The Toilers of the Sea (17 page)

II

CLUBIN SEES SOMEONE

Zuela sometimes had a meal in the Auberge Jean. Sieur Clubin knew him by sight.

Sieur Clubin was broad-minded: he was not too proud to know some rogues by sight. He sometimes went so far as to know them personally, shaking hands with them openly in the street and passing the time of day. He spoke English to a smuggler and had a smattering of Spanish for a contrabandista. He had a variety of aphorisms to justify this: “You can get some good out of knowing evil.”—“The gamekeeper can learn something from the poacher.”—“The pilot must take soundings of the pirate, who is a kind of hidden reef.”—“I taste a rascal as a doctor tastes poison.” These statements were unanswerable. Everyone agreed that Captain Clubin was right. They thought well of him for not being absurdly overnice. Who would have dared to speak ill of him? All that he did was clearly “for the good of the service.” Everything about him was straightforward. Nothing could harm his reputation: it was a crystal so pure that it could not be stained even if it tried. This confidence was the just reward for many years of honesty: that is the good thing about a well-established reputation. Whatever Clubin did or appeared to do was given a favorable interpretation; his faultlessness was an established fact. Moreover, people said, he knew what he was about; and an acquaintance with certain people, which in another man would have been suspicious, served only to enhance his reputation for integrity and cleverness. This reputation for cleverness combined happily with his reputation for naïveté without any incongruity or confusion. There is such a thing as a man who is both naïve and clever. It is one of the varieties of the respectable citizen, and one of the most valued. Sieur Clubin was one of those men who, if found in close conversation with a swindler or a thief, are accepted and understood—indeed all the more respected— and are looked on with the approving glance of public esteem.

The
Tamaulipas
had now taken on her cargo; she was ready for sea and was due to sail shortly.

One Tuesday evening the Durande arrived in Saint-Malo while it was still broad daylight. As he stood on the bridge directing his ship's entry into the harbor, Sieur Clubin saw two men engaged in conversation in a lonely spot on a sandy beach between two rocks, near the Petit Bey. Looking through his glass, he recognized one of them as Captain Zuela, and he seems also to have recognized the other.

The other man was a tall figure with graying hair. He wore the broad-brimmed hat and sober garments of the Friends. He was probably, therefore, a Quaker. He kept his eyes modestly cast down.

When he arrived at the Auberge Jean Sieur Clubin learned that the
Tamaulipas
was expected to sail in ten days or so.

It was later found that he had gathered certain other information.

That evening he called in on the gunsmith in Rue Saint-Vincent and asked, “Do you know what a revolver is?”

“Yes,” said the gunsmith: “It's American.”

“It's a pistol that reopens the conversation.”

“Yes, it has both the question and the answer.”

“And a comeback to that.”

“Right, Monsieur Clubin. A revolving barrel.”

“And five or six bullets.”

The gunsmith half-opened his mouth and clicked his tongue, making the sound that, accompanied by a nod of the head, expresses admiration.

“It's a good little weapon, Monsieur Clubin. I think it will make its way.”

“I want a six-barreled revolver.”

“I haven't any of those.”

“What? You call yourself a gunsmith, don't you?”

“I still haven't got that particular article. It's new, you see. It's just coming into use. In France we only have pistols.”

“The devil!”

“They're not yet on the market.”

“The devil!”

“I have some first-class pistols.”

“I want a revolver.”

“I agree that it is more useful. But just wait a bit, Monsieur Clubin.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think I know of one in Saint-Malo, secondhand.”

“A revolver?”

“Yes.”

“For sale?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I think I know where. I'll enquire.”

“When will you be able let me know?”

“It's secondhand. But a good one.”

“When should I come back?”

“If I can get you a revolver, you can be sure it will be a good one.”

“When will you let me know?”

“On your next trip.”

“Don't say that it's for me,” said Clubin.

III

CLUBIN TAKES SOMETHING AWAY AND BRINGS NOTHING BACK

Sieur Clubin loaded the Durande, taking on board many head of cattle and a few passengers, and left Saint-Malo for Guernsey as usual on the Friday morning.

Once the vessel was out at sea and he could leave the bridge for a few moments, Clubin went to his cabin and locked himself in, took up a traveling bag that he kept there, put some articles of clothing into the expanding compartment, and biscuit, some tinned food, a few pounds of chocolate bars, a chronometer, and a spyglass into the main compartment, padlocked the bag, and passed a rope through the handles so that it could be hoisted up if need be. Then he went down to the cable locker in the hold and was seen to bring up a length of rope with knots at regular intervals and a hook at one end, such as is used by caulkers at sea and thieves on land: it is an aid to climbing.

When he arrived in Guernsey Clubin went to Torteval, where he spent thirty-six hours. He took the traveling bag and the knotted rope, but did not come back with them.

We must make clear once and for all that the Guernsey we are talking about in this book is the old Guernsey that no longer exists and can now be found only in the country districts. There it is still alive, but in the towns it is dead. This applies also to Jersey. St. Helier is now much the same as Dieppe, St. Peter Port as Lorient. Thanks to progress, thanks to the spirit of enterprise of this gallant little island people, over the last forty years everything has been transformed in this archipelago in the Channel. Where there was shadow, there is now light.

This said, we can carry on with our story.

In those days, which distance in time has now made ancient history, smuggling was rife in the Channel. The ships carrying on this illicit trade were particularly numerous on the west coast of Guernsey. Persons who are particularly well informed, and know in precise detail what was happening just half a century ago, cite the names of some of these ships, almost all of them from the Asturias and Guipúzcoa. What is beyond doubt is that scarcely a week went by without one or two of them arriving in Saint's Bay or at Pleinmont. It had almost the air of a regular service. One sea cave on Sark was known, and still is known, as the Boutiques because it was here that customers came to buy the smugglers' wares. For the purposes of this trade a kind of smugglers' language, now forgotten—related to Spanish as Levantine is to Italian—was spoken in the Channel.

At many points on the English and French coasts there was a secret understanding between the smuggling trade and open and legitimate commerce. The smugglers had the entrée to many a great figure in the financial world—through a secret door, it must be said—and they were linked up through subterranean channels with the circulatory system of commerce and the arteries of industry. A businessman at the front door, a smuggler at the back door: this was the story of many fortunes. Séguin alleged this of Bourgain; Bourgain alleged it of Séguin.
¹²⁶
We cannot vouch for the truth of what they said: perhaps they were slandering one another. However that may be, the smugglers, though hunted down by the law, certainly had close connections with the world of finance. They also had contacts with the “best people.” The cavern in which Mandrin rubbed shoulders with the Comte de Charolais
¹²⁷
had a respectable exterior and an impeccable façade on society; it was a prosperous and respected establishment.

All this required much connivance, necessarily concealed. These mysteries could thrive only in impenetrable obscurity. A smuggler knew many things that he was bound to keep silent; to keep strict and inviolable faith was his law. The first quality for a smuggler was loyalty. Without discretion the smuggling trade is impossible. There is a secrecy of fraud as there is the secret of the confession.

This secrecy was inviolably guarded. The smuggler swore to maintain absolute silence about the trade, and he kept his word. No one was more trustworthy in this respect than a smuggler. One day the alcalde (judge) of Oyarzún captured a smuggler of the Puertos Secos and had him put to the question to force him to reveal the name of the person who financed his enterprise. The smuggler did not name the man: it was in fact the alcalde. Of the two accomplices the judge had been obliged, in order to be seen to be obeying the law, to order the smuggler to be tortured, while the smuggler had been bound to say nothing under torture in order to keep his oath.

The two most celebrated smugglers frequenting Pleinmont at this period were Blasco and Blasquito. They were
tocayos
(namesakes). This is a form of relationship among Spanish Catholics that consists in having the same patron saint in paradise—which, it must be agreed, is no less worthy of consideration than having the same father on earth.

When you were reasonably familiar with the furtive comings and goings of the smugglers and wanted to do business with them, nothing was easier—or more difficult. It was necessary only to have no fear of venturing out at night, to go to Pleinmont, and to confront the mysterious question-mark that stands there.

IV

PLEINMONT

Pleinmont, near Torteval, is one of the three corners of Guernsey. Here, at the tip of the promontory, a high grassy hill rears above the sea.

The hill is deserted; and it is all the more deserted because there is a house on it. The house adds an element of fear to the solitude: it is said to be haunted.

Whether or not it is haunted, it is certainly strange.

The house, a two-story granite building, stands on the grassy summit of the hill. It is not by any means a ruin; it is perfectly habitable. The walls are thick and the roof is sound. Not a stone is missing from the walls, not a tile from the roof. A brick chimney-stack buttresses one corner of the roof. The house turns its back on the sea. The side facing the ocean is a blank wall; but if you look closely you can see a window that has been walled up. On the gable ends are three small windows, one on the east end and two on the west end; all three are walled up. The side facing inland has a doorway and windows. The doorway is walled up. The two ground-floor windows are walled up. On the first floor—and this is what strikes you most as you approach the house— are two open windows; but the walled-up windows are less disturbing than these. Open though they are, they look black even in full daylight. They have lost their glass, and even the frames are missing. They open on the darkness within. They are like the empty sockets of two eyes that have been torn out. There is nothing inside the house. Through the gaping windows can be seen the dilapidation of the interior. No wainscoting, no woodworking; nothing but bare stone. It is like a sepulchre with windows from which ghosts can look out. Rain is undermining the foundations on the seaward side. Nettles, shaken by the wind, caress the lower parts of the walls. On the horizon not a human habitation is to be seen. This house is an empty thing, a place of silence. But if you stop for a moment and put your ear against the wall you will now and then hear a confused fluttering of wings, scared by your presence. Above the walled-up door, on the stone that forms the architrave, are inscribed the letters ELM-PBILG and the date 1780.

At night the somber moon shines into the house.

Around this house is the whole of the sea. Its situation is magnificent, and consequently sinister. The beauty of the place becomes an enigma. Why is there no human family living in this house? The situation is beautiful; the house is a good one. Why has it been abandoned?

To the questions posed by our reason are added others suggested by our reverie. This field is suitable for cultivation: why is it not cultivated? The house has no master. The doorway is walled up. What is wrong with this place? Why do men shun it? What is going on here? If nothing is going on, why is there no one here? When everyone is asleep is there anyone awake here? The sight of this house calls up images of dark and gloomy squalls, the wind, birds of prey, lurking animals, unknown beings. What wayfarers does this hostelry cater to?

You can imagine dark shadows of hail and rain bursting in through the windows. Storms have left their traces in the marks made by water trickling down the inside walls. These rooms, whether their windows are walled up or open, are visited by the hurricane. Has some crime been committed here? Surely at night this house, abandoned to darkness, must call for help? Does it remain silent? Are voices heard coming from it? With whom does it have to do in this solitude? The mystery of the hours of darkness is entirely at home here. This house is disquieting at midday: what is it like at midnight? When you look at it you are looking at a secret. You wonder—since reverie has its own logic and the possibilities open up in your mind—what happens to this house between the twilight of evening and the half-light of morning. Has extra-human life, dispersed as it is over immense distances, a junction point on this lonely hill where it stops and is forced to become visible and descend to earth? Do the scattered elements of this other world come together to swirl and eddy here? Does impalpable matter condense here and take on form? These are enigmas. There is a sacred horror in these stones. The darkness of these forbidden rooms is more than darkness: it is the unknown. After the sun goes down the fishing boats will return to harbor, the birds will be silent, the goatherd behind the rock will go off with his goats, the first reptiles, taking courage, will slip out of crevices between the stones, the stars will begin to look down, the north wind will blow, darkness will fall, and these two windows will be there, gaping wide.

The house is now open to dreams; and popular belief, which is both simpleminded and profound, peoples the somber intimacies between this house and the darkness of night with apparitions, with evil spirits, with spectral faces dimly discerned, with masks surrounded by lurid light, with mysterious tumults of souls and shades.

The house is haunted: no further explanation is needed.

Credulous minds have their explanation; but matter-of-fact minds also have theirs. There is no mystery about this house, they say. It is an old watch house, used during the wars of the Revolution and Empire and the time when smuggling was rife. It was built for that purpose, and after the wars it was abandoned. The house was not pulled down because it might be needed again. The doorway and ground-floor windows were walled up against the deposit of human excrement and to prevent anyone from getting in, and the windows on the three sides of the house facing the sea because of the southerly and westerly winds. There was no more to it than that.

The ignorant and credulous still hold to their belief. In the first place, they say, the house was not built during the wars of the Revolution. It bears a date—1780—earlier than the Revolution. And it was not built as a watch house. It bears the letters ELM-PBILG—the initials of two families, which show that, in accordance with custom, the house had been built for a newly married couple. Thus it had clearly been inhabited at one time. Then why is it no longer occupied? If the doorway and windows were walled up to prevent anyone from getting into the house, why were two windows left open? Everything should have been walled up, or nothing. Why are there no shutters? Why are there no window frames? Why is there no glass in the windows? Why were the windows walled up on one side and not on the other? The rain is prevented from coming in on the south side but is allowed in on the north side.

The credulous are wrong, no doubt, but certainly the matter-of-fact people are not right. The problem remains.

What is certain is that the house is believed to have been more useful than harmful to smugglers.

When people are scared, they cannot see things in their proper proportions. There is no doubt that many of the nocturnal happenings that had led to the belief that the house was haunted could be explained by obscure and furtive visits, by men landing here for a short time and then reembarking, by the precaution or the boldness of men engaged in suspect activities who sought either to conceal what they were up to or allowed themselves to be seen in order to inspire fear.

At that distant period many daring deeds were possible. In those days the police, particularly in small districts, fell far short of what they are today.

Moreover, if, as is said, the house was convenient for smugglers, this was partly because they were unlikely to be disturbed there as a result of its sinister reputation, which prevented people from reporting what went on there. You do not usually apply to customs men or excisemen when you are troubled by specters. On such an occasion superstitious people make the sign of the cross; they think it more efficacious than a police report. They see something, or think they see something; then they make off and say nothing about it. There is a tacit connivance— involuntary, but real—between those who inspire fear and those who feel it. Those who are scared feel they have done wrong to be scared; they imagine they have stumbled on something secret; they are afraid of finding themselves worse off in a situation that to them is mysterious, and of angering the apparitions. This makes them discreet. And, even apart from a calculation of this kind, the instinct of credulous people is to keep silent; fear makes them dumb. Terrified people do not speak much: it is as if horror says “Hush!”

It must be remembered that this was a period when the country people of Guernsey believed that on one day each year the mystery of the manger in Bethlehem was reenacted by oxen and asses. It was a time when no one would go into a stable on Christmas Eve for fear of finding the animals on their knees.

If we are to believe local legends and the tales told by people you meet, superstition used sometimes to be carried so far as to hang on the walls of this house at Pleinmont, on nails of which some traces can still be seen, rats with their paws cut off, bats without their wings, the carcasses of dead animals, toads squashed between the pages of a Bible, sprigs of yellow lupin—strange votive offerings made by people who had been unwise enough to pass that way at night and had seen something, in the hope that these gifts would win pardon for them and appease nocturnal apparitions, evil spirits, and phantoms. There have always been people ready to believe in abacas and witches' sabbaths, including some highly placed personages. Caesar consulted Sagane; Napoleon, Mademoiselle Lenormand.
¹²⁸
There are consciences so unquiet that they will seek to obtain indulgences from the Devil. “May God do and Satan not undo” was one of the Emperor Charles V's prayers. Others are more timorous still. They will even persuade themselves that one can wrong what is evil. They are concerned to behave impeccably to the Devil. Hence come religious practices directed toward the immense and obscure power of evil. It is a form of bigotry like any other.

Crimes against the Devil exist in certain diseased imaginations; to have broken the law of the underworld torments some eccentric casuists of ignorance; they have scruples in dealing with the world of darkness. To believe in the efficacy of worshiping the mysteries of the Brocken and of Armuyr,
¹²⁹
to imagine that one has sinned against Hell, to perform chimerical penances for chimerical offenses, to admit the truth to the Father of Lies, to offer a mea culpa to the Father of Sin, to make one's confession widdershins: all these things happen or have happened, as is proved in the records of witch trials on every page. Human imaginings go to such extremes. When a man begins to be scared there is no stopping him. He dreams up imaginary faults, he dreams of imaginary purifications, and he cleanses his conscience with the shadow of the witch's broomstick.

However that may be, if this house has adventures, that is its own affair. Apart from a few chance visits and a few exceptions, no one goes there. The house is left alone; and no one feels like risking an encounter with infernal forces.

Thanks to the terror that guards it and keeps away anyone who might observe and bear witness, it has always been easy to get entry to this house at night with the help of a rope ladder, or even a hurdle from one of the neighboring fields. With a suitable supply of clothes and food, a man could wait here in complete safety until the time came for a furtive embarkation. Tradition has it that some forty years ago a fugitive—for reasons of politics according to some, for reasons of commerce according to others—spent some time hidden in the haunted house of Pleinmont before sailing in a fishing boat to England. And from England it is easy to get to America.

The same tradition maintains that any supplies left in the house will not be touched, since it is in the interests of Lucifer as well as the smugglers that whoever deposited them should return.

From the hill on which the house stands there is a view to the southwest of the Hanois reef, a mile offshore.

This reef is famous. It has done all the evil deeds that a rock can do. It was one of the most redoubtable killers in the sea. It lay treacherously in wait for ships sailing at night. It had extended the cemeteries of Torteval and Rocquaine.

In 1862 a lighthouse was built on the reef. Nowadays it shows a light to the ships that it formerly led astray; what used to be a trap now bears a torch. Seamen scan the horizon for this rock, now a protector and a guide, which they formerly shunned as an evildoer. It now reassures the vast nocturnal expanses in which it formerly inspired fear. It is rather like a robber turned gendarme.

There are three Hanois: the Grand Hanois, the Petit Hanois, and the Mauve. The “red light” is on the Petit Hanois.

This reef is one of a group of jagged rocks, some of them underwater, some emerging from the sea. Like a fortress, it has its outworks: on the side facing the open sea a string of thirteen rocks; to the north two shoals, the Hautes-Fourquies and the Aiguillons, and a sandbank, the Hérouée; to the south three rocks, the Cat Rock, the Percée, and the Roque Herpin; plus two underwater rocks, the South Boue and the Boue le Mouet, and off Pleinmont, just under the surface, the Tas de Pois d'Aval.

It is difficult, but not impossible, to swim from the Hanois to Pleinmont. It will be remembered that this was one of Sieur Clubin's feats. For the swimmer who knows these shallows there are two places where he can rest—the Round Rock and, beyond this, bearing a little to the left, the Red Rock.