Smuggler's Moon

by Bruce Alexander

  “You’ll want to watch out for this man Eccles,” said he to Sir John.

  “And why do you advise me so?”

  “Because, if you ask me, it’s the customs service that’s corrupt, always has been, always will be so.”

  “Oh? And what is it prompts you to say that?”

  “Personal experience,” declared Mr. Bilbo. ”It didn’t matter which port I’d bring in a ship and cargo, first person to meet me at the dock was always the customs man. He’d have his hand out, expecting me to pay duty on the cargo, just like I was the regular shipper. And when I’d refuse, they’d seize the cargo of the ship in tow, saying they’d hold on to it until the prize was bought and the buyer had paid the duty. Now, some of these cargoes was perishables—fruit and such like—and what the customs man really wanted was to get it in the customs warehouse so he could sell it out the back door. They was always selling out the back door. ‘Twouldn’t matter where: Kingston, Charleston, Savannah—wherever—even Boston.”

  “Good God,” said Sir John, ”what an indictment! All customs men everywhere. Is that what you mean?”

  “Oh, I suppose not. Just watch out for that Eccles—that’s all I have to say.”

  They talked on, but by now we were well into the city. The Tower of London loomed just ahead, and the street noise had mounted to a pitch comparable to what we knew in Covent Garden. Horses whinnied and clopped, hawkers yelled out in praise of their wares, workmen hammered and shouted. It was quite impossible to hear more, and so Bunk-ins and I sat back during the rest of the journey and relaxed, so far as it is possible for boys of that age to do so.

  In his farewell at Number 4 Bow Street, Black Jack Bilbo did lament that Sir John would not be along when he took the Indian Princess out on her test voyage. ”I was countin’ on havin’ you aboard,” said he.

  “Not more than I,” said Sir John.

  “But may I give you a bit of advice, sir?”

  “Of course you may, Mr. Bilbo.”

  “With all due respect to Jeremy here, who has proved his worth again and again, I do believe you would be well served to take with you one of your Bow Street constables, if you get my meaning.”

  “No, not quite. To what end?”

  “As protection. They take their smuggling seriously down there in Deal. I believe you may need a bodyguard.”

  “You do? Truly? Hmmm. Well, I shall give the matter serious consideration.”

  Mr. Bilbo did not belabor the point but wished us both Godspeed and a safe return. Bunkins waved and called out his goodbye as the coach and its impressive team of four pulled away.

  “If I may say so, Sir John, I believe that Mr. Bilbo is right,” said I, rather boldly. ”I believe one of the Bow Street Runners should accompany us, and I believe I know which it should be.”

  He chuckled at my certainty. ”You do, do you? And just who is it you have in mind?”

  “Constable Perkins, and no other,” said I, ”for he is as able as any man among your force, and he knows the territory to which we travel. He grew up on a farm in Kent, and I do believe he mentioned to me once that the nearest town of any size was Deal.”

  I had given him pause. Right there in the walkway before the Bow Street Court he took a stand, ruminating for near a minute as the passersby passed him by.

  At last said he, ”I daresay, Jeremy, you are indeed right! I shall need a constable in Deal, and Constable Perkins is the constable I shall need. I leave it to you to inform him when he reports for duty this evening.”

  Alas, the dinner prepared by Clarissa was no great success. Even in describing it as ”no great success,” I praise it beyond its due. And for its failure, I fear I was partly to blame. I now know enough of cookery to realize that the instructions given me by Mr. Tolliver to be passed on to Clarissa were quite essential, and I have been thoroughly disabused of the notion I once had that members of the female sex come quite naturally to a knowledge of the kitchen arts. No, they have to be taught, just as I have had to be taught the law. And the particular lesson she was intended to get in the proper use of meat in the preparation of stew was not taught her because I was in such a great rush to be off with Sir John to visit the Lord Chief Justice.

  After all, Mr. Tolliver’s advice was simple enough: ”Just have her cut the fat off the meat, all but half an inch or so. That should be more than plenty. Simmer that in the stew-pot for the last half of the afternoon with potatoes and carrots and an onion, and you’ll have a good stew for yourself.”

  That was what he said to me, and that was what I should have said to her—but did not. As a result, Clarissa did her best, but with no previous experience, that best simply was not good enough. She tossed in the meat as it had come to her from Mr. Tolliver, thick with fat with gobbets of flesh scattered through. And, knowing no better, she cooked it in the stewpot with the vegetables for the whole of the afternoon. The result was a viscous gray mess, bubbling greasy bubbles in our plates even after she had ladled the concoction out to us. It did not taste so bad as it looked. Yet what were we to do with these large pieces of light-colored, inert stuff which looked more or less like meat yet squirted pure grease when we bit down upon them? And the vegetables, dear God, the vegetables—they had cooked down so that they had lost their distinct identity: no longer were they potatoes, carrots, and onion, but rather mere lumps in the slime.

  “Quite tasty,” said Sir John. ”I do believe, however, that I should have a happier time of it with a spoon. Will you fetch me one, Jeremy?”

  I did as he requested and watched him empty his plate with great relish. He asked for more. It was provided him. He attacked it with the same enthusiasm. Inspired by his example, I dug in once more, trying to eat without looking at what I ate. That worked well enough for half a plate or so, but then a fit of belching overtook me, and I was forced to end my dinner there.

  For her part, Clarissa took a bite, or possibly two, then began pushing her food about upon her plate, as if looking for uncontaminated bits. Finding none, she looked across the table at me quite miserably, shook her head, and quietly laid down her knife and fork. Through it all. Sir John continued to eat until he, too, began to belch with such alarming frequency that he was forced to end his meal rather abruptly.

  As I did the washing up afterward, I confessed to our dejected cook that I had failed to tell her of Mr. Tolliver’s instructions and must therefore shoulder some of the blame she claimed for herself.

  “Ah no,” said she, ”I should certainly have known better. How many times have I sat here in the kitchen with Annie, watching her trim the fat from the stew meat? You’d think I might have picked up a thing or two just being round her.”

  “Ah, but Annie was one of a kind.”

  “Indeed she was. Why couldn’t I have realized that while she was here and learned something from her?”

  “But, well, you should be happy at least that you’re going down to Deal with us. They say that the sea air is quite beneficial. Think of it as a holiday.”

  “Oh, I will. I do. But when we return, I shall have another test in the kitchen, then another, and another.”

  ”Well, if it is any consolation to you, your stew was no worse and probably better than most Mrs. Gredge cooked up.”

  “Gredge? She was the old woman Annie replaced, wasn’t she?”

  “She was,” said I, ”and not a moment too soon.”

  Sir John had asked me to visit him in his study when I had finished washing up that he might dictate to me a letter to Lady Fielding explaining why it was he must leave London for Deal for a week, give or take a bit, and further, why he must take Clarissa with him. He promised that she would be well taken care of, and would, in fact, be staying at the home of a local squire, Sir Simon Grenville. In closing, he voiced his concern for Lady Fielding’s mother. Yet he declared that he was certain her mother would pull through her illness, as he had predicted, and that she, Kate, would soon be back in London. ”Until the happy day when we are reunited, I shall
be but half a man, wandering about this lonely city, thinking only of you.” And then did he stipulate that the letter be signed, ”Your loving husband.” Unused to putting his name as ”Jack” upon correspondence, he asked my help in forming the letters. We practiced together two or three times, then did we sign him informally at the bottom of the text. I addressed the letter as he dictated and prepared it for mailing. But my mind being yet troubled by the matter of Henry Curtin, I remained on in that little room and attempted to think just how I might begin.

  “Was there something more?” he asked.

  “Yes, there is a matter I should like to discuss,” said I. ”Or perhaps better put, a matter I should like to confess.”

  “Well then, let me hear it.”

  I told him the whole tale. I told of how I had given the shilling to the coachman and asked that he see that Lady Fielding was well taken care of—all as Sir John had told me to do. But then, I went on to tell him how and how much I had enlarged upon his instructions. Insofar as I was able, I quoted myself exactly, though it proved embarrassing. I even told him how, when I feared perhaps I had overstepped myself, I told Mr. Curtin not to presume upon Sir John’s generosity; and thinking I had told him all, I ended it there. But then I did add that Clarissa had said I had done wrong, and as I thought about it through the day, I saw that she was right.

  “Indeed she was,” said Sir John. ”But you realize it, too, and we may be grateful for that.”

  Was I to be let off so easily?

  “You see what you have done, don’t you?”

  “I … believe I do.”

  “Perhaps not. Let me lay it before you. What you have done is to blacken my name. You have suggested to this Henry Curtin that I would sell myself so cheap as to give leniency to him in court simply for doing what he is paid to do—look after one of his passengers. Who knows? Perhaps he will spread the word. I may wind up with a reputation so sullied that it may never be clean again.”

  I hung my head, unable to look him square in the face.

  He continued: ”But that is not likely.”

  “Sir?”

  “No, the chances are good that we shall not hear of Mr. Henry Curtin ever again. I hope that is so. I expect it will be so. Let us leave it at that, shall we?”

  There was but one more matter, quite unrelated: ”I wonder, Jeremy, if you could go to the apothecary shop early tomorrow and get from him some preparation to bind my bowels. I’ve been troubled ever since dinner.”

  TWO

  In which Sir John

  arrives and is given

  a warm welcome

  It took over a day of hard driving to bring us to Deal. Lord Mansfield’s coach-and-four awaited us, as previously arranged, at the end of Sir John’s court session. Constable Perkins and I handed up our bags and portmanteaus to the coachman, who stowed them, secured, atop the vehicle, just as might be done upon any stagecoach. That gave us far more room inside in which to bounce about. Though I’m sure that the driver provided exemplary service going about London, he apparently could not resist running the horses once we were out on the open road. As a result, after hours of having our backsides brutalized, we were happy to put up at an inn somewhere beyond Chatham which had been recommended by Lord Mansfield.

  Next day, however, was a bit different. It may have been that we had grown used to being battered about, or perhaps our backsides had hardened, or again (though less likely),

  perhaps the driver had taken pity upon us and slowed the pace appreciably—whatever the reason, we traveled so much more comfortably that we actually found it possible to talk amongst ourselves. It must have begun as we slowed to drive through Canterbury. Clarissa remarked that it was the first walled city she had seen. Always trying to best her, I countered that London itself was a walled city—or had been such. When Clarissa leapt in to challenge my assertion, Sir John settled it by declaring that it was indeed so, but that so many centuries had passed that so far as he knew nearly all trace of it had disappeared.

  Then, perhaps to keep us two from wrangling further, Sir John called upon the fourth passenger, rousing him from a bouncing doze.

  “Mr. Perkins,” said he, ”what can you tell us of this territory to which we’re headed? So far as I am concerned, east Kent is naught but terra incognita.”

  “Terra which?”

  “Oh, ‘tis a phrase meaning ‘unknown land.’ Do please forgive me for resorting to Latin, won’t you?”

  “Certainly I shall, sir.” Then, having come full awake at last, he glanced round at the rest of us, and said, ”So you’d like to hear a bit about east Kent, would you? First of all, you know what they call it, don’t you?”

  “I believe I have heard,” said Sir John. ” ‘The garden of England,’ isn’t that right?”

  “It is indeed. That’s for all the farming that’s done here. Most of what’s sold in Covent Garden, all them fruits and vegetables, they come from right here in Kent. The hops they make the ale from—that’s grown here, too.”

  I could well believe it, reader, for if you have ever visited that corner of the realm, it must surely have struck you what a verdant and fruitful spot it is. If all the world were as this, then hunger would be quite unknown.

  “Now, that’s both good and bad,” continued Constable Perkins, ”my point being that a man an’t got much choice here in Kent for honest employment. There used to be iron smelting done here, but that’s gone up north, and the wool weaving that was done here, that’s moved up north, too, to those big mills where it’s all done by power loom. So the result is you got to work doing old-fashioned farm labor for seven or eight shillings a week, and at best that’s just seasonal work. That’s honest employment I’m talking about.”

  “And for those who would sully their hands with dishonest employment—what choice have they?”

  “Just one other, and that be the owling trade.”

  “The owling trade?” repeated Sir John. ”What, praytell, is the owling trade?”

  “That is what others might call the smuggling trade. Out here it’s the owling trade.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Oh, in truth, Sir John, your guess would be as good as my own. All I can say is that owls fly by night, and that’s when the smugglers conduct their business, as well. And let me tell you, sir, it can be a very profitable business, too. Instead of the seven or so shillings a farm worker might make in a week, he’ll get ten shillings in a single night.”

  “Would that be ten shillings every night?”

  “No sir, that an’t the way it works. It an’t every night that you go out, but when there’s a boat coming in from France, the word goes round that men are needed down on the beach, and half the town turns out to unload what’s been brought across.”

  “So it’s that way, is it?” said Sir John. ”And how often might this great crowd be needed on the beach?”

  “Oh, no less than once a week, nor more than three times.”

  “Then an average of two?”

  “I suppose so, yes sir.”

  A teasing smile twitched at the corners of Sir John’s mouth. ”It strikes me that you know a good deal about this … owling trade, as you call it.”

  ”You could say that, sir.” And there was a similar air of playfulness in Mr. Perkins’s response.

  “Could it be you have had some direct personal experience of all this?”

  “Oh, it could be indeed,” said the constable. ”Yet I always figured you knew all that and took me in the Bow Street Runners anyways.”

  “Well, I’d heard a few rumors, but I put no great stock in them. It was your army record interested me far more.”

  “Glad to hear it, sir.”

  “Tell me, Perkins, could your direct personal experience of the owling trade have had some relation to your later experience in the grenadiers?”

  “It could. It did.”

  I had been watching the two men carefully, greatly enjoying the game they played between them. Clarissa,
equally fascinated, seemed nevertheless to be somewhat confused by what passed between them. Were they teasing, or were they in earnest?

  “There is a tale to tell there, Sir John,” said Mr. Perkins.

  “Then tell it by all means,” said the magistrate. ”And you may rest assured that naught in the telling will be held against you.”

  “Ah well, in that case, I’ll not hold back further.” And with a wink at me and a nod to Clarissa, he began his story. ”I was a lad about the age of Jeremy here, doing farm labor for a family by the name of Griggs. It wasn’t quite year-round labor, for I was not paid in the winter when there was naught for me to do. Still, the Griggses were decent people, and they’d given me a place to sleep behind the kitchen and kept me fed through the winter, so it was almost year-round. I was orphaned by then, and this was the best I could do for myself at that time in my life. I was reconciled to it.

  “There was a Griggs daughter about my own age I used to dote upon, and I had saved up a bit to buy her a Christmas gift. So one Saturday in December I walked into Deal bright and early and found a locket and chain of silver which I thought just right for her. The problem was, y’see, I didn’t have the price of it, though I’d been laying a bit aside each month for just this purpose. It was just that I’d not laid enough aside—and so back into the store window it went.

  “I was fair crushed, so I was, and so I took myself over to an inn in High Street right there in the middle of town to have an ale so as to console myself. Whilst I was there, I fell to talking with a young fellow a bit older than I was. I told him what brought me into Deal and how disappointed I was to be caught short.

  “ ‘Well,’ says he, ‘I know how you can earn enough in a night to buy any locket and chain in Deal.’

  “ ‘How’s that?’ says I. ‘Is it legal? Is it respectable?’

  “ ‘Well, it may not be legal,’ says he, ‘but in this town it’s work that’s damn near respectable. There’s a lugger coming in tonight just filled with Christmas dainties for the lords and ladies of London.’