Now, that may sound very gallant and I am well aware that there are a few women today who complain about such acts of chivalry. However, in my day, and even now, women's clothing does not aid active movement. Long skirts and layers of petticoats are not conducive to agility, so Mr Kemp's hand was very welcome, but he had no real need to cling to me for a long, luxurious second after I boarded Mary. Not that I objected of course, but I did think we would be better to hurry after my wayward cousin.
“We'll have to wait until we build up steam,” Mr Kemp said, as if I knew what he was talking about, “but that won't take too long.”
Once Mr Kemp shovelled fuel into the furnace, he fiddled with his levers and nodded to me. “Get used to the feel of the wheel,” he said, “because you'll be steering.”
“What?' I stared at him in disbelief. 'I can't steer a boat, Mr Kemp! I do not have the skill!”
“Would you rather shovel coal?”
The spokes of the wheel were cold and hard in my hands, but it spun easily, and once Mr Kemp decided that we were ready and cast off the securing lines, I felt the little boat buck under my hands.
“Ease her round slowly,” Mr Kemp sounded quite anxious. “Pretend that she's a prime team, a quality equipage.”
The comparison helped a little. This vessel was only a vehicle, like a coach but floating. I turned the spokes.
“You're steering too fast!” Mr Kemp was quite abrupt.
“I'm sorry,” I said, turning the wheel just as hard the opposite direction so the vessel's blunt bow made solid contact with the sea wall.
“Let me,” Mr Kemp dropped his shovel with a clatter and leaped beside me. It was the closest contact I had experienced for some time as he put his hands over mine and very gently eased the wheel around. “Hold her like that,” he said, and stepped aside, brushing against me as he pushed a small brass lever that was attached to the boiler.
The steam boat seemed to lurch forward, and those great paddles in the stern moved slowly, churning up the water far more effectively than the boat on the Nor' Loch ever did.
“Steer for the harbour entrance,” Mr Kemp advised, and pointed out the lights that marked the space.
Until that second I had enjoyed the thrill of close contact with Mr Kemp and the excitement of doing something completely different, but now the sea began to kick, Mary rode high on a wave and swooped down and I realised exactly what I was doing.
If I had been with anybody else I believe that I would have panicked, but Mr Kemp had an assurance about him that other men lack. I could draw strength just by looking at him, while one touch of his hand steadied my nerve. Oh I am not saying he was perfect, far from it, the devious, tricky blackguard, but I admit that it was reassuring to have him near.
I was steering a steam boat on to the Firth of Forth at night. The thought was terrifying, until Mr Kemp looked at me. “Keep her steady,” he said, and lit a few lanterns to show our position to other vessels. Perhaps that was the objective, but having Mary lighted up only served to highlight the stygian blackness outside.
All this time, remember, we had the steady thump, swish, thump of the paddle wheels in the background, while the tall funnel overhead erupted greasy smoke that gusts of wind would blow down upon us. However dishevelled I was at the start of that voyage, a few minutes later I must have looked like a Midlothian collier.
“How far are we going?” Although we had barely cleared the harbour I still had to shout above the chunk of the paddles and the increasing howl of the wind around the various parts of ship. Don't ask me what they are called, my dears, I did not know then and I have never been concerned enough to find out since.
“The Custom officer thought Potomac would be in the lee of Inchkeith,” Mr Kemp told me. “With this wind, I cannot see her going much further out. With our steam power, we can go against the wind, of course.”
Of course, I thought. You should know the Firth of Forth, my dears, that great bite of the sea that separates Edinburgh from Fife. It is about fifty miles long, from the North Sea all the way to Stirling, but narrows considerably a few miles west of Edinburgh. It is not a clear seaway, as the mariners say, but has a considerable number of small islands, some of which are mere rocks, but others are useful to ships, which use them for shelter in bad weather or adverse winds. The largest of these islands is Inchkeith, that ugly, misshapen chunk of rock you can see from Edinburgh.
“How far is that?” I was already beginning to doubt my wisdom in coming out here with the wind screaming around my ears and the smoke a choking cloud all around. Very bad for the complexion, I believe.
“Not far!” Mr Kemp was jumping around madly, one minute shovelling coal into the furnace so there was constant steam pressure to keep the paddles turning, the next checking his array of levers and buttons and what not, so the boat moved properly. I was very glad to see that Mary steered better than her sister in the North Loch. There was no sideways crab-like motion from her, just a steady, if slow movement forward. And too add to my discomfort, Mary was also making an up and down and sideways movement, as the wind and sea directed.
I was beginning to feel seasick, but swallowed hard. I did not want Mr Kemp to see my weakness.
“Cross wind!” Mr Kemp suddenly bellowed in my ear, and before I had time to ask what the devil he was talking about, a blast of wind came from the left, sorry, the larboard side, and rocked the entire boat. We shipped water, with a great wave cascading over the small handrail that was all that separated us from the sea, and then I was soaked as well as sick.
Mr Kemp was at my side in a second. “Hold on!” He shouted, as his huge hand closed over mine. Together we wrestled Mary back on course. “Well done, Alison! Hold her there!”
I am still unsure where it was I was meant to hold her, or exactly what I had done well, but I smiled through my fear, shook away that portion of the Firth of Forth that had descended on my hair and face, and stared determinedly ahead.
I was aware of Edinburgh's lights to starboard, that the right hand side to you landswomen, and a scattering of lights that seemed to bob madly everywhere else. There was one fixed white light directly ahead, which Mr Kemp pointed to.
“That's the lighthouse on Inchkeith,” he told me, “steer a good bit to the left, or we'll run onto the island.”
“We'll what?” I heard my voice rise in horror. It was bad enough being out here on this boat that rose and fell and clanked and rattled and chunked and spewed out stinking black smoke, but it would be worse to run onto an island.
“Just do what I say!”
I was determined to do exactly what Mr Kemp said, but I wished, very fervently, that I had taken his advice an hour ago and remained safe on the Shore at Leith. I have often heard people ridicule mariners for their tall tales and hard drinking, but if that experience of mine in the Firth of Forth, a sheltered waterway, mark you, was typical, they earn every penny they make and the stories are all probably true. If I were a seaman, I would never be sober; such was my impression of the hardship of their lives.
At that moment, of course, I was much more concerned with myself that with any number of anonymous seamen. I gripped the spokes of that wheel until my knuckles were white, whimpered as chilling water washed around my ankles and stifled my screams as Mary crashed into waves that seemed to grow larger every moment.
“There!” Mr Kemp pointed ahead, where the constant beam of the Inchkeith Light showed like the finger of God. “Steer to larboard – left!”
I did so, as best I was able, with Mr Kemp's hands on top of mine and my clothes sticking sodden to me.
“And there's Potomac.”
The American vessel was riding light, or at least she seemed to be floating high on top of the waves, with most of her sails furled. There was a full moon that night, and she rode with what seemed a score of lights proclaiming her presence to the world. My cousin was on board that ship, I thought, possibly deep in the embrace of a Frenchman, and unless I rescued her, she might never see
Scotland again.
“Louise!” I shrieked, “Louise!”
Mr Kemp looked at me. “She can't hear you,” he said, and then I saw something that has haunted my worst nightmares ever since. I saw a man walk on to the deck of Potomac, lift a speaking trumpet and shout an order, whereupon a rush of ragged seamen erupted from somewhere forward and begin to haul on ropes.
Sails sprouted as if by magic, Potomac changed shape, her anchor began to rise and she was veering away from us and into the teeth of the easterly wind.
“Bloody fool!” That was the third time that I had heard Mr Kemp swear, and this time I entirely agreed with him.
“They're sailing away!” I pointed out the obvious.
“They can't sail in this wind!” Mr Kemp had to shout above the scream of the wind and the chunk of our paddles.
“Mr Kemp,” I said, “we must catch them and save Louise!”
The bulk of the island sheltered us from the worst of the wind, so the seas became calmer, with less spindrift being kicked from the surface of the waves, and the smoke from our funnel behaved less erratically. I took a deep breath and glanced up at Mr Kemp.
I have said before that he looked like a Greek god, but now I would say he was Poseidon personified. Rain and seawater had plastered his hair to his face and his clothes to his body so he stood in muscular profile, his straight nose and out-thrust chin the epitome of determination. Perhaps I love him before, but now my feelings momentarily altered. Now my dears, I know that we girls are not supposed to share the same physical feelings as men, who are meant to be baser creatures, but that is all nonsense, as you probably already know.
In that moment my feelings for Mr Kemp were anything but pure and spiritual. I felt what can only be described as animal lust, something that overpowered me without me being able to do anything about it. I knew then that a mere clasping of hands, a brief caress, even a kiss, was not enough. I wanted to be married to this man in every sense of the word, moral, spiritual, legal and, most definitely physically, and at that second I did not care for anything less.
As you know, I had already seen him naked, which had been a very interesting experience, but this was different. It went beyond mere appreciation of muscles and shape and, well, admiration of other things. It was far deeper, far more demanding and so intense that it was almost painful.
“Mr Kemp,” I shouted, and he looked around at me with his eyes wild and his mouth open.
“Mr Kemp,” I repeated. “I love you!”
He grinned back, and suddenly I had no doubts at all. I wanted to be Mrs William Kemp for ever and ever Amen, to have and to hold, oh yes, most definitely to hold, for richer or poorer, but preferably richer, until death us do part. Except at that moment death seemed quite close to parting us and I did not relish the experience.
“I love you too,” he shouted over the racket of the engine and thud of the paddles, and then we were out of the lee of the island and the full force of the Forth squall hit us.
It was like nothing I have ever experienced before, as if some giant fist had descended from heaven and stirred up the sea, flicking us around as easily as a cat paws a baby mouse.
I saw Potomac stagger under the force of the sea; I saw her move sideways and backward, as one of her sails exploded into shreds of tattered canvas. I saw Mr Kemp shovel another load of coal into the furnace and turn to me, shouting something just as the mizzen mast of Potomac broke, splintering into three separate segments that all scissored into the sea.
“Mr Kemp!” I screamed, but he was already with me, turning the wheel so we avoided the massive spars that wind and waves propelled toward us, and then we were alongside that American ship as she lurched at an impossible angle.
“Hold on!” Mr Kemp yelled, and I did so.
I might have fainted, or perhaps my memory of the next few minutes is just faulty, but I cannot exactly recall the correct sequence of events. I do know that Mr Kemp was shouting, and that Potomac veered toward the island, and for one heart-stopping moment I thought that she would strike.
I recall shouting “Louise!” and watching as the stern of the American ship sliced past the foaming rocks of Inchkeith, missing by a few yards, and then she was staggering crazily in the Forth with Mary chugging around her like a sheepdog nipping the heels of a bull.
The lights of Edinburgh still shone bright to starboard, and across the Forth there were reciprocal lights on the Fife side as all the little towns and coastal villages lived snugly as we battled the storm. I have heard since that it was not a real storm, merely what the sailors call a 'cap full of wind' but it certainly seemed real enough to me.
Anyway, Mr Kemp kept Mary close enough to Potomac for me to see the members of the crew all rushing around doing nautical things, and then we were both in open water, the wind had altered and the Inchkeith light was astern.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“We're going to hail her,” Mr Kemp told me, “but I doubt they'll listen.”
Mr Kemp was correct. They ignored both Mr Kemp's stentorian shouts and my high pitched squeals, and then the wind altered again and Potomac ran aground.
It was literally, as simple as that. I believe that an hour passed between the ship losing her mizzen mast – that's the one at the back – and her hitting the small island of Fidra, but it might have been ten minutes or half the night. I was far too busy steering and pushing levers and doing exactly what Mr Kemp ordered to pay any attention to the time.
However, I do know that it was some time in the early morning. I was so tired that I could hardly keep my eyes open and my head had that fuzzy, couldn't-care-less feeling, but Mr Kemp was still alert and busy. How he did it I do not know, particularly as I have since learned that all men require constant feeding before they can do any sort of work for more than half an hour at a time, but he was still in command when Potomac hit.
“Louise!” I yelled, and watched in total horror as that once proud ship ran aground. You may know Fidra, but if not, it is a small, evocatively beautiful island only a mile or so from the southern shore of the Forth. It has a small hump, hardly a hill, at either end, and a low lying neck in the middle, and it was onto this neck that Potomac ran. Normally it is a lovely island to look at, but this night its northern coast was a maelstrom of thundering surf and exploding spindrift. Potomac seemed to slide onto this narrowest and lowest part, stop with sickening abruptness and then slowly settle onto her side.
“Stand aside.” Mr Kemp was hardly polite as he took control of the wheel and eased as close to the wreck as he could.
I could see a score of figures struggling on board, with one or two trying to leave the ship, and then there was a terrible rending sound and the mainmast tottered and fell. I have never seen anything quite so terrifying in my life as the sight of that ship tearing itself to pieces on the rocky shore of Fidra.
I looked around the firth, hoping for the sight of a sail. “Will somebody help her?”
Mr Kemp shook his head. “Not in this wind,” he said. “There's nobody here but us!”
He was right. Sail powered ships, you see my dears, cannot go directly against the wind. They can angle their sails to go at many different angles, but that one is impossible. Steamboats, however, can, and Mr Kemp manoeuvred the tiny Mary as close as he could to Potomac to pick up survivors. Now some had already reached the island, but there was a small group in the stern that seemed reluctant to leave, possibly because of the bits and pieces of spars and such like that were cascading from the remaining mast.
“Keep her there,” Mr Kemp said to me, and I held the wheel as tightly as I could as the sea seemed to push Mary from one side to the other while simultaneously bucking her up and down like an unbroken horse.
With all my attention on that wheel, I hardly noticed what Mr Kemp was doing until I saw him balanced right in the bow of Mary, throwing a length of rope to the poor people on Potomac. Only when they rushed to it did I see the splash of a colourful dress and realise t
hat there were women amongst them. “Louise!” I shouted, more in hope than expectation, for in the horrendous din of sea and wind and steamboat, my voice could not carry.
A massive wave struck Potomac then, and when the spindrift and spray cleared, I saw that Mr Kemp had crawled, hand over hand, to the stricken ship and was carrying one of the women to the rope. I tried to watch, but Mary veered to starboard and I had to fight the wheel, and when next I looked there was nobody on Potomac at all.
“Mr Kemp!” Again my voice was too weak, and I was unsure what to do. Should I remain where I was, or search for Mr Kemp and Louise? I hesitated, biting my lip until the blood flowed, and then a succession of waves battered Mary so I had no time to do anything but keep her bow toward the wind, as Mr Kemp had instructed.
I was alone at sea in a tiny boat the mechanics of which I did not understand, and my handfasted husband and my cousin had both been drowned just a few yards from me. What should I do? There was no time to cry, and as yet the full horror had not hit me. It did though, later, again and again.
There was another wave, and another and Mary shuddered with each impact. I remained stationary, holding the wheel, obeying the last words that Willie Kemp had given me as I thought of life without him.
“I love you Willie Kemp,” I said, and then screamed it hopelessly into the uncaring wind. “I love you Willie Kemp!”
“I am glad to hear it,” the deep voice sounded right at my shoulder.
“What?” I spun around, nearly letting go of the wheel. “Where have you been and how dare you scare me like that!” Unsure whether to slap him or hug him, I compromised with a loving glare, and then I saw that he was soaked to the skin and carried something over his shoulder.
It was a woman's body, long and blonde haired, and he laid it down gently before kneeling on top. “That's us,” Mr Kemp shouted. “I've released the line so take us out of here as fast as you can!”
By now I knew that the boat required delicate handling so I eased her away from the wreck of Potomac and watched as Mr Kemp vigorously massaged life back into Louise. She sat up, coughing sea water, and stared at me.
The Handfasters Page 15