Ripples in the Sand (The Sea Witch Voyages) (7 page)

Beside the barrels was a wooden gate of about Jesamiah’s height. “That the back entrance to the
Full Moon
?” he asked.

“Aye. ‘Tis where the privy be.”

“You’d best show me exactly where.”

The lad shook his head emphatically. “Cain’t, sir. I got things t’do. There bist light enough ver ‘ee t’see, the kitchen winders bist bright an’ Mistress keeps a lant’n burnin’ nex’ the privy hut.” To emphasise his point he pressed the latch down and as the gate swung inward, scuttled back round the corner as if he were returning to the inn. He did not go in. Jesamiah could see the boy’s shadow slanting across the cobbles. Waiting for him to disappear from sight?

Obliging, Jesamiah stepped through the gateway, stopped a few paces inside at the unmistakable click of a musket’s hammer.

A militia guard, the white of his breeches and crossbelt clearly visible, emerged from a sheltered position near the kitchen door. “Halt! Who passes there?”

The musket was pointed straight at Jesamiah’s stomach. He raised his hands and grinned. “Hey heave-to there, feller! I’m from the inn and in need of an urgent piss. Nothing more sinister than that. Though if you don’t let me pass there’s going to be an embarrassing wet patch on m’breeches, which I’d rather not explain to the ladies inside.”

The soldier lowered the weapon. “Be quick then.”

Jesamiah strolled to the wooden shack that looked in danger of falling down at the first breath of a lively wind, stepped inside and relieved himself into the dark stink of a cesspit hole. “Foul bloody night, ain’t it?” he called. “They’re saying we can expect snow.” Coming out, buttoning his breeches, continued, “Don’t get snow in the Spanish Main. Give me the Caribbean any day.”

The soldier remained standing in the centre of the small, square yard in the rain, watching every move.

Walking towards him, Jesamiah kept up the cheerful banter. “Y’know your powder’ll likely be sodden. Don’t they give you somethin’ better to shelter under? Bugger me, mate, you’re soaked through!” Putting out his hand, Jesamiah wiped at the man’s wet shoulder. “That ain’t much of a cloak, is it? My seamen get oiled canvas togs t’wear when it’s wet. Bet yer boots leak too, eh?” He shook his head sorrowfully. “An them others sit inside swilling ale and sampling Ma Trevithick’s pastry while you’re left t’drown? Ain’t right if ye ask me.”

Jesamiah slid his arm around the man’s shoulders, steered him towards where an overhang of what looked like a washhouse gave promise of a drier spot. “You want t’send in fer some rum or brandy… watch that ice formin’ there mate…!” Moving quickly, Jesamiah grasped the man’s straggle of hair and slammed him forwards. Without a sound, beyond the crunch of bone connecting with stone, the soldier crumpled to a heap.

“Tut, tut, slipped did ye? I’d better get some ‘elp, eh?”

Walking out into Cock Lane Jesamiah paused. The boy was by the barrels, bending over a shape fallen to the ground.

“I’ll see to ‘im,” Jesamiah offered. “You alert Mistress Trevithick that I’ll be bringing him into the kitchens. And fetch me a tankard of rum.”

“But the guard…”

Losing the improvised congeniality, Jesamiah barked the order again. “Do as you’re bloody told, boy, or you’ll feel the back of my hand!”

The boy scarpered.

“Where are you hurt, mate?” Not waiting for an answer, Jesamiah investigated beneath the man’s coat, found blood on his left side. “Bullet?”

The man nodded. “It’s naught but a scratch, but I’m cold and tired. Been hidin’ all day. Didn’t expect those buggers to be waitin’ for me.”

“They suspect you. That lieutenant’s a bit of a bastard, ain’t ‘e?” Heaving the man to his feet, Jesamiah thread an arm around his waist, steered him towards the inn’s courtyard.

Carter Trevithick halted, shook his head. “The militia’s there too. There’s one of ‘em waiting…”

“Not at the moment there ain’t. He’s taking a bit of a nap.”

Pegget ran from the kitchen, fear creasing her face. “Thank ‘ee, Cap’n, thank ‘ee! Carter, what’ve they gone done to thee?”

“Don’t fuss, woman. I’ll be fine once I’m warm and dry.”

“If I were you, ma’am,” Jesamiah said, handing over her husband, “I’d stow him somewhere safe and secret for a couple of days. Let the interest die down a little.”

Pegget disappeared into the kitchen with her wounded husband, refusing to stop her clucking and worrying. The boy appeared with the rum.

“Thank ‘ee, lad.” Jesamiah took a generous swig then walked over to the soldier, rolled him on to his back and poured the drink liberally over his face and chest, making sure enough dribbled over the lips and into the mouth. The reek of rum filled the air. Finally, Jesamiah placed the empty tankard into the man’s hand and gestured for the boy to go inside. “We’re done out ‘ere, lad.”

Ten

Rue wiped his finger round the empty bowl, scooping up the last of the cream. Jesamiah had been right, the apple pie was excellent. Anything was excellent compared to shipboard fare.

The musician in the corner had moved onto another jolly tune, most of the revellers were joining in with raucous song, two were dancing a jig on the table, in danger of toppling off at any moment. The noise was high, the laughter loud. Even two of the militia attempted what amounted to a half grin.

Jesamiah entered through the door, closed it quickly behind him as a few grumbles complained at the sudden blast of cold air. He walked slightly unsteadily to Rue’s table, leant his palms flat and belched.

“Cold air don’t do much to sober a man,” he said to Rue, followed by a hiccup. He winked. Sometimes it paid to appear the worse for wear. “Gather a few of the men and get back to the ship,” he said quietly, leaning forward. “We’ll make way up river as soon as the tide floods tomorrow. I want to get there and back as quick as may be.”

Rue reached for his hat and coat beside him on the bench. Said as quietly, “You’ve got blood on your sleeve.”

Glancing down, Jesamiah realised his friend was right. He removed his coat and folded it over his arm, bloodstain duly hidden. He checked his breeches and hands were clean, and rocking on his heels, said loudly, “I’m t’m wife and m’bed then. I’ll leave you in charge of m’ship.” Raising his hat and replacing it slightly crooked, he made three or four wavering strides towards the stairs, halted and turned back again. Tottering towards the soldiers, he set his arm sociably around the lieutenant’s shoulders, breathing rum fumes into his face.

Wrinkling his nose in disgust, the man scowled and attempted to push Jesamiah away.

“Lieuten… lieu… lieutentant.” At the third attempt the apparently drunken Jesamiah got the word out. “You may or may not want to know this, but,” he paused, swallowed down a belch, then slurred, “but I have just sheen one of your men failing in his,” the burp came anyway, “failin’ in his dooty. Should ‘e be face down olblivious to the world? He looks as full as a goat. I think he’s been swillin’ like a tinker. Mighty funny though, ‘e were ‘eadin’ for the privy, a bit unsteady like, but ‘e misses the door and slaps straight into the wall. Funniest thing I’ve seen in a long whiles.”

Half getting to his feet the lieutenant tried to extricate himself from Jesamiah’s clutching arm, but was pushed firmly down into his seat again.

“Now I as don’t like talkin’ ill of the m’litia, you sodjers are cap’tol fellers, cap’tol, but I don’t know as ‘ow it be right fer a red coat t’walk slap into a wall like that. Don’t ye agree?”

Removing his arm Jesamiah walked unsteadily away, bumped into a table and tripped up the first two stairs. Before the bend he removed his hat again and saluted an elaborate good night to the crowd below. No one was watching. The lieutenant and two of his men were hurrying out the door.

Perfectly sober, Jesamiah grinned and made his way to his bedchamber and the prospect of a peaceful night with his wife.

Eleven

The rain had stopped, leaving a damp chill in the early morning air. Jesamiah was making ready to begin the arduous task of taking
Sea Witch
upriver. The pilot, a small man with bow legs, red face and ears as large as a donkey’s, was advising him to pay the local boatmen to tow her up.

Standing on the quarterdeck, a mug of steaming coffee – that really was coffee – in his hand, Jesamiah took a last assessment before answering. The flood tide was running past
Sea Witch’s
keel, chattering and gurgling as it swept into the estuary and the two channels of the Taw and Torridge. Taking a ship up a river on the tide was a skilled task, not easy, but Jesamiah knew his vessel, and his men.

Many of them had sore heads from a surfeit of drinking last night, but Jesamiah was not so stupid as to permit them to drink themselves into a stupor with a job half done. They had only received a handful of their due pay, the rest would be tallied once the tobacco was sold and the hold cleared of cargo. Then they could go their own sweet way and do as they pleased. Most would return when he decided to set sail again. If he decided to sail again.

Shoving the uncomfortable thought aside, Jesamiah concentrated on the matter in hand: getting
Sea Witch
to Bideford and finding a buyer who was desperate for several hogsheads of mediocre tobacco. He snorted. How likely would that be?

“Why would I be paying unknown boatmen,” he asked, “when I’ve good men of my own, and wind and tide to use for free?”

The pilot screwed up his pale blue eyes and peered at the sky a while. The sun was shining weakly, glistening on the blanket of snow covering the higher ground of the Exmoor moorland. “This be a big vessel. Her tonnage be larger’n most. It’ll cost thee a lot more if’n thee run aground.”

That was true.

The fishing fleet had left with the last ebb tide, along with the only other ship that had been anchored last night. Sipping his coffee and peering over the rail at the almost empty Appledore wharves, Jesamiah asked, “How long would it take to assemble these boatmen of yours, then? There don’t seem to be many around at the moment.”

“Aye well, they all be at Bideford. Take a bit of a while to bring ‘em down agin. An hour mebbe?” Scratching at his whiskers the pilot added, “Ye should have arranged a tow las’ night.”

“An hour ain’t no good for me. We’ll work her up.”

The pilot sucked in a long, slow intake of breath. Shook his head, exhaled as slowly and loudly. “I be not so sure, Cap’n. Not so sure.”

Ignoring him, Jesamiah stepped up to the quarterdeck rail and called forrard to Rue, who was supervising setting the anchor to hang a-cockbill from the cathead, held only by the ring-painter with the shank-painter already let go. If they ran into trouble the anchor would need to be dropped in a hurry.

Rue raised his hand in acknowledgement that all was ready. Joe Meadows also gestured that he was prepared, showing the lead line held in his hand. It would be worked constantly the whole three and a half miles upriver.

“On your head be it, Cap’n,” the pilot said. “As long as ye take heed of what I’ve advised.”

“If runnin’ aground is a possibility, why am I botherin’ to pay you a pilot’s fee? Ain’t you ‘ere t’ensure we don’t?” Finishing the coffee, Jesamiah turned to Isiah Roberts. “Bring in the kedge. Let’s get going.”

Playing its part overnight, the small kedge anchor had kept the ship steady while she had rested in the river channel. The last thing any captain wanted, with the change of tides, was for his vessel to swing round and ride over the principal cable, entangling herself and maybe loosening her anchor. At an ebb tide, when most of the river had drained to mud and sand it did not matter, nothing was going anywhere, but the sea came in and out and only a fool relied on the one anchor. Jesamiah had seen the damage created by a drifting ship. He grinned at the thought as he handed Finch his empty coffee cup. On more than one occasion he had seen the consequences of an unsecured vessel set loose deliberately. A useful way for a pirate to slip out of harbour while everyone else was desperately trying to avoid disaster. Useful, but highly irresponsible. Amusing to observe the resulting scrabble of chaos, so long as you were well clear.

Watching the men jump-to with a will, Jesamiah caught sight of a woman on the jetty opposite the
Full Moon
. He would recognise her anywhere, even without that distinctive dark green cloak. He hated green and wished she would permit him to purchase a new one, but Tiola was adamant about the wretched old thing. He laughed under his breath. She had made a bargain with him. She would have a new cloak if he would get a new coat.

There was nothing wrong with his shabby old buckram longcoat that had once been a dark blue and was now faded to a sun-bleached grey. She knew perfectly well that he would never part with it willingly. Lifting his hat he waved to her, did not bother with shouting a repeat of what he had insisted earlier before coming aboard. “Do not tire yourself!”

“I want to walk,” she had answered. “My strength is returning now I am ashore. In a day or two I will be as right as a robin.”

Beside her stood Pegget Trevithick. Their arms linked. Rapidly becoming friends, a camaraderie helped along by Tiola’s promise to ensure that Master Trevithick, safely ensconced in one of the smugglers’ hiding places, was mending well.

Movement further along the quay. A flash of red, the militia forming into rank. Jesamiah lifted the telescope from the binnacle box, twisted the tube to bring it to its full length and set the glass to his eye. There was that bastard lieutenant from last night. He moved the telescope slightly, observing each face as the men swung into a brisk march towards the larger of the two ferries. Heading back to barracks in Barnstaple? Jesamiah hoped so; he was not too keen on meeting with them again. The one he was looking for among them, a soldier with a broken nose and probably a black eye, was not there. Maybe they had hanged the idiot for incompetency.

Closing the instrument, Jesamiah waved again to Tiola. No point in sending mind words to her, he was unable to initiate their personal conversations. The ability came from her, and her alone. It was a relief to know she was a little better, up on her feet and able to take some air, but she still looked pale and fragile.

Free of the restraining kedge,
Sea Witch
was drifting broadside with the tide, her mains’l aback to avoid gathering too fast a speed. A few yards only, then losing the strength of the tide, Jesamiah, at the helm, spun the wheel in reverse. With her bow facing almost directly towards the broad sweep of the bend ahead, and turning alarmingly fast to windward – the direction from which the wind was coming – Jesamiah allowed her to fly up and head into the wind, until her stem was almost touching the point of losing control. Quickly, he shouted for the head yards to be braced aback, and again he spun the helm. For a moment
Sea Witch
drifted backwards, but with skill he brought her to the wind, and the sails filled. The only way to turn a ship when there was not sufficient room to manoeuvre, but a method that, if it failed, could result in disaster and earn the everlasting contempt of the pilot. That momentary pause, when the vessel was hanging in stays, showed the ability of the helmsman and crew. To miss stays – to miss making the turn – was poor seamanship. In a narrow channel it could be the difference between remaining afloat and running aground.

Her sails filling again,
Sea Witch
glided across the width of the river. Almost it seemed they would hurtle into the opposite bank, but listening intently to the calls from the leadsman, Skylark, the sound of the water, the wind, and his own instinct, Jesamiah shouted the order to tack an instant before the pilot, standing beside him, was about to give a warning.

His sudden alarm subsiding, the man grunted, a gesture of reluctant admiration. He mumbled that Captain Acorne was to carry on. Tactfully, Jesamiah refrained from grinning. It would not pay to be cocksure too soon. They had a couple more miles to go yet.

Appledore and the sea was hidden behind the curved brow of the hill and Jesamiah had no spare time to think of Tiola. She was safe where she was, and
Sea Witch
was demanding his full attention. Even with the tide in their favour and a willing crew, she was a large craft to manoeuvre within the confines of the two hundred or so yards that were the width of the River Torridge at this point.

Despite the noise, the shouted orders, the harsh screams of gulls flocking overhead, and the cursing and grunting and straining of the men, the pilot barely ceased talking of his personal troubles. His nagging wife, the ungrateful children, even more ungrateful merchants and traders. “They think these ships get themselves upriver on their own, they do. Where’d Bideford be without me as pilot, eh? Ruined, that’s where. River’d be full of wrecks, this entire channel packed with rotting keels and broken masts, aye, and the bones of the dead. Not appreciative, none of ‘em.”

Ignoring the pilot’s idle prattling, by backing, filling and shivering the mainsail while again in stays, that danger time when all control could be lost,
Sea Witch
sailed neatly and safely around the next headland point. Jesamiah ordered the foresail to remain aback. Once clear of the bend he let the tide take her and the wind fill the sails.
Sea Witch
proceeded sedately diagonally across the river to the far bank, where at exactly the right moment he put the helm a-lee. The mainsail swung around and she was swinging to face straight upriver again. There, a way ahead, was Bideford with its impressive multi-arched stone bridge spanning the river.

“It will be a bugger getting a vessel up here if this ever starts silting up,” Jesamiah remarked.

The pilot snorted derision. “The Torridge’ll not silt up. We’ve plenty room. Your’n be one o’ the biggest I’ve brought to Bideford, I grant, but look how busy we be!” He gestured towards the town, a mile and a half away. “Fishing boats that bring cod back from Nova Scotia, merchants shipping baccy and cotton from the Colonies. From the Indies, silks and spices, tea and china. The lime boats, the clay boats. If ever we had problems with silting up, Captain, I assure you we’d be manning dredgers from full moon to full moon to keep the channel open. Give up all this? It would be the death of trade ‘ere in North Devon!”

Maybe his denial was right, but Jesamiah had seen it happen in other ports. He kept quiet, not wanting to disillusion the man, or start him off on yet another tedious anecdote.

Concentrating on his ship, Jesamiah could not permit her to come round too much. The wind was gusting, not being particularly helpful. “Steady, my beauty,” he murmured, as again, he spun the helm and completed another sternboard movement. Clear of the bend on the east bank, Bideford was getting nearer. With sails filled, Jesamiah encouraged
Sea Witch
to stretch ahead along the fairway, sailing elegantly forwards.

Down river of the bridge, an array of other vessels was moored or at anchor, yards, spars and masts soaring skyward like a forest of trees. Small boats bustled between those out in the channel and the quayside, while Bideford itself looked to be a busy place with its array of wharves and warehouses, chandlers, taverns, sail makers, rope makers, coopers, carpenters, saddlers and vintners. Stacks of hemp rope and sail cloth. Pottery, lime, fish, tobacco. Bakers, butchers, tanners, drapers, haberdashers and tailors – Bideford was the second largest port to London for trade from the Colonies. A swarm of people buying, selling, trading or merely passing the time of day.

Mindful of the eddying water and the commanding breeze, her bow now facing away from the town, Jesamiah glanced over his shoulder and let his ship swing round a little more, the tide, rudder, wind and her own momentum neatly dropping her, stern first, into the current.

“Lay mains’l aback. Clew up tops’l. Let her ride t’ windward. Drop anchor!”

There was a splash, and
Sea Witch
pulled back on the cable, the anchor held, and she came to rest. As neat a bit of seamanship as Jesamiah had ever achieved. Grinning at the pilot he said, “Was that good enough for you? Reckon we still need your lackeys to tow us?”

The pilot grunted, then conceded. “Fair bit o’ sailin’ I grant ye. But I still wants payin’.”

Jesamiah fished the required coins from his pocket and, slapping the pilot’s shoulder, handed them over willingly. “I didn’t need you this time, but who’s t’say I might ‘ave done? You know this river, I know m’ship. We’re safe anchored, that’s all I care about. What’s the draft here at low tide? She won’t lay over, will she?”

“The mid-channel river’ll be a minimum eighteen feet here at Bideford in winter time, lower in a dry summer. Fix your anchorage firm an’ ye’ll be right enough. You can warp her in to any vacant mooring at high tide if’n you need t’ unload that cargo of yourn, or boat it across. Good day to ye, Captain, m’compliments for a smooth passage.”

It took a while to settle
Sea Witch
in, tidy her sails and set her aright. Jesamiah never permitted his crew to leave her looking tawdry. A precaution as well as pride. There had been many occasions when they had found it necessary to leave in a hurry.