Demelza (52 page)

Ross caught him by the collar and lifted his head. It was Matthew Sanson.

With a grunt Ross dropped the head back in the water and squeezed his way out into the air.

As the tide went out hundreds waded out and fell on the ship. With axes they burst open the hatches and dragged out the rest of the cargo. A quantity of mixed goods in the rear hatch was undamaged, and more kegs of rum were found. The deck planks were torn up, the wheel and binnacle carried off, the clothing and bits of furniture in the bunks and cabins. Jud, well gone in liquor, was saved from drowning in two feet of water, his arms clasped round the gilt figurehead. He had either mistaken her for a real woman or the gilt for real gold.

As dusk began to fall another bonfire was set up near the ship to light the scavengers on their way. The rising wind blew whorls of smoke flatly across the wet beach where it joined the fires on the sand hills.

Ross left the ship and walked home. He changed his clothes, which were stiff with half-dried salt, had a brief meal and then sat with Demelza. But the restless devil inside himself was not appeased; the pain and the fury were not gone. He went out again in the gathering windy dark.

By the light of a lantern a few of the more sober citizens were burying seven corpses at the foot of the sand hills. Ross stopped to tell them to go deep. He did not want the next spring tide uncovering them. He asked Zacky how many had been saved and was told that two had been taken to Mellin.

He climbed a little and stared down at the crowd round a bonfire. Nick Vigus had brought his flute and people were jigging to his tune. Many were drunk and lay about, too weak to walk home. The wind was bitter, and there would be illness even in this bounty.

A hand caught his arm. It was John Gimlett. 'Beg pardon, sur.'

'What is it?'

'The miners, sur. From Illuggan an' St Ann's. The first ones are' down the valley. I thought…'

'Are there many?'

'In their 'undreds, Bob Nanfan d'say.'

'Well, get you back into the house, man, and bolt the doors. They're only coming to loot the ship.'

'Aye, sur, but there's little left to loot - on the ship.'

Ross rubbed his chin. 'I know. But there's little left to drink either. We shall manage them.'

He went down to the beach. He hoped the Illuggan miners had not spent all the daylight hours drinking by the way. On the beach things were quieter. The bonfire sent a constant shower of sparks chasing across the sand. Just beyond the wreck the surf piled up, a pale mountainous reef in the half-dark.

Then his arm was caught a second time. Pally Rogers from Sawle.

'Look ee! What's that, sur? Isn't it a light?'

Ross stared out to sea.

'Ef that be another ship she's coming ashore too!' said Rogers. 'She's too close in to do else. The Lord God ha' mercy on their souls!'

Ross suddenly caught the glint of a light beyond the surf. Then he saw a second light close beside. He began to run towards the edge of the sea.

As he neared it the foam came to meet him, detaching itself from the mass and scudding and bowling across the sand in hundreds of flakes of all sizes. He splashed into a few inches of water and stopped, peering, trying to get his breath in the wind.

Rogers caught him up. 'Over thur, sur!'

Although the gale had grown again a few stars were out, and you could see well enough. A big ship, bigger than the brigantine, was coming in fast. A light forward and one amidships but no stern light. One minute she seemed right out of the water, and the next only her masts showed. There was no question of manoeuvring to beach her; she was coming in anyhow as the waves threw her about.

Someone aboard had seen how near the end was, for a flare was lit - rags soaked in oil - and it flickered and flared in the wind. Dozens on the beach saw it.

She came in nearer the house than the
Queen Charlotte
and seemed to strike with scarcely a jar. Only her foremast toppling slowly showed the impact.

At the same moment the vanguard of the St Ann's and Illuggan miners streamed on to the beach.

PRIDE OF MADRAS
, an East Indiaman homeward bound with a full cargo of silks, tea, and spices, had suddenly appeared, a flying wraith in the fog of the storm, off Sennen in the forenoon of that day.

She had seemed certain to strike Gurnard's Head but the lull in the gale had just given her sea room. Then she had been seen off Godrevy, and a little later the miners of Illuggan and St Ann's, with news of the
Queen Charlotte
wreck in their ears, had heard that a finer prize was due any minute at Gwithian or Basset's Cove.

So they had been pulled two ways, and instead of marching for Nampara had flocked into the gin shops and kiddleys of St Ann's while scouts kept watch on the cliffs.

She had slipped right under St Ann's Beacon unseen in the mist, and it was not until just before dusk that she had been picked up again ducking across the mouth of Sawle Cove. She must come ashore within a few miles, and the miners had followed along the cliffs and down the lanes, so that their leaders reached Hendrawna Beach at the same time as the ship.

What followed would not have been pretty in the sun of a summer afternoon. Happening as it did through a winter's night, starlit in a gale, it was full of the shadowed horror and shrill cadences of another world.

She came in so swiftly that only half a dozen of the locals knew of her until she lit the flare. Then when she struck, everyone began to run towards her. They and the newcomers converged together. Rivalry flared up in a second.

To begin they could not get near her; but the tide had still another two hours to ebb and very soon the venturesome, reckless with rum and gin, plunged through the surf. There was still one light on the ship though the waves were breaking right over her, and two sailors were able to swim ashore, one with a rope. But they could get no one interested enough to hold it, and a third sailor, washed ashore half conscious, was set upon and stripped of his shirt and breeches and left groaning naked on the sand.

Great numbers of miners were now coming, and soon the grey of the sands was black in a huge semicircle before the ship. Ross played no part in it now, either in wreck or rescue. He had edged a little away to watch, but those who saw his face saw no disapproval on it. It was as if the goad of the pain in him would leave him no respite for judgment and sanity.

Others of the crew had got ashore, but now it was the common thing to seize anything they carried, and those who resisted were stripped and roughly handled and left to crawl away as best they could. Two who drew knives were knocked unconscious.

By seven the ship was dry, and by then there were three thousand people on the beach. Barrels in which the pilchards had come ashore were set alight, and these, thick with oil, flared and smoked like giant torches. The ship was a carcase on which a myriad ants crawled. Men were everywhere, hacking with knives and axes, dragging out from the bowels of the ship the riches of the Indies. Dozens lay about the beach, drunk or senseless from a fight. The crew and eight passengers - saved at the last by Zacky Martin and Pally Rogers and a few others - broke up into two parties, the larger, led by the mate, going off into the country in search of help, the rest huddling in a group some distance from the ship, while the captain stood guard over them with a drawn sword.

With rich goods seized and fine brandy drunk, fights broke out everywhere. Smouldering feuds between one hamlet and another, one mine and the next, had come to flame. Empty bellies and empty pockets reacted alike to the temptations of the night. To the shipwrecked people it seemed that they had been cast upon the shore of a wild and savage foreign land where thousands of dark-faced men and women talking an uncouth tongue were waiting to tear them to pieces for the clothes they wore.

As the tide began to creep round the ship again Ross went aboard, swarming up by a rope that hung from her bows. He found an orgy of destruction. Men lay drunk about the deck, others fought for a roll of cloth or curtains or cases of tea, often tearing or spilling what they quarrelled over. But the saner men, aware like Ross that time was short, were labouring to clear the ship while she was still intact. Like
Queen Charlotte
,
Pride of Madras
lay beam on, and another tide might break her up. Lanterns were in the hold, and dozens of men were below passing up goods in a chain to the deck, where they were carried to the side and thrown or lowered to others waiting on the sand. These were all St Ann's men, and farther forward the Illuggan men were doing the same.

Aft he found some from Grambler and Sawle tearing out the panelling in the captain's cabin. Among all the hammering and the shrill squeaks of wood, Paul Daniel slept peacefully in a corner. Ross hauled him to his feet by the collar of his jacket, but Paul only smiled and sank down again.

Jack Cobbledick nodded. 'Tes all right, sur. We'll see to 'e when we d'leave.'

'Another half-hour is all you can take.'

Ross went on deck again. The high wind was pure and cold. He took a deep breath. Above and behind all the shouts, the laughter, the distant singing, the hammering, the scuffles and the groans, was another sound, that of the surf, coming in. It made a noise tonight like hundreds of carts rumbling over wooden bridges.

He avoided two men fighting in the scuppers, went forward and tried to rouse some of the drunks. He spoke of the tide to some of those who were working, had bare nods in exchange.

He stared over the beach. The funnels of fire and smoke from the barrels were still scattering sparks over the sand. Sections of the crowd were lit in umber and orange. Milling faces and black smoke round a dozen funeral pyres. A pagan rite. Back in the sand hills the volcanoes spumed.

He slid over the side, hand by hand down the rope. In water up to his knees.

He pushed his way through the crowd. It seemed as if normal feelings were coming to him. Circulation to a dead limb.

He looked about for the survivors. They were still huddled together just beyond the thickest of the crowd.

As he came near, two of the sailors drew knives and the captain half lifted his sword.

'Keep your distance, man! Keep clear! We'll fight.'

Ross eyed them over. A score of shivering exhausted wretches; if they had no attention several might die before morning.

'I was about to offer you shelter,' he said.

At the sound of his more cultured voice the captain lowered his sword. 'Who are you? What do you want?'

'My name is Poldark. I have a house near here.'

There was a whispered consultation. 'And you offer us shelter?'

'Such as I have. A fire. Blankets. Something hot to drink.'

Even now there was hesitation: they had been so used that they were afraid of treachery. And the captain had some idea of staying here the night to be able to bear his full witness to the courts. But the eight passengers overruled him.

'Very well, sir,' said the captain, keeping his sword unsheathed, 'if you will lead the way.'

Ross inclined his head and moved off slowly across the beach. The captain fell into step beside him, the two armed sailors followed close behind and the rest straggled after.

They passed several dozen people dancing round a fire and drinking fresh-brewed tea (ex
Pride of Madras
) laced with brandy (ex
Pride of Madras
). They overtook six mules laden so heavy with rolls of cloth that their feet sank inches in the sand at every step. They skirted forty or fifty men fighting in a pack for four gold ingots.

The captain said in a voice trembling with indignation: 'Have you any control over these - these savages?'

'None whatever,' Ross said.

'Is there no law in this land?'

'None which will stand before a thousand miners.'

'It - it is a disgrace. A crying disgrace. Two years ago I was shipwrecked off Patagonia - and treated less barbarously.'

'Perhaps the natives were better fed than we in this district.'

'Fed? Food - oh, if it were food we carried and these men were starving…'

'Many have been near it for months.'

'…then there might be some excuse. But it is not food. To pillage the ship, and we ourselves barely escaped with our lives! I never thought such a day could be! It is monstrous!'

'There is much in this world which is monstrous,' Ross said. 'Let us be thankful they were content with your shirts.'

The captain glanced at him. A passing lantern showed up the taut, lean, overstrained face, the pale scar, the half-lidded eyes. The captain said no more.

As they climbed the wall at the end of the beach they saw a group of men coming towards them from Nampara House. Ross stopped and stared. Then he caught the creak of leather.

'Here is the law you were invoking.'

The men came up. A dozen dismounted troopers in the charge of a sergeant. Captain McNeil and his men had been moved some months before, and these were strangers. They had marched out from Truro on hearing of the wreck of the
Queen Charlotte
.

This much the sergeant was explaining when the captain burst in with an angry flood of complaint, and soon he was surrounded by the passengers and crew, demanding summary justice. The sergeant plucked at his lip and stared across at the beach, which stirred and quickened with a wild and sinister life of its own.

'You go down there at your own risk, Sergeant,' Ross said.

There was a sudden silence, followed by another babel of threat and complaint from the shipwrecked people.

'All right,' said the sergeant. 'Go easy. Go easy now, we'll put a stop to the looting, never you fear. We'll see no more is carried away. We'll put a stop to it.'

'You would be advised to delay until daylight,' Ross said. 'The night will have cooled tempers. Remember the two customs officers who were killed at Gwithian last year.'

'I have me orders, sir.' The sergeant glanced uneasily at his small band and then again at the struggling smoky mass on the beach. 'We'll see all this is put a stop to.' He patted his musket.