The Twisted Sword: A Novel of Cornwall 1815

by Winston Graham

  ‘Just north of St Malo. I know it well. Upon times when we was running goods to Roscoff we’d come east to St Pierre instead. ’Twas quieter and prices was better.’

  Stephen walked up and down, up and down. So far they had been cruising more than a week and now were being sent empty away. And he had lost Jason. To his own surprise this counted for more than anything else.

  ‘Think you could find St Pierre?’ he said to Hodge.

  ‘Maybe if the fog d’clear.’

  ‘It would depend upon you and Carter,’ Stephen said. ‘I’ve not a great knowledge of this coast, but I know it’s rocks. And the tides are lethal. But I’ve a fancy to follow the Revenant in.’

  Hodge took out his watch. ‘If we’re near Cap Fréhel, as Mike says, we could be off St Pierre by midnight. So long as we don’t fall foul of the frigate again we could run in and see how the land lies.’

  III

  At one o’clock in the morning they ran in to see how the land lay.

  St Pierre was a fishing village, not unlike its opposite fellows in Cornwall. A horseshoe harbour with stone-built cottages climbing steeply up the granite hillside behind. A harbour wall, a tidal inlet, a church tower showing against the skyline. Even at that time in the morning there were a few lights.

  The weather was not unsuitable for a raid. Thick fine rain still borne on a light sou’westerly breeze. The moon had just risen and, though obscured by clouds, prevented the harbour from being altogether dark.

  The Adolphus, in total darkness, had dropped anchor just inside the harbour wall. They went in in the two jolly boats. Fortunately the sea was light, for each boat was crammed to the gunnels with men. There was hardly room in them to row. Each man carried a cutlass. Stephen had forbidden muskets, even pistols. ‘They may squirt us,’ said Stephen. ‘They won’t be able to shoot us tonight.’

  But apart from the soaking damp, the essence of the adventure was silence.

  There were only three ships in the tiny harbour and they could easily pick out the Revenant as the largest and because of its unusual trim. Farther up were a dozen rowing boats stranded in the sand. A light in a cottage. A light in the Revenant, somewhere below decks. A swinging lantern as someone moved along the quay.

  On Stephen’s direction they did not come alongside the chaloupe but paddled slowly past it, and each boat attached itself to a weed-grown iron ladder going up the harbour wall. One man was left in each boat. Stephen led the rest up to the cobble-stoned quay.

  At the top he looked cautiously around, but the swinging lantern had gone. The village appeared to be asleep.

  There was still the chink of light from the Revenant, and as Stephen dropped gently upon its forepeak he saw that this came from the main cabin. Followed by six other men, including Hodge, he crept along the deck and down the companion way. A light under the cabin door. Stephen drew his cutlass and went in.

  It was the captain, sitting before a desk adding up figures in his log book. Beside him was an elderly man in a dark suit, also with a book open in front of him.

  The captain half got to his feet before Stephen was across the room with the knife at his throat. Hodge had come up behind the elderly man, who looked like a merchant. The other men crowded into the cabin; the last one quietly shut the door.

  ‘Ask him,’ said Stephen. ‘Ask him where he has put his prisoners.’

  Hodge spoke sharply to the captain, who was trying to focus his eyes on the knife so close to his throat. A second demand brought a sharp response.

  Hodge said: ‘They be locked in a fish cellar at the end o’ the quay.’

  Stephen said: ‘Tell him he shall lead us there. If he makes a sound I will cut his throat. You, Vage, and you, Moon, stay with this other man. If he utters a word open him up. Now…’

  The captain was forced to his feet and thrust out of the cabin. Stephen whispered orders to his men still clustered on the deck. They were to stay quiet until he called them, remain where their shapes would not be seen. Then he named the three from the cabin, and Hodge, to go with him.

  It was a shambling dark procession which made its way to the end of the long quay. The only sound was when someone caught his foot on an uneven flagstone or splashed into a pool of water. Mindful of his own life, the captain was as quiet as anyone. He stopped before a big stone-built shed on the edge of the village. From here you could see the one light, which was in fact several lights when you got closer, and came from the windows of an inn. Talking and laughter could be heard.

  The captain stood before the door of the shed and spread his hands helplessly.

  ‘What does he say?’ demanded Stephen.

  ‘That he does not have the key to the padlock.’

  The knife came nearer to the Frenchman’s throat. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘He says the gendarme will have it. He be in Le Lion d’Or.’

  Stephen stooped to peer at the padlock. He gestured to Hodge to try to force the lock with his cutlass, but it was clear that the knife would break first.

  ‘Reckon we’d best go,’ one of the men muttered. ‘They’ll come to no ’urt as prisoners…’

  ‘Shut your trap!’ Stephen snapped. ‘Keast, go you back to the chaloupe and find a marling spike. Hurry, but stay quiet.’

  ‘Aye, aye,’ said Keast and turned and slipped back the way they had come.

  Now that there was nothing to do but wait they could take in the noises inside the inn. The sailors had returned safely after a long voyage and were celebrating. Particularly, thought Stephen, they were celebrating the narrow escape they had had this afternoon from capture and a long internment in England.

  He bent to the door and listened. He could certainly hear nothing inside, and the monstrous thought came to him that perhaps the French captain was deceiving him. If he was he should pay with his life. Leaving Hodge to guard the captain, he walked round the cellar: there were no windows but there might have been another door. There was, but when he opened it it led into a small room with bags of salt. He came back to the front and stooped by the door again.

  ‘Jason,’ he called.

  No answer.

  ‘Tell him,’ Stephen said to Hodge, ‘if the prisoners are not here I will kill him.’ Hodge was about to speak when Stephen said: ‘Wait.’

  There was a burst of laughter from the inn.

  ‘Jason!’ he said again.

  ‘Father!’ It was a whisper.

  Stephen felt a surge of triumph. ‘Jason. Quiet, boy. We have come to get ye. Are you well?’

  ‘Jago has a bad leg. I am well. And Tom Edwards. Father, can you open the door?’

  ‘Not yet. Have patience. And keep quiet. Can Jago walk?’

  There was a murmur inside. ‘He says he will try.’

  ‘He must try.’

  A warning hand touched his arm. The door of the inn opened and two men came out. The lantern light flooded over the cobbled street as they came arm in arm towards the crouching group; then they turned up the quay towards the Revenant.

  They were both well gone in drink and stumbled several times on the way, supporting each other.

  They were half-way up the quay when little Keast slid out of the gloom beside the waiting men, who had been so concerned to watch the French sailors that they had not seen him coming back. He carried two marling spikes. ‘Reckoned one might break,’ he said.

  Stephen attacked the lock with less regard to silence than he had previously shown. There should be plenty of his men waiting to receive the two Frenchmen when they stepped aboard, but whether they could be disposed of without rousing the town remained to be seen.

  The first spike bent but the second, forced in on top of it, did the trick. The padlock broke. The door squeaked open. Jason came out first, flung his arms round his father.

  ‘Didn’t I say, lads? Didn’t I say he’d come for us?’

  ‘Quiet!’ said Stephen, giving his son a hug. ‘And quick. Now come on, quick. There’s much still to do. But quiet, everybody!’ />
  Two of the other men were helping Jago out. Edwards too was limping. In all this the thoughtful Hodge was still holding a knife to the captain’s throat.

  There was still no sound from the Revenant, so it looked as if the returning sailors had been taken care of.

  The party began to return along the quay. The rain was heavier than ever, misting men only a few yards from each other.

  They reached the Revenant. Twelve men shinned down the ladder to return to the jolly boats, cast off, pulled round to the stern of the chaloupe; four other men ran the length of the ship, dropped lines to the boats, which began to row away. Hodge had gone below with the captain. Jago and Edwards were aboard. Keast and another man had cast off the stern rope securing the Revenant to a bollard. Stephen and Jason stooped to throw off the forward rope.

  ‘Halt!’ shouted a voice. ‘Nom de la République! Qui va là?’

  It was a French soldier who had come suddenly out of the moonlit fog. For a second they stared at each other. Stephen lifted his cutlass. The soldier discharged his musket full in Stephen’s face.

  The hammer came down to strike the cap and the cap failed to detonate.

  Stephen laughed out loud and stabbed the man in the chest. Then, unable to withdraw his cutlass, he left it in the fallen figure and jumped aboard the Revenant as Jason cast off.

  The two boats began to row the chaloupe out of the harbour, and the Cornishmen swarmed up the rigging preparing to make sail.

  Chapter Three

  I

  If anyone had spoken of ‘the dark night of the soul’ to Demelza she would not have known where the words came from but she would perfectly have understood what they meant.

  When Julia died all those years ago it had been when she was just recovering from the morbid sore throat herself and she had felt the loss as a mortal blow from which she could hardly recover. Julia had been nineteen months old. But she and Ross were young, and after all the despair, which had included Ross’s trial for his life and near bankruptcy, they had somehow climbed together out of a pit, which had never seemed so deep since.

  But Jeremy, their second child, was twenty-four. Born in a time of great stress, he had been with them ever since, through all the vicissitudes of life, all their joys, all their sorrows. Because of that, because of his age, he was more a part of the family than any of the three younger ones – even Clowance, who was only three years younger. What she had said to Caroline was only the truth: whenever she thought of Jeremy she thought of a thousand days of caring.

  When she last saw him, last December, he had grown better looking. The tall loose-jointed young man with a tendency to stoop had filled out with his army training, had matured, his hair long, his face less clear-skinned, his smile more sophisticated. No wonder Cuby had at last fallen in love with him.

  Too late to save him from the army, a captaincy, and a march to his death in the mud of Flanders. Demelza knew that Clowance blamed Cuby for this, saying it was his broken love-affair that had spurred him to go into the army. It could be true; Demelza was not sure; there was another reason which perhaps only she would ever know. Though there were a man and a woman somewhere, one of them probably her son-in-law, who might yet throw light on the subject. (Not that she wanted light. Better for it always to be hidden, as the sacks had been hidden, in the dark cave in Kellow’s Ladder.)

  Last time he was home he had seemed on the point of saying something to her, attempting an explanation of the unexplainable. ‘Perhaps in joining the army I was trying to escape from myself.’ And then, when he had seen the loving cup, which she had carefully cleaned and polished and put on the sideboard, he had said: ‘Someday, sometime – not now – perhaps when we are both a few years older – I would like to talk to you.’

  And she had smiled at him and said: ‘Don’t leave it too late.’

  It had been prophetic without her knowing it. With the war over it had then been much more likely that she would predecease him. She only wished it had been so.

  On Sunday, the 16th July Demelza for once was on her own. Nothing seemed to get better with the passage of the days. This morning she had walked only as far along the beach as Wheal Leisure and then turned back, having neither the energy nor the initiative to go further. A rarely beautiful day, the night wind having dropped as the sun came up, the whole beach in a state of warm confusion as the waves trembled and broke and piled up and trembled and broke again, a magisterial demonstration of power and authority. These were neap-tides, so there was not so much of a run as sometimes, but every now and then a feathery froth of water an inch or two deep slithered up to and around her feet, soaking her shoes and the hem of her skirt.

  She might as well go in, she thought, and make a dish of tea; though she was neither thirsty nor hungry. It was something to do.

  John Gimlett stood in front of her. She looked up at this unexpected sight.

  ‘The master is back.’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘’Alf an hour gone. Didn’t know quite where to find ee, ma’am.’

  Demelza hastened her step, but not too much. She did not feel quite able to face him.

  He was in the garden, her garden, looking at some of her flowers. At first she hardly recognized him, he looked so very old.

  She came to the gate, opened it. He heard the click of the latch, looked up.

  ‘Ross!’ She flew to him.

  Gimlett discreetly went in by the yard door.

  II

  ‘Take more tea,’ she said. ‘You must be thirsty after so long a ride.’

  ‘Your garden,’ he said. ‘It has lacked your touch.’

  ‘Like other things,’ she said. ‘But ’twill alter now.’

  ‘Your hollyhocks…’

  ‘Jane said they was damaged by a late frost. And I think your mother’s lilac tree needs hard cutting, else it will die.’

  ‘Had you just been to the mine?’

  ‘No, no. I was walking … Ben has been very good. Everyone has been very good. You’re so thin, Ross.’

  A cow was roaring somewhere in the valley. It was a distant, rural sound, almost lost in the silence of the house.

  ‘There’s so much to tell you,’ Ross said, ‘I don’t know where to begin.’

  ‘Maybe the first day you are home is not the right time.’

  ‘I lay at Tregothnan last night,’ he said. ‘I put in at St Austell, thought I could reach home, borrowed a nag but the nag went lame … If there is one recurring theme in my history it is that every horse I hire or borrow goes lame … Or is shot from under me—’

  ‘One was shot from under you?’

  ‘Two, to be exact. But that is for telling some other time. Demelza.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can you believe it is only in January that we left here? It has been a lifetime.’

  ‘More than a lifetime.’

  ‘Aye, that too.’

  She busied herself pouring more tea for him and then for herself. They both took milk but no sugar. Tea with sugar is not a Cornish custom.

  ‘Little Jane Ellery was bit by a dog yesterday,’ she said. ‘A stray dog near Sawle. He behaved very strange and snatched and snarled, so I think they have put him down. They called Dwight and to be safe he cut into the tooth marks to make a clean wound and then disinfected it with nitric acid. Poor little Jane squealed her head off, but a sweetmeat seemed soon to set her to rights. But of course they will be anxious for a day or two.’

  Ross sipped his tea. They sat quietly in the parlour.

  Demelza said: ‘On Friday Sephus Billing killed an adder with five young in it. He was drawing potatoes at the time. Side of the Long Field.’

  ‘They were always fond of that wall,’ Ross said. ‘My father often warned me.’

  ‘Jud used to call them long cripples,’ Demelza said.

  ‘I know.’

  The brightness of the day outside made the parlour dark.

  Demelza said: ‘And how is Cuby?’

 
‘She will come later. I told her she must stay with us until after the baby is born. Then she must decide her own life. You would agree with that?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes.’

  Ross said: ‘She was very good most of the time. She only broke down once. I have never heard a woman sob like it. It was – such an ugly noise – like someone sawing wood.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  Ross said: ‘I was so fortunate just to find Jeremy in time. He did not seem to be in any pain. He – he sent his love to you and asked us to look after Cuby.’

  Demelza got up, took out a handkerchief and gently dabbed his eyes. Then she wiped her own.

  ‘There is much to do here, Ross. We have been neglecting our home. Some of the seed is not sown yet. And we need to sell some lambs – I waited for you to know how many. And the damp in the library ceiling is getting worse.’

  He looked at her.

  She said: ‘And there’s the white store turnips. Cal Trevail was asking me yesterday—’

  ‘Why are you alone like this? I thought you would never be left alone.’

  ‘They did their best … Stephen came back from some successful adventure last week. When he heard about Jeremy he came straight over, stayed two nights. He had to go back, then, but wanted Clowance to stay on. I said no. I said no, you would be here soon, and for a little while I wanted to be alone. ’Twas true: I had no talk left. My tongue has been heavy all the time – ever since I knew.’

  ‘But the others. Verity and—’

  ‘Verity left on Tuesday because Andrew is very slight. It is some heart affection. Caroline’s two girls are just home and she has not seen them for a term. Henry is in the cove with Mrs Kemp and they should be back soon. Isabella-Rose is at school.’

  ‘You sent her?’

  ‘To Mrs Hemple’s for half a term. I sent her before I had your letter.’

  ‘How did she take the news?’

  ‘As you would expect,’ said Demelza lightly, controlling herself. ‘The piano needs tuning badly. The damp air gets at the strings. And this old spinet, do you think we should throw it out, Ross?’