by Jo Macauley
“Keep it under your hat,” Ralph murmured as he looked back at the man, “but some of my new chums on the crew have got their fingers into a very juicy pie indeed.”
“Go on.”
“There’s boxes and packets being brought on board that ain’t on any cargo lists. When we stopped at Portsmouth, a fair few people earned a lot of extra cash smuggling them things on board.”
“For whom?”
“Private customers. Well, one private customer, at least. Sounds like it might be someone we both know, don’t it? Could be ammunition, documents to do with his plotting...”
“If these boxes aren’t on the cargo lists,” John wondered, “where are your ‘chums’ stowing them?”
“That’s what I’d like to find out,” Ralph said. “But I don’t think I’m going to. There’s no more stops until we reach Virginia, so there’s no new boxes to load and nothing to cut me in on.”
“I’ll pass that on to you-know-who. And we should have a look round,” John suggested. “Next chance we get.” He fell silent as yet another sailor entered the narrow passageway. The young man turned sideways to pass them and, for a second, looked right into John’s face.
“Haven’t you learned to keep your nose out of other people’s business yet?” the sailor said.
“I beg your pardon?” John stammered.
“No more games. It’s you. I know you, Turner. And you know me. Or you ought to.”
“I sincerely doubt it...”
But the words died away as he said them. To his mounting horror, he realized he did know the young man. The sailor saw the look in his eyes and grinned wolfishly. It was Shaw.
“The last time I saw your face we were in Bridewell, prisoners both,” Shaw said with relish. “We have some unfinished business to attend to. I was let off of my sentence before I could take care of you, but isn’t it lucky our paths have crossed again?”
“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” John protested, hoping he sounded adamant.
“Do you know the penalty for escaping from prison, Turner?” Shaw continued softly, ignoring him. “Hanging. I’m sure the captain will be very interested to know he’s got a fugitive on board his ship.” He leaned in and whispered “He’ll do my work for me. Nice. I won’t even have to get my hands bloody.”
“How dare you accuse me of being a criminal!” John burst out. “I’ve been a servant all of my life, in service to the Easton family of Oxford! Now, if you’ll excuse me, her ladyship has need of me.” He shoved past and headed for the upper deck, not stopping to listen to anything else that came out of Shaw’s mouth.
* * *
Beth looked up, startled, as John slipped into her cabin. He pressed his back to the door. “Can we talk in private?”
“Miss Blanchet, kindly fetch Briskell a brandy,” Beth told Maisie. “He looks like he could use one.”
As Maisie left the room, John sat down heavily on the bed. “It’s him, Beth,” he said. “Vale’s assassin. It’s one of the sailors. I’d known him in Bridewell, he’s named Shaw. He’s not in London. He’s here!”
“Oh no,” Beth said, turning pale. “Did he recognize you?”
John nodded. Waves of sickness and fear washed over him. “He’s going to tell the captain who I am. He’ll have me hanged, do his dirty work for him. And once the captain finds out who I am, he’ll get suspicious. He might uncover who you are. I can’t let that happen. I’d sooner die, Beth! I’ll throw myself overboard, make it look like an accident—”
Beth grabbed him by the shoulders. “Calm down. Right now.” She leaned in and whispered, “We need to stay in character, no matter what. Don’t call me Beth again.”
“What are we going to do?” John said, taking several deep breaths to steady himself. Beth sat down at her dressing table and opened an ornate make-up box. She opened a pot of powder.
“You are not to throw yourself overboard, for a start.”
“All right.”
There was silence for a moment as Beth applied lavish make-up, turning her skin porcelain-white and making her lips into a Cupid’s bow of dark blood-red. John watched her, dumbfounded. Maisie came back, bringing the brandy, and handed it to him. He sipped it gratefully.
“What are you doing?” John eventually asked.
“We have a lot of improvizing to do in the next ten minutes,” Beth told him. “I’m going to need you to act your heart out. Can you do that for me?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Good. We are going to make a scene, and everyone on this ship needs to see it. Miss Blanchet, I’ll need you to cower fearfully when you see me raging at Briskell.” Beth patted rouge onto her cheeks. “It’s time to bring Lady Frightful out of her box.”
Maisie nodded in perfect comprehension, and smiled. “Very good, ma’am.”
“Here’s what we’ll say. Listen carefully, both of you. We aren’t going to get a chance to rehearse this...”
* * *
Shaw was back at work, scrubbing the deck down on his hands and knees. This had all worked out perfectly. Vale would pay a handsome sum for Turner’s death, and he’d be impressed with the clever way Shaw had used the captain to make it happen. He might even get a promotion...
He yelped as a china plate smashed on the boards right in front of him. Fragments went zinging over the edge of the deck and into the sea. He drew himself up, just in time to see Turner go racing past and come to a cringing halt against the railings.
“I’m sorry, m’lady!” he whimpered.
Shaw turned in amazement to see the lady that Turner had been serving, standing like a Gorgon on the other side of him. She held a second plate in her hand, ready to fling.
“‘Sorry’ is not good enough, Briskell!” Beth declared, using the most strident upper-class tones she could manage. “I shall not tolerate your slackness for one second longer!”
“It shan’t happen again, I swear.” John was doing a fantastic job of seeming terrified.
“When I instruct you to bring me my morning water at seven, I expect it to be brought at seven sharp, and not at your leisure,” she said in a clipped voice. What would Lady Frightful say, she wondered? Ah, yes, of course. “Stupid boy.”
Now came the crucial part; feeding the gathering audience John’s fake history. Shaw had a first-class seat to this performance. He was watching open-mouthed, and sailors from all over the ship were staring at her. But John wasn’t saying anything. He was just cowering in pretend fear, and beginning to look like a bit of a ham. Beth had to start talking again:
“I don’t know where this slothfulness comes from, Briskell,” she snapped. “Your poor mother had none of it, God rest her soul! She served my family admirably every day of her life. Do you think that just because you were born under our roof and grew up in our service, you can take liberties? Is that it?”
John still didn’t seem sure what to say next. He glanced over and saw Ralph, who gave him an encouraging nod.
“I just got caught up talking to some of the sailors,” he whined.
Beth seized on the opportunity. “Pah! You and your obsession with the sea! Even when you were a little boy, you were always playing with toy boats!” She pointed to the doorway that led to the cabins. “Get in there, do the work you’re paid to do, and if I hear any more impertinence from you I shall ask Captain Clark to have you whipped!”
John hurried back inside, hunching his shoulders as if Beth might fling the second plate at him after all. Beth lifted her skirts to leave, then stopped and looked around at the crew, who by now were all watching her to see what she’d do next.
“What are you all gawping at?” she demanded. Instantly they went back to work, giving one another meaningful looks. Beth stormed off to her cabin, slammed the door shut behind her and collapsed into John’s arms, stifling her laughter.
“If that didn’t do it,” John whispered, “nothing will.”
“Shaw won’t dare accuse you of being John Turner now,” Beth agr
eed. “It’s his word against mine.”
“You’re a genius. A common sailor wouldn’t dare call a grand lady a liar, would he?”
Beth smiled secretively. “Oh, I think Captain Clark might have something to say about it if he did. He’s a cruel man, but he does have his uses!”
Chapter Twenty-One - Lost at Sea
Three weeks had passed since the Antelope set sail, and with fair winds and calm seas, she was making good progress. Nothing more had come of Shaw’s threats towards John, which was a relief to Beth, John and Ralph.
But the sailors were muttering ominously when they saw the thunderheads gathering in the west; and sure enough, that night the rain came lashing down like volleys of lead shot. On the heels of the rain came the wind, and the sea, woken from its calm slumber, reared up like a wild animal and began to toss the ship to and fro on its back. Soon, despite the late hour, not a sailor on board could be spared. Hammocks swung empty in the crew quarters as the first mate yelled out the orders that the sailors scrambled to obey. Hatches were secured, loose objects lashed in place, and sails furled in the hope that the storm’s fury would quickly pass.
Beth woke up at the sound of a cup smashing. She sat up in bed and saw all the loose things on her dresser sliding first to one side, then to the other as the ship rolled and pitched. Maisie’s bed was empty. The unlatched cabin door swung to and fro with the ship.
Still in her nightdress, Beth went to the window and gasped out loud in fear. The horizon was all wrong. She saw tremendous hills of black water surge past, topped with white foam. Next second, she heard the juddering crash as a fresh wave hammered the ship. The panicked shouts of passengers rang out from the other cabins.
Maisie appeared at the doorway, holding onto the doorframe to steady her.
“Storm’s getting worse, miss!” she yelled. “We need to lash ourselves in!”
“What?” Beth shouted back.
“I talked to the other passengers, the ones who’ve made the crossing before. They said we’re to tie ourselves to our beds until the storm dies down.”
Beth struggled to keep her footing as the deck seesawed beneath her feet. All her combs and brushes fell and rattled across the floor. “Good idea,” she panted. “We need to find something to tie ourselves down with.”
They found a length of rope that had been tied around one of Beth’s many boxes, cut it in half and tied themselves securely to their beds. As Beth lay there with the rope tied tightly, she prayed Ralph was safe. This was a storm like nothing she’d ever heard of before.
Suddenly she stiffened. Something was rattling, and then the handle of her cabin door began to turn...
* * *
At the same time, Ralph clung to the sodden rigging, which was prickly as a thorn bush and cold as an icicle in his hands. Wind howled around him, making his teeth rattle. He pulled himself further up the rigging and got a fresh handhold. Two other sailors were swarming up the rigging behind him. If the sails weren’t reefed securely, exposing as little surface as possible, the sheer force of the wind would fling the ship about like a toy boat, or even snap a mast in half.
Ralph had always had a good head for heights, but even he felt giddy as he looked down to the tilting deck below. Wave after wave broke over the railings, sending tons of water sluicing over the deck and escaping over the other side in foaming torrents. At times the sea seemed like it would engulf the ship completely, and Ralph bit his lip as he waited for the deck to reappear from under the flood.
“Come on!” he urged himself. The other sailors were close behind him. The wind fought to tear Ralph off the rigging and fling him into the churning sea, but he hung on and kept climbing towards the yard. All sailors had a rule they knew by heart: one hand for yourself, and one for the ship. It meant that whatever job you were doing with one hand, you always hung on with the other. The sail flapping made a sound like harsh thunder, and Ralph knew all too well that wet canvas in a high wind wasn’t like cloth at all. It felt more like metal.
He glanced down again, just in time to glimpse a hunched-over figure opening the door to the passenger cabins. Next moment, there was no sign of him. Ralph looked up and down, but the man wasn’t clinging to the railings or sprawling on the deck. He’d gone below. Ralph spat a curse. “Go on without me!” he yelled to the two other sailors. “I’ll catch you up!”
The sailors stared down at him in bewildered anger. They must think he was abandoning his post. But there was no time to explain. If Ralph had seen what he thought he’d seen, he had to act quickly.
He scrambled back down the rigging as fast as he could and dashed for the door, with the ship rolling and pitching beneath him. A wave smashed down on the deck just as he threw the door to the cabins open and rushed inside. The man he’d seen was standing in the corridor, turning the handle to Beth’s cabin.
“Going somewhere, Shaw?”
Shaw slowly turned to look at him. He let go of the door handle and drew a dagger from his belt.
“I’d turn around if I were you,” he said. “Forget you saw anything.”
“What’s the plan, Shaw? Stab them all to death in their beds, then chuck them overboard?”
Shaw licked his lips. “Serves them right for going up on deck during a storm, don’t it? The girl, her maid, and Turner too. I know they’re in cahoots. I’ll just say I saw them hit by a wave and washed over the side. Nobody will be any the wiser.”
“Drop that blade.”
Shaw laughed. “Or you’ll do what? Don’t worry, I’ll put you on my little list too. Who are you, anyway? One more of the King’s running dogs?”
He began to advance on Ralph, forcing the young man back down the corridor. Ralph could only back away, through the door and out onto the tilting deck. Shaw had murder in his eyes now. Whatever else might happen, he had to kill Ralph and they both knew it. He had seen too much.
“There’s two men up in the rigging,” Ralph said. “They’ll see you.”
“Not in this storm they won’t!” Shaw snarled. He jabbed at Ralph, nearly cutting flesh. The rain was lashing down hard upon them. Ralph badly needed a weapon – any weapon. He struggled to keep his footing as the ship tilted this way and that, when suddenly an idea struck him. He grabbed for one of the belaying pins – the short wooden rods used to tie ropes off – and pulled it from its hole.
Shaw roared in anger and leaped at him. The dagger sliced down through the air, ripping the cloth of Ralph’s soaking jacket, nicking the skin of his chest painfully. But now Shaw was off-balance. Ralph swung at him with the belaying pin and caught him a solid blow on the temple. Shaw shook himself as watery blood went coursing down his face, into his eye, leaving him half-blind.
“That ’urt,” he said, baring his teeth. “Get ’ere, you little—”
Ralph quickly glanced to his right. A huge wave was coming, roaring in from Shaw’s blind side. He quickly hooked his arm through the ship’s rail, praying this would work.
Shaw came in for the kill, and Ralph was a sitting duck, clinging to the rail like that, unable to dodge. One quick dagger thrust to the chest, perhaps another two for good measure, and he’d be dead.
The wave struck.
An avalanche of water thundered down upon Ralph, stinging like a fist in the face. Salt water burned his eyes, but he held on, sputtering and gasping, his arm in agony, as the sea tried to tear him away. Shaw screamed, and Ralph saw him for the briefest of moments, trying – too late – to grab the rail. The next moment, the deluge had carried him over the side.
As the last of the wave washed past and the ship rocked wearily back again, Ralph looked out to where Shaw was floundering in the open sea. He surfaced once, twice – then went under, never to come up again.
“One hand for yourself, chum,” Ralph said quietly to himself, “and one for the ship.”
Tucking the belaying pin back where it belonged, he went to rejoin his shipmates in the rigging.
* * *
Hours later, Beth wok
e up. Her chest was aching and rubbed raw, but the rope had gone. The grey light of a new day was seeping through the window.
“Maisie?” she whispered.
“I untied you, miss.” Maisie handed Beth a hot cup of water laced with warming spices. “Captain says the storm’s behind us now, so it was safe to come out again.”
Beth drank gratefully. “I thought we’d all be drowned. Are John and Ralph—?”
“They’re fine, m’lady,” Maisie said, with a meaningful glance that said “remember who you’re supposed to be”. “Briskell is taking inventory of our belongings, and Ralph has been commended to the captain for his bravery.” She hung her head. “But the storm took its toll, just the same.”
“How many?” Beth whispered.
“Three. All sailors. All young men.” She paused. “Master Ralph said to tell you that a certain Shaw was one of them. He said you’d understand...”
* * *
Later, as the passengers and crew gathered on deck to pray for the three drowned sailors, Beth looked to the skies and saw they were clearing. The other passengers saw it too, and the relief on their faces was plain to see. This must be what the very first settlers felt, Beth realized, when they crossed the ocean to reach the New World. The sun’s rays fell on her tear-streaked face as once again, she thanked providence that her friends were still with her. There would be other dangers, other storms; but for now, at least, they were together. For now.
Chapter Twenty-Two - The Far, Fatal Shore
“Land ho!”
Beth and Maisie looked at one another, eyes wide with excitement. After more than two months at sea, after all the storms and seasickness, could they really be here at last?
“Come on!” Beth cried, grabbing Maisie’s hand. “Let’s go and see!”
People were stampeding out of their cabins and charging up the steps. They made way for Beth, though, not wishing to offend a grand lady. She glided to the railings and peered into the dim distance.