WE ROWED OUT TOWARDS THE ADVENTURE. SHE WAS A HANDSOME enough ship, I suppose, every part of her built for speed: the hungry bowsprit reaching forward over the water; the single line of her low deck, unbroken by any forecastle or poop; the high masts and the long, lean hull. Even the windows of the stern cabin raked aftwards, as though blown back by her momentum. Yet her pace was not without its costs. In a fight, the hull would prove little better than blotting paper, and her dainty spars would snap like twigs.
The jollyboat knocked against Adventure’s side and I stood up. I could almost look straight on to her deck, so low did she sit, and it took only a few steps to climb the ladder. It was strange to come aboard with so little ceremony, no bosun’s call or mustered hands; the busy work on deck continued oblivious to my arrival.
At last, a stolid man in a blue coat crossed to greet me. By his dress, and the confidence of command he exuded, I guessed him to be the captain.
‘Captain Trevelyan,’ he said curtly. ‘You are one of the passengers?’
I nodded.
‘Well, which are you? Jerrold or Beauchamp?’
The sound of Beauchamp’s name unnerved me a moment, and I was slow to respond. ‘Jer … Jerrold.’ Then, as an afterthought: ‘I saw Lieutenant Beauchamp before I departed, and he informed me he would not be making the voyage.’
The captain shrugged. ‘In any event, he has missed his opportunity.’
Even as he spoke, I heard the anchor chain rattling through the hawseholes. The jaunty notes of the capstan fiddler died away, and the hands ran aft to the halyards. To my eye, she seemed woefully undermanned: she was twice the size of the cutter I had served on in Dover, and supported three masts in place of the cutter’s one, but carried only half the crew. If it came to a fight they would be hard pressed to man both guns and sails – though looking at her armament, a meagre five six-pounders prettily arrayed along each side, they would have little hope anyway.
Perhaps aware of her precarious defence, and no doubt inspired by the Post Office’s punctual zeal, her crew were at least prompt. The anchor was not yet on the cathead, and the baggage from the jollyboat had barely touched the deck, but already the ship hummed to the sounds of yards rumbling up the mast, of canvas snapping in the wind as the men sheeted it home. At the foot of the mainmast, the black portmanteaus were lined up like fat-bellied sows, bulging against one another. The bag which had accompanied me in the jollyboat had been opened, and I saw a sailor place what appeared to be two iron ingots inside before fastening it shut again.
‘In case we’re taken,’ said the captain, following my puzzled gaze. ‘Better to sink the mails than see them fall into French hands.’
I hoped the same practice did not apply to the passengers. But I had no time to enquire, for Captain Trevelyan was immediately summoned by the business of putting to sea, and our conversation ended. It was a queer feeling to be aboard a ship getting under way and yet have no part in it: despite all the hours in my life spent on deck wishing myself in my cot, there was something disquieting in the indolence now I had achieved it. Doubtless a few storms and midnight calls for all hands would cure me of that.
With nothing to keep me on deck, I resolved to examine my new quarters and meet my travelling companions – the golden-haired girl from the quay among them, I hoped. I was sure I had seen her being rowed out to the ship, but thus far there was no sign of her.
Wherever she might be, there was little hope of finding her in the murk below decks. Beyond the companionway, a thin door led aft to a narrow mess room, perhaps twenty feet long and half as wide, most of it occupied by a table and two benches. It was hard to see more, for the only light came from a feeble, grimy skylight, but there seemed to be half a dozen doors leading off the central saloon. The cabins, I presumed, wondering which was to be mine.
Even with feet thudding above, and the hull straining all about, the squawk of hinges was loud in those confines. I jerked up, and promptly bent over in pain as I crowned myself on the damnably low ceiling. Straightening, I saw that a gloomy figure dressed in black had stepped from an adjacent door in the bulwark, one I had not seen from the other side. His skin must have been pale indeed, for it seemed to trap whatever light was in the room and reflect it back. I could not see his eyes, which were sunk like two craters, but there was a stoop in his back which betold long ages below deck.
‘Welcome aboard, sir.’ His voice was faint; unaccountably, it filled my head with thoughts of scuttling spiders.
‘Who are you?’ I demanded.
‘Fothergill, sir. Servant to the mess room.’
He did not strike me as a servant, for all that he seemed to be perpetually shying away. If anything, he seemed more like a clergyman fallen below his station, but I did not enquire.
‘You are Lieutenant Beauchamp, sir?’
‘Jerrold,’ I said, more shortly than was polite.
‘We were expecting Lieutenant Beauchamp.’
‘Lieutenant Beauchamp was detained ashore.’
He tipped his head back a little, as if watching me through narrowed eyes, though of course I could not see them. ‘Indeed, sir?’
Barely an hour earlier I had helped Nevell bludgeon and rob the unsuspecting lieutenant; my conscience was not yet steeled to discuss his whereabouts, least of all with this funereal steward. At least, I suppose, the darkness masked the guilt on my face.
‘I should be grateful if you would show me to my berth.’
Fothergill bowed, and shuffled forward to the second door on my left. ‘Middle starboard cabin, sir.’
I followed him and peered in. All the walls were painted white, but the effect was more sepulchral than comforting, for the gloom within was even more pronounced than in the mess room. There was no window or scuttle, but perhaps that was as well, for I could hear the sea sluicing and gurgling against the hull a few inches away. On an even keel the deck would barely protrude above the water; heeling over in a larboard wind, with the seas up, we would be quite submerged.
As my eyes comprehended the darkness, I took in the hutch that was to be my living for the next six weeks or more. Instantly, the prospects for the voyage diminished. A single bed spanned the compartment’s entire width, though even that was too short for me to lie straight – as many restless nights subsequently attested. Otherwise, there was barely space to stand, and that small area was cluttered with a washstand and my chest, which one of the crew must have brought down. Even the prisoners on a Medway hulk hardly endured such wretched confinement.
‘Shall I leave you to make yourself comfortable, sir?’ enquired Fothergill, hovering like a moth at my elbow.
‘Thank you.’
I sank onto the bed, leaving the door open so that I would not be in complete darkness. After three days sitting in the tavern, more had happened in the past three hours than I could rightly take in. Beyond the wooden walls of my solitude, the Adventure would be gathering speed, her canvas gilded by the late-afternoon light; she would slip between the twin fortresses of St Mawes and Pendennis and come about, tacking hard as she escaped the lee of the land and felt the brunt of the west wind. And I would accompany her, loaded in her hold like so much cargo, because of Nevell’s infernal package.
I patted my coat, and felt the bulk still there where I had concealed it. That was reassuring – though also disquieting. I would have to find some place to secrete it, for it was too big to keep about my person through the whole voyage. Unhopefully, I looked about my cabin. There was the mattress, but having seen all the devices which sealed the package, I feared to lie on it lest I crack the wax or injure the contents. My trunk was hardly inconspicuous, and the matchwood partition-walls were barely thicker than my finger. I did not care to start prying open the hull. I slid off the bed and knelt down, working at the decking to see if any planks could be prised loose.
‘Hah.’ I had not seen it before, but now, kneeling beside it, I noticed a small drawer set into the panel of the bedstead. Shuffling back, I tugged it forward until it came free of the bed. As I had hoped, it was shorter than the width of the bed, yet the housing reached all the way to the hull. With a furtive glance into the mess room lest anyone witness me, I took the package and slid it to the back of the hole. It fitted perfectly, and when I replaced the drawer and pushed it in, it closed as snug as before.
I stood up, much relieved, and looked in admiration on my invisible handiwork. The package could stay there all the way to New York, and I need not be forever peering over my shoulder in fear for my burden. All it needed was a few stockings in the drawer to complete the façade of innocence.
I bent down to my trunk, unlatched it, and lifted the lid. There were no stockings, nor any of the clothes I had packed in it that morning; instead, to my amazement, all had been replaced by a squat cask whose dimensions fitted the trunk’s interior perfectly. I leaned over, and through the seams in the staves sniffed the familiar siren-scent of brandy.
For a moment I was still, quite bewildered; then I strode to the door and craned my head into the mess room.
‘Fothergill,’ I bellowed. ‘Fothergill!’
A dark figure rose from my left, a cloud of white ash billowing around him. He must have been cleaning the stove.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘A damnable thing has happened. All my effects have been removed from my chest, and replaced with a cask of brandy. Can you explain it?’
Fothergill nodded gravely. ‘It sometimes happens, sir.’
‘That is not an explanation. Where – where are my clothes?’ Thank God, I thought, that I had not entrusted Nevell’s package to the trunk.
‘They’ll turn up shortly, sir, I shouldn’t wonder.’
And without so much as a word of apology, Fothergill retreated back to the stove. I had half a mind to take him by the ear and thrash him, though of course I was too craven to attempt it. Instead, I resolved to bring the matter before Captain Trevelyan. I pushed past Fothergill through the aft door, and immediately found myself in a narrow passage with a twisting stair rising to my left. Ahead of me was another door, doubtless to the captain’s day cabin. I gave it an angry rap, and was sufficiently vexed that I did not notice the voice which summoned me but charged in like a hussar. And stopped short.
In a ship-of-the-line, it would have been termed the great cabin; on this slip of a ship, they called it the saloon, though even that exaggerated it. Only a dwarf, or possibly a man who had endured too many hours in the passengers’ quarters, could have deemed it spacious. Nonetheless, it was by some distance the most comfortable berth on the vessel, and it enjoyed the inestimable virtue of a broad row of windows across the stern. After fumbling in the dark so long, my eyes struggled with so much light, but I could make out a plush banquette running the breadth of the ship under the windows, and an elegant occasional table with two high-backed chairs. Two cots were stacked like coffins against the starboard side, doubtless ready to be hung from the hooks in the ceiling at night. And in the middle of the cabin, her white dress almost gossamer with the light behind it, stood a figure who was most assuredly not Captain Trevelyan.
Fortunately, shock forestalled any lascivious thoughts. True, I did gape, but I flatter myself it appeared more natural surprise than lechery.
‘I beg your pardon, madam,’ I mumbled at last.
I had not seen her face on the quay, save in profile; now, my wits returning, I could admire it directly. Her startled cheeks were flushed like berries against the cream of her skin, and there was a girlish pertness in the poise of her nose and chin. My eyes followed her figure down, taking in the slender neck until it vanished into the carelessly disordered bodice of her dress. She had removed her bonnet, and with her golden hair hanging loose to her shoulders she was a study of innocence. Only her eyes seemed misplaced, slightly too narrow when they should have been wide and willing.
‘I was seeking Captain Trevelyan,’ I explained.
‘This is his cabin.’ Like her eyes, her voice did not quite fit the angelic picture: it was sweet and clear, certainly, but flecked with notes of knowledge, of amusement and pleasure. A voice which invited collusion, and offered it.
‘Are you Captain Trevelyan’s …?’ I faltered, unsure what I should suggest.
‘His wife?’ She laughed, and immediately I wanted to hear it again. ‘I am not his wife.’
She let the sentence hang, just long enough for my mind to conjure all manner of disreputable explanations.
‘My father and I are taking passage to America.’ Was it my fancy, or was there a sly rebuke in her tone? ‘Papa is quite married to his comforts. He has hired this cabin from the captain to alleviate the ills of the journey. He says it will be a great deal more convenient than the regular cabins.’
He was right, though he must have paid Trevelyan a handsome price for the privilege. I remembered the great pile of strongboxes I had seen being transferred from the guarded wagon on the quay, and decided he could probably afford it.
Rather later than was polite, I remembered my manners. ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, affecting humility. ‘I had thought to find Captain Trevelyan in here. You must excuse me. It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss …?’
‘Lyell.’ The name slid off her tongue like honey.
‘Lieutenant Martin Jerrold.’
She gave a mock curtsey. ‘Captain Trevelyan gave me to believe he was the only officer aboard the Adventure.’
‘At present, Miss Lyell, I am on leave. From the navy.’
Her eyes widened and she clapped her hands together. ‘The navy? How gallant!’ A frown creased her immaculate brow. ‘Then why …?’
Too late, I realized Nevell had despatched me without any plausible excuse for my errand. Before I could betray myself, however, I was saved by a thumping footfall in the passageway. The door slammed against the bulkhead, and the enormous man I had seen on the quay lumbered into the room. He was speaking to someone behind him, but at the sight of Miss Lyell and me alone in the cabin, he broke his sentence and bellowed, ‘Who the devil are you?’
I have learned from experience that in such situations there is the fact of innocence, and then there is the appearance of innocence. The former was undeniable; the latter, I fear, I rather diminished by my leaping back in fright, knocking into the occasional table and toppling it onto the floor with a crash. The new arrival’s eyes bulged out like sails in a storm – fortunately for me, his corpulence did not permit any hastier movement – while behind him I saw Captain Trevelyan enter.
Mercifully, Miss Lyell kept her senses. ‘This is Lieutenant Jerrold, Papa. He was seeking Captain Trevelyan.’
The fat eyes swivelled towards me. ‘Have you no manners, sir? How dare you presume to thrust yourself uninvited into my daughter’s acquaintance? I had understood from Captain Trevelyan that our fellow passengers were to be gentlemen.’
As he spoke, he had been edging ominously towards me; now Miss Lyell headed him off, sweeping across the cabin and taking his arm. ‘Oh, Papa! Do not be so cruel. We are not in town, here. We are at sea, and we must not be too proud or disdain these men their nautical ways. Why, this dear little boat is so small I collect we shall all be on terms of the greatest intimacy before the voyage is done.’
In all her prattle there had been not a hint of the slyness I had glimpsed earlier, merely simpering innocence. Only in her last words did I sense a subtle thread of suggestion, though perhaps I imagined it. With her monstrous father bearing down on me, I was certainly in no position to consider it.
‘At any rate, what was it you wanted with me?’ Seeing his opportunity, Captain Trevelyan steered the conversation to less contentious grounds.
After so much confusion, I needed a moment to remember. Doubtless that fed Lyell’s suspicion, but at last I recalled: ‘My chest. Some villain has stolen all my effects, and replaced them with a cask of brandy.’
If I had hoped for sympathy in my plight, it was in vain. Miss Lyell giggled, then touched a demure hand to her lips, while her father puffed out a vast sigh of contempt. Trevelyan was more restrained, though there was an open incredulity in the look he gave me. ‘Let us see,’ was all he said.
He followed me back through the narrow passage, leaving Lyell to upbraid his daughter’s immodesty and repair the occasional table. I squeezed into my cabin and dragged the chest to the doorway so it would be in the light.
‘You see,’ I said, flinging open the lid.
Trevelyan peered over my shoulder. Under his gaze, three pairs of stockings, a razor and soap, a flattened hat and a bottle of wine lay innocently on the shirts and breeches folded beneath.
My shoulders, formerly stiff with self-righteous indignation, slumped forward. ‘I … They were not there ten minutes ago,’ I mumbled.
‘It would seem they have returned from their turn about the ship.’ Trevelyan’s voice was cold and derisive. ‘Now, if you have finished wasting my time and bothering my passengers, I will attend to matters of seamanship. Good day.’
As soon as he was gone, I pulled the cork from the bottle and took a consoling draught. I had done it again. There was not a ship I could board, it seemed, as officer or passenger, but that within a few hours her captain would think me an absolute idiot.