Edith Nesbit - The Book of Shadows Vol 1

My father asked her about the trumpeting.

“That’s the queerest bit of all. She was burnin’ a light when me an’ my man joined the crowd down there. All her masts had gone; whether they carried away, or were cut away to ease her, I don’t rightly know. Anyway, there she lay ’pon the rocks with her decks bare. Her keelson was broke under her and her bottom sagged and stove, and she had just settled down like a sitting hen – just the leastest list to starboard; but a man could stand there easy. They had rigged up ropes across her from bulwark to bulwark, an’ beside these the men were mustered, holding on like grim death whenever the sea made a clean break over them, an’ standing up like heroes as soon as it passed. The captain an’ the officers were clinging to the rail of the quarter-deck, all in their golden uniforms, waiting for the end as if ’twas King George they expected. There was no way to help, for she lay right beyond cast of line, though our folk tried it fifty times. And beside them clung a trumpeter, a whacking big man, an’ between the heavy seas he would lift his trumpet with one hand, and blow a call; and every time he blew, the men gave a cheer. There (she says) – hark ’ee now – there he goes agen! But you won’t hear no cheering any more, for few are left to cheer, and their voices weak. Bitter cold the wind is, and I reckon it numbs their grip o’ the ropes, for they were dropping off fast with every sea when my man sent me home to get his breakfast. Another wreck, you say? Well, there’s no hope for the tender dears, if ’tis the Manacles. You’d better run down and help yonder; though ’tis little help that any man can give. Not one came in alive while I was there. The tide’s flowing, an’ she won’t hold together another hour, they say.”

Well, sure enough, the end was coming fast when my father got down to the point. Six men had been cast up alive, or just breathing – a seaman and five troopers. The seaman was the only one that had breath to speak; and while they were carrying him into the town, the word went round that the ship’s name was the Despatch, transport, homeward bound from Corunna, with a detachment of the 7th Hussars, that had been fighting out there with Sir John Moore. The seas had rolled her further over by this time, and given her decks a pretty sharp slope; but a dozen men still held on, seven by the ropes near the ship’s waist, a couple near the break of the poop, and three on the quarter-deck. Of these three my father made out one to be the skipper; close by him clung an officer in full regimentals – his name, they heard after, was Captain Duncanfield; and last came the tall trumpeter; and if you’ll believe me, the fellow was making shift there, at the very last, to blow “God Save the King”. What’s more, he got to “Send us victorious” before an extra big sea came bursting across and washed them off the deck – every man but one of the pair beneath the poop – and he dropped his hold before the next wave; being stunned, I reckon. The others went out of sight at once, but the trumpeter – being, as I said, a powerful man as well as a tough swimmer – rose like a duck, rode out a couple of breakers, and came in on the crest of the third. The folks looked to see him broke like an [ missing ] at their feet; but when the smother cleared, there he was, lying face downward on a ledge below them; and one of the men that happened to have a rope round him – I forget the fellow’s name, if I ever heard it – jumped down and grabbed him by the ankle as he began to slip back. Before the next big sea, the pair were hauled high enough to be out of harm, and another heave brought them up to grass. Quick work; but master trumpeter wasn’t quite dead; nothing worse than a cracked head and three staved ribs. In twenty minutes or so they had him in bed, with the doctor to tend him.

Now was the time – nothing being left alive upon the transport – for my father to tell of the sloop he’d seen driving upon the Manacles. And when he got a hearing, though the most were set upon salvage, and believed a wreck in the hand, so to say, to be worth half a dozen they couldn’t see, a good few volunteered to start off with him and have a look. They crossed Lowland Point; no ship to be seen on the Manacles, nor anywhere upon the sea. One or two was for calling my father a liar. “Wait till we come to Dean Point,” said he. Sure enough, on the far side of Dean Point, they found the sloop’s mainmast washing about with half a dozen men lashed to it – men in red jackets – every mother’s son drowned and staring; and a little farther on, just under the Dean, three or four bodies cast up on the shore, one of them a small drummer-boy, side-drum and all; and, near by, part of a ship’s gig, with “H.M.S. Primrose” cut on the stern-board. From this point on, the shore was littered thick with wreckage and dead bodies – the most of them Marines in uniform; and in Godrey Cove, in particular, a heap of furniture from the captain’s cabin, and amongst it a water-tight box, not much damaged, and full of papers, by which, when it came to be examined next day, the wreck was easily made out to be the Primrose, of eighteen guns, outward bound from Portsmouth, with a fleet of transports for the Spanish War – thirty sail, I’ve heard, but I’ve never heard what became of them. Being handled by merchant skippers, no doubt they rode out the gale and reached the Tagus safe and sound. Not but what the captain of the Primrose (Mein was his name) did quite right to try and club-haul his vessel when he found himself under the land: only he never ought to have got there if he took proper soundings. But it’s easy talking.

The Primrose, sir, was a handsome vessel – for her size, one of the handsomest in the King’s service – and newly fitted out at Plymouth Dock. So the boys had brave pickings from her in the way of brass-work, ship’s instruments, and the like, let alone some barrels of stores not much spoiled. They loaded themselves with as much as they could carry, and started for home, meaning to make a second journey before the preventive men got wind of their doings and came to spoil the fun. But as my father was passing back under the Dean, he happened to take a look over his shoulder at the bodies there. “Hullo,” says he and dropped his gear, “I do believe there’s a leg moving!” And, running fore, he stooped over the small drummer-boy that I told you about. The poor little chap was lying there, with his face a mass of bruises and his eyes closed: but he had shifted one leg an inch or two, and was still breathing. So my father pulled out a knife and cut him free from his drum – that was lashed on to him with a double turn of Manilla rope – and took him up and carried him along here, to this very room that we’re sitting in. He lost a good deal by this, for when he went back to fetch his bundle the preventive men had got hold of it, and were thick as thieves along the foreshore; so that ’twas only by paying one or two to look the other way that he picked up anything worth carrying off which you’ll allow to be hard seeing that he was the first man to give news of the wreck.

Well, the inquiry was held, of course, and my father gave evidence; and for the rest they had to trust to the sloop’s papers, for not a soul was saved besides the drummer-boy, and he was raving in a fever, brought on by the cold and the fright. And the seamen and the five troopers gave evidence about the loss of the Despatch. The tall trumpeter, too, whose ribs were healing, came forward and kissed the Book; but somehow his head had been hurt in coming ashore, and he talked foolish-like, and ’twas easy seen he would never be a proper man again. The others were taken up to Plymouth, and so went their ways; but the trumpeter stayed on in Coverack; and King George, finding he was fit for nothing, sent him down a trifle of a pension after a while – enough to keep him in board and lodging, with a bit of tobacco over.