The Wind in the East: Sensational historical romance, page 1
THE WIND IN THE EAST
PAMELA POPE
© Pamela Pope, 1989
Pamela Pope has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1989 by Century Arrow.
This edition published in 2018 by Lume Books.
For Ron, with my love
Table of Contents
PART ONE
1910
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
PART TWO
1913 - 1914
10
11
12
13
14
16
PART THREE
1915-1919
17
18
19
20
21
22
Acknowledgements
My grateful thanks to everyone who helped me to research this book, especially the people of Lowestoft, who were so kind in so many ways.
I also acknowledge valuable help received from the books by David Butcher, Living from the Sea and The Driftermen.
When the wind is in the east,
Then the fishes bite the least;
When the wind is in the west,
Then the fishes bite the best;
When the wind is in the north,
Then the fishes do come forth;
When the wind is in the south,
It blows the bait in the fish’s mouth.
Unknown, Old Rhyme.
(J.O. Halliwell, Popular Rhymes)
PART ONE
1910
1
Poppy Ludlow turned the corner into Drago Street on her way home from the net-store and heard furious bellowing voices coming from the second house down, almost as if a bull was tethered in the back yard. Likely Tom Kerrick was drunk again.
It was impossible to see into the yard. The terraced houses lining both sides of the street were packed tighter than herrings in a barrel and a cold wind blowing in from the North Sea funnelled through them without so much as an alley to break the force. The month was August but it might just as well have been winter.
Sometimes it seemed as if a permanent cloud hung over Drago Street, and Poppy never lingered. Today, though, the noise intrigued her and she glanced in the window of the second house. Grime prevented her seeing anything and she was about to hurry on when the blistered front door burst open and an old man stormed into the street. To her amazement she saw that it was her grandfather.
He was fighting mad and still shouting to someone inside. ‘You’ll be sorry you didn’t listen to me. I was going to give you full responsibility as soon as you was twenty-one and could use yer skipper’s ticket, but likely I’ll change me mind.’ His face was red, and the sparse white hair stood up like fine sun-bleached grass on his bald dome. ‘Aye, you’ll be sorry. You and yer father both. You’re bad ’uns, the lot of you.’
His black hat with the high crown came hurtling out after him, thrown boomerang fashion to land across the street. Poppy could only stare, too surprised to do anything until Grandfather Ludlow tottered towards the gutter and lost his balance. He was muttering to himself. At first she thought he was drunk, but he never took more liquor than he could hold and never touched any at this time of the afternoon. She rushed to grab his arm as he staggered but couldn’t prevent his great weight collapsing into a puddle. Her skirt trailed in water and her petticoat soaked up the mud.
‘Grandfer!’ She yelled loudly enough for everyone in the street to hear, but no one came to see what was the matter. The people of Drago Street knew better than to interfere, and stayed hidden behind their shredded curtains. ‘Whatever d’yuh think you’re doing?’
‘That’s right ask him.’ An angry taunt came from the doorway. Poppy looked up. It was not Tom Kerrick. It was Joshua, the son, and he too was full of rage. His straight black eyebrows were drawn together and the eyes which usually beguiled a girl sparked furiously.
A fresh gust of wind defeated the old man’s attempt to shout another angry retort and rocked him back when he tried to get up.
Poppy glared at the unrepentant figure on the doorstep. ‘You’d better tell me what it’s all about.’
She couldn’t think what had gone wrong between them. In recent years the Ludlow sailing drifters hadn’t been doing too well and Grandfer had sold all but two. Then he’d taken on Joshua Kerrick as mate on one of them and things were beginning to look up. He’d been singing his praises until now, so something serious must have happened to turn him sour.
‘He accused me of taking more than my fair share of the gurnets,’ said Joshua. ‘A few more rotten gurnets than anyone else to make up me stockie! Well what if I have? I’ve earned them and I’ll not be spoken to as if I was a kid pinching sweets from Ma Brady’s.’
‘Honesty!’ Old Bill Ludlow shouted again as he struggled into a sitting position. The gutter water seeped upwards from the seat of his striped trousers. ‘That’s what it’s about. I won’t have anyone working for me that ain’t honest, of course I won’t.’ He looked up at Poppy. ‘I told him as much, and if he doesn’t mend his ways he’ll be sorry.’
‘Doesn’t sound enough to be making all this fuss about to me,’ she said.
‘There’s plenty more ships’ll take me. I can join one of Nathaniel Lea’s drifters tomorrow, like me father. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.’
‘You’ll stay with the Night Queen and learn what’s right, Joshua Kerrick. I’ve been fair to you and you’ll be fair to me. You’re a first-class mate and soon you’ll be a good skipper. Yuh’ve got the feel for fishing, I can tell.’ The old man moved on to his knees and let Poppy help him to his feet. ‘It was more than gurnets you took. I know it for sure and I won’t have you paying for yer pleasures out of money that should be mine.’
‘I’ve taken nothing that’s not me due. Don’t worry, I won’t be signing on for the home fishing. I’ll be going with me father.’
Joshua turned his back on them. His trousers were tucked into a pair of old leather boots and red braces gave a dash of colour against his well-washed shirt which may once have been white but was now a mottled grey.
‘That’s right, join yer father! Learn to be a drunk like him! I’ve done me best to help you.’ Grandfer was determined to have the last word.
The door slammed like an explosion. Joshua had disappeared inside. For a few seconds there was the absolute silence that follows a violent blast, and Poppy held on to her grandfather’s trembling arm. All this fuss about a few gurnets! The remains of the catch wasn’t worth much and crewmen were supposed to have equal shares of it to supplement their wages. She had heard that Joshua Kerrick’s stockie usually came to more than anyone else’s but it didn’t seem worth this much trouble.
‘I’ll see you home, Grandfer. Don’t know what you wanted to come down here for anyway, making a scene. Gran’s going to be real cross about your trousers.’
She was watching his feet as he negotiated the kerb so she didn’t see the tears brimming over from his rheumy eyes until he was safely out of the gutter. The sight of them filled her with dismay.
‘I only wanted to help him,’ he was muttering, in a querulous voice she hardly recognized. ‘I want him to make something of himself.’
‘You’ve done more than most people would, and I don’t know why you’ve bothered. He’ll never thank you for it.’
She’d listened to gossip about Joshua Kerrick at the net-store and knew where his extra money went. If he wasn’t spending it at the Trafalgar Arms he was sure to be looking for a secluded place along the shore with any girl who would go with him. Nor was he ever short of girls. His good looks took care of that, and the silly creatures seemed to think there was some sort of prestige in being seen with him. But she couldn’t fathom out why Grandfer found him worth worrying over.
The old man brushed the back of his hand over his cheek. ‘If only you’d been a boy.’ It was a disappointment he often voiced. ‘You’d have been working for a skipper’s ticket soon and sailing my ships, girl. Seems such a waste with all the spirit you’ve got. I remember when I got my ticket. Twenty I was, like him in there, and they made me go back to being a mate until I was twenty-one. Longest year of me life, that was.’
‘But worth waiting for, eh, Grandfer?’ She tried to steer him away but his feet seemed to be firmly planted in the cobbles.
‘Worth every bloody second.’
‘Tell me about how you bought the Sarah Star and named it after Gran,’ she said, attempting to make him think of other things. ‘Tell me while we walk along. I like hearing about it.’
For a moment it looked as if he was going to do as she asked, but a stubbornness came over him and his body stiffened.
‘Don’t try to humour me. I won’t have it. I may be old but I still know exactly what I’m doing.’ He shrugged off her help and shook a belligerent fist at the closed door. Purple veins stood out at his temples as he raised his voice with renewed anger. ‘I wanted to help you, d’yuh hear? You’ll be sorry you didn’t do right by me, boy. Sorry like yer father wuz.’
His face darkened and his Norfolk accent thickened as the shouts built up. A second later he was once more on the ground, rolling sideways while white froth gathered at his lips. After that he was still.
‘Grandfer!’ Poppy screamed.
She had never seen him in such a state. There was no one in sight and she didn’t know what to do. His eyes were shut, and the silence now enclosed her like some menacing cloud which made her body tighten with fear. A motorcycle and sidecar clattered over the bridge at the end of the street but it was too far away to signal.
‘Why did yuh have to fall down here of all places? Ain’t no one in Drago Street going to come and help.’ She hated the area and would have avoided it herself if it hadn’t been a short cut home. She gave his shoulder a shake in panic. ‘Grandfer, you’ve got to get up. You can’t lie there and get cold.’
She could feel eyes looking at her through salt-streaked windows as she chafed his hands. He didn’t respond. His large body was a daunting mound on the pavement which she could not possibly hope to move and she knew that help had to come from somewhere. She looked at the door Joshua Kerrick had slammed against them and got to her feet in mounting temper. It was all his fault. He would have to come out again and show a bit of decency. Poppy went and hammered on the weather-worn wood with balled fists which created such a shuddering it was a wonder the panels didn’t splinter.
‘Joshua, you come out here this minute. Me grandfer’s ill and it’s all your doing.’ There was no response, and she renewed her assault. ‘You’ve got to help me get him up. I can’t do it on me own. Come out here, you devil.’
The door swung inwards once more, opened this time by his mother. Clara Kerrick stared at Poppy vacantly and her lustreless eyes appeared to see no further than the angry young girl on her doorstep.
‘He’s out in the privy,’ she said.
‘Then you’ll have to help me.’ Poppy reached out to drag the apathetic woman by the sleeve of her grubby brown dress. The apron she wore was encrusted with fish scales and reeked of the dried blood and fat which stiffened it.
‘If that’s old Bill Ludlow he can stay there.’
‘But he hasn’t done you any harm. Please, Mrs Kerrick.’
‘He hasn’t done us any good either. Alwuz poking his nose in and upsetting my men like he had a right.’
Frustration made Poppy want to strike the woman but it would only have made the situation worse. Marsh Village women were known to enjoy a fight. She debated whether to knock on someone else’s door but dreaded a similar response. Grandfather Ludlow was known to be a hard man and was not all that well liked in Fenstowe, so no one was going to risk the wrath of the Kerricks to come to his aid. Seeing him lying there it would be assumed he had been hitting the bottle and there was no sympathy for that condition in Drago Street.
She knelt down again and lifted the old man’s head into her lap, wiping his mouth with the edge of the buttonless overall she used when mending nets.
Clara reluctantly stooped to take a closer look. ‘He dun’t look too good.’
‘Then please will you stay with him while I go and fetch someone?’
A shadow fell between them and Joshua planted his booted feet at her side. His dark brown eyes assessed the situation without any appearance of urgency before he too squatted down beside the inert figure of old Bill Ludlow. His hand explored the barrel chest beneath the melton coat but his expression betrayed nothing as he lifted one of the old man’s eyelids with his index finger and exposed a staring, unseeing eye.
‘He’s dead.’ Joshua let the eyelid drop gently back.
Poppy opened her mouth, wanting to scream, but no sound came. She felt numb, frozen into this horrifying moment. She had been stroking the hair at Grandfer’s temple but she lifted her hands away and held them over the still body, afraid to touch it any more, and the weight in her lap was leaden. Joshua looked at her and she saw a pulse quickening in his strong neck, but he showed no other sign of emotion.
‘It’s all your fault.’ Her tears now mingled with the raindrops. ‘You killed him with your ranting and I’ll never forgive you, Josh Kerrick.’
*
The north-easterly wind gusted into a full-sized gale by evening. It whistled and roared round the Fisher Company shed down near the shore, and rattled the corrugated iron roof so that the men inside had to draw close to talk about old Bill Ludlow’s death.
‘He must have belonged to the Company for nigh on fifty years.’ They had begun to count up his exploits. ‘Done his share of life-saving an’ all when he was younger.’
The Fisher Company was like a club, housed in a wooden building next to the old lighthouse and exclusive to fishermen with an hour or two to idle away. But more important it was a salvage and rescue service which saved lives, and meant men could make a little extra money if they were prepared to go out in the Company yawl in the worst weather to answer distress calls. There was a lookout post directly above the main door, extended outwards and supported by stout wooden posts. The voluptuous figure of a mermaid from the bows of an old clipper decorated the left front of the building but it had distracted observers on watch and obstructed the range of vision before the extension was added. It had been disconcerting to find that what had been taken for a full moon was actually a large, gold-painted breast emerging from carved wooden draperies.
Joshua Kerrick paid twenty-five shilling a year to belong to the Company now that he was over eighteen. His father had taken him there first. Now he stood by the window where he could watch huge seas churning up sand and shingle against the breakwaters. His pulses raced each time a fresh wave burst and spewed out foam which fell like hail against the tarred weatherboarding of the shed.
He felt a vague sadness that the old man had died, but no guilt. Bill Ludlow had employed him, but he hadn’t owned him and he’d had no right to come round to the house preaching morals. They’d had rows before. Joshua was a good seaman, and knew it, and though he was still two months short of legally being able to skipper a drifter he had more to say in the handling of the Night Queen than Bill’s spunkless son Dan had. Bill had known he couldn’t do without Joshua and the rift would only have been temporary.
The door creaked open wide enough for a man to get through without the wind tearing at the hinges. Between his feet slithered a cat which was so wet it gleamed with the sleekness of a seal and it skittered terrified from chair to chair as boots lashed out at it.
‘Leave it be!’ Joshua said, raising his voice just loud enough for the authoritative tone to be heard. The Marsh cat came near him and let him pick it up. It trembled against him as the men resumed their talk, and he smoothed it gently, drying its fur with the warmth of his large hand. And there it stayed until the lifeboat guns went off, making it fly into the darkest recess as the place erupted with noisy activity.
This was what Joshua had been waiting for. It had been odds on that some vessel would need assistance in the gale and he had made sure he was on the spot in case the Company boat was needed. He’d get two shares of any salvage money if he was crewing, and he never missed an opportunity to make an extra quid.
‘Leave that blinkin’ mast alone,’ he shouted at a youngster not big enough to cope with it, then grasped the end of the mast himself to help another man carry it from the shed, flexing his body to take the weight and balancing the heaviest part on one of his broad shoulders. Not so long ago he had got into fights in his eagerness to grab a place on a lifeboat.
The yawl was tied up on a slipway a few yards along the beach, and men were running towards it with oars and sails, their heads bent as they fought against the wind.
‘Some damn fool in a fancy yacht’s in trouble off Crab Sands Buoy,’ the coxswain yelled. ‘Comin’ in fer the regatta he wuz.’
‘Yuh reckon he’ll need a line aboard?’
‘Likely he will. Tide dunt change for a couple of hours yet.’
There was a ridge of broken water at Crab Sands and with the tide running to windward anyone unfamiliar with the area could get stuck fast. If a line was needed the hovel might be good, and Joshua hoped the Fisher Company boat would be first on the scene. In this kind of weather the excitement was more heady than a tankard of raw spirit, and if there was a share bonus at the end of it he was well pleased.
