The Wreck Read online

  Manchester. She paused. The ship was bustling, all right, as people and cargo were being loaded. She was about to approach the gang-board, to take a chance, when she noticed that some passengers were not of the paying kind. About twenty of the men were dressed in filthy canvas, probably given to them when they were sentenced to transportation. They had clearly been on road gangs while awaiting exile; their legs were ironed, their hands manacled. They kept their heads bent as they shuffled up the gang-board, an overseer screeching orders behind them.

  Surely this wasn’t the right ship. Maybe there was just enough time to press on further.

  Her determination was rewarded. A few moments later, she saw the hull of a ship with its name painted in gold: Serpent. Beside it, unadorned but visible, was a drawing of a snake eating its own tail.

  The hull swept down in a graceful curve, above hatches that were closed. No light could be seen leaking out from any of them. The three masts, without sails for now, looked like dead trees in what was left of the daylight.

  The gang-board was down but so was the anchor. Perhaps the captain was not planning to depart tonight.

  A few sailors were scurrying about the deck. ‘Oi!’ she yelled to them in her best approximation of male aggression, delivered in a higher pitch than she would have liked.

  The sailors stopped, staring at her.

  ‘I want to see the captain!’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t want to see you,’ one of them called back.

  ‘He will! I’ve a message for him – from some friends.’

  The sailors looked at each other, then one of them shrugged and called towards the bridge. ‘Lad here to see you! We’ll send him on his way, shall we?’

  ‘Not just yet,’ a deep voice called back. ‘I am expecting a message. I’ll see what he has to say for himself.’

  The sailor jerked his head at her to come up, and she was at the top of the gang-board within seconds.

  The man who now approached her wore the standard uniform of a merchant captain: a high-necked blue jacket with gilded buttons at intervals, stitched in gold. It was either new or meticulously maintained, the buttons shining and spotless to match the gold buckles on his shoes. She observed that the jackets of the other crew were already speckled with salt or soot.

  The captain had not, though, taken nearly as much care with his hair. The wearer of such a jacket would normally have a black satin bow at the nape of his neck, his hair straggling down his back in a constrained tail, whereas this man’s black mop was unbound and unruly, being whipped into an untameable state by the wind. He ran a hand through it as he narrowed his eyes at her. ‘A lad, you say. Come on then . . . boy.’ He raked his eyes up and down Sarah’s body, a small smirk on his face. ‘You may deliver your message in my cabin.’

  The last thing she wanted to do was follow such a man. Everything about him, from the way he stood to the way he looked at her, screamed of arrogance. Still, there was no one else to help her, so she followed him through a low doorway into a room half the height but otherwise nearly the size of her family home in Manchester. In the centre was a green baize table littered with charts and nautical instruments that would surely find themselves on the floor at the first nudge of a wave.

  The captain sat down at one end of the table, then gestured for her to do likewise at the other. ‘So . . . you’re someone’s daughter? Wife?’

  ‘Sister.’

  ‘I see. When no one arrived, I had hoped . . .’

  ‘You had hoped?’ she asked when he didn’t continue. How could she be certain of his sympathies, or his intentions?

  He seemed to be having similar reservations. ‘I had hoped to get on with my work without the intrusion of a girl dressed as a boy. The least you can do is tell me who you are.’

  ‘Sarah McCaffrey. Sister to Samuel.’

  ‘Not a name I have heard. And do you have a message for me?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘I was told to come to you. For passage.’

  ‘Well, you will have to wait, as we are not sailing for a week or so. And when we do, all of our cabins will be full. But even if they were not, it doesn’t look as though you have adequate funds to pay the passage between here and the estuary, let alone the vast distance we will be travelling.’

  ‘I am hoping that the unique currency I carry will change your mind.’ She took the ivory token from her pocket and held it out between her fingers, feeling the engraved snake; hesitant, almost, to hand it over. It had carried her here, bringing her to what might be her only chance to survive and rescue the others, so perhaps she owed it protection. Still, she laid it on the table.

  The captain gave her a shrewd look.

  She tried to stop herself squirming in her seat like a young girl who hadn’t finished her darning. He was surely aware of the symbol’s significance, but she did not find that comforting. Was he assessing her, trying to decide whether she had come by the token honestly? Or he might be considering whether to turn her in.

  ‘Do you know its import?’ he asked.

  ‘I was told it might be worth something, on the right ship.’

  ‘An ouroboros,’ he said, as though she had asked him to explain it. He stood and began to pace around the cabin. ‘A serpent eating its own tail. Destruction, leading to renewal.’ He put both of his hands on the table, looming over her. ‘The fact that you brought it here leads me to believe that there has been destruction but precious little renewal.’ When she stayed silent, he sighed and went to the cabin door. ‘Stay here,’ he said as he went through it. After he closed it behind him, she heard the click of the lock.

  *

  There had been no lamps burning in the cabin when she entered. As night fell, the corners of the room disappeared. Were it not for the full moon, she doubted she could have seen anything at all; as it was, she feared tripping over an unseen obstacle as she paced the room.

  Sam was surely still alive. They would want a show trial, no doubt, to ram home the cost of rebellion. She had no illusions about what would happen to him after that – after the judge had made disapproving noises, had told him that he was a traitor to a king whose people were left to starve while he fed leftover venison to his dogs.

  She had not prayed since her parents’ deaths. Prayer seemed worse than useless to her now, because it tricked her, despite herself, into believing a splinter of hope existed. Still, she breathed out a benediction, hoping the wind would carry it to the cell where Henry and Sam now rested. She tried not to cry – the captain could be back at any moment, and she did not want to show weakness. But tears flowed onto her cheeks anyway, so she pressed her hands against her eyes until exhaustion overtook her and she laid her head on her arms.

  Then someone was shaking her, dragging her into consciousness. She sat up and looked around, disoriented, expecting to see the chinks in the stable roof that let moonlight through.

  Lamps had been lit, and their low light brought the cabin back into existence for her.

  She stared at the captain, open mouthed, feeling saliva pool behind her teeth and knowing it would dribble out if she didn’t swallow.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘Well . . .’ She stood and walked around the table to clear the fog of sleep, and the shock of waking to a world she didn’t recognise. ‘I don’t know. I do not even know your name. Perhaps if you felt able to answer some questions, I’d be able to leave you in peace.’

  The captain sighed. ‘I’ll answer the first question for you, at least. Captain Alistair Watkins.’ He made a bow so perfunctory it was almost insulting. ‘And now I have a question for you. Do you know why I locked you in here? Government spies are breeding like lice at the moment – London is crawling with them. I did not know who would come to me bearing such a token, but I had expected it to be a man.’

  ‘I am sorry to disappoint you.’

  ‘Are you, though? Or are you looking forward to disappointing me very
much, perhaps by ensuring my arrest? I have just been to meet some friends, you see. The city is buzzing with rumours. Your – brother, was it? – and the others, it is said, were the victims of a police informant.’

  Sarah’s queasiness had nothing to do with the gentle rocking of the ship on its anchor. And it wasn’t disbelief. It was a chime within her, the instinct he was telling the truth – and that he was right. ‘Are there . . . Were any names mentioned?’

  ‘No. Everyone is always very discreet, although your friends were not discreet enough. If they were your friends.’

  ‘What, you think it was me?’

  ‘If it was, I can simply nudge you overboard and deny any knowledge.’ His smile was friendly enough, although the smell from some of his more decayed teeth made her wish he would close his mouth. He patted her hand, for all the world as though he hadn’t just threatened to murder her. ‘Still, you may be who you claim to be. Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?’

  She informed him of almost everything; she stopped short of mentioning the planned beheadings in case his concern about her credentials was a mask for his own duplicity. And she did not tell him of the deaths that had propelled her from Manchester to London – that information needed to be earned.

  After she had finished he was silent, scratching at the stubble on his chin.

  ‘Do you not believe me?’ she said.

  ‘If it is a lie,’ he said, ‘it’s one of the more imaginative ones I’ve ever heard. Have you any idea who betrayed you?’

  She would not look the possibility of treachery in the face. She couldn’t, not now. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t a betrayal – perhaps it was just a mistake. Maybe we weren’t careful enough.’

  ‘Oh, it was a betrayal. Not that they are likely to make the man’s name public. They will guard it closely, for his protection and to preserve his usefulness.’ Watkins clapped his hands together. ‘Very well. I choose to believe you – for now. You know what will happen if you give me cause to change my mind. You may hide here until we’re ready to set sail, then we’ll see what’s to be done. We will have to sort out some clothes for you. Oh, and your surname – you share it with your brother?’

  Sarah nodded.

  ‘It will have to be changed then. What shall we call you?’

  There was something else in her pocket; she reached in and felt the little lead figure Henry had given her, the sailor who might soon be going to sea for the first time.

  ‘Marin,’ she said. ‘Sarah Marin.’

  Watkins bowed to her again, this one formal and polite. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Miss Marin.’

  CHAPTER 9

  Watkins had sloshed some rum into a battered tin cup, sat and tipped his head back, pouring most of the liquid into his mouth, then held the cup out to her, an offer she declined.

  ‘If they’re looking for a boy tonight,’ said Watkins, ‘you’d best dress as a woman as soon as you can.’ He rummaged around in his cabin and extracted an old dress from a sea chest. God knew what it was doing in there. Faded blue flowers were printed on the kind of fine cotton her pa used to weave. When Sarah pulled it on over her breeches and shirt, she found it had been made for a woman blessed with more abundant food than she had been. ‘I will send for the first mate, Mr Coombes,’ Watkins said. ‘He will go ashore for needle and thread.’ The captain then handed her a yellowed lace cap from the bottom of the chest. ‘Tuck your hair into this. They might already be looking for a woman of your description, if their informant told them of your involvement, and your hair is your most memorable feature.’

  He brought her out of his cabin and down a ladder, past a low-ceilinged room in which hammocks were strung, and then down again through the hold, empty but barred – maybe, she thought, to stop the crew helping themselves to the cargo – and through a small door nearby to a storeroom. The musty space was half filled with barrels and crates, some of which emitted the pleasant scent of tea while others oozed the odour of pork that had not been on the trotter for some time.

  ‘This won’t do for long,’ Watkins said, ‘as we’ll be loading more. But it’ll do for now. Mr Coombes will bring you down a hammock to rig up. He is, shall we say, sympathetic.’

  ‘Very well, I will stay here until you depart,’ she said. ‘Before you set sail – my brother, the others – isn’t there something we can do for them? There must be some way . . .’

  Watkins was shaking his head. ‘They’re not in a country house, I can assure you.’ He sighed. ‘All right. I’ll go ashore tomorrow to see what I can find out. But I fear your brother is as lost to you now as he would be on the other side of the world.’

  ‘The other side of the world?’

  ‘That’s where we are sailing. New South Wales.’

  *

  She paced around the hold after he left, looking at the words on the crates and barrels without seeing them.

  The hatch opened again, but the man who came down the ladder was smaller and thinner than Watkins. There was a stoop to him that hadn’t been caused by age, as the hair on his head was more blond than grey. His posture was that of somebody engaged in daily manual labour since their early years.

  This sailor lacked the opulent flourishes of his captain. His shoes did not have buckles, and his breeches and stockings were darned, as was the waistcoat over his shirt with its neckerchief. Still, everything looked clean; he was surely a fastidious sort. Slung over his shoulder was a large bundle of canvas, which he toppled so it landed with a thud on the floor between them. Then he turned to leave.

  ‘Wait!’ said Sarah. ‘You are Mr Coombes, the mate? I am Sarah Mc . . . Sarah Marin.’

  ‘I know who you are. And whatever Watkins says, you make a fairly convincing boy.’

  ‘I’ll look less like one when I’m able to take in the dress the captain gave me. He said you would fetch a needle and thread?’

  ‘Ah, the captain said that, did he? And, of course, I’ve nothing else to do, what with getting the ship ready to sail – not long now. Of course, milady, I’d be delighted to run into town for you. Would milady fancy anything else? Ostrich feathers, perhaps?’

  Her face burned. ‘Captain Watkins said you knew . . . you understood . . .’

  ‘Well, I know why you are here. And you expect me to thank you, perhaps, for your sacrifice, or your bravery? Little girls playing at soldiers get people killed. But you’ll have your bloody thread.’ He started towards the door, then stopped and put a finger to his lips.

  She could hear many footsteps up on the deck, the footfalls vibrating down through the timbers, each thump louder and closer than the one before. Abruptly they all went still, before muffled male voices floated down through the timbers.

  Coombes nodded towards the dress lying on top of a crate. Sarah nodded, picked it up, and drew a circle in the air to ask Coombes to turn his back. He rolled his eyes but did so. She took off Sam’s shirt and threw the dress on over her breeches. It was ridiculously large, billowing from the shoulders down to the hem. Then she tucked her hair into the musty lace cap.

  ‘That’s thief-takers up there,’ Coombes said. ‘The Bow Street Runners. Too many of them to be anything else.’

  The footsteps were audible again, coming closer. Coombes stepped through the small door connecting the storeroom to the hold, positioning himself in the middle of the empty space. Sarah glimpsed her shirt on the ground, picked it up and flicked it behind a barrel.

  Watkins came down the stairs into the hold, followed by five men in tall hats and long black jackets with silver buttons down the front and on their cuffs.

  Her best hope was that they were still looking for a boy.

  Watkins glared at Sarah and pulled back his shoulders in what was perhaps a slightly overdone gesture of frustration. ‘That’s the second time I’ve found you down here disporting yourself with the crew, you strumpet!’ he snapped. ‘Back to the galley, now!’ He looked at Coombes. ‘I’d have expected more of you, Mr Coombes.
See it does not occur again.’

  ‘Yes, captain, although the temptation is difficult to resist.’

  Watkins gave a small, almost imperceptible quirk of his mouth. ‘Back to it, both of you.’

  ‘Yes, captain,’ Sarah said and scrambled up the ladder, hoping she looked as though she was going straight to the galley, although she didn’t have any idea where it was.

  As soon as she and Coombes were out of sight of the open hatch, Sarah whacked him on the arm. ‘Difficult to resist, am I?’

  ‘I did just save your life.’

  She chuckled. ‘You did, and I thank you.’

  To her surprise, he smiled back, the creaking movement of a mouth out of practice. ‘I hope you’re worth all of this trouble.’

  *

  In the following week, Sarah fell into a routine of sorts. She would mend and wash clothes, patch sails, peel potatoes, and do whatever other chores were asked of her.

  As she worked, she found herself picking at the corners of the idea of Sam’s death as though poking a loose tooth with her tongue. She was desperate to see him – and she would not let herself presume that this could only take place at his execution.

  Each afternoon, as soon as she had a spare moment and was unobserved, she would sidle off the ship and walk to Newgate Prison. Watkins had told her that her brother and the others were being held there, charged with high treason. She would pace around the walls, looking for vulnerabilities that she knew, deep down, did not exist.

  The walls were angular and unadorned, with sparsely placed blank windows except in the peaked central section that had several arched apertures, none of which admitted any light. Some of the windows seemed almost as large as the doors set into the central edifice. Occasionally there were constables in front of those doors, although the walls seemed thick enough to withstand a cannon blast. She tried not to walk past them too often, moving in step with one of the many others who paced outside the prison, or behind a slow-moving cart. She was hoping to overhear snatches of conversation about the conspirators, or to catch a glimpse of Sam or Henry – even the faces of Briardown, Tully and Tourville would have been welcome.