Treneglos had an instinct, developed over a lifetime of fishing, for where the fish were running on a particular day. He was rarely wrong. Fish shoal and swim in regular patterns and knowing these patterns was no mystery to Jack
Treneglos. It was as easy as knowing the time by the position of the sun in the sky. Charlie Treneglos, on the other hand, was a good enough sailor but lacked his brother’s fisherman’s instinct. He was content to let Jack skipper the boat.
Charlie nodded towards the dark, looming edifice of Trevian Rocks.
“Ain’t you running too near to Trevian?”
Jack pursed his lips.
“Thought we’d edge in a little and try to recover old Billy’s lobster pots. Maybe we’ll find…”
He cast a quick glance at his brother and left the sentence unfinished.
“Coastguard has looked pretty thoroughly, Jack.”
“Aye, but you never know.”
The brothers lapsed into silence as Jack Treneglos eased the thirty-foot ketch near to the rocks where white crested waves exploded against the sea-moss strewn granite. The waves pounded and crashed in a way that would have unnerved a landsman but Jack held his wheel steady and called to one of his men to let go of the sea anchor to prevent the currents dragging them against the granite. High above, on the white capped rocks, the gulls set up a wailing chorus.
Charlie took his pipe out of his mouth and pulled a face.
“Reckon the old stories have a foundation, Jack.”
His brother frowned.
“They do say that a mermaid inhabits Trevian Rocks,” went on Charlie. “She appears before the coming of a storm or a shipwreck and sits with a comb and glass singing most plaintively and that all around the rocks the spirits echo her in low moaning voices. They do say that in olden times young men from Bosbradoe have tried to swim out to Trevian Rocks, lured by the song of the mermaid, but have never returned.”
Jack Treneglos grinned.
“Stiffen the crows, Charlie, you’ve an imagination!”
“No, ‘twere told me by our granfer. He had it from his granfer. Aye, and do’ee listen…”
Jack Treneglos laughed shortly but Charlie held up a hand.
“…there! ‘Tis like a curious lamenting song. Do’ee listen now.”
“Aye, and that be your damned gulls!” chuckled Jack. “You’d think fishing folk would be less superstitious than most.”
Charlie nodded half-heartedly.
“All I say is that a man can believe…”
His brother interrupted.
“Well, ain’t no storm a-coming and no wrecks. So, Charlie, let’s start getting in the pots and see if there…damn!”
Jack Treneglos gave a cry as the wheel seemed to be wrenched from his hands and started to spin madly. A current seized the ketch and was swinging her bows towards the rocks. The lurch of the craft caused Jack Treneglos to be thrown across the wheelhouse with Charlie sprawling after him.
Charlie recovered himself first and grabbed for the spinning wheel. He groaned as its momentum nearly wrenched his arms. His brother, blood pouring from a cut arm, where he had cannoned into some piece of equipment, heaved himself on to his feet and joined Charlie in steadying the wheel.
“Okay, Charlie. I have her now.”
The current was strong. He could feel the rudder protesting beneath his hands.
“What the hell…?” he breathed, eyes darting to the rippling seas for some explanation.
His mouth suddenly dropped as his eyes caught sight of the seas around the ketch. Charlie was also gazing, transfixed by the sight. Around the ketch the waters were swirling and bubbling in strange patterns.
A couple of the crew shouted something Jack and Charlie Treneglos could not hear. Jack was too busy fighting with a cold determination to shift the wheel and swing the ketch away from the rocks against which the currents now threatened to smash them. In all his experience at sea Jack
had never encountered a phenomenon like this. It crossed his mind that this might have been what Billy and Jack Sea wen had encountered on the previous day. If so, no wonder their tiny dinghy was smashed to pieces.
“Christ, Jack!” Charlie’s voice came as a scream. “Whirlpool! It’s a whirlpool!”
Jack Treneglos glanced out of the wheelhouse and saw that his brother was right. The currents in the sea were now distinct, swirling, circular currents which spiralled out from a centre some fifty yards only from the ketch. The frail boat lay on the outward edge of the bubbling waters. The motion of the sea was strong. Jack Treneglos could feel the drag vibrating through the wheel.
“Give me a hand to hold the wheel steady, Charlie!” he cried.
With both brothers holding the wheel, Jack was able to reach out with one hand and push the throttles forward. The twin propellers bit into the water.
“Heave now, Charlie!” cried Jack Treneglos. “We’ve got to get over the rim of the whirlpool. Once we get sucked down…!”
Sluggishly, the bows of the ketch began to come up a little. Both men felt the strain at the wheel and uttered a silent prayer that the rudder chains would not snap under the pressure. Jack Treneglos eased the throttles forward a little more, hearing the engine screaming in protest.
The whirlpool was widening, its pivot was sinking downwards. Twice the ketch described a full circle, twice it was nearly dashed to pieces against the granite sentinels of Trevian.
The crew clung to the brass rails outside the wheelhouse with white faces and staring eyes, watching the brothers struggling at the wheel.
Jack Treneglos felt his arms being wrenched from their sockets, felt like giving up the unequal battle to push the ketch over the rim of the whirlpool and away to safety. He moaned aloud in pain.
Then, abruptly, the wheel was easy in his hands. The screaming protest of the engine screws began to fade into a deep roar and the ketch began to speed full ahead through the choppy waters.
They were over the rim and moving rapidly away from the strange whirlpool.
Jack Treneglos automatically cut back power and then, like his brother, slumped against the side of the wheel-house. Their eyes met.
“Reckon we’d best put back, Charlie.”
His brother didn’t say anything as Jack swung the wheel in the direction of Bosbradoe and eased the throttles forward a little.
After a short while Charlie took out a pair of binoculars and focused them towards Trevian Rocks.
He swore in astonishment.
The sea was calm except where the waves smashed against the base of the rock towers. There was no sign of the whirlpool nor any other disturbance in the sea’s normally choppy waters. He handed the glasses to his brother.
Jack Treneglos exclaimed.
“What do you make of it, Charlie?”
Charlie shrugged in perplexity.
“If old Billy Scawen got caught up in that yesterday, then ‘tis no wonder his dinghy was smashed.”
“Aye, but what was it?”
“Ain’t for me to say but we’d better report it to the coastguard. Trevian ought to be avoided until they find out for sure.”
Jack nodded and broke out a bottle of whisky from a locker. He poured out four tin mugs and distributed them to his men. Then he took over the wheel from his brother. Charlie stood for a moment leaning against the side of the wheelhouse.
“Aye,” he muttered. “Will’ee listen to those gulls?”
Above the chugging of the engine and the slapping of the water on the sides of the ketch, the lonely lament of the seabirds was dominant.
“Reckon if you was to close your eyes, you would think it was a mermaid singing plaintively,” he murmured reflectively. “Aye, and being answered by a chorus of tormented spirits.”
Jack Treneglos forced himself to laugh. He was beginning to recover from the shock, starting to feel more at ease again.
“You’ve too much imagination, Charlie.”
“Maybe,” returned his brother with a curious expression o
n his features. “Maybe, but we were nearly lured to a watery end, weren’t we? The ancients didn’t make up tales without a reason.”
CHAPTER VIII
Claire looked around her in bewilderment. Everything seemed normal yet here she was on her knees in the middle of the road. Surely they did not have earthquakes in Cornwall? Yet the ground had trembled with such violence that it had precipitated her to the dusty roadway. She rose slowly to her feet, dusting the knees of her jeans and mentally uttering a prayer of thanks that she was not wearing a skirt and tights for they would have been ruined. She looked round for Mother Polruan but the strange old lady had disappeared. She gave a perplexed sigh and began to walk slowly back to the house.
She entered to hear the telephone’s shrilling summons. “Hullo, Miss Penvose. Seth Treneglos from the garage here.”
“Oh yes; good morning, Mister Treneglos. Did you get the car?”
“No trouble at all. In fact I was able to fix it first thing this morning. Your bulkhead had gone round the clutch cable and there was nothing to anchor it to. I’ve reinforced the bulkhead and it should be fine now.”
“You mean I can pick it up?”
“Any time you like, miss.”
“I’ll be down about lunchtime.”
“Very good, miss. If I’m not at the garage, I shall be having lunch in The Morvren Arms.”
Claire put down the telephone receiver and stood looking round the silent house with hands on hips. She was still a little annoyed at Constable Roscarrock’s apparent indifference. It was so unlike her uncle to prepare for his birthday party, even to the extent of laying out the table, and then to forget and wander off. She knew he was forgetful but surely not that forgetful. There was little she could do on her own, however. She would just have to follow the constable’s advice and wait until the following morning. She glanced at the old-fashioned clock ticking solemnly away on the mantelshelf. It was eleven-thirty. She went in the kitchen and started to make coffee.
A crashing sound made her whirl round, her heart beating wildly.
Memories of her disturbed night flooded back in her mind.
Someone was in the cellar!
She grabbed for the poker which had been her protection on her nocturnal investigation and strode to the cellar door. She flicked on the light and peered down the stairs.
“Anyone down there?” she cried nervously.
There was no answer.
Taking her courage in both hands she advanced down the steps.
The main cellars were empty. She advanced, slipped and nearly fell. Damn! She had forgotten about the strange slime that coated the cellar floor. She steadied herself, one hand on a work bench and looked around. Some boxes lay strewn in a corner. She remembered they had been standing securely packed the previous night, and bit her lip. What had caused them to fall?
She moved forward carefully. Above she could hear the telephone start to shrill. She hesitated and turned back.
Abruptly there came a rustling noise. One of the boxes trembled and fell with a soft thud.
Claire screamed.
Jack Treneglos looked from the sceptical face of Lieutenant Polkerris of the Coastguard Service to the bewildered face of Constable Roscarrock and exhaled his breath in annoyance.
“Calling me a liar, are’ee?” he demanded in an aggrieved fashion.
“No, no,” Polkerris said, laying a pacifying hand on Treneglos’ forearm. “But it does take some believing.”
“Well just ask my brother, Charlie, ask my crew before you start calling me a liar.”
Roscarrock interrupted gruffly.
“No one be calling you a liar, Jack. What we want is to get to the bottom of the matter. Now do’ee take a chair and have a cup of tea.”
They sat awkwardly in Roscarrock’s office.
Lieutenant Polkerris had driven up to Bosbradoe from Newquay to check some details about Billy and Jack Scawen’s presumed drowning. No bodies had yet been recovered and Polkerris wanted to check out details about local tides and currents to work out whether the bodies might be washed ashore somewhere. He had just arrived at Roscarrock’s cottage-cum-station when Jack Treneglos had come along reporting whirlpools near Trevian Rocks. Polkerris, though a Newquay man born and bred, knew the coastline and the currents pretty well. He had spent twenty years in the Coastguard and whirlpools in the sea near Trevian Rocks were rather hard to stomach.
Jack Treneglos pursed his lips in sulky fashion.
“Me and my men see’d what we see’d, Polkerris,” muttered the fisherman.
“I don’t doubt it,” replied the lieutenant. “The thing is to get to the cause of it.”
They sipped their tea in noisy fashion for a moment or two before Roscarrock suddenly frowned.
“Here, ain’t Trevian Rocks where old Wheal Tom runs?”
Jack Treneglos looked up.
“You mean the old galleries which run out under the sea?”
Roscarrock nodded.
“What are you getting at, Roscarrock?” asked the Coastguard man.
“You know Wheal Tom, the old deserted mine working. Well, supposing the old galleries collapsed out near the Trevian Rocks? The sea water flooding into the mine would cause a whirlpool effect on the surface.”
“It could be,” murmured the Coastguard. Then warming to the idea, “The subsidence might have started yesterday and have caused Scawens’ boat to founder and then another section could have given way today as witnessed by Treneglos here.”
“It’s a likely theory,” agreed Roscarrock. “That would mean that the sea…My God!”
The constable’s face suddenly went white.
Jack Treneglos looked at him curiously.
“What’s up?”
““Happy” Penvose! His niece was in here this morning reckoning as her uncle has been missing since yesterday. You know how he is always disappearing down that old mine for days at a time.”
He reached for the telephone.
“What’s the number at Tybronbucca?” He searched through his notebook and dialled the number.
He could hear the ringing tone but there was no answer.
“I’ll have to get someone to come up from the Camborne School of Mines. If old “Happy” has got himself stuck down there then we need a bit of expert help.”
“Let’s hope that if he’s down Wheal Tom he wasn’t in the undersea galleries,” muttered Treneglos.
Claire Penvose leant back against the work bench and shuddered with relief as a large black cat bounded out from the scattered boxes and scuttled up the stairs. It took her some minutes to collect her jangling thoughts and get her heart to recover its normal rhythm.
“Blasted cat!” she said eventually.
She put down the poker and began to restack the boxes. As she was doing so she noticed that behind the boxes was the entrance to a rather strange looking tunnel. It was a smooth round tunnel, about six feet in diameter, apparently bored with accurate precision, so smooth were its walls. Claire screwed up her eyes and peered into the darkness. Its sides were wet and slimy like the cellar floor.
“I wonder what this was used for?” she mused aloud. “Maybe it’s a part of the old mine workings?”
She paused, head to one side. For a moment she was sure she heard the distant murmuring of the sea. No, there it was again. It was a strange sound. A squelching, sucking type of sound. She listened for a few minutes, found herself shuddering but resumed stacking the boxes. Having finished, she returned to the kitchen and continued making her coffee. The large black cat had vanished, presumably through the open window, and departed to wherever its home was.
It was just after twelve o’clock when she set off for the village. She had just turned out of the gate of Tybronbucca when the sound of a car preceded the appearance of a familiar looking vehicle which drew up alongside her.
Bill Neville leaned out and smiled.
“Going down to the village? Want a lift?”
Claire smiled in gree
ting.
“I’m just off to pick up my car from Treneglos’ garage. He’s fixed it already. You were right about the clutch cable.”
Neville reached across and opened the passenger’s door for her.
“That’s fast work.”
He set the car in motion down the winding road passing the ruined mansion and the crumbling Norman castle.
“I’m actually going to The Morvren Arms for a spot of lunch. Would you like to join me?”
Claire hesitated.
“You’re probably eating with your uncle,” went on Neville, misunderstanding her indecision.
“No,” she returned, and told him about the mysterious non-appearance of her uncle and her visit to Constable Roscarrock.
Neville nodded slowly.
“It’s true that your uncle is always in and out of the old mine and sometimes spends days down there. Roscarrock is probably right.”
The girl shook her head stubbornly.
“I don’t believe Uncle Henry is that vague. He would leave a message for me or something.”
Neville turned into the parking area of The Morvren Arms. As Claire climbed out she could see that Treneglos’ garage was closed.
“Anyway,” she said with a forced lightness, “I’d love lunch if the offer is still good.”
Neville grinned and took her arm.
“They do beautiful pasties here…but I suppose you know that.”
Inside, Noall, the moon faced landlord, greeted them and took their food orders, supplied their drinking needs and stoked up the fire before which they seated themselves. They had only just done so when Seth and Charlie Treneglos came in talking loudly. Seth saw Claire and came over.
“Hello, miss. Morning, Mr Neville.”
He deposited Claire’s car keys on the table.
“It’s in the car park outside, miss.”
Claire thanked him and asked him how much the repair came to. Seth Treneglos named a modest figure which Claire immediately settled in cash, offering to buy him a drink.
“Thanks all the same, miss,” grinned the garage-owner, “but my brother will have set me up.”
He nodded and returned to his brother who was now having a heated discussion on whirlpools with several locals.
The Morgow Rises! Page 5