And so it was that a priest – with an eye-catching cross that kept all eyes off his face – accompanied by a parson – with a strange enough walk to make any prison guard try not to grin – left Fowle Jail in the company of a redcoat and his messenger boy. An unusual and interesting sight, but not enough to raise the slightest suspicion!
Had anyone troubled to follow us out through the main gate, across the square and down the alleyway, they might have been surprised, however, to see us all step into the back of a carriage together, to be driven off in the direction of Minnock at high speed.
“You knew they were coming?” I asked my father as we rattled along.
“I knew Jonah had arranged some form of escape, yes.”
“But not what it was?”
“No, though he did give me a clue as to what to look out for.”
“Palores?” I asked.
“Palores,” he nodded.
That had been the one-word message from my uncle to my father: Palores. It’s the Cornish word for the chough109, a bird, and means ‘digger’ because that’s what choughs do… But why, then, didn’t it mean that we were to dig a tunnel out of jail, or that they were digging in to free us?
I thought some more.
The chough even appears on the Cornish coat of arms110, atop a crown. It is like a mighty crow – a black bird – with red beak and… Aha! Silas had dressed as a priest in black robe and red cap, like a chough!
And then I remembered the old legend of the Cornish chough. “The story goes that when King Arthur died he turned into a bird, with red beak and legs to represent his bloody end, and took flight!” I said.
“Clever girl!” said Father with a proud grin.
“So, when you saw the priest in the black robe and red cap you knew that you – the king, the captain – would turn into him and take flight from the jail!”
Father nodded. “Your Uncle Jonah loves a puzzle and has a way with words,” he said, “but I don’t know if he knows a priest in red cap is a cardinal, one of the Pope’s right-hand men.” He laughed. “I rather doubt a cardinal would come to see us, especially when we’re not even papists!111”
“If only we could now work out who betrayed us,” said Silas, and we all-four fell silent once more.
With thanks and promises exchanged, Father had us put down at the crossroads by Monkswood, and the carriage continued its journey without us. With our disguises discarded, we were fisherman and daughter once more: wanted by the law, no doubt, but less conspicuous across country than a couple of clergy!
“What now?” I asked.
“Now, Kitty? You have a chance to put your skills to the test. I have a task for you I can entrust to no one else.”
“Not even Jago?”
“Jago is the wrong – er – build for such an important task. And now is the time for you to put all that creeping about in the dark to good use.”
“Anything, Father.” I would always have followed my father to the ends of the Earth but, having been responsible for his injury, I now feel even more indebted to him.
“The evidence against us is the huge store of smuggled goods within that cave,” he said.
Silas had told us in our hurried coach-ride that the redcoats had also stored all the goods they had salvaged after the fight in the cave which they now guarded, along with all the goods father already had stored there.
“But what can I do?” I asked. “It’ll be riddled with redcoats!”
“Which is why it is the last place in Cornwall they’d expect either of us to turn up!” said Father, that old twinkle returning to his eye.
“But how –?” How did he expect to remove fifty or sixty barrels or crates from underneath their noses?
“The redcoats came from the cave when they attacked us, which means that they came down the secret passage into the cave after we’d done the same and were on the beach,” he said. “So, if they’re guarding the cave, they’ll have posted men at the cave mouth in case anyone comes in by sea, and at the entrance to the passage. But I’ll wager that they know nothing of the blowhole!”
“Blowhole?” I asked.
Father took a stick and drew a diagram of the cave in the mud. It looked not dissimilar to this:
“The cave was made by the sea,” my father explained. “Given enough time, water can wear away the weaknesses in rock. At high tide the water would have come crashing in, building up pressure, making a hole in the top like a whale’s blowhole, water spraying skywards!”
My father’s Uncle Edward – my great uncle – had left Cornwall for the Americas and sailed on whaling vessels from New Bedford in New England, near the famous whaling town of Nantucket. When he retired and paid a visit home, a much changed and bragging man, he told many tales of these leviathans112 of the sea. About how the whales were harpooned – like a giant spear on a rope and chain – dragged back to port, its fatty blubber cut off113 and boiled in giant caldrons114, to separate the oil to be used for lamps and greasing machinery. He said that the smell was terrible, but I was thinking more of the poor whale, with its bones used to make everything from the ribs of ladies’ corsets to fishing rods.
My great uncle had told stories of chasing down the whales and seeing water spew from their blowholes when they surfaced in the sea, giving their whereabouts away.
“But why doesn’t the sea still fill the cave and spew through the hole?” I asked.
“I reckon it’s because, over time, it’s washed more and more sand and shingle and rocks onto the beach making it higher and higher so the water can no longer reach so far. I’ve seen whole coves change their appearance after one mighty storm. Who knows? One day the cave may flood again.115 But, in the meantime, I need you to climb down that blowhole into the cave, set the gunpowder, light the fuse and get back out of there.”
My heart beat faster at the word gunpowder; at the thought of the explosion; at the very danger of it all; and with pride, that Father should intrust such an important task to
“I come back up through the blowhole?”
He nodded. “Back up through the blowhole. And blow up all the contraband which is the only real evidence they have against us.”
“But why me?”
“You are my daughter, Kitty,” said my father. “There is no one I trust more than you to carry out this vital task. I would do it myself if it weren’t for my injury.”
We sat in a hollow surrounded by gorse bushes, protecting us from prying eyes, going over the plan time and time again. When it was dark, we made our way to the point where we would have to part company and meet again if all went well.
“If they catch you, don’t resist,” he said. “I mean it. Simply give yourself up to them.
They won’t harm a hair on your head. You need to be much more wary of the gunpowder than of the redcoats.
You will be a valuable asset to them because they know that I’ll give myself up in exchange for your freedom. And if that does happen –” he paused and grinned “– I’ll simply find another way to get free!”
“I shall go as quietly as a lamb,” I assured him, imagining a snarling, biting, kicking lamb that would be no one’s prisoner.
He had told me specific markers to look out for in the dark that would lead me to the blow hole – a pile of stones here; a dead hawthorn tree there; the gorse bushes growing close like a hedge. I turned left and right, along and up and down, crouching low to limit my chances of being spotted by any redcoats guarding the clifftop entrance to the secret passage in the cave.
Finally, I came to a large flat rock, almost surrounded by gorse. Gorse is prickly. I’ve always known that but now I know it. Squeezing between those thorns was painful, but it was my father’s neck at stake here. The rock – like a large stone slab – was heavy but I managed to push it to one side. The hole it revealed looked down into utter blackness. The one good thing about this was that it meant that there were no guards below, sitting inside the cave with lanterns. I felt around for the knotted
rope that my father had assured me was attached to an iron ring fitted securely to the roof of the cave to the side of the hole. I took a hold of it and, saying a quick prayer, lowered myself in.
The thing that frightened me most as I made my way down was not the fear of being caught. It was not the dangers of using the gunpowder and timing it just right to get out again. It was the fear of not knowing where the rope would end. Would it be below the next knot or the next, or would I be lowering myself and lowering myself…
…And finally I found my feet touching the sandy floor. I was flooded with relief. I crouched a while, staring in the direction of where I took the mouth of the cave to be, allowing my eyes to adjust to what little light there was.
Now, I had to follow my father’s instructions to the letter. I found my way to the back wall and felt my way along at shoulder height for an alcove in the rocks where, he had told me, I would find a lantern and a tinderbox. The lantern was shielded on all but one side, he said, so, hold it correctly and it wouldn’t shine in the direction of the front of the cave where the redcoats were probably stationed. It took me a few turns of walking beside the wall, feeling along the rock, but eventually I found the alcove. I had no difficulty creating a spark and lighting the tinder and then the lantern. At last, I could see the stretch of sandy floor before me. I studied what I saw with interest, and not just where it led.
Father had told me to find a small cask of gunpowder, about the size of the one Betty Polegate had hidden beneath her skirt at The Black Eye. It was marked with a red ‘X’ and had a bung in the side, and would be on top of one of the much larger barrels, also marked ‘X’.
I carefully placed the lantern at a safe distance, on a crate marked FINEST SILKS, removed the bung from the cask, and walked around the cluster of bigger barrels, pouring gunpowder from the hole, creating a circle of black powder around them. I then walked backwards, turning the ‘O’ of powder into a ‘Q’ with a very long tale indeed.
What I needed to make sure was that the trail was long enough to give me time to get up the rope and out of there. I was beginning to realise that this could well be a problem. Of course, I could lead the trail of powder to the bottom of the rope, climb half way up it, then throw the lantern down to light it, but I quickly saw three problems:
1. I’d have to climb much of the rope whilst clutching the lantern, which was nigh on impossible.
2. The lantern may go out when it hit the ground, rather than igniting the gunpowder trail.
3. The crash of the lantern hitting the ground might attract redcoats who’d have time to stop the flame reaching the bigger barrel of gunpowder.
I muttered a few mild curses under my breath. What then? What had my father been thinking? Maybe because he knew the cave so much better than I did, he assumed I’d find my way around to leave a lot longer trail of powder: the tail to the ‘Q’?
Then I had an idea. I took off my shirt and tore it into strips, tucking the ends into the top of my trousers. It was time to get out of here.
As ready as I’d ever be, with the gunpowder trail ending in another circle, filled in with the black powder this time, based at the foot of the rope, I grasped the rope and began my climb. Fortunately, I’d counted the number of knots in the rope on the way down, so I’d have an idea of how near the top I was on the way up. When I was three-quarters of the way up, I wrapped myself around the rope as best I could and took out the tinderbox. I fumbled it between my fingers and almost dropped it, my heart in my mouth, but managed to hold it tight. Then I created a spark and a flame. I set fire to each strip of my torn shirt in quick succession, let the flame take hold and dropped it.
I needed just one to remain alight by the time it had reached the bottom and for it to ignite the gunpowder trail… And it worked.
I could hear the sizzling of the powder down below as I pulled myself from the blowhole and, crouching low, ran for my dear life.
I was expecting the explosion to be large, but it was Far greater than even my father had expected. Lucky that I ran and ran and ran because it not only destroyed all evidence of contraband but it also brought the cave down. I watched as a huge plume of fire burst though the blowhole, then rock flew everywhere, and the ground gave way and the cave caved in. The noise was deafening and the silence after it was like no silence I have ever known. Then I heard shouts. Not cries of pain, but shouts of surprise and panic and orders amongst the redcoats on the beach below. I stayed low, fearful that the ground may give away beneath me, though I was on solid ground.
I felt triumphant and dazed and hoping that no redcoat – however much I hate them – had been caught in the blast.
I felt a hand upon my shoulder and turned. I could make out the form of my father.
“I think we can call that a success,” he said. And laughed.
____________
101 A crucifix includes Christ on the cross.
102 Slang for sheep.
103 Being hanged.
104 The phrase “the law is an ass” wasn’t used by Charles Dickens until the nineteenth century, but “the law is such an ass” appeared in the seventeenth century, and the jailer is expressing similar sentiments between the two, in the eighteenth!
105 Clergymen/parsons.
106 A farthing was the coin of least value: Two farthings made a ha’penny; two ha’pennies made a penny; twelve pennies made a shilling; two-and-a-half shillings made half-a-crown, two half-crowns made a crown; two crowns made ten shillings; two ten shillings made a pound; one pound and one shilling made a guinea. (So 12 pennies = 1 shilling; 20 shillings = I pound.)
107 A Christian legend has it that a giant of a man was carrying people across a swollen river but, when it came to carrying a tiny child to safety, he found it hard because the child weighed so much. When he successfully reached the far bank, he discovered that the child was Jesus Christ and he’d weighed so much because he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. The man was Christopher. He became, for a time, Saint Christopher, Patron Saint of Travelling.
108 ‘Trussed up’ means tied up and, as for goose, this was a far more popular bird at Christmas than turkey in eighteenth century Britain.
109 Pronounced ‘chuff’, these birds had all but disappeared from Cornwall by the early 1950s but are now making a comeback.
110 Today’s coat-of-arms shows a sailor supporting one side of the shield and a miner supporting the other but still includes a chough. This wasn’t the official coat of arms for Cornwall in Kitty’s day, where the chough featured even more prominently.
111 Another word for Roman Catholics.
112 Huge sea creatures referred to in the Bible.
113 The process is called flensing.
114 Called trypots.
115 Sometimes the silting up of estuaries or changing of coastlines was blamed on other forces, such as angered merpeople (mermaids AND mermen).
I did not think my father could have been prouder than he was when the cave and its contents were destroyed and I emerged unharmed. But then, later last night, I told him what I had seen in the sandy floor, when I first lit the lantern.
“I thought at first that it was the mark of a walking stick or cane, and gave it little thought,” I told him, “then I realised that it was the dots of the go-dot-and-carry… the little round circles left in the sand by the end of a wooden leg.”
“But –” began my father.
“But,” I interrupted, “I remember you telling me that Jack Treviss has never been in the cave. You’ve always used him as a lookout because he could slow the human chain passing cargo from ship to shore to cave.”
“And no honest smuggler would disobey me for fear of being followed and giving away our hideaway!” said my father with a nod.
“So do you think –?”
“Yes. Kitty, I do think,” said my father, Jon Cask, the Captain. “I think you have just uncovered our traitor. The spy… who you’ve been calling the viper in the nest.”
; I said, my eyes shining in triumph. Then my face fell. “But maybe too late.”
My father held me close. “No,” he said.
“Not too late. Not too late at all. I have a plan.” He gave me a squeeze in his great big arms. “Kitty Cask,” he said. “Your mother would be so proud of you. As, of course, am I.”
No other words could have made me happier than these.
I have learned much these last few days. Not least that the tale of our daring escape is the talk of Cornwall, though it has become more and more outrageous at each retelling. The latest version, I am told, is that we left the jail with my father dressed as the Bishop of Bath and Wells, accompanied by a whole platoon of soldiers! One thing of which there is no doubt, and is impossible to exaggerate, is Rod Tundy’s
at having been tricked, knocked unconscious and made prisoner in his own jail!
But all that has paled into insignificance compared to the ‘daring raid on the cave at Hangman’s Cove’. Apparently, a group of masked men, all dressed in black, had abseiled down the cliff on ropes, taken the redcoats by surprise, and blown-up the cave and all its contents.
Little did they know that it was the work of but one girl!
The next part of the plan surprised me. Father went with me and the Reverend Glass to Fowle to see the magistrate, Sir William Boyle, to give himself up.
He took with him a sworn statement, dictated to the parson, from Robert Tregowan, stating that my father, Jon Cask, had received the wound to his side when he, Robert, had stabbed him in a drunken brawl at The Black Eye; an attack witnessed by everyone there that evening, including the landlord and landlady, the Polegates, and all of whom were prepared to swear it also.
The Secret Diary of Kitty Cask, Smuggler's Daughter Page 5