Again Rory shook his head for he had no idea.
‘Well, his name was John Cornwallis, and they both of them got stinking drunk together…’
‘That’s a lie. Mr Cornwallis doesn’t drink; never has…’
‘Boy, I know that John doesn’t drink now, he won’t even touch cider, but he went to sea for some time and it’s very rarely you find a dry sailor. At one time John could stack it away like a vat in a brewery.’
There was such a ring of truth about this statement that it silenced Rory, and after a moment Ben went on, ‘When they finally reached Philip’s farm, which was a few miles beyond Upottery towards Culmstock, they were still drunk, for they had been drinking at every inn along the road. And late that very night Philip, accompanied by John, went to St Helier’s House, and there called on Conway to come out and fight. Conway came out, and Philip fought him while the young sailor man’—Ben now nodded at Rory—‘who is your master, fought off the servants with a swinging stave, and all the while the young wife and the female servants stood screaming inside the house.
‘Two days later when Conway died, they routed Philip out and put him in jail, but they couldn’t lay hands on the bearded sailor. Nobody knew his name, or where he had come from, and it was strange, but nobody for miles around appeared to have seen him. The sympathy, you see, was all with Philip and whoever this man was who had helped him to take vengeance on Conway. Such is human nature that a few weeks previously they had been laughing behind their hands at him and his sister for both having been baulked in the chase.
‘I said nobody knew about the bearded sailor; but there was one who knew, May. She kept him hidden at the farm for weeks, and then, clean shaven and dressed like a tramp of the road, he made his way to his people’s home in the North. I didn’t know him then; I didn’t know him until some years later when we made our first trip across these waters. You see, May never does anything for nothing; she had the sailor in the hollow of her hand. Her brother had escaped the gallows and been sentenced to twenty-five years’ deportation, and the very fact that Bella Nesbitt, or Mrs Conway as she was, had died of grief three months after her husband was killed did not satisfy May. She made a vow. She would have the house that she should have been mistress of, and she would keep it in style, and, his term on Botany Bay finished, Philip would become master of it and the farm.
‘After Bella Conway died it was discovered that her husband had not been the rich man that people supposed. The house and farm were put up for sale and were bought by a foreigner. Well, he was a foreigner in that he came from yon side of London Town. But he only stayed for a little more than a year, for strange things were always happening around. His cattle got sick, his barn took alight, the fish died in the brook. He said there was a curse on the place and he sold it for much less than he had paid for it…And who bought it? May. Where did she get the money from? A cousin on the island had died, it was said, and left her his money; quite a good sum of money, it was said. Another cousin came over from the island to back this up. His name was Lawrence Lesauteur. Do you follow me?’
Rory paused before moving his head slowly downwards and saying, ‘Aye, the…the money was from smuggling?’
‘Yes, smuggling, but…but not ordinary smuggling. There’s not a lot to be made out of that.’ Ben looked down at the floor of the cabin and clapped his heels twice against the dirty wood under which lay the bottles, the box of snuff and the baccy. ‘Baccy and brandy bring small money really, unless done in a big way. A false holdful might bring you in a nice bit, but amounts like this’—he again tapped his heel—‘Who would risk their necks for it? Nobody but an idiot. No; May went in for big prizes; big prizes gathered from small bulk, like so.’ He now put his hand flat on his chest. ‘As you heard Lawrence say back there, the refugees flood into the island from all parts of the world. They bring with them only what they can carry, their most treasured possessions, and they very often have to sell them for next to nothing. Well, that’s how the blue baccy started. But when you get too many in one business the profits are thin and you have to look elsewhere, and May looked elsewhere. It’s one kind of risk bringing over refugees’ stock, but it’s altogether another when you act as transport for stuff that the constables of half a dozen countries are looking for.’
When Rory’s hand went slowly up to his mouth Ben said, ‘I’m telling you this for a purpose, because I think I can break it to you better, and more kindly, than she would. You see, as John was partner to the unhappy Philip, you’re partner to me. At least that’s how May sees it. And so whether you like it or not, boy, she has you trapped.’
‘She can’t! She won’t! I’ll tell the truth.’
‘Well, if it came to the point and you did tell the truth, I’m telling you now, and this is the truth also, that if she had to pay for her deeds she would see that you paid too. She’s a woman nearing her fifties. She hasn’t all that long left, but you, boy, are just starting life, and she would see…Now I’m telling you in deep earnest, she would see that you spent most of that life where her brother is now, in a penal settlement in Australia. And what is more, if she’s caught, John’s caught too. Sickbed he may be on, but that wouldn’t soften her. She said these very words to me herself a few minutes before we left the house, for I had said to her your very words. What if he won’t stand for it and gives you away? “Let him,” she said; “and he’ll give his master away at the same time. I’d make that clear to him right at the beginning.”’
Rory’s lower lip trembled slightly as he said, ‘She’s a wicked woman, a real wicked woman.’
‘Yes, I suppose she is.’
‘You suppose she is!’ Rory leant across the narrow table now. ‘There’s no suppose about it, she is. You…you seem to take her side.’
‘No, no, I don’t take her side, boy. But you’re young and you’ve got a lot to learn about life and people and their strange ways.’
‘You do; you do take her side…Why?’
‘That’s a good question, boy, a good question. Would you understand it if I said it’s because I…I love her?’
Rory’s eyes stretched wide while Ben nodded at him. ‘You see, I was brought up alongside of her, and since I was your age, oh, and for a while before, I thought that one day I’d marry her. She was then a wee bit above me in position, but that didn’t matter. I danced with her at the barn dances, I held her hand walking through the fields.’ Ben turned his face away now and looked through the small open door into the black night. ‘Since the day she heard that Conway had gone off with Bella she’s never touched a man’s hand, not even Alex’s, her brother’s. But then she thinks little of Alex. Poor Alex; he has no spunk, he’s like a wild rabbit caged in a backyard.’
He now turned and looked at Rory and, tapping his chest, said, ‘Even when I hand her the blue baccy she doesn’t touch my hand.’
There was a depth of sadness in the statement, and as Rory peered at the stocky, stubbly-faced man sitting opposite he felt a sadness well in him too and thought that, against all reason, he liked this man. He looked at Ben’s hand still placed on his chest and he asked the vital question, ‘Why,’ he said, ‘do you call it blue baccy?’
‘Ha! The answer to that is simple really. Her name’s Bluett. When I first met up with Lawrence he used to call the small packages Bluett baccy; then it became shortened to…blue baccy. When a message was sent out to me, or to John, or to any of the others, and the words blue baccy were in it, we knew what it meant…and the danger it implied.’
‘Has…has she a hold on you?’
For the first time during the conversation Ben laughed. It was an ironic, self-denigrating laugh. ‘No, boy; she hasn’t a thing on me. She treats me like a dog, a faithful dog, and like a faithful dog I haven’t the sense to transfer my loyalty, because you know, she’s lonely, she’s a lonely woman. So I stick around and run when she whistles. It’ll be like that to the end.’
Rory said softly, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you
, boy. It’s the first time anyone has said they were sorry for me.’
‘But…but, Ben?’
‘Yes, boy?’
Rory swallowed and wiped the sweat from around his face, for in spite of his wet clothes he was sweating, and his voice held a distinct tremor as he said, ‘I’m…I’m a bit frightened.’
‘Don’t worry about that, boy; I’m nearly always frightened.’
‘But…but you don’t understand. If anything happened to me I…I don’t know what would become of me family. I’m, I’m the main support.’
‘A family?’ The query was high, rather amused. But Rory’s answer was grave as he said, ‘Me da, he’s dying with consumption; an’ me ma’s sick an’ all, but that’s from lack of good food. And then there’s five others; they…they depend mostly on me wage and what the missis gives me to take back in me spare time.’
Ben’s hand came across the table now and gripped Rory’s as he said, ‘Well, that’s one worry you needn’t have any more for, give her her due, she pays well. You’ll have more money than you know what to do with, boy. Do you know something? I’ve got over five hundred pounds stacked away under the hearth stone.’ He spread his hands wide now. ‘But what’s five hundred pounds; I can only use money now and again when I go on a visit to my uncle in London.’ Now he chuckled deeply as he ended, ‘And me uncle moves about. He’s been in every public house in that city, and that’s some travel I can tell you.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘But it’s the only way I can spend a bit of the money, for if I started splashing it round about here the people would become suspicious. You know what people are.’
Ben now rose to his feet, saying, ‘But come now, we’ve had enough talk, we’d better get outside and see the weather.’ He bent and took Rory’s hand. ‘Don’t worry, boy; you’ve got to take risks in all walks of life, and in all walks you meet men, good, bad and indifferent. And sometimes you find the bad ones not half as bad as the good ones, and the indifferent ones so torn between the two you can’t tell t’other from which.’
As he gave Rory his familiar jocular punch his words were recalling to Rory those of Mr Cornwallis on the same subject. And a question sprang to his mind and he asked, ‘What happens to the blue baccy, when she gets it?’
‘Oh, that.’ Ben’s eyebrows moved upwards. ‘John takes it back with him and the scapegoat does the rest.’
‘Scapegoat! You mean our goat, Scape?’
‘Yes, your goat Scape. Why do you think she was trained to like beer?’
‘What’s the goat got to do with the blue baccy?’
‘A great deal. When she’s let out she makes straight for a certain inn, hell for leather I’m told. And who’s going to stop a goat on your fells, and feel under her chin, especially at night?’
‘But…but why do they send the goat if Mr Cornwallis has carried the blue baccy all that way? Why can’t he finish the job and take it to the Inn?’
‘Aw, boy, you know little about the Excise men, they haunt the inns as stealthily as ghosts, and what you are forgetting is that John is known as a sober man, he would not frequent an inn. Furthermore there are only two contacts in any one place and in the Inn at Gateshead there is the owner and a Swede, the Swede is the go-between for the far countries like Norway. But come, let’s get on deck. I’ve done enough talking for the present.’
It was about one o’clock in the morning when Ben, handing the tiller to Rory, said, ‘All you’ve got to do is to keep her straight. If you get worried give me a shout. I’ll sleep two hours, no more; I can wake up to order. You’re not afraid, are you, to be left on your own?’
It was dark, so Rory’s expression did not give his feelings away, and he made his voice steady as he replied, ‘No, I’ll be all right.’
But no sooner had Ben left him than a wave of fear overtook him, and it wasn’t only because he was in a boat steering it blindly and without knowledge, or that the darkness around him was as black as if he had been buried in the bowels of the earth, or because the swell of the sea had complete control of his innards, pushing them up and thrusting them down at will; but it was the future that terrified him.
If he were to defy that woman she would, as Ben had said, see that he was put away, and retribution would fall on his master.
When he thought of his master, parts of his mind attacked the loyalty he bore him. He would have sworn the master had never done a bad thing in his life. He hadn’t really. Yet hadn’t he been drunk? But lots of men got drunk, and that didn’t mean they were bad. But there was the big thing his master had done; he had carried the blue baccy and used poor old Scape. To his mind that was a dirty trick. Poor old Scape.
Would somebody say in years to come that you were bad because you were forced to carry the blue baccy? It was as if a voice were coming across the water, accusing him.
The master had said, ‘There’s nobody black inside, boy, and nobody white.’
One good thing would come out of it anyway, he consoled himself; his folks would eat. Ben said she was generous. But he didn’t want them to eat through her generosity, for he hated her already.
He leaned back and peered up into the blackness. Was there a God who helped people? He had never prayed much; his mind wandered when in church, he got bored, but he knew now that if ever he needed to pray it was during the next few hours before the boat grounded onto that beach. But how could prayer get him out of this fix? There was no opening that he could see; that devil of a woman had shut every door. It was no good. Anyway, he thought, he was like his father; he hadn’t any room for people who ran to God just when they were in a tight corner. Making a convenience of Him, his father had said. But if he could only be shown a way out, given a chance.
The tiller, jerking violently in his hand, cut off his thinking, and when the sail flapped wildly and the boat swung into the wind he yelled, ‘Ben! Ben!’
A minute passed before he heard Ben shouting, ‘It’s all right. It’s all right,’ as he tackled the sail. Then a long space before he took the tiller from his hand, saying, ‘That sleep was short and sweet. But it happens like this; we’re in for a squall, and some rough seas.’
That was all he needed to know. They were going into a rough sea. If he were seasick again, well …
During the next hour the wind rose and the rain started suddenly, and stopped suddenly. ‘Spiteful, she is, the night! Spiteful!’ shouted Ben at one time.
Then as the boat swung round and Rory almost went over her side, Ben yelled at him in an angry tone, ‘Don’t be such a damn fool, boy! Keep your grip on something. Have you no sense?’
From then onwards Rory had sense. Whatever he had to move he did so with one hand grasping the gunwale, and all the while thinking that the night would never end.
His teeth chattering, cold and shivering, Rory asked, ‘What…what time is it, do you think?’
‘Close on five, boy,’ said Ben kindly. ‘Not much longer now. If it were daylight we’d see the coast plain.
‘Once’—he laughed shortly—‘the light came up and I saw the coast plain, but where do you think I was? Almost opposite Start Point. Couldn’t tell to this day how I went that far wrong. More than once I’ve had to land at Sidmouth, and in the other direction along the coast towards Weymouth, but I was never as far out as Start Point. I think that was one of the nights I went over my third, and not with cider either. I’ve learned since; we all learn, boy.’
It was as Ben said, they would be in about six o’clock. The wind was still high, the rain still coming in squalls. Ben sat by the tiller, his eyes straining ahead, for although it was still dark the deep blackness was lifting. He was in the middle of repeating, ‘Not long now,’ when the words trailed away and, putting out his hand and gripping Rory’s knee, he said, ‘Look yonder, boy, away to the left. What do you see?’
Rory turned his head and looked to the left, and for a moment saw nothing. Then, piercing the darkness, he made out a thin speck of light. It disappeared, then came again; disappeared, then ca
me again.
‘My God!’ muttered Ben.
‘What is it?’
‘Trouble.’
‘Is…is that a signal from the bay?’
‘No, boy, not from the bay, but it’s a signal all right. And it’s coming from near Beer Head. It’s only happened once before. In all my runs it’s only happened once before.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘Well, you’d better know, boy, it means that somebody is on to us. How that’s come about I don’t know…Yet I do; and I pooh-poohed it. The two strangers walking the cliffs…Well, I’ve beaten them before, I can do it again. Now listen, boy, and listen carefully.’ His voice was gruff and sharp. ‘From now on, everything I say, jump to it as if your life depended on it, for it does. Do you hear me, boy, it surely does. One wrong move and we might reach Australia without May’s help, the both of us. You understand?’
Rory said nothing, but he understood and he trembled with his understanding.
‘Now then.’ Ben loosened the main sheet into his hand; then, taking the tiller, swung the boat into the wind and began tacking, the bows headed first one way and then the other, and before long Rory became tired with folding up his body to keep it clear of the swinging boom.
He guessed now that they were heading towards the light that was piercing the darkness in a series of three flashes. At one stage he asked breathlessly, ‘If…if you hadn’t seen the light, what then?’
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