The Torrid Zone (The Fighting Sail Series) (41 page)

But in the customs service he was in a far better position. His late father's brother, a singularly remote individual that Griffin had only met on three occasions, held a reasonable position at the Treasury, and had arrange for Griffin to take up a post as commander. It was regrettable that, so soon after proving himself an ally, Uncle James had just as swiftly died, but at least he did so after Griffin was safely installed in his new profession.

Since then, there had been precious little chance to make much of it; the spell at London had been brief, and that at Harwich only long enough to establish that the sailing of a cutter was very different to that of a six-hundred ton merchant. The next few days would tell him more and, with only a hint of doubt instilled by his new second-in-command, Griffin remained optimistic.

He was approaching Newhaven itself now; the dim streets held only a few passers-by but no one failed to meet his eye or seemed in any way different from those he had seen in London or Harwich. In the far distance he could see the iron drawbridge that spanned the river while nearer, and directly ahead, a young girl emerged from a doorway, her arms filled with laundry.

She turned directly in front of him and seemed about to start off in the same direction when her pile tipped to one side. Griffin stepped forward, catching several sheets and a towel on their way to the ground. The girl's cry of surprise soon turned to laughter as the two of them struggled with the damp linen, catching further pieces as they started to fall, but ultimately keeping all from the dirt. Eventually order was restored, and both were holding manageable amounts. They grinned at each other, then the girl lowered her pile as if to accept Griffin's on top. He shook his head.

“We are sharing the same course,” he said. “And it would be foolish not to do likewise with your washing.”

She looked up and he noticed almost with a shock, the beauty of her pale features. Most of her auburn hair was pressed inside a small round cap which also covered much of her forehead, but even in the evening light there was no disguising the deep brown of her eyes, the red of her lips or the white teeth that shone through her smile.

“It's kind of you, sir, but I have a way to go.”

“And I also, though neither of us will make much headway if we discuss matters further.” He set off at a fair pace, and was pleased to note that she was soon beside him. Griffin found the rhythm of their steps comforting; he had been alone for most of his time in England and even this slight company was welcome. After a while he felt the girl's eyes on him, and he turned to look at her.

“Yours is a new face,” she said.

Griffin smiled. “I arrived only this afternoon, but will be staying a while I fancy. Have you lived here long?”

“Oh, I grew up in Newhaven; my father has the inn on the other side of the bridge, and Matthew, that's my brother, is part-owner of a fisher smack.”

“Then we share much,” Griffin laughed. “If the inn you talk of is The Star than I also live there, and I also make my living from the sea.”

“You don't seem like a fisherman,” she replied, clearly surprised.

“A seaman,” Griffin corrected. “Eleven years with John Company.”

She paused, then they both continued at a slower step. “So you will have travelled,” she said, her voice tinged with awe. “Seen places far off, I mean.”

“A sight more than Newhaven, that is certain.”

“Oh, I would so love to do what you have done!” Her voice brimmed with envy, and Griffin felt gratified that he had pleased her in some way. “I'd do anything to get out of here, to be gone: to be in another town, another country altogether.” The longing in her voice was undeniable.

“Newhaven seems a fair enough place,” Griffin said cautiously.

“It is,” she replied. “Until you gets to know it.”

“I have not been here long, of course.” Then he remembered the mate's words, and added, “tell me what is so very wrong.”

“Oh, take no notice of me: it is not so very dreadful.” They were back to a faster walking pace again, and approaching the drawbridge. “Least no worse than others hereabouts.”

“Is it the war?” He fumbled in his pocket for a coin to pay the toll, then led the way across the bridge. “Are you short of provisions? Or work?”

“We have all we need,” she replied, smiling briefly at the bridge keeper. “More of some things, less of others, though all-in-all we make do right enough. And there is no lack of work, not since the war took most of the younger men and several trades-folk. Some round here have a boat, or access to one; they can live well enough as fishermen. The rest are left with a difficult choice; there are usually places for farm workers or the like...”

“And the other option?” he asked, after a moment.

“Or they can join one of the gangs in the area,” she said, in a rush. “Work as free traders, and earn more in one night than they would all week elsewhere.”

He stiffened slightly, but she was already well into her speech.

“There's little risk and hardly any discomfort, so a good few have chosen that line.”

“I am certain of it,” he said, his tone deliberately neutral. “But you say little risk; surely they must fear capture? Prison or impressment must be the least of their worries: some may hang.”

Her head lowered momentarily, and he thought his words must have upset her. For a second he considered tempering them, but she had begun to speak again.

“A few are caught, to be sure, and yes, the penalties can be harsh. But many about here share the proceeds of their work, and have an interest in seeing it continue. And some of those administer the law.”

That also should hardly have shocked him: the point had been rammed home often enough during his time at the Board of Customs, and later at Harwich. Smuggling required finance to purchase the contraband goods; those participating would either be a cooperative, with many taking an equal share and risk, or one man with sufficient funds to stake the purchase alone. That person, usually known as a venturer, was all too often a pillar of the community: a doctor, a member of the gentry, even a minister of religion or a magistrate. And when the law was administered by the local populace, with judge and jury being every bit as culpable as those in the dock, crime was liable to go unpunished.

“So, do you wish for the smuggling to cease?” he asked.

She paused at the end of the bridge and thought for a moment. “I would wish for another course, perhaps. But in truth the free traders are just part of the problem.”

Griffin waited, hoping she would continue, although the girl, it seemed, had had a change of heart. He glanced in her direction, but her gaze remained fixed into the middle distance, and he noticed she had coloured slightly.

“What then?” he tried eventually, and this time she did turn to him.

“I have spoken too much already.” Her tone was clipped and, although looking at his face, she avoided his eyes. “An' me not knowing you from Adam. You're to stay a while, you say? It is best that you draw your own conclusions, rather than listen to those of others.”

They only had to cross the road now to reach the inn; all too soon their conversation would end even if, for a number of reasons, Griffin very much wanted it to continue. She paused as they reached the front door and something of this must have shown in his face, as hers suddenly broke into a delightful smile.

“But I am thanking you for your help,” she said, using an expression he had heard several times during his brief spell in Sussex. Then, balancing her load on one arm, she carefully reached for his. The pile of clothes tottered, but was soon secured. Griffin opened the door and held it for her, as she squeezed inside. He followed, but even as he entered the hall she was disappearing down a narrow staircase at the far end. For a moment he thought she might turn back, and was disappointed when she did not. The hall was empty and his upstairs room seemed a long way off. But they were still in the same house and, despite all he had heard that day, Griffin found he was unaccountably optimistic.

* * *

“S
tuffed up, pumped up and still wet behind the ears,” Gadd pronounced, before taking another gulp of his tea, a drink that had been stiffened with a fair measure of spirit. “Nothing like the man Commander Carter was. And did I mention he's from John Company? What good will that be in a revenue cruiser?”

“Might come in handy when we comes to a rummage,” Fuller mused. At something over forty he was one of the senior members of the cutter's crew and, like many of the others, had served in the Royal Navy. “Them Indiamen are usually stuffed full of booty that we don't get close to; like as not he'll know all the old hidey holes.”

Gadd pursed his lips. “Well, he's hardly going to be understanding much about a fore an' aft rig, that's for sure.”

Fuller sipped at his own tea, which contained nothing more potent than a little cow's milk. “We don't know that; why not wait 'til he takes her out?” he said, after considering. “And with a bit of luck, that time won't be too far off. The old lady hasn't seen proper salt water for several weeks now; I'm feared the shock might sink her.”

“Ask me, we're doing very well where we are.” Forsyth was a northerner who had also swapped his berth in a man-of-war for what he had assumed to be a quieter life. “With all that's been going on the last few months, I'd say it were the safest place.”

“Safest place ain't always the best.” Fuller again. “
Bee
's already missed one moon. There must have been twenty runs sent home in that time, and the longer we're here, the harder they will be to crack when we do come back.”

Wooderson shook his head. “It ain't the free traders that bother me, it's that Horsebridge lot, together with them what deals ashore.” Wooderson knew more about the subject than anyone else and his views were usually respected. He was by far the oldest and had forsaken the more lucrative world of the smuggler and turned gamekeeper with the revenue service. Consequently he was known as a ten-shilling man, a sobriquet derived from the mariners' weekly pay. “They're wrong 'uns, and no mistake, though their punishment will come, by the grace of God. 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall': Proverbs sixteen, verse eighteen,” he added slickly. Wooderson's conversion had been complete, and was in no way confined to his attitude to smuggling.

The cutter lurched slightly, then a call from above heralded the arrival of six more men who began to file down into the berth, bringing with them a fresh draught of evening air. The newcomers, who had mainly been employed painting the Custom House stables, grizzled and moaned as they made themselves at home after the day's labour.

“Blimey, Gadd, you might have kept that oven burning,” one said, as he rubbed his hands together then blew on his fingers theatrically. “What you been doin' all day, while honest men were workin'?”

“He'd only just got it lit when I comes in,” Fuller told them glumly. “Cold as a mother-in-law's kiss it were, an' there's no sign of supper neither.”

The room seemed to have grown darker as the newcomers found places to sit, and the smells of turpentine and linseed mingled oddly with those of damp canvas, wood smoke and unwashed bodies. But despite what had been said, they were warm enough; in fact, with the cutter at rest, the fire now burning, a tarpaulin over the hatch and any other likely source of fresh air firmly sealed up, all knew their cramped quarters would soon be hot and airless, just as they liked it.

“I've been entertaining the new cap'n,” Gadd told them self-importantly.

“That right?” one of the recent arrivals asked. “What's he like then?”

“Green as grass, an' no understandin' of revenue craft.”

“You don't know that,” Fuller corrected. “He's an experienced seaman, by all accounts, and as for sailing cutters we have yet to find that out.”

“Well it ain't a seaman we needs, it's a fair-sized ship,” Calver, one of the new men, said. “Something with a bit of clout to give them big buggers a decent seeing to.”

“He's right,” another agreed. “But what did we expect when Pitt's lot started handin' out privateer papers? That one we ran up with just after Christmas was the size of a bleedin' frigate.”

“It ain't the ships, nor the free traders that's our problem.” Wooderson had returned to his original theme. “Nor any boy of a captain come to that. It's what goes on shore-side: that's the true evil.”

The rest grew quiet as the older man continued.

“When the law is set by a gang of cut-throats, an' God-fearin' folk can't walk peacefully in the street, that's when you have cause to worry. Until the Warrens and their cronies is sorted proper, it won't make no difference if they send us a ship-of-the-line with Admiral Howe to command.”

There was a murmur of reluctant agreement.

“You never could stand a bit of honest smuggling,” Fuller said, fumbling for his tobacco. “If it weren't for the free traders, we'd all be out of a berth and probably back in the RN.”

“Or gaol,” Forsyth added, philosophically.

“It's gone far beyond that, an' you knows it,” Wooderson replied unabashed. “What we got on land is an army of criminals, and unless they're accounted for, there's no knowing what's to happen. 'The earth is given into the hand of the wicked': Job nine, verse twenty-four.”

“So what do we do about it?” Forsyth asked.

“I'm prepared to give the new cap'n a fair crack,” a fresh voice, Colclough, spoke up. “But can't say I hold out much hope. Best he can do is keep us out of trouble, and hi'self come to that.” He paused and took a sip of his tea before adding reflectively, “that's where Mr Carter went wrong.”

“He tried to sort the Warrens and their Horsebridge gang out. Nothing wrong with that,” Wooderson said.

“Oh, he tried... but wasn't very successful,” Gadd replied. “You know how he died, I suppose?”

“That's just a tale put about to frighten children,” Fuller said swiftly. “An' it seems to have worked in your case.”

There was a smattering of laughter and Gadd began to sulk. “Well, story or not, he still wound up dead,” he grumbled.

“So what would you have this new man do?” Colclough asked. “Take the Warrens on, or end up as bent as all the rest at Custom House?”