Ted stood pondering at the side of the narrow waterway. He had been directed there by a man in the street whom he’d asked the nearest way to the docks.
‘What kind o’ ship do you want, lad? Cargo ship, whaling ship, fishing smack, barge, ferryboat?’
‘Erm.’ He’d hesitated. ‘One that sails to foreign countries.’
‘What sort o’ country?’ The man started to grin, which had irritated Ted. ‘A cold country like ’Arctic? Sweden? Plenty o’ ships going to ’Baltic.’
‘Yeh,’ Ted nodded, anxious to be rid of him. ‘Them countries. Where will ’ships going there be docked?’
The man directed him to the Old Harbour. ‘You’ll find plenty o’ ships in ’Old Harbour, but whether you’ll get work is a different matter. If there’s nowt doing there then go to ’New Dock.’
There were dozens of ships; keels, cutters and barges, packed so tightly that Ted wondered how they would ever get out and make their way to the Humber. But they’re not ocean-going, he thought. Most of these are river and canal boats, and although he didn’t want to go to the frozen wastes of the Arctic and, he considered, was unlikely to be taken on for a whaling voyage without seagoing experience, neither did he want to sail only in inland waters.
Nor did he want to go fishing; the cold dark waters of the German Ocean he knew to be dangerous to those who didn’t know its moods.
A merchant ship, he thought. One that takes merchandise to other countries and brings goods back from theirs. That would be all right.
Ted was in blissful ignorance of the world at large as he stood there dithering. He was a country lad whose world had been bounded by his surroundings and the seasons of the year. Spring was when the cowslips came up, and sticklebacks, minnows and frogspawn appeared in the pools and ponds, and it was time for planting out the new season’s vegetables or digging up the first new potatoes. Summer was when white blossom speckled the rich green of the hedgerows, and he woke every morning to trilling birdsong and the sight of young corn swaying in the fields, growing faster and more golden as the weather grew warmer. Then there was autumn and harvest time, with the smoky aroma of fires and the wheeling swallows practising for their departure, and a few weeks later the rushing sound of birds’ wings as the early geese, fieldfares, snipe and the rest flew in across the sea towards the feeding grounds of the Humber. Then came winter when the cold nipped cheeks and noses and the ground was too hard to dig, and wood had to be fetched in for the fires.
Ted could read for his mother had taught him, though he had spent little time at school, preferring to skive off and spend his days out of doors; but he had no interest in books or newspapers and so he had missed the talk of foreign revolution and the social struggle between liberal bourgeois and radical republicans. Had he been older he might, in a local hostelry over a glass of ale, have discussed with other men the tales of great unrest in central Europe.
He might have heard tell of the conflicts in France, Germany, Hungary, Austria and Italy, countries which were all confronted by political problems. Hungary’s relations with the Serbians and Croatians were at their lowest point. Austria was at odds with Northern Italy. The previous year Franz Joseph of Austria had appealed for help to the Russian Tsar Nicholas I but the tsar was fearful that the revolution would spread to Russia. Fighting raged between France and Italy and Garibaldi’s troops were driven away. And as Ted stood debating his choices, France was introducing freedom of religious education, and there were ominous rumblings of nervousness, disquiet and discontent.
I’ll walk round to the New Dock, he thought. There’ll mebbe be bigger ships there. A harsh voice called to him. ‘Oy! Catch, will ya?’ A rope came whistling towards him from the deck of a barge and instinctively he put up his hand and caught it.
‘Fasten it round that bollard,’ a seaman on board called to him. ‘Make it fast till I get there.’
He did as he was asked; how to make a clove hitch was one of the first things he had been taught when he started work on a farm. He secured it firmly. The seaman jumped from the deck to the dock. ‘Thanks, lad,’ he said. ‘Well done. Are you an apprentice?’
‘I’m – I’m not!’ Ted stammered. ‘I’ve come looking for work.’
‘Oh, yeh? Been sailing afore?’
Ted shook his head. ‘Onny pottering about. But I’m willing to learn.’
The man surveyed him. ‘You can come wi’ me to Driffield, if you like. My crewman’s broke his arm and I need some help wi’ hauling. What do you say?’
‘Driffield!’ It wasn’t what he had in mind. He’d been thinking more of a trip abroad. ‘I don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘I was thinking of summat bigger.’ This was a Humber keel, a flat-bottomed goods carrier, built for shallow river beds and canals, though he had seen them hugging the coastline close to Seathorne.
‘She’s big enough,’ the skipper told him. ‘And fast when ’wind is right. She’s sailed up ’Aire canal, Sheffield, up ’Trent and ’Ouse. And ’Humber. She can do all of them even if she is an owd lass. So make up your mind. I’m sailing as soon as I get a lad.’
‘I’ll come,’ Ted said swiftly. ‘I’ve nowt to stop me. What ’you carrying?’
‘Coal. We’ve to collect it, get it weighed and then we’re off. Are you a country lad?’ The skipper’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t sound like Hull.’
‘Yeh,’ Ted admitted, ‘I am. I wanted a change of occupation. There’s nowt much doing on ’land at ’minute.’
‘What? This time o’ year? I’d have thought there was plenty of work about.’ He eyed him up. ‘Not in trouble, are you? I’ll not have you if you are. I’ve enough to do wi’out ’constables climbing all over me.’
‘No. No,’ Ted said hastily. ‘It’s just that I’ve got nobody, so I can please myself what I do.’ It feels like I’ve got nobody, he thought, so it’s not really a lie.
The skipper nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Go stow your gear and we’ll be off. You’ll find Bob, me mate, below. He’ll show you what to do.’
Ted had no gear, only his blanket, which he slung over his shoulder as he climbed down through the hatch. The mate Bob had his arm in a sling and was drinking a mug of tea. ‘Who are you, then?’ he said brusquely.
‘Erm, Ted Maddeson. I’m coming to Driffield wi’ you.’
‘Are you? Have you sailed afore?’
Ted shook his head. ‘No. But I was looking for a job.’
‘You’ll not last ’week out,’ Bob grumbled. ‘Why’s he tekken on somebody who knows nowt.’
‘Because.’ The skipper slid down the steps making the space below very crowded. ‘I want to be off and I won’t be able to tek on a regular lad. Can’t afford it for one thing, unless you’re thinking of retiring,’ he added sarcastically.
‘Does that mean I’m onny doing this one trip?’ Ted asked boldly. ‘You won’t just drop me off in Driffield, will you?’
‘No. You can do ’return trip with us, but I onny want somebody to tide me over till Bob’s arm’s in use again.’
‘Will I get wages?’
‘Aye, some, but you’ll get food and lodgings on board so you won’t earn much. Are you coming or not?’
Ted shrugged. ‘Might as well, I suppose. I’ve nivver been to Driffield.’
Bob laughed. ‘You’ll not have time to see ’sights,’ he said. ‘We’ll unload, load up and be back again.’
‘What, in ’same day?’ Ted was astonished.
‘No, you daft lump! As long as it teks. Might be three days, might be three weeks. Depends on wind and how good you are at hauling. But we’ll mek time for a glass or two whilst we’re there. How old are you?’
‘Thirteen,’ he said, and then wished he’d said older.
But the skipper, who said to call him Ken, nodded and said, ‘Old enough.’
The next morning Ted stood on deck, his hands in his pockets, whistling softly. He had been first up and had brewed a pot of tea for the men. They had set sail last evening after loading up with coal and were now on their journey towards River Head at Driffield where they would unload, swill down and pick up a return cargo. It was a beautiful morning and he mused that this was just about as good as living in the country. On each side of the bank contented cows had their heads down in the meadow grass and he gave a fleeting thought to their cow at Seathorne and hoped that John Ward had milked her.
He had been dead tired last night after the journey into Hull and the work on board as he’d helped to load the coal, and he was asleep in minutes as the motion of the keel – Daisy, it was named, the same as his sister – rocked and soothed him. He was awakened by the honking of geese and for a second he didn’t know where he was. The guilt of Billy Fowler’s accident was fading, and as he gazed out along the waterway he thought that this was possibly a good kind of life, although not as adventurous as he might have wished for. Bob had said he would show him how to operate the locks when they reached the Driffield canal and the skipper had told him he’d teach him how to handle the sails.
He looked up as a flock of wigeon flew over. The sky was a brilliant blue with only a scattering of soft white clouds; a family of moorhens were busying themselves in a nest by the bank, half hidden by a drooping willow whose branches touched the water, and as he watched a bevy of ducks up-ended and dipped their heads. He gave a deep sigh. Yes, all in all, he thought, I reckon I made a good decision. For ’time being anyway.
John Ward did as he said he would and rode into Withernsea to report a missing woman and her daughter. ‘I don’t trust yon fellow,’ he’d whispered to his wife outside the door. ‘There’s summat not quite right.’
Billy Fowler was sitting by the fire wrapped in the blanket whilst his clothes steamed on a wooden horse. His head was sunk on his chest and he seemed to have fallen asleep.
‘Will you be all right on your own wi’ him?’ John Ward asked his wife. ‘It shouldn’t tek me all that long to find ’constable and he can mek ’decision over what to do.’
‘I’ll get me rolling pin out,’ she’d said in a low voice. ‘But he’ll not try owt; he asked to stop here for ’night, didn’t he? He’s nowhere else to go.’
Ward notified the constable and told him of his suspicions. ‘House has gone ower ’cliff,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know for sure if his missis and bairn were in it. I’ve not seen ’em about for a day or two.’
‘Well, what ’you telling me?’ The constable was peeved at having his evening disturbed. ‘Have they or not?’
‘Well, Fowler says they have. He said they were in ’house wi’ him.’ He shook his head. ‘But his story’s all wrong. He said as lad were there as well, but I saw him ride off on ’hoss.’
‘Well, mebbe he came back,’ the constable said irritably. ‘You weren’t watching all ’time, were you?’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I wasn’t.’
‘So why isn’t Fowler reporting this incident? Why’s he sent you?’
‘He didn’t send me,’ Ward answered sharply. ‘That’s just it. He didn’t want me to do owt. He just said they were drowned.’
‘All right,’ the officer said reluctantly. ‘I’ll have to ride down to Spurn to notify ’Humber lifeboat men and tell ’em to look for two bodies. Can’t think they’ll put off tonight, though, and in any case if they are in ’sea it’ll be too late to do owt for ’em.’
John Ward gave an exasperated grunt. The constable wasn’t getting the point. Mrs Fowler and her daughter were not drowned. They were missing, it was true, but he was convinced that harm had come to them at Fowler’s own hands.
The next morning Billy Fowler dressed in his dry clothes and prepared to walk into Withernsea. He’d breakfasted on porridge and a slice of bread. He’d hoped for a rasher of bacon but Mrs Ward wasn’t offering any. ‘Mr Ward has summat a bit later,’ she said, answering Billy’s hints, ‘after he’s finished wi’ ’animals. But you’ll not want to stop that long, will you? You’ll be off to mek enquiries about Mrs Fowler and her bairn. It’s a mystery about ’lad, though, isn’t it? You’d wonder where he was off to at that time o’ day, ’specially when it was so wet.’
‘They’re a law to themselves,’ Billy muttered as he put on his jacket. ‘But where’s my hoss? That’s what I’d like to know.’
Mrs Ward related this to her husband when he came in later, after Fowler had gone. ‘He wanted to know where his owd hoss was,’ she said. ‘He didn’t seem that bothered about his poor wife and ’bairns.’
‘There you are then,’ he answered. ‘Isn’t that what I said? I reckon that lad was leaving home, or,’ he nodded significantly, ‘he was going off looking for his ma.’
Fowler searched out the parish clerk. ‘I’m homeless,’ he said pitifully. ‘My lovely little house has gone ower cliff, aye and my wife and daughter wi’ it.’ He decided not to mention Ted, as John Ward had spoilt that part of his story, and in any case he reckoned that the boy had scarpered when he saw him go over the side. ‘I’m a poor widower. Everything I owned has gone.’
‘That’s terrible,’ the clerk said. ‘Is somebody looking for ’bodies?’
‘Oh, aye.’ He nodded. ‘Humber lifeboat’s been notified.’ Then he shook his head sorrowfully and wiped his eye. ‘But they’ll nivver find ’em.’