Neil Hanson - The Custom of the Sea

Tom was forced to smile. ‘Of course, of course.’

‘I promise you that we shall not fail for the want of effort on my part. May I take it, then, that you are content for me to continue as your lawyer?’

‘For the moment, yes, but I am yet to be fully convinced of its necessity.’

Tilly inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘In due course I shall need from you a list of those gentlemen who might testify to your good and Christian character, but first I would wish you to tell me in your own words the story of the voyage of the Mignonette . Omit no detail germane to the charge you face.’

He poured Tom a glass of water from an earthenware jug. The clerk dipped his pen in the inkwell, then waited with an expectant look, his pen poised over a sheaf of blank paper.

Tom gazed out of the window. Through the gap between the buildings on the opposite side of the street he could see a flight of steps running down towards the waterfront. Ships jostled for space at the quay and beyond them he glimpsed a three-master sailing on the morning tide, making for the open water beyond the Roads.

‘You are a sailing master?’ Tilly prompted.

‘Latterly, yes. I’ve been a sailing master these last ten years, like my father before me. But I’ve served my time on fishing smacks, coasters and cargo ships, as cabin boy, able seaman, cook-steward, boatswain and mate.’

‘So you had to learn to butcher animals?’

Tom turned a cool gaze on the lawyer. ‘I learned that knack, yes.’

‘And the Mignonette was your ship?’

Tom shook his head. ‘It is a rich man’s sport and I am far from a rich man. A few yacht-owners skipper their own vessels, but most hire a master and crew for the yachting season. I hire myself as sailing master to one of them from March to September and in winter I take whatever work I can find — on fishing boats, oyster dredgers, or as a merchant seaman. Sailing master is a safer and better living than any of those. It’s a good wage and there’s a share of the prize money too. I’ve known owners give the whole purse to their captain and crew.’

‘A good wage, yes,’ Tilly said. ‘But safer?’

Tom gave a rueful smile. ‘If you stay in inshore waters. Racing yachts don’t even put to sea in storm conditions. They carry too much canvas.’ As he spoke, his gaze travelled upwards, as if he expected to see the sails and rigging of a yacht rather than a plaster ceiling.

‘Yet you were sailing a yacht to Australia.’

‘The Mignonette was built as a cruiser and fishing-boat. Only later was she turned into a racing-yacht.’ His eyes strayed back to the window, following the three-master as it approached the mouth of the Roads. As he began to recount the story of the voyage, he could almost hear the creak of wood and crack of canvas as the sails filled with wind and the ship picked up speed, passing out of sight down the Channel towards the open sea.

When Tom had finished his tale, Tilly sat in thought for some time. ‘Why did you stop Brooks from throwing the fragments of the boy’s flesh overboard when you were rescued?’

‘Because it had been my intention from the first to retain them if we should fall in with a vessel, so that we could state the circumstances under which we acted.’

Tilly gave a slow nod, then began searching through the papers in front of him. ‘And after you landed you went with Brooks and Stephens to the Customs House and made the statement before the shipping master, of which I have a copy here? “On the twentieth day the lad, Richard Parker, was very weak through drinking salt water. Deponent with the assistance of the Mate, Stephens, killed him to sustain the existence of those remaining, they being all agreed the act was absolutely necessary.”

‘Stephens’s statement was equally candid. “On the twentieth day deponent agreed with the Master that it was absolutely necessary that one should be sacrificed to save the rest and the Master selected Richard Parker, boy, as being the weakest. Deponent agreed to this and the Master accordingly killed the lad.”’

He sat back and studied Tom for a moment. ‘What do you know of Brooks?’

‘He’s an Essex man, like me. I’d never sailed with him but I’d known him for a dozen years or so. He’s sailed on some of the best racing yachts and is a first-class hand. He worked as a rigger at Fay’s Yard on the Itchen during the winter. That’s where he heard I was looking for hands.

‘He’d been offered a berth on a new yacht, the Irex , but he told me he was thinking about emigrating. There were rumours that he had deserted a wife and children. I charged him with it, but he denied it on his oath. I cannot speak to the truth of it.’

‘A copy of Brooks’s statement to Mr Cheesman is not yet to hand,’ Tilly said. ‘Do you have any idea what he said?’

Tom shook his head. ‘Neither myself nor Stephens was in the room when Brooks made his statement, but he would have said the same.’

‘Are you sure of this?’

For the first time a shadow of doubt crossed Tom’s face. ‘I’m sure. Why?’

‘No matter.’

Tom gave him an uncertain look. ‘Mr Cheesman seemed most sympathetic to our plight.’

‘No doubt he was,’ Tilly said. ‘As shipping master, he had a legal duty to report any death at sea, but he also knows how often shipwrecked seamen have been forced to resort to the custom of the sea. Had it been left in his hands, or had you claimed that the boy had drowned with the wreck or died of natural causes while adrift in the dinghy, I’m sure the incident would have been quietly buried in the files of the Board of Trade.

‘Unfortunately your determination and even eagerness to tell the whole truth, while it does you great credit, did alert Sergeant Laverty, who was much less sympathetic. According to Mr Cheesman, Laverty said he had no intention of allowing officials in Whitehall to decide whether you should be prosecuted. He had witnessed your full confession to the crime of murder, corroborated by Stephens, and you had handed him the murder weapon.

‘He immediately left the Customs House to obtain a warrant for your arrest. The chairman of the justices of the peace was very aware of the widespread sympathy for you in the town and I know that he showed a marked reluctance to sign a warrant, but I’m afraid Laverty was not to be denied.’

‘But the charges will be dropped? It will go no further?’

Tilly hesitated, selecting his words with care. ‘News of your arrest is already widespread and there is great public sympathy for you, not just in seafaring communities like Falmouth but throughout the country. But it is not shared by the Home Office.’

‘But we were simply following the custom of the sea.’

Tilly pressed the tips of his fingers together and studied them in silence before raising his eyes to meet Tom’s gaze. ‘I’m afraid you should not put your trust in the custom of the sea. No matter how many shipwrecked men have had resort to it, it has no legal status whatsoever.’

Tom’s expression darkened, but when he spoke, his voice remained strong and certain. ‘Then I’ll put my faith in God’s truth and English justice. We have committed no crime and no jury of Englishmen will convict us.’

Tilly pursed his lips and looked away from Tom’s unwavering gaze. ‘I hope your trust is not misplaced.’

While Tilly was preparing Tom’s defence, the Home Office civil servants had turned their attention to the cables from the Board of Trade. The notes written on the Home Office file as it passed up the official pyramid reflect the uncertainty and ambivalence felt — at low levels at least — about a prosecution.