BLACK POOL BAY
I shall not describe our passage through the Green Stones to
Kermorvan, but in nightmares it comes back to me. We seemed to wander
in blind avenues, hedged in by seas, and broken water, awful with the
menace of death. For five or six hours we dodged among rocks and
reefs, wet with the spray that broke upon them and sick at heart at
the sight of the whirlpools and eddies. I think that they are called
the Green Stones because the seas break over them in bright green
heaps. Here and there among them the tide seized us and swept us
along, and in the races where this happened there were sucking
whirlpools, strong enough to twist us round. How often we were near
our deaths I cannot think, but time and time again the backwash of a
breaker came over our rail in a green mass. When we sailed into
Kermorvan I was only half conscious from the cold and wet. I just
remember some one helping me up some steps with seaweed on them.
We stayed in Kermorvan for a week or more, waiting for our cargo of
brandy, silk, and tobacco, and for letters and papers addressed to the
French war-prisoners in the huge prison on Dartmoor.
I was very unhappy in Kermorvan, thinking of home. It would have been
less dismal had I had more to do, but I was unoccupied and a prisoner,
in charge of an old French woman, who spoke little English, so that
time passed slowly indeed. At last we set sail up the coast, hugging
the French shore, touching at little ports for more cargo till we came
to Cartaret. Here a French gentleman (he was a military spy) came
aboard us, and then we waited two or three days for a fair wind. At
last the wind drew to the east, and we spread all sail for home on a
wild morning when the fishermen were unable to keep the sea.
At dusk we were so near to home that I could see the Start and the
whole well-known coast from Salcombe to Dartmoor. In fact I had plenty
of time to see it, for we doused our sails several miles out to sea,
and lay tossing in the storm to a sea-anchor, waiting for the short
summer night to fall. When it grew dark enough (of course, in that
time of year, it is never very dark even in a storm) we stole in, mile
by mile, to somewhere off Flushing, where we showed a light. We showed
it three times from the bow, and at the last showing a red light
gleamed from Flushing Church. That was the signal to tell us that all
was safe, so then we sailed into Black Pool Bay, where the breakers
were beating fiercely in trampling ranks.
There were about a dozen men gathered together on the beach. We sailed
right in, till we were within ten yards of the sands, and there we
moored the lugger by the head and stern, so that her freight could be
discharged. The men on the beach waded out through the surf (though it
took them up to the armpits), and the men in the lugger passed the
kegs and boxes to them. Waves which were unusually big would knock
down the men in the water, burden and all, and then there would be
laughter from all hands, and grumbles from the victim. I never saw men
work harder. The freight was all flung out and landed and packed in
half an hour. It passed out in a continual stream from both sides of
the boat; everybody working like a person possessed. And when the
lugger was nearly free of cargo, and the string of workers in the
water was broken on the port side, it occurred to me that I had a
chance of escape. It flashed into my mind that it was dark, that no
one in the lugger was watching me, that the set of the tide would
drive me ashore (I was not a good swimmer, but I knew that in five
yards I should be able to touch bottom), and that in another two
hours, or less, I should be in bed at home, with all my troubles at an
end.
When I thought of escaping, I was standing alone at the stern. A lot
of the boat's crew were in the water, going ashore to "run" the cargo,
on horseback, to the wilds of Dartmoor. The others were crowded at the
bow, watching them go, or watching the men upon the beach, moving here
and there by torchlight, packing the kegs on the horses' backs. It was
a wild scene. The wind blew the torches into great red fiery banners;
the waves hissed and spumed, and glimmered into brightness; you could
see the horses shying, and the men hurrying to and fro; and now and
then some one would cry out, and then a horse would whinny. All the
time there was a good deal of unnecessary talk and babble; the voices
and laughter of the seamen came in bursts as the wind lulled. Every
now and then a wave would burst with a smashing noise, and the
smugglers would laugh at those wetted by the spray. I saw that I had a
better chance of landing unobserved on the port side; so I stole to
that side, crawled over the gunwale, and slid into the sea without a
splash.
The water made me gasp at first; but that only lasted a second. I made
a gentle stroke or two towards the shore, trying not to raise my head
much, and really I felt quite safe before I had made three
strokes. When you swim in the sea at night, you see so little that you
feel that you, in your turn, cannot be seen either. All that I could
see was a confused mass of shore with torchlights. Every now and then
that would be hidden from me by the comb of a wave; and then a
following wave would souse into my face and go clean over me; but as
my one thought was to be hidden from the lugger, I rather welcomed a
buffet of that sort. I very soon touched bottom, for the water near
the beach is shallow. I stood up and bent over, so as not to be seen,
and began to stumble towards the shelter of the rocks. The business of
lading the horses was going steadily forward, with the same noisy
hurry. I climbed out of the backwash of the last breaker, and dipped
down behind a rock, high and dry on the sands. I was safe, I thought,
safe at last, and I was too glad at heart to think of my sopping
clothes, and of the cold which already made me shiver like an
aspen. Suddenly, from up the hill, not more than a hundred yards from
me, came the "Hoo-hoo" of an owl, the smuggler's danger signal. The
noise upon the beach ceased at once; the torches plunged into the sand
and went out: I heard the lugger's crew cut their cables and hoist
sail.
A voice said, "Carry on, boys. The preventives are safe at Bolt Tail,"
and at that the noise broke out as before.
Some one cried "Sh," and "Still," and in the silence which followed,
the "Hoo-hoo" of the owl called again, with a little flourishing note
at the end of the call.
A man cried out, "Mount and scatter."
Some one else cried, "Where's Marah?" and as I lay crouched, some one
bent over me and touched me.
"Sorry, Jim," said Marah's voice. "I knew you'd try it. You only got
your clothes wet. Come on, now."
"Hoo-hoo" went the owl again, and at this, the third summons, we
distinctly heard many horses' hoofs coming at a gallop towards us,
though at a considerable distance.
"Marah! Come on, man!" cried several voices.
"Come on," said Marah, dragging me to the horses. "Off, boys," he
called. "Scatter as you ride," Many horses moved off at a smart trot
up the hill to Stoke Fleming. Their horses' feet were muffled with
felt, so that they made little noise, although they were many.
Marah swung me up into the saddle of one of the three horses in his
care. He himself rode the middle horse. I was on his off side. The
horse I mounted had a keg of spirits lashed to the saddle behind me;
the horse beyond Marah was laden like a pack-mule.
"We're the rearguard," said Marah to me. "We must bring them clear
off. Ride, boys--Strete road," he called; and the smugglers of the
rearguard clattered off by the back road, or broken disused lane,
which leads to Allington. Still Marah waited, the only smuggler now
left on the beach. The preventive officers were clattering down the
hill to us, less than a quarter of a mile away. "It's the preventives
right enough," he said, as a gust of wind brought the clatter of
sabres to us, above the clatter of the hoofs. "We're in for a run
to-night. Some one's been blabbing. I think I know who. Well, I pity
him. That's what. I pity him. Here, boy. You ought not to ha' tried to
cut. You'll be half frozen with the wet. Drink some of this."
He handed me a flask, and forced me to take a gulp of something hot;
it made me gasp, but it certainly warmed me, and gave me heart after
my disappointment. I was too cold and too broken with misery to be
frightened of the preventives. I only prayed that they might catch me
and take me home.
We moved slowly to the meeting of the roads, and there Marah halted
for a moment. Our horses stamped, and then whinnied. A horse on the
road above us whinnied.
One of the clattering troop cried, "There they are. We have them. Come
along, boys."
Some one--I knew the voice--it was Captain Barmoor, of the
Yeomanry--cried out, "Stand and surrender." And then I saw the sabres
gleam under the trees, and heard the horses' hoofs grow furious upon
the stones. Marah stood up in his stirrups, and put his fingers in his
mouth, and whistled a long, wailing, shrill whistle. Then he kicked
his horses and we started, at a rattling pace, up the wretched
twisting lane which led to Allington.
Now, the preventives, coming downhill at a tearing gallop, could not
take the sharp turn of the lane without pulling up; they got mixed in
some confusion at the turning, and a horse and rider went into the
ditch. We were up the steep rise, and stretching out at full tilt for
safety, before they had cleared the corner. Our horses were fresh;
theirs had trotted hard for some miles under heavy men, so that at the
first sight the advantage lay with us; but their horses were better
than ours, and in better trim for a gallop. Marah checked the three
horses, and let them take it easy, till we turned into the
well-remembered high road which leads from Strete to my home. Here, on
the level, he urged them on, and the pursuit swept after us; and here
in the open, I felt for the first time the excitement of the hunt. I
wanted to be caught; I kept praying that my horse would come down, or
that the preventives would catch us; and at the same time the hurry of
our rush through the night set my blood leaping, made me cry aloud as
we galloped, made me call to the horses to gallop faster. There was
nothing on the road; no one was travelling; we had the highway to
ourselves. Near the farm at the bend we saw men by the roadside, and
an owl called to us from among them, with that little flourish at the
end of the call which I had heard once before that evening. We dashed
past them; but as Marah passed, he cried out, "Yes. Be quick." And
behind us, as we sped along, we heard something dragged across the
road. The crossways lay just beyond.
To my surprise, Marah never hesitated. He did not take the Allington
road, but spurred uphill towards the "Snail's Castle," and the road to
Kingsbridge. As we galloped, we heard a crash behind us, and the cry
of a hurt horse, and the clatter of a sword upon the road. Then more
cries sounded; we could hear our pursuers pulling up.
"They're into a tree-trunk," said Marah. "Some friends put a tree
across, and one of them's gone into it. We shall probably lose them
now," he added. "They will go on for Allington. Still, we mustn't wait
yet."
Indeed, the delay was only momentary. The noise of the horses soon
re-commenced behind us; and though they paused at the cross-roads, it
was only for a few seconds. Some of the troopers took the Allington
road. Another party took the road which we had taken; and a third
party stopped (I believe) to beat the farm buildings for the men who
had laid the tree in the road.
We did not stop to see what they were doing, you may be sure; for when
Marah saw that his trick had not shaken them off, he began to hurry
his horses, and we were soon slipping and sliding down the steep
zigzag road which leads past "Snail's Castle." I had some half-formed
notion of flinging myself off my horse as we passed the door, or of
checking the horse I rode, and shouting for help. For there, beyond
the corner, was the house where I had been so happy, and the light
from the window lying in a yellow patch across the road; and there was
Hoolie's bark to welcome us. Perhaps if I had not been wet and cold I
might have made an attempt to get away; and I knew the preventives
were too close to us for Marah to have lingered, had I done so.
But you must remember that we were riding very fast, that I was very
young, and very much afraid of Marah, and that the cold and the fear
of the preventives (for in a way I was horribly frightened by them)
had numbed my brain.
"Don't you try it," said Marah, grimly, as we came within sight of the
house. "Don't you try it." He snatched my rein, bending forward on his
horse's neck, calling a wild, queer cry. It was one of the gipsy
horse-calls, and at the sound of it the horses seemed to lose their
wits, for they dashed forward past the house, as though they were
running away. It was as much as I could do to keep in the saddle.
What made it so bitter to me was the opening of the window behind me.
At the sound of the cry, and of those charging horses, some one--some
one whom I knew so well, and loved so--ran to the window to look
out. I heard the latch rattling and the jarring of the thrown-back
sash, and I knew that some one--I would have given the world to have
known who--looked out, and saw us as we swept round the corner and
away downhill.