The Ghost of Smugglers Run

by Robert Sullivan

Department o’ Customs and Excise quite rightly they do, the Revenooer. Set up by the King they was, te collect his taxes. And collect the taxes they do. They be good at it too, and ruthless fer sure. They never give up. Never ever. And whenever ye be makin’ a pound or a shillin’, or producin’ somethin’ that the King might have a likin’ te, then there they be, one hand palm up, the other with a gun. The Revenooer. And we all hate the taxes, don’t we? Taxes on rum, taxes on salt, taxes on our roads, taxes on our water. We even pay taxes fer te pay the very wages o’ the Revenooer thesselves, them who comes te take the taxes. I ask ye. What is the world comin’ te? We all be goin’ te hell in a hand basket me old Da used te say. Aye. And he be tellin’ it true.” Talking about the Revenooer seemed to upset Barney. He puffed on ‘Me Comfort’ a couple of times and took a long sip from his ale. Then he continued.

  “And so the men and boys o’ Looe rowed out each month. On the darkling nights they rowed, te the French brigand, standin’ off the Maw. Even if the sea and the wind was wrong, still they would go, fer the lure o’ the lucre and the need fer food was too strong. Stronger than the fear o’ the Maw, and stronger than the fear o’ the Revenooer. They rowed out on the night we be talkin’ about. Twas the eve of December 6, 1737, and it be a black and cloudy night, with a strong wind and a bad sea. But the Frenchie was there. The light had been sighted and waved but three times. The dories was full loaded and they set forth.”

  As Barney spoke we were transported back. Back to the time of the French and the Revenooer and the smugglers of Looe. The room seemed to fade and the wind grew loud. The fire died and we felt sea spray hitting our faces and rattling on our sou’westers, and the thump of the waves as they raised up behind us. Jimmy Herriot leaned hard against his oar, feeling his Dad’s strong arms next to him as they both pulled hard against the rolling seas. He was scared, but he knew that this trip was the last one. “One more” his Dad had said. “One more and we will have t’ money we need for t’ teacher and t’ books.”

  Jimmy and his Dad Leslie, together with their good friend Purtaph, manned the dory. They did this every month, always on the darkest nights so as to beat the Revenooer. They hauled the gunpowder out to the Frogs and the Frogs paid handsome like. Always in gold and rum. They did it to survive and to build a school in Looe. Jimmy’s dream was that his brothers and sisters would get the ‘edercation’ that he never had. He didn’t want them to work in the powder mill or haul the nets and lines on the fishers. He wanted them to learn, to travel, maybe even as far as London, and to become something great, maybe even a schoolteacher.

  They were the last of five dories that were taking powder to the Frogs this night, all loaded full off the Shell Beach in Smugglers Cove. Jimmy felt the surge of the sea and glanced at his Dad. He knew that his Dad and Purtaph had discussed the weather with the other skippers, Ned Huxley, Rohan Venables and David Swain. All were concerned, but all had agreed to do the run. “It bain’t be lookin’ so bad” said David Swain. “And wit’ t’ winter weather now comin’ in, it like t’ be two or even t’ree month before we can set forth again.” It seemed that everyone had reluctantly agreed, though Jimmy noticed that Rohan and Ned caught each other’s eye and shook their heads.

  As they came up close by the French brigand they could see David Swain’s boat casting off. It was manned by David and his friends, Roger Docherty and Martin Haggley. The dory was low in the water, as if overloaded. Roger and Martin pulled heavily on the oars as they passed, with David at the tiller. “God Speed” shouted Leslie, and David waved.

  The Frogs pulled them tight against their ship. With the wind and rain and the rising seas the dory and the ship were like to come together at times with a crash. “Be keepin’ your hands clear o’ the gunnels” shouted Leslie, the roar of the wind and the waves all but drowning his voice. “We bain’t be losin’ any fingers this night”.

  Leslie and Purtaph quickly passed over the kegs of powder. The Frogs used an ingenious net for loading, one in which they could fit three kegs. With the net they could haul the load up and over the side of their ship in but seconds. In short order the powder was gone, and they started to load the kegs of rum and gold. Even as they stacked the kegs near the forward gunnels, both Purtaph and Dad were glancing continuously at the rising swells. The waves were hitting harder by the minute, and even Jim could tell that the wind was stronger. The Frogs were also worried, and worked quickly so as to load and be off. They knew of the Maw, and wished not to venture too near.

  Finally the Frogs cast them adrift. Jim heard a cry of “Bon Soir”, faint upon the wind, and then they were alone in the dark. Like Swain’s dory they had a full load. Eight cases each of rum and gold. And they too were low in the water. As they moved out of the lee of the larger boat they were hit with the full force of a rising gale. “This is bad” cried Leslie. They had drifted close by the Maw and the crashing white waves were almost upon them, close enough to throw spray and foam across their shoulders. Above the wind they could hear the grinding roar of the current swirling between the rocky outcrops. And it was a following sea. With their gunnels close to the waterline it would take but one rogue wave to put them in peril.

  “We canna row back” shouted Purtaph. “We be too close to the Maw. We must run the gauntlet.” At this Jimmy’s blood almost chilled. They had to run the gauntlet between the rocks off Long Nose Point and the Gannet, which stood alone some several boat lengths off. The channel through the Maw was a narrow one and, with the shallows, as dangerous as it could be. Leslie and Purtaph had often regaled Jimmy and the other children with terrifying stories of the ships lost in the Maw, and the power of its currents and tides.

  With Purtaph at the tiller, and Leslie and Jimmy pulling hard on their oars, they turned for the Maw. Each swell seemed to rear up high over their stern, ready to engulf them, before their dory rose heavily and slowly over the crest. But the dory was too heavy. It moved with the seas but did not rise easily with the swells coming through behind it. Spray was spearing off the crests of the waves and driving into the faces of Jimmy and his Dad. “Stay firm, Jim, stay firm” Jim heard his Dad say. But the noise of the wind was deafening, and the increasingly violent swells, the desperate rowing, took everything he had. A larger wave crested behind them. It was much bigger than the earlier waves. If it came to them while they were deep in the Maw, then it would be perilous close.

  Both Leslie and Purtaph saw the wave at the same time. Purtaph turned towards Leslie with a look of anguish on his face. Jimmy saw that both Purtaph and his father were afraid and, for the first time that night, he knew true fear. Faintly, through the crashing of waves and the roaring of the gale he heard his Dad shout “Row Jimmy, row. Row like ye never rowed before.” And they bent their backs to the oars and they rowed to break their hearts, but the huge wave bore down on them, and the stern of the dory rose slowly to meet it. They knew, even as they pulled desperately on the oars, that the wave was too big. Purtaph was hunched at the tiller, looking in dread over his shoulder at the monster bearing down on them.

  They were ‘in the cut’, deep in the heart of the Maw, when the wave broke over the stern of the dory. Kegs of rum were swept past them and they were buried in water and foam. Purtaph was flung overboard with a scream. Jim felt his Dad’s strong hand close around his arm for a moment before it was swept away. Jim felt the boat surge forward, fully submerged, as the wave took it through the Maw. He was underwater and choking. He struggled to swim to the surface, but the boots and the oilskins seemed to drag him back. He felt the darkness closing over him and he thought of his brothers and sisters and the school they would never have. As the darkness finally took him he thought he felt the boat spinning and diving. “Davy Jones” he thought. “ I’m goin’ to Davy Jones.”

  There was a loud crash and suddenly we were all back in the warm dining room of the Cod’s Roe. The fire was a pile of grey ash, and Mum and Dad were sitting together with their arms around each other, Anna squashed between them. Amos and Milo
were still standing at the bar, Milo with his drink halfway to his open mouth. Amos was staring at the floor. He had dropped his drink with the crash that startled us all out of our trance. It had all seemed so real. What a story! But how did it end? What happened to Jimmy and his Dad, and what happened to Purtaph? Did they swim ashore? What happened to the other dories? Was the gold ever found?

  “Barney” said Dad. “What happened to Jimmy and Leslie and Purtaph? Did they survive? And what about the gold? What happened to the gold?”

  Barney took a puff on ‘Me Comfort’. “Purtaph and Leslie be saved” he said. “They be swept ashore down wind and so missed the Corehole. But Jimmy be lost. They searched fer many a day but couldna find nay Jimmy nay the gold. Nor David Swain nor Roger Docherty nor Martin Haggley neither. They all be lost. Lost in the Maw and the Corehole. And there be other bad tidin’s as well. Fer even as they was loadin’ te the French the Revenooer was waitin’. And when the dories was back te shore there they was. And some they caught. And they took the men te London, and te the Bailey they went. Fer nigh