Race Before the Wind

Copyright © Jill Salkeld 1988

Part Two: 1816-1822

The Venturer's Agent

Chapter Two

Tom had assumed that much of his time would be spent at sea, even at the start of his apprenticeship; but Hicks had other ideas. The Captain believed that an ambitious young man should gain experience in every aspect of his chosen profession. Tom was hired first as a tub-carrier.

The gang was accustomed to meet at the Angel Inn. When the Preventive men were busy elsewhere, Hicks' little fleet could sail upriver to the Quay itself; and from here the tubmen could carry the goods uphill via a tunnel dug for that purpose, and emerge in the Angel. What more innocent store for contraband, as Hicks remarked, than a public house with an amenable landlord?

Since the Peace, however, the Trade was becoming as dangerous as Gaspard had suggested. Returning ex-servicemen, finding other work scarce, were eager to join the ranks or either the smugglers or the Revenue Service. It was now more usual for the cargoes to be dropped at Pennington Creek or nearby Keyhaven; but the inn remained a favourite meeting place for men living in town.

Gaspard was at sea when Tom visited the Angel for his first briefing. He climbed the High Street alone, making for the sounds of raucous merriment. As he entered the taproom, the smells of tobacco smoke and strong beer were as comfortingly familiar as an old coat drawn close against the cold, windy night.

Benjamin Hicks strode to greet him, ushering him through the odorous fog to a crowded table. "Gentlemen, our newest recruit. Elderfield, meet some of my best men on land. Boxer Corrigan, Navvy O'Rourke, Trekker Verity....."

Trekker, the youngest and least formidable, sarcastically doffed his cap. "I be hearing your ma's folk were French aristos, and lucky to escape Madame Guillotine. What d'you say to that?"

"That you're right," Tom said amiably, with a faint and Gallic shrug, "if a town house and a bad choice of friends can turn a vine-grower into a Vicompte"

Trekker grinned broadly, and handed him a pint of ale. "Welcome aboard, Aristo," he said.

"And this," said Hicks, "is Mr. Jack Bezant, my beachmaster. You will be answerable to him for as long as you're a tubman.

The man half rose, his expression blank as a shuttered window. Tom shook the proffered hand - and Bezant's grip squashed his knuckles, while a fleeting look of satisfaction twisted the man's heavy features.

"Well, now," said the beachmaster. "I'm glad to make your acquaintance."

By a considerable effort Tom kept his smile in place as Bezant increased the pressure. "Likewise, sir," he said. A minute ago it would have been true.

Unable legitimately to prolong the moment of pleasure, Jack Bezant, withdrew his hand and sat down. Tom breathed a careful audible sigh, and sat flexing his fingers under the table while Hicks outlined the evening's plan of campaign.

When they left the Angel, heading for Pennington Creek on foot, Captain Hicks did not go with them. The furtive company was joined by forty other men along the road, and Tom found himself paired with Trekker Verity near the back of the ragged column.

With Bezant out of earshot, the young tubman muttered, "What did you do? Rape his daughter?"

"Wasn't he just showing me who's boss?"

"That bastard's got nothin' to prove to nobody. He used to be a prizefighter. Killed a man once, in the ring. Be you, er...."

"Am I what?"

"Promised Vaillant's job?"

Tom's wary, startled silence was answer enough.

"Jesus," said Trekker, "I wouldn't be in your shoe. Bezant's been chasing that post since he were our age, and he didn't think to lose his chance this time round."

Tom whistled through his teeth, watching the broad back of Hicks' beachmaster ahead.

"Course, his French be terrible good," said Trekker judiciously. "Comes of being taken prisoner-o-war in '13. But I wouldn't hire he, if I was the Captain. Buggered if I would. First Frog to speak out of turn would be a dead Frog- ER, no offence."

"None taken," said Tom; but he resolved to treat Bezant with caution. It would be perilous indeed to make an enemy within the gang.

Among Hicks' numerous outbuildings at Pennington Creek was a boathouse, containing a dozen gigs with two pairs of oars apiece. The tubmen were ordered to carry these solid little craft to the beach; and Tom had his first glimpse of the Solent in thirteen years. The tide was full, covering the marshes seaward of the dyke, only a strip of shingle remaining. Away to the south-west, at the end of a mile-long shingle spit curving out into darkness, the two lighthouses of Hurst Castle burned steadily through an advancing sheet of rain. The more distant coastline of the Isle of Wight was to be guessed at rather than seen.

The wind here was squally and cruel, penetrating the thickest garments. Trekker yelled across it. "Bezant be needing three men to a coat, this weather. Two to row, once to bail. You see up there?" He pointed to Hurst Spit, where, in fitful moonlight, a figure crouched on top of the shingle bank. "One o' Keyhaven boys. Soon as he sights the fleet, he'll signal Bold Intent that the coast be clear, and she'll lead the three luggers in like a swan wi' her cygnets.

"Have we got a long wait, d'you reckon?"

"Should be any minute. They'll want to pass Hurst afore the tide ebbs. A terrible bloody bottle-neck for current, that be."

The words were hardly out, when the figure on the Spit moved sharply, his lantern showing a pin=point beam. There were soft cheers from the men on the beach. Trekker pulled his cap down low and grinned at Tom.

"A right thorough christening you'll get tonight, Aristo."

Bezant gave order to launch the gigs. With Trekker and the big ex-Navy man, Boxer Corrigan, Tom dragged a boat into the water. The storming surf drenched them instantly, the colour of new milk in the darkness. More than once Tom was almost knocked off his feet by waves breaking waist high. When he clambered aboard the gig, it was already half full of water.

He found bucket roped to the stern thwart, and started bailing fast while Trekker and Boxer took the oars. Only a hundred yards from short the waves grew steep; their crests curled and whitened. Each time the prow hit a trough it plunged below the surface, giving the crew a comprehensive soaking and making a joke of Tom's efforts to empty the boat.

He squinted ahead, at four unlit vessels now sailing into view from behind the manned fortress of Hurst Castle. The wind was sou'westerly, helping the fleet but making progress nearly impossible for the gigs. Tom doubted they would reach the rendezvous point alive. He shouted to Boxer, above the noise of wind and rain, and the crash and withdrawing rattle of the surf along Hurst Spit, "We're shipping too much water!"

The veteran of Trafalgar laughed, his toothless gums witness to the fact that he had survived worse perils, scurvy included.

"Then don't spend your breath whining, Aristo," he yelled back. "Keep bloody bailing!"

There followed the most frantic, terrifying, exhilarating hours of Tom's life; or so he thought at the time. Deluged by great gouts of water which threatened to swamp the tiny craft, he bailed with a speed born of fear - but gradually they neared Bold Intent, converging with a few other gigs, while the half dozen remaining crews chose the small luggers; Hicks' own favourite, Escapade, or one of the new sister-ships Marshlight and Winter Witch.

Closing with the tall square-rigger, Tom saw men "laying out' along the yards, furling topsails, while others leaned precariously from the rigging to watch the gigs' approach. He gazed up at masts that rakes the sky, at sails that tugged and bellied with each fearsome gust. He heard the moving timbers creak.... and he was filled with a sudden climbing elation, a surge of pure joy that banished even the memory of fear.

He caught a rope's end flung from the deck of Bold Intent, and the Master bellowed. "Make ready to take on cargo!"

Tom stared, for the Master was Gaspard Vaillant; but in place of the rouged and corsetted dandy stood a wiry rogue, complete with a gold-braided hat, an incisive manner, and no time for fools.

"Elderfield! We haven't got all confounded night."

The oilskin packs of tea, coffee and tobacco were handed down. Last came the brandy kegs, to be strung out behind the gig' ten in all. Boxer gave his oars to Tom for the row ashore, and the reason was soon clear - it was hard work, for the extra weight was considerable. Trekker, though small and slight, had no trouble, but after rowing ashore five times from Bold Intent Tom's hands were blistered, his shoulders aching, and his mind too preoccupied with these discomforts to worry about Preventive men.

But no one interfered with the tubmen's duties that night. The lightened fleet sailed for Lymington. On the beach at Pennington Creek, eager knives slashed the ropes linking a hundred kegs, while the rest were stored in the boathouse for later collection. Tom, following Trekker's example, hung a forty-five pound keg against his chest and another against his back, shivering in wet clothes in the clawing wind.

"This be what she's all about, Aristo," said Trekker, wounding jaunty. "Not glory and romance, like all they pictures and prints do tell'ee. I'll be looking to retire at fifty WI broken down lungs and a crooked spine."

Tom glanced sharply at him, but Trekker shook his head. "No joke. I get the longest treks 'cause I ask for they, 'cause there the money do be. But we all come to the same end." The young tubman put his head on one side. "I know your business Aristo. Want to know mind? Eddie Verity footman to Mr. Walter Fordyce, one of our best customers."

Bezant reformed the marching column of fifty men, Navvy O'Rourke and Boxer Corrigan, armed with holly clubs, took up the rear, while Bezant with whip and cudgel lumbered ahead. Several tubmen wore knives in their belts.

Tom whispered to Trekker Verity, "Any of this crowd ever killed and Exciseman?"

"Not this lot. But Hicks has got four hundred men, all told, land and sea."

Tom gave a low whistle of astonishment.

"And," continued Trekker, "folk like old Nell and her girls, who do put the colour in."

"Who what?"

"Brandy comes in looking like water. Stuff won't sell in England. So we lug he straight to Nell, who doses he with burnt sugar. Nice little moneyspinner for the daft old bat."

Nell's cottage stood beside a dark and rutted lane, within sight of the glimmering windows of Keyhaven. The newly imported barrels were lowered into the cellar, and the tubmen trudged onward with the 'dosed' kegs. They passed the outskirts of Lymington, and Trekker pointed to a white, porticoed mansion set back from the road.

Fordyce residence. Home sweet bloody home."

"Aren't they good to you?"

"The maids," said Trekker, "be terrible plain."

Tom's smothered laugh ended in a curse; the ropes were already sawing at his shoulders, and the night's work had scarcely begun.

They left the town, treading deeper into the Forest. Sometimes the column would halt at a farm or village, to deliver a few barrels and big goodnight to a handful of tubmen. Bezant's whip, usually employed only to encourage stragglers, curled too often around Tom's legs, stinging even through thick trousers.

In the dripping quiet of a Forest bridleway, six miles from the coast, Bezant stopped the four remaining tubmen. Even Navvy and Boxer had long ago been dismissed.

"Dipper - Ace - make your drop, lads. You and all, Trekker. This'll be the last port of call tonight."

Tom's chin jerked up. "What about me?"

Bezant's eyes glittered in fleeting moonlight. "You, Aristo? Seems you've misunderstood the orders. Slow-witted, maybe. Is that what I should tell the Captain?

Tom waited, unmoving, watching Bezant's face.

"You tubs are for Mr. Fordyce," the beachmaster said, "You should have dropped 'em off when we passed the house. Now you'll have to carry 'em back again, won't you?"

It was Trekker who gasped audibly. Tom held Bezant's challenging stare, thinking that he couldn't do it; it wasn't bloody well possible, and no even Captain Hicks could blame him for refusing to try.

He showed promise, Hicks had said. If he conceded the fight now, Bezant would have won in the first round.

Without a word he turned and walked slowly back the way they had come.

Only Trekker and Jack Bezant accompanied him on the homeward journey, the beachmaster setting a pace that made the kegs bounce unmercifully against Tom's back and chest. The difficulty in breathing was almost worse than the ropes cutting into his shoulders, or the protests from the straining muscles of his back.

It was six o'clock when Bezant left the two young men outside the Fordyces' house. Glaring at the beachmaster's departing figure, Trekker swore with such prolonged obscenity that Tom nearly laughed.

"Motion seconded," he said. "Help me off with these, will you?"

Trekker willingly obliged. "You'll not be working tomorrow night," he said, watching Tom straighten up.

"Fancy a small bet?" Tom gingerly touched one shoulder, investigating the frayed jacket. His hand came away sticky with blood.

"Jesus," said Trekker. "I wish you'd have dared take a swing at he."

"Um...Hicks knows what Bezant is like. That means he wants to find out how much I can take. If I crack, and end up in a brawl with the beachmaster, I'll never be Hicks' agent."

Trekker's mouth fell open; then he rolled his eyes and said with callous glee, "Eighth wonder o' the world - a tubman not scared o' Jack Bezant. This'll be a bloody enlivening winter, Aristo. You need a jerkin that be leather, not cloth. Want to borrow one?"

"Please. And, ER, Trekker.... Who'll be Master of Bold Intent, when Gaspard Vaillant quits the Trade? One of the other skippers?"

"So 'tis whispered. Gospel Deacon. Why?"

That'll leave the skipper's berth vacant aboard Marshlight. I'm being taught navigation, and other things that agents and ordinary seamen wouldn't need. She's not a big vessel. Crew of - what? Ten? Would Hicks hire a youngster for the job, if I'd gained enough experience by then?"

"There ain't never yet been an agent, who weren't a skipper too."

Tom smiled slowly, and stood rather more upright, "Well, thank God for that," he said.

"Riddles afore sunrise, Aristo, be unsociable things."

"Bezant can't afford to have an enemy among the skippers. He needs their cooperation too badly. So when he's made life unpleasant for a while, and I've shown no signs of ducking out of the Trade, he'll have to swallow his fury and made amends. In other words, he won't risk doing anything much worse than tonight's little effort, even if he's ninety-nine percent sure of breaking me..... because if by some tiny chance I'm not the type to give in to bullying, then maybe I'm not the type to forgive and forget."

Trekker stared, laughed, spun on his heel, and vaulted to the top of the garden wall. He stood up, a small black figure against the brightening eastern sky; and his soggy cap, flung with vigour, sailed in a high, triumphant arc over the Fordyces' lawns.

"Poor old Bezant." He grinned down at Tom. "First time I ever felt sorry for the bastard."

Part 2, The Venturer's Agent, Chapter 3

Click here to
download SEO Elite!
the Search Engine
Optimiser
we would recommend

Discover this Incredible Secret System To Making Money Online Within 10 Days!