The Wreckers (15 page)

The ponies shied away from the lamp, but Mawgan’s black horse whinnied and stomped. So it was used to the light, I thought, to the glow of a lantern. It was eager to go on whatever business a lantern might lead it to. But I took Mary’s pony instead, blew out the lamp, and headed off for the village.

I passed through the hedgerows and climbed up on the moor. The wind raged across the open ground, hurling the rain in stinging blasts. I put my head down and urged the pony on.

Like a ship at sea, I used the wind to guide me. From a
trot to a canter to a full gallop, the little pony carried me along. When the house disappeared behind, I rode over an empty land. And I lay along the pony’s back, my cheek pressed against its neck, watching the ground rush darkly past its feet.

Faster. Faster still. Hooves barely touched the ground. A single thump, all four at once flinging water, and we bounded over scrub grass and dunes.

And then I was falling.

The pony pitched forward, and I flew over its head, tumbling onto the wet earth. The pony tried to rise but couldn’t. It was slipping backward, clawing with one hoof as it vanished into the ground.

A mine shaft. We’d stumbled right on top of it, crashing through the covering of rotted boards. As the pony struggled, the wood broke away like river ice.

I grabbed the reins and wrapped them round my hand. I braced my feet. The pony thrashed at the planks, flinging up splinters that spun off on the wind. Its belly cracked through the wood, and I fell face first. The reins cinched on my fist and pulled me over the slick ground. Then the platform caved in, and with a nearly human cry, the pony fell backward into the hole.

It dragged me right to the edge. I felt the whole weight of the animal tighten for an instant on the end of my arm, then the bridles tore from its head, and it went spinning down into blackness.

And swaying over the hole, dangling from a thong, was my leather pouch full of tools.

It was snagged on a mere spike of wood at the end of a
broken plank. I couldn’t reach it no matter how I stretched, and each time I moved, the pouch only swung more violently than before. First the hammer and then the file poked out from the opening. The wind plucked at the pouch; the rain beat against it. And I saw I would lose it all if I waited any longer.

I gathered myself and lunged forward. My fingers scraped on the thong. It slipped off the wood, and the pouch fell. I nearly followed it down as I reached out and caught it. But I lost the hammer and I lost the file, and my heart fell with them. There seemed no point in going on, yet I couldn’t go back. So I took the chisel and left the pouch; I drew up my coat collar and trudged off toward Pendennis.

Before long the wind carried with it the smell of the sea. I kept it on my cheek, as Mary had said, and counted my paces. At six hundred and ten, I came to a road.

It was rutted deeply by the wheels of heavy carts. And though Mary had warned me against it, I followed the road toward the southwest. Listening hard for horses or men, I trotted along, splashing in the rain-filled ruts.

Then I came to a crossroad. And I met Tommy Colwyn.

He was shriveled and black. He hung from a gibbet in loops of great chain that tingled and clanged, that whistled with the wind. His arms rose and fell; his hair streamed out in thin, sparse little clumps. He swung and shook, and he swayed toward me with what seemed like a smile—until I saw his lips hanging in shreds like twists of old rope.

I ran past him and turned left at the fork. The rain drove at me in a furious gust that rattled the chains and howled
through the links in a voice straight from the grave. And in the clank and creak of metal, I imagined Tommy Colwyn coming down from the gibbet, staggering after me, reaching out with skeleton hands. I couldn’t look back. I felt I’d drop dead if I looked behind me. And I ran and I ran, until I topped a rise and saw the village below.

The few lights of Pendennis shone yellow in the harbor water. And dim as stars of the dawn, tiny and haloed by rain, the saints of the church were watching me come.

I left the road and ran straight for the bridge, down to the banks of the little river. The surf was like thunder, rumbling up the valley. And under the huge arch of the bridge, I rested out of the weather. There was an old skiff covered with tarpaulins, and I sat on its gunwale and cried.

The tide was already on the ebb, the swollen river rushing past in eddies and swirls. Beyond the bridge, where the current met the wind, the water piled into steep-sided waves. When I looked away, the bridge and the shore and the stones at my feet all wavered and flowed like the water. I got down on my knees and searched through the stones, picking them up and putting them down, until I found one that fitted well in my hand, that would do for a hammer.

I’d just picked it up when I heard a gunshot, alarmingly close, and another right after. They echoed under the bridge and back and forth up the valley.

A ship in the bay.

Within moments I heard the horses coming. It was as though the riders had been waiting like racers for the sound of the gun. First one and then many went galloping
over the bridge above me. Behind them came the wagons, creaking and groaning, gravel crunching under iron-rimmed wheels. Next would come the people, with axes and picks, and with them the dogs that would sniff me out like an otter.

And I was trapped on the wrong side of the swollen river.

The water was too deep and furious for wading. It would take me too long to walk up one bank and down the other. My only chance was the skiff.

I tore at the tarpaulins. The boat was old and clinker-built, the nails dripping rust. Swallows had built their mud-hut nest in the curve of the stem. And there was only one oar. The tow rope was tied around a large rock, the rope so rotten at the end that it was easier to break than untie. But I stuffed the tarpaulins down in the bilge and rocked the boat up on its keel. I waited for a gust. Then, in the roar of wind, I pushed against the boat.

It slid easily, with a rumble of stones that no one would hear. The river caught it and pulled as I pushed. I clambered over the transom and landed in a pool of water.

The boat leaked like a half-shingled roof. Water welled up through the garboard seams and trickled past the transom. But I burrowed under the tarpaulins as I went sweeping out from under the bridge.

If anyone saw me, nobody cared. The old boat rocked and spun down the river, bow first, then stern first. It hit broadside to the waves, shipping a cold gallon of water before it leapt on a crest and twirled end over end.
Water slopped in the other side; the oar floated up and bumped against my knee. I grabbed it and threw off the tarpaulins.

The bridge was well behind me, a black hulk in the rain. A lantern bobbed across it, held by a man who shimmered in its light like a silvery ghost. I knelt on a thwart and paddled with the oar. But the skiff only turned in its place, and the next wave burst against the bow with a crack of old wood.

The current was stronger than the wind. I rolled and crashed through the waves, sweeping down past the first rows of buildings, bailing with my hands as the rain hammered down. And to seaward I heard the breakers, the awful roar of enormous waves.

In the village, windows bright with light blinked to darkness. I went rushing past the chandlery, down the row of roofs where Stumps had chased me. Then the skiff reared up and pitched me back to the stern. And when I reached for a handhold, I found the notch cut in the transom, the U carved out for a sculling oar. I cursed myself; anyone else would have seen it right away.

I swung the oar round and dropped it in the groove. The blade splashed into the water behind me. I heaved and pushed, and the skiff crawled forward. The rain fell with a hissing, steaming violence, flattening the waves. Half full of water, the boat moved like a sponge. But at last it bumped against the seawall just above the brewery, and turned to rub its planks against the stone.

I grabbed at loose brick, at clumps of grass. It all came away in my hands. And then the drain tunnel opened before
me, gushing water thick with slime, but I reached up and wedged in my arms. When I stood on the bow, the boat nearly sank under me. I crawled into the drain, through the torrent of runoff, with the tow rope in my hand.

I couldn’t see my father, and for a horrible moment I thought he was gone. Then I heard his breathing and I said, “Father, I’m back.” And he said, “It’s you? Oh, dear God, it’s you.”

Water raged through the tunnel. It had covered the shelf where Father lay, and now lapped just below it. I hitched the tow rope to a link of chain, and in the darkness I emptied my pockets onto the bricks.

“The tide,” said Father. He coughed; even talking was an effort for him. “The tide …”

“I know,” I said. “It’s falling now.”

I opened the tinderbox and took out the flint. I held it as though it were gold, so frightened was I that it would fall from my hands and go plinking down to the sea. I struck the flint. Sparks flew like fireflies, settling in the tinder. When it smoldered, I got the candle going. It filled the space with its yellow glow.

My father lay just as I’d left him. He was ghastly pale, and even the faint light of the candle hurt his eyes. Driven by the storm, the tide had risen to his shoulders, leaving only splotches of dry cloth, like islands, on his chest and knees. His foot was—

I couldn’t look. The rats had come back.

I covered the chisel with my coat to muffle the sound, and by candlelight I set to work—tapping, tapping on the
iron collars around his wrists. He’d pulled at them until the skin was stripped off like a bracelet, and with every strike of the chisel his hand flexed in pain. I hammered and hammered until my hands were numb. Then I lifted the chisel and saw the sad little scratch I’d made in the metal. I hadn’t done much more than chip off the rust.

“Is it working?” asked Father.

“Halfway there,” I lied.

The sound of my work rang through the chamber. The candle guttered. Black smoke stinking of tallow wafted over us. A chip broke from the stone and ricocheted off the walls. At each blow a tingle shot up my arm.

“Let me see,” said Father.

There was a gouge in the metal, a groove no deeper than a ha’penny’s width.

Father groaned. “No use,” he said. “Never do it.”

I didn’t answer. I gritted my teeth and raised the stone again. The sound I made was steady as dripping water—
clink-clink, clink-clink
—and Father clenched his fists and trembled, as though each strike of the chisel shook right through him. A corner chipped from the stone, another a moment later. A powdery dust covered my hands and filled my nostrils. It turned to a red mud on Father’s wrist. And this was just one collar. One of four.

I sat back against the wall. Father was right; it couldn’t be done.

He rolled his face toward me, and I saw he was crying. “You tried,” he said. “Did your best.” I had to strain to hear him. “Leave me now.”

“No!” I said. I snatched up the rock and attacked the
collar with a fury, chips of stone flying like snow. Then the stone cracked in two, and my fist drove right down on the chisel. And the sound seemed to echo in the building above us.

But it wasn’t an echo. Someone was up there, crossing the floor. Someone was coming toward us.

T
he trapdoor cracked open. The candle flame grew in the draft, reaching up, brightening the space. Fingers came through, feeling at the door. Then it banged open, and the candle went out.

There was a gasp from above us. “John! John, it’s me.”

“Mary,” I said. I felt relief, and tremendous joy that she had come to help me.

I fumbled in the dark to find the tinderbox. I could hear Mary coming down through the hatch in a rustle of clothes.

“Light the candle,” she said. I knew she was close beside me, but her voice seemed muffled and far away.

I said, “I’m trying.”

I struck the flint and got the tinder glowing. And when the candle caught—when I raised my eyes—I was looking straight at Parson Tweed.

He wore his black cassock, but not the hat, and his
head—like a bleached skull—suddenly leapt from the dafkness as though it hung suspended in the air.

My hands shook so badly that Parson Tweed had to bring the candle to the flame for me. And only then did I see Mary kneeling at the edge of the door, holding back her rain-soaked hair as she peered down through the hole.

“We’ve brought another file,” she said. “And a handspike.”

“Where’s your uncle?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” She slid the spike to the edge of the hole. “We heard the gunshots, and he rode off right away. Eli was sleeping, properly sleeping, so I—”

“She chose to come to me,” said the parson. The spike was neither very long nor very heavy, but he had to struggle with it, and he panted. “I must say that I only wish you both had come sooner.” He let the spike rest on its tip and leaned it toward me. I took it from him. “Proverbs nineteen: ‘A foolish son is the calamity of his father.’ It would appear that I’ve arrived none too soon.”

He stood in the rush of water and touched my father’s face. He asked him, “Have you been here since the wreck?”

“Yes,” said Father.

“Can you walk, do you think?”

“A bit.” Father groaned. “My foot—”

“Good heavens!” said Parson Tweed. He blanched at the sight of Father’s rat-bitten foot, then looked at me with a scornful frown. He patted Father’s hand. “Well, we shall just have to see what we can do.”

I went to work with the handspike, not on the metal
collars but on the locks that held them closed. With the spike thrust through the hasp, I pulled and pried.

“Harder,” said the parson.

The spike bent like a longbow. The end sprang loose, and I fell back into the cold stream of runoff.

“Again,” said Parson Tweed. “Mary, come help him, child.”

Mary dropped down through the hatch and into the water. The parson sloshed to the back of the tunnel, by Father’s feet. “A good, sharp pull,” he said. “That should do the trick.”