Signals of Distress (6 page)

‘I cannot stand between this man and God.’

‘You will not save him, then?’ Aymer was perplexed.

‘I can and will if there is water left inside that jug. For water is the Almighty’s medicine. The greatest service I can render this man or any man is baptism, the wet cross on the
forehead. If he devoutly wishes it.’

‘He cannot understand a word you say.’

‘Then he is an Innocent and we should pray for him. That is the balm and poultice I prescribe. His wounds will heal in God’s good time.’

‘Or he will die.’

‘We all will die in God’s good time, but not, I think, of bruises. The man will be mending by tomorrow. It will be the Sabbath. Come to my chapel for evensong and we can offer
prayers for him. You are baptized yourself, I trust?’

‘I am a Sceptic, Mr Phipps.’

‘Then we shall pray for you as well.’

Aymer would make do without the laudanum. He didn’t want to trade with Walter Howells. The pain didn’t merit it. But he persuaded Mrs Yapp to make a warm compress and find the linen
for a sling. He walked down to the quay in search of the Norrises and to deliver a newly written letter for his brother, Matthias. If he encountered Walter Howells then it could do no harm to have
his arm strapped up. It made him unassailable, he felt, and just a little dignified. The
Tar
was being loaded with its homeward cargo: fresh and salted fish. Its decks were being scrubbed in
preparation for the passengers. Aymer would not be aboard. He had decided he would stay in Wherrytown.

Aymer gave this second letter to the
Tar
’s mate. He waited on the quay for the return of his first, but the mate could find no trace of it. What would it matter if both were
delivered to Matthias? Aymer had, after all, relished the final line of the original letter and didn’t wish his brother to be spared. He was invigorated, flushed with his philanthropy and a
touch in love. His cheeks were pink with wind and optimism. He would be admirable. He would excel.

At last, he saw the Norrises returning from their walk, arm in arm, along the front. He waved with his free arm and almost ran to meet them with the news that they could share his room and were
invited to share his table, too. Katie’s sandy hair was a flapping flag of colour on the sea.

M
RS
Y
APP
had baked squab pies, with horse bread and potatoes. Winter cooking.

‘What’s squab?’ asked Captain Comstock. He’d come to collect food for Whip and Otto, but had stayed for warm brandy and kitchen comforts. ‘Fish, fowl or
fur?’

‘That depends,’ said George, ‘on what the cook’s got spare.’

‘And what is spare today?’

George prodded the meat off-cuts and bones on the kitchen block, the hardened autopsist. ‘It might be cormorant,’ he said. ‘It could be cat.’ He put his nose into the
meat. ‘It in’t fish. And that’s a blessing and a rare thing in this town, to eat a pie that has no fish.’

‘At least we know what it’s not,’ said Comstock.

Mrs Yapp took a handful of grey feathers from the waste, and showed them to the captain. ‘This squab is pigeon,’ she said. ‘There’s apple, bacon, onions, mutton, pigeon.
Makes it nice.’ She made a well in the crusts of three pies and broke a raw egg into each. Then she poured in beer. The gravy of the pies steamed like chimneys on a pastry thatch.

‘That’s to still the squabs,’ George said. ‘They’ll be too drunk to fly.’

Comstock sniffed the steam. He couldn’t wait to eat. He’d lived too long on pickles, salted meat and biscuit on the
Belle
. ‘My dog’d love a bowl of that,’ he
said.

‘Your dog? I’ll not bake pies for dogs.’ She gave the captain two chipped bowls. ‘There’s scraps and gravy for the little dog. And bread and pilchards for the black
fellow. Will he drink beer?’

‘Best not. His temper’s unpredictable.’

Comstock found his way by lantern light into the upper lane and down the open and bladdery alleyway into the courtyard. He called for Whip and took her and Otto’s food into the tackle
room. He felt embarrassed, waiting on the man who had been the
Belle
’s galley boy. The two men didn’t speak. Comstock satisfied himself that Otto had recovered from the storm and
from the tumbles he had taken. The ankle was mending. He seemed both calm and comfortable. That was a blessing. The last thing that the captain needed, on top of all his other woes, was a riotous
and ailing slave. The tackle room would be a decent billet – and a kennel – for a night. Tomorrow was the Sabbath. Captain Comstock would see if there were warmer quarters for Otto,
inside the inn perhaps – but he suspected that the Wherrytowners would not welcome an African beneath their eaves. They’d stared and pointed at the man as if he were a creature at a
fair. A slave was worthy of more respect than that, so long as he was biddable, and free of vices and diseases. Perhaps it would be for the best if Otto were kept out of sight in the tackle room,
away from local eyes and fingers. Matters would improve, he hoped, and Otto could enjoy more latitude once Wherrytown was used to him. So long as he was supervised, his muscle would be useful in
the restoration of the
Belle
. Comstock watched his man and dog eat for a while and then he shut the bolts on them, though Whip could get out if she wanted to. There was a cat hole in the
door, and Whip was hardly larger than a cat. He hurried back to squabs and Alice Yapp. He had an appetite for both.

T
HE INN PARLOUR
and the adjacent commercial room were rarely busier. Eighteen men and Katie Norris were waiting for their dinners. Aymer’s
invitation to the Norrises to share ‘his’ table had been too optimistic. There were two tables only, the large oak formal table in the parlour – waited on by Mrs Yapp herself
– and a softwood trestle in the commercial, reserved for the more raucous of the Americans and served by George. Everybody shared, though Katie had been spared the pressing thighs and
invasive elbows of her fellow diners. She sat at the head of the parlour table on a seat with a straight, spindled back, and a laced cushion, much like a governess with eight slow learners. She was
the closest to the fire. She felt both vulnerable and powerful, with such a retinue. All the men had narrow places on backless benches. Aymer Smith, with one arm strapped to his chest in its sling,
could hardly find room to place his elbow on the table, but he was in no mood for complaining. His life had never been as purposeful as this. Even the unruliness of the Americans, even the wooden
plates and earthenware cups (despite the evidence of glass and china in Mrs Yapp’s buffette), could not disturb his feelings of well-being.

Here were two universes, the solemn and the jubilant, the reverential and the scurrilous, connected by an open door. The ten young ‘castaways’ (as they had named themselves) in the
commercial were intemperate with beach-fever. They hadn’t spent a night ashore since leaving Wilmington, Carolina, with cotton for Montreal in mid-September. Now that their cargo east –
the four hundred cows – had been prematurely landed, they would not sleep at home again until the westward cargo of emigrants from Wherrytown, Fowey and Cork had been shipped to quarantine at
Grosse Isle in the St Lawrence and – the fourth side of the merchant square – a consignment of Canadian logwood taken south to Wilmington. They’d be hammocked for ten more weeks
at least, curled in sleep like prawns – if, that is, the
Belle
was saved. If not, who knew when or how they’d see their families again? They were becalmed and idle and, almost,
bored. Boredom, with such unpolished turbulents as these, would turn to mischief given half a chance – with women, money, fists. Their heartiness would sour unless the
Belle
was soon
back at sea.

Already there were one or two who’d seen a chin they’d like to punch, a silver timepiece or a pair of boots they’d like to lift, a mouth they’d like to kiss. But for the
moment, over squabs, they were content to be at ease. At least there were no midnight watches to be kept. They’d not be called away from their food to pull in canvas. The sea would not upset
their plates nor put a reckless angle on their drinks. They – almost – could forget the sea, and make the most of being safe and far from home, except they all had boat cough and their
throats were never clear. They raised their drinks to the
Belle
(‘Long may we sail in her!’) and to America and to baffling ‘George, the parlourman!’ who kept their
cups topped with rough beer and wine. They smoked their rations of Virginia. Soon they were singing in praise of squabs and calling out what fine pigeons Mrs Yapp and Katie were. ‘Would the
ladies care to dance or sing a verse?’ If only Katie were a flirt! If only Mrs Yapp had Katie’s hair and throat! What then?

The mate had chanced his arm with Mrs Yapp. He’d put a hand across her back when she’d reached over for the empty pie dishes. She hadn’t seemed to mind. He’d try again
– and somewhere fleshier. ‘Don’t organize a search if my bed’s empty for the night,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in safe hands.’ The sailors laughed in unison
at that. The mate was always claiming conquests, though he wasn’t equipped to be Lothario. His nickname on the
Belle
was ‘Captain Keg’, perfect for his size, his shape, his
hollow self-importance and what mostly he contained, gas and beer. The only reason Mrs Yapp hadn’t pushed his hand away was because the mate was too much a gargoyle to be threatening,
particularly in that low, unsteady light of oil lamps.

If any man there was equipped to win the admiration of women it was the straw-haired deckhand, Ralph Parkiss. He was nineteen, tall and beautiful. This was his first trip on the
Belle
– and at least some of his adolescent softness had – so far – survived the rough life of the decks. He was not the hardened sailor yet. He had the kind of easy, guileless smile
that could turn ice to steam.

‘That Mrs Yapp hasn’t even noticed you,’ one man told the mate. ‘She’s only eyes for baby Ralph. She hoped it was his hand across her butt, not yours.’

‘You keep off, Ralph,’ the mate said. ‘The lady’s mine!’

‘There’s younger and there’s finer down the coast!’ Ralph Parkiss defended his embarrassment by deepening it. ‘I’ve found myself a sweetheart
already.’

‘Who is she, Ralph? A she-goat or a ewe?’

‘I know her name is Miggy, and she’s a fine sight. That girl down on the beach when we were rowed ashore, the one that had our ensign round her throat …’

‘The one dressed like a fellow, Ralph? You’d best find out what’s hidden in her breeches before you buy the ring.’

‘I will find out. If I’ve the chance.’

‘You better had. A cork’s no good without the bottle.’

They drank another toast, ‘To Ralph and Miggy. Long may he sail in her!’ They banged the trestle with their pots. They shouted to be heard. They coughed, and laughed, and thanked the
heavens that the
Belle
, with them aboard, had not gone down at sea.

Next door the parlour company was less jubilant. The five oldest sailors talked quietly at one end of the table, uneasy in the company of the sandy-haired woman and the two dull-looking men, and
wary of the captain. He introduced himself to Aymer, and tried to reassure the Norrises that the
Belle
would soon be fixed and heading off, with them aboard, for Canada. ‘There’s
not a ship afloat that could have ridden out that storm last night and not had damage done,’ he explained.

‘You have no need to give the details of the storm,’ said Aymer. ‘I was at sea last night myself. I cracked a shoulder bone.’ He didn’t want to say to the captain
that he had tumbled from his bed. ‘I fell across the deck when we were struck and scarcely kept aboard.’

‘You’ve been baptized then, Mr Smith …’

‘No, Captain, I’m a Sceptic.’

‘… and need not fear the sea again. You’ve sea salt in your blood.’

‘We have no need to fear the sea at all, I think. And as for sea salt in my blood, then that is true of all of us, whether we be sailing men or Hottentots.’ He gave the captain time
to contradict, and set a thoughtful profile for Katie Norris. ‘I speak, of course, about the chemistry of blood. It is not much known, but the elements of calcium, potassium and sodium are
found in equal rations in our blood as in the oceans.’ He sought a metaphor that was grand enough, and memorable: ‘Our veins are tides. Our blood is brine. The organisms of our blood
…’ (are fish, he’d meant to say. But this would strike a comic note) ‘… are common to us all. The grandest captain of a ship, the meanest Negro slave, are both
ancestors of the seas. What is your view?’ He hoped the captain had the brains to take the hidden meaning.

‘My view is, Mr Smith, that I leave chemistry to chemists. And they, I hope, will leave me well alone and let me go about my business. That’s all that any man can ask.’