Signals of Distress (15 page)

‘Is that you, Palmer?’ someone called.

Palmer looked out of his coat. He tried an American accent. ‘What is it, then?’

One of the Dollys’ neighbours was standing at the bulwarks of his boat twenty yards away and was pointing into the teeming semicircle of the Dolly net.

‘What’s that you’ve caught?’

‘Too many bloody pilchers!’ He couldn’t get the accent’s chesty resonance.

‘No, that!’ The neighbour pointed again. And then threw a broken end of rope to mark the spot. ‘It in’t no pilchard, that’s for sure.’

Palmer couldn’t make it out. There was a dark spot in the nets. A piece of wood, perhaps. Some matted kelp. The carcass of a porpoise. A tunny with a heart attack, from too much food. It
certainly wasn’t alive. It didn’t move. It didn’t absorb any of the little light there was.

‘I don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough.’ He couldn’t give a stalk of parsley what it was. He put his head back in his coat, and crossed three thousand miles of
sea, and was American again.

By six o’clock – with just a hint of Monday in the sky – they’d found out what was ‘not alive’. Nathaniel Rankin bobbed and eddied closer to the Dolly boat,
propelled by grazing fish. He was face down and so waterlogged that pilchards swam across his body. His clothes were shredded by the sea. Palmer poked him with a rigging pole. The body sank. The
water blackened where he’d been, filled up with fish, and then was cleared again as Seaman Rankin floated back in view. Palmer’s rigging pole had come out of the water with a gluey tip.
The body was as soft and decomposed as Bordeaux cheese. Palmer had to look away and swallow hard on icy air. He called out to his father with the news. ‘Wake Skimmer,’ he was told,
‘and get it out of the water. We’ll not sell pilchards, else. Not with a taint like that!’ Together Palmer and Skimmer pulled Rankin’s body clear of the water by his open
collar and his belt. They put him on a piece of sail on deck. His clothes were tight. A man who’s marinated in the sea for two days is bound to swell. His flesh becomes porous and water
enters him. He begins to peel and split. He loses shape. His margins flake.

They squeezed the water out of him, and threw the tunnelling crabs and pilchards into the air, for gulls. At first they thought it was the African. His skin, in that no-light, was black. But
once they’d got their lantern lit, they saw the colour was a plum, a damson blue. His veins and arteries had burst. His face and hands were bruised. His lips and tongue were fungi. His eyes
were gone. And he was wounded on his forehead and his neck by gulls. He’d lost a good part of his waist and shirt to a fish. A single bite. There was – surprisingly – no smell,
except the oily odour of the pilchards. Skimmer searched the outer pockets of the coat: more crabs, a blue neckerchief, a dollar and a swivel knife. He bit the dollar, put it in his shirt.
‘You’d better go for help,’ he said to Palmer. ‘Tell their captain. Get Preacher Phipps.’ He shook his head as if to say, ‘We’ve netted bad luck here. I
knew we would.’

For Palmer, though, the netting of Nathaniel Rankin was not bad luck. It was just the opportunity he was hoping for. ‘Give me the dollar, Skimmer,’ he said.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Just fish it out. It in’t yours to have.’

‘Nor in’t it yours.’

‘You robbin’ dead men, is it then? It in’t no good to you, not hereabouts. Let’s have it now. It’s dead man’s money, ’n’ you in’t
dead.’

‘Good as dead,’ said Skimmer. He pulled the dollar from his shirt and slapped it into Palmer’s hand. ‘Palmer is the proper name for you. Picking pockets … palming
other people’s tin.’ Palmer didn’t wait to hear the rest. He had to make his way to shore, through seven nets of fish. He dropped into the water. It was too deep to find a
footing, though the pilchards kept him up. He slid across their tumbling backs, and pulled himself towards the edges of the net. His heart was battering his chest. He could hardly find the air to
breathe. The water was so heavy and so cold that Palmer scarcely had the strength to move his arms through it. He had ten minutes at the most. More time and he would freeze. Then there would be two
corpses and a mystery to bring ashore, for Rankin’s dollar would be found in Palmer’s mouth.

Once he’d reached the edges of the Dolly net, Palmer could use the surface rope and corks to pull himself more swiftly through the water. He could then transfer to the outer edges of a
neighbour’s net, and – half-circling that – bring himself into the shallow waters of the shore. He could hear his father and Skimmer calling to the nearest boats, explaining what
they’d caught and why it was that Palmer was taking such a risk. It was a risk. But Palmer Dolly was a pioneer. He’d be the one to bring the news to Captain Comstock. He’d die for
it. His neighbours held their lanterns up and shouted their encouragement. They couldn’t help in any other way. They watched him pull himself over the outer rim of the last net, into even
colder water, where there were no fish – and fish, compared to this, were warm. Now he could find his feet. His upper body was clear of the water and he was wading, burdened with the weight
of sodden clothes. What breeze there was was raw and aching on his skin. He gripped the dollar between his teeth and came up on the snow and sand. His boots were full of sea.

He walked – he couldn’t run – along the backshore to the quayside where the
Tar
had docked. Thank God the lower entrance to the inn was open. It was quiet in the
snow-packed courtyard, no wind, no gulls. Somewhere inside the inn a dog began to bark. There was no light. He had to find the narrow passageway by hand and by nose: the fish-head, urine, earthy
smell of somewhere always damp and dark. The passageway was steep. Palmer was winded by the time he’d reached the raised front door. It wasn’t locked against the night, or Africans. The
handle turned. He knew it would. He didn’t feel unlucky.

Perhaps he should have stopped to warm himself at the embers of the parlour fire, but he wanted to be seen as wet and cold and dutiful, a man who could be reckless if required. He found a candle
on the mantel. He held it in the fire and blew into the ashes and the few remaining cherks of wood. His hand was shaking, and the candle wouldn’t make a flame. He had to hold it with both
hands. His fingers were both numb and throbbing as the fire revived. The candle lit. What should he do? Where should he go? He shook the parlour handbell, but its ring was far too timid and
discreet. He’d have to find the parlourman or, better, Alice Yapp to ask where Captain Comstock was. He knew her rooms. He’d been there once. She was the only entertainment in the
town.

Palmer hurried through the snug to Mrs Yapp’s door. He rapped on it and shook the latch. The door was locked. ‘Mrs Yapp. Wake up!’

‘And who the Devil’s that?’

‘It’s Palmer Dolly, Mrs Yapp. Where’s the captain of that ship … ?’

‘Why don’t you scram, Palmer? What time is it?’

‘We’ve got the body of the man who drowned!’

‘Why wake me up, besides?’

‘Tell me where the captain is. It’s his man that’s drowned …’

He heard some movement in the room, some heavy steps, and then the door was opened. The American captain was standing there, and naked too, but for the blanket round his waist and pillow cotton
in his hair.

‘Say all of that again,’ he said.

Palmer Dolly stood to attention at the door, the candle held before him like a sword, a little shakily. The water ran off him and puddled at his feet. He couldn’t stop the clatter of his
teeth. ‘We’ve netted the sailor, sir. The drownded one that’s lost …’

‘My man?’

‘He’s yours for sure.’ He held the dollar up. ‘I could’ve thieved it, sir. But that in’t right …’

‘Where is he?’

‘On our tuck boat. On a bit o’ canvas.’

‘What state’s he in?’

‘Dead as stone.’

The captain turned, and spoke into the dark bedroom. ‘Alice, did you hear? They’ve Seaman Rankin’s body on their boat. Where do the bodies go in Wherrytown?’

‘You’d better lay him in the stable block. The tackle room. Let Mr Phipps take care of it.’

‘You hear that? What’s your name … ?’

‘It’s Palmer Dolly, Captain. And I’m a sailor too.’

‘So, Palmer Dolly. Put the body into Mrs Yapp’s tackle room. And keep that dollar for yourself …’

‘I’ll hope to spend it in America, then.’

‘You spend it how you want.’

‘I mean, I hoped to ask if you were looking for a sailor for the
Belle
… you being one hand down.’

The captain closed the bedroom door. He should have dressed and gone down to the pilchard nets. He should have shown his
captaincy
. Instead he went to Mrs Yapp and took refuge in an hour
more of sleep. His head ached badly when he woke. His shoulders were like wood. Hard winds, bad luck, a bar of sand had beached his ship. His masts were down, the cattle lost, the African set
loose; the ground was deep in snow; and every half-wit in the land was either staying at the inn or banging at his door in the middle of the night with more bad news: damned Rankin had been found!
What kind of day would Monday be? Oh praise the Lord if it could be a turning point! The
Belle
afloat. The cattle rounded up. The nightmare coming to an end.

W
ALTER
H
OWELLS
had been sleeping unusually well, but he was woken abruptly before dawn. Someone with sopping feet was hurrying
– too closely – past the window of his seafront home. Was
home
the word for where he lived? Or even
house
?
Warehouse
, perhaps. This was the man to see and bargain
with if firearms were wanted. Or silk. Or books. Or laudanum. Or contraband. If anybody required horses, or had a letter to be sent, or needed to hire labour, acquire a wedding coat, buy shoes, a
bed, a block of tea, some timber, a ticket for the
Tar
, then Walter was the man. He had the world beneath his bed in boxes, weighed and priced. ‘Everything supplied,’ he used to
say, ‘excepting payment on the slate. Or loans.’

Who could that be at such an early hour walking by his house? Not excise men or smugglers. They couldn’t even sniff in Wherrytown without first informing Walter How-ells and agreeing on
percentages. Some filchers, then? Some early rising thief? He took his ancient German flintlock off its bedboard hook. Its ram’s-horn butt was icy cold. As was the floor on his bare feet. As
were the misted panes of window glass on his nose and forehead. He hadn’t known that so much snow had settled. He’d been asleep too soon. The seashore and the lane beyond the glass
seemed inside out, the dark parts light, the ground much brighter than the sky. The sea was oddly matt. Its only scintillations came from the offshore lamps on the fishing boats, and the bobbing
outlines of their masts and rigging, separated in the shallows by sparkling, turbulent circles of pilchards. No doubt the footsteps that he’d heard had been a fisherman’s. He left the
flintlock on the windowsill, and wrapped himself in the Spanish rug which he used as his bed cover. The rug caught on the flintlock’s barrel and knocked it off the windowsill into the
cushions of a chair, where it was lost. He wasn’t sorry to be woken early. This would be a busy day, for Walter Howells and Wherrytown. Everyone would earn a decent crust. High tide, high
times!

There was still a smoulder meditating in the bedroom grate. Walter Howells knelt down, his knees in ashes, and revived what heat there was with kindling and some pages from a used ledger. He lit
a candle from the flame. He mixed and warmed a little ink and then stood at his high desk to write out his Monday tasks. Bring the catch ashore. Get the pilchards salted and barrelled up. Bring the
cattle in. Refloat the
Belle
. He noted down how much salt he’d need, how many panniers and barrels, how many men and women, what weight of wood, what boats, what rope, what cattle
feed. He wrote ‘High Water – 2 p.m.?’ and circled it.

There was a letter to be sent, on behalf of Shipmaster Comstock, to William Bagnall, debtor, rascal, bludger, footpad, horse-thief, pugilist. Walter chuckled to himself. The very thought of
William Bagnall’s many skills! He smoothed a piece of paper and wrote with hardly any hesitation and in high spirits:

It was a fine start to his day.

Walter Howells was mounted on his re-shod horse and organizing pilchards on the beach a little after eight. Most of Wherrytown was there. The women too. And many of the women from the coast had
joined their husbands and their neighbours for the landing of the catch. How could they resist it? Good pennies could be made that Monday morning by nimble hands that didn’t mind the
withering of salt or the rasp of fish-scales, that didn’t care if their nails, softened in the brine, were ripped, or if their arms were pickled to the elbows. Why should they mind? This
wasn’t Paris, after all. This wasn’t Lah-di-dah-on-Sea. They wouldn’t need fine hands or perfect nails. They didn’t spend their day in salons, waving Chinese fans, or
playing cards, or offering their fingers for gentlemen to kiss. There weren’t any Chinese fans or salons in Wherrytown. Nor any gentlemen either. But there was snow, and that was rare so
early in the winter. Coastal snow does not last long; the Wherrytowners hurried out of bed to be the first to walk in it, to break its crusts, to roll it into balls. They gathered on the beach,
made almost eager for the pilcharding by the crispy coverlet of white which hid the sand. It made them feel rosy with well-being. It brought the colours out. The blue and buff of the women’s
smocks and aprons seemed exotic, almost tropical, against the arctic white.