Demelza (51 page)

He dreamed fantastic things, in which stress and conflict and the will to fight were all that meant anything: he lived over again in a few moments a concentrate of all the trouble of the last months and climbed back to wakefulness slowly, to find a grey daylight filtering through the curtains and John Gimlett bending before the fire.

'What time is it?' Ross asked in a whisper.

John turned. 'About fifteen minutes before eight, sur, and there's a ship drifting in on the beach.'

Ross turned and looked at Demelza. She was sleeping peacefully, her tumbled curls about the pillow; but he wished she did not look so white.

'Tes 'ardly light enough to see him proper yet, sur,' whispered Gimlett.

'I did but notice him when I went for the wood. I do not think any other has spied him so far.'

'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 got 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 parlour he poured out a drink.

'John!' he called, as Gimlett went past.

'Please?'

'Get Darkie saddled.'

Gimlett glanced up at his master's face. In his 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 damme,' 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 sizeable 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' damme, 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.'

BY SUPERB SEAMANSHIP Captain Bray kept her off the beach for over an hour.

In this he was helped by the sudden 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 grey to the top with foam; and suds whirled in flocks between the cliffs like gulls wheeling. Along the edge of the sea proper a block rim of thirty or forty people were already come at his summons for the harvest. Riding in quickly, stern 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 round 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 this 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. This 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 round 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 biggest 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 downcoast.'

'She'll not stand in this sea even for one tide,' Ross said. 'There'll be pickings soon enough.'

Zacky glanced at him. There was a savagery in Ross this 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 part way 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 now. The great weight of the wave had not only carried her in; it 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 round. 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 questings but unmoved.

A part of the deck had given way and more sacks of corn were coming in. Frantic that these 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 which 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. Rumour had whispered that the Illuggan and St Ann's miners were coming to claim a share. This lent urgency where none was needed.

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

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 choked him, but after a while began to make headway. Once in the lee of the wreck he swam up and grasped the splintered spar which had once been the main mast and now stuck out towards 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 here that the cargo had come. There would be pickings astern. He glanced to the poop. A different sight now from Truro Creek. All this 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 towards 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 round 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 this too had fallen to his waist before he forced his way in.

Something was tapping gently at his leg. Curious green gloom as if underwater. 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 face downwards, gently, submisively; the water draining out by the door had brought him over to greet Ross. For a second it gave the illusion of life.