The Fireraisers

by Malcolm Archibald

  'I am Sergeant George Watters of the Dundee Police.'

  'You're a Dundee bluebottle? The Dundee Police have no authority here.'

  'They have now.' Watters tapped harder. 'If anybody else comes close to this lodge or lingers outside or, God help them, comes into the grounds, stop them or tell me.'

  The gatekeeper gave a greasy sneer. 'Then what?'

  'Then I will deal with them,' Watters said.

  The gatekeeper glowered at Watters through a fringe of matted hair, contemplated spitting a stream of tobacco juice onto the ground, looked into Watters hard blue eyes, changed his mind, and swallowed noisily. 'Yes, Sergeant.'

  'Good man. What's your name?'

  'Ragina. Raymond Ragina, ex petty-officer, HMS Glasgow.'

  'Well, ex-petty-officer Raymond Ragina, you have your orders.'

  Ness House was an early eighteenth-century anachronism, out of place in this modern world of gas lights and plate glass. All three servants lined up outside the arched front door. The manservant gave a curt bow, while the maids swept in curtseys that would have done credit to a far more gracious age.

  Watters eyed the house and wondered how his pampered charges would view it.

  'It's tiny.' Amy was evidently determined to find fault with everything. She looked coolly at the servants. 'Only three?'

  'It's lovely,' Elizabeth said. 'Can I explore it, Sergeant?'

  'I'll look around first,' Watters said. 'You two stay here.' If he had to act as a nursemaid, he would do the best job he could.

  The interior of the house was as old-fashioned as the exterior, with draughty, ill-fitting windows, creaking floorboards, and furniture and décor that would have been out of date some thirty years previously. However, the window shutters closed snugly, both front and back doors were complete with sturdy bolts and heavy locks, and the attic was as secure as could reasonably be expected in a house some hundred and fifty years old.

  'All right, ladies.' With his inspection complete, Watters ushered the girls inside. 'Explore and make yourselves at home. The servants have been wonderfully busy ensuring your rooms are comfortable.'

  'Thank you, Sergeant Watters.' Elizabeth gave a brief curtsey while Amy stormed into the house as if by right.

  'You servants,' Watters called them together and explained the position. 'If you hear or see anything or anybody you even think might not belong, I want you to let me know immediately.'

  'Yes, Sergeant.' The servants seemed an intelligent trio.

  'Particularly foreigners,' Watters said. 'I am searching for an American man, a foreign woman, and an ordinary looking sailor who might call himself Jones.'

  The housekeeper, an elderly woman with shrewd eyes, shook her head. 'There haven't been any strangers visiting this house for months,' she said. 'Not since Mr Beaumont bought it. We'll let you know.'

  'Thank you. Now, ladies and gentleman,' Watters always thought it politic, as well as good manners, to treat servants with respect. They knew more than they admitted and usually more than the master and mistress of the house would like. 'I'm letting the girls have today to get used to the house. I'll take them into Nesshaven tomorrow. Please look out for them.' He lowered his voice as if imparting a confidence. 'Young Amy is a bit upset at being sent here. Go easy on her.'

  When they smiled, Watters knew that they were on his side. His few words had gained him three extra pairs of eyes and ears.

  * * *

  Watters paused to light his pipe before strolling along the main street of the village. There were about twenty cottages, each one with its gable end to the sea, and there were small boats pulled up in the alleyway between every single-storey building. Each house had its pile of fishing gear outside, from the ripp-baskets that would hold fish the women would sell around the countryside to the triangular hake on which fish were dried. Despite the early hour, the street was busy with women sitting on stools busily cleaning unused bait and pieces of marine waste from seemingly endless lines of hooks. All looked up suspiciously when Watters and the girls passed, although some children ran inside the house to peer through small-paned windows.

  'I don't think they get many strangers here,' Watters said.

  'They're looking at us.' Elizabeth edged closer to him. 'Do you think they know who we are?'

  'I'm sure they do,' Watters said. 'Gossip passes through these small places like fire through dry grass.' He nodded to an old, bearded man who was busy mending a net.

  'Good morning.' Watters lifted his cane in salute.

  The man nodded, wordless.

  'It's a grand day,' Watters tried again.

  'Aye.' The man continued with his net-mending.

  'Do you get many strangers here?' Watters asked.

  'Too bloody many.' The man looked up briefly.

  'Have you had any recently?'

  'Aye, there's one asking me damned fool questions right now and standing in my light so I can't get any work done.'

  Watters stepped quickly aside.

  'Good morning to you, Miss Beaumont.' The man spoke directly to Amy. 'Now could you and Miss Caskie kindly take the bluebottle away?'

  'They do know who we are.' Elizabeth sounded pleased to be recognised.

  Local lore in Nesshaven claimed Norse ancestry for the fisher folk, although the Picts had been here long before that time. Men from the village were said to have taken part in the battle of Barry when King Malcolm II turned the burn red with Danish blood. Since those glory days, times had been hard for Nesshaven. Reduced to serfdom by the local landlord, the fishermen had suffered poverty in their isolated village.

  'There's nothing here,' Amy said. 'No shops, no style, no anything.' She looked along the coast of the grey-white surf. 'I wish I was back in the Ferry.'

  'It's lovely,' Elizabeth said. 'It's so different from the city with its smoky chimneys or from Paris with its crowds of people. I shall certainly tell William all about it in my next letter.'

  'Charlotte is in Paris now,' Amy said. 'How lucky she is.'

  'When were you in Paris, Miss Elizabeth?' Watters asked.

  'Last year,' Elizabeth said. 'William had some business there, and Mama said I should go to broaden my education.' She smiled. 'William was very put out that he had to take his younger sister with him. We met the most charming Frenchman, Jean-Baptiste. He was so handsome with a neat little beard and such exquisite manners.'

  Watters gave his most endearing smile. 'Do you know what business this French gentleman had with William?'

  'Jean-Baptiste was absolutely adorable,' Elizabeth said. 'I don't know what his business was. Something to do with ships or guns or trade, I imagine. That's all that William thinks about, ships and guns and trade. Oh, God, he is so tedious! Not like Jean-Baptiste or that Belgian fellow, Joseph.'

  'Which Belgian fellow was that?'

  Elizabeth was evidently pleased with this attention. 'His name was Joseph something. It began with an M. Monty? Montigny! That was it: Montigny.'

  Watters took a deep breath. 'Joseph Montigny,' he repeated. 'Was the very charming Frenchman named Jean-Baptiste Verchere de Reffye?'

  'Yes!' Elizabeth nearly jumped in the air. 'That's the man! Do you know him?'

  'I know the name,' Watters said, 'but we've never met.'

  Watters stilled his sudden desire to leave the girls and race back to Dundee. Joseph Montigny was a leading Belgian arms manufacturer, while Jean-Baptiste Verchere de Reffye was rumoured to be developing a machine that could fire bullets ten times faster than a rifle. Watters could think of no good reason for a Dundee jute merchant to associate with foreign arms manufacturers. He would have to send this new information to Scuddamore and Duff, perhaps even to Anstruther, dammit! Watters curbed his impatience. His interest in the Beaumont case was not over; he felt as if it had taken a new direction.

  They stood on the beach where the Corbie Burn gurgled into the sea, watching the grey-white breakers smash onto the fangs of the Sisters rocks. An upturned boat acted as a fishing storehouse
, with its crudely carved door flailing in the breeze.

  Watters looked around, assessing any possible dangers for his charges. Out to sea, a smirr of rain smeared the horizon, concealing the distant white pillar of the Bell Rock Lighthouse. To the west, the rocky headland of Buddon Ness marked the boundary between the German Ocean and the Firth of Tay, while a hundred yards to the East, the beach ended in a rising ridge of dark cliffs. About a mile offshore, the shapes of boats could be dimly seen, clustered together as if seeking solace. Much nearer, surf growled on the rocky ridge of the Sisters. Watters swung his cane. The fisher folk would undoubtedly know of any foreign vessels coming here, and with only one bad road in and out of the village, Amy was as safe here as anywhere in the land.

  'Can you hear that?' Amy asked. 'What is it?'

  Herring gulls screamed mournfully overhead, but it was another sound that intrigued Amy, a low moaning that seemed to come from the sea itself.

  'Seals,' Watters said. 'They must be out there on the rocks.'

  'I don't like seals.' Amy seemed determined to dislike everything about Nesshaven. 'They sound like Frankenstein's monster.'

  'You've never heard Frankenstein's monster,' Elizabeth said. 'Anyway, you told me last week that you like all animals.'

  'I've changed my mind, Elizabeth Caskie.' Amy turned her head away. 'I don't like seals one bit.'

  Watters sighed. Dealing with teenaged girls was far more trying than hunting murderers and fire-raisers.

  'I've had enough of Nesshaven,' Amy announced. 'I want to go back to the house.'

  'We've only been half an hour,' Watters began to protest until he realised that he would have a better chance of contacting the police office from Ness House. 'As you wish, Miss Amy.' When he saw her smug smile of triumph, he was suddenly glad Amy was Beaumont's daughter and not his. 'Back to the gig, ladies.'

  Watters took the reins, shouted 'Ho!' and prepared to manoeuvre along the street, but a press of women and children barred his path. It seemed that the entire population of the village had left their homes to hurry down to the beach. Women were hastily drawing shawls over their heads or running with a hand covering their mouth. The young woman who had fallen on the beach was visibly weeping.

  'The boats must be back,' Amy spoke loudly above the rising wind. 'We can watch them come in. At least that will provide a few minute's diversion in this miserable place.'

  'The women seem a mite agitated.' Watters flicked the reins, easing the gig onto the upper beach, stopping only when the wheels began to sink in the sand. He sighed; why was it that when he wanted to hurry, the world conspired to slow him down?

  The majority of the women had gathered at the edge of the sea with some wading thigh deep into the now crashing waves. As Amy had said, the boats were returning, steering around the surf-white rocks of the Sisters. Most were under sail, but some used oars alone, looking like nautical centipedes as they alternatively disappeared into the trough of the waves or mounted the crest. The fishermen's voices sounded in the wind, sometimes clear, at other times distorted.

  'Listen! They're singing!' Amy climbed agilely from the gig. 'But look at the women!'

  Although the women were pointing and shouting, the wind carried away their voices. Behind the main fishing fleet, a single boat was apparently in difficulties. A scrap of ragged canvas flapped madly where its sail should have been, while its oars rose and fell unevenly. As Watters watched, it came level with the Sisters, but when a backwash caught it, the boat staggered. A rogue wave broke silver-white over the gunwales.

  'Oh, Johnnie!' a woman screamed as the boat lurched to one side with the four men on board grabbing the gunwales for support. When one of the oars slipped free, the sea hurled it onto the Sisters, where it snapped audibly. A man rose to his feet, waving until the backlash from the rocks capsized the boat and threw baskets of fish, gear, and crew into the water.

  'The rocks! The Sisters!' The cry was universal as women watched, screaming at this tragedy unfolding only seventy yards from shore.

  'Sergeant!' Amy rocked the gig as she jumped up and down. 'Sergeant Watters!'

  Watters saw the sea frothing viciously around the upturned keel of the boat. He saw the black heads and waving arms of the men as they struggled to avoid being dashed onto the wicked fangs of the Sisters. He heard the sucking thunder of the sea and smelled the tang of salt.

  'Sergeant Watters! Can't we do something?'

  The ridge of the Sisters extended from the headland half a mile into the sea. It undulated in height so that in places it lay just beneath the waves, and in others, it rose six or ten feet above, acting as a barrier that protected Nesshaven from the worst of the weather but also as a dangerous obstacle at the entrance to the bay. Even while the crew of the capsized boat struggled in the waves, Watters wondered if he could take a rope along the ridge. When a wave exploded against the rock with a vibration that shook the ground, Watters knew that it was impossible. The sea would claim him as it had so many others.

  'We'll need a line!' He indicated the boat storehouse.

  Amy understood at once. 'You can't swim in that!'

  'No choice.' Watters was moving as he spoke, running clumsily across the shifting sand. Wrenching aside the drunken door, he peered inside. The smell of wet canvas and hemp hit him like a fist, but he hauled the nearest coil of rope outside.

  'Jesus!' The blasphemy was heartfelt as the length of rope crumbled in his hand, rotted beyond repair. The next was no better, so Watters had to dive deep into the darkness of the storehouse, even as Amy peered anxiously in behind him, her teenage tantrums forgotten as the real person shone through.

  'You must be careful, Sergeant Watters!'

  There was a litter of spars and oars, a collection of creels, then finally a neatly coiled line sufficiently strong to bear his weight. Grabbing it, Watters backed out of the shed, nearly knocking Amy down in his hurry. He threw off his coat and, hopping on one leg, removed his boots.

  'I'll tie this around my waist!' Watters held up the line. He had to shout over the noise of the squall, while the women and children stared out to sea. Watters did not object when Amy helped, her face tight with concentration as she looped the line around him. 'Tie the other end to the gig.' Watters hesitated for a second, then realising that he could not expect Amy to tie a secure knot, he did it himself.

  'Good luck, Sergeant Watters.' Amy's words followed Watters as he waded into the surf.

  The power of the first wave all but unbalanced Watters with its swift undertow. Lifting his feet, he allowed the tide to pull him out before striking out over arm for the stranded men. Within a minute, he had lost sight of the bobbing heads, relying on instinct to guide him forward.

  Seventy yards, Watters told himself, thrusting forward. Only seventy yards, but already he felt the chill biting into him, while the rope dragged him backwards and chafed at his waist. Lifting his head, he saw only the sea, hissing in a nightmare of spindrift and spume, with grey-white waves breaking all around. Something was floating nearby, a piece of wood, perhaps from the stricken boat, and then the sea sucked him under. Watters struck out again, gasping as salt water surged into his lungs.

  Another stroke, another ducking, then Watters enjoyed a brief lull as he lay in the trough between two growling waves. Taking a deep breath, he rested on a rising wave. He saw a boat bobbing madly on the sea with a man only three yards distant, waving feebly. Watters lunged forward, but a fluke of the current drove him away and under; when he emerged, the man was gone. The boat swept past, men pointing beside him, their mouths open as they yelled words that were lost in the roar of the sea.

  Then there was only grey water and a confusion of spume, a seagull circling overhead, its beak gaping open, and the rope tearing at his skin. Watters struck on, cursing the obstinacy that had forced him out here. One moment he saw a rising grey sea, and then the man was in front of him, his eyes wide in despair mingled with a sudden dawning of hope.

  'Hold on!' Watters's first cl
utch caught only the sea, but his second seized a handful of hair as the man sunk again. Watters hauled upward, swearing as the man struggled, kicking out mightily. 'Keep still, you blackguard! Stop wriggling!'

  Panicking, the man could not hear, so Watters cracked a short punch to the point of his jaw. Shocked or unconscious, the man began to sink, dragging Watters down with him. The roaring of water in Watters's ears was unforgettable, terrifying. He kicked upward in near-panic until he manoeuvred the prostrate man onto his back to begin the long haul back to land.

  The tide had helped Watters on his way out. Now it worked against him, dragging him toward the seething horror of the Sisters, where the sea exploded in spume that rose fifteen, twenty, twenty-five feet into the air. Swimming one-handed with the other holding his burden secure, Watters could make little headway until the line around his waist began to tighten further. As he felt it pulling him back to land, he swam all the harder.

  'Drive on now!' Watters heard Amy's young voice through the cacophony of the storm and felt rough sand scraping beneath him. Retching with the seawater that he had swallowed, he lay still.

  'Sergeant Watters?' Elizabeth was at his side. Watters looked up. Amy had backed the gig into the sea and was now driving it up the beach, with the line drawing him clear of the water.

  'Hold, now!' Amy's voice was clear and commanding, and then she ran down toward him as he floundered in the shallows. 'Sergeant! You saved someone!'

  Turning onto his side, Watters spewed out vast quantities of water before he tried to reply. 'Aye. Just one.' His voice was hoarse, his throat and chest burning. He saw Amy's face hovering over him, smiling through hazel eyes, then she moved to the man that Watters had rescued.

  'Is he dead?' There was concern in her voice.

  'No. I had to knock him out.' Watters watched as an elderly man turned the survivor onto his side, using his arms as an efficient pump. Suddenly aware that there was a crowd of women and children around him, Watters clambered to his feet. 'How many were in the boat?'

  'Four,' one of the women said. She hugged a shawl to her shoulders. 'Bessie's Tom made it back himself, you saved Curly John, but we cannae see Dumpy.'