Signals of Distress

by Jim Crace

  They’d have to wait another hour. A kelper’s handcart couldn’t bring them ashore. Rosie sent her daughter running down the coast. The nearest fishermen were beached below the Cradle Rock, a mile away. They’d come out in their boats. She waved back at the sailors but didn’t know how she could signify across so wide and watery a gap that help was on its way. She pushed her cart along the tideline and put the morning to good use. As she had expected, the storm had deposited a lot of kelp on the beach. She chose the knobweeds and the bladderwracks because their yields of soda were the best. She kicked aside the sugar wrack. A cartload of that would only give a quarter-bucketful of soda ash. She lifted the weed with her right hand and kept her left hand free to seize the crabs that often sheltered underneath the kelp or the lance eels which could be twitched out of the sand if she were quick enough. When she found timbers from the Belle and broken lengths of rigging she wrapped them up in kelp and hid them on the cart. She watched the water as she worked for bobbing bottles of brandy and liqueur, but all she spotted was the ready-salted carcass of a cow, floating on its side, and masts and planking from the ship tangled in the offshore weed. Quite soon her cart was full. She pulled it back into the dunes where she had built a stone pit for burning kelp. She buried what she’d salvaged from the Belle in a soft dune, and spread the load of kelp to dry over the disturbed sand. She’d gathered three more loads of weed before the seine boats of the fishermen appeared beyond the bar and breathless Miggy, her breeches caked in mud, her pulse quickened by the run and what was promised by the Belle, reappeared amongst the kelp, the wreckage and the cattle on the beach.

  ONE MAN – Nathaniel Rankin, a seaman from Boston – was dead, concussed by falling timber in the night and drowned. But sixteen had survived. They had been fortunate to end up on the bar. The three seine boats that came to rescue them were secured to the Belle’s hull in water hardly deep enough for their keels. The dozen oarsmen helped the Americans to climb into the boats. They wrapped the men in blankets and gave them corn-brandy in water from their flasks. Comstock brought his charts and letters of command. He ought, perhaps, to leave a crew aboard or stay aboard himself. He ought to love his ship more than he loved his own life, but he didn’t. The gear was clewed and stowed. The sails were off. The larboard bow was holed, but it wasn’t shipping much water. Yet. What else was there to do? He dignified himself and called down from the damaged deck, ‘I trust you gentlemen will help us salvage what we can when we are warm and dry.’

  There were a dozen cries of ‘Yes!’ They all were keen to get back on the Belle again. Next time they’d charge a fee.

  ‘There’s one more man,’ Comstock added. ‘I ought to be the last to leave. We’ve got one injured party, on the orlop. Three men can shift him out.’

  He took command and pointed at the nearest three – a boatman called Henry Dolly, his wildly weathered, dark-haired son, Palmer, and one of their casual hands, an old and silent bachelor known locally as Skimmer. They followed Shipmaster Comstock below decks to Otto’s berth. When the cattle had been driven into the sea, a crewman had released him from his chain and wrapped him in his palliasse to keep him warm. The cloth, to some extent, had stemmed the blood. The wound and swelling on his forehead were mauve. His ankle was stiff and raw with pus. He was conscious but inert. Only one eye opened. Only one eye could.

  ‘Are you sleeping, Otto?’ Comstock said. He was embarrassed by the silence and the stares of the three men. Perhaps they blamed him for the wounds. But they were speechless from surprise. They’d never seen an African before. The darkest they encountered was a youth like Palmer, a ripened russet face with sable hair. They weren’t used to this topography. They couldn’t tell his age or temperament or judge his character. His hair was like black chimney moss. He seemed to have a woman’s lips. He hardly had a nose. They were reluctant to hold him by his arms and legs. They couldn’t bring themselves to touch his skin. Instead they lifted Otto in his palliasse. He was a very heavy man, and it took twenty minutes negotiating the carcasses of cows, the timber debris and the companion ladders, before they reached the deck. They put him in the Dolly boat and pushed off for the beach. Already there were forty people and a dozen carts waiting with Rosie and Miggy Bowe. Two wagon-harnessed horses and one horse ridden by the agent, Walter Howells, and made frisky by the irritation of a loosening shoe, stood on the shingle with their backs against the sea. It was too cold to wade in to help the Americans ashore. They had to manage it themselves – except that when one older man, John Peacock, fell into the water, Walter Howells, to some derision mixed with cheers, rode his horse into the breakers and hauled the sailor out by the collar of his cork safety-jacket. ‘Save a sailor from the sea,’ someone recited, ‘And he will prove your enemy. He’ll have, once he is out of water, Your life, your money and your daughter!’

  Otto was not touched. Comstock threw sea-water in his face to rouse him. Otto found the energy to swing his damaged legs across the bows of the rescue boat and try to find his footing in the shallows. He sank into the water. Its iciness shocked him. The salt was painful on the wounds, but cleansing, too, and healing. He was the last to make his way to shore. They found a bed for him, in seaweed on the half-loaded horse-drawn cart. They gathered round to point and shake their heads and giggle nervously. Miggy was the first to stretch her arm and touch him on the toe, where dry, dark blood had been made pasty by his short walk in the sea. Then everybody touched the toe, in turn. They ran their fingers across the nail and felt the skin, the pink below the toe, the brown above, the blood, and cold.

  The beach was never busier, except at pilchard time. The sailors and the locals hugged and shook hands. Three dogs ran wild, experimenting with the sea and crowds. The cattle moved inland. Miggy looked for Palmer Dolly. Perhaps he’d shake her hand. Or they might hug. But he’d gone off in his father’s boat. Instead she made do with the attentions of the younger Americans, who now could see, despite her breeches, that she was a girl, a pretty one. She wore their ensign round her throat.

  ‘This miss is calling out for help,’ they joked. ‘All hands stand by.’

  The sailor, Ralph Parkiss – blond, teasing and boyish – attempted first to take away her ensign scarf. And then, playing the innocent, touched her at her waist. The whole of Miggy flushed. She’d gladly press her lips on any young man there. A fire was lit – in her, and on the beach. They warmed and dried themselves as timbers from the Belle smoked grey. The three seine boats pulled beyond the bar and soon were out at sea. The Belle of Wilmington settled into the wet sand of the bar. It would not break up; the seas were sheltered there, and shallow. On Monday there would be a rising tide of sufficient depth, with luck and wind, to float it free again. Captain Comstock turned his back on his command. He’d have to wait and see what happened to the Belle, and he would rather wait and see in some dry place, on solid land. He was not the hero of the day.

  The Americans, with Otto sleeping in the cart, and Whip in tow, embarked upon the six-mile walk to Wherrytown, where there was food and lodging and where, by now, Aymer Smith, that other dreaming voyager by sea, had found the inn. Walter Howells rode ahead on his laming horse to spread the news. The air – scrubbed and quietened by the storm – was now so still that Miggy and her mother could take a lighted piece of wood and carry it the half-mile to Dry Manston to start a celebration fire in their own home. And what was there to celebrate, besides the passage of a storm? Much. Much. Much.

  2. The Journey West

  AYMER SMITH was taken to the inn in Wherrytown by George, the parlourman-cum-porter, whose job it was to bully custom from any ship that docked. George didn’t take to the Tar’s single passenger, the unpromising and unattractive Mr Smith. The man’s breath was foul. And his bookish jollity, his height, his thinness, his insistence that they shake hands like old acquaintances and then take turns to ‘bear the burden’ of his carriage bag on the short walk between the quay and the inn, were misplaced, misjudged, unbecoming. If they had to share the burd
en, would they also share the tip?

  The night gale, which had lifted tiles and flung back doors in Wherrytown, had left the quayside scrubbed and clean. Aymer Smith remarked it was ‘a fresh and handsome town’, but, steady though he was in conversation, he had climbed awkwardly from the cabin to the deck. His shoulder was bruised, or worse, from the tumble from his bunk. His throat was sore and hot. His legs were still at sea. He was shivering, from cold and apprehension and timidity. George could only guess what business such a man could have in Wherrytown at that time of year, but what he knew was this, that Aymer Smith would not be an inspiring presence at the inn. Here was a moper. Here was a book snuffler. Here was a man who couldn’t sing.

  Perhaps he couldn’t sing, but God the man could talk!

  ‘What kind of lodging are you taking me to?’ he asked George, in a voice that attempted informality but managed to be both teasing and condescending. ‘Tolerable, I hope.’

  ‘Ours is the only inn,’ George said. He could think of no better commendation. ‘It’s us or nowhere in this town.’

  ‘What is the name of this grand inn?’

  ‘It has no name – nor any need of one. It is the only inn.’

  ‘Indeed, but then this is the only ship in dock, and I its only passenger, and yet we both have names. It would not do, I think, to call me simply “Passenger” or this vessel “Ship” because we are, for the moment, unique.’ He allowed George a moment to keep pace with this Comedy of Wisdoms. ‘Names, it is true, are mostly useful should one need to distinguish one man, one ship, one inn from another. But they are helpful, too, for signifying character. So, were your inn known as the Temperance, then I could well imagine its mood and its sobriety. The Commercial has a more convivial ring, I think. And the Siren or the Venus? Well, I should not wish to take a room in such a place, unless that room had thorough locks on every door. What do you say?’

  ‘What should I say, except what I have said three times, and that is that there is no choice?’

  ‘Say it three hundred times and still you fail to reassure me. What phrase is there to best describe your inn?’

  ‘The only inn in town.’

  ‘Ah, yes. You are right to stand firm against my questioning. Refuse to yield to me!’

  ‘I don’t know enough to yield or not – but I’m the only one in Wherrytown’ll lead you to an empty bed. Except there’s plenty barnyards in the neighbourhood, so long as you like rats.’

  ‘The rat is much maligned …’ But Aymer Smith’s discourse on rats would have to wait another opportunity. The two men reached the lower entrance to the inn.

  The inn was ideal for hide-and-seek. It was a warren, untouched by architects. The town rose steeply from the harbour front and the building had perplexing levels that placed the stable lofts scarcely higher than the scullery basement and meant that the attic box room looking south and the ground-floor parlour facing north were connected by a level corridor. An outside wooden staircase led from the seafront courtyard to a balcony and bedrooms, but there was no direct seafront entrance to the public rooms. There wasn’t any logic to the place nor, even, any regimental regularity to the shapes and sizes of the building’s bricks and stones.

  ‘Accommodation for man and beast. Victuals, Viands and Potations,’ said George. ‘It’s hay or cheese for supper.’

  Aymer followed him up a narrow passageway of steep, pebbled steps that climbed through the heart of the inn. He didn’t like the smell of fish and urine, nor the meanness of the alley, nor the pinched and sea-damp wind which rifted at his back. They came out in a lane, and for a moment Aymer was relieved to think their destination was some other, better place. But George directed him towards a raised front door with a flat granite lintel, just to the right of the alleyway. It opened directly into a low-ceilinged parlour, empty except for a solid, black-haired woman on her knees, removing ashes from the grate. She was, she said, Mrs Yapp, the landlady, the innkeeper. She didn’t rise to greet her guest.

  ‘Give the gentleman a bed,’ she instructed George.

  ‘Assure me that you have sheets,’ demanded Aymer, gripping his carriage bag and coat.

  ‘There’s sheets for those that ask,’ said Mrs Yapp.

  ‘And good, hot food that’s fit for eating?’

  ‘There’s nowhere else,’ she said. ‘Unless you want to stop with Mr Phipps, the preacher, who has a room for Christian travellers. Sinners and repentants catered for. The bill will be repented, that’s for sure. It’s good, hot food he dishes up, and fit for eating, except it’s Buttered Tracts and Bible Soup and Psalm Tea.’

  ‘… and Hebrewed Ale,’ said George. He’d said the same a hundred times before.

  ‘… and the Word Made Flesh,’ added Aymer, after a short moment’s silence.

  Aymer had meant to make a good impression in Wherrytown. He knew that he would never have a reputation for vivacity, and that he was more comfortable with documents than company, but still he’d meant to be amusing and relaxed, putting George at ease, demonstrating to Mrs Yapp that he, though firm and businesslike, was happy to be informal. But once he had been taken down two short flights of steps and left alone inside one of the balconied rooms above the courtyard he almost wept. He had, he felt, been treated with hostility. The woman hadn’t even stood to greet him. That was not behaviour to admire. And George the parlourman had seemed to find his conversation comic, except when he attempted jokes. He hadn’t even shown gratitude when Aymer had presented him with a bar of white soap by way of thanks.

  His room was on two levels and had four curtained beds, none of which was welcoming, and none of which had sheets. There was no other furniture nor any draping on the windows. There was a chamber pot, a water jug and two small tin basins. The walls and floorboards smelled of fresh lime wash. At least the bedbugs had been treated. Aymer couldn’t imagine spending a single night in any comfort there. Perhaps he could conclude his business in one day and take the Sunday return passage on the Tar, home again. He went out on to the balcony and looked across the courtyard and the harbourfront to where the Tar was docked amongst some smaller fishing boats that had been damaged by the gale. The cold, the breeze, the brightness of the sky, his shoulder pain, the dislocation that he felt from being far from home, brought water to his eyes. It didn’t help that he had travelled all this way with nothing but bad news.

  He chose a bed close to the windows, where there was light enough to read and write. He took a quill, some paper and a pinch of ink from his bag. He mixed sufficient ink with spittle and began to write, unsteadily, using his knees as a desk. He put the title of the family firm in capitals at the top of the page:

  HECTOR SMITH & SONS

  Manufacturers of Fine Soap

  And then he added his address:

  The Only Inn

  Wherrytown

  Saturday, 19th November

  Sir, he wrote, I am this morning arrived on the coastal packet in Wherrytown and lodged at the inn. I would be obliged if we could meet at your soonest convenience. I have disclosures that concern our business interests and that I wish to communicate with some urgency.

  He added his own signature and then, on the reverse of the folded sheet, the name of the agent who at that very moment was riding in the shallows to haul a Yankee from the sea where the Belle of Wilmington had beached: Walter Howells, Esq.

  Now he wrote a second letter, to his younger brother:

  My dear Matthias, I am safely come to Wherrytown and have survived the worst of storms at sea. Already I have summoned Mr Howells and am awaiting his reply. I write this letter for the return of the coastal packet which will depart tomorrow, Sunday, in case my business does not allow a swift departure from this place. Despite my deprivations I am convinced of the propriety of my coming here, and hope that in my brief absence you will come to recognize that our responsibilities to these people could not be satisfied by pen and ink and paper but only by the presence of at least one son from Smith & Sons.

  He rea
d the last line several times aloud. He hoped his brother would detect reproof but not the coldness that he felt. Matthias was a businessman who had no moral code. But Aymer? He was moral code and little else.

  Aymer, at forty-two, was senior to Matthias by nineteen months – yet he was the younger, lesser man in everything but age. Matthias had a city and a country house, a wife, two daughters and a son, a carriage and six servants. Matthias was a Justice of the Peace. He was obese. He sang, a decent baritone. And since his father died he’d been the acknowledged master of Hector Smith & Sons. He had transformed the business. The city works employed ninety adult hands, as well as twenty children, and produced forty thousand bars of soap a week. Smith’s Finest Soaps were used by royalty, but there were cheap, good-looking soaps for working people too. Soon the company would be renamed: MATTHIAS SMITH & SON.

  Aymer had little interest in soap. He was a Sceptic, a Radical and an active Amender. But, still, he was the junior partner in Hector Smith & Sons. It provided him with income, and notionally it was his task to help his brother at the works. Matthias, though, had no faith in Aymer. He thought he was a waster and a fool, best left alone to read his riotous pamphlets and his volumes of verse than let loose amongst the company’s order books and ledgers. Yet Aymer went to work each day. He had a sense of duty. There was dignity in labour. The task he took upon himself was not to help his brother but to check him. If Aymer could rename the company it would not be MATTHIAS SMITH & SON or SMITH BROTHERS, but SMITH BROTHERHOOD or EMANCIPATION SOAPS. He didn’t have an easy manner with the factory hands. He wasn’t even liked. But he could fight on their behalf. To no avail he pressed his brother to provide gloves and leather aprons to protect the soapmakers from the boiling fat. He bullied for a shorter working day. He argued that the works should not employ children under twelve. He recommended profit-sharing schemes, and factory schools, and rights of Combination. He was, as Matthias said to Fidia, his wife, ‘half-boiled, half-baked and half a man’.