Blown Off Course (20 page)

Tempted once more to mention a failure and return through Flushing, Pearce knew by the weight of the purse that was covered, but he had to say something. ‘To tell you the truth, I was going to ask you for some funds. I have spent everything Davidson advanced me.’

‘Do this well and that is a worry you will never have again.’

‘Amen to that.’

After a firm handshake, Pearce went on his way, aware that his extremities were tingling: there was a frisson of danger in the air and he was in his element.

The Pelicans ate heartily before they departed and they also bought some provisions to take as a precaution, then they dressed in thick, hooded cloaks bought by Pearce that both hid their features and provided protection against the elements. Their boatmen were waiting by the riverbank and as soon as they and their ditty bags were aboard they took them swiftly out into the stream, which, with the tide falling, would carry them a long way downriver without much effort. There were eyes upon them, from shore and from one floating bounty hunter, who sought to hail them to stop. He was ignored and bypassed with ease, unaware that, had he managed to impede them, he would likely have ended up swimming in the Thames for his life.

Before long they were swinging through the arches
of London Bridge, brightly lit and busy, with Pearce recalling the last time he had boated through that hazard, for the tidal rush around the massive stone piers could be deadly to a novice oarsman; it was different now – he was seeking his fortune not doubting his fate. Soon they were well past, easing through a mass of anchored shipping sat between Greenwich and the London docks, vessels either waiting to unload cargo, or take it on.

As the fall of the tide eased they took turns on the extra oars the watermen had fetched along, keeping up a steady pace, leaving behind the smoke and buildings of London. There was rarely open country and clean air on either beam all the way till they raised the Medway towns, this being such a working river. As promised, Rufus prepared to aim his piss at the lights of Sheerness, but they had stayed silent as they passed the anchored ships of the North Sea fleet, the great, hulking,
black-painted
leviathans of seventy to one hundred and ten guns, rocking gently and surrounded by their own filth.

Off Faversham, with dawn breaking, they were spotted by a guard boat intent on pressing seamen, but this was where Pearce’s naval coat came into its own, for he was able to call out the name of one of the warships on the Downs station and hail the information that he was on his way to rejoin. Yet further on, the river estuary widened out and the tide turned, making the journey past the North Foreland a hard pull, and causing Pearce to wonder at how his watermen would fare on their return, though not for long, given it was none of his concern.

Then they were round the great white cliffs and into
the calm of the Stour estuary, with long mudflats to larboard, hauling along a low shoreline, through the first of what turned out to be hundreds of merchant ships, on past the first of the three rose-shaped Tudor castles, with the black muzzles of their numerous heavy cannon plugged to keep out the sea spray. These protected the most important anchorage on the east coast, the long bight of water where great convoys formed and made their landfall before proceeding upriver to London, protected from the run of the North Sea by the long bar of the Goodwin Sands.

Those vessels making a return paid off their excess deep-water crew here – many fewer were needed for the short journey up the Thames, those same sailors forming a well of employable men for those convoys heading out to the four corners of the globe. Thus, at any time, Deal was awash with sailors freshly in receipt of their wages after several months at sea and there was, according to Winston’s gloomy description, a whole raft of folk who saw it as their bounden duty to relieve them of such coin, and whether it was by fair means or foul lay in the lap of the gods. As a concomitant to that, given the propensity of tars to spend everything they possessed as quickly as possible, Deal was also home to men impoverished and desperate for a ship.

The whole shoreline was lined with boats, hoys, clinker-built cutters and fishing smacks pulled up onto the shingle, and behind them the backs of a string of tall, grey houses, all with smoking chimneys. They passed the stink, as well as the floating blood and offal, of the local abattoir, where cattle and pigs were slaughtered,
salted and barrelled for convoys which could be at sea for half a year. Boats plied to and fro taking men to and from their ships, hoys likewise with supplies, while hovellers cast lines to seek out lost anchors and anything else fallen or discarded in the shallows.

There was much legitimate trade in Deal, but Winston had opined the locals only truly prospered when the wind blew hard on a high tide from the north-east. That was the route from which danger came to this place, a screaming wind and high pounding waves, causing ships to drag said anchors and, if they did not collide with another vessel equally in trouble, fight to stay off the deadly Goodwins – that long, wide sandbar that would suck below any ship run aground, but not until the local boatmen, by legend ignoring the cries of the drowning, had stripped her bare of anything of value.

Like the whole of England’s shoreline facing France, smuggling was a way of life here, a constant battle between the Excise and the men who resided there, with blood spilt and lives sometimes taken. There was a naval presence too, one ship of the line and a brace of anchored frigates, which made Charlie wonder at the number of sailors who must be present, until Pearce, who had recounted all the information he had received from Winston, moved to put his mind at rest.

‘They have nothing to fear in this place. I am told the Press dare not enter Deal for fear of their own lives.’

‘A rough town, then, as you tell us?’

‘From what I am led to believe, Charlie, but it is no
worse than what you know.’ Pointing ahead, he alerted the men rowing to a tall building with a flag aloft, bearing as a device a trio of crowns. ‘That will be the Three Kings, set us down as close as you can.’

They landed on steep and crowded shingle, which had the watermen getting their bare feet wet, not that they seemed bothered, too eager as they were to get from John Pearce the second part of their agreed payment, a sum which they could not have earned in a month from their normal endeavour ferrying folk around the Thames. Their ditty bags were passed over and with a wave they departed.

‘So, my friends,’ Pearce said, as a gentle north-east wind plucked at his cloak, ‘let us see what kind of food this place can provide.’

‘You’re in luck, for the weather is good, light
north-easterlies
and a calm sea judged to stay that way for a day or two by those who read the sky.’

These reassurances came from Barmes, a grossly overweight, fat-jowled fellow who was busy filling his massive belly via a mouth rarely free of food. Pearce had finished his repast well before, only to be staggered that a man eating when he came in was still doing so now. Tempted to ask if an easterly was not an impediment to a Channel crossing Pearce stopped himself. Speed was no doubt more important on the return journey than that going out.

‘The fellows you need to get you across the water will come upon my call if they judge conditions to be right.’

‘We must await my principal, who is coming on the London coach.’

‘Nothing will happen lest he does so,’ Barmes insisted,
omitting to say that money would have to change hands before anything occurred. ‘All being well, we will fetch him along to you as soon as matters are agreed.’

The dining room of the Three Kings was full, so this was a low-voiced conversation made easier by the loud buzz of everyone else present: naval officers from the Downs Squadron who, given his dress, looked at him with interest as soon as he removed his cloak; redcoats either making their way to, or taking leave from, the army of the Duke of York, seeking battle in the Low Countries; merchant ship captains and local traders; as well as men who were not engaged in any conversation at all, but seemed more intent on watching their fellow diners, making Pearce wonder what Charlie Taverner, who could spot a lawbreaker a mile off, would make of them. He, Michael and Rufus, having spotted a newly landed boat cooking fish over a charcoal brazier, had gone off to eat outdoors.

‘Tell me of the arrangements.’

‘You will have observed the salt marshlands north of Sandown Castle; that is where you will launch from before we lose the last of the light, this very evening, if, as I have already said, my fellows agree.’

If the fat fellow’s eyes could convey avarice, John Pearce had a pair equally good at displaying caution and they reacted at the mention of the castle, which brought forth more reassurance.

‘The Deal forts, Sandown included, have a military piquet but they are gunners and few in number. They have no interest in boats being launched and even less inclination to leave their warm fires unless subject to a
general order to do so, and that is rare.’

‘What about the Excise?’

‘You are departing the English shore, sir, not landing, so they have no interest.’

In between filling his face Barmes instructed Pearce to make his way to the Ship Inn, which lay on the prosaically named Middle Street, and wait. ‘If all is well, I will send a man to fetch you at the appropriate hour and Mr Winston will be taken to the rendezvous, should he arrive as promised to you.’

That had Pearce thinking once more that Arthur Winston was not a natural intriguer: he had been careful not to use his own name, in fact he had given this tub of lard no name at all. Winston should have done likewise.

‘And if your man does not come?’

‘Then you must find a bed for the night, sir, and wait for my messenger on the morrow, while praying that the weather holds, for a galley cannot go in any kind of sea or wind, and a decent tide at the right time of day is required to cross the Goodwins. It is common to wait a week or more for the conditions to be right, and not unknown to wait a month.’

That gave cause for a bout of misplaced impatience: Pearce had no notion to be stuck in Deal for any length of time but he was only too aware that, when it came to journeys over water, wind and tide were the factors in control.

‘How will we know him?’

‘He, sir, will know you, for he has clapped eyes on you this very hour, as soon as you identified yourself to
me. And, sir, I would advise you to put your cloak on, for that coat you are wearing is one to induce caution in a place like Deal.’

Pearce reprised the arrangements to ensure there was no chance of an error before exiting the dining room, checked the arrival time of the London coach at the desk, which would not pull up till late in the day, then left, taking the advice to don his boat cloak. Once outside he signalled to his waiting companions, now seated on bollards. They rose and silently followed along a quite broad strand, which fell away on both sides – a street dissected by the kind of narrow alleyways with which every seaport abounded, so constrained no two people could pass, made dark by the high walls of the buildings either side, with the wind whistling through to tug at their clothing.

Middle Street, a lower thoroughfare than that fronting the beach, was crowded and full of hawkers, trundling carts and folk going about their business, including sailors in abundance, easy to identify from their dress and gait, a lot of them drunk, and the air of the place was generally one of merriment – hardly surprising given the number of places selling drink through open windows: it seemed every house was a dispensary of some beverage or other.

As a thoroughfare it conformed to what one could expect in a town that lived off the sea, with urchins either running around or gathered playing games. There were whores and hucksters, rough-looking fellows, local boatmen in tarpaulin hats and smocks, voices calling out inviting the foolish to find the lady, bait a bear or
try the throwing of a fowl, the smell of food preparation mixed with unwashed humanity and the waste from man and beast, the whole overborne by the pervading odour of drying or cooking fish, for nothing could overcome the smell of a frying sprat. Charlie cuffed a near child who came close, with words that warned him not to try dipping, while Rufus opined on the street women, seemingly not put off by Michael’s asserting that they were all likely to be poxed.

The brick-faced building they entered was an alehouse, the room they entered small, busy and with a blazing fire. Pearce, once he had the Pelicans seated, told them to take it easy on the ale and went off to do a bit of investigating, which entailed making his way back to the beach and hiring another boat, this to take him to St Margaret’s Bay so that he could assess the suitability of the place for a landing, being in luck that the man rowing him was a talkative soul who seemed content that his passenger was just a fellow, with time to spare, out for an excursion.

They passed in their travels – Pearce had them pointed out to him – the naval dockyard, Deal Castle, behind which there seemed to be a rate of building work in progress, then on through the crowded shipping to the third of the fortresses, Walmer. All were similar in design, bristling with forty-two pound cannon that covered the whole field of fire to protect the anchorage and its approaches. They passed a run-down fishing village called Kingsdown and, not long after, the beach ended and the cliffs suddenly rose to form a bluff that cut off St Margaret’s Bay. It was also the point at which
the anchorage ended for merchant vessels, the seascape beyond now dotted with fishing boats.

‘Good for crabs and lobsters ’tween inshore, Your Honour, but for fish you want to be out a bit, tho’ you might find yourself contesting for a catch with them damned Frenchies from Calais.’

‘That means rocks inshore does it not?’ Pearce replied.

‘Only a hazard t’at either end, for as you can see, I don’t fear to row close to these here cliffs.’ They now towered over the small wherry, grey mostly, rarely the white of myth, home to seabirds and stained at the base where the tide washed against them. ‘You can walk the shore at low tide, though you’d be fish bait if you got caught, ’cause them cliffs is sheer, as you can see.’

It was not a long pull, something over a mile Pearce reckoned, and then they opened the bay where he was tasked to land the cargo, a strand of beach with a few pulled-up boats, the whole enclosed by steep hills with a winding path leading up to the heights. To the man examining it, and he stayed afloat to do so, the place certainly had the twin advantages of a decent shelving beach and of seclusion – by land there was only one way in and out. But that could also be a trap, and he then and there resolved that whatever happened when he got here – if he got here – then he must have a means to get clear by sea, which he could not do if his keel were stuck.

He would have liked to stay and see the effect of the falling tide, but ever mindful he was supposed to be a tourist, he indicated to his oarsman that he could take
him back to Deal, which engendered a sly look.

‘Take you round to Dover, if ’n you has a mind to, Your Honour. T’aint far and the castle there is a sight.’

‘Thank you, no, I have an engagement I must keep in Deal.’

The fellow was less chatty on the way back, given he had failed in his task of adding to his fee by an extension of his labours.

Once back in the Ship, there was no choice but to occupy the corner seat, which had a window by which the Pelicans could sit and watch the world go by, each with their own thoughts about what lay ahead, though the past, as was common amongst friends, was more often the subject of their conversation than an unknown future and Pearce, quite deliberately, barred any talk of future prosperity, that being to tempt providence.

They were fetched from the Ship Inn by a gruff-voiced messenger, to be told their principal was already on his way to the rendezvous and, after a short walk, crossed a narrow brook that fed the stinking abattoir, leaving behind the habitable stone buildings, passing instead, at the north end of the town, through the tarred canvas shacks of the local poor, eyed by glowering men and their downtrodden women and children, until finally they reached the marshlands.

They stayed well clear of the silent, low and brooding walls of Sandown Castle, its central dovecote catching the dying rays of a weak sun as the first of the lanterns were being lit inside, unsure if they were observed but
certainly pleased they were not challenged, heading along a shore that had as protection nothing more than the bank of shingle thrown up by the normal tides – one, judging by the presence of sand underfoot, that was easily overcome by any kind of storm. Once atop that bank, they could see in the fading light that the tide was high, the sea state benign, while the wind was gentle on their faces.

Pearce did not like the look of the men who would launch and row the galley, quite a crowd given their numbers exceeded the number of oars, their grim expressions and bearded faces not softened by twilight, short-in-the-leg types with broad shoulders, none of them old, men who eyed Michael O’Hagan as if he was some kind of freak and mumbled insulting asides about long-legged Paddies who stole the grub of honest Englishmen – remarks that would have got them a clout had Pearce not restrained his friend.

Arthur Winston was there, well wrapped up, his hat clamped on his head and a thick woollen comforter round his neck and lower face. When he spoke, even muffled, it was as if he was in terror of what he might face and the brevity of the introduction Pearce made to his friends underlined that, for he shied away from any temptation to engage them in conversation after a general reference to their shared knowledge of the Pelican Tavern, quickly taking Pearce aside to whisper to him.

‘I must tell you John, I am no great shakes on water, in fact being at sea upsets me and that, I must tell you, is on something more substantial than what we will sit in this night.’

‘Then let us hope these fellows get us across in short order, and mind this, they would not risk their lives, so they will be unlikely to be risking yours.’

The boat itself, sat just out of the water on logs of round timber, was sound enough, light in weight by the look of its raked timbers, three times the length of a naval cutter though no wider in the beam, with seating for twelve oarsmen a side and room in the middle for enough cargo to make a trip worthwhile, this now covered with temporary seating for their passengers.

‘The big ’un and that sack he’s carrying just forrard of the middle of the boat,’ growled the leader, he who had brought them here, the first time he had used more than one word, ‘or he’ll have us down head or stern; the rest of you take a place ’twixt the oarsmen as you see fit.’

‘Where will you be?’ asked Pearce.

That got him a look that implied he had no right to ask. ‘Sat astern with an eye out for trouble.’

‘Then I will be close to you,’ Pearce replied, before moving to whisper to Michael. ‘You face aft and I will face forward. Anything you don’t like, let me know.’

‘Holy Mary, John-boy, there is nothing going in to this boat I like at all.’

Pearce took out his watch and had a quick look. ‘I think they will get us across safe and sound.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I am,’ Pearce replied, before turning to a
worried-looking
Winston. ‘Or I would not get aboard myself. Sit close to me, Arthur.’

That he did and when all the passengers were
aboard, the galley was run down on its logs on a falling tide, with the rowers leaping in just as their feet hit the tideline so that the momentum took the boat clear of the shore. The shipped oars, twenty-four in all, were in the water and quickly employed, the rhythm of rowing so quickly established it was obviously well practised, while those left ashore gathered the roller logs and took them to high safety.

There was a mass of shipping to navigate through and that too was impressive, for if Pearce, facing forward, looking at Arthur Winston’s back, could not see the man in command, he could hear the one-word instructions that had oars on one side lifted, the opposite side left dead so that the galley turned easily in its own length, those same sticks rapidly deployed again so they were never still. If that was notable, so was the speed they achieved when they hit clear water, evidenced by the creamy water running down the side, as well as the quickly diminishing bulk of the ships Pearce could see over his shoulder.

‘Goodwins,’ the man said, with his nearest passenger wondering whom he was telling, only to realise it was he when the fellow continued, almost boastfully, ‘No more’n a few feet of water under our keel now, a place where no sailing ship dare follow.’