Changing ships is always rough at first. Yer don’t know nobody, nobody knows you. Yer might think that was also true about when I first joined Stella, but then I was brand new, absolute beginner, bottom of the pecking order, and though that meant I was in for some teasing, it were pretty much all of it good natured. Coming fresh into a crew what’s known each other for years, you’re suspect. Anything you do that’s strange to them, you get questions like, “Is that what you did on your last ship? Must be a bunch of lubbers, then. Or was it just you, and that’s why they got rid of you?” You can’t answer that kind of thing, and trying only makes it worse.
You know that no two ships do everything exactly the same way, even if they’re both three-masted schooners. Aboard Wetfoot, I had to learn the ropes for handling staysails on the two forward masts, instead of the gaff-and-boom system I knew so well aboard Stella. They’re all sails to be raised, set, trimmed and struck, except staysails are easier to raise and strike, but when me new shipmates saw me looking for throat and peak halyards, they had a good laugh.
Now then, you have to know that when it comes to shortening sail, your basic gaff-and-boom rigged schooner has reef points above the foot of the sails, what you use to gather the canvass around the boom, reducing yer sail area. Well, when a staysail’s too big for the weather, what yer do is take it down and put up a smaller one. Or none. Or strike one on the foremast and set one on the mizzen. It has to do with the balancing of the forces. But it’s not quite like yer regular schooner where you can feel the wind right in the slot a’tween jibs, stays’ls, fores’ls mizzen and mainsails and sense the breeze sliding across the canvass and sucking the whole ship forward -- and you over the side, too, if you don’t hold on. On a staysail schooner there are more slots, I guess you might say, and getting all of them working together is quite the trick.
I see you nodding yer head like you know it all, and the lass going all glassy eyed again, so I’ll spare you the rest of me brilliant observations on the relative merits of gaff and staysail rigs, not to mention the niceties of sail-handling on the different kinds of schooner.
Suffice it to say — in the words of them writers of the old books what Al had me read — suffice it to say, we made an easy passage south, with me shaking down among me new messmates without no serious breaches of nautical discipline, if you don’t count me showing a trick of the wrist and elbow to the blowhard on me watch, what action on me part was generally taken as being a good thing by all who saw, and most of those who heard. You got to choose real careful who you stroke, and who you thump, and that time, I got it right.
You might think that as Wetfoot eased into me home port that late spring Sunday morning that I’d be all choked up with the thought of returning to me birthplace, but all I could think of was how I’d left, and how little I wanted to see me Da. Y’see, in some ways, I was still the boy who’d popped him on the nose and then run away to sea. I couldn’t get it into me head that I was now closing in on five years older, best part of a handspan taller, a whole lot bigger and healthier and tougher than the snot-nosed kid who’d figgered that the best thing to do was run away — a long way away.
So I stood a’tween the foremast staysail and the jib, where the leading hand couldn’t see me, and looked out at the wharves, and behind them at the sheds and the shops and the inns and pubs, an further back at the houses, and up the hill to the mansions where the ship-owners lived, and on up to the spire on the church that rose above the skyline to give us mariners a leading mark for finding our way into the harbour. And it all came back to me, like I was looking at a picture what I’d drawn meself, because I knew what was behind the houses, overhung by the roofs and shaded by the occasional tree, because I’d walked and run all them roads and lanes and alleys, starting from the first time I wandered away from one of me step-moms and got proper lost, dirty and hungry, before she found me, smacked me bum and carted me back home.
Then as I was staring, I startled as a hand fell on me shoulder, and Master Markab was standing beside me. I flinched a second time when he spoke real loud, so’s he could be overheard by the crew.
“Right, Angel, You’re my man ashore. Find the passengers, see that they’ve got their fee for passage, lead them to the boats, get them aboard. You’re coming with me to make the final arrangements. I’m going below now, and when I’m back on deck, I want you waiting in the starboard longboat together with ….”
And then he called out three of the older hands. I guessed he was making sure there wouldn’t be anyone wandering off in search of drink and women. Now it’s all history, I can tell you that he was also making sure that I’d be the one to blame if it all went sideways and he had to clear his ship of anything that had gone down wrong ashore.
Not much later, when Stella’s sails was struck, but not harbour-furled, and she was hanging on one anchor set into the river bottom so’s she was rode by the current, whatever the tide, Markab had one of the longboats launched and we was pulling towards the wharves. When Markab and me was on the dock, he had the men in the boat wait, making it right clear that anyone not there when he got back, best be able to swim.
“Listen, lad, there’s got to be a slop shop close. Take me there.”
So I did as he said, and in no time we was under a sign reading “Samuel’s Nautical Tailoring,” what everyone called “Sammy’s Slops.” Sunday or no, in we went, and to me massive surprise, Master Markab kitted me out like an officer: a fair pair of boots, black britches, white shirt and a blue jacket, all of them nearly new, plus a mate’s peaked hat, just like the brass-trimmed one he was wearing, onlyplain.
“You’ll do,” he said when I’d shifted into them. “Have his old kit taken to my longboat, Mr. Samuel. Now we’re going to church. Look like you’re used to it.”
Feeling that for sure I’d be rumbled by the quality what was walking in pairs and families up the hill to the church, I put meself a pace astern, and half a pace to port of the Master, and did whatever he did while keeping me mouth shut. I’d never been inside a church before, so it were all new to me, and at first, fascinating. When we was sat down waiting for the show to start, I got to looking around, cautious-like, so’s nobody would think I was gawping. Right away, I started to recognize some of the faces of the older men now they’d got their Sunday hats off, among them a couple ship owners I knew from when I was still a nipper. In church, they was all busy looking important, not at all like when they were shouting at the wharfies. And I also saw more’n a couple respectable merchants who’d had me running errands from the wharves to their businesses, what were near enough to the wharfs to make delivery quick, and far enough to keep the rough folk away, all nicely worked out so that the quality felt comfortable in their stores. Sitting there in a pew beside Markab, for a little while I was afraid one of them would tumble to who I was, but what with me in me nice new rig, and with the changes in me size and bearing what came from the years at sea, their eyes just slid right over me.
Well, there was praying and singing and listening to a reading what the parson thought was important enough for him to preach us a great long and some boring sermon about brotherly love and understanding and getting right by his Lord, who wasn’t much like old Al’s Holy. The preacher’s Lord wasn’t into smiting. According to him, Lord was all about forgiveness and looking after orphans and the fatherless, and even the stranger within thy gates. He ran on like poetry to say that they all shall eat and be satisfied, so that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest.
I began to wonder if maybe I was due for some serious eating and drinking meself, that is until Master Markab bent his head towards me ear and whispered, “No chance of so much as a free drink from this lot.” I kept me face straight, but it shook me a bit, ‘cause’til then, I had been thinking that maybe Markab was serious-minded about his church-going.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Well, after a few more prayers and another hymn, we was out the door, shaking the preacher’s hand and mingling with the faithful — or at least with the folks who’d been in the church, what ain’t necessarily the same, I can tell you right easy. Master Markab had his hand shook by the skippers and the merchants, and a couple times held for a moment by the gloved fingers of their wives, and he murmured about how nice it was to be here together after so long at sea. I was almost beginning to enjoy meself and look into the eyes of the young women what were standing beside their ma’s and da’s, when a pious-looking feller all in black singled out Master Markab and pulled him aside. He did one of those grab-the-other-feller’s-hand-and-cover-both-with-yer-spare-hand handshakes that men do when they want you to believe they’re honest. If either of them said anything, I didn’t hear. Then the Master touched me on the shoulder and we headed off towards the sea.
We walked back down the hill with the church spire a bright spear behind us, all lit up by the sun. Down we went into the shadows where the afternoon sun wasn’t, where Markab slowed to take a quick look at a piece of paper that hadn’t been in his hand before the handshake.
“Foaming wold,” he mutters as he slides the paper into his pocket. “Here’s a pair of ducks: I can read this, but I don’t know the town. The lad knows the town, but he can’t read.”
“Begging yer pardon,” I says, “I can read,” what was true, “and I’m not a lad anymore,” what was cheeky.
He hesitated for a heartbeat, took me arm and led me into a pub we was passing, and he sat me down at a small table under a smokey old lantern. We were almost the only customers there, it being Sunday when all good men and true was spozed to be with their wives and families. When we each had a mug in one hand, he produced the piece of paper and we looked at it together.
“Meet about twenty travellers before dawn where the road crosses the stream and then head south along the stream to the wharves. Say the name of your ship.”
“Mean anything to you?” the Master asks me, keeping his voice low.
“That’s what we call the marsh road. Been up there by the stream many a time,” I tell him. “It’s soft and wet. I used to go looking for fiddleheads in the spring, and little brown trout you can scoop up in yer hand, if yer quick. It ain’t much more than a summer short-cut, and at this time of year it’s only beginning to dry out, but it’ll do to get them down to the south side of town where the boats can pick them up.”
I slopped a little beer onto the table and drew him a rough map, showing where the road going north runs beside a stream for a bit, and then crosses it close to where the marsh road begins, and then curves around the hill with the church on it, where it splits to double back towards the north end of town, or goes on nor’eastward, to cross the river.
“I’ll go up the marsh road, meet the passengers by the bridge and lead them back down to where you’ll have the boats waiting. But we’ll all have to be right smart and some early, or the town’s going to be up and wondering what’s happening when there’s ship’s boats where none of them ever goes."
At that moment, in comes a passel of men, all of them excited and looking for drink. It weren’t that we was overhearing them : they was talking l just a bit less than a shout, and they was all doing it at the same time.
“… gonna be a fight …”
“… up country folks ready to attack...”
“… caught one of ‘em…”
“… plan on coming down the swamp road…”
“… and after that, he started talking for fair…”
“… they’ll be waiting in the woods for first light…”
“… looking to raid the shops and warehouses…”
“… hoping to surprise us, but we’re ready for ‘em…”
“… we’ll stop ‘em...."
“… send ‘em back where they came from."
“… but only a few. Enough to warn the others that we’re serious.”
What they was saying got more confused after that, as they called for beer or whiskey, and sat themselves down around the tables. Some of them took knives and short clubs out of their belts or pockets and laid them beside their drinks, trying to show they was hard men.
Markab shoved his beer mug back and forth, rubbing out the map I’d made. We looked at each other.
“Well, that tears it to shreds. We’re here for a couple dozen people, including women and children, with all their baggage together with a … a cargo … which is my fee. They’ll all be coming along a muddy path, expecting to arrive at dawn and get loaded into boats. And they’re going to walk straight into a bunch of drunk, angry, scared, stupid lubbers, all looking for a fight.”
“Maybe the feller they caught was unlucky, but he was smart,” I said. “The townies don’t know about the women and children. They’re expecting a raiding party.”
“Makes no difference. It was never a good plan, but now it’s scuppered. We’d better go back to the ship. If I stay around to collect my fee I’ll lose it to the townies for sure.”
When Markab said that, I knew he was in it for the money, and nothing else. He was all set to leave men, women and families not just stranded, but beat up as well. But I knew what would keep him in the game.
“Master, when we was anchoring, did you get a look at the beach north side of the river? Right in front of a few cottages among a stand of pines?”
He frowned at me, but he nodded.
“There’s a road back of them pines what leads down to the sea and connects with the road around the town. It’s out of the line of sight from the wharves because the river kinks as it meets the sea. We’re anchored far enough into the river’s outfall that if you launch the boats from the ship, the current from the river will take them almost all the way to the beach, no oars squeaking in rowlocks.”
He caught on right quick.
“So you go up the marsh road, meet the man with the price of the trip, have him get the supercargo organized, take them around the back of the town in the dark, cross the bridge, and straight on to the beach,” he says, like he’d just had the idea all by himself.
“No bridge. The river’s way wider than the stream,” I says. “Ferry. Flat bottomed barge, big enough for a wagon with four horses.”
“Ferryman?” he asks.
“Do it yerself with ropes. Done it more’n often, taking sailors to and from them cottages I told you about -- the ones what we could see from the ship.”
He looked at me crooked, like he was wondering if I had something up me sleeve. I knew that look. He was changing his mind about me, wondering if I was the mark he’d taken me for so far, or whether I might be fixing to make him the mark.
“Who’s in the cottages?”
“That’s where the sailors’ friends live.”
He give me a quick look and nodded. He’d decided I was a little cunning and maybe a bit gullible, but on his side.
“Time to go,” he said quietly.
We was no sooner standing than two important-looking men came through the door. They was still wearing their Sunday best, but they had swords strapped around their middles. They looked the place over, and beckoned the publican to them. While the taller of the two checked off names on a list, the other arranged for a little liquid bribery.
“A round for these fine fellows on me, Innkeeper. My men will spend the night here.” Then he dropped his voice and spoke in the publican’s ear, but I heard him clear. “After the one round, no more, unless I say so.”
Markab headed for the door, with me looking humble and seamanlike at his port shoulder. I’ll say this for him, he could keep his cool. He walked right up to the two men in charge, his hand out, like they was old friends.
“Gentlemen,” he says. “Didn’t I see you in church today? And here you are, doing your duty as stalwart leaders of the town.”
And what could they do in front of their men but start shaking his hand and calling him “captain.” So he goes on buttering them up.
“Gentlemen, I must return to my ship, but should you require any assistance in defending your fine community, you can call on me and my ship’s company.”
O’course, that meant that they had to say a whole lot of words that boiled down to “Thanks, but no thanks we can handle it,” and by the time we’d gone around the politeness buoy a couple of times, we were out of the pub, and heading down to the wharves, stepping aside for a few late arrivals to the town’s little army. By a big slice of unearned luck, I was in the shadows, trailing along a little astern of Markab’s port shoulder when I saw that one of the recruits was none other than me old Da. What with me wearing me nice new officer-like clothes and standing in Markab’s lee, and with Da’s fearsome thirst what was never so strong as when someone else might be paying, he never so much as glimpsed me. As he went in the door, I saw him dig his elbow into the fellow beside him so as to show him what he had tucked under his jacket. Lamplight gleamed on the barrel of some kind of handgun or pistol. At that moment, me innards took a notion to turn over. I knew that guns were rare, expensive, deadly, and because the ammunition was old, unpredictable. Sort of like me Da. Put the two of them together andtrouble was getting ready to happen. I took a deep breath and kept moving. I wasn’t about to share what I’d seen with anyone, least of all a master.
When we was around a corner and out of sight in the shadows, Markab gave me a little box of fire-sticks and a stump of candle for signalling, and we told each other goodbye. I was keen to get away from anywhere near me Da, and Markab wanted to get back to the ship ready to be gone and hull down if the whole plan got scuppered. He walked back to the wharves, when he was well out of sight, I took another track I knew around the south edge of town, clear of the pretend soldiers, what I had no intention of being anywhere near.
And now after all that talk, I needs me liquid rations, what those good women who look after me are so parsimonious with. Join me?