Mr Corbett's Ghost (9 page)

Another flash and roar from the Englishman: not so vast as the first. Was she disabled, too?

‘Quarter-deck cannon,' mumbled Krebs, suddenly
scowling. ‘Now you'll see—' Again, she roared. ‘Upper deck cannon . . . fourteen killers there!' A third blaze and roar. Krebs nodded. ‘Lower-deck. They know what they're at. Give no chance . . . no chance at all . . .'

The
Willelm
seemed to have stopped firing. ‘Look! Poor devils up in the cross-trees. D'ye see? Firebrands! Nought else left! But they'll never reach to the Englishman. Poor devils! Oh, God! She's afire herself! Keep your heads down, sirs! She'll be going up in a minute! A-ah!'

Even as he spoke, the fire must have reached the
Willelm
's powder store. There was a glare and a thunderous crackling sound like the end of the world—as indeed for many it was. With a shriek of terror, Mynheer Tripp—who'd been extraordinarily absorbed throughout the encounter, oblivious to everything but his rapid, intent drawing—flung himself to the bottom of the boat: a quaking bundle of disgusting rags. Then the great light went out of the sky and the air was full of smoke and the sharp, bitter smell of spent powder and burnt out lives. Pieces of wood began to kiss the water about us. When at last the smoke drifted up to the moon, we saw the guilty hump of the Englishman sliding away, leaving nothing more behind than a tom-up patch of sea, rough with driftwood and darknesses.

‘Oh, God! Now what's to become of us?' wept Mynheer Tripp. I begged him to be quiet, for things were bad enough without his assistance. Krebs had been hit in the neck by a flying piece of iron and was bleeding like a pig. If he wasn't bandaged, he'd die. Mynheer Tripp plucked at one of his shawls—not offering it, but indicating that, if pressed, he'd part with it. It was filthy enough to have killed Krebs outright: by poisoning. There was nothing for it but to use my shirt; which I did, watched by Mynheer Tripp who snarled when I tore it into strips:

‘I hope you know that was your best linen, Vaarlem!'

Which mean remark did nothing but gain me unnecessary thanks from Krebs who could scarcely speak: his wound having severed a tendon and opened a great vessel. He lay in the bottom of the boat while I took the oars, watched by that dirty jelly in the stem. All I could see of Mynheer Tripp were his miserably reproachful eyes.

‘You'll die of cold,' he mumbled furiously.

‘
I
can keep warm by rowing, sir!' I said, hoping to shame him. I pulled towards the
Little Willelm
's grave in the frail hope of survivors, but found none. Then, under Kreb's whispered directions, I began to row eastward, into the path of our hoped-for followers on the coming tide. But, being no craftsman of oars, we did little more than drift in that dark and hostile sea: Mynheer Tripp, Krebs, and me. For two or even three hours . . . As Mynheer Tripp had predicted, it was violently cold. I began to shiver and sweat at the same time. My hands were growing very sore and swollen. When I paused to shift my grip, I found them to be bleeding; and Mynheer Tripp, without once stopping, moaned and cursed the sea and the murdering Englishman. Which served no purpose at all. But then he's not the best of companions in such circumstances. He hates the sea and can't abide the sight of blood. Also, there are a million other things capable of panicking him. The chief problem is to avoid being infected by this.

At about one o'clock the breeze began to blow more briskly and in a changed direction. Long bands of cloud began to shift and obscure the moon. The darkness grew thick and formidable; Mynheer Tripp's eyes were no longer visible—but I felt their continuing reproach. Krebs was quite silent and, every now and again, I thought he'd died and had to stop rowing to put my head to his chest and be greeted with: ‘Still here . . . don't you worry . . . keep it up, boy—' So back I'd go to my task, abysmally
cold and frightened, but not wanting to give the odious Mynheer Tripp the opportunity for gloating.

Then I thought we were saved! Lanterns glinted high up in the night ahead. Our ships at last! I shouted and waved the dim remains of our lantern. Krebs struggled up on his elbow. He said, ‘It's the Englishman again!'

‘Douse the light, Vaarlem!' shrieked Mynheer Tripp. But it was too late. We'd been seen. The Englishman hailed us.

‘Ahoy, there!' Which, in Dutch, means, ‘Stand fast or we'll pepper you with musket-fire!'

Nearer and nearer she came, a glinting, ghostly monster. Mynheer Tripp began to gabble we'd be tortured and hanged. I never felt more ashamed of him in my life. He was quaking with terror. I sweated to think of how the English would sneer . . . a craven Dutchman. Maybe I could swear he was French: or German? The great ship was alongside. The murderous cannon still poked out of their ports like blunt black teeth against the dark sky. Two English sailors came down on ropes and hoisted Krebs between them. I was surprised by how like Dutchmen they looked. We were bidden to follow, when Mynheer Tripp further disgraced our nation by being frightened of falling off the rope.

‘For God's sake, sir!' I hissed at him. ‘Make a good showing.'

‘What d'you mean, “for God's sake”, Vaarlem?' he hissed back. ‘You nasty little prig!'

With much contemptuous laughter, more sailors came and helped Mynheer Tripp up between them. I followed on my own. No sooner was I on deck than Mynheer Tripp—who'd got a considerable, jeering crowd about him, shouted in his bad English: ‘Cover him up! Boy of good family, that! He'll die of cold!' I flushed angrily, but a huge cloth was brought and wrapped round me. To my indignation, I saw it was an English flag. I stripped it off and flung it down.

‘I'd
rather
die of cold than be covered with that!' I meant to display
some
Dutch spirit and show we weren't all like Mynheer Tripp.

‘Brave lad!' said an officer—the captain, I think. ‘Worthier than his companion, eh? What say we heave the old fellow back?'

I grew alarmed. Begged them to do no such thing. ‘Though you may not think it, he's a great man . . . greater than all of us put together!'

‘A greater coward, you mean, boy! How come you go about with such a rag-bag?'

But fortunately, Mynheer Tripp hadn't heard the threat. He was by the mizzen-mast lantern, examining his drawings to see they were intact. A number of officers and sailors were staring over his shoulder. Then more and more came, with more lanterns, lighting up that patch of deck which seemed roofed with canvas and walled by the netted shrouds. Krebs and his honourable wound, and myself and my defiance were left and forgotten. A greater victory was in the making. Of a sudden, I began to feel very proud to be Mynheer Tripp's pupil, and my eyes kept filling with tears on that account. I picked up the flag and wrapped out the cold with it, and went to join the English crowd about my master. Krebs, feeling stronger, leaned on me and stared.

Not all the ships and cannon and defiance in the world could have done what he'd done. With a few lines—no more—he'd advanced into the enemies' hearts and set up his flag there. Mynheer Tripp's victory had been with God's gift—not with the gunsmith's. It's a mercy, I suppose, he never really knew his own power—else he'd have suffocated it under guilders. The Englishmen stared at the drawings, then, seeing Krebs, began comparing with him—in slow English and bad Dutch—the terror and grandeur of their experience, so uncannily caught by the sniffing and shuffling Mynheer Tripp. Pennants, flags, even
countries were forgotten. An aspect of battle was seen with neither Dutch nor English eyes, but with a passion and a pity that encompassed all.

‘Mynheer Tripp,' said the English captain—a handsome, well-bred man, most likely of Dutch descent, ‘you are a very great man. We are honoured. As our guest, sir, I invite you to visit England.'

My master looked at me—not with pride or any so respectable a thing, but with his usual greed and cunning. He said, in his horrible English, ‘Good! Good! I will paint your admiral, maybe—?'

And then to me in Dutch, with an offensive smirk: ‘You see, Vaarlem, these English are different. I told you so. I'll be appreciated—not prosecuted. Just wait till they see what I make of
their
admiral! Money back, indeed! And after all, my boy, guineas is as good as guilders, eh? He-he!'

He really is the most contemptible man I know! I wonder what the English will make of him: and what he'll make of the English?

IN THE YEAR
1749, on January the eighteenth at Lewes Assizes, my old friend Nicholas Kemp collected seven years' transportation and a sermon from the judge as long as a monkey's arm.

Poor Nick! He stood there in the dock, his happy young face all bewildered when the jury brought in their verdict, and the judge said better men had been hanged for less.

Every advantage, the judge declared he'd had: meaning his family being in a good way of trade (if you care for such things), and as respectable as a church pew.

‘But in spite of everything, you've turned out a bad lot, Master Kemp.'

Here, Nick looked honestly depressed and surprised that anyone should think so ill of him. Which was a trifle impudent, we thought. After all, he'd only been fourteen when he'd left his home under a cloud—and I don't mean the sort that makes up weather!

He'd prigged some trinkets from his father's workshop (his father being a silversmith), and given them to some flighty doxy of twelve or thereabouts. Yes indeed, if Nick had one weakness above all others, it was for a pretty face. It wasn't a weakness like yours or mine which stays with a wink and a laugh and a kiss and a cuddle; it was a real sighing bog of a weakness. Believe me or not, he was one of your moonfaced lovers who twang and twiddle outside ladies' windows till someone empties a chamberpot on them to keep them quiet.

On this, his first mistake, he'd been unlucky enough to pick on the daughter of the trinkets' lawful owner—who took offence and worse. Nick left that very night, with his heart, I'm sure, carved on a dozen trees.

‘If I didn't think there was some goodness in your soul,' went on the judge, ‘I'd have you hanged out of hand.'

Well, well—he was a judge and had had his bellyful of human nature. If he saw goodness in Nick's soul, it must have been there.

‘So It's seven years in Virginia for you, Nicholas Kemp,' finished up the judge. ‘And may you be improved by it.'

Nick gave a great sigh and looked as glum and heartbroken as if the hangman had asked for his neck.

‘Poor soul!' muttered someone at the back. ‘I'd have sworn he was innocent.'

Which was exactly what Nick
had
sworn—till he'd been peached on by the rosy-cheeked trollop he'd birthday'd with a silver watch he'd prigged the previous morning. We'd warned him she was a low-class slut; but, not being exactly a gentleman himself, he'd no yardstick to judge her by. Even got peeved and told us to be content with the guineas he'd passed on and leave the watch to him. She was one of Nature's ladies, he said, and had promised not to wear the watch for a fortnight.

It was a large watch, as I remember it: a shade vulgar, like Nick. She wore it as soon as his back was turned—and in the parlour of the White Horse, which was where it had been prigged. Need I say more?

A peace officer with a neck like a bull came to our lodgings. Nick shot under the table.

'Ad we any notion of a young 'un called Kemp? If so, it were oor dooty to give 'im up.

I ask you—what could we do? Nick looked a trifle put out, at first, but then took it in good part when we reminded him we'd told him so. I fancy he knew where the blame really lay. Lord! You should have seen the look he hung on that trollop when she gave her evidence! Stones would have wept. (Though, I must admit, we
couldn't resist a chuckle.) But Jurors' hearts are made of sterner stuff . . .

So we took a coach down to Deal to see him off. The
Phoenix
out of Deptford was anchored there, dipping and bobbing like an enormous bridesmaid, all laced and gilded and wanting only her fat bodice and petticoat to be put on that she might billow out to some roaring wedding at sea.

But she wasn't the doxy after Nick's heart, and his face was as long as a coffin when he shuffled, leg-ironed, into the rowboat with half a dozen assorted embezzlers, pickpockets, and ragged layabouts, all Virginia bound.

We waved, but I don't think he saw us, so we left it till next morning when we hired a fisherman to row us out to the
Phoenix
to send our poor friend off in convivial style.

A tremendous great brute of a ship was the
Phoenix
—when we got close—and as far past her prime as was reasonable with still being afloat. She creaked and grunted and groaned even in the calm waters, so what she would do when the wind blew, God and her captain alone knew.

But there was no sense or kindness in frightening poor Nick, so we all toasted him in gin and drank to the teeming doxies in Virginia—far fairer than our English drabs—and kept to ourselves the belief he'd not make halfway over with his soul and body in one piece.

I don't know whether he was still in irons then, for we could only see his head and shoulders poking out of a gun port, six feet aloft.

‘Cheer up, Nick!' one of us shouted. ‘There's a Richmond in Virginia with a lass that's peach to porridge to the blowsy damsel here!'

But he looked as if his silly heart would break.

‘Cheer up, Nick!' I roared. ‘Gentlemen pay fifty pound for a trip like yours!'

I think he was going to smile. He'd a fair sense of humour—which was part of the reason we kept his acquaintance, that and his skill in keeping us in funds—yes, I'm sure he was going to smile when another convict poked his head out beside him and spat mightily into the sea; so we all had to duck to avoid.