Fergal wheeled round at the small burst of noise, and then seeing what it was, relaxed and motioned me to follow on more quietly.
I did my best.
This was the first time I had been along this path – the same path I had glimpsed so long ago while walking through the Wild Wood. The path that had appeared and disappeared again and which I now knew led towards the sea. The scents of salt and spray grew ever stronger as we neared the south edge of the woods, where the dimness of the tangled branches overhead gave way to sudden light.
The path angled downwards here, sharp to the right, winding down the black rocks at the edge of the cliff – a wider and less treacherous descent than the one to the shore at the foot of the Cripplehorn, but I still had to be cautious and watch where I put my feet. The flimsy slippers made my steps less confident, and the swing of the heavy gown tested my balance so that I was grateful for Fergal’s strong steadying hand as he helped me along.
I was vaguely aware of tall masts and the shape of a ship, but it wasn’t till we’d nearly reached the bottom of the path and I could raise my head and take a proper look that I first really saw the Sally riding at anchor, not far out from shore.
I’d only ever seen her that one time before, when Jack set off for Brittany, and then I had been watching from the hillside at Trelowarth and I hadn’t seen her clearly, just her graceful lines retreating as she’d headed out to sea.
Now, from closer up, I saw that she was not a very large ship, maybe fifty feet or so from bow to stern, with four square gunports set along her curved side high above the water level, and two soaring masts thick-laced with rigging and collapsed sails that flapped hopefully at every breath of wind.
Moored in the lee of the sheltering headland, her hull painted black like the high cliffs behind her, she shone like a lady, her trim gleaming white.
‘Ay, she’s beautiful,’ Fergal agreed when I said so myself. ‘Built at Deptford, she was, and there’s few that can equal her speed.’
I’d sailed a bit with friends in California so I knew my starboard from my port, but I didn’t know much about ships of this age. Didn’t know what the names of the sails were, or how to tell one class of ship from another, and yet from simply standing here and looking at the Sally I could tell exactly why both Jack and Daniel were so keen to have her solely for themselves. She was too lovely to be shared.
Fergal gave a wave and though I hadn’t seen a man on deck before, I saw one now, who waved in answer. And another man appeared. And then another.
I stood on the pebbled shore watching them lower a boat that one man rowed across to us. Fergal lifted me over the wet of the waves at the shoreline and settled me on the hard seat without giving any explanation to the other man of who I was or what I might be doing there. The fact that I was there with Fergal seemed to be enough to mark me out of bounds.
Still, when the dinghy scraped hulls with the Sally and I was helped up to the ship’s main deck, Fergal came after me, facing the men down and setting things out in plain terms. ‘This is Eva, my sister. She’s coming along. She’s no voice of her own, but if any of you gives her trouble I’ll hear of it, see?’ He didn’t threaten them with what he’d do if they did give me trouble, but I gathered that they knew him well enough to fill those blanks in for themselves.
The youngest of the men looked like a teenager, the oldest seemed to be approaching sixty, and they all had that rough look of men who ended their hard days at sea by drinking late into the night at quayside taverns. But to my relief, not one of them looked hard enough to get the best of Fergal in a fight.
That helped me feel less nervous as they scattered to their duties.
Fergal squinted skyward as though judging the position of the sun. ‘There’ll be two men to come yet,’ he told me, ‘and Danny. We might as well wait for them in comfort.’
I didn’t really want to leave the deck. I’d never been on an old ship, and I liked how the canvas and rigging above me was creaking and fluttering, and how the deck itself shifted in time with the rise of the waves, and how the wind and the sinking sun felt on my uplifted face. But arguing with Fergal was a lost cause at the best of times, and all the more impossible out here because I couldn’t use my voice, so I gave in and let him lead me down below.
There was a single deck down here, with a grated trapdoor that I guessed would lead further down into the hold. What cargo might lie down there I could only imagine, but here on this deck I could count eight brass cannon, their wheeled mounts fastened to the inner hull with ropes to curb the recoil when they fired, their muzzles resting at the gun ports to each side. Towards the rear of this main space the sleeping quarters for the crew announced its purpose with its hammocks hanging off to either side, slung from the beams overhead so they ran in the same line, from bow to stern. Behind them was a separate space enclosing Fergal’s galley and a table where the men could eat, and at the back of that there was a heavy door.
‘The captain’s cabin,’ Fergal said. ‘You’ll sleep in here.’ He didn’t add the word ‘alone’ but then he didn’t need to – I already knew he’d be keeping a watch on my door to see I wasn’t bothered by the crew. Or by their captain.
I hid my smile and felt a twinge of sympathy for Daniel, especially after I’d entered his cabin and seen the comforts he’d be forced to do without.
There were windows here, for one thing – a broad row of them that ran across the squared wall of the stern, and two of them stood open on their casements to the fresh salt air. A definite relief from the close staleness of the cabin where the crew slept. Candle-holders had been fitted to the walls with brackets, and a small carved desk of heavy wood stood off to one side underneath a shelf of charts and papers. Near the farther wall there swung a hammock that looked comfortable and wide and had been fitted with a pillow for the sleeper’s head.