slope with the smell of the river wafting through the unglazed windows. After a few more minutes we drew up.
‘Here we are,’ said Case. ‘After you, dear sir.’
I got down quickly enough, followed by Jack. A spasm from my side reminded me that the physician was supposed to be providing something to dull the discomfort. If he really was a physician… if he really lived here.
My doubts were on account of where the coach had stopped. We were by a wharf on the river, and the neighbouring buildings had the look of storehouses. This place was either Botolph’s Wharf or the Lyon Key, I wasn’t sure which in the darkness. To our right as we faced across the river was the great bulk of London Bridge. Against the night sky it stood like a mighty wall but one interrupted by pinpricks of light from the windows of the houses that line it. From below came the rumble of water as the tidal surge forced its way through the piers of the bridge. Was this our destination? It must be, for the next thing we heard was the doctor’s carriage pulling away.
The sight of the bridge and the sound of the Thames were strangely reassuring. I had only to cross the river to be at my lodgings at Mrs Ellis’s in Tooley Street within a few minutes. Jack Wilson also lived on the far side of the river, the unrespectable side. I was about to say to Jack that we should quit the scene now when I became aware that Jonathan Case and cousin Thomasina were behind us. I must have been jumpy, because I suspected some trick, even an ambush, and whirled around, causing me to groan involuntarily from the hurt in my side. But Case put his hand gently on my shoulder and used his stick to point ahead.
‘We are down there,’ he said. ‘On the river.’
‘You live on the river?’ I said, incredulous.
‘No, no. I am about to board a boat, because like you players I need to make an early start tomorrow morning, with the tide. Come on board and I shall explain. Oh, and I will find a remedy for that injury you gave yourself, Mr Revill.’
He went to the head of the stairs leading to a landing stage and, as he had done in Fleet Street, rapped with his stick on the cobbled ground. Within a few instants a figure puffed up the stairs, bearing a smoky torch. He stood as still as a statue to illuminate our descent down the greasy flight. In the diffused glow cast by the torch, I could see little of the boat which we boarded except that it was substantial enough to be a merchant vessel, with treelike masts bearing furled sails. The low murmur of voices, together with the smell of pipe smoke and the embers of a brazier near the bow showed that the craft was manned.
Picking their way among various unidentifiable marine items on deck, Case and his cousin paused by a massy construction in the aft portion of the vessel. Do I have these terms right — aft and bow? I’m neither knowledgeable about boats nor happy away from dry land, to be truthful. I have never seen the open sea and have no great desire to catch sight of it. Even taking the ferry to cross the Thames, especially when on the broader stretches below the bridge and if there’s a hint of bad weather, has me glancing nervously at the shore.
‘Welcome to our quarters, gentlemen,’ said Case, as he opened a door and ushered us through. We negotiated some steep wooden steps and emerged into a surprisingly spacious area below the deck. It was illuminated by candles and oil lamps and, on this chill spring evening, warmed by a metal tripod heaped with charcoal. The ceiling was low, scarcely above head height, but the other dimensions were generous enough. A table and benches occupied the centre. There were curtained-off spaces in the side walls but no windows or ports. At the far end were a pair of doors. A black cat was curled on the floor near the charcoal tripod, but it quickly roused itself and bolted up the steps we had just descended.
Jonathan Case and Thomasina stood in the centre of the cabin, watching as we took in the surroundings. The lady was still overshadowed by her hat, and the better light revealed no more than I’d seen already: a slim, almost lanky figure. Under a mantle, she was wearing a bodice and kirtle of fine scarlet taffeta. As for Case, the gentleman’s cap and coif marked him out as a physician almost as clearly as if he’d been carrying a urine flask, but somehow this just deepened the mystery. I think Jack was as baffled as I. What business had caused this doctor of physic to board a vessel on the Thames? Furthermore, what business meant that he had to sail with the tide tomorrow morning?
Before anyone could speak, there was a clatter on the steps and a man entered the cabin. He was well dressed in a maroon doublet and elaborate ruffs. The only unexpected note was a whistle hanging on a cord around his neck.
‘I did not expect-’
He was addressing the physician but, catching sight of Jack and me, he broke off.
‘-expect us to return with company?’ said Dr Case smoothly, as if in continuation of what the other man was about to say. ‘These gentlemen are players from the King’s Men. They were taking part in the piece at Middle Temple. The play we have recently attended. They have been gracious enough to accept my offer of hospitality on board.’
All this was said slowly and with care. The other man stroked his beard, square-cut like the doctor’s, while his watchful gaze flicked between the two of us. ‘Well, I suppose you are welcome on board the Argo,’ he said, ‘but know that we cast off at first light tomorrow.’
The last part of the remark seemed to be directed at Dr Case rather than us. I realized the two men were brothers. There was the same stocky build and the same firm expression, and that more elusive sense of being two individuals cut from the same length of cloth. Therefore, Thomasina must be cousin to this gentleman also, although neither had so much as looked at the other.
‘You will join us in a glass, Colin?’ said Case.
‘No. The only glass I am concerned with is the half-hour glass. As I said, we leave early and there is much to be done.’
He nodded at us and clumped back up the stairs. Moments later, we heard him barking an order on deck. It sounded as if he was taking out his irritation on one of the mariners.
‘As you probably guessed, that is my brother,’ said Dr Case. ‘He is the captain of this vessel, the Argo. Forgive his terseness, but his mind is obviously full of tide-times and half-hour glasses and caulking and… things nautical.’
‘This is his cabin?’ I said, wondering if that was the reason for the other’s gruff manner.
‘This is the great cabin,’ said the physician. ‘It is where sailors of rank and any travelling gentlemen sleep and eat.’
We must have looked baffled at the absence of beds, for Dr Case proceeded to show us some hidden lodgings. Set into the walls on either side behind the curtains were alcove-like recesses containing mattresses. Once inside, the sleeper might make himself secure by drawing the curtain. Each space was provided with a shuttered port through which one could see a flicker or two of light from the world outside. The shipmaster had more elaborate quarters, a squared-off space behind one of the doors at the end of the great cabin. This was provided with a full-size bed which one did not have to contort oneself unduly to enter.
Case explained that a trading vessel like the Argo carried paying travellers from time to time, and that they required better sleeping arrangements than were available to the common mariners, who ate, slept and took their ease in the stench of the fo’c’s’le under the bowsprit. The two things most to be valued at sea, he said, were a little area to oneself and a little bit of light. And, yes, he was presently occupying the bed belonging to his brother, the shipmaster.
‘I am paying him well. The least I can require is to be accommodated in comfort on the journey.’
‘Where are you travelling to, Dr Case?’ said Jack.
‘St-Malo.’
I had not thought he would answer so directly. I rather thought St-Malo was in France but did not like to ask for fear of appearing ignorant.
‘To reply to your next question, Mr Wilson, I am going to meet a man in St-Malo about… a private matter. My brother, he is to pick up a cargo of French wine. He sails with empty tuns and substitutes them for full ones. He tells me that I am fortunate to be sailing on a wine trader. They smell sweeter and their seams are tighter than other vessels’. Talking of which, Thomasina, would you pour us some wine?’
The woman busied herself with a jug and glasses and brought the drinks across to us one by one. She kept her eyes averted and that, coupled with the shadowy hat brim, meant that we had yet to get a clear look at her. Oddest of all, she had not spoken a single word so far, but she performed the task of serving drinks gracefully enough. I noticed a mole on the back of her hand and, queerly, it seemed the only personal note about her.
We sipped appreciatively as the physician described the wine, which was an Osney — a fine specimen of its
