by J. D. Davies
Rame Head had fallen away well behind us, and the distant ship was out of sight up the Channel. I was still on the quarterdeck. In the continued absence of Francis Gale and his new prayer book, I had that morning taken the crew through a perfunctory reading of the daily prayer from the old, using the still pristine copy that Uncle Tristram had given me for my eighth birthday. Landon, Kit Farrell and Musk then went below, as did most of the crew, carrying their wooden plates, to receive Janks' latest offering for their midday dinner. A sullen master's mate from Rotherhithe had the watch, calling out the occasional order to the helmsman on the whipstaff in the steerage below (for these were still the times before it became the fashion for ships to be steered by a wheel, as they are today; another damnable innovation cried up and adopted on no better grounds than that Europeans favour it, and thus it must be superior to our old English ways).
Apart from the mate, the Moor Ali Reis, and two of the ship's boys, the quarterdeck was empty. With so few witnesses in sight, I returned surreptitiously to my feeble attempts to master the sea arts. On one of our starboard great guns, I balanced a blank ship's journal covered in sailcloth. Musk had grudgingly drawn columns on each page, and at Kit Farrell's prompting, I was endeavouring to fill in the entries for our voyage. Even then, all captains were meant to keep their own sea journals, but on the doomed Happy Restoration I had followed the example of most of my fellow gentleman captains and merely copied the entries from the master's log book. Now, Landon's journal was forbidden me by Kit Farrell. I looked out to sea, up to the rigging and scanned the coast. Then I turned my eyes downward and looked again in puzzlement at each of the columns on the page before me.
Weekday. Well, it was a Tuesday, but this would not be enough for Trinity House, Mister Pepys or Kit Farrell. In the mariners' secret knowledge, each day had its own symbol, drawn from the dark worlds of astrologers and alchemists; symbols to which Master Landon appeared to be particularly devoted. Although I had drawn all the day-symbols, the sheet bearing them was below in the great cabin. For once, Farrell and Phineas Musk were united in something; that being, their determination to keep it from me. I would leave this column blank for the time being, I decided.
Month and date. That was easy, despite the mariners' perverse insistence that each new day began at noon, not at midnight or dawn, as the rest of the world contended.
Distance run. I knew this number, and wrote it down: seventy-six. But God alone knew what it signified, for the mariners insist that their mile is different to a mile on land. Perhaps it was greater, but then, it might have been smaller. Farrell had told me, and given me the exact figure for the difference. It was but one of the many elements of this strange new science that my grandfather had once mastered, and but one of the many that seemed so unwilling to lodge in my head.
I heard a sudden snort of laughter, looked up, and saw two of our men in the mizzen rigging. The monkey-like rapscallions looked down upon me as schoolboys look down from a great height upon the spiders they seek to torment. Their faces attempted a blank innocence but bore the unmistakeable expressions of those who stifle their mirth only with the greatest expenditure of effort. I could have punished them for mocking their captain, I suppose, but that would hardly have helped my cause. Great God, I thought, why do I do this? The mastery of the sea was a hopeless task, opening me up to ridicule and humiliation. Why not merely strut my quarterdeck in arrogant splendour, as Harris, Jennens and the rest of them did? Your destiny is in the Guards, I reminded myself, not at sea. But then I saw the death throes of the Happy Restoration in my mind's eye. I looked about me at my trim little ship that bucked along its sea path with such energy. And I called to mind Kit's patient, open face as he taught me and his scowling determination as he looked at the letters I showed him. I had my answer. I frowned in a 'be about your business' fashion at the men on the mizzen and resumed my efforts with the journal.
Course. Well, we were plainly sailing west–even a Bedfordshire man knows the significance of the Sun's path through the skies–so I confidently wrote down the letter W. But then I would need to write a number, and this would be derived from the meridian compass that Landon cherished like a lover. Although I could already essay a sound guess at the bearing of a fixed point, an empty horizon was another case entirely. I decided to leave the remainder of this column blank for the moment.
Latitude by Dead Reckoning. This, of course, was the substance of the mystic ritual that Landon and his mates conducted every noon-time. I was dimly aware of what the term 'latitude' signified–great circles around the globe, or at least, circles that did not exist, but which were deduced by mariners from the strange sightings that they took of the Sun or the stars by night, followed by much mumbling over books filled with impenetrable numbers. But as for 'dead reckoning', what form of reckoning was this? And why was it dead? Farrell had certainly mentioned it, but then, he had told me so much, and in so short a time. I pressed my quill hard against the paper, making a blot that would look as though I had accidentally obscured the correct number.
Wind. Somewhat from astern, and somewhat off the land, which lay to the north. But I knew 'north' would not be good enough for Kit Farrell. No, the mariners had decreed that there were many kinds of north–'north by east', or 'east by north-east', and so forth. Was it still east by north, as it had been earlier? The yards seemed to have swung a little, but we had changed course too, which confused the matter. I wrote an 'N', and decided that would be sufficient.
Weather. I looked at the sky...
A cry came from our lookout, Treninnick, perched an improbable way up our mainmast, and although some would damn it as popery, I thanked God, the shade of my grandfather, and our family's old patron saint, Quentin, for saving me from this purgatory of the log book. Treninnick's guttural Cornish shouts would have been unintelligible to me even if he had not been dangling from the mast in excitement, but Ali Reis, seemingly master of every tongue spoken from Calicut to Carolina, had no difficulty with it.
'The port of Looe, Captain,' said the swarthy rogue. 'First harbour in Cornwall. Boats coming out to us.'
Indeed, five or six small craft were coming out of Looe Bay, tacking rapidly to intercept us, seabirds circling in their wakes. Within minutes, almost our entire ship's company was on deck; the starboard watch, whose duty it was, jostled with all those of the larboard who had come up from below. It was the first time I had seen so many of my crew in an unguarded moment, not at a formal assembly, and great Lord, what a crew they were. Almost all were bronzed by years spent in the open, in every weather condition under heaven. Every second man, at least, bore some sort of scar, no doubt obtained in one of James Harker's many battles. I knew a few names, now–'Tre', 'Pol', or 'Pen', most of them, the unfamiliar surnames of this Cornish breed. God alone knew what they truly thought of me.
A brave soul called out and waved to the approaching boats. Boatswain Ap, who bestrode the deck with an expression of alarm on his angular Welsh face, glanced at me for direction, but I shook my head. Seeing the exchange, a second man called out, then a third. Within moments, the entire ship's rail was alive with leaping, shouting, laughing Jupiters.
Alerted by the commotion, Musk and Kit Farrell had returned to the quarterdeck. 'So this is what they call a mutiny, I suppose,' said Musk. He rubbed his white hands together and fixed a desolate eye upon the rowdy crew.
I smiled. 'I think not. This is their country, Musk, so close they can almost touch it—'
'Or throw you and I to the fishes and steer for it, if they were so minded,' said he.
'They have all been away from home for months, if not years. It being that we must creep along the coast, let them have joy of it while they can.'
'Captain Judge seems to be taking an interest in our proceedings, sir,' Kit said.
I raised my eyepiece, and saw Judge on his quarterdeck, studying the Jupiter through his. He had discarded his wig and face powder, revealing a shaven head crowned with grey stubble and a harsh warrior's
countenance at odds with the delicate Turkish gown of yellow silk that he wore.
'I doubt if Captain Judge approves of such abandon in a ship's crew, Mister Farrell,' I said. 'But if he wishes to take us past Cornwall as fast as the wind will permit, I'll at least give my men the consolation of some contact with their people.'
The first of the Looe boats was within hailing distance, and a shout came up from it. 'John Craze of Muchlarnick!' A young bearded man of the larboard watch waved. 'John Craze, your mother's dead these three weeks!' Craze turned away, his messmates comforting him.
A second boat hailed us. 'Will Seaton of Looe! Your wife's left you! Aye, and for John Craze's father, too!'
Seaton, a big man in the carpenter's crew, howled in fury, sprang down from the starboard rail, and launched a furious attack with his fists against his newly bereaved shipmate. Boatswain Ap and two of his mates stepped in briskly and cudgelled Seaton about the head.
'Maybe Captain Judge had the rights of it,' said Musk disapprovingly. 'By the time we get to Land's End, this ship won't have a man left standing.'
I was beginning to regret my decision to allow such liberty to the crew, but another boat had tacked smartly alongside us. She had three aboard her: two grinning young men on her sail and tiller, and a strong young woman with long black hair that flew about her comely face in the breeze. 'Hey, the Jupiter!' she called in a lusty voice. 'Hey, husband!'
'I'll husband you, woman, whenever you want it!' cried Julian Carvell, his grinning black face and slow drawl unmistakeable. The men around him laughed.
'I've better than you any day, blackamore! Where are you, John Tremar?'
Two men hoisted a little man, half the woman's size, onto their shoulders. He waved and shouted, 'I'm here, Wenna!'
'Tremar, you giant!' she cried, to laughter from every Jupiter. 'Look, John Tremar, at your parting gift to me!'
She stooped to a wicker basket jammed in the bow of the boat and lifted a corner of a blanket to reveal two tiny red sleeping faces. 'Holy Jesus! Twins!' cried John Tremar.
Wenna Tremar shouted, 'You'd best take the prize of all the oceans this voyage, John. Only the Spaniards' plate fleet will keep your wife and sons content!'
Emboldened by the delight of fatherhood, John Tremar shouted to me, 'Captain, sir! What chance we can take such a prize?'
Boatswain Ap moved threateningly towards him, but I raised my hand and smiled. 'We may struggle to take the entire plate fleet, John Tremar. But who needs King Philip's papist silver when we have good King Charles's honest coin? I rejoice with you in your good fortune!'
I reached into my purse and threw a silver crown, which Tremar caught expertly. The crew cheered, the first time they had saluted me thus, and I saw my mysterious Frenchman, Roger Le Blanc, smile to himself. Tremar grinned and held up the coin for his wife and sons to see.
'Damned madness,' muttered Phineas Musk. 'They'll think you weak. Weak, soft in the head and rich. I'll come to wake you tomorrow and I'll find your throat slit. Then they'll come for me. And my throat'll be slit, then, and there'll be Musk blood all over the floor. Deck, I mean. Musk blood, washing away into the sea. Oh...'
I knew Musk was wrong in every sense, and his bile came more from jealousy that a Quinton coin had not found its way into his own capacious pockets, as they had so many times before. Rather I was pleased with myself, sure that my action had raised me in the crew's estimation. Lordly charity: I had seen my brother distribute such largesse countless times in pauper homes around Ravensden, and knew from experience the goodwill that it generated. And perhaps, if Captain Matthew Quinton could not earn the respect of this crew, then he might buy it.
James Vyvyan came on deck just then. He studied the scene with his contemptuous eye, took in the computations of wind and tide and course with an ease that shamed me, and saluted.
'Well, Captain. The wind's on its way round to head us so our passage will be somewhat harder than before.' And then, unexpectedly, he broke into a smile so good-natured I could not help but return it. 'And word of our coming will be well down the Lostwithiel road by now. All Cornwall will know of it by nightfall. There'll be boats coming out of every harbour between here and the Scillies, which will slow us yet further.'
So it proved. Another six boats came out of Polperro and a dozen from Fowey, where my father had fought in the last great battle that King Charles the Martyr won. That had been a great fight, in the year '44: Parliament's Lord General, the mighty Earl of Essex, was forced to make a hasty escape out of the Fowey River in a pathetic row-boat. All but forgotten now, of course. There were more boats hailing us at Mevagissey, and Gorran, and Veryan, and Gerrans. Vyvyan remained on deck, rolling the names off his tongue as he marked each hamlet and fishing port like a poet reciting a sonnet.
He was a happier man now, so close to his own shore: he was almost like a proud host, showing off his home to a visiting bumpkin. And his shore it most certainly was. We could hear the mourning-bells toll for James Harker in every church along the coast. Once again I felt the most abject of outsiders; an interloper in a ship still commanded by a dead man.
We came at length by Falmouth Bay, saluting the round, brooding castle of Pendennis, confident on its high headland; the last fortress in all of England that had held out for its undoubted king in the late wars. In the roads behind it, we saw four of our East Indiamen at anchor; two great Dutchmen getting under way for the Levant; a fleet of squat, grimy Welsh colliers bringing coals to warm Cornish hearths; and some twenty small craft–all bound for the Jupiter. At every port, and at Falmouth above all, there was more news of births, and deaths, and cuckoldry, so that every man on the ship seemed to have word of his family's doings. Even James Vyvyan's brother came out from the Helford River in a small boat of his own, and came aboard us for an hour or so with the news that their sister was to be married to the scrofulous and allegedly impotent heir of an Irish viscount. I saw my lieutenant in a different light, laughing and exuberant in a brother's company.
It was after the elder Vyvyan had disembarked, and our ship was rounding the headland that Kit Farrell named to me as Manacle Point, that Vyvyan came to see me in my cabin. My Frenchman, the mysterious Roger Le Blanc, was there already, come to repair a gash in one of the damask drapes. I had hoped to engage him in a conversation, for I wished to look further into this man whom I thought to be neither tailor nor sailor; but then came a second rap at the door and Vyvyan entered the now crowded little cabin.
'Congratulations, sir,' I said. 'The news of your sister–a notable match, Mister Vyvyan.' But James Vyvyan's thoughts did not seem focused on his brother's tidings. Instead, he turned his countenance to me with a dark and puzzled air. 'Sir, one of the men has had some strange news. It may bear on the murder of my uncle.'
Since we sailed from Spithead, Vyvyan had been silent on the matter of James Harker's death. His own researches at Portsmouth had seemingly undermined his conviction that it was foul murder. Moreover, he had been absorbed in the work of the ship, and in proving to his captain that he was by far the better seaman out of us two.
I said, 'Which of the men?'
'Alan Tregerthen, sir. He's of St Just in Roseland. As was Pengelley, one of my uncle's servants, who acted as his clerk.'
'And?'
'Tregerthen's wife sent word to him, sir. Seems that a justice of the county came down to see Pengelley's wife. The justice told her that Pengelley's corpse was found at the side of the road from Portsmouth to Southampton, near to old Titchfield Abbey. Stabbed to death, sir. But the Hampshire justices think he'd been bound and tortured first.'
Chapter Nine
We rounded the Lizard slowly and with difficulty, beating a jagged path into the wind, then turned up to sail directly for the Land's End–much to the disappointment of the men from Penzance, Porthleven and the other places on Mount's Bay, for we were too far off for their families and friends to come out to them. Kit Farrell had me taking bearings on distant church towers and recording the r
esults dutifully in my journal, which was beginning to fill out with more and longer entries. Malachi Landon looked on all this with contempt, but he was too much a navy man, and far too much of a hypocrite, to say anything to his captain's face.
Phineas Musk had no such constraints. He prowled around the quarterdeck, complaining audibly that this was no work for the heir to Ravensden, and that he knew full well that the good wife of the heir to Ravensden would second him emphatically were she present. At least these grumbles provided a welcome interruption of his ongoing tirade against what he supposed to be the slowness of travel by sea, with its inexplicable reliance on such trivial concerns as tides and winds, and his consequent astonishment that we were still nowhere near a landfall in Scotland.
Nominally, James Vyvyan had the watch, but he kept apart, morose and uninterested in the ship's progress, muttering occasional vague words of command. Since his revelation of this second death–the cruel torture and murder of the man Pengelley–my lieutenant had become obsessed once more with the notion that his uncle had been murdered; and if truth be told, this new killing had given me pause. I kept a primed pistol at my belt. Vyvyan had gone below at once and questioned all those on board who had known the dead man, but as was so often the way, it seemed that the captain's servants mingled but little with the rest of the crew. Pengelley may as well have been a phantom, or a fiction.
As we cleared the Land's End, the wind blew ever more strongly from the south-west, forcing us further and further out to avoid the deadly cliffs on the lee shore of Cornwall. As the first star glimmered out, I thought I saw the low, dark land of the Scillies, far off to larboard. At length, I retired to my cabin and invited Vyvyan to sup with me.