Worried she may have said ‘if only,’ aloud, she hastened to mollify him. “I know you love it, Edward and I’m sorry to displease you by wanting to move, but for one thing, doesn’t the crankiness of the lift ever get you down? It so often stops working and then there are all those stairs to walk up and down until Mr Andrews is able to get the engineer in.”
Edward unfolded his napkin and drew his second egg towards him. “Talking of Andrews, he wasn’t in the entrance foyer when I returned from the office yesterday, so I imagine his cat is still unwell?”
Resigned to and relieved by the escape route offered, Ann explained. “The vet prescribed medicine to be given at strict times if the animal is to have any chance of recovery. That is why Andrews wasn’t at his usual post. He’ll also be with the cat this morning as it takes him time to persuade Hector to take his dose.”
Edward, who always ate faster when agitated, had finished eating. Ann gathered the breakfast dishes and took them to the kitchen. “When I return from my walk, Mr Andrews will be back at his desk and I shall enquire after the cat.” Quickly, she collected her coat from the hall wardrobe, anxious to leave. She knew herself to be on dangerous ground. Her husband followed her. Edward did not like her to argue with him, but doing so risked arousing his interest in her.
She felt Edward consider her before he spoke. “Off for your walk? I shall be leaving shortly. Let us hear no more of the inconvenient lift. The stairs are good exercise, they keep us trim and active and Andrews did say the lift might be operating this morning. So check and if the warning notice has gone you will be able to avoid all those stairs. We don’t want you getting tired.” He took her coat, holding it for her, a half-smile on his full lips. “Have a good day and I look forward to seeing you this evening.”
Ann hurried to the front door, her heart pounding, knowing his words would come as surely as the victim hears the returning footsteps of their torturer.
“Wear a nightdress, not pyjamas, tonight please, Ann.”
Ann closed the heavy apartment door and leaned against it. She should have kept quiet, managed Edward, as many women in books and magazines claimed to manage their husbands. Kept him satisfied with his favourite dishes, an evening of the classical music he loved. Allowed him to explain the news; draw her attention to the important points of the book he chose for her. Now her whole day would be coloured by dread.
She stared across the wide landing towards the lift, where the images of open doors and falling into oblivion danced across her mind. Each time the lift ‘played up,’ the impulse became stronger. The open ‘birdcage’ lift that allowed a clear view of the shaft did not help. She frequently wished the lift to be one of the less fashionable, enclosed designs.
Hesitating - a novice diver wavering between the walk to the end of the high board or the steps to safety - Ann gnawed her lip, looked towards the stairs, then back again to the lift gates. Until, like a somnambulist, she slowly walked towards the lift.
The dizzying drop of the empty shaft gradually revealed itself to her and relaxed the stone talons of anxiety that gripped her stomach. Perspiration trickled into her eyes, blurring her vision, so that she nearly missed the notice warning against opening the lift doors that had fallen from its hook and lay balanced precariously between the concertinaed gates and the landing floor. Fixing her eyes on the stairs, she stretched out a foot and nudged the notice over the edge and into the lift shaft.
Wiping her face with a handkerchief, Ann began quickly descending the stairs. It was nine o’clock. Thankfully, Andrews, a punctual man, would be with his pet today and not behind his desk. Always aware of the times residents left the building and returned, he even knew if she had been shopping or to the square or had walked the promenade by the length of time she was absent from the building.
Edward found him most reliable and was happy knowing Ann was kept safe by his vigilance. Nobody entered or left the building without Andrew’s knowledge. He would be equally as punctual and reliable with his beloved cat’s medicine.
*
Twelve floors below, slumped behind the reception counter in the large mirrored foyer, sat Andrews. Hector had died despite his and the vet’s best efforts. He sat gazing into space, reflecting how the last time he had felt such wretchedness was with the loss of his wife. Her suicide had been such a shock.
His reverie, distracted by a sudden movement in the mirrored wall, he left his chair and walked to the lift shaft where, looking towards the basement, he could see the lift roof. Lying on top of it was what must be one of the warning notices.
Simultaneously, the echo of a woman’s footsteps descending the stairs travelled down the shaft. About time too, her apartment door had closed some while ago. He returned to his chair and waited for Mrs Lawrence to appear.
Now there was a woman he admired. Attractive in a refined way, beautiful figure, elegantly dressed, and none of this ‘independence’ nonsense. A woman obedient to her husband’s wishes, all any man wanted.
Andrews took pride that her husband checked with him that his wife was at home when he came back at the end of his working day. He liked to imagine a sort of unspoken agreement existed between them, that Andrews would look out for Ann Lawrence.
“It is so good to have an ex-police officer responsible for the building, most reassuring in these difficult times,” Mr Lawrence had told Andrews. Thankfully, Mr Lawrence was innocent both that he had been forced to leave the police force because of accusations of coercion and that his fantasies of Mrs Lawrence involved her husband’s death.
Ann appeared in the large entrance hall. “Oh! But you’re - g - good morning, Mr Andrews.” The panic in her voice told him she hadn’t expected him to be in the foyer.
Andrews lifted his head. “Good morning, Mrs Lawrence.” He watched as the struggle to recover her poise chased shock from her face.
She walked to the counter. “I trust your cat is making a good recovery and the medicine is working well?” She placed her gloved hands on the counter’s shiny surface, one hand nervously pulling at a finger of the other.
He sighed and looked down at his large hands. “Sadly, he died early this morning, Mrs Lawrence.”
“Oh, Mr Andrews I - how sad. I am so sorry. But the medicine...”
“It had no effect. I have been sitting here ever since thinking of him. People have been very kind. You and Mr Lawrence are the last to leave the building. It is good to see people - occupies my mind.”
He was aware of Ann growing calmer as she asked questions, concentrated on his replies and said words to sooth them both. Then, after a quick glance at her watch, she left through the revolving doors.
*
As she walked, Ann reasoned it was highly unlikely Andrew’s had seen the notice fall down the shaft unless he’d been looking in that direction and if he had he would, or course, have shouted a warning and rushed up the stairs. Comforted by these thoughts, she enjoyed the sea view and wandered towards Warrior Square Gardens where, feeling wonderfully in the moment, she admired the spring daffodils.
*
Andrews sat and waited. The art deco clock moved towards nine thirty. He reflected that a shared feature of the residents was their punctuality, their reliability. High above, the sound of the Lawrence’s front door opening and closing for the second time that morning echoed down the lift shaft. He heard the lift gates slam open and then the scream of terror.
This time he did not need the hall mirrors to reflect the falling body, screaming, falling and landing with a sickening thud on the lift roof in the basement far below. The silence was unnerving.
He lifted the telephone, the shock in his voice clear to the police officer who answered his call to the station.
“This is Marine Court, come quickly officer, there has been a terrible accident.”
Smugglers
by Robin Grady
Since being introduced to the Hornblower books as a child, the Napoleonic war at sea has fascinated me. C.S. Forester’s
descriptive English inspired this story.
The reader should not seek out a heated shot battery on the cliffs at Hastings, it only exists in my imagination.
The red hot missiles left smoky streaks in the sky as they fell among the small French flotilla. The French had already landed raiding parties, burned houses at Dungeness and received a bloody nose at Rye.
Trying their mettle at Hastings might prove costly. A post rider had lathered two horses bringing the news. ‘The French are out.’ The warning enabled the shot furnaces to be lighted and the nine-pound cannon balls heated.
The Sussex Yeomanry’s aim proved poor and only one hit was scored on a small frigate. The remaining vessels headed out to sea and out of range. Wooden ships and red hot shot are a dangerous mixture and the French were after easier pickings.
At sea, the frigate’s crew were desperately trying to cool the missile where it lay embedded at the foot of the main mast. They might have succeeded if the ready-use powder hadn’t taken fire. A series of small explosions decimated the crew and felled the mast. The end, inevitable, dead in the water, the vessel drifted, burned close to the water-line and sank in a cloud of smoke and steam.
I stood on the beach under the East Cliff observing the drama as it developed. When the cliff top battery opened fire the noise of the salvos and the clouds of gun smoke were spectacular. I was concerned with the possibility that I would have to set fire to my own boat where she lay on the shingle. If I didn’t, once they landed, the French would.
The Militia had mustered to repel the raiders, but they were mostly dandies and old men. Against French Marines they would have fared very badly.
The boat is my life and my living. Built in Rye to my father’s wishes, the Maid of Rye has the fairest underwater form of any boat in the Hastings fleet. Although similar to the other local fishing cutters, she is knots faster at all points of sailing. My father had been a fisherman and a smuggler and he excelled at both callings.
My inheritance; the Maid of Rye and a small alehouse called the Cat’s Paw. The alehouse has a large cellar and the Maid of Rye gave me the finest apprenticeship a seaman could have wished for.
With the remaining French fleeing and the frigate sunk, I sent my cabin boy to the stables to order the six dray horses we needed to drag my boat off the beach and into the water.
“We are fourth in a queue of five,” he piped on his return.
“So be it. Off you trot to the Cat’s Paw and tell Ben and George we launch in a half hour.”
My crew; two men and the lad, enough for the Maid. Ben Styles had sailed with my father and if he could ever stay off the rum he could skipper his own vessel. When sober he is cunning and competent, when in drink he is savage as a bear. George Mills is a clown, a big, strong lump of a man who is always smiling and follows me like a hound.
With the French gone out to sea, I was not alone in thinking of providing succour to the crew of the sunken frigate, with maybe a small bonus to be culled from the flotsam. The horses were dragging the second boat into the water as we climbed aboard the Maid and prepared her for sea.
I had no real plan in mind. Just go to the site of the sinking, assess the situation, do what we could and then go up channel for a day’s fishing.
No rush, plenty of time before our midnight rendezvous with a French fishing lugger who worked out of Le Havre and should be carrying twenty small barrels of brandy and ten bolts of pure silk looking for a new owner. Until then we were as free as the air with the hope that the French raiding flotilla stayed clear of the rendezvous area and the revenue cutter from Dover remained in port.
I wondered where the raiders had sailed from. It would be interesting to know. Since Trafalgar, the Royal Navy’s Channel Fleet had the major ports under close blockade and to miss half a dozen vessels in one flotilla was unusual.
The horse team pulled us through the shallows and the traces were unhooked. Ben and George unshipped the sweeps and began to row the vessel into the surf while the boy and I hoisted the mainsail. The Westerly breeze was fair and the Maid picked up speed rapidly. “Boat the oars and set the foresails.”
The last got me a disparaging look from Ben. They know their business, but I love to play the Captain. As I took the tiller the ship came alive, leaning to the task and shaking her head at the breakers; the very best part of any trip or voyage.
There was a full scale melee at the scene of the sinking, with three vessels criss-crossing as they tried to be the first to recover people, dead or alive and chattels. All three were members of the ‘Hastings Brethren,’ a small group of skippers who smuggle and operate together. They have a series of caves, ‘St Clements’ under the West Cliff, where they store their contraband, not having the advantage of my commodious cellar at the Cat’s Paw. We are in competition, but there is such a demand for our style of goods that it is never an issue. I prefer my independence. They prefer to work in company.
We reduced sail and drifted up to the carnage. Boxes and barrels, spars and rigging, drowning men and corpses littered the surface.
“Drop the mainsail and rig a tackle on the boom,” I ordered. Recovering barrels or men from the sea to the deck is always a challenge. “Hang a length of net on the hook and we will see what we catch.”
Two or three Frenchmen were clinging to a grating some twenty feet from the side of the boat. I took all the forward way off of her and George swung the boom outboard while Ben let the net down just short of the trio. With a combination of hand signals, curses and my limited French we persuaded them to transfer their grip to the net. My crew laid onto the tackle and hoisted them clear of the water. The lad and I hauled in the boom and three wet and miserable seamen were deposited on the deck.
“Check ‘em for weapons and give ‘em a tarpaulin to huddle under. Put them for’ard by the bowsprit.”
I took in the foresail sheet and we ghosted deeper into the debris field. There was a likely looking barrel and what appeared to be a sea chest floating just ahead.
Heaving to, I looked the boy in the eye. “I need you to ride the net and catch me those items, lad.”
A shadow of doubt crossed his face. “I will get pretty wet.”
“You will,” I replied. “But you are the lightest and I will give you first pick when we open the chest.”
He puffed out his own chest. “Leave it to me skipper, I can do it.”
We secured him to the hook with a lanyard about his waist so if things went horribly wrong we would have something for his mother to bury. He grasped the net and we swung him outboard. Manning the sweeps we nudged the Maid up to the flotsam until it was close by the starboard side.
“Oh my God,” gasped the lad. “There’s a body roped to the chest.”
There was too. A length of cod line was tied off to one of the chest’s rope handles and then secured to the wrist of a body. The poor devil had been badly burnt and what was left of his clothing was charred and scorched.
“Cut the line and tie it off to the net, we can deal with him later,” I ordered. Boys love their knives and in a trice the line was severed and the corpse secured to the net.
“Open the net and work the chest into it, look lively boy or we will lose the barrel.” It was drifting down tide towards Davey Smith’s Seawitch and he would love to wipe my eye. The boy was clinging to the net with one hand and trying to capture the chest with the other.
“Can you swim, lad?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then let go of the bloody net and get after it.”
With a long suffering look he slipped down into the water and thus made good progress with his task. With the chest captured, I shouted. “Hang on.”
I kicked the Frenchmen to their feet and laid their hands on the tackle line. After a small confusion they got the message and laid into the lift. My crew swung the boom inboard over the bulwark and the load was lowered to the deck.
The Frenchmen were chattering like starlings and staring at the body. With a mixture of gest
iculations and pigeon French I got them to understand that I needed to know who or what the dead man was. It seemed that he was the frigate’s surgeon and not long on board. Not very promising. Doctors are not famous for their worldly wealth.
“George, put the froggies back in the bow and tell them to pipe down.” Now for the barrel which had drifted almost up to the Seawitch. “Yours or mine, Davey?”
“Take it, Daniel,” he replied. “I have three already, one with salt beef and two with drinking water that is now foul with salt.”
“Are you going in, Davey?”
“I am. I have some good oars and blocks and got a dozen live and two dead frogs to deliver to the Militia. Shall I drop the beef at the Cat’s Paw?”
“If you would be so kind, I will settle with you later. Would you deliver three live seamen and a dead doctor? I am off to the fishing now that I have launched.”
He agreed and we bumped gunwales while I got the Frenchmen to carry the doctor’s body over the rail.
During the exchange I sat on the chest as if it was the most natural thing.
We sent the net and the lad over the side again to capture the barrel. Easily done and once inboard I rolled it to the bulwark and secured it.
“Young shaver, go and find dry britches, but keep the wet set by in case you need another swim.”
Davy shoved off and the other two boats appeared to be gleaning fewer items from the wreckage.
“Let’s go fishing lads, full sail and I will take us down to the White Horse Shoals.”
The fish we caught were to go into tubs, not the fish hold. Once the contraband was on board it would be stowed under a false deck in the hold and the fish shot onto the deck to give the impression of a fine catch, should the revenuers come on board for a search.
The Maid ran away on a broad reach with the portside bulwark nearly dipping and the spray coming inboard by the cap full. It was time to check the booty.
“Nipper ‘tis your privilege, open the chest.”
It was a fine item with nicely made joints and deep carvings of a whale hunt on the front and sides. The lad knelt before the chest and fumbled with the brass turnbuckles that secured the lid. He pulled back the hasps and opened the chest. Everything inside was soaked through. On the top, a carefully folded blue serge topcoat.
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