third suspect should have boarded the ship by now, and Miss Aitken could at least describe him.

  However, her place had been taken by the purser, who was collecting tickets and directing passengers to their cabins.

  The purser reached out a hand to Frank. “Ticket please.”

  “I gave it to Miss Aitken when I boarded in Wellington. I was seeing my wife and daughter to the train. I mentioned it to Miss Aitken. I thought she’d be here.”

  “Ah, yes. Sergeant Hardy. She did tell me about you. Go ahead.”

  He leaned around Frank. “Next, please.”

  Frank stayed where he was. “Miss Aitken was going to point someone out to me.”

  The purser straightened himself. “She didn’t mention that. Who?”

  Frank hesitated, reluctant to tell anyone else why he was on board.

  “William McNab,” he said finally, without elaborating.

  The purser shrugged. “We’re in Dunedin. They’re all Scots here, and at least half of them have names beginning with Mc. Can you tell me anything else? Was he travelling alone? Young? Old? Tall? Short?”

  “Are you going to be long, Mr. Jones?” said a quavery voice. “I’ll need to sit down soon.”

  Behind him, an elderly woman in deep mourning was fanning herself with a lace handkerchief, her face white with fatigue.

  “I’m sorry.” Frank stepped aside. “Go ahead, I’ll wait.”

  “Tell you what,” said the purser as he took the woman’s ticket and directed her to a cabin on the saloon deck. “Why don’t you ask Miss Aitken in the morning? She’s resting now, because she’s on first breakfast at six bells. She’ll ask passengers their names as she seats them. If you’re at breakfast early she can give you the nod when this McNab fellow enters the dining room. I won’t be there. My wife is on this trip with me and I requested the second sitting so we could get up early and see the bay as the sun rose. We enjoy painting watercolours of the ocean, both of us.”

  “I’ll do that. Thank you.” He’d been expecting to know the identity of the third suspect by now, and to begin the process of finding the weak link. He could start tomorrow, of course; in the meantime, with a day and a half before they anchored in Bluff Harbour, he could at least check on Hinton and Sampson to see what they were up to.

  He started with the upper deck, walking from end to end, past the wheelhouse and the smoking room next to it, and finally the saloon. There, a young man was busy setting boxes of cutlery on each table, preparing for the morning meal. The tables were
already covered with cream-coloured linen table cloths, but the plates were stacked to one side in bolted-down cages to keep them from smashing when the weather got rough.

  William Sampson was sitting at the bar staring into space. He had a mug of beer in one hand and a shot glass in front of him on the bar; he looked like he was settling in for the night. The red-haired American, Hinton, was not with him.

  Frank sat at the bar a few seats away from Sampson and ordered himself a pint of Dog’s Head. The local stuff was good, but he was still partial to imported brews.

  He gulped down half of the beer, and then said to the barman, “How soon are we casting off?”

  The barman was polishing a glass he’d immersed briefly in a bowl of grey water covered in soap scum. “As the tide turns. In an hour or so.” He glanced pointedly at Sampson. “The bar closes at seven, before we pass through the heads and things get rough. I need time to secure the glasses and bottles and to clean up.”

  Frank tossed down the rest of his pint. “In that case I’ll have another. What’s good?” He turned towards Sampson. “What’re you drinking?”

  Sampson shrugged.

  “I’ll have the same as him,” said Frank. He leaned forward to make sure Sampson could see him. “Can I get you one?”

  Sampson shrugged again and pushed his glass forward.

  “Gimme me an East India Pale Ale,” he said. “And a whisky chaser, same as before.”

  The barman raised one eyebrow at Frank, who nodded. “Same for me,” he said. He’d been trying to stick to beer, but a whisky chaser sounded inviting. It would help him sleep. He had a feeling he was going to have trouble sleeping without Mette.

  He downed the second beer and the whisky, and nodded to the barman. “Same again, please.” He was feeling good.

  Sampson was slumped forward, his eyes half-closed. “Give me another,” he said, without offering to pay for Frank’s drinks. “Beer and a whisky chaser again.”

  “Disembarking in Bluff, are you?” asked Frank. He was confident he could drink anyone under the table, but Sampson could go under the table any minute; no point in waiting to begin questioning him.

  Sampson nodded. “Going to Australia,” he said. “Me and my mate. Looking for work.”

  “Ship’s crew, are you?”

  Sampson eyed him suspiciously. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Just a guess,” said Frank. “Gold miners, then?”

  Sampson tossed back his beer and pushed away from the bar. “None of your bloody business.”

  “He’s crew,” said the barman as Sampson stumbled from the saloon. “I recognize him from the Hawea. I worked the bar on the Hawea for a couple of years.”

  He was feeling pleased with himself as he returned to his cabin, but remembering that Mette and Sarah Jane had gone dampened his spirits. He removed his boots and money belt and squeezed into the lower bunk fully dressed so he could get to the saloon early.

  The beer and whisky sent him into a deep sleep, and, for the first time in months, into dreadful nightmares. His brother again, and that head dangling from the pole by its hair. He was on horseback for some reason, on Copenhagen, the horse he’d had to shoot after she swallowed poison. They were swaying from side to side, and he knew it was the movement of the ocean although the dream seemed horribly real. He tried to rescue his brother, knowing it was too late, spurring Copenhagen across the river between the camp and the head on the pole, his rifle raised to shoot; half way across the river Copenhagen disappeared from beneath him and he felt himself drop into the water.

  He awoke with a jolt to find he’d fallen head first out of the lower bunk. He dragged himself up and separated himself from the bedding, trying to dispel the vestiges of the nightmare and the emotions that came with it.

  Outside his cabin, he heard the muffled sounds of voices and people running. A woman screamed in terror, and children were crying. He stood, nervous, and looked in the upper bunk, forgetting for a minute that Mette and Sarah Jane had already disembarked.

  But the floor beneath him tilted noticeably. Something wasn’t right.

  His money belt was hidden under the mattress; he strapped it around his middle and pulled down his shirt, stepped into his boots, and wrenched open the cabin door.

  The passageway was in darkness, the gaslights having been extinguished for the night, but someone had struck a safety match, and in the flickering light he could see the terrified faces of women still in nightdresses and men holding small children. They were waiting to climb the ladder. Men from steerage jostled on the steerage ladder, anxious to join the queue. All movement had come to a stop, blocked by an older man who was trying to shove a large suitcase up the ladder to the upper deck, cutting off their escape. As Frank staggered between the wall and the bulkhead, trying to reach the ladder, hands reached out and grabbed the suitcase, throwing it to the ground.

  “Don’t be bloody stupid, mate,” said one man as he elbowed his way forward. “You’ll kill us all.”

  Once the families and men from steerage were swallowed up into the dark above, he followed them. The ladder leaned with the listing of the ship, making his ascent difficult.

  He was met at the top by near total darkness. Sunrise must be hours away. He felt his way along the upper deck, which was awash with seawater and tilting dangerously to port, slipping several times towards the rail, barely stopping himself from taking a header over the side.

  In the gloom he saw the elderly woman in mourning who had been behind him as he boarded, wedged with her back against the gangplank gate, her arms clawing the air like the legs of a cast sheep. He let himself slip down against the rails again and dragged himself towards her. He was feet away when the gate broke open with a loud crack and flew away into the darkness. Her nails scraped against the deck for a few seconds, and then she disappeared without a sound.

  He held the railing and leaned over, scanning the surface of the ocean, but could see nothing — just the broken gate bobbing beside the ship. Less than a mile away, a heavy mist covered the land. At the prow of the ship, surf broke over a line of rocks and splashed upward. They were stuck on a reef, although at least the ship was still be in one piece.

  As he neared the wheelhouse, he passed clusters of passengers standing quietly and fearfully, waiting for instructions. The captain was braced in the door to the wheelhouse, bellowing above the incoming waves at a man sitting on the deck, his leg twisted beneath him. A grizzled crewman squatted beside him holding him in place with oil-covered hands.

  “You know what to do, Munro. Reverse the engines and get the damn ship off the reef. We’ll break up if we stay here.”

  The man on the deck grimaced in pain. “I tried sir. I got your orders to reverse the engines. But when I did the propeller broke. The water’s coming up fast in the boiler room. The hull must have been breached.”

  “Can you get down in there at all? Make repairs?”

  “No sir. And the hatch fell on me when I was coming up to ask for instructions. My leg’s broken. I need the surgeon.”

  “Find the ship’s doctor,” the captain said to the crewman beside him.

  “What can I do?” asked Frank.

  The captain was breathing hard, not panicking, but obviously aware he was in serious trouble. “We’re on the Otara Reef. I thought we were further out. I was asleep and came up to tell Henry to steer directly towards Bluff Harbour. There isn’t a lighthouse on Waipapa Point and I thought we were well out from the reef. Stupidity!”

  Frank hung on to the door jamb to stop the water dragging him over the side of the ship. Clearly, the captain was afraid it was his fault. He would know inquiries were always called to assign blame, and that the findings of such an inquiry would follow him forever.

  “Are we sinking?”

  “Not yet, but the engine room’s filling up and we can’t move. The propeller’s broken and the rudder’s unshipped. I’m going to start lowering lifeboats. Can you swim? I need some strong men to get asho
re and go for help.”

  Frank nodded. “I can swim. But you’ll need to send several men to make sure at least one makes it to shore. What are our odds, do you think?”

  “I can swim,” said a slim young man with short, curly hair and the beginnings of a moustache. I was school champ and I’ve swum in the surf lots of times. The name’s Lawrence. George Lawrence.”

  “Alright. The two of you, and I’ll send the second mate and some crewmen with you. But grab the ropes first, Hardy, and help lower the boat. Mr. Maloney, you’re in charge. Get these two off in the first boat, then go yourself in the second one.”

  “What about you, sir?” asked Maloney. “Will you take charge of a boat? You’re a strong swimmer.”

  The captain shook his head, his face set. “No. I’ll stay until the end.”

  As he strained on the ropes, Frank was grateful he’d been running up and down Mount Victoria with a load of bricks on his back whenever he’d had the opportunity. His back and arms felt strong as he took most of the weight at one end of the lifeboat beside George Lawrence. But the angle of the ship proved too much for the crew, who released the other end too soon. The boat dropped from its davits, plunged beneath the surf and popped up filled with water. It hung there, smashing against the hull, becoming more useless with each hit.

  They did better with the second boat, holding it above the surface of the water long enough to allow the men to scramble down the rope ladder before dropping it all the way in. George Lawrence went first, followed by two of the crew. As he stepped into the lifeboat, Frank heard the captain tell someone to climb after him.

  “Go ahead, lad. One more small one won’t make any difference.”

  A boy of about eleven or twelve shinnied down the rope after Frank, grinning, unafraid. “My dad taught me to swim,” he said.

  “Is your father on the ship?”

  He shook his head. “My dad’s at Bluff Harbour He works on the wharf there. I’m the brass polisher. My dad knew the last captain and he got me this job.”

  Frank eyed the boy’s frail body. What had made Captain Garrard think this boy would fare well in the lifeboat? He was so thin a strong wind would break him in two. He grabbed the boy by the shoulder and held his eyes. “Sit next to me. If we overturn, hold onto me — my belt, my shirt, whatever you can grab. I’ll get you ashore. What’s your name.”