Go Saddle the Sea

by Joan Aiken

  ‘Of course I shall make for Falmouth!’ snarled the captain. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’

  ‘But – ’ I began. Sam shook his head at me and laid a finger on his lips. When the captain went to see to the reefing, I said to Sam,

  ‘But you must not go to Falmouth – you might be sent to prison!’

  ‘Felix,’ he said gravely, ‘the way things are, I’d think myself as snug in Falmouth jail as in the King’s palace! We must put in to Falmouth; in the state they are, his sails would never take him across the Irish Sea. Ah – look – ’

  For, as the sailors shook the mainsail, trying to wrestle its frozen breadth into the folds necessary for furling, the wind put black claws into the burnt patch and tore the sail into shreds, which whirled away into the darkness like the shredded petals of a poppy. The shrouds blew out, and were dragged away from their fastenings; one of the sailors, Matthieu, was carried away likewise; I had a moment’s terrible view of him, spreadeagled in the sky like an angel, dyed red by lightning, his mouth a round black O of horror – then he was gone, God knew where.

  With a fearful curse, the captain called to the Doctor to come and take Matthieu’s place.

  Now I noticed the Doctor for the first time since I had been awakened. He still, with immovable gravity, maintained his position at the foot of the mast; but I saw that he had passed a rope through his leather belt, and taken several turns of it around the mast behind him, so that he was fastened there. He shook his head calmly in response to the captain’s summons, and replied,

  ‘No. It is my duty to preserve myself as long as possible, for my brain contains secrets unknown to any other in the world. I must not hazard my life in such a manner. Yours is the responsibility of the ship; it is not my concern.’

  ‘You fool!’ screamed the captain in a passion. ‘If it were not for your persuading me to this insane trip we should now be safely berthed in the Ria de Laredo; look what you have done to us! And now you will not even stir yourself to help, though I have lost my two best men; you will be drowned through your own obstinacy, and we shall too!’

  ‘I shall drown if it is the will of Fate,’ replied the Doctor. ‘You will receive no help from me. I am a man of science not a sailor.’

  Cursing him again, the captain called me. In response to Sam’s nod, I went to help him and, mastering my terror as best I could, received instructions from the captain and Abdullah on how to brail up, furl the sails, secure the clew-lines, and put preventer-shrouds on the block-straps, so that they might serve as back-stays. Like a sardine in a net, I dangled and struggled among the black, frozen ropes; again and again I thought my last moment had come. We battened down the ports and the hatch to the hold; we removed every needless bit of gear from the deck, so that the ship might offer the least possible resistance to the wind; we hurried as if the devil were after us, we sweated and struggled like slaves, while the captain cursed us and urged us to work faster, and toiled alongside of us.

  That night seemed to last for a lifetime. My fingers, wrists, and arms were numb and black with bruising, my nails torn; my feet were frozen, and every inch of my clothing was soaked by spray and snow; the snow lay in folds of my collar and under my hair, it poured into my mouth, nose, and eyes, so that at times I could hardly see;

  yet I was not cold; we were kept too busy for that; and, strangely, in all this frenzy, and facing the imminent risk of death, I did not find myself afraid, but rather filled with a wild cheerfulness and gaiety, as I battled to carry out the captain’s instructions, and even felt that I was doing not too badly, earning from time to time his brief commending nod.

  Oh, I thought, if Bob, if Grandfather, if Aunt Isadora could see me now!

  And when I remembered my great-aunt Isadora, by whose contrivance I was here, in this danger, I could almost have thanked the old vulture; and I thought that probably never in the whole of her miserable envious spite-filled life had she known anything like the joy of this crazy struggle to keep the ship watertight and battened against the gale, trimmed to take advantage of the pursuing wind and not be overwhelmed by it. We secured the compass and binnacle; we lashed the ship’s boat more tightly to the bowsprit, where it hung, Basque-fashion, like a cocoon dangling from a twig; we pumped, by turns, to reduce the water in the well; and we bailed with leather buckets when the pump jammed.

  Sammy, at the helm, said once, laughing,

  ‘Eh, lad, ‘ee’ll make a sailor yet! If your kinsfolk are not to be found, ‘tis best ye go back to sea!’ and I felt pride rise in me as high as the towering waves.

  Morning brought no relief from the gale; indeed, the wind blew harder still; but we could See more easily what had to be done. The wrack of cloud grew thicker as the day advanced; and the snow fell faster. Hailstones like pebbles rattled about the deck and caused us to slide and stumble.

  Then I heard Sam say quietly to the captain, between two gusts,

  ‘Look: there are the two light-houses on the Lizard Head.’

  ‘You have good eyes,’ the captain answered, in a tone of disbelief, screwing up his own eyes against the whirl of snow. ‘I see nothing.’

  ‘I could not be mistaken,’ Sam said. ‘I know this coast like the palm of my hand.’

  A few minutes later I thought that I, too, could perceive a low, wrinkled coast-line, white as the sea, but separated from it by a thread of black cliffs.

  And then, when hope had us suddenly quivering, our hearts beating faster than they had all through the terrors of the night – suddenly there came a terrible crash. In one instant the top-sails were blown clear off the ship, the shrouds were carried away, and the mast flew off on the back of the wind, like a piece of straw, carrying the Doctor with it. Dismasted, the ship at once became wholly helpless. She would not answer to the helm.

  Sam was steering at that moment, but the captain leaped to take his place.

  ‘Lash me here!’ he shouted. We tied him to the tiller, but even he, with all his skill, could not keep the Guipuzcoa under way. A wave carried away part of the rail, as the ship wallowed, aslant to the wind. Another, following, took off the figurehead.

  ‘The ship is lost,’ Sam said to me quietly. ‘We had better free the boat.’

  Old Luc came forward to help us with this task, no easy one, as the bowsprit swung up and down, now pointing at the sky, now buried in the waves, like a giant’s pencil writing a letter across the storm. Behind us we heard a yell, and turned to see a huge wave, larger than the whole of my grandfather’s house, fall shatteringly upon the poop of the ship. We felt the Guipuzcoa lurch and stagger, as if she had been mortally wounded; when the spray cleared away and the stern rose, we saw that the captain and the helm had both disappeared. Next moment another wave had broken off the bowsprit, and had taken us with it into the waves.

  I was not much frightened, although I could not swim. I thought only of maintaining my fierce grip on the rope which secured the boat to the bowsprit.

  For a moment I was under dark green water, my mouth, eyes, and ears were full of it; then my head came out of a wave, and I saw Sam not far off, clutching the gunwale of the boat, which, by good fortune, was the right side up. The broken bowsprit drifted alongside, with old Luc clinging to it.

  ‘Quick: pull yourself on board!’ Sam shouted to me. ‘Now!’ – as a wave bore me up; and, with a wild, scrambling heave, I managed to throw myself into the boat and then, on my knees, grasping at his arms, struggled to drag Sam in over the side.

  ‘Hold on to me, old Father,’ said Sam to Luc, and reached out a hand to the old man, who still clung to the bowsprit. ‘Leave go of the spar and give me your hand – bueno! I have got you.’

  But at that moment a short steep wave lifted up the end of the bowsprit and brought it down like a club on the old man’s white head; without a word, without a sign, he sank under the water and did not reappear.

  I have remembered that moment, at different times, ever since.

  Meanwhile the Guipuzcoa, broken, breached
, and dismasted, had turned over in the water like a dead herring. A few casks, a chest, and a basket bobbed away from the hull. We peered, rubbing our eyes against the snow, for any sign of Abdullah or the captain, but the heavy carcass of the ship was settling fast, and our boat, much lighter, was drifting away from it, borne shorewards by the wind. We were helpless, for we had no oars; they must have been thrown out when the bowsprit broke off.

  ‘There is nothing we can do for those poor fellows,’ said Sam. ‘And we are not out of the wood yet! Our boat may capsize – or the wind may carry us on to the Lizard point, in which case we shall be cracked as a thrush cracks a snail. So don’t get your hopes up too high, lad,’ he said to me with a wry grin. ‘ – Though if we do make Falmouth Haven, ‘twill be one o’ the fastest passages on record, and should be set down in the annals of navigation.’

  Now the coastline was closer; I could see the black cliffs more clearly, and a spatter of white waves breaking at the foot, and small white fields rising above the clifftop.

  Sam said thoughtfully,

  ‘To think how I used to long and pray for a sight o’ the coast o’ Cornwall again. Little did I reckon ‘twould be in such a way as this!’

  ‘Those poor men!’ said I. ‘Matthieu – Luc – Abdullah – the Irishman – what had they done to deserve such a death?’

  ‘Oh, ‘tis odds but they had plenty on their consciences,’ Sammy consoled me. And he added gravely, ‘Every sailor knows full well, the first time he puts to sea, Felix, what his end may be. Say a prayer for them if you wish, lad, but don’t waste yourself wi’ grieving; those men knew what they were about when they shipped i’ the Guipuzcoa. An’ as for the captain and the one they called the Doctor, I reckon that pair were dipped deep i’ wickedness as a rope in tar; I heard tales o’ them from my mates as ’ud turn your hair white to hear!’

  ‘I believe you,’ I said, ‘for the night before last, while you were sleeping, I myself heard the captain and the Doctor – ’

  Then I stopped short in horror, for, as if our words had conjured him out of the depths of the sea, we saw the Doctor himself floating towards us, still bound by a rope to the main-mast. Even drifting thus, helpless in the water, his aspect was very frightening, with his bony pale face like that of a corpse, and his streaming white hair. For a moment I thought he was a corpse, and then the silvery eyes opened and looked at us without expression.

  ‘Quick, throw him a rope,’ said Sam, for there was one on board. I flung it, as we drifted closer to the Doctor, but he ignored it, only fixed his colourless eyes on me.

  ‘Lay hold of the rope, senor!’ called Sammy urgently. ‘Make haste, or it will be too late. We have no oars!’

  Gravely the Doctor swayed his head in refusal.

  ‘It would be of no use,’ he said. ‘My legs and body were crushed when the mast broke away. I have not an hour to live: no help could save me. I regret it,’ he said to me, ‘for your great-aunt Isadora had paid me much money to arrange for your disappearance; and, the minute I laid eyes on you, I knew that I should be able to transform you into something uncommon and remarkable; who knows with my scientific art, what would have …’

  All of a sudden his jaw dropped, his mouth opened wide, and the sea bubbled into it; then the mast bobbed away carrying him with it, still calm and dignified, even in the act of dying.

  Greatly distressed at this horrible encounter, I had much ado not to weep, and for a moment I hid my face in my hands.

  ‘Easy, easy, lad!’ said Sam, in a kind, encouraging voice, ‘Pipe your eye if you must! But, to my way of thinking, the world is well rid o’ that one – he mid just as well use his scientific art in hell, where for sure he belongs.’

  I knew Sam was right; still, I could not shake that strange white face from my thoughts, as it floated past, fixing its solemn eyes upon me.

  Sammy went on thoughtfully, to distract me, I daresay, ‘That aunt Isadora of yourn must be a rare ‘un! What a pair she and uncle Ebenezer ’ud make. I’d dearly like to see ‘em together on some desert isle!’

  And he went on to imagine how the two villains would deal together, in such a ludicrous fashion that presently I could not help laughing a little and forgot some of my horror.

  ‘Come, that’s better!’ said Sam. ‘Why don’t us sing a catch or two, to draw the notice of our saints to the pickle we’re in, and to show ‘em we bain’t afeared?’

  And so we sang some of our favourite airs, wishing that we had Sammy’s kit and my pipe, which had been left behind with our bundles in the caboose. But I was glad that I had my father’s book and papers, in Juana’s oilskin wrapping, tucked inside my shirt, next to my skin. I hoped that perhaps, since my immersion in the water had not lasted very long, the water had not penetrated the package and the writing might have been preserved.

  Every now and then, breaking off from our songs, Sam would say, ‘Now I can see the Lizard light-house plain. Now I can see Coverack church; now I see St Mawes, all in the snow. Lucky for us the tide is a-making and the wind has set to the south-west; ‘tis carrying us right toward Falmouth creek. Look at yon snow on the cliffs; it be rare, I can tell ‘ee, for snow to lie long in Cornwall.’

  But there was a false cheer in his voice and I could guess why; because the current was carrying us faster than the wind, and instead of drifting in the direction of St Mawes church which, he had told me, lay on the east side of Falmouth creek, we were drawing all the time steadily to our left, towards the great cliffs and crashing white waves that ran along the foot of the Lizard Point.

  We sang together until we were hoarse, and then, in a pause, I said haltingly,

  ‘Sam, I would just like you to know how very glad I am to have known you – ’

  His ugly face broke into a smile. ‘Lad, I don’t mean to die yet!’ he said. ‘For one thing, just afore we left Llanes, I plucked up my courage an’ put the question to Juana – an’ she said Yes!’

  ‘Oh, Sam!’ I had thought my guilt could bite no deeper, but now I felt the keenest pang of all. ‘She will curse the day I met you – ’

  ‘Hold it, lad!’ Sam said cheerfully. ‘Let’s not be scribing our epitaphs yet awhile! For I can see a boat this minute as ever is, a-pulling out o’ Falmouth Bay!’

  Turning to strain my eyes, I saw that he was right: what looked like a many-legged water-beetle was pulling steadily towards us over the white surface of the sea.

  ‘Reckon they mun ha’ spotted the wreck from up top o’ the lighthouse, and sent word to the life-boatmen,’ Sam said. And he added in a wondering tone, ‘Now, bean’t that a ‘mazing thing that from a whole shipload o’ raskills, you an’ I, Felix, should be the ones to be saved. It do make one think that Him above mid have some task for us to do!’

  I had been thinking the same thought.

  Soon loud, cheerful voices called, ‘Keep your hearts up, lads! Here we be!’ and the rounded, stubby life-boat tumbled alongside of us, pulled by ten red-faced, black-eyed rowers, who exclaimed, as they pulled us aboard,

  ‘Why, if ’ee bain’t a couple o’ true-blue English lads! Fancy that now! Word come as ‘twas one o’ they Biscay hookers as had foundered.’

  ‘Ay, an’ so it was,’ said Sam. ‘But English lads can ship aboard o’ Biscay hookers.’

  One of the oarsmen turned his head.

  ‘I should know that voice!’ he said. ‘Bean’t you Sammy Pollard, as come from the liddle owd farm up to Tregarrion?’

  ‘That I be – an’ glad to get a sight o’ Cornwall again, I can tell ‘ee!’ said Sam. He spoke cheerfully, and they all exclaimed in a welcoming chorus, but my heart sank. All Cornishmen know one another, it seemed; how long would it be before news of Sam’s rescue reached his uncle?

  After about forty minutes’ rowing we reached Falmouth harbour. The snow was still pouring down, and I could see little of the small grey stone town as we clambered up steep steps on to a granite pier.

  From there we were led to a custom-house, close by, where we ha
d to go through brief formalities (in consequence, it seemed, of a law passed during the French wars) declaring our names, and information regarding the ship that had sunk, its name, owners, port of embarkation, cargo, and so forth. These questions we answered as best we could. I thought that, if only Sam had not already been recognised, he could have given a false name. Mine I gave as Felix Brooke, and said that I was travelling from Spain to my father’s family in Bath.

  The Customs Officer, a most kindly, well-meaning man, asked what was the direction of my father’s family in Bath, so that he might inform them by a message on the mailcoach that I was here cast up on the shore in Falmouth, penniless and wet as a herring. For fear that he might have me apprehended as a vagrant, I gave the address as In care of the Rose and Ring-Dove Inn. He promised that a note should be despatched forthwith. Who would read it? I wondered.

  Meanwhile, since we were soaked and half-starving, we were now permitted to take ourselves off to the nearest inn, one on the quayside.

  Falmouth consists of one long narrow street leading up a hill to a castle which Sam told me was called Pendennis Castle. I was all eyes for everything English – but felt obliged to admit to myself that the narrow street, full of snow and sailors, and the little white-washed inn, did not either of them display the grandeur I had expected in England.

  However we were led to a blazing fire, which was most welcome, and I awaited the food we had ordered with curiosity. This too, when it came, was something of a disappointment: the meat was half-raw and the vegetables tasted like sea-weed; the bread was bitter and the cider was horrible: sharp enough to tie your stomach in a knot. The best part of the meal was a dish of large savoury pastries, made with a thick crust, and filled, I think, with mutton and turnip. Cornish Pasties, Sam said they were called.

  While we ate, sitting beside the fire, all manner of persons entered the inn parlour, to look at us with wonder and congratulate us on our escape; for it seemed that the storm had been so fierce, along the Cornish coast, that no fishing boats had put to sea for three days, and the packet from France had been long overdue; so the sight of our boat from the cliff-top had been a cause for general amazement.