He started to make a great pet of Christopher, and would take him off for walks alone, leaving Albert and little Charles to play together in the garden. He crammed the lad’s pockets with fruit and pennies, he went to the shops and bought him buns and sweets. The boy was quick to see the favour shown to him, and soon lost his early fear of his father. He saw that he had only to express a wish for something, and he was immediately given it.
Joseph imagined that by giving in to him like this and winning his affection, he was paving the way to the wonderful companionship of the future, the dream of which clung to his mind. Christopher would understand him as Janet had done.
Already the boy ran to him with a smile on his face, and told him his troubles and his wishes.
Once a dog barked loudly in the street, and the little fellow flung himself against his father with a cry of fear, clutching at his knee, burying his head against his trousers.
‘There, there, Chris sonny, father has you. He won’t let the brute harm you,’ said Joseph, running his hand through the child’s curls, lifting him up and kissing his cheek. ‘My boy mustn’t be afraid of animals. Stop cryin’, sweetheart, an’ we’ll go and buy you some sweets.’
The crying stopped instantly.
‘Can’t ye keep the dog under control?’ shouted Joseph angrily to the owner. ‘My son is a nervy little chap, an’ this sort o’ thing is enough to make him ill.’
The boy snuggled his head in his father’s shoulder.
‘Can I ‘ave pepp’ment?’ he whispered.
‘Bless you, you can have the whole shop,’ said Joseph.
He had never imagined he could feel like this, just because the boy was next to him, and asked him for something.
Joseph sailed next time happier than he had been for years, feeling that now at last there was somebody who mattered to him, somebody who would welcome him on his return with a solid depth of love in his heart, and who as he grew older would become his one reason for living, apart from the ship and the sea.
It was during these years that the fruit trade was at its height, and the
Janet Coombe
was one of the many schooners who raced from St Michaels or the Mediterranean back to the Thames or the Mersey with this perishable cargo. Sometimes freights ran as high as £7 a ton, and there would be numbers of schooners alongside Joseph’s ship near London Bridge, waiting to discharge. Passages were made as far as Smyrna and other eastern ports, where the cargo would be currants.
Sometimes the
Janet Coombe
would be out to St Michaels and back in seventeen days, for Joseph was a desperate carrier of sail, pressing his little vessel under every rag he could set; and when other ships would be held up by a westerly gale he would thrash his way down Channel, hanging on to his canvas until the last possible moment.
It was a hard life and a rough life, and through his men sometimes cursed him for a driver, they were proud of him right enough; and when they arrived at St Michaels and found the stores full of fruit and scarce another vessel in port, they could afford to laugh at the caution of the other skippers, hove to or brought up somewhere till the gale moderated, while the slippery-heeled
Janet Coombe
had nipped in and got the best of the market.
When the steamers began to capture the fruit trade and freights became scarce for a sailing ship in the western isles, the
Janet Coombe
loaded with salt or clay for St John’s, Newfoundland, and after fighting her way across the Atlantic she would fill with salt fish and travel down to the Mediterranean ports with her cargo, sometimes taking only sixteen days for her passage back.
During these races, and the battles against wind and sea, Joseph forgot Plyn, and Christopher, and lived only for the zest of this life, which needed all his strength and endurance, and a keen mind alert to danger and unforeseen disaster. The old quiet days at Plyn were nothing but a dim memory, this was the life for which he had been born, he, and this ship that was part of him.
These were the days when Joseph was conscious of really living, and not merely eking out a solitary existence as he did on shore, try though he might to forsake loneliness and cleave to his family. Here on the ship Janet was with him, but at Plyn he found her not. Christopher was only a boy, and though in the years to come he would be an ever-present joy and consolation, yet at the moment it was impossible to make him understand everything, for all his affectionate ways.
When Christopher was twelve, there came an incident that was like a sharp blow to his father, and though Joseph reasoned with himself and pretended it was just childish nonsense, he was aware after this of a queer bitterness that clung to him, and a disappointment in his heart half sorrowful, half afraid. It happened that in the spring of that year the
Janet Coombe
made the record for the fastest passage from St Michaels to Bristol, and the ship remained there for the space of a few days to unload, after which she was to return to Plyn in ballast.
Susan’s sister Cathie had married a shopkeeper in Bristol town, and there Joseph lodged for his visit. Cathie had been spending a little while with her sister in Plyn, and was returning in time to look after her brother-in-law. It was then that Joseph suggested that Cathie should bring back Christopher with her to Bristol, so that he should be able to sail with him on the
Janet Coombe
to Plyn.
During the few days at Bristol Joseph wondered rather that Christopher did not show more interest in the unloading and the life of the quayside. If he himself as a boy had been given the chance of a visit to Bristol, he knew it would have been impossible to drag him away from the shipping and the wharves, and that he would have gone hungry rather than miss the sight of a barque leaving the port, or the entrance of a full-rigged ship.
Christopher, though exceedingly affectionate and pleased to see his father at meal-times, seemed perfectly content to be taken by his aunt to look in the shop windows of the town, and to carry her basket for her, never once suggesting that he should change his walk in the direction of the harbour.
Again, nothing seemed to please him better than to be allowed to stand behind the counter in his uncle’s own shop, and be permitted to help serve the customers.
At last the boy bade farewell to his uncle and aunt, and stepped aboard the
Janet Coombe
with his father. It was fun running about the deck and talking to the men, also it was a fine morning. After a day, though, the ship seemed a trifle cramped. It started raining, and Christopher, who hated getting wet, went below to the cabin. It was so small and stuffy, and such a squeeze too at night, sleeping in the poky bunk alongside of father.
He didn’t fancy the food much, though he was too polite to say so. Joseph appearing for a moment down the companionway roared with laughter at his small pinched face.
‘Feelin’ her roll?’ he said, bringing an atmosphere of wet oilskin into the close cabin. ‘We’re in for a dirty night, so I reckon you’ll be a bit squeamish-like. Never mind,‘twon’t take long afore you have your sea-legs. Lie down in my bunk an’ take it easy, though speakin’ for myself, I got over it as a boy by climbin’ on deck an’ layin’ my hand to some work. You’ll find me on deck should you want a breath o’ air.’
Christopher had no intention of going on deck. He lay on the bunk groaning and sniffing; every lurch of the little vessel was agony to him. Being in ballast of course the
Janet Coombe
pitched much worse than if she had been carrying a cargo, and they were reaching that part of the ocean where the Atlantic meets the Channel, and there was a heavy cross sea. All night it continued thus, with poor Christopher below. It wasn’t fair, he ought to have been told sailing was like this. Father was mean and unkind to bring him.
Early next morning, when still dark, the ship had cleared the rough and tumble of Land’s End, and was now well advanced in the Channel with the Lizard lights ahead, and a stiff sou’westerly breeze and a big following sea.
The movement of the ship was changed, and she frisked along now like a mad spirit, kicking her heels at the weather astern. Joseph wanted to see his boy beside him and hear his glad shout of delight. He went to the head of the companionway and yelled to his son.
‘Come up, Chris, and watch the night. Now the motion’s easy you won’t feel ill no more. Come up, lad, when I tell ye.’
The boy was shivering in his bunk. He had got over his sickness for the moment, but he did not want to leave the warm cabin for the cold cheerless weather on deck. He wanted to be home in bed or in the shop at Bristol.
However, the habit of obedience was too strong for him, and he climbed out of the berth and struggled up the companionway.The night was pitch dark.The gale was howling in the rigging, it tore at his legs and thrashed him in the face with a stinging blow, and the bitter rain blinded his eyes.
‘Father - father,’ he screamed in terror. Joseph made a dive for him and held him tight by the arm. He was smiling, and shook the spray from his streaming oilskin. His beard was wild and tangled, his face rough and hard with the clinging salt. To the boy he seemed mad and reckless, bringing them to a frightful death.
‘Look,’ shouted Joseph pointing astern,‘baint that the grandest and most wonderful sight my Chris has ever seen? Tell me you’m happy, son, tell me you’re a real proper sailor an’ proud of the ship that belongs to us both?’
The lad peered over his father’s arm, and to his horror he saw a terrible black sea like a dark falling cliff rising in the air, and making towards them.
They were going to be drowned - they were going to be drowned.
‘Take it away,’ he screamed, ‘take it away - I hate it, I hate the sea. I always have. I’m afraid - I’m afraid.’
‘Christopher!’ cried Joseph,‘what are you sayin’, son - what d’ye mean?’
‘I don’t want to be a sailor,’ sobbed Christopher. ‘I hate the sea and I hate the ship. I’ll never go again. Oh! Father - I’m afraid - I’m afraid.’The boy tore himself from his father’s grasp, and scrambled once more down the companionway, screaming at the top of his voice in rage and fear.
Joseph watched him stupidly, and held out a trembling hand to the rail. He was stunned, unable to think.
And the
Janet Coombe
sped on, one with the wind and the sea.
7
F
or the first time, in the forty-three years of his life, Joseph knew shame and humiliation.
Better to land the boy in Plyn and send him up to his mother without another word, and he himself to shake clear of the lot of them for ever, and sail away, out of the sound and hearing of them, alone with his ship and the spirit of Janet.
These were the first bitter thoughts of Joseph. Later he stole softly down to the cabin where the boy was sleeping, and he watched the tear-stains on the pale handsome little face with mingled sorrow and compassion, swearing by the love he bore for his ship to forget his son’s words and to love him as before. Then suddenly the lad opened his eyes, and a flush of shame came over young Christopher for the look he noticed on his father’s face, which meant he was sorrowful and distressed. For a moment he longed to jump from the berth, and fling his arms around his father’s neck and ask him to help him to conquer his distrust of the sea, but he thought his father would push him away with a frown, and bid him not be a child.
And Joseph looked down on Christopher, and stifled the nigh overmastering impulse to kneel beside the boy and ask him to place all faith and trust into his keeping, but it came to him that the boy might feel shy and embarrassed to see his father act in such a way.
Thus a minute passed, waiting for the chance to unite father and son in a bond which would be close and unbreakable, but the minute passed in vain, never to return, and from henceforward Joseph and Christopher Coombe walked apart with a wall between them, a wall which could not be surmounted because of the pride of Joseph and the weakness of his son.
So the ship anchored in Plyn with the words of union unspoken.
Four years passed, with Joseph Coombe passing a few months here and there on shore, before he set sail again.
The harbour resounded with the hammers of shipwright and builder, and the noise of the clay-loading at the jetties. Samuel and Herbert Coombe were never still down at the yard, and they were joined now by their own grown-up sons: Thomas, Samuel’s eldest boy, and James, the first of Herbert’s youngsters to grow up, in a family of twelve, with five more yet to come.
Samuel’s second son, Dick, a strong hefty young man, was now second mate under his uncle Joseph, and proving himself a fine sailor. Joseph was fond of his nephew, but he longed for his own boy Christopher to be in his place.
In September of 1882 Joseph Coombe dropped anchor in Plyn harbour, after discharging his cargo at London. He was content with the thought of a few weeks at home before going away again. As he watched his men making all snug, below and aloft, he glanced over the bulwark and saw Christopher and brother Herbert Coombe pulling out towards him in a boat. This had never happened before, and he knew at once that something was amiss. Thank God, Christopher was safe, that was his first thought. He remarked the boy’s pale, unhappy face, and Herbert’s grave expression.
In a few moments they were both on the deck beside him.
‘Prepare yourself, dear Joe, for bitter and melancholy news,’ said Herbert, his eyes filling with tears. ‘And grieved indeed am I that it has fallen on me to break it to you.’
‘Out with it quick!’ said Joseph gruffly.
‘Your dear wife, Susan, has left us yesterday,’ said Herbert gently. Christopher at once burst into tears, and walked away. ‘She was took bad just after tea, and though the boys ran at once for the doctor, and came to me and Samuel, she passed away by six o’clock. Oh! brother, this is a wretched homecoming for you.’