English passengers (2 page)

S
AY A MAN
catches a bullet through his skull in somebody’s war, so where’s the beginning of that? You might say that’s easy. That little moment has its start the day our hero goes marching off to fight with his new soldier friends, all clever and smirking and waving at the girls. But does it, though? Why not the moment he first takes the shilling, his mouth hanging wide open like a harvest frog as he listens to the sergeant’s flatterings? Or how about that bright sunny morning when he’s just turned six and sees soldiers striding down the village street, fierce and jangling? But then why not go right back, all the way, to that long, still night when a little baby is born, staring and new, with tiniest little hands? Hands you’d never think would grow strong enough one day to lift a heavy gun, and put a bullet through our poor dead friend’s brain.

If I had to choose a beginning for all these little curiosities that have been happening themselves at me, well, I’d probably pick that morning when we were journeying northwards from a certain discreet French port, where tobacco and brandy were as cheap as could be. Not that it seemed much like the beginning of anything at the time, but almost the end, or so I was hoping. The wind was steady, the ship was taking her weather nicely, and as we went about our work I dare say every man aboard was having a fine time dreaming money he hadn’t yet got, and what pleasures it might buy him. Some will have been spending it faster than a piss over the side, dreaming themselves a rush of drink and smoke, then perhaps a loan of a sulky female’s body. A few might have dreamed every penny on a new jacket or boots, to dazzle Peel City with
fashion for a day or two. Others would have kept cautious, dreaming it on rent paid and wives quieted.

And Illiam Quillian Kewley?

As the
Sincerity
jumped and juddered with the waves I was dreaming Castle Street on a Saturday morning, all bustle and everyone scrutineer-ing everyone else, with Ealisad walking at my side in a fine new dress, both of us holding our heads high as Lords, and nobody saying, ‘‘Look see, there’s Kewleys—don’t you know they used to be somebody.’’ Or I dreamed my great-grandfather, Juan, who I never met, but who was known as Big Kewley on account of being the only Kewley ever to make money rather than lose it. There he was, clear as day, leaning out of heaven with a telescope, and calling out in a voice loud as thunder, ‘‘Put a sight on him, Illiam Quillian, my own great-grandson. Now there’s a man who can.’’

Then all of a sudden our dreamings were interrupted. Tom Teare was calling down from the masthead, where he was keeping watch. ‘‘Sail. Sail on the port bow.’’

Not that anyone thought much on his shout then. The English Channel is hardly the quietest stretch of ocean, so there seemed nothing too worrying in discovering another ship creeping along. The boys went on scrubbing down the deck, while chief mate Brew and myself carried on standing on the quarterdeck, making sure they kept at it.

But you should know a little about the
Sincerity,
as there was a wonder all made of wood if ever there was one. Truly, you couldn’t imagine a vessel that looked more normal from the outside. I dare say she was a little old—her prow was round and blunt and well out of fashion, and her quarterdeck was too high for modern tastes—but otherwise she seemed as ordinary as seawater. I’d wager you could’ve spent all day aboard and still been none the wiser. Unless, that is, you had a particular eye for the measure of things. Or you happened to take a look above the inside top rim of the door to the pantry.

And that would be hardly likely.

In my great-grandfather Big Kewley’s day, now, such cleverness was never called for. The Isle of Man was still free and independent then, having yet to be bought by interfering English politicians, and as a free and independent land she took it upon herself to have her own free and
independent duties on brandy and tobacco and such, meaning she had hardly any at all. Truly, that was the golden age of Man Island. Vessels sailed into her ports direct from every corner of the world, from Europe and Africa, from Indies West and East. Why, her harbour quays were so piled with barrels and casks that a man could hardly reach his own ship. What’s more, every cheap, dutiless drop of spirit or leaf of tobacco was as legal as King George himself.

Naturally it seemed a shame to softhearted Manxmen, such as my great-grandfather, to go hogging such plenty all to themselves when there were poor desperate Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotsmen and Welshmen wailing and moaning at the scandalous cost of their taxed liquor. It seemed just kindness to load up a skiff on a moonless night and slip across the sea to some quiet edge of Ireland or Scotland—or for that matter England or Wales, as Man Island sits clean between all four—and help them out. Forget all this fashionable talk of free trade, as it’s nothing but English mimicking. My great-grandfather was free trading before it was even invented.

But I’m drifting off from that beginning we had. Tom Teare’s second shout came just a moment or two after his first. ‘‘That ship on the port bow. Looks like she’s a cutter.’’

Now here I think we all took a little notice. Not that there was anything clear or certain, but this was definitely worse than just being sail. You see, though there are many ships that
might
be a cutter, there’s one kind in particular that
always
is, and this was exactly the kind that we didn’t want to meet. Nobody said anything—the boys carried on scrubbing and slooshing like before, and Brew and myself kept watch-ing—but we were all thinking trouble.

This little jaunt in the
Sincerity
was taking a chance, I dare say, but still it had seemed worth the risk. The sad truth of it is there never was a family so clever at letting it all slip through their fingers as Kewleys. When Big Kewley died he left farms, half a dozen town houses, an inn and boats enough to take half Peel for a jaunt round the harbour, but by the time it got to me there was just the house we lived in—and that with its roof—together with a farm that was half stones, a shop in the wrong street and a little grubby inn that never paid. It wasn’t even as if it had all gone on gambling and high women, which would at least have had a
touch of the hero. No, the Kewleys were careful, sober people, but with a terrible taste for litigating wills, and a perfect eye for a rotten buy. Why, I can’t say I’d done any better than the rest of them. Even with my captain’s wages sailing dirty little vessels back and forth across the Irish Sea with cattle bones and such, I wasn’t even stemming the tide. I knew if I didn’t do something before long it would all be gone, and Kewleys would be begging on Big Street like any set of poor mucks.

Then one day I heard how a merchant vessel had sailed into Ramsey harbour bankrupt. Port dues were owing and she was coming up for auction, while the word was she’d go cheaper than dirty weather. That got me wondering. The fact was there was only one way Kewleys had ever got themselves rich, so perhaps I should give it another try? It was true that the old trade was long out of fashion nowadays, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t pay. At least I should take a look. So I rode across to Ramsey to put a sight on this stranded ship. A battered old vessel she was, with a high quarterdeck like you hardly saw anymore, and even a little toy of a cannon on the prow to scare the seagulls, but I never minded. Why, just looking at her I could feel hope getting into my lungs. I could just see myself there, shouting orders from her deck, my own ship, that would make me rich enough to buy half Douglas town.

Within the week I’d taken her, too, and was looking into selling off those last few scrapings of the great Kewley fortune. My wife was never pleased, of course. Sweet delight of my life though Ealisad is, when it comes to risk she’s one of those watchful, weighing kinds of female who won’t venture tuppence though it could catch her fifty guineas. I did try to win her round for sure. I told her a little about the clever things that could be done with a ship, especially by Manxmen from Peel City. I told her of cousin Rob, who’d been in the English navy and married an Englishwoman, and now caught eels and such near Maldon town—that was hardly a spit from London itself—where he lived in an old house sat on an empty stretch of shore, handy as could be, so he’d even joked about what might be done there when he last paid us a visit. I told her how much a fellow might expect to catch from one voyage of this particular kind, and how it was only doing those Englishmen a favour besides, and so was moral as could be in its way. Not that it did any good. All I got back was black looks and Scripture talk.

‘‘You’ll have us all walking the houses begging for ha’pennies, mark my words,’’ she’d say, ‘‘or in gaol.’’

‘‘Don’t you worry,’’ I told her, ‘‘it’ll be as easy as kicking pebbles on the beach. You just wait. Three months from now you’ll have a fine new carriage to take you off to church on Sunday.’’

Of course things never do turn out quite as you expect. It took more than three months just to get the ship ready. First there was bringing her round to Peel, where all was more discreet. Then there was finding all that certain extra timber I needed, that had to be from a boat freshly broken up, and one just a little smaller than the
Sincerity
herself. Next there was getting the timber fitted, and repairs done besides. There was finding the crew, who had to be just right every one of them, meaning they had to be Manxmen from Peel City, as no others could be trusted. Finally, when ship and men were all set, there was the showing cargo, which was salted herring, Manx as could be. All of this cost a good few pennies, and though I had had paid a sweet price for the
Sincerity
herself, I was running short by the end and even had to borrow more from Dan Gawne the Castletown brewer. By late May, though, all was finished complete.

What a send-off that we had. Why, it seemed as if half Peel was there, standing on the quays and the herring boats, all staring, and perhaps waving a hat if they had one. Then again we were quite a sight. The
Sincerity
looked fine as Christmas with her new canvas, her fresh ropes and paintwork, and even her figurehead was gleaming as if new, peering away at the horizon through her dark curls, with just a hint of a winking. I’d bought myself a fresh set of clothes and a cap to match, and as I stood on the deck I felt fine and brave as could be. The only thing to spoil it all, in fact, was when I saw the Bishop of Man pushing his way through the throng towards us.

‘‘Captain Kewley, is it?’’ he asked. ‘‘I understand you’re sailing south.’’

The Bishop of Man, I should tell, was an Englishman named Chalmers, being a huffy old scriss always peering down his nose at the world. There were some persons said he’d got himself all in sulks because he’d not been given a fine airy cathedral in Winchester or Canterbury to lord it over, but had been shut away on a small country full of Methodists mumbling some language he couldn’t understand. Not that I’m saying it
was true, but there were persons said so. Now he was all sweetness, of course, seeing as he was questing after a favour.

‘‘I have to go to Port St. Mary, you see. The roads being so very poor I wondered if I might make a little passage aboard your vessel.’’

I can’t say I much wanted him aboard, even just for the hour or the two it would take us to reach Port St. Mary, but it’s hardly easy saying no to bishops. Besides, if there was one man in Peel City who wouldn’t be in the know as to what particular kind of ship that the
Sincerity
happened to be, it was him, so there’d be no great harm. Or so it seemed at the time. Up he climbed onto the deck, in his purple and his silly-looking straw hat to keep the sun off his fine Englishman’s head.

Soon after that it was time to be away. As the wise man says,
keep a good wind waiting and it’s nothing you’ll be eating
I called out for the bowline to be let go and the two towing boats started off pulling away till their tow ropes snapped taut. Then the
Sincerity
gave a kind of shudder and a little strip of water opened up between her and the quay. I recall thinking that, though we were hardly a yard gone, we were started now, after all these weeks of waiting, and then I dropped into wondering about the mysteries of how things would turn out, and what thoughts I’d be thinking when I returned. Not that I guessed even a glimmer of the truth of it, of course. If I had, I would probably have jumped straight back ashore. I gave a wave to Ealisad, though she hardly waved back, being still in her huff and then the crews of the two boats pulled at their oars and slowly the harbour began to change its shape, till it was scrinched up small behind us, and its waving bodies were hardly bodies anymore but just a crowd. After that there was no time for looking, as we were out in the swell, rocking nicely, and there was work to be done. The tow ropes were let go, the boats were brought up, and the boys were scampering aloft to let go a sheet or two and catch the wind. Soon the last sight of Peel was gone complete, and it was time to twist your head about and give a thought to what was next.