She clutched at wet cloth, flesh and muscled arms, pulling and tugging until the man floundered aboard. He tumbled to the boat’s bottom. For a moment, she could do nothing except pant, staring at the inert figure briefly outlined in the light’s glare.
Then the splintering crash of the waves jolted her into desperate action. With frantic energy, she pulled on the oars, fighting wind and current, inching away from the white-flecked foam of the crashing breakers.
But relief was a transitory, fleeting thing.
Even as she pulled clear of the cliff face, she felt the ship’s presence. The Rising Dawn was the stuff of legend; the smuggler’s ship that could outrun the fastest cutter. The ship’s transom towered above her, a black bulk, invisible save for a signal light which swayed with the sea’s movement. In the distance, one of the village boats scuttled back to shore, a small shadowy outline, disappearing fast into the wet darkness.
And then she was alone.
Her heart thundered. Her chest felt tight, unable to expand to properly breathe as she looked nervously upwards towards the deck. The torchlight moved, illuminating a single person, his craggy brows, nose and the folds of his face deeply shadowed.
‘Who’s there?’
Her mouth felt dry. ‘Heaven sent!’ she shouted.
‘You new?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ll lower—’
Whatever the sailor was going to say died on his lips as the man at the bottom of her boat coughed, retching up the contents of his lungs into the bilge. Not dead, it seemed.
‘What the hell’s that?’ the sailor asked, moving the torch so that its weak light shone down into her vessel.
‘He’s injured,’ Millie shouted.
‘Didn’t ask about his health. Who is he?’
‘One of your men, I presume. He was drowning.’ Her tongue felt huge and unwieldly in her dry mouth.
‘Not ours.’
The drowned man pulled himself to a seated position, staring blearily, blood trickling across his forehead. She could have wished him dead longer.
‘Best come aboard as you’ve brought company,’ the sailor shouted, his mouth a black hole, save for a single tooth.
Fear snaked through her. ‘No! That was not the agreement...’
Instructions and warnings had been clear enough. A smuggling ship was no place for a female. Ferrying goods to shore was foolhardy enough, going aboard could spell disaster.
She grabbed at the oars, pulling her vessel away.
A shot rang out, audible even over the wind and waves. Gasping, she looked towards the single flickering light. The sailor stepped forward so that he was illuminated. He did not speak, merely beckoned her on board. She shook her head, gripping the oars more tightly. He shifted the pistol. The metal glinted as his lips stretched in a wide, almost toothless grin.
Sam’s head thudded. The pain was so great that sparks flashed before his eyes like the fireworks at Vauxhall. He tasted salt water, blood and bile. He coughed, rolling on to his side, before again slumping to stare upwards into the black heavens.
Where was he? He could make no sense of the voices, the lurching movement, wind or rain. Everything had the surreal, disjointed quality of a bad dream. The effort to think, to push away the blank fuzziness overwhelmed him and he felt himself slip again into the inviting nebulous state which was neither sleep nor consciousness.
Seconds...minutes...hours later, he wakened once more. He was being moved, handled by rough hands and dropped or tumbled to the ground. He lay quite still, orienting himself in a world spinning and lurching.
He forced his eyes open. He could see his own fingers splayed on wet rough planking and, beyond that, a black seaman’s boot.
‘Captain! ’E’s awake,’ a man bellowed from somewhere above his head, the words inordinately loud so that they ricocheted about his skull.
Sam pulled himself painfully on to his knees. Briefly, everything blurred as his head thudded. Then the thunder lessened and he found himself looking up into the distorted visage of an old man, his features eerily lit in the swinging torchlight.
For a moment, he distrusted the evidence of his own eyes. It seemed he was on a ship. The man opposite looked to be a pirate, or as good as. The sea was so rough that Sam put his hands back on the deck for balance. Rain fell. His hair was plastered to his forehead. Water ran into his eyes and down his cheeks. He could feel the rain’s sting and the cutting cold of the wind.
It made no sense. He’d come to Cornwall to visit his elder sister and her new baby. He’d travelled from London in a private carriage. Why was he on a ship? Had he been attacked on the highway? Except he’d made it to Fowey. He’d seen his sister...
Before his thoughts could clear, he was brought back to the immediate present as another man strode over, the sea boots huge, mere inches from his face.
‘Best get rid of them.’ The command was cold, without emotion.
Instinctively, Sam reared up, only to be struck by the boot. Helpless, he crumpled to the deck.
‘You cannot kill us. I work for you.’ The words were calm, unflinching and reasoned.
Sam turned quickly. His head thudded with the movement. A scrap of a lad stood beside him, wet hair and shirt plastered to his skin.
The first man, older and with just a single tooth, did not even acknowledge the lad. Instead he continued to chew his tobacco with a singleness of purpose. With methodical motions, he reloaded the pistol. The ‘Captain’ was already turning away, as though their execution no longer merited his attention.
Sam pulled himself again to a seated position, fighting down the nausea induced by the movement. He would not have them discuss his murder as though he were a kitten to be drowned. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘My
