Demelza

by Winston Graham

  “Eh?”

  “The ship, sur. He looks a tidy size.”

  Ross reached for the brandy bottle and drank another glass. He was stiff and cold and his mouth was dry.

  “Where away?”

  “Just b’low Damsel Point. He cleared the point, but he’ll never get out o’ the bay in this wind an’ sea.”

  Ross’s brain was still working slowly, but the new brandy was having effect. There would be pickings for the miners and their families. Good luck to them.

  “I b’lieve ye could see him from an upstairs window by now.”

  Ross got up and stretched. Then he went out of the room and listlessly climbed the stairs. The north window of their old bedroom was so thick with salt that he could see nothing at all, but when he had it open, he soon made out what Gimlett meant. A two-masted ship of fair size. She was dipping and lurching in the trough of the waves. All her sails were gone except a few strips flying in the wind, but some sort of a jury rig had been put up forward and they were trying to keep way on her. Unless she grew wings she would be on the beach soon. It was low water.

  Losing interest, he was about to turn away when something took his attention again and he stared at the ship. Then he went for his father’s spyglass and steadied it against the frame of the window. It was a good glass, which his father had had in some bargain from a drunken frigate captain at Plymouth. As he peered the billowing curtains blew and flapped about his head. The wind was dropping at last.

  Then he lowered the glass. The ship was the Queen Charlotte.

  • • •

  He went down. In the parlor he poured out a drink.

  “John!” he called, as Gimlett went past.

  “Please?”

  “Get Darkie saddled.”

  Gimlett glanced up. In his master’s eyes was a light as if he had seen a vision. But not a holy one.

  “Are you feeling slight, sur?”

  Ross drained another glass. “Those people at the funeral, John. They should have been entertained and fed. We must see that they are this morning.”

  Gimlett looked at him in alarm. “Sit you down, sur. There’s no need for taking on any more.”

  “Get Darkie at once, John.”

  “But—”

  Ross met his glance, and Gimlett went quickly away.

  In the bedroom Demelza was still quietly sleeping. He put on his cloak and hat and mounted the horse as it came to the door. Darkie had been confined and was mettlesome, could hardly be contained. In a moment they were flying off up the valley.

  The first cottage of Grambler village was dark and unstirring when Ross slithered up to it. Jud and Prudie had had smuggled gin in the house and, finding no free drink outcoming from the funeral, had returned, complaining bitterly, to make a night of it on their own.

  Knocking brought no response so he put his shoulders to the door and snapped the flimsy bolt. In the dark and the stink he shook someone’s shoulder, recognized it as Prudie’s, tried again and scored a hit.

  “Gor damn,” shouted Jud, quivering with self-pity. “A man’s not king of his own blathering ’ouse but what folks burst in—”

  “Jud,” said Ross quietly. “There’s a wreck.”

  “Eh?” Jud sat up, suddenly quiet. “Where’s she struck?”

  “Hendrawna Beach. Any moment now. Go rouse Grambler people and send word to Mellin and Marasanvose. I am on to Sawle.”

  Jud squinted in the half-light, the bald top of his head looking like another face. “Why for bring all they? They’ll be thur soon enough. Now ef—”

  “She’s a sizable ship,” Ross said. “Carrying food. There’ll be pickings for all.”

  “Aye, but—”

  “Do as I say, or I’ll bolt you in here from the outside and do the job myself.”

  “I’ll do en, Cap’n. ’Twas only as you might say a passing thought, like. What is she?”

  Ross went out, slamming the door behind him so that the whole crazy cottage shook. A piece of dried mud fell from the roof upon Prudie’s face.

  “What’s amiss wi’ you!” She hit Jud across the head and sat up.

  Jud sat there scratching inside his shirt.

  “’Twas some queer, that,” he said. “’Twas some queer, I tell ’ee.”

  “What? What’s took you, wakin’ at this time?”

  “I was dreamin’ of old Joshua,” said Jud. “Thur he was as clear as spit, just like I seen un in seventy-seven, when he went after that little giglet at St. Ives. An’ damn, ef I didn’t wake up an’ thur he was standin’ beside the bed, plain as plain.”

  “Who?”

  “Old Joshua.”

  “You big soft ape, he’s been cold in ’is grave these six year an’ more!”

  “Aye, ’twas Cap’n Ross, really.”

  “Then load me, why don’t ’ee say so!”

  “Because,” said Jud, “I’ve never seen ’im look so much like old Joshua before.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  By superb seamanship Captain Bray kept her off the beach for over an hour.

  In that he was helped by the lull in the storm, and once there even seemed a chance that he would fight his way clear.

  But then the tide began to flow strongly and all was lost. Ross was home again just in time to see her come in.

  He remembered the scene years after. Although the tide was out the sand was wet and foam-covered right up to the sand hills and the shingle. In places the cliffs were gray to the top with foam, and suds whirled in flocks between the cliffs like gulls wheeling. Along the edge of the sea proper a black rim of thirty or forty people were already come at his summons for the harvest. Riding in quickly, stem foremost, racked and tossed and half smothered by the sea, was the Queen Charlotte. As Ross climbed the wall the sun sprang up out of the broken black clouds fleeing to the east. A sickly unearthly yellow lit the sky, and the mountainous waves were tarnished with flecks of gold light. Then the sun was swallowed up in a tattered curtain of cloud and the light died.

  She struck stern first as her captain aimed to do but did not run in firm enough, and a side wash lurching in a great pyramid across the tide broke over her and slewed her around broadside. In a few seconds she had heeled over, her decks facing the shore and the waves spouting.

  Ross ran across the beach, drunkenly in the gusts; she had come ashore midway up, just that side of Leisure Cliff.

  There was no chance of reaching her yet, but she was quickly being washed in. The waves had a tremendous run on them, would flood in halfway to the sand hills and then go out, leaving great glassy areas of water a half inch deep.

  The men on board were trying to launch a boat. That was the worst thing, but on an incoming tide they stood no better chance by staying in the ship.

  They lowered her from the well deck and set her in the water without mishap, and then, with only three or four in, a flood of water swirled around the lee side of the brigantine and swept the small boat away. The men rowed frantically to keep within the shelter, but they were as in a tide race and were borne quite clear. A wave rushed on them, and, smothered in water, they were carried inshore. Then they were left behind in the trough, and the next wave turned the boat upside down and broke it to pieces.

  The men on shore had given way before the tide, but as the bigger waves passed, Ross and a few others stood staring out at the wreck while the retreating water rushed past their knees trying to carry them along.

  “We’ll not get to un this morning,” said Vigus, rubbing his hands and shivering with cold. “Tide’ll break un to bits, an’ we shall have the pickings on the ebb. Might just so well go home.”

  “I can’t see one o’ they men,” said Zacky Martin. “I expect they’ve been sucked under and’ll be spewed out farther down coast.”

  “She’ll not stand in this sea even for one t
ide,” Ross said. “There’ll be pickings soon enough.”

  Zacky glanced at him. There was a savagery in Ross that morning.

  “Look fur yourself!” someone shouted.

  An immense wave had hit the wreck and in a second a straight stiff column of spray stood two hundred feet in the air, to collapse slowly and disintegrate before the wind. Two men grasped Ross and dragged him back.

  “She’s going over!” he shouted.

  They tried to run but could not. The wave caught them waist high, swept them before it like straws; they were carried partway up the beach and left behind struggling in two feet of water, while the wave rushed on to spend its strength. There was just time to gain a foothold and brace themselves against the sudden rush back again. Ross wiped the water out of his eyes.

  The Queen Charlotte could not last. The great weight of the wave had not only carried her in, but it also had almost turned her bottom up, snapping off both masts and washing away all but one or two of the crew. Spars and tangles of wreckage, barrels and masts, coils of rope and sacks of corn were bobbing in the surf.

  People streaming down to the scene carried axes and baskets and empty sacks. They were a spur to those who were before them, and soon the shallow surf was black with people struggling to reach what they could. The tide washed in everything it could strip away. One of the crew had come ashore alive, three dead, the rest had gone.

  As the morning grew and the day cleared, more people came, with mules, ponies, dogs to carry away the stuff. But only a small part of the cargo was yet ashore, and there was not enough to go around. Ross made the people divide the spoils. If a barrel of pilchards came in it was broken open and doled out, a basketful to everyone who came. He was everywhere, ordering, advising, encouraging.

  At ten three kegs of rum and one of brandy came in together and were at once opened. With hot spirit inside them men grew reckless and some even fought and struggled together in the water. As the tide rose, some fell back into the sand hills and lit bonfires from the wreckage and began a carouse. Newcomers plunged into the surf. Sometimes men and women were caught in the outrun of a wave and went tobogganing back into the sea. One was drowned.

  At noon they were driven off most of the beach and watched the pounding of the hulk from a distance. Ross went back to Nampara, had something to eat, drank a great deal, and was out, again. He was gentle in reply to Demelza’s questionings but unmoved.

  A part of the deck had given way and more sacks of corn were coming in. Frantic that they should be taken before all the corn was spoiled, many had rushed down again, and as he followed them Ross passed the successful ones coming away. A great dripping sack of flour staggered slowly up the hill and under it, sweating and red-faced, was Mrs. Zacky. Aunt Betsy Triggs led a half-starved mule, laden with baskets of pilchards and a sack of corn. Old Man Daniel helped Beth Daniel with a table and two chairs. Jope Ishbel and Whitehead Scoble dragged a dead pig. Others carried firewood, one a basket of dripping coal.

  On the beach Ross found men trying to loop a rope over a piece of hatchway the sea was carrying out again. Restless, unsatisfied, trying to forget his own hurt, he went down to join them.

  • • •

  By two thirty the tide had been ebbing an hour and nearly five hundred people waited. Another hundred danced and sang around the fires on the sand hills or lay drinking above high water. Not a piece of driftwood or a broken spar lay anywhere. Rumor had whispered that the Illogan and St. Ann’s miners were coming to claim a share. It lent urgency where none was needed.

  At three, Ross waded out into the surf. He had been wet on and off all day, so the stinging cold of the water did not strike him.

  It was bad going out—unless the sea malevolently chose to take you—but when he judged himself far enough, he dived into a wave and swam underwater. He came up to face one that nearly flung him back on shore, but after a while, he began to make headway. Once in the lee of the wreck he swam up and grasped the splintered spar that had once been the main mast, sticking out toward the shore. He hauled himself up; men on shore shouted and waved soundlessly.

  Not safe yet to climb to the high side of the deck. He untied the rope about his waist and hitched it to the root of the mast. A raised hand was a signal to the shore, and the rope quivered and tautened. In a few minutes there would be a score of others aboard with axes and saws.

  Still astride the mast, he glanced about the ship. No sign of life. All the forecastle had given way and it was from there that the cargo had come. There would be pickings astern. He glanced at the poop. A different sight from Truro Creek. All that week of gales and blizzard she must have been beating about in the Channel and off Land’s End. For once the Warleggans had met their match.

  He stepped off the mast and, leaning flat on the deck, edged his way toward the poop. The door of the cabin faced him askew. It was an inch or two ajar but jammed. A trickle of water still ran from a corner of it as from the mouth of a sick old man.

  He found a spar and thrust it into the door, tried to force it open. The spar splintered, but the gap widened. As he got his shoulder into the opening, the ship rocked with another great wave. Water flung itself into the air, high, high. As it fell, the rest of the wave swirled around the ship, rising to his shoulders. He clung tight; it swirled, dragged, sucked, gave way at last. Water poured from the cabin, deluged him long after the rest had gone. He waited until that too had fallen to his waist before he forced his way in.

  Something was tapping gently at his leg. Curious green gloom as if under water. The three larboard portholes were buried deep, the starboard ones, glass smashed, looked at the sky. A table floating, a periwig, a news sheet. On the upper wall a map still hung. He looked down. The thing tapping his leg was a man’s hand. The man floated facedown, gently, submissively; the water draining out by the door had brought him over to greet Ross. For a second it gave the illusion of life.

  Ross caught him by the collar and lifted his head. It was Matthew Sanson.

  With a grunt Ross dropped the head back in the water and squeezed his way out into the air.

  • • •

  As the tide went out hundreds waded out and fell on the ship. With axes they burst open the hatches and dragged out the rest of the cargo. A quantity of mixed goods in the rear hatch was undamaged, and more kegs of rum were found. The deck planks were torn up, the wheel and binnacle carried off, the clothing and bits of furniture in the bunks and cabins. Jud, well gone in liquor, was saved from drowning in two feet of water, his arms clasped around the gilt figurehead. He had either mistaken her for a real woman or the gilt for real gold.

  As dusk began to fall another bonfire was set up near the ship to light the scavengers on their way. The rising wind blew whorls of smoke flatly across the wet beach where it joined the fires on the sand hills.

  Ross left the ship and walked home. He changed his clothes, which were stiff with half-dried salt, had a brief meal, and then sat with Demelza. But the restless devil inside himself was not appeased; the pain and the fury were not gone. He went out again in the gathering windy dark.

  By the light of a lantern a few of the more sober citizens were burying seven corpses at the foot of the sand hills. Ross stopped to tell them to go deep. He did not want the next spring tide uncovering them. He asked Zacky how many had been saved and was told that two had been taken to Mellin.

  He climbed a little and stared down at the crowd around a bonfire. Nick Vigus had brought his flute and people were jigging to his tune. Many were drunk and lay about, too weak to walk home. The wind was bitter, and there would be illness even in that bounty.

  A hand caught his arm. It was John Gimlett.

  “Beg pardon, sur.”

  “What is it?”

  “The miners, sur. From Illogan an’ St. Ann’s. The first ones are comin’ down the valley. I thought—”

  “Are there many?”


  “In their ’undreds, Bob Nanfan says.”

  “Well, get you back into the house, man, and bolt the doors. They’re only coming to loot the ship.”

  “Aye, sur, but there’s little left to loot—on the ship.”

  Ross rubbed his chin. “I know. But there’s little left to drink either. We shall manage them.”

  He went down to the beach. He hoped the Illogan miners had not spent all the daylight hours drinking by the way.

  On the beach things were quieter. The bonfire sent a constant shower of sparks chasing across the sand. Just beyond the wreck the surf piled up, a pale mountainous reef in the half dark.

  Then his arm was caught a second time. Pally Rogers from Sawle.

  “Look ’ee! What’s that, sur? Isn’t it a light?”

  Ross stared out to sea.

  “Ef that be another ship she’s coming ashore too!” said Rogers. “She’s too close in to do else. The Lord God ha’ mercy on their souls!”

  Ross caught the glint of a light beyond the surf. Then he saw a second light close behind. He began to run toward the edge of the sea.

  As he neared it the foam came to meet him, detaching itself from the mass and scudding and bowling across the sand in hundreds of flakes of all sizes. He splashed into a few inches of water and stopped, peering, trying to get his breath in the wind. Rogers caught him up.

  “Over thur, sur!”

  Although the gale had grown again a few stars were out, and you could see well enough. A big ship, bigger than the brigantine, was coming in fast. A light forward and one amidships but no stern light. One minute she seemed right out of the water, and the next only her masts showed. There was no question of maneuvering to beach her; she was coming in anyhow as the waves threw her about.

  Someone aboard had seen how near the end was, for a flare was lit—rags soaked in oil—and it flickered and flared in the wind. Dozens on the beach saw it.

  She came in nearer the house than the Queen Charlotte and seemed to strike with scarcely a jar. Only her foremast toppling slowly showed the impact.